[[Anarchism]]

Anarchism is a political philosophy that advocates stateless societies often defined as self-governed voluntary institutions, "ANARCHISM, a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies." George Woodcock. "Anarchism" at The Encyclopedia of Philosophy "In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions." Peter Kropotkin. "Anarchism" from the Encyclopædia Britannica "Anarchism." The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2005. p. 14 "Anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable." Sheehan, Sean. Anarchism, London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2004. p. 85 but that several authors have defined as more specific institutions based on non-hierarchical free associations. "as many anarchists have stressed, it is not government as such that they find objectionable, but the hierarchical forms of government associated with the nation state." Judith Suissa. Anarchism and Education: a Philosophical Perspective. Routledge. New York. 2006. p. 7 "That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organisation and preaches free agreement — at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist." Peter Kropotkin. Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal "anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy — hierarchy being the institutionalisation of authority within a society." "B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?" in An Anarchist FAQ Anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful. 

The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy:

 Slevin, Carl. "Anarchism." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. While anti-statism is central, some argue "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short."Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism by Paul McLaughlin. AshGate. 2007. p. 28 that anarchism entails opposing authority or hierarchical organisation in the conduct of human relations, including, but not limited to, the state system. "Authority is defined in terms of the right to exercise social control (as explored in the "sociology of power") and the correlative duty to obey (as explored in the "philosophy of practical reason"). Anarchism is distinguished, philosophically, by its scepticism towards such moral relations – by its questioning of the claims made for such normative power – and, practically, by its challenge to those "authoritative" powers which cannot justify their claims and which are therefore deemed illegitimate or without moral foundation."Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism by Paul McLaughlin. AshGate. 2007. p. 1 "Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations." Emma Goldman. "What it Really Stands for Anarchy" in Anarchism and Other Essays. Individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker defined anarchism as opposition to authority as follows "They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, – follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism ... Authority, takes many shapes, but, broadly speaking, her enemies divide themselves into three classes: first, those who abhor her both as a means and as an end of progress, opposing her openly, avowedly, sincerely, consistently, universally; second, those who profess to believe in her as a means of progress, but who accept her only so far as they think she will subserve their own selfish interests, denying her and her blessings to the rest of the world; third, those who distrust her as a means of progress, believing in her only as an end to be obtained by first trampling upon, violating, and outraging her. These three phases of opposition to Liberty are met in almost every sphere of thought and human activity. Good representatives of the first are seen in the Catholic Church and the Russian autocracy; of the second, in the Protestant Church and the Manchester school of politics and political economy; of the third, in the atheism of Gambetta and the socialism of Karl Marx." Benjamin Tucker. Individual Liberty. Anarchist historian George Woodcock report of Mikhail Bakunin's anti-authoritarianism and shows opposition to both state and non-state forms of authority as follows: "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it." (p. 9) ... Bakunin did not convert the League's central committee to his full program, but he did persuade them to accept a remarkably radical recommendation to the Berne Congress of September 1868, demanding economic equality and implicitly attacking authority in both Church and State." 

As a subtle and anti-dogmatic philosophy, anarchism draws on many currents of thought and strategy. Anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular world view, instead fluxing and flowing as a philosophy. There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications. Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14. Anarchism is usually considered a radical left-wing ideology, and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism, mutualism, or participatory economics. "The anarchists were unanimous in subjecting authoritarian socialism to a barrage of severe criticism. At the time when they made violent and satirical attacks these were not entirely well founded, for those to whom they were addressed were either primitive or “vulgar” communists, whose thought had not yet been fertilized by Marxist humanism, or else, in the case of Marx and Engels themselves, were not as set on authority and state control as the anarchists made out." Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970) 

The central tendency of anarchism as a social movement has been represented by anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism, with individualist anarchism being primarily a literary phenomenon Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press, 2002, p. 191. which nevertheless did have an impact on the bigger currents Catalan historian Xavier Diez reports that the Spanish individualist anarchist press was widely read by members of anarcho-communist groups and by members of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union CNT. There were also the cases of prominent individualist anarchists such as Federico Urales and Miguel Gimenez Igualada who were members of the CNT and J. Elizalde who was a founding member and first secretary of the Iberian Anarchist Federation. Xavier Diez. El anarquismo individualista en España: 1923–1938. ISBN 978-84-96044-87-6 and individualists have also participated in large anarchist organisations. In Italy in 1945, during the Founding Congress of the Italian Anarchist Federation, there was a group of individualist anarchists led by Cesare Zaccaria who was an important anarchist of the time.Cesare Zaccaria (19 August 1897 – October 1961) by Pier Carlo Masini and Paul Sharkey Many anarchists oppose all forms of aggression, supporting self-defense or non-violence (anarcho-pacifism), George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962) while others have supported the use of some coercive measures, including violent revolution and propaganda of the deed, on the path to an anarchist society. Fowler, R.B. "The Anarchist Tradition of Political Thought." The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4. (December 1972), pp. 743–44. 

==Etymology and terminology==

The term anarchism is a compound word composed from the word anarchy and the suffix -ism, Anarchism, Online etymology dictionary. themselves derived respectively from the Greek , i.e. anarchy . Anarchy, Merriam-Webster online. Anarchy, Online etymology dictionary. (from , anarchos, meaning "one without rulers"; . from the privative prefix ἀν- (an-, i.e. "without") and , archos, i.e. "leader", "ruler"; (cf. archon or , arkhē, i.e. "authority", "sovereignty", "realm", "magistracy") . ) and the suffix or (-ismos, -isma, from the verbal infinitive suffix -ίζειν, -izein). -ism, Online etymology dictionary. The first known use of this word was in 1539. "Origin of ANARCHY
Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek, from anarchos having no ruler, from an- + archos ruler — more at arch-
First Known Use: 1539" "Anarchy" at Merriam Webster dictionary online Anarchist was the term adopted by Maximilien de Robespierre to attack those on the left whom he had used for his own ends during the French Revolution but was determined to get rid of, though among these "anarchists" there were few who exhibited the social revolt characteristics of later anarchists. There would be many revolutionaries of the early nineteenth century who contributed to the anarchist doctrines of the next generation, such as William Godwin and Wilhelm Weitling, but they did not use the word anarchist or anarchism in describing themselves or their beliefs. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist, marking the formal birth of anarchism in the mid-nineteenth century. Since the 1890s from France, the term libertarianism has often been used as a synonym for anarchism "At the end of the century in France, Sebastien Faure took up a word used in 1858 by one Joseph Dejacque to make it the title of a journal, Le Libertaire. Today the terms "anarchist" and "libertarian" have become interchangeable." Anarchism: From Theory to Practice Daniel Guérin and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the 1950s in the United States; Russell, Dean. Who is a Libertarian?, Foundation for Economic Education, "Ideas on Liberty," May 1955. its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States. 
* Ward, Colin. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press 2004 p. 62
* Goodway, David. Anarchists Seed Beneath the Snow. Liverpool Press. 2006, p. 4
* MacDonald, Dwight & Wreszin, Michael. Interviews with Dwight Macdonald. University Press of Mississippi, 2003. p. 82
* Bufe, Charles. The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations. See Sharp Press, 1992. p. iv
* Gay, Kathlyn. Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. ABC-CLIO / University of Michigan, 2006, p. 126
* Woodcock, George. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Broadview Press, 2004. (Uses the terms interchangeably, such as on page 10)
* Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press 2002. p. 183.
* Fernandez, Frank. Cuban Anarchism. The History of a Movement. See Sharp Press, 2001, page 9. On the other hand, some use libertarianism to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to free-market anarchism as libertarian anarchism. Morris, Christopher. 1992. An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge University Press. p. 61. (Using "libertarian anarchism" synonymously with "individualist anarchism" when referring to individualist anarchism that supports a market society). 

==History==

===Origins===
Woodcut from a Diggers document by William Everard

The earliest Taoism in Ancient China anarchist themes can be found in the 6th century BC, among the works of Taoist philosopher Laozi, Peter Kropotkin, "Anarchism", Encyclopædia Britannica 1910. and in later centuries by Zhuangzi and Bao Jingyan. Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939) Robert Graham's Anarchism Weblog Zhuangzi's philosophy has been described by various sources as anarchist. "The priority of dao over tiannature:sky underwrites the themes of dependency and relativism that pervade the Zhuangzi and ultimately the skepticism, the open-minded toleration and the political anarchism (or disinterest in political activity or involvement)." "Taoism" at the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "Doing nothing wei is the famous Daoist concept for natural action, action in accord with Dao, action in which we freely follow our own way and allow other beings to do likewise. Zhuangzi, the great anarchic Daoist sage, compared it to "riding on the wind." Max Cafard. "Zen Anarchy" "Zhuangzi helps us discover an anarchistic epistemology and sensibility. He describes a state in which "you are open to everything you see and hear, and allow this to act through you." Part of wuwei, doing without doing, is "knowing without knowing," knowing as being open to the things known, rather than conquering and possessing the objects of knowledge. This means not imposing our prejudices (whether our own personal ones, our culture's, or those built into the human mind) on the Ten Thousand Things." Max Cafard. The Surre(gion)alist Manifesto and Other Writings "The next group of interpreters have also become incorporated into the extant version of the text. They are the school of anarchistically inclined philosophers, that Graham identifies as a "Primitivist" and a school of "Yangists," chapters 8 to 11, and 28 to 31. These thinkers appear to have been profoundly influenced by the Laozi, and also by the thought of the first and last of the Inner Chapters: "Wandering Beyond," and "Responding to Emperors and Kings." There are also possible signs of influence from Yang Zhu, whose concern was to protect and cultivate one's inner life-source. These chapters combine the anarchistic ideals of a simple life close to nature that can be found in the Laozi with the practices that lead to the cultivation and nurturing of life. " "Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu, 369–298 BCE)" at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Zhuangzi wrote, "A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation." Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics, their contemporary Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, also introduced similar topics. Jesus is sometimes considered the first anarchist in the Christian anarchist tradition. Georges Lechartier wrote that "The true founder of anarchy was Jesus Christ and ... the first anarchist society was that of the apostles." Cited in George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1962), p. 38. In early Islamic history, some manifestations of anarchic thought are found during the Islamic civil war over the Caliphate, where the Kharijites insisted that the imamate is a right for each individual within the Islamic society. Mohamed Jean Veneuse, Anarcha-Islam, 2009 Later, some Muslim scholars, such as Amer al-Basri هادي العلوي, شخصيات غير قلقة في الإسلام, دار الكنوز الأدبية، بيروت، 1995، ص36 and Abu Hanifa, هادي العلوي, شخصيات غير قلقة في الإسلام, دار الكنوز الأدبية، بيروت، 1995، ص136 led movements of boycotting the rulers, paving the way to the awqaf (endowments) tradition, which served as an alternative to and asylum from the centralized authorities of the emirs. But such interpretations reverberates subversive religious conceptions like the aforementioned seemingly anarchistic Taoist teachings and that of other anti-authoritarian religious traditions creating a complex relationship regarding the question as to whether or not anarchism and religion are compatible. This is exemplified when the glorification of the state is viewed as a form of sinful idolatry. 

The French renaissance political philosopher Étienne de La Boétie wrote in his most famous work the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude what some historians consider an important anarchist precedent. Several historians of anarchism have gone so far as to classify La Botie's treatise itself as anarchist, which is incorrect since La botie never extended his analysis from tyrannical government to government per se. But while La Botie cannot be considered an anarchist, his sweeping strictures on tyranny and the universality of his political philosophy lend themselves easily to such an expansion.Introduction to The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Murray Rothbard. Ludwig Von Mises Institute. p. 18 "Quite rightly, La Boëtie recognizes the potential for domination in any democracy: the democratic leader, elected by the people, becomes intoxicated with his own power and teeters increasingly towards tyranny. Indeed, we can see modern democracy itself as an instance of voluntary servitude on a mass scale. It is not so much that we participate in an illusion whereby we are deceived by elites into thinking we have a genuine say in decision-making. It is rather that democracy itself has encouraged a mass contentment with powerlessness and a general love of submission.""Voluntary Servitude Reconsidered: Radical Politics and the Problem of Self-Domination" Saul Newman 
The radical Protestant Christian Gerrard Winstanley and his group the Diggers are cited by various authors as proposing anarchist social measures in the 17th century in England. "Anarchists have regarded the secular revolt of the Diggers, or True Levellers, in seventeenth-century England led by Gerrard Winstanley as a source of pride. Winstanley, deeming that property is corrupting, opposed clericalism, political power and privilege. It is economic inequality, he believed, that produces crime and misery. He championed a primitive communalism based on the pure teachings of God as comprehended through reason." Kenneth C. Wenzer. "Godwin's Place in the Anarchist Tradition — a Bicentennial Tribute" "It was in these conditions of class struggle that, among a whole cluster of radical groups such as the Fifth Monarchy Men, the Levellers and the Ranters, there emerged perhaps the first real proto-anarchists, the Diggers, who like the classical 19th century anarchists identified political and economic power and who believed that a social, rather than political revolution was necessary for the establishment of justice. Gerrard Winstanley, the Diggers' leader, made an identification with the word of God and the principle of reason, an equivalent philosophy to that found in Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You." Marlow. "Anarchism and Christianity" "Although Proudhon was the first writer to call himself an anarchist, at least two predecessors outlined systems that contain all the basic elements of anarchism. The first was Gerrard Winstanley (1609–c. 1660), a linen draper who led the small movement of the Diggers during the Commonwealth. Winstanley and his followers protested in the name of a radical Christianity against the economic distress that followed the Civil War and against the inequality that the grandees of the New Model Army seemed intent on preserving. In 1649–1650 the Diggers squatted on stretches of common land in southern England and attempted to set up communities based on work on the land and the sharing of goods." George Woodcock Anarchism The Encyclopedia of Philosophy The term "anarchist" first entered the English language in 1642, during the English Civil War, as a term of abuse, used by Royalists against their Roundhead opponents. "Anarchism", BBC Radio 4 program, In Our Time, Thursday 7 December 2006. Hosted by Melvyn Bragg of the BBC, with John Keane, Professor of Politics at University of Westminster, Ruth Kinna, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Loughborough University, and Peter Marshall, philosopher and historian. By the time of the French Revolution some, such as the Enragés, began to use the term positively, Sheehan, Sean. Anarchism, London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2004. p. 85. in opposition to Jacobin centralisation of power, seeing "revolutionary government" as oxymoronic. By the turn of the 19th century, the English word "anarchism" had lost its initial negative connotation. 

Modern anarchism sprang from the secular or religious thought of the Enlightenment, particularly Jean-Jacques Rousseau's arguments for the moral centrality of freedom. "Anarchism", Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2006 (UK version). 

As part of the political turmoil of the 1790s in the wake of the French Revolution, William Godwin developed the first expression of modern anarchist thought. Everhart, Robert B. The Public School Monopoly: A Critical Analysis of Education and the State in American Society. Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research, 1982. p. 115. Godwin was, according to Peter Kropotkin, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work", while Godwin attached his anarchist ideas to an early Edmund Burke. Godwin himself attributed the first anarchist writing to Edmund Burke's A Vindication of Natural Society. "Most of the above arguments may be found much more at large in Burke's Vindication of Natural Society; a treatise in which the evils of the existing political institutions are displayed with incomparable force of reasoning and lustre of eloquence ..." – footnote, Ch. 2 Political Justice by William Godwin. 

Godwin, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work". Peter Kropotkin, [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html "Anarchism", Encyclopædia Britannica 1910. ]]
Godwin is generally regarded as the founder of the school of thought known as 'philosophical anarchism'. He argued in Political Justice (1793) Adams, Ian. Political Ideology Today. Manchester University Press, 2001. p. 116. that government has an inherently malevolent influence on society, and that it perpetuates dependency and ignorance. He thought that the spread of the use of reason to the masses would eventually cause government to wither away as an unnecessary force. Although he did not accord the state with moral legitimacy, he was against the use of revolutionary tactics for removing the government from power. Rather, he advocated for its replacement through a process of peaceful evolution. 

His aversion to the imposition of a rules-based society led him to denounce, as a manifestation of the people’s ‘mental enslavement’, the foundations of law, property rights and even the institution of marriage. He considered the basic foundations of society as constraining the natural development of individuals to use their powers of reasoning to arrive at a mutually beneficial method of social organisation. In each case, government and its institutions are shown to constrain the development of our capacity to live wholly in accordance with the full and free exercise of private judgment.
 
The French Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is regarded as the first self-proclaimed anarchist, a label he adopted in his groundbreaking work What is Property?, published in 1840. It is for this reason that some claim Proudhon as the founder of modern anarchist theory. Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970). He developed the theory of spontaneous order in society, where organisation emerges without a central coordinator imposing its own idea of order against the wills of individuals acting in their own interests; his famous quote on the matter is, "Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order." In What is Property? Proudhon answers with the famous accusation "Property is theft." In this work, he opposed the institution of decreed "property" (propriété), where owners have complete rights to "use and abuse" their property as they wish. Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. "Chapter 3. Labour as the efficient cause of the domain of property" from "What is Property?", 1840 He contrasted this with what he called "possession," or limited ownership of resources and goods only while in more or less continuous use. Later, however, Proudhon added that "Property is Liberty," and argued that it was a bulwark against state power. Edwards, Stewart. Introduction to Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1969, p. 33 His opposition to the state, organised religion, and certain capitalist practices inspired subsequent anarchists, and made him one of the leading social thinkers of his time.

The anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as "libertarian". Joseph Déjacque, De l'être-humain mâle et femelle - Lettre à P.J. Proudhon par Joseph Déjacque (in French) Unlike Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, he argued that, "it is not the product of his or her labour that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." "l'Echange", article in Le Libertaire no 6, 21 September 1858, New York. In 1844 in Germany the post-hegelian philosopher Max Stirner published the book The Ego and Its Own which will later be considered an influential early text of individualist anarchism. Anarchists active in the 1848 Revolution in France, included Anselme Bellegarrigue, Ernest Coeurderoy, Joseph Déjacque Joseph Déjacque, De l'être-humain mâle et femelle - Lettre à P.J. Proudhon par Joseph Déjacque (in French) and Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. "Toast to the Revolution" Elisa Sudan. L'acitivité d'un socialiste de 1848: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Galley & Cie, 1921, 63 pages 

===First International and the Paris Commune===

Collectivist anarchist Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion, and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists. 

In Europe, harsh reaction followed the revolutions of 1848, during which ten countries had experienced brief or long-term social upheaval as groups carried out nationalist uprisings. After most of these attempts at systematic change ended in failure, conservative elements took advantage of the divided groups of socialists, anarchists, liberals, and nationalists, to prevent further revolt. In Spain Ramón de la Sagra established the anarchist journal El Porvenir in La Coruña in 1845 which was inspired by Proudhon´s ideas. "Anarchism" at the Encyclopedia Britannica online. The Catalan politician Francesc Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish George Woodcock. Anarchism: a history of libertarian movements. Pg. 357 and later briefly became president of Spain in 1873 while being the leader of the Democratic Republican Federal Party. According to George Woodcock "These translations were to have a profound and lasting effect on the development of Spanish anarchism after 1870, but before that time Proudhonian ideas, as interpreted by Pi, already provided much of the inspiration for the federalist movement which sprang up in the early 1860's." George Woodcock. Anarchism: a history of libertarian movements. Pg. 357 According to the Encyclopedia Britannica "During the Spanish revolution of 1873, Pi y Margall attempted to establish a decentralized, or “cantonalist,” political system on Proudhonian lines." 

In 1864 the International Workingmen's Association (sometimes called the "First International") united diverse revolutionary currents including French followers of Proudhon, Blanquists, Philadelphes, English trade unionists, socialists and social democrats. Due to its links to active workers' movements, the International became a significant organisation. Karl Marx became a leading figure in the International and a member of its General Council. Proudhon's followers, the mutualists, opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings. 

In 1868, following their unsuccessful participation in the League of Peace and Freedom (LPF), Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin and his collectivist anarchist associates joined the First International (which had decided not to get involved with the LPF). They allied themselves with the federalist socialist sections of the International, who advocated the revolutionary overthrow of the state and the collectivization of property.

At first, the collectivists worked with the Marxists to push the First International in a more revolutionary socialist direction. Subsequently, the International became polarised into two camps, with Marx and Bakunin as their respective figureheads. Bakunin characterised Marx's ideas as centralist and predicted that, if a Marxist party came to power, its leaders would simply take the place of the ruling class they had fought against. 

Anarchist historian George Woodcock reports that "The annual Congress of the International had not taken place in 1870 owing to the outbreak of the Paris Commune, and in 1871 the General Council called only a special conference in London. One delegate was able to attend from Spain and none from Italy, while a technical excuse – that they had split away from the Fédération Romande – was used to avoid inviting Bakunin's Swiss supporters. Thus only a tiny minority of anarchists was present, and the General Council's resolutions passed almost unanimously. Most of them were clearly directed against Bakunin and his followers." In 1872, the conflict climaxed with a final split between the two groups at the Hague Congress, where Bakunin and James Guillaume were expelled from the International and its headquarters were transferred to New York. In response, the federalist sections formed their own International at the St. Imier Congress, adopting a revolutionary anarchist program. Graham, Robert 'Anarchism (Montreal: Black Rose Books 2005) ISBN 1-55164-251-4. 

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally, from 28 March) to 28 May 1871. The Commune was the result of an uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. Anarchists participated actively in the establishment of the Paris Commune. They included George Woodcock states:

===Organised labour===

The anti-authoritarian sections of the First International were the precursors of the anarcho-syndicalists, seeking to "replace the privilege and authority of the State" with the "free and spontaneous organisation of labour." Resolutions from the St. Imier Congress, in Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Vol. 1, p. 100 In 1886, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) of the United States and Canada unanimously set 1 May 1886, as the date by which the eight-hour work day would become standard. 
A sympathetic engraving by Walter Crane of the executed "Anarchists of Chicago" after the Haymarket affair. The Haymarket affair is generally considered the most significant event for the origin of international May Day observances
In response, unions across the United States prepared a general strike in support of the event. On 3 May, in Chicago, a fight broke out when strikebreakers attempted to cross the picket line, and two workers died when police opened fire upon the crowd. The next day, 4 May, anarchists staged a rally at Chicago's Haymarket Square. A bomb was thrown by an unknown party near the conclusion of the rally, killing an officer. In the ensuing panic, police opened fire on the crowd and each other. Chicago Tribune, 27 June 1886, quoted in Seven police officers and at least four workers were killed. Eight anarchists directly and indirectly related to the organisers of the rally were arrested and charged with the murder of the deceased officer. The men became international political celebrities among the labour movement. Four of the men were executed and a fifth committed suicide prior to his own execution. The incident became known as the Haymarket affair, and was a setback for the labour movement and the struggle for the eight-hour day. In 1890 a second attempt, this time international in scope, to organise for the eight-hour day was made. The event also had the secondary purpose of memorializing workers killed as a result of the Haymarket affair. Although it had initially been conceived as a once-off event, by the following year the celebration of International Workers' Day on May Day had become firmly established as an international worker's holiday. 

In 1907, the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam gathered delegates from 14 different countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Pierre Monatte, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît Broutchoux, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, and Christiaan Cornelissen. Various themes were treated during the Congress, in particular concerning the organisation of the anarchist movement, popular education issues, the general strike or antimilitarism. A central debate concerned the relation between anarchism and syndicalism (or trade unionism). Malatesta and Monatte were in particular disagreement themselves on this issue, as the latter thought that syndicalism was revolutionary and would create the conditions of a social revolution, while Malatesta did not consider syndicalism by itself sufficient. Extract of Malatesta's declaration He thought that the trade-union movement was reformist and even conservative, citing as essentially bourgeois and anti-worker the phenomenon of professional union officials. Malatesta warned that the syndicalists aims were in perpetuating syndicalism itself, whereas anarchists must always have anarchy as their end and consequently refrain from committing to any particular method of achieving it. 

The Spanish Workers Federation in 1881 was the first major anarcho-syndicalist movement; anarchist trade union federations were of special importance in Spain. The most successful was the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour: CNT), founded in 1910. Before the 1940s, the CNT was the major force in Spanish working class politics, attracting 1.58 million members at one point and playing a major role in the Spanish Civil War. The CNT was affiliated with the International Workers Association, a federation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions founded in 1922, with delegates representing two million workers from 15 countries in Europe and Latin America. In Latin America in particular "The anarchists quickly became active in organizing craft and industrial workers throughout South and Central America, and until the early 1920s most of the trade unions in Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina were anarcho-syndicalist in general outlook; the prestige of the Spanish C.N.T. as a revolutionary organization was
undoubtedly to a great extent responsible for this situation. The largest and most militant of these organizations was the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina ... it grew quickly to a membership of nearly a quarter of a million, which dwarfed the rival socialdemocratic unions." 

===Propaganda of the deed and illegalism===

Italian-American anarchist Luigi Galleani. His followers, known as Galleanists, carried out a series of bombings and assassination attempts from 1914 to 1932 in what they saw as attacks on 'tyrants' and 'enemies of the people'
Some anarchists, such as Johann Most, advocated publicizing violent acts of retaliation against counter-revolutionaries because "we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda." By the 1880s, people inside and outside the anarchist movement began to use the slogan, "propaganda of the deed" to refer to individual bombings, regicides, and tyrannicides. From 1905 onwards, the Russian counterparts of these anti-syndicalist anarchist-communists become partisans of economic terrorism and illegal 'expropriations'." Illegalism as a practice emerged and within it "The acts of the anarchist bombers and assassins ("propaganda by the deed") and the anarchist burglars ("individual reappropriation") expressed their desperation and their personal, violent rejection of an intolerable society. Moreover, they were clearly meant to be exemplary invitations to revolt.". The "illegalists" by Doug Imrie. From "Anarchy: a Journal Of Desire Armed", Fall–Winter, 1994–95 France's Bonnot Gang was the most famous group to embrace illegalism.

However, as soon as 1887, important figures in the anarchist movement distanced themselves from such individual acts. Peter Kropotkin thus wrote that year in Le Révolté that "a structure based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few kilos of dynamite". quoted in Billington, James H. 1998. Fire in the minds of men: origins of the revolutionary faith New Jersey: Transaction Books, p 417. A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favour of collective revolutionary action, for example through the trade union movement. The anarcho-syndicalist, Fernand Pelloutier, argued in 1895 for renewed anarchist involvement in the labour movement on the basis that anarchism could do very well without "the individual dynamiter." 

State repression (including the infamous 1894 French lois scélérates) of the anarchist and labour movements following the few successful bombings and assassinations may have contributed to the abandonment of these kinds of tactics, although reciprocally state repression, in the first place, may have played a role in these isolated acts. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement, into many groups and, following the suppression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the execution and exile of many communards to penal colonies, favoured individualist political expression and acts. Historian Benedict Anderson thus writes: "In March 1871 the Commune took power in the abandoned city and held it for two months. Then Versailles seized the moment to attack and, in one horrifying week, executed roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers, a number higher than those killed in the recent war or during Robespierre's 'Terror' of 1793–1794. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places like New Caledonia. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organising on the left. Not till 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meanwhile, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforce Louis Napoleon's imperialist expansion – in Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France's leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (Courbet was its quasi-minister of culture, Rimbaud and Pissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and thereafter, was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad." (in ) According to some analysts, in post-war Germany, the prohibition of the Communist Party (KDP) and thus of institutional far-left political organisation may also, in the same manner, have played a role in the creation of the Red Army Faction. 

Numerous heads of state were assassinated between 1881 and 1914 by members of the anarchist movement. For example, U.S. President McKinley's assassin Leon Czolgosz claimed to have been influenced by anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman. Bombings were associated in the media with anarchists because international terrorism arose during this time period with the widespread distribution of dynamite. This image remains to this day.

Propaganda of the deed was abandoned by the vast majority of the anarchist movement after World War I (1914–1918) and the 1917 October Revolution.

===Russian Revolution and other uprisings of the 1910s===

Nestor Makhno with members of the anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
Anarchists participated alongside the Bolsheviks in both February and October revolutions, and were initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik revolution. However, following a political falling out with the Bolsheviks by the anarchists and other left-wing opposition, the conflict culminated in the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion, which the new government repressed. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground or joined the victorious Bolsheviks; the anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to the Ukraine. There, in the Free Territory, they fought in the civil war against the Whites (a grouping of monarchists and other opponents of the October Revolution) and then the Bolsheviks as part of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno, who established an anarchist society in the region for a number of months.

Expelled American anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were amongst those agitating in response to Bolshevik policy and the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, before they left Russia. Both wrote accounts of their experiences in Russia, criticising the amount of control the Bolsheviks exercised. For them, Bakunin's predictions about the consequences of Marxist rule that the rulers of the new "socialist" Marxist state would become a new elite had proved all too true. "On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx" in Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971. 

The victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War did serious damage to anarchist movements internationally. Many workers and activists saw Bolshevik success as setting an example; Communist parties grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, for example, members of the major syndicalist movements of the CGT and IWW left the organisations and joined the Communist International. 

The revolutionary wave of 1917–23 saw the active participation of anarchists in varying degrees of protagonism. In the German uprising known as the German Revolution of 1918–1919 which established the Bavarian Soviet Republic the anarchists Gustav Landauer, Silvio Gesell and Erich Mühsam had important leadership positions within the revolutionary councilist structures. "The Munich Soviet (or "Council Republic") of 1919 exhibited certain features of the TAZ, even though — like most revolutions — its stated goals were not exactly "temporary." Gustav Landauer's participation as Minister of Culture along with Silvio Gesell as Minister of Economics and other anti-authoritarian and extreme libertarian socialists such as the poet/playwrights Erich Mühsam and Ernst Toller, and Ret Marut (the novelist B. Traven), gave the Soviet a distinct anarchist flavor." Hakim Bey. "T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism" In the Italian events known as the biennio rosso Brunella Dalla Casa, Composizione di classe, rivendicazioni e professionalità nelle lotte del "biennio rosso" a Bologna, in: AA. VV, Bologna 1920; le origini del fascismo, a cura di Luciano Casali, Cappelli, Bologna 1982, pag. 179. the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Unione Sindacale Italiana "grew to 800,000 members and the influence of the Italian Anarchist Union (20,000 members plus Umanita Nova, its daily paper) grew accordingly ... Anarchists were the first to suggest occupying workplaces. "1918–1921: The Italian factory occupations – Biennio Rosso" on libcom.org In the Mexican Revolution the Mexican Liberal Party was established and during the early 1910s it lead a series of military offensives leading to the conquest and occupation of certain towns and districts in Baja California with the leadership of anarcho-communist Ricardo Flores Magón. "The Magonista Revolt in Baja California Capitalist Conspiracy or Rebelion de los Pobres?" by Lawrence D. Taylor 

In Paris, the Dielo Truda group of Russian anarchist exiles, which included Nestor Makhno, concluded that anarchists needed to develop new forms of organisation in response to the structures of Bolshevism. Their 1926 manifesto, called the Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft), was supported. Platformist groups active today include the Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland and the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists of North America. Synthesis anarchism emerged as an organisational alternative to platformism that tries to join anarchists of different tendencies under the principles of anarchism without adjectives. In the 1920s this form found as its main proponents Volin and Sebastien Faure. It is the main principle behind the anarchist federations grouped around the contemporary global International of Anarchist Federations. 

===Conflicts with European fascist regimes===

Anti-fascist Maquis, who resisted Nazi and Francoist rule in Europe.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of fascism in Europe transformed anarchism's conflict with the state. Italy saw the first struggles between anarchists and fascists. Italian anarchists played a key role in the anti-fascist organisation Arditi del Popolo, which was strongest in areas with anarchist traditions, and achieved some success in their activism, such as repelling Blackshirts in the anarchist stronghold of Parma in August 1922. Holbrow, Marnie, "Daring but Divided" (Socialist Review November 2002). The veteran Italian anarchist, Luigi Fabbri, was one of the first critical theorists of fascism, describing it as "the preventive counter-revolution." In France, where the far right leagues came close to insurrection in the February 1934 riots, anarchists divided over a united front policy. Berry, David. "Fascism or Revolution." Le Libertaire. August 1936. 

Anarchists in France "Anarchist Activity in France during World War Two" and Italy "1943–1945: Anarchist partisans in the Italian Resistance" on libcom.org were active in the Resistance during World War II. In Germany the anarchist Erich Mühsam was arrested on charges unknown in the early morning hours of 28 February 1933, within a few hours after the Reichstag fire in Berlin. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, labelled him as one of "those Jewish subversives." Over the next seventeen months, he would be imprisoned in the concentration camps at Sonnenburg, Brandenburg and finally, Oranienburg. On 2 February 1934, Mühsam was transferred to the concentration camp at Oranienburg when finally on the night of 9 July 1934, Mühsam was tortured and murdered by the guards, his battered corpse found hanging in a latrine the next morning. 

=== Spanish Revolution ===

Buenaventura Durruti, central figure of Spanish anarchism during the period leading up to and including the Spanish Civil War.
In Spain, the national anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance, and abstention by CNT supporters led to a right wing election victory. But in 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the popular front back to power. Months later, the former ruling class responded with an attempted coup causing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land. But even before the fascist victory in 1939, the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the Stalinists, who controlled much of the distribution of military aid to the Republican cause from the Soviet Union. The events known as the Spanish Revolution was a workers' social revolution that began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and more broadly libertarian socialist organisational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of the Levante. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in areas with heavy Communist Party of Spain influence, as the Soviet-allied party actively resisted attempts at collectivization enactment. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivised and run as libertarian communes. Anarchist historian Sam Dolgoff estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution, which he claimed "came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history." Dolgoff (1974), p. 5 

Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives and persecuted both dissident Marxists and anarchists. The prominent Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri, who volunteered to fight against Franco was killed instead in Spain by gunmen associated with the Spanish Communist Party. "When clashes with the Communist Party broke out, his house, where he lived with other anarchists, was attacked on 4 May 1937. They were all labelled "counter-revolutionaries", disarmed, deprived of their papers and forbidden to go out into the street. There was still shooting in the streets when, on 5 May 1937, news arrived from Italy of Antonio Gramsci's death in a fascist prison...Leaving Radio Barcelona, Berneri set off for the Plaça de la Generalitat, where some Stalinists shouted after him. Before he could turn and look, they opened fire with machine guns, and left his dead body there on the street.""Berneri, Luigi Camillo, 1897–1937" at libcom.com Paul Avrich. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. AK Press. 2005. p. 516 "Spain: Return to "normalization" in Barcelona. The Republican government had sent troops to take over the telephone exchange on 3 May, pitting the anarchists & Poumists on one side against the Republican government & the Stalinist Communist Party on the other, in pitched street battles, resulting in 500 anarchists killed. Squads of Communist Party members took to the streets on 6 May to assassinate leading anarchists. Today, among those found murdered, was the Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri""Camillo Berneri" at The Anarchist Encyclopedia: A Gallery of Saints & Sinners ... 

=== Post-war years ===
Goodman.jpg|thumb|Paul Goodman, influential American anarchist author of Up Absurd|Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society among other works critical of contemporary societies.]] Anarchism sought to reorganise itself after the war and in this context the organisational debate between synthesis anarchism and platformism took importance once again especially in the anarchist movements of Italy and France. The Mexican Anarchist Federation was established in 1945 after the Anarchist Federation of the Centre united with the Anarchist Federation of the Federal District. "Regeneración y la Federación Anarquista Mexicana (1952–1960)" by Ulises Ortega Aguilar In the early 1940s, the Antifascist International Solidarity and the Federation of Anarchist Groups of Cuba merged into the large national organisation Asociación Libertaria de Cuba (Cuban Libertarian Association). "The surviving sectors of the revolutionary anarchist movement of the 1920–1940 period, now working in the SIA and the FGAC, reinforced by those Cuban militants and Spanish anarchists fleeing now-fascist Spain, agreed at the beginning of the decade to hold an assembly with the purpose of regrouping the libertarian forces inside a single organization. The guarantees of the 1940 Constitution permitted them to legally create an organization of this type, and it was thus that they agreed to dissolve the two principal Cuban anarchist organizations, the SIA and FGAC, and create a new, unified group, the Asociación Libertaria de Cuba (ALC), a sizable organization with a membership in the thousands."Cuban Anarchism: The History of A Movement by Frank Fernandez From 1944 to 1947, the Bulgarian Anarchist Communist Federation reemerged as part of a factory and workplace committee movement, but was repressed by the new Communist regime. Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume Two: The Emergence of the New Anarchism (1939–1977) Robert Graham's Anarchism Weblog In 1945 in France the Fédération Anarchiste and the anarchosyndicalist trade union Confédération nationale du travail was established in the next year while the also synthesist Federazione Anarchica Italiana was founded in Italy. Korean anarchists formed the League of Free Social Constructors in September 1945 and in 1946 the Japanese Anarchist Federation was founded. THE ANARCHIST MOVEMENT IN JAPAN Anarchist Communist Editions § ACE Pamphlet No. 8 An International Anarchist Congress with delegates from across Europe was held in Paris in May 1948. After World War II, an appeal in the Fraye Arbeter Shtime detailing the plight of German anarchists and called for Americans to support them. By February 1946, the sending of aid parcels to anarchists in Germany was a large-scale operation. The Federation of Libertarian Socialists was founded in Germany in 1947 and Rudolf Rocker wrote for its organ, Die Freie Gesellschaft, which survived until 1953. * In 1956 the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation was founded. "50 años de la Federación Anarquista Uruguaya" In 1955 the Anarcho-Communist Federation of Argentina renamed itself as the Argentine Libertarian Federation. The Syndicalist Workers' Federation was a syndicalist group in active in post-war Britain, and one of Solidarity Federation's earliest predecessors. It was formed in 1950 by members of the dissolved Anarchist Federation of Britain. Unlike the AFB, which was influenced by anarcho-syndicalist ideas but ultimately not syndicalist itself, the SWF decided to pursue a more definitely syndicalist, worker-centred strategy from the outset. 

Anarchism continued to influence important literary and intellectual personalities of the time, such as Albert Camus, Herbert Read, Paul Goodman, Dwight Macdonald, Allen Ginsberg, George Woodcock, Leopold Kohr, Dr. Leopold Kohr, 84; Backed Smaller States, New York Times obituary, 28 February 1994. Kirkpatrick Sale, foreword to E.P. Dutton 1978 edition of Leopold Kohr's Breakdown of Nations. Julian Beck, John Cage Cage self-identified as an anarchist in a 1985 interview: "I'm an anarchist. I don't know whether the adjective is pure and simple, or philosophical, or what, but I don't like government! And I don't like institutions! And I don't have any confidence in even good institutions." John Cage at Seventy: An Interview by Stephen Montague. American Music, Summer 1985. Ubu.com. Accessed 24 May 2007. and the French Surrealist group led by André Breton, which now openly embraced anarchism and collaborated in the Fédération Anarchiste. "It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself," wrote André Breton in "The Black Mirror of Anarchism," Selection 23 in Robert Graham, ed., Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume Two: The Emergence of the New Anarchism (1939–1977). Breton had returned to France in 1947 and in April of that year Andre Julien welcomed his return in the pages of Le Libertaire the weekly paper of the Federation Anarchiste""1919–1950: The politics of Surrealism" by Nick Heath on libcom.org 

Anarcho-pacifism became influential in the Anti-nuclear movement and anti war movements of the time "In the forties and fifties, anarchism, in fact if not in name, began to reappear, often in alliance with pacifism, as the basis for a critique of militarism on both sides of the Cold War. The anarchist/pacifist wing of the peace movement was small in comparison with the wing of the movement that emphasized electoral work, but made an important contribution to the movement as a whole. Where the more conventional wing of the peace movement rejected militarism and war under all but the most dire circumstances, the anarchist/pacifist wing rejected these on principle.""Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement" by Barbara Epstein "In the 1950s and 1960s anarcho-pacifism began to gel, tough-minded anarchists adding to the mixture their critique of the state, and tender-minded pacifists their critique of violence. Its first practical manifestation was at the level of method: nonviolent direct action, principled and pragmatic, was used widely in both the Civil Rights movement in the USA and the campaign against nuclear weapons in Britain and elsewhere."Geoffrey Ostergaard. Resisting the Nation State. The pacifist and anarchist tradition as can be seen in the activism and writings of the English anarchist member of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Alex Comfort or the similar activism of the American catholic anarcho-pacifists Ammon Hennacy and Dorothy Day. Anarcho-pacifism became a "basis for a critique of militarism on both sides of the Cold War." "Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement" by Barbara Epstein The resurgence of anarchist ideas during this period is well documented in Robert Graham's , Volume Two: The Emergence of the New Anarchism (1939–1977). 

===Contemporary anarchism===

The famous okupas squat near Parc Güell, overlooking Barcelona. Squatting was a prominent part of the emergence of renewed anarchist movement from the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. On the roof: "Occupy and Resist" A surge of popular interest in anarchism occurred in western nations during the 1960s and 1970s. Anarchism was influential in the Counterculture of the 1960s "These groups had their roots in the anarchist resurgence of the nineteen sixties. Young militants finding their way to anarchism, often from the anti-bomb and anti-Vietnam war movements, linked up with an earlier generation of activists, largely outside the ossified structures of 'official' anarchism. Anarchist tactics embraced demonstrations, direct action such as industrial militancy and squatting, protest bombings like those of the First of May Group and Angry Brigade – and a spree of publishing activity.""Islands of Anarchy: Simian, Cienfuegos, Refract and their support network" by John Patten Farrell provides a detailed history of the Catholic Workers and their founders Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. He explains that their pacifism, anarchism, and commitment to the downtrodden were one of the important models and inspirations for the 1960s. As Farrell puts it, "Catholic Workers identified the issues of the sixties before the Sixties began, and they offered models of protest long before the protest decade.""The Spirit of the Sixties: The Making of Postwar Radicalism" by James J. Farrell "While not always formally recognized, much of the protest of the sixties was anarchist. Within the nascent women's movement, anarchist principles became so widespread that a political science professor denounced what she saw as "The Tyranny of Structurelessness." Several groups have called themselves "Amazon Anarchists." After the Stonewall Rebellion, the New York Gay Liberation Front based their organisation in part on a reading of Murray Bookchin's anarchist writings." "Anarchism" by Charley Shively in Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. p. 52 and anarchists actively participated in the late sixties students and workers revolts. "Within the movements of the sixties there was much more receptivity to anarchism-in-fact than had existed in the movements of the thirties ... But the movements of the sixties were driven by concerns that were more compatible with an expressive style of politics, with hostility to authority in general and state power in particular ... By the late sixties, political protest was intertwined with cultural radicalism based on a critique of all authority and all hierarchies of power. Anarchism circulated within the movement along with other radical ideologies. The influence of anarchism was strongest among radical feminists, in the commune movement, and probably in the Weather Underground and elsewhere in the violent fringe of the anti-war movement." "Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement" by Barbara Epstein In 1968 in Carrara, Italy the International of Anarchist Federations was founded during an international anarchist conference held there in 1968 by the three existing European federations of France (the Fédération Anarchiste), the Federazione Anarchica Italiana of Italy and the Iberian Anarchist Federation as well as the Bulgarian federation in French exile. London Federation of Anarchists involvement in Carrara conference, 1968 International Institute of Social History. Retrieved 19 January 2010 Short history of the IAF-IFA A-infos news project. Retrieved 19 January 2010 

In the United Kingdom in the 1970s this was associated with the punk rock movement, as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols. The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes and squatter movements like that of Barcelona, Spain. In Denmark, squatters occupied a disused military base and declared the Freetown Christiania, an autonomous haven in central Copenhagen. Since the revival of anarchism in the mid 20th century, 
 a number of new movements and schools of thought emerged. Although feminist tendencies have always been a part of the anarchist movement in the form of anarcha-feminism, they returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and anarchist historian Andrej Grubacic have posited a rupture between generations of anarchism, with those "who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits" of the 19th century contrasted with the younger activists who are "much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous, feminist, ecological and cultural-critical ideas", and who by the turn of the 21st century formed "by far the majority" of anarchists. David Graeber and Andrej Grubacic, "Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century", ZNet. Retrieved 2007-12-13. or Graeber, David and Grubacic, Andrej(2004)Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century Retrieved 26 July 2010 

Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Group of Eight, and the World Economic Forum. Some anarchist factions at these protests engaged in rioting, property destruction, and violent confrontations with police. These actions were precipitated by ad hoc, leaderless, anonymous cadres known as black blocs; other organisational tactics pioneered in this time include security culture, affinity groups and the use of decentralised technologies such as the internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at WTO conference in Seattle in 1999. According to anarchist scholar Simon Critchley, "contemporary anarchism can be seen as a powerful critique of the pseudo-libertarianism of contemporary neo-liberalism ... One might say that contemporary anarchism is about responsibility, whether sexual, ecological or socio-economic; it flows from an experience of conscience about the manifold ways in which the West ravages the rest; it is an ethical outrage at the yawning inequality, impoverishment and disenfranchisment that is so palpable locally and globally." Infinitely Demanding by Simon Critchley. Verso. 2007. p. 125 

International anarchist federations in existence include the International of Anarchist Federations, the International Workers' Association, and International Libertarian Solidarity.
The largest organised anarchist movement today is in Spain, in the form of the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the CNT. CGT membership was estimated at around 100,000 for 2003. Carley, Mark "Trade union membership 1993–2003" (International:SPIRE Associates 2004). Other active syndicalist movements include in Sweden the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden and the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation; the CNT-AIT in France; http://www.cnt-ait-fr.org/CNT-AIT/ACCUEIL.html Website of the Confédération Nationale du Travail – Association Internationale des Travailleurs the Union Sindicale Italiana in Italy; in the US Workers Solidarity Alliance and the UK Solidarity Federation and Anarchist Federation. The revolutionary industrial unionist Industrial Workers of the World, claiming 2,000 paying members, and the International Workers Association, an anarcho-syndicalist successor to the First International, also remain active.

==Anarchist schools of thought==

Portrait of philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) by Gustave Courbet. Proudhon was the primary proponent of anarchist mutualism, and influenced many later individualist anarchist and social anarchist thinkers.
Anarchist schools of thought had been generally grouped in two main historical traditions, individualist anarchism and social anarchism, which have some different origins, values and evolution. Anarchism, The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform (1908). The individualist wing of anarchism emphasises negative liberty, i.e. opposition to state or social control over the individual, while those in the social wing emphasise positive liberty to achieve one's potential and argue that humans have needs that society ought to fulfill, "recognizing equality of entitlement". Harrison, Kevin and Boyd, Tony. Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press 2003, p. 251. In a chronological and theoretical sense, there are classical – those created throughout the 19th century – and post-classical anarchist schools – those created since the mid-20th century and after.

Beyond the specific factions of anarchist thought is philosophical anarchism, which embodies the theoretical stance that the state lacks moral legitimacy without accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it. A component especially of individualist anarchism Outhwaite, William & Tourain, Alain (Eds.). (2003). Anarchism. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought (2nd Edition, p. 12). Blackwell Publishing. Wayne Gabardi, review of Anarchism by David Miller, published in American Political Science Review Vol. 80, No. 1. (Mar., 1986), pp. 300–02. philosophical anarchism may accept the existence of a minimal state as unfortunate, and usually temporary, "necessary evil" but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy. Klosko, George. Political Obligations. Oxford University Press 2005. p. 4. One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was "anarchism without adjectives", a call for toleration first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the "bitter debates" of anarchist theory at the time. Avrich, Paul. . Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 6. In abandoning the hyphenated anarchisms (i.e. collectivist-, communist-, mutualist– and individualist-anarchism), it sought to emphasise the anti-authoritarian beliefs common to all anarchist schools of thought. Esenwein, George Richard "Anarchist Ideology and the Working Class Movement in Spain, 1868–1898" 135. 

===Classical anarchist schools of thought===

====Mutualism====

Mutualism began in 18th-century English and French labour movements before taking an anarchist form associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France and others in the United States. "A member of a community," The Mutualist; this 1826 series criticised Robert Owen's proposals, and has been attributed to a dissident Owenite, possibly from the Friendly Association for Mutual Interests of Valley Forge; Wilbur, Shawn, 2006, "More from the 1826 "Mutualist"?". Proudhon proposed spontaneous order, whereby organisation emerges without central authority, a "positive anarchy" where order arises when everybody does "what he wishes and only what he wishes" Proudhon, Solution to the Social Problem, ed. H. Cohen (New York: Vanguard Press, 1927), p. 45. and where "business transactions alone produce the social order." It is important to recognize that Proudhon distinguished between ideal political possibilities and practical governance. For this reason, much in contrast to some of his theoretical statements concerning ultimate spontaneous self-governance, Proudhon was heavily involved in French parliamentary politics and allied himself not with Anarchist but Socialist factions of workers movements and, in addition to advocating state-protected charters for worker-owned cooperatives, promoted certain nationalization schemes during his life of public service.

Mutualist anarchism is concerned with reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation, and credit and currency reform. According to the American mutualist William Batchelder Greene, each worker in the mutualist system would receive "just and exact pay for his work; services equivalent in cost being exchangeable for services equivalent in cost, without profit or discount." "Communism versus Mutualism", Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic and Financial Fragments. (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1875) William Batchelder Greene: "Under the mutual system, each individual will receive the just and exact pay for his work; services equivalent in cost being exchangeable for services equivalent in cost, without profit or discount; and so much as the individual laborer will then get over and above what he has earned will come to him as his share in the general prosperity of the community of which he is an individual member." Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, Princeton University Press 1996 ISBN 0-691-04494-5, p. 6Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, Blackwell Publishing 1991 ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 11. Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. What Is Property? Princeton, MA: Benjamin R. Tucker, 1876. p. 281. 

====Individualist anarchism====

Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. "What do I mean by individualism?
I mean by individualism the moral doctrine which, relying on no dogma, no tradition, no external determination, appeals only to the individual conscience."Mini-Manual of Individualism by Han Ryner "I do not admit anything except the existence of the individual, as a condition of his sovereignty. To say that the sovereignty of the individual is conditioned by Liberty is simply another way of saying that it is conditioned by itself.""Anarchism and the State" in Individual Liberty Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies that sometimes are in conflict.

In 1793, William Godwin, who has often been cited as the first anarchist, wrote Political Justice, which some consider the first expression of anarchism. Godwin, a philosophical anarchist, from a rationalist and utilitarian basis opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated individualism, proposing that all cooperation in labour be eliminated on the premise that this would be most conducive with the general good. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Retrieved 7 December 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Paul McLaughlin. Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007. p. 119. 
19th-century philosopher Max Stirner, usually considered a prominent early individualist anarchist (sketch by Friedrich Engels).
An influential form of individualist anarchism, called "egoism," Goodway, David. Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow. Liverpool University Press, 2006, p. 99. or egoist anarchism, was expounded by one of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism, the German Max Stirner. Stirner's The Ego and Its Own, published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy. According to Stirner, the only limitation on the rights of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire, The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Corporation. p. 176. without regard for God, state, or morality. Miller, David. "Anarchism." 1987. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 11. To Stirner, rights were spooks in the mind, and he held that society does not exist but "the individuals are its reality". "What my might reaches is my property; and let me claim as property everything I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as fas as I entitle, that is, empower myself to take ..." In Ossar, Michael. 1980. Anarchism in the Dramas of Ernst Toller. SUNY Press. p. 27. Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will, which Stirner proposed as a form of organisation in place of the state. Egoist anarchists argue that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals. "Egoism" has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and LGBT activist John Henry Mackay.

Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist, Palmer, Brian (29 December 2010) What do anarchists want from us?, Slate.com and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published. William Bailie, Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist – A Sociological Study, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1906, p. 20 For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster "It is apparent ... that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews ... William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form.". Native American Anarchism: A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism by Eunice Minette Schuster Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his books Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Later Benjamin Tucker fused Stirner's egoism with the economics of Warren and Proudhon in his eclectic influential publication Liberty.

From these early influences individualist anarchism in different countries attracted a small but diverse following of bohemian artists and intellectuals, "2. Individualist Anarchism and Reaction" in Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism – An Unbridgeable Chasm on libcom.org free love and birth control advocates (see Anarchism and issues related to love and sex), The Free Love Movement and Radical Individualism By Wendy McElroy "La insumisión voluntaria: El anarquismo individualista español durante la Dictadura y la Segunda República (1923–1938)" by Xavier Díez individualist naturists nudists (see anarcho-naturism), "Los anarco-individualistas, G.I.A ... Una escisión de la FAI producida en el IX Congreso (Carrara, 1965) se produjo cuando un sector de anarquistas de tendencia humanista rechazan la interpretación que ellos juzgan disciplinaria del pacto asociativo clásico, y crean los GIA (Gruppi di Iniziativa Anarchica) . Esta pequeña federación de grupos, hoy nutrida sobre de veteranos anarco-individualistas de orientación pacifista, naturista, etcétera defiende la autonomía personal y rechaza a rajatabla toda forma de intervención en los procesos del sistema, como sería por ejemplo el sindicalismo. Su portavoz es L'Internazionale con sede en Ancona. La escisión de los GIA prefiguraba, en sentido contrario, el gran debate que pronto había de comenzar en el seno del movimiento""El movimiento libertario en Italia" by Bicicleta. REVISTA DE COMUNICACIONES LIBERTARIAS Year 1 No. Noviembre, 1 1977 "Proliferarán así diversos grupos que practicarán el excursionismo, el naturismo, el nudismo, la emancipación sexual o el esperantismo, alrededor de asociaciones informales vinculadas de una manera o de otra al anarquismo. Precisamente las limitaciones a las asociaciones obreras impuestas desde la legislación especial de la Dictadura potenciarán indirectamente esta especie de asociacionismo informal en que confluirá el movimiento anarquista con esta heterogeneidad de prácticas y tendencias. Uno de los grupos más destacados, que será el impulsor de la revista individualista Ética será el Ateneo Naturista Ecléctico, con sede en Barcelona, con sus diferentes secciones la más destacada de las cuales será el grupo excursionista Sol y Vida.""La insumisión voluntaria: El anarquismo individualista español durante la Dictadura y la Segunda República (1923–1938)" by Xavier Díez "Les anarchistes individualistes du début du siècle l'avaient bien compris, et intégraient le naturisme dans leurs préoccupations. Il est vraiment dommage que ce discours se soit peu à peu effacé, d'antan plus que nous assistons, en ce moment, à un retour en force du puritanisme (conservateur par essence).""Anarchisme et naturisme, aujourd'hui." by Cathy Ytak freethought and anti-clerical activists Wendy McElroy. "The culture of individualist anarchist in Late-nineteenth century America" individualista.pdf Xavier Diez. El anarquismo individualista en España (1923–1939) Virus Editorial. 2007. p. 143 as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation The "Illegalists", by Doug Imrie (published by ) Parry, Richard. The Bonnot Gang. Rebel Press, 1987. p. 15 (see European individualist anarchism and individualist anarchism in France). These authors and activists included Oscar Wilde, Emile Armand, Han Ryner, Henri Zisly, Renzo Novatore, Miguel Gimenez Igualada, Adolf Brand and Lev Chernyi among others.

====Social anarchism====

Social anarchism calls for a system with common ownership of means of production and democratic control of all organisations, without any government authority or coercion. It is the largest school of thought in anarchism. "This does not mean that the majority thread within the anarchist movement is uncritical of individualist anarchism. Far from it! Social anarchists have argued that this influence of non-anarchist ideas means that while its "criticism of the State is very searching, and defence of the rights of the individual very powerful," like Spencer it "opens ... the way for reconstituting under the heading of 'defence' all the functions of the State." Section G – Is individualist anarchism capitalistic? An Anarchist FAQ Social anarchism rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality (while retaining respect for personal property), "The revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and with it goes capitalistic business. Personal possession remains only in the things you use. Thus, your watch is your own, but the watch factory belongs to the people."Alexander Berkman. "What Is Communist Anarchism?" and emphasises cooperation and mutual aid. Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Blackwell Publishing, 1991. p. 21. 

=====Collectivist anarchism=====

Collectivist anarchism, also referred to as "revolutionary socialism" or a form of such, Morris, Brian. Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom. Black Rose Books Ltd., 1993. p. 76. Rae, John. Contemporary Socialism. C. Scribner's sons, 1901, Original from Harvard University. p. 261. is a revolutionary form of anarchism, commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin and Johann Most. Patsouras, Louis. 2005. Marx in Context. iUniverse. p. 54. Avrich, Paul. 2006. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. AK Press. p. 5. Collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivised. This was to be achieved through violent revolution, first starting with a small cohesive group through acts of violence, or propaganda by the deed, which would inspire the workers as a whole to revolt and forcibly collectivise the means of production. 

However, collectivization was not to be extended to the distribution of income, as workers would be paid according to time worked, rather than receiving goods being distributed "according to need" as in anarcho-communism. This position was criticised by anarchist communists as effectively "uphold the wages system". Collectivist anarchism arose contemporaneously with Marxism but opposed the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat, despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society. Anarchist, communist and collectivist ideas are not mutually exclusive; although the collectivist anarchists advocated compensation for labour, some held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need. 

=====Anarcho-communism=====

Anarchist communism (also known as anarcho-communism, libertarian communism "Anarchist communism is also known as anarcho-communism, communist anarchism, or, sometimes, libertarian communism.""Anarchist communism – an introduction" by Libcom.org "The terms libertarian communism and anarchist communism thus became synonymous within the international anarchist movement as a result of the close connection they had in Spain (with libertarian communism becoming the prevalent term).""Anarchist Communism & Libertarian Communism" by Gruppo Comunista Anarchico di Firenze. from "L'informatore di parte", No. 4, October 1979, quarterly journal of the Gruppo Comunista Anarchico di Firenze, on libcom.org "The 'Manifesto of Libertarian Communism' was written in 1953 by Georges Fontenis for the Federation Communiste Libertaire of France. It is one of the key texts of the anarchist-communist current." "Manifesto of Libertarian Communism" by Georges Fontenis on libcom.org "In 1926 a group of exiled Russian anarchists in France, the Delo Truda (Workers' Cause) group, published this pamphlet. It arose not from some academic study but from their experiences in the 1917 Russian revolution." "The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists" by Delo Truda and occasionally as free communism) is a theory of anarchism that advocates abolition of the state, markets, money, private property (while retaining respect for personal property), and capitalism in favour of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Fabbri, Luigi. "Anarchism and Communism." Northeastern Anarchist #4. 1922. 13 October 2002. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/worldwidemovements/fabbrianarandcom.html Makhno, Mett, Arshinov, Valevski, Linski (Dielo Trouda). "The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists". 1926. Constructive Section: available here http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/platform/constructive.htm 
Russian theorist Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), who was influential in the development of anarchist communism.
Some forms of anarchist communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are strongly influenced by egoism and radical individualism, believing anarcho-communism is the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Post-left anarcho-communist Bob Black after analysing insurrectionary anarcho-communist Luigi Galleani's view on anarcho-communism went as far as saying that "communism is the final fulfillment of individualism ... The apparent contradiction between individualism and communism rests on a misunderstanding of both ... Subjectivity is also objective: the individual really is subjective. It is nonsense to speak of "emphatically prioritizing the social over the individual,"... You may as well speak of prioritizing the chicken over the egg. Anarchy is a "method of individualization." It aims to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity."Bob Black. Nightmares of Reason. "Modern Communists are more individualistic than Stirner. To them, not merely religion, morality, family and State are spooks, but property also is no more than a spook, in whose name the individual is enslaved – and how enslaved! ... Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty and Eigenheit of the individual. I am a Communist because I am an Individualist. Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand – that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand."Max Baginski. "Stirner: The Ego and His Own" on Mother Earth. Vol. 2. No. 3 May 1907 Christopher Gray, Leaving the Twentieth Century, p. 88. "Towards the creative Nothing" by Renzo Novatore Most anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society. "Communism is the one which guarantees the greatest amount of individual liberty – provided that the idea that begets the community be Liberty, Anarchy ... Communism guarantees economic freedom better than any other form of association, because it can guarantee wellbeing, even luxury, in return for a few hours of work instead of a day's work." [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Petr_Kropotkin__Communism_and_Anarchy.html "Communism and Anarchy" by Peter Kropotkin This other society will be libertarian communism, in which social solidarity and free individuality find their full expression, and in which these two ideas develop in perfect harmony.
[http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Dielo_Truda__Workers__Cause___Organisational_Platform_of_the_Libertarian_Communists.html Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists by Dielo Truda (Workers' Cause) "I see the dichotomies made between individualism and communism, individual revolt and class struggle, the struggle against human exploitation and the exploitation of nature as false dichotomies and feel that those who accept them are impoverishing their own critique and struggle.""MY PERSPECTIVES" by Willful Disobedience Vol. 2, No. 12 

Anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French revolution Robert Graham, Anarchism – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas – Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), Black Rose Books, 2005 "Chapter 41: The "Anarchists"" in The Great French Revolution 1789–1793 by Peter Kropotkin but was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. Nunzio Pernicone, "Italian Anarchism 1864–1892", pp. 111–13, AK Press 2009. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organisationalist and insurrectionary anti-organisationalist sections. "Anarchist-Communism" by Alain Pengam To date, the best known examples of an anarchist communist society (i.e., established around the ideas as they exist today and achieving worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical canon), are the anarchist territories during the Spanish Revolution "This process of education and class organization, more than any single factor in Spain, produced the collectives. And to the degree that the CNT-FAI (for the two organizations became fatally coupled after July 1936) exercised the major influence in an area, the collectives proved to be generally more durable, communist and resistant to Stalinist counterrevolution than other republican-held areas of Spain." Bookchin. To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936 and the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution. Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish Anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936 anarchist communism existed in most of Aragon, parts of the Levante and Andalusia, as well as in the stronghold of Anarchist Catalonia before being crushed by the combined forces of the regime that won the war, Hitler, Mussolini, Spanish Communist Party repression (backed by the USSR) as well as economic and armaments blockades from the capitalist countries and the Spanish Republic itself. Bookchin. To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936 During the Russian Revolution, anarchists such as Nestor Makhno worked to create and defend – through the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine – anarchist communism in the Free Territory of the Ukraine from 1919 before being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921.

=====Anarcho-syndicalism=====

May day demonstration of Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union CNT in Bilbao, Basque Country in 2010Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that focuses on the labour movement. Sorel, Georges. 'Political Theorists in Context' Routledge (2004) p. 248 Anarcho-syndicalists view labour unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are: Workers' solidarity, Direct action and Workers' self-management
Anarcho-syndicalists believe that only direct action – that is, action concentrated on directly attaining a goal, as opposed to indirect action, such as electing a representative to a government position – will allow workers to liberate themselves. Rocker, Rudolf. 'Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice' AK Press (2004) p. 73 Moreover, anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers' organisations (the organisations that struggle against the wage system, which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society) should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or "business agents"; rather, the workers should be able to make all the decisions that affect them themselves. Rudolf Rocker was one of the most popular voices in the anarcho-syndicalist movement. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labour in his 1938 pamphlet Anarcho-Syndicalism.The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries. The Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo played and still plays a major role in the Spanish labour movement. It was also an important force in the Spanish Civil War.

===Post-classical schools of thought===
Lawrence Jarach (left) and John Zerzan (right), two prominent contemporary anarchist authors. Zerzan is known as prominent voice within anarcho-primitivism, while Jarach is a noted advocate of post-left anarchy.
Anarchism continues to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources, and syncretic, combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches. Perlin, Terry M. Contemporary Anarchism. Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ 1979 

Green anarchism (or eco-anarchism) David Pepper (1996). Modern Environmentalism p. 44. Routledge. is a school of thought within anarchism that emphasizes environmental issues, Ian Adams (2001). Political Ideology Today p. 130. Manchester University Press. with an important precedent in anarcho-naturism, "Anarchism and the different Naturist views have always been related.""Anarchism – Nudism, Naturism" by Carlos Ortega at Asociacion para el Desarrollo Naturista de la Comunidad de Madrid. Published on Revista ADN. Winter 2003 EL NATURISMO LIBERTARIO EN LA PENÍNSULA IBÉRICA (1890–1939) by Jose Maria Rosello and whose main contemporary currents are anarcho-primitivism and social ecology.

Anarcha-feminism (also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism) combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by decentralised free association. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the state. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice-versa. L. Susan Brown claims that "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist". Brown, p. 208. Anarcha-feminism began with the late 19th century writings of early feminist anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre.

Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency that rejects violence in the struggle for social change (see non-violence). It developed "mostly in the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States, before and during the Second World War". Christian anarchism is a movement in political theology that combines anarchism and Christianity. Its main proponents included Leo Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, and Jacques Ellul.

Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement based on the organisational theories in the tradition of Dielo Truda's Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). The document was based on the experiences of Russian anarchists in the 1917 October Revolution, which led eventually to the victory of the Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other groups. The Platform attempted to address and explain the anarchist movement's failures during the Russian Revolution.

Synthesis anarchism is a form of anarchism that tries to join anarchists of different tendencies under the principles of anarchism without adjectives. "J.3.2 What are "synthesis" federations?" in An Anarchist FAQ In the 1920s, this form found as its main proponents the anarcho-communists Voline and Sébastien Faure. "The remedy has been found: libertarian communism."[http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Sebastien_Faure__Libertarian_Communism.html Faure. "Libertarian Communism" It is the main principle behind the anarchist federations grouped around the contemporary global International of Anarchist Federations. "Most national sections of the International Anarchist Federation (IFA) are good examples of successful federations which are heavily influenced by "synthesis" ideas (such as the French and Italian federations).""J.3.2 What are "synthesis" federations?" in An Anarchist FAQ 

Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional Left-wing politics. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organisations and morality. [http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/postleft.htm "Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind Prologue to Post-Left Anarchy" by Jason McQuinn Influenced by the work of Max Stirner and by the Marxist Situationist International, post-left anarchy is marked by a focus on social insurrection and a rejection of leftist social organisation. 

Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice, and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes insurrection within anarchist practice. "Some Notes on Insurrectionary Anarchism" from Venomous Butterfly and Willful Disobedience It is critical of formal organisations such as labour unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists advocate informal organisation and small affinity group based organisation. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict, and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies. 

Post-anarchism is a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and poststructuralist thought, drawing from diverse ideas including post-modernism, autonomist marxism, post-left anarchy, Situationist International, and postcolonialism.

Left-wing market anarchism strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of self-ownership and free markets, while maintaining that, taken to their logical conclusions, these ideas support strongly anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical, pro-labor positions and anti-capitalism in economics and anti-imperialism in foreign policy. Writing before the rise of the Carson–Long school of left-libertarianism, historian of American anarchism David DeLeon was disinclined to treat any market-oriented variant of libertarianism as leftist; see DeLeon, David (1978). The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism. Baltimore, MD:Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 123. Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson (eds). Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. Minor Compositions; 1st edition (November 5, 2011 Gary Chartier has joined Kevin Carson, Charles Johnson, and others (echoing the language of Benjamin Tucker and Thomas Hodgskin) in maintaining that, because of its heritage and its emancipatory goals and potential, radical market anarchism should be seen—by its proponents and by others—as part of the socialist tradition, and that market anarchists can and should call themselves "socialists." See Gary Chartier, "Advocates of Freed Markets Should Oppose Capitalism," "Free-Market Anti-Capitalism?" session, annual conference, Association of Private Enterprise Education (Cæsar's Palace, Las Vegas, NV, April 13, 2010); Gary Chartier, "Advocates of Freed Markets Should Embrace 'Anti-Capitalism'"; Gary Chartier, Socialist Ends, Market Means: Five Essays. Cp. Tucker, "Socialism." "But there has always been a market-oriented strand of libertarian socialism that emphasizes voluntary cooperation between producers. And markets, properly understood, have always been about cooperation. As a commenter at Reason magazine’s Hit&Run blog, remarking on Jesse Walker’s link to the Kelly article, put it: “every trade is a cooperative act.” In fact, it’s a fairly common observation among market anarchists that genuinely free markets have the most legitimate claim to the label “socialism.”"."Socialism: A Perfectly Good Word Rehabilitated" by Kevin Carson at website of Center for a Stateless Society 

Anarcho-capitalism advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market. Hamowy, Ronald (editor). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, SAGE, 2008, pp. 10–12, p 195, ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4, ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4 Edward Stringham, Anarchy and the law: the political economy of choice, p 51 Anarcho-capitalism developed from radical anti-state libertarianism and individualist anarchism, Tormey, Simon. Anti-Capitalism, One World, 2004. Perlin, Terry M. Contemporary Anarchism, Transaction Books, NJ 1979. Raico, Ralph. Authentic German Liberalism of the 19th Century, Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherce en Epistemologie Appliquee, Unité associée au CNRS, 2004. Heider, Ulrike. Anarchism:Left, Right, and Green, City Lights, 1994. p. 3. Outhwaite, William. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought, Anarchism entry, p. 21, 2002. Bottomore, Tom. Dictionary of Marxist Thought, Anarchism entry, 1991. Ostergaard, Geofrey. Resisting the Nation State – the anarchist and pacifist tradition, Anarchism As A Tradition of Political Thought. Peace Pledge Union Publications drawing from Austrian School economics, study of law and economics, and public choice theory. Edward Stringham, Anarchy, State, and Public Choice, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2005. There is a strong current within anarchism which does not consider that anarcho-capitalism can be considered a part of the anarchist movement due to the fact that anarchism has historically been an anti-capitalist movement and for definitional reasons which see anarchism incompatible with capitalist forms. "The philosophy of “anarcho-capitalism” dreamed up by the “libertarian” New Right, has nothing to do with Anarchism as known by the Anarchist movement proper."Meltzer, Albert. Anarchism: Arguments For and Against AK Press, (2000) p. 50 "In fact, few anarchists would accept the 'anarcho-capitalists' into the anarchist camp since they do not share a concern for economic equality and social justice, Their self-interested, calculating market men would be incapable of practising voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. Anarcho-capitalists, even if they do reject the State, might therefore best be called right-wing libertarians rather than anarchists." Peter Marshall. Demanding the impossible: A history of anarchism. Harper Perennial. London. 2008. p. 565 "It is important to distinguish between anarchism and certain strands of right-wing libertarianism which at times go by the same name (for example, Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism)."Saul Newman, The Politics of Postanarchism, Edinburgh University Press, 2010, p. 43 ISBN 0748634959 Section F – Is "anarcho"-capitalism a type of anarchism? at An Anarchist FAQ published in physical book form by An Anarchist FAQ as "Volume I"; by AK Press, Oakland/Edinburgh 2008; 558 pages, ISBN 9781902593906 "‘Libertarian’ and ‘libertarianism’ are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for ‘anarchist’ and ‘anarchism’, largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of ‘anarchy’ and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, ‘minimal statism’ and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick and their adoption of the words ‘libertarian’ and ‘libertarianism’. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition." Anarchist seeds beneath the snow: left libertarian thought and british writers from William Morris to Colin Ward by David Goodway. Liverpool University Press. Liverpool. 2006. p. 4 "Within Libertarianism, Rothbard represents a minority perspective that actually argues for the total elimination of the state. However Rothbard’s claim as an anarchist is quickly voided when it is shown that he only wants an end to the public state. In its place he allows countless private states, with each person supplying their own police force, army, and law, or else purchasing these services from capitalist venders...so what remains is shrill anti-statism conjoined to a vacuous freedom in hackneyed defense of capitalism. In sum, the “anarchy” of Libertarianism reduces to a liberal fraud."Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy" by Peter Sabatini in issue #41 (Fall/Winter 1994–95) of 

==Internal issues and debates==

Which forms of violence (if any) are consistent with anarchist values is a controversial subject among anarchists.
Anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies and schools of thought; as such, disagreement over questions of values, ideology and tactics is common. The compatibility of capitalism, "Anarchism." The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 31. nationalism, and religion with anarchism is widely disputed. Similarly, anarchism enjoys complex relationships with ideologies such as Marxism, communism and capitalism. Anarchists may be motivated by humanism, divine authority, enlightened self-interest, veganism or any number of alternative ethical doctrines.

Phenomena such as civilization, technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism and insurrectionary anarchism), and the democratic process may be sharply criticised within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others.

On a tactical level, while propaganda of the deed was a tactic used by anarchists in the 19th century (e.g. the Nihilist movement), some contemporary anarchists espouse alternative direct action methods such as nonviolence, counter-economics and anti-state cryptography to bring about an anarchist society. About the scope of an anarchist society, some anarchists advocate a global one, while others do so by local ones. Ted Honderich, Carmen García Trevijano, Oxford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. The diversity in anarchism has led to widely different use of identical terms among different anarchist traditions, which has led to many definitional concerns in anarchist theory.

==Topics of interest==
Intersecting and overlapping between various schools of thought, certain topics of interest and internal disputes have proven perennial within anarchist theory.

===Free love===

French individualist anarchist Emile Armand (1872–1962), who propounded the virtues of free love in the Parisian anarchist milieu of the early 20th century
An important current within anarchism is free love. Free love advocates sometimes traced their roots back to Josiah Warren and to experimental communities, viewed sexual freedom as a clear, direct expression of an individual's self-ownership. Free love particularly stressed women's rights since most sexual laws discriminated against women: for example, marriage laws and anti-birth control measures. The most important American free love journal was Lucifer the Lightbearer (1883–1907) edited by Moses Harman and Lois Waisbrooker, Joanne E. Passet, "Power through Print: Lois Waisbrooker and Grassroots Feminism," in: Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, James Philip Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 2006; pp. 229–50. but also there existed Ezra Heywood and Angela Heywood's The Word (1872–1890, 1892–1893). Free Society (1895–1897 as The Firebrand; 1897–1904 as Free Society) was a major anarchist newspaper in the United States at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. "Free Society was the principal English-language forum for anarchist ideas in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century." Emma Goldman: Making Speech Free, 1902–1909, p. 551. The publication advocated free love and women's rights, and critiqued "Comstockery" – censorship of sexual information. Also M. E. Lazarus was an important American individualist anarchist who promoted free love. 

In New York City's Greenwich Village, bohemian feminists and socialists advocated self-realisation and pleasure for women (and also men) in the here and now. They encouraged playing with sexual roles and sexuality, Sochen, June. 1972. The New Woman: Feminism in Greenwich Village 1910–1920. New York: Quadrangle. and the openly bisexual radical Edna St. Vincent Millay and the lesbian anarchist Margaret Anderson were prominent among them. Discussion groups organised by the Villagers were frequented by Emma Goldman, among others. Magnus Hirschfeld noted in 1923 that Goldman "has campaigned boldly and steadfastly for individual rights, and especially for those deprived of their rights. Thus it came about that she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public." Katz, Jonathan Ned. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976) In fact, before Goldman, heterosexual anarchist Robert Reitzel (1849–1898) spoke positively of homosexuality from the beginning of the 1890s in his Detroit-based German language journal Der arme Teufel. In Argentina anarcha-feminist Virginia Bolten published the newspaper called (), which was published nine times in Rosario between 8 January 1896 and 1 January 1897, and was revived, briefly, in 1901. 

In Europe the main propagandist of free love within individualist anarchism was Emile Armand. He proposed the concept of la camaraderie amoureuse to speak of free love as the possibility of voluntary sexual encounter between consenting adults. He was also a consistent proponent of polyamory. In Germany the stirnerists Adolf Brand and John Henry Mackay were pioneering campaigners for the acceptance of male bisexuality and homosexuality. Mujeres Libres was an anarchist women's organisation in Spain that aimed to empower working class women. It was founded in 1936 by Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón and had approximately 30,000 members. The organisation was based on the idea of a "double struggle" for women's liberation and social revolution and argued that the two objectives were equally important and should be pursued in parallel. In order to gain mutual support, they created networks of women anarchists. Mujeres Libres – Women anarchists in the Spanish Revolution Lucía Sánchez Saornil was a main founder of the Spanish anarcha-feminist federation Mujeres Libres who was open about her lesbianism. "basta pensar en el lesbianismo de Lucía Sánchez Saornil" She was published in a variety of literary journals where working under a male pen name, she was able to explore lesbian themes "R. Fue una época transgresora, emergió el feminismo y la libertad sexual estuvo en el candelero. Hay rastreos de muchas lesbianas escritoras: Carmen Condeacadémica de número, Victorina Durán, Margarita Xirgu, Ana María Sagi, la periodista Irene Polo, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, fundadora de Mujeres Libresfeminista de CNT... Incluso existía un círculo sáfico en Madrid como lugar de encuentro y tertulia.P. ¿Se declaraban lesbianas?R. Había quien no se escondía mucho, como Polo o Durán, pero lesbiana era un insulto, algo innombrable. Excepto los poemas homosexuales de Sánchez Saornil, sus textos no eran explícitos para poder publicarlos, así que hay que reinterpretarlos.""Tener referentes serios de lesbianas elimina estereotipos" by Juan Fernandez at El Pais at a time when homosexuality was criminalized and subject to censorship and punishment.

More recently, the British anarcho-pacifist Alex Comfort gained notoriety during the sexual revolution for writing the bestseller sex manual The Joy of Sex. The issue of free love has a dedicated treatment in the work of French anarcho-hedonist philosopher Michel Onfray in such works as Théorie du corps amoureux : pour une érotique solaire (2000) and L'invention du plaisir : fragments cyréaniques (2002).

===Libertarian education and freethought===

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, Catalan anarchist pedagogue and free-thinker For English anarchist William Godwin education was "the main means by which change would be achieved." "william godwin and informal education" by infed Godwin saw that the main goal of education should be the promotion of happiness. For Godwin education had to have "A respect for the child's autonomy which precluded any form of coercion," "A pedagogy that respected this and sought to build on the child's own motivation and initiatives," and "A concern about the child's capacity to resist an ideology transmitted through the school." In his Political Justice he criticises state sponsored schooling "on account of its obvious alliance with national government". Early American anarchist Josiah Warren advanced alternative education experiences in the libertarian communities he established. "Where utopian projectors starting with Plato entertained the idea of creating an ideal species through eugenics and education and a set of universally valid institutions inculcating shared identities, Warren wanted to dissolve such identities in a solution of individual self-sovereignty. His educational experiments, for example, possibly under the influence of the Swiss educational theorist Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (via Owen), emphasized – as we would expect – the nurturing of the independence and the conscience of individual children, not the inculcation of pre-conceived values."Introduction of The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren" by Crispin Sartwell Max Stirner wrote in 1842 a long essay on education called The False Principle of our Education. In it Stirner names his educational principle "personalist," explaining that self-understanding consists in hourly self-creation. Education for him is to create "free men, sovereign characters," by which he means "eternal characters ... who are therefore eternal because they form themselves each moment". 

In the United States "freethought was a basically anti-christian, anti-clerical movement, whose purpose was to make the individual politically and spiritually free to decide for himself on religious matters. A number of contributors to Liberty (anarchist publication) were prominent figures in both freethought and anarchism. The individualist anarchist George MacDonald was a co-editor of Freethought and, for a time, The Truth Seeker. E.C. Walker was co-editor of the excellent free-thought / free love journal Lucifer, the Light-Bearer". "Many of the anarchists were ardent freethinkers; reprints from freethought papers such as Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, Freethought and The Truth Seeker appeared in Liberty... The church was viewed as a common ally of the state and as a repressive force in and of itself". 

In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free-thinker Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia established "modern" or progressive schools in Barcelona in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church. The schools' stated goal was to "educate the working class in a rational, secular and non-coercive setting". Fiercely anti-clerical, Ferrer believed in "freedom in education", education free from the authority of church and state. Murray Bookchin wrote: "This period was the heyday of libertarian schools and pedagogical projects in all areas of the country where Anarchists exercised some degree of influence. Perhaps the best-known effort in this field was Francisco Ferrer's Modern School (Escuela Moderna), a project which exercised a considerable influence on Catalan education and on experimental techniques of teaching generally." Chapter 7, Anarchosyndicalism, The New Ferment. In Murray Bookchin, The Spanish anarchists: the heroic years, 1868–1936. AK Press, 1998, p. 115. ISBN 1-873176-04-X La Escuela Moderna, and Ferrer's ideas generally, formed the inspiration for a series of Modern Schools in the United States, Cuba, South America and London. The first of these was started in New York City in 1911. It also inspired the Italian newspaper Università popolare, founded in 1901. Russian christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy established a school for peasant children on his estate. "The Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and Anarchist Resistance" by Matt Hern Tolstoy's educational experiments were short-lived due to harassment by the Tsarist secret police. Tolstoy established a conceptual difference between education and culture. He thought that "Education is the tendency of one man to make another just like himself ... Education is culture under restraint, culture is free. is when the teaching is forced upon the pupil, and when then instruction is exclusive, that is when only those subjects are taught which the educator regards as necessary". For him "without compulsion, education was transformed into culture". 

A more recent libertarian tradition on education is that of unschooling and the free school in which child-led activity replaces pedagogic approaches. Experiments in Germany led to A. S. Neill founding what became Summerhill School in 1921. Summerhill is often cited as an example of anarchism in practice. British anarchists Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer manifested that "A.S. Neill is the modern pioneer of libertarian education and of "hearts not heads in the school". Though he has denied being an anarchist, it would be hard to know how else to describe his philosophy, though he is correct in recognising the difference between revolution in philosophy and pedagogy, and the revolutionary change of society. They are associated but not the same thing." Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer. The Floodgates of Anarchy Andrew Vincent (2010) Modern Political Ideologies, 3rd edition, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell p. 129 However, although Summerhill and other free schools are radically libertarian, they differ in principle from those of Ferrer by not advocating an overtly political class struggle-approach. 
In addition to organising schools according to libertarian principles, anarchists have also questioned the concept of schooling per se. The term deschooling was popularised by Ivan Illich, who argued that the school as an institution is dysfunctional for self-determined learning and serves the creation of a consumer society instead. 

== Criticisms ==

Criticisms of anarchism include moral criticisms and pragmatic criticisms. Anarchism is often evaluated as unfeasible or utopian by its critics. European history professor Carl Landauer, in his book European Socialism argued that social anarchism is unrealistic and that government is a "lesser evil" than a society without "repressive force." He also argued that "ill intentions will cease if repressive force disappears" is an "absurdity." Landauer, Carl. European Socialism: A History of Ideas and Movements (1959) 

==See also==
* Anarchist economics
* Anarchist symbolism
* Libertarianism
* Lists of anarchism topics
* List of anarchist communities
* List of anarchist movements by region
* List of films dealing with Anarchism
* Outline of anarchism
* 

== References ==

==Further reading==
* Barclay, Harold, People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy (2nd ed.), Left Bank Books, 1990 ISBN 1-871082-16-1
* Blumenfeld, Jacob; Bottici, Chiara; Critchley, Simon, eds., The Anarchist Turn, Pluto Press. 19 March 2013. ISBN 9780745333427
* Carter, April, The Political Theory of Anarchism, Harper & Row. 1971. ISBN 978-0-06-136050-3
* Gordon, Uri, Anarchy Alive!, London: Pluto Press, 2007.
* Graham, Robert, ed., .
** Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), Black Rose Books, Montréal and London 2005. ISBN 1-55164-250-6.
** Volume Two: The Anarchist Current (1939–2006), Black Rose Books, Montréal 2007. ISBN 978-1-55164-311-3.
* Guerin, Daniel, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, Monthly Review Press. 1970. ISBN 0-85345-175-3
* Harper, Clifford, Anarchy: A Graphic Guide, (Camden Press, 1987): An overview, updating Woodcock's classic, and illustrated throughout by Harper's woodcut-style artwork.
* McKay, Iain, ed., An Anarchist FAQ.
** Volume I, AK Press, Oakland/Edinburgh 2008; 558 pages, ISBN 978-1-902593-90-6.
** Volume II, AK Press, Oakland/Edinburgh 2012; 550 Pages, ISBN 978-1-84935-122-5
* McLaughlin, Paul, Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism, AshGate. 2007. ISBN 0-7546-6196-2
* Nettlau, Max, Anarchy through the times, Gordon Press. 1979. ISBN 0-8490-1397-6
* 
* Scott, James C., Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780691155296.
* Woodcock, George, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (Penguin Books, 1962). ISBN 0-14-022697-4. .
* Woodcock, George, ed., The Anarchist Reader (Fontana/Collins 1977; ISBN 0-00-634011-3): An anthology of writings from anarchist thinkers and activists including Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Malatesta, Bookchin, Goldman, and many others.
* Woodcock, George, ed., Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, PM Press. 2010. ISBN 1-60486-064-2

==External links==

* "An Anarchist FAQ Webpage" –An Anarchist FAQ
* 
* Anarchism: A Bibliography
* Anarchist Theory FAQ –by Bryan Caplan
* Anarchy Archives – information relating to famous anarchists including their writings (see Anarchy Archives).
* Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia –700+ entries, with short biographies, links and dedicated pages
* KateSharpleyLibrary.net –website of the Kate Sharpley Library, containing many historical documents pertaining to anarchism
* Infoshop.org – an online collection of news and information about anarchism.
* The Anarchist Library large online library with texts from anarchist authors
* They Lie We Die –anarchist virtual library containing 768 books, booklets and texts
*Anarchism Collection at the Library of Congress

 

 



[[Autism]]

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. The diagnostic criteria require that symptoms become apparent before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; how this occurs is not well understood. It is one of three recognized disorders in the autism spectrum (ASDs), the other two being Asperger syndrome, which lacks delays in cognitive development and language, and pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified (commonly abbreviated as PDD-NOS), which is diagnosed when the full set of criteria for autism or Asperger syndrome are not met. 

Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations, or by rare combinations of common genetic variants. In rare cases, autism is strongly associated with agents that cause birth defects. Controversies surround other proposed environmental causes, such as heavy metals, pesticides or childhood vaccines; the vaccine hypotheses are biologically implausible and lack convincing scientific evidence. The prevalence of autism is about 1–2 per 1,000 people worldwide, and it occurs about four times more often in boys than girls. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report 1.5% of children in the United States (one in 68) are diagnosed with ASD , a 30% increase from one in 88 in 2012. The number of people diagnosed with autism has been increasing dramatically since the 1980s, partly due to changes in diagnostic practice and government-subsidized financial incentives for named diagnoses; the question of whether actual prevalence has increased is unresolved. 

Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child's life. The signs usually develop gradually, but some autistic children first develop more normally and then regress. Early behavioral, cognitive, or speech interventions can help autistic children gain self-care, social, and communication skills. Although there is no known cure, there have been reported cases of children who recovered. Not many children with autism live independently after reaching adulthood, though some become successful. An autistic culture has developed, with some individuals seeking a cure and others believing autism should be accepted as a difference and not treated as a disorder. 

==Characteristics==
Autism is a highly variable neurodevelopmental disorder that first appears during infancy or childhood, and generally follows a steady course without remission. Overt symptoms gradually begin after the age of six months, become established by age two or three years, and tend to continue through adulthood, although often in more muted form. It is distinguished not by a single symptom, but by a characteristic triad of symptoms: impairments in social interaction; impairments in communication; and restricted interests and repetitive behavior. Other aspects, such as atypical eating, are also common but are not essential for diagnosis. Autism's individual symptoms occur in the general population and appear not to associate highly, without a sharp line separating pathologically severe from common traits. 

===Social development===
Social deficits distinguish autism and the related autism spectrum disorders (ASD; see Classification) from other developmental disorders. People with autism have social impairments and often lack the intuition about others that many people take for granted. Noted autistic Temple Grandin described her inability to understand the social communication of neurotypicals, or people with normal neural development, as leaving her feeling "like an anthropologist on Mars". 

Unusual social development becomes apparent early in childhood. Autistic infants show less attention to social stimuli, smile and look at others less often, and respond less to their own name. Autistic toddlers differ more strikingly from social norms; for example, they have less eye contact and turn taking, and do not have the ability to use simple movements to express themselves, such as the deficiency to point at things. Three- to five-year-old autistic children are less likely to exhibit social understanding, approach others spontaneously, imitate and respond to emotions, communicate nonverbally, and take turns with others. However, they do form attachments to their primary caregivers. Most autistic children display moderately less attachment security than non-autistic children, although this difference disappears in children with higher mental development or less severe ASD. Older children and adults with ASD perform worse on tests of face and emotion recognition. 

Children with high-functioning autism suffer from more intense and frequent loneliness compared to non-autistic peers, despite the common belief that children with autism prefer to be alone. Making and maintaining friendships often proves to be difficult for those with autism. For them, the quality of friendships, not the number of friends, predicts how lonely they feel. Functional friendships, such as those resulting in invitations to parties, may affect the quality of life more deeply. 

There are many anecdotal reports, but few systematic studies, of aggression and violence in individuals with ASD. The limited data suggest that, in children with intellectual disability, autism is associated with aggression, destruction of property, and tantrums. A 2007 study interviewed parents of 67 children with ASD and reported that about two-thirds of the children had periods of severe tantrums and about one-third had a history of aggression, with tantrums significantly more common than in non-autistic children with language impairments. A 2008 Swedish study found that, of individuals aged 15 or older discharged from hospital with a diagnosis of ASD, those who committed violent crimes were significantly more likely to have other psychopathological conditions such as psychosis. 

===Communication===
About a third to a half of individuals with autism do not develop enough natural speech to meet their daily communication needs. Differences in communication may be present from the first year of life, and may include delayed onset of babbling, unusual gestures, diminished responsiveness, and vocal patterns that are not synchronized with the caregiver. In the second and third years, autistic children have less frequent and less diverse babbling, consonants, words, and word combinations; their gestures are less often integrated with words. Autistic children are less likely to make requests or share experiences, and are more likely to simply repeat others' words (echolalia) or reverse pronouns. Joint attention seems to be necessary for functional speech, and deficits in joint attention seem to distinguish infants with ASD: for example, they may look at a pointing hand instead of the pointed-at object, and they consistently fail to point at objects in order to comment on or share an experience. Autistic children may have difficulty with imaginative play and with developing symbols into language. 

In a pair of studies, high-functioning autistic children aged 8–15 performed equally well as, and adults better than, individually matched controls at basic language tasks involving vocabulary and spelling. Both autistic groups performed worse than controls at complex language tasks such as figurative language, comprehension and inference. As people are often sized up initially from their basic language skills, these studies suggest that people speaking to autistic individuals are more likely to overestimate what their audience comprehends. 

===Repetitive behavior===
Autistic individuals display many forms of repetitive or restricted behavior, which the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) categorizes as follows.

A young boy with autism who has arranged his toys in a row
* Stereotypy is repetitive movement, such as hand flapping, head rolling, or body rocking.
* Compulsive behavior is intended and appears to follow rules, such as arranging objects in stacks or lines.
* Sameness is resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or refusing to be interrupted.
* Ritualistic behavior involves an unvarying pattern of daily activities, such as an unchanging menu or a dressing ritual. This is closely associated with sameness and an independent validation has suggested combining the two factors. 
* Restricted behavior is limited in focus, interest, or activity, such as preoccupation with a single television program, toy or game.
* Self-injury includes movements that injure or can injure the person, such as eye-poking, skin-picking, hand-biting and head-banging. A 2007 study reported that self-injury at some point affected about 30% of children with ASD. 
No single repetitive or self-injurious behavior seems to be specific to autism, but only autism appears to have an elevated pattern of occurrence and severity of these behaviors. 

===Other symptoms===
Autistic individuals may have symptoms that are independent of the diagnosis, but that can affect the individual or the family. This paper represents a consensus of representatives from nine professional and four parent organizations in the US. 
An estimated 0.5% to 10% of individuals with ASD show unusual abilities, ranging from splinter skills such as the memorization of trivia to the extraordinarily rare talents of prodigious autistic savants. Many individuals with ASD show superior skills in perception and attention, relative to the general population. 
Sensory abnormalities are found in over 90% of those with autism, and are considered core features by some, although there is no good evidence that sensory symptoms differentiate autism from other developmental disorders. Differences are greater for under-responsivity (for example, walking into things) than for over-responsivity (for example, distress from loud noises) or for sensation seeking (for example, rhythmic movements). 
An estimated 60%–80% of autistic people have motor signs that include poor muscle tone, poor motor planning, and toe walking; deficits in motor coordination are pervasive across ASD and are greater in autism proper. 

Unusual eating behavior occurs in about three-quarters of children with ASD, to the extent that it was formerly a diagnostic indicator. Selectivity is the most common problem, although eating rituals and food refusal also occur; this does not appear to result in malnutrition. Although some children with autism also have gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, there is a lack of published rigorous data to support the theory that autistic children have more or different GI symptoms than usual; studies report conflicting results, and the relationship between GI problems and ASD is unclear. 

Parents of children with ASD have higher levels of stress. Siblings of children with ASD report greater admiration of and less conflict with the affected sibling than siblings of unaffected children and were similar to siblings of children with Down syndrome in these aspects of the sibling relationship. However, they reported lower levels of closeness and intimacy than siblings of children with Down syndrome; siblings of individuals with ASD have greater risk of negative well-being and poorer sibling relationships as adults. 

==Causes==

It has long been presumed that there is a common cause at the genetic, cognitive, and neural levels for autism's characteristic triad of symptoms. However, there is increasing suspicion that autism is instead a complex disorder whose core aspects have distinct causes that often co-occur. 

Deletion (1), duplication (2) and inversion (3) are all chromosome abnormalities that have been implicated in autism. 
Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations with major effects, or by rare multigene interactions of common genetic variants. Complexity arises due to interactions among multiple genes, the environment, and epigenetic factors which do not change DNA but are heritable and influence gene expression. Studies of twins suggest that heritability is 0.7 for autism and as high as 0.9 for ASD, and siblings of those with autism are about 25 times more likely to be autistic than the general population. However, most of the mutations that increase autism risk have not been identified. Typically, autism cannot be traced to a Mendelian (single-gene) mutation or to a single chromosome abnormality, and none of the genetic syndromes associated with ASDs have been shown to selectively cause ASD. Numerous candidate genes have been located, with only small effects attributable to any particular gene. The large number of autistic individuals with unaffected family members may result from copy number variations—spontaneous deletions or duplications in genetic material during meiosis. Hence, a substantial fraction of autism cases may be traceable to genetic causes that are highly heritable but not inherited: that is, the mutation that causes the autism is not present in the parental genome. 

Several lines of evidence point to synaptic dysfunction as a cause of autism. Some rare mutations may lead to autism by disrupting some synaptic pathways, such as those involved with cell adhesion. Gene replacement studies in mice suggest that autistic symptoms are closely related to later developmental steps that depend on activity in synapses and on activity-dependent changes. All known teratogens (agents that cause birth defects) related to the risk of autism appear to act during the first eight weeks from conception, and though this does not exclude the possibility that autism can be initiated or affected later, there is strong evidence that autism arises very early in development. 

Although evidence for other environmental causes is anecdotal and has not been confirmed by reliable studies, extensive searches are underway. Environmental factors that have been claimed to contribute to or exacerbate autism, or may be important in future research, include certain foods, infectious disease, heavy metals, solvents, diesel exhaust, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, vaccines, and prenatal stress, although no links have been found, and some have been completely disproven.

Parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination. This has led to unsupported theories blaming vaccine "overload", a vaccine preservative, or the MMR vaccine for causing autism. The latter theory was supported by a litigation-funded study that has since been shown to have been "an elaborate fraud". Although these theories lack convincing scientific evidence and are biologically implausible, parental concern about a potential vaccine link with autism has led to lower rates of childhood immunizations, outbreaks of previously controlled childhood diseases in some countries, and the preventable deaths of several children. Vaccines and autism:
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

==Mechanism==
Autism's symptoms result from maturation-related changes in various systems of the brain. How autism occurs is not well understood. Its mechanism can be divided into two areas: the pathophysiology of brain structures and processes associated with autism, and the neuropsychological linkages between brain structures and behaviors. The behaviors appear to have multiple pathophysiologies. 

===Pathophysiology===
Autism affects the amygdala, cerebellum, and many other parts of the brain. 
Unlike many other brain disorders, such as Parkinson's, autism does not have a clear unifying mechanism at either the molecular, cellular, or systems level; it is not known whether autism is a few disorders caused by mutations converging on a few common molecular pathways, or is (like intellectual disability) a large set of disorders with diverse mechanisms. Autism appears to result from developmental factors that affect many or all functional brain systems, and to disturb the timing of brain development more than the final product. Neuroanatomical studies and the associations with teratogens strongly suggest that autism's mechanism includes alteration of brain development soon after conception. This anomaly appears to start a cascade of pathological events in the brain that are significantly influenced by environmental factors. Just after birth, the brains of autistic children tend to grow faster than usual, followed by normal or relatively slower growth in childhood. It is not known whether early overgrowth occurs in all autistic children. It seems to be most prominent in brain areas underlying the development of higher cognitive specialization. Hypotheses for the cellular and molecular bases of pathological early overgrowth include the following:
* An excess of neurons that causes local overconnectivity in key brain regions. 
* Disturbed neuronal migration during early gestation. 
* Unbalanced excitatory–inhibitory networks. 
* Abnormal formation of synapses and dendritic spines, for example, by modulation of the neurexin–neuroligin cell-adhesion system, or by poorly regulated synthesis of synaptic proteins. Disrupted synaptic development may also contribute to epilepsy, which may explain why the two conditions are associated. 

Interactions between the immune system and the nervous system begin early during the embryonic stage of life, and successful neurodevelopment depends on a balanced immune response. Aberrant immune activity during critical periods of neurodevelopment is possibly part of the mechanism of some forms of ASD. Although some abnormalities in the immune system have been found in specific subgroups of autistic individuals, it is not known whether these abnormalities are relevant to or secondary to autism's processes. As autoantibodies are found in conditions other than ASD, and are not always present in ASD, the relationship between immune disturbances and autism remains unclear and controversial. 

The relationship of neurochemicals to autism is not well understood; several have been investigated, with the most evidence for the role of serotonin and of genetic differences in its transport. The role of group I metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR) in the pathogenesis of fragile X syndrome, the most common identified genetic cause of autism, has led to interest in the possible implications for future autism research into this pathway. Some data suggests neuronal overgrowth potentially related to an increase in several growth hormones or to impaired regulation of growth factor receptors. Also, some inborn errors of metabolism are associated with autism, but probably account for less than 5% of cases. 

The mirror neuron system (MNS) theory of autism hypothesizes that distortion in the development of the MNS interferes with imitation and leads to autism's core features of social impairment and communication difficulties. The MNS operates when an animal performs an action or observes another animal perform the same action. The MNS may contribute to an individual's understanding of other people by enabling the modeling of their behavior via embodied simulation of their actions, intentions, and emotions. MNS and autism:
* 
* Several studies have tested this hypothesis by demonstrating structural abnormalities in MNS regions of individuals with ASD, delay in the activation in the core circuit for imitation in individuals with Asperger syndrome, and a correlation between reduced MNS activity and severity of the syndrome in children with ASD. However, individuals with autism also have abnormal brain activation in many circuits outside the MNS and the MNS theory does not explain the normal performance of autistic children on imitation tasks that involve a goal or object. 

Autistic individuals tend to use different areas of the brain (yellow) for a movement task compared to a control group (blue). 
ASD-related patterns of low function and aberrant activation in the brain differ depending on whether the brain is doing social or nonsocial tasks. 
In autism there is evidence for reduced functional connectivity of the default network, a large-scale brain network involved in social and emotional processing, with intact connectivity of the task-positive network, used in sustained attention and goal-directed thinking. In people with autism the two networks are not negatively correlated in time, suggesting an imbalance in toggling between the two networks, possibly reflecting a disturbance of self-referential thought. A 2008 brain-imaging study found a specific pattern of signals in the cingulate cortex which differs in individuals with ASD. 

The underconnectivity theory of autism hypothesizes that autism is marked by underfunctioning high-level neural connections and synchronization, along with an excess of low-level processes. Evidence for this theory has been found in functional neuroimaging studies on autistic individuals and by a brainwave study that suggested that adults with ASD have local overconnectivity in the cortex and weak functional connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the cortex. Other evidence suggests the underconnectivity is mainly within each hemisphere of the cortex and that autism is a disorder of the association cortex. 

From studies based on event-related potentials, transient changes to the brain's electrical activity in response to stimuli, there is considerable evidence for differences in autistic individuals with respect to attention, orientiation to auditory and visual stimuli, novelty detection, language and face processing, and information storage; several studies have found a preference for nonsocial stimuli. For example, magnetoencephalography studies have found evidence in autistic children of delayed responses in the brain's processing of auditory signals. 

In the genetic area, relations have been found between autism and schizophrenia based on duplications and deletions of chromosomes; research showed that schizophrenia and autism are significantly more common in combination with 1q21.1 deletion syndrome. Research on autism/schizophrenia relations for chromosome 15 (15q13.3), chromosome 16 (16p13.1) and chromosome 17 (17p12) are inconclusive. 

===Neuropsychology===
Two major categories of cognitive theories have been proposed about the links between autistic brains and behavior.

The first category focuses on deficits in social cognition. Simon Baron-Cohen's empathizing–systemizing theory postulates that autistic individuals can systemize—that is, they can develop internal rules of operation to handle events inside the brain—but are less effective at empathizing by handling events generated by other agents. An extension, the extreme male brain theory, hypothesizes that autism is an extreme case of the male brain, defined psychometrically as individuals in whom systemizing is better than empathizing. These theories are somewhat related to Baron-Cohen's earlier theory of mind approach, which hypothesizes that autistic behavior arises from an inability to ascribe mental states to oneself and others. The theory of mind hypothesis is supported by autistic children's atypical responses to the Sally–Anne test for reasoning about others' motivations, and the mirror neuron system theory of autism described in Pathophysiology maps well to the hypothesis. However, most studies have found no evidence of impairment in autistic individuals' ability to understand other people's basic intentions or goals; instead, data suggests that impairments are found in understanding more complex social emotions or in considering others' viewpoints. 

The second category focuses on nonsocial or general processing: the executive functions such as working memory, planning, inhibition. In his review, Kenworthy states that "the claim of executive dysfunction as a causal factor in autism is controversial", however, "it is clear that executive dysfunction plays a role in the social and cognitive deficits observed in individuals with autism". Tests of core executive processes such as eye movement tasks indicate improvement from late childhood to adolescence, but performance never reaches typical adult levels. A strength of the theory is predicting stereotyped behavior and narrow interests; two weaknesses are that executive function is hard to measure and that executive function deficits have not been found in young autistic children. 

Weak central coherence theory hypothesizes that a limited ability to see the big picture underlies the central disturbance in autism. One strength of this theory is predicting special talents and peaks in performance in autistic people. A related theory—enhanced perceptual functioning—focuses more on the superiority of locally oriented and perceptual operations in autistic individuals. These theories map well from the underconnectivity theory of autism.

Neither category is satisfactory on its own; social cognition theories poorly address autism's rigid and repetitive behaviors, while the nonsocial theories have difficulty explaining social impairment and communication difficulties. A combined theory based on multiple deficits may prove to be more useful. 

==Diagnosis==
Diagnosis is based on behavior, not cause or mechanism. Autism is defined in the DSM-IV-TR as exhibiting at least six symptoms total, including at least two symptoms of qualitative impairment in social interaction, at least one symptom of qualitative impairment in communication, and at least one symptom of restricted and repetitive behavior. Sample symptoms include lack of social or emotional reciprocity, stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language, and persistent preoccupation with parts of objects. Onset must be prior to age three years, with delays or abnormal functioning in either social interaction, language as used in social communication, or symbolic or imaginative play. The disturbance must not be better accounted for by Rett syndrome or childhood disintegrative disorder. ICD-10 uses essentially the same definition. 

Several diagnostic instruments are available. Two are commonly used in autism research: the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) is a semistructured parent interview, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) uses observation and interaction with the child. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) is used widely in clinical environments to assess severity of autism based on observation of children. 

A pediatrician commonly performs a preliminary investigation by taking developmental history and physically examining the child. If warranted, diagnosis and evaluations are conducted with help from ASD specialists, observing and assessing cognitive, communication, family, and other factors using standardized tools, and taking into account any associated medical conditions. A pediatric neuropsychologist is often asked to assess behavior and cognitive skills, both to aid diagnosis and to help recommend educational interventions. A differential diagnosis for ASD at this stage might also consider intellectual disability, hearing impairment, and a specific language impairment such as Landau–Kleffner syndrome. The presence of autism can make it harder to diagnose coexisting psychiatric disorders such as depression. 

Clinical genetics evaluations are often done once ASD is diagnosed, particularly when other symptoms already suggest a genetic cause. Although genetic technology allows clinical geneticists to link an estimated 40% of cases to genetic causes, consensus guidelines in the US and UK are limited to high-resolution chromosome and fragile X testing. A genotype-first model of diagnosis has been proposed, which would routinely assess the genome's copy number variations. As new genetic tests are developed several ethical, legal, and social issues will emerge. Commercial availability of tests may precede adequate understanding of how to use test results, given the complexity of autism's genetics. Metabolic and neuroimaging tests are sometimes helpful, but are not routine. 

ASD can sometimes be diagnosed by age 14 months, although diagnosis becomes increasingly stable over the first three years of life: for example, a one-year-old who meets diagnostic criteria for ASD is less likely than a three-year-old to continue to do so a few years later. In the UK the National Autism Plan for Children recommends at most 30 weeks from first concern to completed diagnosis and assessment, though few cases are handled that quickly in practice. A 2009 US study found the average age of formal ASD diagnosis was 5.7 years, far above recommendations, and that 27% of children remained undiagnosed at age 8 years. Although the symptoms of autism and ASD begin early in childhood, they are sometimes missed; years later, adults may seek diagnoses to help them or their friends and family understand themselves, to help their employers make adjustments, or in some locations to claim disability living allowances or other benefits.

Underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis are problems in marginal cases, and much of the recent increase in the number of reported ASD cases is likely due to changes in diagnostic practices. The increasing popularity of drug treatment options and the expansion of benefits has given providers incentives to diagnose ASD, resulting in some overdiagnosis of children with uncertain symptoms. Conversely, the cost of screening and diagnosis and the challenge of obtaining payment can inhibit or delay diagnosis. It is particularly hard to diagnose autism among the visually impaired, partly because some of its diagnostic criteria depend on vision, and partly because autistic symptoms overlap with those of common blindness syndromes or blindisms. 

===Classification===
Autism is one of the five pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which are characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interactions and communication, and severely restricted interests and highly repetitive behavior. These symptoms do not imply sickness, fragility, or emotional disturbance. 

Of the five PDD forms, Asperger syndrome is closest to autism in signs and likely causes; Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder share several signs with autism, but may have unrelated causes; PDD not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; also called atypical autism) is diagnosed when the criteria are not met for a more specific disorder. Unlike with autism, people with Asperger syndrome have no substantial delay in language development. The terminology of autism can be bewildering, with autism, Asperger syndrome and PDD-NOS often called the autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or sometimes the autistic disorders, whereas autism itself is often called autistic disorder,childhood autism, or infantile autism. In this article, autism refers to the classic autistic disorder; in clinical practice, though, autism, ASD, and PDD are often used interchangeably. ASD, in turn, is a subset of the broader autism phenotype, which describes individuals who may not have ASD but do have autistic-like traits, such as avoiding eye contact. 

The manifestations of autism cover a wide spectrum, ranging from individuals with severe impairments—who may be silent, developmentally disabled, and locked into hand flapping and rocking—to high functioning individuals who may have active but distinctly odd social approaches, narrowly focused interests, and verbose, pedantic communication. Because the behavior spectrum is continuous, boundaries between diagnostic categories are necessarily somewhat arbitrary. Sometimes the syndrome is divided into low-, medium- or high-functioning autism (LFA, MFA, and HFA), based on IQ thresholds, or on how much support the individual requires in daily life; these subdivisions are not standardized and are controversial. Autism can also be divided into syndromal and non-syndromal autism; the syndromal autism is associated with severe or profound intellectual disability or a congenital syndrome with physical symptoms, such as tuberous sclerosis. Although individuals with Asperger syndrome tend to perform better cognitively than those with autism, the extent of the overlap between Asperger syndrome, HFA, and non-syndromal autism is unclear. Validity of ASD subtypes:
* 
* 

Some studies have reported diagnoses of autism in children due to a loss of language or social skills, as opposed to a failure to make progress, typically from 15 to 30 months of age. The validity of this distinction remains controversial; it is possible that regressive autism is a specific subtype, A partial update is in: or that there is a continuum of behaviors between autism with and without regression. 

Research into causes has been hampered by the inability to identify biologically meaningful subgroups within the autistic population and by the traditional boundaries between the disciplines of psychiatry, psychology, neurology and pediatrics. Newer technologies such as fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging can help identify biologically relevant phenotypes (observable traits) that can be viewed on brain scans, to help further neurogenetic studies of autism; one example is lowered activity in the fusiform face area of the brain, which is associated with impaired perception of people versus objects. It has been proposed to classify autism using genetics as well as behavior. 

==Screening==
About half of parents of children with ASD notice their child's unusual behaviors by age 18 months, and about four-fifths notice by age 24 months. According to an article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, failure to meet any of the following milestones "is an absolute indication to proceed with further evaluations. Delay in referral for such testing may delay early diagnosis and treatment and affect the long-term outcome". 
* No babbling by 12 months.
* No gesturing (pointing, waving, etc.) by 12 months.
* No single words by 16 months.
* No two-word (spontaneous, not just echolalic) phrases by 24 months.
* Any loss of any language or social skills, at any age.
US and Japanese practice is to screen all children for ASD at 18 and 24 months, using autism-specific formal screening tests. In contrast, in the UK, children whose families or doctors recognize possible signs of autism are screened. It is not known which approach is more effective. Screening tools include the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), the Early Screening of Autistic Traits Questionnaire, and the First Year Inventory; initial data on M-CHAT and its predecessor CHAT on children aged 18–30 months suggests that it is best used in a clinical setting and that it has low sensitivity (many false-negatives) but good specificity (few false-positives). It may be more accurate to precede these tests with a broadband screener that does not distinguish ASD from other developmental disorders. Screening tools designed for one culture's norms for behaviors like eye contact may be inappropriate for a different culture. Although genetic screening for autism is generally still impractical, it can be considered in some cases, such as children with neurological symptoms and dysmorphic features. 

==Management==

A three-year-old with autism points to fish in an aquarium, as part of an experiment on the effect of intensive shared-attention training on language development. 
The main goals when treating children with autism are to lessen associated deficits and family distress, and to increase quality of life and functional independence. No single treatment is best and treatment is typically tailored to the child's needs. Families and the educational system are the main resources for treatment. Studies of interventions have methodological problems that prevent definitive conclusions about efficacy. Although many psychosocial interventions have some positive evidence, suggesting that some form of treatment is preferable to no treatment, the methodological quality of systematic reviews of these studies has generally been poor, their clinical results are mostly tentative, and there is little evidence for the relative effectiveness of treatment options. Intensive, sustained special education programs and behavior therapy early in life can help children acquire self-care, social, and job skills, and often improve functioning and decrease symptom severity and maladaptive behaviors; claims that intervention by around age three years is crucial are not substantiated. Available approaches include applied behavior analysis (ABA), developmental models, structured teaching, speech and language therapy, social skills therapy, and occupational therapy. There is some evidence that early intensive behavioral intervention, an early intervention model for 20 to 40 hours a week for multiple years, is an effective behavioral treatment for some children with ASD. 

Educational interventions can be effective to varying degrees in most children: intensive ABA treatment has demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing global functioning in preschool children and is well-established for improving intellectual performance of young children. Neuropsychological reports are often poorly communicated to educators, resulting in a gap between what a report recommends and what education is provided. It is not known whether treatment programs for children lead to significant improvements after the children grow up, and the limited research on the effectiveness of adult residential programs shows mixed results. The appropriateness of including children with varying severity of autism spectrum disorders in the general education population is a subject of current debate among educators and researchers. 

Many medications are used to treat ASD symptoms that interfere with integrating a child into home or school when behavioral treatment fails. More than half of US children diagnosed with ASD are prescribed psychoactive drugs or anticonvulsants, with the most common drug classes being antidepressants, stimulants, and antipsychotics. Aside from antipsychotics, Both aripiprazole and risperidone are effective for treating irritability in children with autistic disorders. there is scant reliable research about the effectiveness or safety of drug treatments for adolescents and adults with ASD. Lack of research on drug treatments:
* 
* A person with ASD may respond atypically to medications, the medications can have adverse effects, and no known medication relieves autism's core symptoms of social and communication impairments. Experiments in mice have reversed or reduced some symptoms related to autism by replacing or modulating gene function, suggesting the possibility of targeting therapies to specific rare mutations known to cause autism. 

Although many alternative therapies and interventions are available, few are supported by scientific studies. Lack of support for interventions:
* 
* 
* 
 Treatment approaches have little empirical support in quality-of-life contexts, and many programs focus on success measures that lack predictive validity and real-world relevance. Scientific evidence appears to matter less to service providers than program marketing, training availability, and parent requests. Some alternative treatments may place the child at risk. A 2008 study found that compared to their peers, autistic boys have significantly thinner bones if on casein-free diets; in 2005, botched chelation therapy killed a five-year-old child with autism. 

Treatment is expensive; indirect costs are more so. For someone born in 2000, a US study estimated an average lifetime cost of $ (net present value in dollars, inflation-adjusted from 2003 estimate), with about 10% medical care, 30% extra education and other care, and 60% lost economic productivity. Publicly supported programs are often inadequate or inappropriate for a given child, and unreimbursed out-of-pocket medical or therapy expenses are associated with likelihood of family financial problems; one 2008 US study found a 14% average loss of annual income in families of children with ASD, and a related study found that ASD is associated with higher probability that child care problems will greatly affect parental employment. US states increasingly require private health insurance to cover autism services, shifting costs from publicly funded education programs to privately funded health insurance. After childhood, key treatment issues include residential care, job training and placement, sexuality, social skills, and estate planning. 

==Prognosis==
There is no known cure. Children recover occasionally, so that they lose their diagnosis of ASD; this occurs sometimes after intensive treatment and sometimes not. It is not known how often recovery happens; reported rates in unselected samples of children with ASD have ranged from 3% to 25%. Most autistic children can acquire language by age 5 or younger, though a few have developed communication skills in later years. Most children with autism lack social support, meaningful relationships, future employment opportunities or self-determination. Although core difficulties tend to persist, symptoms often become less severe with age. 

Few high-quality studies address long-term prognosis. Some adults show modest improvement in communication skills, but a few decline; no study has focused on autism after midlife. Acquiring language before age six, having an IQ above 50, and having a marketable skill all predict better outcomes; independent living is unlikely with severe autism. A 2004 British study of 68 adults who were diagnosed before 1980 as autistic children with IQ above 50 found that 12% achieved a high level of independence as adults, 10% had some friends and were generally in work but required some support, 19% had some independence but were generally living at home and needed considerable support and supervision in daily living, 46% needed specialist residential provision from facilities specializing in ASD with a high level of support and very limited autonomy, and 12% needed high-level hospital care. A 2005 Swedish study of 78 adults that did not exclude low IQ found worse prognosis; for example, only 4% achieved independence. A 2008 Canadian study of 48 young adults diagnosed with ASD as preschoolers found outcomes ranging through poor (46%), fair (32%), good (17%), and very good (4%); 56% of these young adults had been employed at some point during their lives, mostly in volunteer, sheltered or part-time work. Changes in diagnostic practice and increased availability of effective early intervention make it unclear whether these findings can be generalized to recently diagnosed children. 

==Epidemiology==

Reports of autism cases per 1,000 children grew dramatically in the US from 1996 to 2007. It is unknown how much, if any, growth came from changes in autism's prevalence.

Most recent reviews tend to estimate a prevalence of 1–2 per 1,000 for autism and close to 6 per 1,000 for ASD, and 11 per 1,000 children in the United States for ASD as of 2008; because of inadequate data, these numbers may underestimate ASD's true prevalence. PDD-NOS's prevalence has been estimated at 3.7 per 1,000, Asperger syndrome at roughly 0.6 per 1,000, and childhood disintegrative disorder at 0.02 per 1,000. The number of reported cases of autism increased dramatically in the 1990s and early 2000s. This increase is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices, referral patterns, availability of services, age at diagnosis, and public awareness, though unidentified environmental risk factors cannot be ruled out. The available evidence does not rule out the possibility that autism's true prevalence has increased; a real increase would suggest directing more attention and funding toward changing environmental factors instead of continuing to focus on genetics. 

Boys are at higher risk for ASD than girls. The sex ratio averages 4.3:1 and is greatly modified by cognitive impairment: it may be close to 2:1 with intellectual disability and more than 5.5:1 without. Several theories about the higher prevalence in males have been investigated, but the cause of the difference is unconfirmed. Although the evidence does not implicate any single pregnancy-related risk factor as a cause of autism, the risk of autism is associated with advanced age in either parent, and with diabetes, bleeding, and use of psychiatric drugs in the mother during pregnancy. The risk is greater with older fathers than with older mothers; two potential explanations are the known increase in mutation burden in older sperm, and the hypothesis that men marry later if they carry genetic liability and show some signs of autism. Most professionals believe that race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background do not affect the occurrence of autism. 

Several other conditions are common in children with autism. They include:
* Genetic disorders. About 10–15% of autism cases have an identifiable Mendelian (single-gene) condition, chromosome abnormality, or other genetic syndrome, and ASD is associated with several genetic disorders. 
* Intellectual disability. The percentage of autistic individuals who also meet criteria for intellectual disability has been reported as anywhere from 25% to 70%, a wide variation illustrating the difficulty of assessing autistic intelligence. In comparison, for PDD-NOS the association with intellectual disability is much weaker, and by definition, the diagnosis of Asperger's excludes intellectual disability. 
* Anxiety disorders are common among children with ASD; there are no firm data, but studies have reported prevalences ranging from 11% to 84%. Many anxiety disorders have symptoms that are better explained by ASD itself, or are hard to distinguish from ASD's symptoms. 
* Epilepsy, with variations in risk of epilepsy due to age, cognitive level, and type of language disorder. 
* Several metabolic defects, such as phenylketonuria, are associated with autistic symptoms. 
* Minor physical anomalies are significantly increased in the autistic population. 
* Preempted diagnoses. Although the DSM-IV rules out concurrent diagnosis of many other conditions along with autism, the full criteria for Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome, and other of these conditions are often present and these comorbid diagnoses are increasingly accepted. 
* Sleep problems affect about two-thirds of individuals with ASD at some point in childhood. These most commonly include symptoms of insomnia such as difficulty in falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, and early morning awakenings. Sleep problems are associated with difficult behaviors and family stress, and are often a focus of clinical attention over and above the primary ASD diagnosis. 

==History==

Leo Kanner introduced the label early infantile autism in 1943.
A few examples of autistic symptoms and treatments were described long before autism was named. The Table Talk of Martin Luther, compiled by his notetaker, Mathesius, contains the story of a 12-year-old boy who may have been severely autistic. Luther reportedly thought the boy was a soulless mass of flesh possessed by the devil, and suggested that he be suffocated, although a later critic has cast doubt on the veracity of this report. The earliest well-documented case of autism is that of Hugh Blair of Borgue, as detailed in a 1747 court case in which his brother successfully petitioned to annul Blair's marriage to gain Blair's inheritance. The Wild Boy of Aveyron, a feral child caught in 1798, showed several signs of autism; the medical student Jean Itard treated him with a behavioral program designed to help him form social attachments and to induce speech via imitation. 

The New Latin word autismus (English translation autism) was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1910 as he was defining symptoms of schizophrenia. He derived it from the Greek word autós (αὐτός, meaning "self"), and used it to mean morbid self-admiration, referring to "autistic withdrawal of the patient to his fantasies, against which any influence from outside becomes an intolerable disturbance". The quote is a translation of Bleuler's 1910 original. 

The word autism first took its modern sense in 1938 when Hans Asperger of the Vienna University Hospital adopted Bleuler's terminology autistic psychopaths in a lecture in German about child psychology. Asperger was investigating an ASD now known as Asperger syndrome, though for various reasons it was not widely recognized as a separate diagnosis until 1981. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital first used autism in its modern sense in English when he introduced the label early infantile autism in a 1943 report of 11 children with striking behavioral similarities. Reprinted in Almost all the characteristics described in Kanner's first paper on the subject, notably "autistic aloneness" and "insistence on sameness", are still regarded as typical of the autistic spectrum of disorders. It is not known whether Kanner derived the term independently of Asperger. 

Kanner's reuse of autism led to decades of confused terminology like infantile schizophrenia, and child psychiatry's focus on maternal deprivation led to misconceptions of autism as an infant's response to "refrigerator mothers". Starting in the late 1960s autism was established as a separate syndrome by demonstrating that it is lifelong, distinguishing it from intellectual disability and schizophrenia and from other developmental disorders, and demonstrating the benefits of involving parents in active programs of therapy. As late as the mid-1970s there was little evidence of a genetic role in autism; now it is thought to be one of the most heritable of all psychiatric conditions. Although the rise of parent organizations and the destigmatization of childhood ASD have deeply affected how we view ASD, parents continue to feel social stigma in situations where their autistic children's behaviors are perceived negatively by others, and many primary care physicians and medical specialists still express some beliefs consistent with outdated autism research. 

The Internet has helped autistic individuals bypass nonverbal cues and emotional sharing that they find so hard to deal with, and has given them a way to form online communities and work remotely. Sociological and cultural aspects of autism have developed: some in the community seek a cure, while others believe that autism is simply another way of being. 

==References==

==External links==

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[[Albedo]]

Percentage of diffusely reflected sunlight in relation to various surface conditions

Albedo (), or reflection coefficient, derived from Latin albedo "whiteness" (or reflected sunlight) in turn from albus "white," is the diffuse reflectivity or reflecting power of a surface. It is the ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it. Its dimensionless nature lets it be expressed as a percentage and is measured on a scale from zero for no reflection of a perfectly black surface to 1 for perfect reflection of a white surface.

Albedo depends on the frequency of the radiation. When quoted unqualified, it usually refers to some appropriate average across the spectrum of visible light. In general, the albedo depends on the directional distribution of incident radiation, except for Lambertian surfaces, which scatter radiation in all directions according to a cosine function and therefore have an albedo that is independent of the incident distribution. In practice, a bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) may be required to accurately characterize the scattering properties of a surface, but albedo is very useful as a first approximation.

The albedo is an important concept in climatology, astronomy, and calculating reflectivity of surfaces in LEED sustainable-rating systems for buildings. The average overall albedo of Earth, its planetary albedo, is 30 to 35% because of cloud cover, but widely varies locally across the surface because of different geological and environmental features. Environmental Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., Thompson Gale, 2003, ISBN 0-7876-5486-8 

The term was introduced into optics by Johann Heinrich Lambert in his 1760 work Photometria.

==Terrestrial albedo==

 Sample albedos 
 Surface Typicalalbedo 
 Fresh asphalt 0.04 
 Worn asphalt 0.12 
 Conifer forest(Summer) 0.08, 0.09 to 0.15 
 Deciduous trees 0.15 to 0.18 
 Bare soil 0.17 
 Green grass 0.25 
 Desert sand 0.40 
 New concrete 0.55 
 Ocean ice 0.5–0.7 
 Fresh snow 0.80–0.90 

Albedos of typical materials in visible light range from up to 0.9 for fresh snow to about 0.04 for charcoal, one of the darkest substances. Deeply shadowed cavities can achieve an effective albedo approaching the zero of a black body. When seen from a distance, the ocean surface has a low albedo, as do most forests, whereas desert areas have some of the highest albedos among landforms. Most land areas are in an albedo range of 0.1 to 0.4. The average albedo of the Earth is about 0.3. This is far higher than for the ocean primarily because of the contribution of clouds.

2003–2004 mean annual clear-sky and total-sky albedo
Earth's surface albedo is regularly estimated via Earth observation satellite sensors such as NASA's MODIS instruments on board the Terra and Aqua satellites. As the total amount of reflected radiation cannot be directly measured by satellite, a mathematical model of the BRDF is used to translate a sample set of satellite reflectance measurements into estimates of directional-hemispherical reflectance and bi-hemispherical reflectance (e.g. ).

Earth's average surface temperature due to its albedo and the greenhouse effect is currently about 15 °C. If Earth were frozen entirely (and hence be more reflective) the average temperature of the planet would drop below −40 °C. If only the continental land masses became covered by glaciers, the mean temperature of the planet would drop to about 0 °C. In contrast, if the entire Earth is covered by water—a so-called aquaplanet—the average temperature on the planet would rise to just under 27 °C. 

===White-sky and black-sky albedo===
It has been shown that for many applications involving terrestrial albedo, the albedo at a particular solar zenith angle θ'i can reasonably be approximated by the proportionate sum of two terms: the directional-hemispherical reflectance at that solar zenith angle, , and the bi-hemispherical reflectance, the proportion concerned being defined as the proportion of diffuse illumination .

Albedo can then be given as:

:

Directional-hemispherical reflectance is sometimes referred to as black-sky albedo and bi-hemispherical reflectance as white-sky albedo. These terms are important because they allow the albedo to be calculated for any given illumination conditions from a knowledge of the intrinsic properties of the surface. 

==Astronomical albedo==
The albedos of planets, satellites and asteroids can be used to infer much about their properties. The study of albedos, their dependence on wavelength, lighting angle ("phase angle"), and variation in time comprises a major part of the astronomical field of photometry. For small and far objects that cannot be resolved by telescopes, much of what we know comes from the study of their albedos. For example, the absolute albedo can indicate the surface ice content of outer Solar System objects, the variation of albedo with phase angle gives information about regolith properties, whereas unusually high radar albedo is indicative of high metal content in asteroids.

Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, has one of the highest known albedos of any body in the Solar System, with 99% of EM radiation reflected. Another notable high-albedo body is Eris, with an albedo of 0.96. 

 Many small objects in the outer Solar System and asteroid belt have low albedos down to about 0.05. A typical comet nucleus has an albedo of 0.04. Such a dark surface is thought to be indicative of a primitive and heavily space weathered surface containing some organic compounds.

The overall albedo of the Moon is around 0.12, but it is strongly directional and non-Lambertian, displaying also a strong opposition effect. Although such reflectance properties are different from those of any terrestrial terrains, they are typical of the regolith surfaces of airless Solar System bodies.

Two common albedos that are used in astronomy are the (V-band) geometric albedo (measuring brightness when illumination comes from directly behind the observer) and the Bond albedo (measuring total proportion of electromagnetic energy reflected). Their values can differ significantly, which is a common source of confusion.

In detailed studies, the directional reflectance properties of astronomical bodies are often expressed in terms of the five Hapke parameters which semi-empirically describe the variation of albedo with phase angle, including a characterization of the opposition effect of regolith surfaces.

The correlation between astronomical (geometric) albedo, absolute magnitude and diameter is: 
,

where is the astronomical albedo, is the diameter in kilometers, and is the absolute magnitude.

==Examples of terrestrial albedo effects==

===Illumination===
Although the albedo–temperature effect is best known in colder, whiter regions on Earth, the maximum albedo is actually found in the tropics where year-round illumination is greater. The maximum is additionally in the northern hemisphere, varying between three and twelve degrees north. The minima are found in the subtropical regions of the northern and southern hemispheres, beyond which albedo increases without respect to illumination. 

===Insolation effects ===
The intensity of albedo temperature effects depend on the amount of albedo and the level of local insolation; high albedo areas in the arctic and antarctic regions are cold due to low insolation, where areas such as the Sahara Desert, which also have a relatively high albedo, will be hotter due to high insolation. Tropical and sub-tropical rain forest areas have low albedo, and are much hotter than their temperate forest counterparts, which have lower insolation. Because insolation plays such a big role in the heating and cooling effects of albedo, high insolation areas like the tropics will tend to show a more pronounced fluctuation in local temperature when local albedo changes. 

===Climate and weather===
Albedo affects climate and drives weather. All weather is a result of the uneven heating of Earth caused by different areas of the planet having different albedos. Essentially, for the driving of weather, there are two types of albedo regions on Earth: Land and ocean. Land and ocean regions produce the four basic different types of air masses, depending on latitude and therefore insolation: Warm and dry, which form over tropical and sub-tropical land masses; warm and wet, which form over tropical and sub-tropical oceans; cold and dry which form over temperate, polar and sub-polar land masses; and cold and wet, which form over temperate, polar and sub-polar oceans. Different temperatures between the air masses result in different air pressures, and the masses develop into pressure systems. High pressure systems flow toward lower pressure, driving weather from north to south in the northern hemisphere, and south to north in the lower; however due to the spinning of Earth, the Coriolis effect further complicates flow and creates several weather/climate bands and the jet streams.

===Albedo–temperature feedback===
When an area's albedo changes due to snowfall, a snow–temperature feedback results. A layer of snowfall increases local albedo, reflecting away sunlight, leading to local cooling. In principle, if no outside temperature change affects this area (e.g. a warm air mass), the lowered albedo and lower temperature would maintain the current snow and invite further snowfall, deepening the snow–temperature feedback. However, because local weather is dynamic due to the change of seasons, eventually warm air masses and a more direct angle of sunlight (higher insolation) cause melting. When the melted area reveals surfaces with lower albedo, such as grass or soil, the effect is reversed: the darkening surface lowers albedo, increasing local temperatures, which induces more melting and thus reducing the albedo further, resulting in still more heating.

===Small-scale effects===
Albedo works on a smaller scale, too. In sunlight, dark clothes absorb more heat and light-coloured clothes reflect it better, thus allowing some control over body temperature by exploiting the albedo effect of the colour of external clothing. 

=== Solar photovoltaic effects ===
Albedo can affect the electrical energy output of solar photovoltaic devices (PV). For example, the effects of a spectrally responsive albedo are illustrated by the differences between the spectrally weighted albedo of solar PV technology based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and crystalline silicon (c-Si)-based compared to traditional spectral-integrated albedo predictions. Research showed impacts of over 10%. Rob W. Andrews and Joshua M. Pearce, The effect of spectral albedo on amorphous silicon and crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic device performance, Solar Energy, 91,233–241 (2013). DOI:10.1016/j.solener.2013.01.030 open access More recently, the analysis was extended to the effects of spectral bias due to the specular reflectivity of 22 commonly occurring surface materials (both human-made and natural) and analyzes the albedo effects on the performance of seven PV materials covering three common PV system topologies: industrial (solar farms), commercial flat rooftops and residential pitched-roof applications. M.P. Brennan, A.L. Abramase, R.W. Andrews, J. M. Pearce, Effects of spectral albedo on solar photovoltaic devices, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 124, pp. 111-116,(2014). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2014.01.046. 

===Trees===
Because forests are generally attributed a low albedo, (as the majority of the ultraviolet and visible spectrum is absorbed through photosynthesis), it has been erroneously assumed that removing forests would lead to cooling on the grounds of increased albedo. Through the evapotranspiration of water, trees discharge excess heat from the forest canopy. This water vapour rises resulting in cloud cover which also has a high albedo, thereby further increasing the net global cooling effect attributable to forests.

In seasonally snow-covered zones, winter albedos of treeless areas are 10% to 50% higher than nearby forested areas because snow does not cover the trees as readily. Deciduous trees have an albedo value of about 0.15 to 0.18 whereas coniferous trees have a value of about 0.09 to 0.15. 

Studies by the Hadley Centre have investigated the relative (generally warming) effect of albedo change and (cooling) effect of carbon sequestration on planting forests. They found that new forests in tropical and midlatitude areas tended to cool; new forests in high latitudes (e.g. Siberia) were neutral or perhaps warming. 

===Snow===
Snow albedo is highly variable, ranging from as high as 0.9 for freshly fallen snow, to about 0.4 for melting snow, and as low as 0.2 for dirty snow. Hall, D.K. and Martinec, J. (1985), Remote sensing of ice and snow. Chapman and Hall, New York, 189 pp. Over Antarctica they average a little more than 0.8. If a marginally snow-covered area warms, snow tends to melt, lowering the albedo, and hence leading to more snowmelt because more radiation is being absorbed by the snowpack (the ice-albedo positive feedback). Cryoconite, powdery windblown dust containing soot, sometimes reduces albedo on glaciers and ice sheets. "Changing Greenland - Melt Zone" page 3, of 4, article by Mark Jenkins in National Geographic June 2010, accessed 8 July 2010 
Hence, small errors in albedo can lead to large errors in energy estimates, which is why it is important to measure the albedo of snow-covered areas through remote sensing techniques rather than applying a single value over broad regions.

===Water===
Water reflects light very differently from typical terrestrial materials. The reflectivity of a water surface is calculated using the Fresnel equations (see graph).
Reflectivity of smooth water at 20 °C (refractive index=1.333)
At the scale of the wavelength of light even wavy water is always smooth so the light is reflected in a locally specular manner (not diffusely). The glint of light off water is a commonplace effect of this. At small angles of incident light, waviness results in reduced reflectivity because of the steepness of the reflectivity-vs.-incident-angle curve and a locally increased average incident angle. 

Although the reflectivity of water is very low at low and medium angles of incident light, it becomes very high at high angles of incident light such as those that occur on the illuminated side of Earth near the terminator (early morning, late afternoon, and near the poles). However, as mentioned above, waviness causes an appreciable reduction. Because light specularly reflected from water does not usually reach the viewer, water is usually considered to have a very low albedo in spite of its high reflectivity at high angles of incident light.

Note that white caps on waves look white (and have high albedo) because the water is foamed up, so there are many superimposed bubble surfaces which reflect, adding up their reflectivities. Fresh ‘black’ ice exhibits Fresnel reflection.

===Clouds===
Cloud albedo has substantial influence over atmospheric temperatures. Different types of clouds exhibit different reflectivity, theoretically ranging in albedo from a minimum of near 0 to a maximum approaching 0.8. "On any given day, about half of Earth is covered by clouds, which reflect more sunlight than land and water. Clouds keep Earth cool by reflecting sunlight, but they can also serve as blankets to trap warmth." 

Albedo and climate in some areas are affected by artificial clouds, such as those created by the contrails of heavy commercial airliner traffic. A study following the burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields during Iraqi occupation showed that temperatures under the burning oil fires were as much as 10 °C colder than temperatures several miles away under clear skies. 

===Aerosol effects===
Aerosols (very fine particles/droplets in the atmosphere) have both direct and indirect effects on Earth's radiative balance. The direct (albedo) effect is generally to cool the planet; the indirect effect (the particles act as cloud condensation nuclei and thereby change cloud properties) is less certain. As per the effects are:

* Aerosol direct effect. Aerosols directly scatter and absorb radiation. The scattering of radiation causes atmospheric cooling, whereas absorption can cause atmospheric warming.
* Aerosol indirect effect. Aerosols modify the properties of clouds through a subset of the aerosol population called cloud condensation nuclei. Increased nuclei concentrations lead to increased cloud droplet number concentrations, which in turn leads to increased cloud albedo, increased light scattering and radiative cooling (first indirect effect), but also leads to reduced precipitation efficiency and increased lifetime of the cloud (second indirect effect).

===Black carbon===
Another albedo-related effect on the climate is from black carbon particles. The size of this effect is difficult to quantify: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the global mean radiative forcing for black carbon aerosols from fossil fuels is +0.2 W m−2, with a range +0.1 to +0.4 W m−2. Black carbon is a bigger cause of the melting of the polar ice cap in the Arctic than carbon dioxide due to its effect on the albedo. James Hansen & Larissa Nazarenko, Soot Climate Forcing Via Snow and Ice Albedos, 101 Proc. of the Nat'l. Acad. of Sci. 423 (13 January 2004) ("The efficacy of this forcing is 2 (i.e. for a given forcing it is twice as effective as CO2 in altering global surface air temperature)"); compare Zender Testimony, supra note 7, at 4 (figure 3); See J. Hansen & L. Nazarenko, supra note 18, at 426. ("The efficacy for changes of Arctic sea ice albedo is >3. In additional runs not shown here, we found that the efficacy of albedo changes in Antarctica is also >3."); See also Flanner, M.G., C.S. Zender, J.T. Randerson, and P.J. Rasch, Present-day climate forcing and response from black carbon in snow, 112 J. GEOPHYS. RES. D11202 (2007) ("The forcing is maximum coincidentally with snowmelt onset, triggering strong snow-albedo feedback in local springtime. Consequently, the "efficacy" of black carbon/snow forcing is more than three times greater than forcing by CO2."). 

===Human activities===
Human activities (e.g. deforestation, farming, and urbanization) change the albedo of various areas around the globe. However, quantification of this effect on the global scale is difficult.

==Other types of albedo==
Single-scattering albedo is used to define scattering of electromagnetic waves on small particles. It depends on properties of the material (refractive index); the size of the particle or particles; and the wavelength of the incoming radiation. Research on computing the albedo of such particles via solution to Maxwell's Equations has been the subject of recent studies in the Tang and Rothberg Groups at the University of Rochester, resulting in at least one thesis on the topic (http://catalog.lib.rochester.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=5014619).

==See also==

* Cool roof
* Solar radiation management
* Global dimming
* Irradiance
* Polar see-saw
* Daisyworld

==References==

==External links==

* Official Website of Albedo Project
* Global Albedo Project (Center for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climate)
* Albedo - Encyclopedia of Earth
* NASA MODIS BRDF/albedo product site
*Surface albedo derived from Meteosat observations
* A discussion of Lunar albedos
* reflectivity of metals (chart)



[[A]]

A (named a , plural aes) is the first letter and vowel in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The upper-case version consists of two more or less vertical lines, joined at the top, and crossed in their middle by a horizontal bar.

==History==
The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also called 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet (which, by consisting entirely of consonants, is an abjad rather than a true alphabet). In turn, the origin of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended.

 Egyptian Cretan Phoenician aleph Semitic Greek Alpha Etruscan A Roman/Cyrillic A Boeotian 800–700 BC Greek Uncial Latin 300 AD Uncial 
 Egyptian hieroglyphic ox head Early Crete version of the letter \"A\" Phoenician aleph Semitic letter \"A\", version 1 Greek alpha, version 1 Etruscan A, version 1 Roman A Boeotian Greek Classical uncial, version 1 Latin 300 AD uncial, version 1 
 Crete \"A\" Phoenician version of the \"A\" Semitic \"A\", version 2 Greek alpha, version 2 Etruscan A, version 2 Latin 4th century BC Boeotioan 800 BC Greek Classical uncial, version 2 Latin 300 AD uncial, version 2 

In 1600 B.C.E., the Phoenician alphabet's letter had a linear form that served as the base for some later forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the Hebrew or Arabic aleph.

 Blackletter ABlackletter A Uncial AUncial A Another Capital AAnother Blackletter A 
 Modern Roman AModern Roman A Modern Italic AModern Italic A Modern Script AModern script A 

When the ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they had no use for the glottal stop—the first phoneme of the Phoenician pronunciation of the letter, and the sound that the letter denoted in Phoenician and other Semitic languages—so they used an adaptation of the sign to represent the vowel , and gave it the similar name of alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions after the Greek Dark Ages, dating to the 8th century BC, the letter rests upon its side, but in the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles the modern capital letter, although many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set.

The Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the Italian Peninsula and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the Etruscan alphabet to write the Latin language, and the resulting letter was preserved in the Latin alphabet used to write many languages, including English.

===Typographic variants===
Typographic variants include a double-storey a and single-storey ɑ.
During Roman times, there were many variations on the letter "A". First was the monumental or lapidary style, which was used when inscribing on stone or other "permanent" mediums. For perishable surfaces, what was used for everyday or utilitarian purposes, a cursive style was used. Due to the "perishable" nature of the surfaces, these examples are not as prevalent as the monumental. This perishable style was called cursive and numerous variations have survived, such as majuscule cursive, minuscule cursive, and semicursive minuscule. There were also variants that were intermediate between the monumental and the cursive. The known variants include the early semi-uncial, the uncial, and the later semi-uncial. 

At the termination of the Roman Empire (5th century AD), several variants of the cursive minuscule appeared through Western Europe. Among these were the semicursive minuscule of Italy, the Merovingian script in France, the Visigothic script in Spain, and the Insular or Anglo-Irish semi-uncial or Anglo-Saxon majuscule, of Great Britain. By the 9th century, the Caroline script, which was very similar to the present-day form, was the principal form used in book-making, before the advent of the printing press. This form was derived through a combining of prior forms. 

15th-century Italy saw the formation of the two variants that are known today. These variants, the Italics and Roman forms, were derived from the Caroline Script version. The Italics form used in most current handwriting consists of a circle and vertical stroke (), called Latin alpha or "script a". This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling the Greek letter tau in the hands of dark-age Irish and English writers. Most printed material uses the Roman form consisting of a small loop with an arc over it (). Both derive from the majuscule (capital) form. In Greek handwriting, it was common to join the left leg and horizontal stroke into a single loop, as demonstrated by the uncial version shown. Many fonts then made the right leg vertical. In some of these, the serif that began the right leg stroke developed into an arc, resulting in the printed form, while in others it was dropped, resulting in the modern handwritten form.

==Use in English==
In English orthography, the letter A currently represents six different vowel sounds: A by itself frequently denotes the near-open front unrounded vowel () as in pad; the open back unrounded vowel () as in father, its original, Latin and Greek, sound; a closer, further fronted sound as in "hare", which developed as the sound progressed from "father" to "ace"; in concert with a later orthographic vowel, the diphthong as in ace and major, due to effects of the Great Vowel Shift; the more rounded form in "water" or its closely related cousin, found in "was". 

The double "a" sequence is not a native English combination; however it occurs in some foreign words such as Aaron and aardvark. 

"A" is the third-most-commonly used letter in English (after "E" and "T"), and the second most common in Spanish and French. In one study, on average, about 3.68% of letters used in English tend to be 'a', while the number is 6.22% in Spanish and 3.95% in French. 

==Use in other languages==
In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, A denotes an open unrounded vowel: , , or . An exception is Saanich, in which A (and Á) stands for a close-mid front unrounded vowel .

==Use in mathematics, logic and science==

In algebra, the letter "A" along with other letters at the beginning of the alphabet is used to represent known quantities, whereas the letters at the end of the alphabet (x,y,z) are used to denote unknown quantities.

In geometry, capital A, B, C etc. are used to denote segments, lines, rays, etc. Also, A is typically used as one of the letters to represent an angle in a triangle. 

In logic, A is used to signify the universal affirmative.

In phonetic and phonemic notation:
*in the International Phonetic Alphabet, is used for the open front unrounded vowel, is used for the open central unrounded vowel and is used for the open back unrounded vowel.
*in X-SAMPA, is used for the open front unrounded vowel and is used for the open back unrounded vowel.

==Other uses==

"A" is often used to denote something or someone of a better or more prestigious quality or status: A-, A or A+, the best grade that can be assigned by teachers for students' schoolwork; "A grade" for clean restaurants; A-list celebrities, etc. Such associations can have a motivating effect, as exposure to the letter A has been found to improve performance, when compared with other letters. 

A is a common symbol of school and basic phonetics in the US, along with B and C.

Finally, the letter A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe, or a small cup size in a brassiere.

==Related letters and other similar characters==
Different glyphs of the lowercase letter A.
* Α α : Greek letter alpha
* А а : Cyrillic letter A
* : Latin letter alpha / script A
* : a turned lowercase letter A, used by the International Phonetic Alphabet for the near-open central vowel
* : a turned capital letter A, used in predicate logic to specify universal quantification ("for all")
* ª : an ordinal indicator
* Æ æ : Latin AE ligature
* Å å : A letter used in various Scandinavian (and other) languages

==Computing codes==

: 1 

==Other representations==

==Notes==

==Footnotes==

==References==
* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

==External links==

* History of the Alphabet
* 



[[Alabama]]

Alabama () is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 23rd-most populous of the 50 United States. At 1300 mi, Alabama has one of the longest navigable inland waterways in the nation. 

From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship, in part because of continued dependence on agriculture. Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, White rural interests dominated the state legislature until the 1960s, while urban interests and African Americans were under-represented. African Americans and poor whites were essentially disfranchised in 1901, a status that continued until after 1965.

Following World War II, Alabama experienced growth as the economy of the state transitioned from one primarily based on agriculture to one with diversified interests. The establishment or expansion of multiple United States Armed Forces installations added to the state economy and helped bridge the gap between an agricultural and industrial economy during the mid-20th century. The state economy in the 21st century is dependent on management, automotive, finance, manufacturing, aerospace, mineral extraction, healthcare, education, retail, and technology. 

Alabama is unofficially nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie" and the Cotton State. The state tree is the Longleaf Pine, and the state flower is the Camellia. The capital of Alabama is Montgomery. The largest city by population is Birmingham, and largest city by total land area is Huntsville. The oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists. 

==Etymology==
One of the entrances to Russell Cave in Jackson County. Charcoal from indigenous camp fires in the cave has been dated as early as 6550 to 6145 BC.
The European-American naming of the Alabama River and state originates from the Alabama people, a Muskogean-speaking tribe whose members lived just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the river. In the Alabama language, the word for an Alabama person is Albaamo (or variously Albaama or Albàamo in different dialects; the plural form is Albaamaha). 

The word Alabama is believed to have come from the related Choctaw language and was adopted by the Alabama tribe as their name. The spelling of the word varies significantly among historical sources. The first usage appears in three accounts of the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540 with Garcilaso de la Vega using Alibamo, while the Knight of Elvas and Rodrigo Ranjel wrote Alibamu and Limamu, respectively, in efforts to transliterate the term. As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, with French maps identifying the river as Rivière des Alibamons. Other spellings of the appellation have included Alibamu, Alabamo, Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, and Allibamou. The use of state names derived from Native American languages is common; an estimated 27 states have names of Native American origin. 

Sources disagree on the meaning of the word. An 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed that it meant "Here We Rest." This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek. Experts in the Muskogean languages have been unable to find any evidence to support such a translation. 

Scholars believe the word comes from the Choctaw alba (meaning "plants" or "weeds") and amo (meaning "to cut", "to trim", or "to gather"). The meaning may have been "clearers of the thicket" or "herb gatherers", referring to clearing land for cultivation or collecting medicinal plants. The state has numerous place names of Native American origin. 

==History==

===Pre-European settlement===
Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before European colonization. Trade with the northeastern tribes via the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period (1000 BC–AD 700) and continued until European contact. 

The Moundville Archaeological Site in Hale County. It was occupied by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture from 1000 AD to 1450 AD.

The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 AD, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. Analysis of artifacts recovered from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars' formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no direct links to Mesoamerican culture, but developed independently. The Ceremonial Complex represents a major component of the religion of the Mississippian peoples; it is one of the primary means by which their religion is understood. 

Among the historical tribes of Native American people living in the area of present-day Alabama at the time of European contact were the Cherokee, an Iroquoian language people; and the Muskogean-speaking Alabama (Alibamu), Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Koasati. While part of the same large language family, the Muskogee tribes developed distinct cultures and languages.

===European settlement===
With exploration in the 16th century, the Spanish were the first Europeans to reach Alabama. The expedition of Hernando de Soto passed through Mabila and other parts of the state in 1540. More than 160 years later, the French founded the first European settlement in the region at Old Mobile in 1702. The city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711. This area was claimed by the French from 1702 to 1763 as part of La Louisiane. 

After the French lost to the British in the Seven Years' War, it became part of British West Florida from 1763 to 1783. After the United States victory in the American Revolutionary War, the territory was divided between the United States and Spain. The latter retained control of this western territory from 1783 until the surrender of the Spanish garrison at Mobile to U.S. forces on April 13, 1813. 

Thomas Bassett, a loyalist to the British monarchy during the Revolutionary era, was one of the earliest White settlers in the state outside Mobile. He settled in the Tombigbee District during the early 1770s. The boundaries of the district were roughly limited to the area within a few miles of the Tombigbee River and included portions of what is today southern Clarke County, northernmost Mobile County, and most of Washington County. 

What is now the counties of Baldwin and Mobile became part of Spanish West Florida in 1783, part of the independent Republic of West Florida in 1810, and was finally added to the Mississippi Territory in 1812. Most of what is now the northern two-thirds of Alabama was known as the Yazoo lands beginning during the British colonial period. It was claimed by the Province of Georgia from 1767 onwards. Following the Revolutionary War, it remained a part of Georgia, although heavily disputed. 

Map showing the formation of the Mississippi and Alabama territories

With the exception of the immediate area around Mobile and the Yazoo lands, what is now the lower one-third Alabama was made part of the Mississippi Territory when it was organized in 1798. The Yazoo lands were added to the territory in 1804, following the Yazoo land scandal. Spain kept a claim on its former Spanish West Florida territory in what would become the coastal counties until the Adams–Onís Treaty officially ceded it to the United States in 1819. 

===19th century===
Prior to the admission of Mississippi as a state on December 10, 1817, the more sparsely settled eastern half of the territory was separated and named the Alabama Territory. The Alabama Territory was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1817. St. Stephens, now abandoned, served as the territorial capital from 1817 to 1819. 

The U.S. Congress selected Huntsville as the site for the first Constitutional Convention of Alabama after it was approved to become the 22nd state. From July 5 to August 2, 1819, delegates met to prepare the new state constitution. Huntsville served as the temporary capital of Alabama from 1819 to 1820, when the seat of state government was moved to Cahaba in Dallas County. 

The main house, built in 1833, at Thornhill in Greene County. It is a former Black Belt plantation.

Cahaba, now a ghost town, was the first permanent state capital from 1820 to 1825. Alabama Fever was already underway when the state was admitted to the Union, with settlers and land speculators pouring into the state to take advantage of fertile land suitable for cotton cultivation. Part of the frontier in the 1820s and 1830s, its constitution provided for universal suffrage for White men. 

Southeastern planters and traders from the Upper South brought slaves with them as the cotton plantations in Alabama expanded. The economy of the central Black Belt (named for its dark, productive soil) was built around large cotton plantations whose owners' wealth grew largely from slave labor. The area also drew many poor, disfranchised people who became subsistence farmers. Alabama had a population estimated at under 10,000 people in 1810, but it had increased to more than 300,000 people by 1830. Most Native American tribes were completely removed from the state within a few years of the passage of the Indian Removal Act by Congress in 1830. 

Ruins of the former capitol building in Tuscaloosa. Designed by William Nichols, it was built from 1827–29 and was destroyed by fire in 1923.
From 1826 to 1846, Tuscaloosa served as the capital of Alabama. On January 30, 1846, the Alabama legislature announced that it had voted to move the capital city from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. The first legislative session in the new capital met in December 1847. A new capitol building was erected under the direction of Stephen Decatur Button of Philadelphia. The first structure burned down in 1849, but was rebuilt on the same site in 1851. This second capitol building in Montgomery remains to the present day. It was designed by Barachias Holt of Exeter, Maine. 

By 1860, the population had increased to a total of 964,201 people, of which nearly half, 435,080 were enslaved African Americans, and 2,690 were free people of color. On January 11, 1861, Alabama declared its secession from the Union. After remaining an independent republic for a few days, it joined the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy's capital was initially located at Montgomery. Alabama was heavily involved in the American Civil War. Although comparatively few battles were fought in the state, Alabama contributed about 120,000 soldiers to the war effort.

Union Army troops occupying Courthouse Square in Huntsville, following its capture and reoccupation by federal forces in 1864.
A company of cavalry soldiers from Huntsville, Alabama joined Nathan Bedford Forrest's battalion in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The company wore new uniforms with yellow trim on the sleeves, collar and coat tails. This led to them being greeted with "Yellowhammer", and the name later was applied to all Alabama troops in the Confederate Army. Official Symbols and Emblems of Alabama, State Bird of Alabama, Yellowhammer. Alabama State Archives 

Alabama's slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment in 1865. Alabama was under military rule from the end of the war in May 1865 until its official restoration to the Union in 1868. From 1867 to 1874, with most White citizens barred temporarily from voting, many African Americans emerged as political leaders in the state. Alabama was represented in Congress during this period by three African-American congressmen: Jeremiah Haralson, Benjamin S. Turner, and James T. Rapier. 

Following the war, the state remained chiefly agricultural, with an economy tied to cotton. During Reconstruction, state legislators ratified a new state constitution in 1868 that created the state's first public school system and expanded women's rights. Legislators funded numerous public road and railroad projects, although these were plagued with allegations of fraud and misappropriation. Organized insurgent, resistance groups tried to suppress the freedmen and Republicans. Besides the short-lived original Ku Klux Klan, these included the Pale Faces, Knights of the White Camellia, Red Shirts, and the White League. 

Reconstruction in Alabama ended in 1874, when the Democrats regained control of the legislature and governor's office. They wrote another constitution in 1875, and the legislature passed the Blaine Amendment, prohibiting public money from being used to finance religious-affiliated schools. The same year, legislation was approved that called for racially segregated schools. Railroad passenger cars were segregated in 1891. Alabama passed more Jim Crow laws at the beginning of the 20th century to further encourage segregation in everyday life.

===20th century===
The developing skyline of Birmingham in 1915
The new 1901 Constitution of Alabama included electoral laws that effectively disfranchised African Americans, Native Americans, and most poor Whites through voting restrictions, including poll taxes and literacy test requirements. J. Morgan Kousser.The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974 While the planter class had persuaded poor Whites to support these legislative efforts, the new restrictions resulted in their disfranchisement as well, due mostly to the imposition of a cumulative poll tax. 

In 1900, Alabama had more than 181,000 African Americans eligible to vote. By 1903, only 2,980 were qualified to register, although at least 74,000 African-American voters were literate. By 1941, more White Alabamians than African-American residents had been disfranchised: a total of 600,000 Whites to 520,000 African Americans. Glenn Feldman. The Disfranchisement Myth: Poor Whites and Suffrage Restriction in Alabama. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004, p. 136. Nearly all African Americans had lost the ability to vote, a situation that persisted until after passage of federal civil rights legislation in the 1965 to enforce their constitutional rights as citizens.

The 1901 constitution reiterated that schools be racially segregated. It also restated that interracial marriage was illegal, although such marriages had been made illegal in 1867. Further racial segregation laws were passed related to public facilities into the 1950s: jails were segregated in 1911; hospitals in 1915; toilets, hotels, and restaurants in 1928; and bus stop waiting rooms in 1945. 

The rural-dominated Alabama legislature consistently underfunded schools and services for the disfranchised African Americans, but it did not relieve them of paying taxes. Partially as a response to chronic underfunding of education for African Americans in the South, the Rosenwald Fund began funding the construction of what came to be known as Rosenwald Schools. In Alabama these schools were designed and the construction partially financed with Rosenwald funds, which paid one-third of the construction costs. The local community and state raised matching funds to pay the rest. Black residents effectively taxed themselves twice, by raising additional monies to supply matching funds for such schools, which were built in many rural areas. 

The former Mount Sinai School in rural Autauga County, completed in 1919. It was one of the 387 Rosenwald Schools built in the state.

Beginning in 1913, the first 80 Rosenwald Schools were built in Alabama for African-American children. A total of 387 schools, seven teacher's houses, and several vocational buildings had been completed in the state by 1937. Several of the surviving school buildings in the state are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Continued racial discrimination, agricultural depression, and the failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation led tens of thousands of African Americans to seek opportunities in northern cities. They left Alabama in the early 20th century as part of the Great Migration to industrial jobs and better futures in northern and midwestern industrial cities. Reflecting this emigration, the population growth rate in Alabama (see "Historical Populations" table below) dropped by nearly half from 1910 to 1920.

At the same time, many rural people, both White and African American, moved to the city of Birmingham to work in new industrial jobs. Birmingham experienced such rapid growth that it was called "The Magic City". By the 1920s, Birmingham was the 19th-largest city in the United States and had more than 30% of the Alabama's population. Heavy industry and mining were the basis of its economy. Its residents were under-represented for decades in the state legislature, which refused to redistrict to recognize demographic changes, such as urbanization.

Industrial development related to the demands of World War II brought a level of prosperity to the state not seen since before the Civil War. Rural workers poured into the largest cities in the state for better jobs and a higher standard of living. One example of this massive influx of workers can be shown by what happened in Mobile. Between 1940 and 1943, more than 89,000 people moved into the city to work for war effort industries. Thomason, Michael. Mobile : the new history of Alabama's first city, pages 213–217. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8173-1065-7 Cotton and other cash crops faded in importance as the state developed a manufacturing and service base.

Despite massive population changes in the state from 1901 to 1961, the rural-dominated legislature refused to reapportion House and Senate seats based on population. They held on to old representation to maintain political and economic power in agricultural areas. In addition, the state legislature gerrymandered the few Birmingham legislative seats to ensure election by persons living outside Birmingham.

The third Selma to Montgomery march, one of the seminal events of the civil rights movement in Alabama.
One result was that Jefferson County, containing Birmingham's industrial and economic powerhouse, contributed more than one-third of all tax revenue to the state, but did not receive a proportional amount in services. Urban interests were consistently underrepresented in the legislature. A 1960 study noted that because of rural domination, "a minority of about 25 per cent of the total state population is in majority control of the Alabama legislature." 

African Americans were presumed partial to Republicans for historical reasons, but they were disfranchised. White Alabamans felt bitter towards the Republican Party in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction. These factors created a longstanding tradition that any candidate who wanted to be viable with White voters had to run as a Democrat regardless of political beliefs.

Although efforts had already started decades earlier, African Americans began to press to end disfranchisement and segregation in the state during the 1950s and 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that public schools had to be desegregated, but Alabama was slow to comply. The civil rights movement raised national awareness of the issues, leading to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 by the U.S. Congress. During the 1960s, under Governor George Wallace, Alabama attempted, but failed to resist compliance with federal demands for desegregation.

During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans achieved enforcement of voting and other civil constitutional rights through the passage of the national Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Legal segregation ended in the states as Jim Crow laws were invalidated or repealed. 

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, cases were filed in Federal courts to force Alabama to redistrict by population both the House and Senate of the state legislature. In 1972, for the first time since 1901, the legislature implemented the Alabama constitution's provision for periodic redistricting based on population. This benefited the urban areas that had developed, as well as all in the population who had been underrepresented for more than 60 years. 

==Geography==
A general map of Alabama

Alabama is the thirtieth-largest state in the United States with 52419 sqmi of total area: 3.2% of the area is water, making Alabama 23rd in the amount of surface water, also giving it the second-largest inland waterway system in the U.S. About three-fifths of the land area is a gentle plain with a general descent towards the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The North Alabama region is mostly mountainous, with the Tennessee River cutting a large valley and creating numerous creeks, streams, rivers, mountains, and lakes. 

Alabama is bordered by the states of Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama has coastline at the Gulf of Mexico, in the extreme southern edge of the state. The state ranges in elevation from sea level at Mobile Bay to over 1,800 feet (550 m) in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast.

The highest point is Mount Cheaha, at a height of 2413 ft. Alabama's land consists of 22 e6acre of forest or 67% of total land area. Alabama Forest Owner's Guide to Information Resources, Introduction, Alabamaforests.org Suburban Baldwin County, along the Gulf Coast, is the largest county in the state in both land area and water area. 

Areas in Alabama administered by the National Park Service include Horseshoe Bend National Military Park near Alexander City; Little River Canyon National Preserve near Fort Payne; Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport; Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee; and Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site near Tuskegee. 

Additionally, Alabama has four National Forests: Conecuh, Talladega, Tuskegee, and William B. Bankhead. Alabama also contains the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail, and the Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail. A notable natural wonder in Alabama is "Natural Bridge" rock, the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies, located just south of Haleyville.

A 5 mi-wide meteorite impact crater is located in Elmore County, just north of Montgomery. This is the Wetumpka crater, the site of "Alabama's greatest natural disaster." A 1000 ft-wide meteorite hit the area about 80 million years ago. The hills just east of downtown Wetumpka showcase the eroded remains of the impact crater that was blasted into the bedrock, with the area labeled the Wetumpka crater or astrobleme ("star-wound") because of the concentric rings of fractures and zones of shattered rock that can be found beneath the surface. "The Wetumpka Astrobleme" by John C. Hall, Alabama Heritage, Fall 1996, Number 42. In 2002, Christian Koeberl with the Institute of Geochemistry University of Vienna published evidence and established the site as the 157th recognized impact crater on Earth. 

===Climate===

Snowfall outside Birmingham City Hall in February 2010.

The state is classified as humid subtropical (Cfa) under the Koppen Climate Classification. The average annual temperature is 64 °F (18 °C). Temperatures tend to be warmer in the southern part of the state with its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, while the northern parts of the state, especially in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast, tend to be slightly cooler. Generally, Alabama has very hot summers and mild winters with copious precipitation throughout the year. Alabama receives an average of 56 in of rainfall annually and enjoys a lengthy growing season of up to 300 days in the southern part of the state. 

Summers in Alabama are among the hottest in the U.S., with high temperatures averaging over 90 °F throughout the summer in some parts of the state. Alabama is also prone to tropical storms and even hurricanes. Areas of the state far away from the Gulf are not immune to the effects of the storms, which often dump tremendous amounts of rain as they move inland and weaken.

South Alabama reports many thunderstorms. The Gulf Coast, around Mobile Bay, averages between 70 and 80 days per year with thunder reported. This activity decreases somewhat further north in the state, but even the far north of the state reports thunder on about 60 days per year. Occasionally, thunderstorms are severe with frequent lightning and large hail; the central and northern parts of the state are most vulnerable to this type of storm. Alabama ranks ninth in the number of deaths from lightning and tenth in the number of deaths from lightning strikes per capita. Lightning Fatalities, Injuries and Damages in the United States, 2004-2013. NLSI. Retrieved April 26th, 2014. 

Alabama, along with Oklahoma, has the most reported EF5 tornadoes of any state, according to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center for the period January 1, 1950, to June, 2013. LIST: States with the most F5/EF5 tornadoes since 1950; Ohio high on list. Retrieved April 26th, 2014. Several long-tracked F5 tornadoes have contributed to Alabama reporting more tornado fatalities than any other state, even surpassing Texas which has a much larger area within Tornado Alley. The state suffered tremendous damage in the Super Outbreak of April 1974, and the April 25–28, 2011 tornado outbreak. The outbreak in April 2011 produced a record amount of tornadoes in the state. The tally reached 62. 

Tornado damage in Phil Campbell following the statewide April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak.
The peak season for tornadoes varies from the northern to southern parts of the state. Alabama is one of the few places in the world that has a secondary tornado season in November and December, along with the spring severe weather season. The northern part of the state—along the Tennessee Valley—is one of the areas in the U.S. most vulnerable to violent tornadoes. The area of Alabama and Mississippi most affected by tornadoes is sometimes referred to as Dixie Alley, as distinct from the Tornado Alley of the Southern Plains.

Winters are generally mild in Alabama, as they are throughout most of the southeastern U.S., with average January low temperatures around 40 °F in Mobile and around 32 °F in Birmingham. Although snow is a rare event in much of Alabama, areas of the state north of Montgomery may receive a dusting of snow a few times every winter, with an occasional moderately heavy snowfall every few years. Historic snowfall events include New Year's Eve 1963 snowstorm and the 1993 Storm of the Century. The annual average snowfall for the Birmingham area is 2 in per year. In the southern Gulf coast, snowfall is less frequent, sometimes going several years without any snowfall.

Alabama's highest temperature of 112 °F was recorded on September 5, 1925 in the unincorporated community of Centerville. The record low of -27 °F occurred on January 30, 1966 in New Market. 

===Flora and fauna===
A stand of Cahaba lilies (Hymenocallis coronaria) in the Cahaba River, within the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge.

Alabama is home to a diverse array of flora and fauna, due largely to a variety of habitats that range from the Tennessee Valley, Appalachian Plateau, and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the north to the Piedmont, Canebrake and Black Belt of the central region to the Gulf Coastal Plain and beaches along the Gulf of Mexico in the south. The state is usually ranked among the top in nation for its range of overall biodiversity. 

Alabama once boasted huge expanses of pine forest, which still form the largest proportion of forests in the state. It currently ranks fifth in the nation for the diversity of its flora. It is home to nearly 4,000 pteridophyte and spermatophyte plant species. 

Indigenous animal species in the state include 62 mammal species, 93 reptile species, 73 amphibian species, roughly 307 native freshwater fish species, and 420 bird species that spend at least part of their year within the state. Invertebrates include 83 crayfish species and 383 mollusk species. 113 of these mollusk species have never been collected outside the state. 

==Demographics==
Alabama's population density

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Alabama was 4,833,722 on July 1, 2013, which represents an increase of 53,986, or 1.1%, since the 2010 Census. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 121,054 people (that is 502,457 births minus 381,403 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 104,991 people into the state. 

Immigration from outside the U.S. resulted in a net increase of 31,180 people, and migration within the country produced a net gain of 73,811 people. The state had 108,000 foreign-born (2.4% of the state population), of which an estimated 22.2% were illegal immigrants (24,000).

The center of population of Alabama is located in Chilton County, outside the town of Jemison. 

===Race and ancestry===
According to the 2010 Census, Alabama had a population of 4,779,736. The racial composition of the state was 68.5% White (67.0% Non-Hispanic White Alone), 26.2% Black or African American, 3.9% Hispanics or Latinos of any race, 1.1% Asian, 0.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 2.0% from Some Other Race, and 1.5% from Two or More Races. In 2011, 46.6% of Alabama's population younger than age 1 were minorities. 

The largest reported ancestry groups in Alabama are: African American (26.2%), English (23.6%), Irish (7.7%), German (5.7%), and Scots-Irish (2.0%). Those citing "American" ancestry in Alabama are generally of English or British ancestry; many Anglo-Americans identify as having American ancestry because their roots have been in North America for so long, in some cases since the 1600s. Demographers estimate that a minimum of 20–23% of people in Alabama are of predominantly English ancestry and that the figure is likely higher. In the 1980 census, 41% of the people in Alabama identified as being of English ancestry, making them the largest ethnic group at the time. Dominic J. Pulera, Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America. Reynolds Farley, "The New Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell Us?", Demography, Vol. 28, No. 3 (August 1991), pp. 414, 421. Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, "The Use of Nativity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns", Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44–6. Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, "Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82–86. 

 Alabama Racial Breakdown of Population 
 Racial composition 1990 Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, For The United States, Regions, Divisions, and States 2000 Population of Alabama: Census 2010 and 2000 Interactive Map, Demographics, Statistics, Quick Facts 2010 2010 Census Data 
 White 73.6% 71.1% 68.5% 
 Black 25.3% 26.0% 26.2% 
 Asian 0.5% 0.7% 1.1% 
 Native 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 
 Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander - - 0.1% 
 Other race 0.1% 0.6% 2.0% 
 Two or more races - 1.0% 1.5% 

Based on historic migration and settlement patterns in the southern colonies and states, demographers estimated there are more people in Alabama of Scots-Irish origins than self-reported. Many people in Alabama claim Irish ancestry because of the term Scots-Irish but, based on historic immigration and settlement, their ancestors were more likely Protestant Scots-Irish coming from northern Ireland, where they had been for a few generations as part of the English colonization. Census 2000 Map – Top U.S. Ancestries by County The Scots-Irish were the largest non-English immigrant group from the British Isles before the American Revolution, and many settled in the South, later moving into the Deep South as it was developed. David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp.361–368 

In 1984, under the Davis–Strong Act, the state legislature established the Alabama Indian Affairs Commission. "Alabama Indian Affairs Commission", State of Alabama, accessed September 28, 2013 Native American groups within the state had increasingly been demanding recognition as ethnic groups and seeking an end to discrimination. Given the long history of slavery and associated racial segregation, the Native American peoples, who have sometimes been of mixed race, have insisted on having their cultural identification respected. In the past, their self-identification was often overlooked as the state tried to impose a binary breakdown of society into white and black.

The state has officially recognized nine American Indian tribes in the state, descended mostly from the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast. These are: 
* Poarch Band of Creek Indians (who also have federal recognition),
* MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians,
* Star Clan of Muscogee Creeks,
* Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama,
* Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama,
* Cher-O-Creek Intra Tribal Indians,
* Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe,
* Piqua Shawnee Tribe, and
* Ani-Yun-Wiya Nation.

The state government has promoted recognition of Native American contributions to the state, including the designation in 2000 for Columbus Day to be jointly celebrated as American Indian Heritage Day. "American Indian Heritage Day", Alabama Indian Affairs Commission, 2000, accessed 28 September 2013 

===Population centers===
Birmingham, largest city and metropolitan area
Huntsville, second-largest metropolitan area
Mobile, third-largest metropolitan area
Montgomery, fourth-largest metropolitan area
Tuscaloosa, fifth-largest metropolitan area

 Rank Metropolitan Area Population (2012 Census Estimate) Counties 
 1 Birmingham-Hoover 1,136,650 Bibb, Blount, Chilton, Jefferson, St. Clair, Shelby, Walker 
 2 Huntsville 430,734 Limestone, Madison 
 3 Mobile 413,936 Mobile 
 4 Montgomery 377,149 Autauga, Elmore, Lowndes, Montgomery 
 5 Tuscaloosa 233,389 Hale, Pickens, Tuscaloosa 
 6 Decatur 154,233 Lawrence, Morgan 
 7 Dothan 147,620 Geneva, Henry, Houston 
 8 Auburn-Opelika 147,257 Lee 
 9 Florence-Muscle Shoals 146,988 Colbert, Lauderdale 
 10 Anniston-Oxford-Jacksonville 117,296 Calhoun 
 11 Gadsden 104,392 Etowah 
 Total 3,409,644 

Sources: Census.gov 

 Rank City Population (2010 Census) County 
 1 Birmingham 212,237 Jefferson 
 2 Montgomery 205,764 Montgomery 
 3 Mobile 195,111 Mobile 
 4 Huntsville 183,739 Madison Limestone 
 5 Tuscaloosa 93,357 Tuscaloosa 
 6 Hoover 83,412 Jefferson Shelby 
 7 Dothan 65,496 Houston 
 8 Decatur 55,683 Morgan Limestone 
 9 Auburn 53,380 Lee 
 10 Madison 42,938 Madison Limestone 
 11 Florence 39,319 Lauderdale 
 12 Gadsden 36,856 Etowah 
 13 Vestavia Hills 34,033 Jefferson 
 14 Prattville 33,960 Autauga 
 15 Phenix City 32,822 Russell 

Sources: Census.gov http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk 

===Religion===
In the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, 80% of Alabama respondents reported their religion as Christian, 6% as Catholic, and 11% as having no religion. The composition of other traditions is 0.5% Mormon, 0.5% Jewish, 0.5% Muslim, 0.5% Buddhist, and 0.5% Hindu. http://religions.pewforum.org/maps 

====Christianity====

First Baptist Church of Mobile, established in 1835.
Briarwood Presbyterian Church a famous Presbyterian congregation in Alabama
Temple B'Nai Sholom in Huntsville, established in 1876. It is the oldest synagogue building in continuous use in the state.

Alabama is located in the middle of the Bible Belt, a region of numerous Protestant Christians. Alabama has been identified as one of the most religious states in the US, with about 58% of the population attending church regularly. US Church attendance A majority of people in the state identify as Evangelical Protestant. As of 2010, the three largest denominational groups in Alabama are the Southern Baptist Convention, The United Methodist Church, and non-denominational Evangelical Protestant. 

In Alabama, the Southern Baptist Convention has the highest number of adherents with 1,380,121; this is followed by the United Methodist Church with 327,734 adherents, non-denominational Evangelical Protestant with 220,938 adherents, and the Catholic Church with 150,647 adherents. Many Baptist and Methodist congregations became established in the Great Awakening of the early 19th century, when preachers proselytized across the South. The Assemblies of God had almost 60,000 members, the Churches of Christ had nearly 120,000 members. The Presbyterian churches, strongly associated with Scots-Irish immigrants of the 18th century and their descendants, had a combined membership around 75,000 (PCA-28,009 members in 108 congregations, PC(USA)-26,247 members in 147 congregations, www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/s/01/rcms2010_01_state_name_2010.asp the Cumberland Presbyterian Church-6,000 members in 59 congregations, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America-5,000 members and 50 congreagtions plus the EPC and Associate Reformed Presbyterians with 230 members and 9 congregations). 

In a 2007 survey, nearly 70% of respondents could name all four of the Christian Gospels. Of those who indicated a religious preference, 59% said they possessed a "full understanding" of their faith and needed no further learning. In a 2007 poll, 92% of Alabamians reported having at least some confidence in churches in the state. 

====Other faiths====
Although in much smaller numbers, many other religious faiths are represented in the state as well, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, the Bahá'í Faith, and Unitarian Universalism. 

Jews have been present in what is now Alabama since 1763, during the colonial era of Mobile, when Sephardic Jews immigrated from London. The oldest Jewish congregation in the state is Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim in Mobile. It was formally recognized by the state legislature on January 25, 1844. Later immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tended to be Ashkenazy Jews from eastern Europe. Jewish denominations in the state include two Orthodox, four Conservative, ten Reform, and one Humanistic synagogue. 

Muslims have been increasing in Alabama, with 31 mosques built by 2011, many by African-American converts. Islam was a traditional religion in West Africa, from where many slaves were brought to the colonies and the United States during the centuries of the slave trade.

Several Hindu temples and cultural centers in the state have been founded by Indian immigrants and their descendants, the most well-known being the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Birmingham, the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Birmingham in Pelham, the Hindu Cultural Center of North Alabama in Capshaw, and the Hindu Mandir and Cultural Center in Tuscaloosa. 

There are six Dharma centers and organizations for Theravada Buddhists. Most monastic Buddhist temples are concentrated in southern Mobile County, near Bayou La Batre. This area has attracted an influx of refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam during the 1970s and thereafter. The four temples within a ten-mile radius of Bayou La Batre, include Chua Chanh Giac, Wat Buddharaksa, and Wat Lao Phoutthavihan. 

===Health===
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study in 2008 showed that obesity in Alabama was a problem, with most counties having over 29% of adults obese, except for ten which had a rate between 26% and 29%. Residents of the state, along with those in five other states, were least likely in the nation to be physically active during leisure time. Alabama, and the southeastern U.S. in general, has one of the highest incidences of adult onset diabetes in the country, exceeding 10% of adults. 

==Economy==

The state has invested in aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries, including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication. By 2006, crop and animal production in Alabama was valued at $1.5 billion. In contrast to the primarily agricultural economy of the previous century, this was only about 1% of the state's gross domestic product. The number of private farms has declined at a steady rate since the 1960s, as land has been sold to developers, timber companies, and large farming conglomerates. 

Non-agricultural employment in 2008 was 121,800 in management occupations; 71,750 in business and financial operations; 36,790 in computer-related and mathematical occupation; 44,200 in architecture and engineering; 12,410 in life, physical, and social sciences; 32,260 in community and social services; 12,770 in legal occupations; 116,250 in education, training, and library services; 27,840 in art, design and media occupations; 121,110 in healthcare; 44,750 in fire fighting, law enforcement, and security; 154,040 in food preparation and serving; 76,650 in building and grounds cleaning and maintenance; 53,230 in personal care and services; 244,510 in sales; 338,760 in office and administration support; 20,510 in farming, fishing, and forestry; 120,155 in construction and mining, gas, and oil extraction; 106,280 in installation, maintenance, and repair; 224,110 in production; and 167,160 in transportation and material moving. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 2008 total gross state product was $170 billion, or $29,411 per capita. Alabama's 2012 GDP increased 1.2% from the previous year. The single largest increase came in the area of information. full release with tables In 2010, per capita income for the state was $22,984. 

The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.4% in February 2014. This compared to a nationwide seasonally adjusted rate of 6.7%. 

===Largest employers===
The Space Shuttle Enterprise being tested at Marshall Space Flight Center in 1978.
Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama in Montgomery in 2010
Shelby Hall, School of Computing, at the University of South Alabama in Mobile

According to the Birmingham Business Journal, the five employers which employ the most employees in Alabama as of April 2011 were: Aneesa McMillan. "Top of the List: Alabama's largest employers" (April 22, 2011). Birmingham Business Journal. 

 Employer Number of employees 
 Redstone Arsenal 25,373 
 University of Alabama at Birmingham (includes UAB Hospital) 18,750 
 Maxwell Air Force Base 12,280 
 State of Alabama 9,500 
 Mobile County Public School System 8,100 

The next twenty largest, as identified in the Birmingham Business Journal in 2011, included: 

 Employer Location 
 Anniston Army Depot Anniston 
 AT&T Multiple 
 Auburn University Auburn 
 Baptist Medical Center South Montgomery 
 Birmingham City Schools Birmingham 
 City of Birmingham Birmingham 
 DCH Health System Tuscaloosa 
 Huntsville City Schools Huntsville 
 Huntsville Hospital System Huntsville 
 Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama Montgomery 
 Infirmary Health System Mobile 
 Jefferson County Board of Education Birmingham 
 Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville 
 Mercedes-Benz U.S. International Vance 
 Montgomery Public Schools Montgomery 
 Regions Financial Corporation Multiple 
 Boeing Multiple 
 University of Alabama Tuscaloosa 
 University of South Alabama Mobile 
 Walmart Multiple 

===Agriculture===
Alabama's agricultural outputs include poultry and eggs, cattle, fish, plant nursery items, peanuts, cotton, grains such as corn and sorghum, vegetables, milk, soybeans, and peaches. Although known as "The Cotton State", Alabama ranks between eighth and tenth in national cotton production, according to various reports, with Texas, Georgia and Mississippi comprising the top three.

===Industry===
Alabama's industrial outputs include iron and steel products (including cast-iron and steel pipe); paper, lumber, and wood products; mining (mostly coal); plastic products; cars and trucks; and apparel. In addition, Alabama produces aerospace and electronic products, mostly in the Huntsville area, the location of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Materiel Command, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal.

Mercedes-Benz U.S. International in Tuscaloosa County was the first automotive facility to locate within the state.
A great deal of Alabama's economic growth since the 1990s has been due to the state's expanding automotive manufacturing industry. Located in the state are Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, as well as their various suppliers. Since 1993, the automobile industry has generated more than 67,800 new jobs in the state. Alabama currently ranks 4th in the nation for vehicle exports. 

Automakers accounted for approximately a third of the industrial expansion in the state in 2012. The eight models produced at the state's auto factories totaled combined sales of 74,335 vehicles for 2012. The strongest model sales during this period were the Hyundai Elantra compact car, the Mercedes-Benz GL-Class sport utility vehicle and the Honda Ridgeline sport utility truck. 

Airbus Mobile Engineering Center at the Brookley Aeroplex in Mobile
Steel producers Outokumpu, Nucor, SSAB, ThyssenKrupp, and U.S. Steel have facilities in Alabama and employ over 10,000 people. In May 2007, German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp selected Calvert in Mobile County for a 4.65 billion combined stainless and carbon steel processing facility. ThyssenKrupp's stainless steel division, Inoxum, including the stainless portion of the Calvert plant, was sold to Finnish stainless steel company Outokumpu in 2012. The remaining portion of the ThyssenKrupp plant had final bids submitted by ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel for $1.6 billion in March 2013. Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional submitted a combined bid for the mill at Calvert, plus a majority stake in the ThyssenKrupp mill in Brazil, for $3.8 billion. In July 2013, the plant was sold to ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel. http://www.stahl-online.de/index.php/alabama-ende-2014-bei-voller-kapazitaet/ 

The Hunt Refining Company, a subsidiary of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., is based in Tuscaloosa and operates a refinery there. The company also operates terminals in Mobile, Melvin, and Moundville. "Hunt Refining Company." Linkedin. JVC America, Inc. operates an optical disc replication and packaging plant in Tuscaloosa. "Company Overview." JVC America, Inc. 

Construction of an Airbus A320 family aircraft assembly plant in Mobile was formally announced by Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier from the Mobile Convention Center on July 2, 2012. The plans include a $600 million factory at the Brookley Aeroplex for the assembly of the A319, A320 and A321 aircraft. Construction began in 2013, with plans for it to become operable by 2015 and produce up to 50 aircraft per year by 2017. The assembly plant is the company's first factory to be built within the United States. It was announced on February 1, 2013 that Airbus had hired Alabama-based Hoar Construction to oversee construction of the facility. 

===Tourism===
Alabama's beaches are one of the state's major tourist destinations.

An estimated 20 million tourists visit the state each year. Over 100,000 of these are from other countries, including from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. In 2006, 22.3 million tourists spent $8.3 billion providing an estimated 162,000 jobs in the state. Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Tourism Department (ATD) 

===Healthcare===
UAB Hospital is the only Level I trauma center in Alabama. UAB is the largest state government employer in Alabama, with a workforce of about 18,000. UAB - Human Resources 

===Banking===
Regions-Harbert Plaza, Regions Center, and Wells Fargo Tower in Birmingham's financial district.

Alabama has the headquarters of Regions Financial Corporation, BBVA Compass, Superior Bancorp and the former Colonial Bancgroup. Birmingham-based Compass Banchshares was acquired by Spanish-based BBVA in September 2007, although the headquarters of BBVA Compass remains in Birmingham. In November 2006, Regions Financial completed its merger with AmSouth Bancorporation, which was also headquartered in Birmingham. SouthTrust Corporation, another large bank headquartered in Birmingham, was acquired by Wachovia in 2004 for $14.3 billion.

The city still has major operations for Wachovia and its now post-operating bank Wells Fargo, which includes a regional headquarters, an operations center campus and a $400 million data center. Nearly a dozen smaller banks are also headquartered in the Birmingham, such as Superior Bancorp, ServisFirst and New South Federal Savings Bank. Birmingham also serves as the headquarters for several large investment management companies, including Harbert Management Corporation.

===Electronics===
Telecommunications provider AT&T, formerly BellSouth, has a major presence in Alabama with several large offices in Birmingham. The company has over 6,000 employees and more than 1,200 contract employees.

Many commercial technology companies are headquartered in Huntsville, such as the network access company ADTRAN, computer graphics company Intergraph, design and manufacturer of IT infrastructure Avocent, and telecommunications provider Deltacom. Cinram manufactures and distributes 20th Century Fox DVDs and Blu-ray Discs out of their Huntsville plant.

===Construction===
Rust International has grown to include Brasfield & Gorrie, BE&K, Hoar Construction and B.L. Harbert International, which all routinely are included in the Engineering News-Record lists of top design, international construction, and engineering firms. (Rust International was acquired in 2000 by Washington Group International, which was in turn acquired by San-Francisco based URS Corporation in 2007.)

==Law and government==
===State government===
The State Capitol Building in Montgomery, completed in 1851,

The foundational document for Alabama's government is the Alabama Constitution, which was ratified in 1901. At almost 800 amendments and 310,000 words, it is the world's longest constitution and is roughly forty times the length of the U.S. Constitution. There has been a significant movement to rewrite and modernize Alabama's constitution. 

Critics suggest that Alabama's constitution highly centralizes power in Montgomery and leaves practically no power in local hands. Any policy changes proposed around the state must be approved by the entire Alabama legislature and, frequently, by state referendum. One criticism of the current constitution claims that its complexity and length intentionally codify segregation and racism.

The Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery. It houses the Alabama Supreme Court, Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

Alabama's government is divided into three equal branches:
The legislative branch is the Alabama Legislature, a bicameral assembly composed of the Alabama House of Representatives, with 105 members, and the Alabama Senate, with 35 members. The Legislature is responsible for writing, debating, passing, or defeating state legislation. The Republican Party currently holds a majority in both houses of the Legislature. The Legislature has the power to override a gubernatorial veto by a simple majority (most state Legislatures require a two-thirds majority to override a veto).

The executive branch is responsible for the execution and oversight of laws. It is headed by the Governor of Alabama. Other members of executive branch include the cabinet, the Attorney General of Alabama, the Alabama Secretary of State, the Alabama State Treasurer, and the State Auditor of Alabama. The current governor of the state is Republican Robert Bentley. The lieutenant governor is Republican Kay Ivey.

The judicial branch is responsible for interpreting the Constitution and applying the law in state criminal and civil cases. The highest court is the Supreme Court of Alabama. The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court is Republican Roy Moore. All sitting justices on the Alabama Supreme Court are members of the Republican Party.

The members of the Legislature take office immediately after the November elections. The statewide officials, such as the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and other constitutional offices take office in the following January. 

===Taxes===
Alabama levies a 2, 4, or 5 percent personal income tax, depending upon the amount earned and filing status. Taxpayers are allowed to deduct their federal income tax from their Alabama state tax, and can do so even if taking the standard deduction. Taxpayers who file itemized deductions are also allowed to deduct federal Social Security and Medicare taxes.

The state's general sales tax rate is 4%. . taxadmin.org, July 2004, Retrieved December 18, 2013. Sales tax rates for cities and counties are also added to purchases. Sales Tax Brochure. State of Alabama. Retrieved December 18, 2013. For example, the total sales tax rate in Mobile is 10% and there is an additional restaurant tax of 1%, which means that a diner in Mobile would pay an 11% tax on a meal. , sales and excise taxes in Alabama account for 51% of all state and local revenue, compared with an average of about 36% nationwide. Alabama is one of 15 states that levies a tax on food at the same rate as other goods. Alabama's income tax on poor working families is among the highest in the U.S. Alabama is the only state that levies income tax on a family of four with income as low as $4,600, which is barely one-quarter of the federal poverty line. Alabama's threshold is the lowest among the 41 states and the District of Columbia with income taxes. 

The corporate income tax rate is currently 6.5%. The overall federal, state, and local tax burden in Alabama ranks the state as the second least tax-burdened state in the country. Property taxes are the lowest in the U.S. The current state constitution requires a voter referendum to raise property taxes.

Since Alabama's tax structure largely depends on consumer spending, it is subject to high variable budget structure. For example, in 2003 Alabama had an annual budget deficit as high as $670 million.

===Local and county government===

Alabama has 67 counties. Each county has its own elected legislative branch, usually called the county commission, which normally also has executive authority in the county. Because of the restraints placed in the Alabama Constitution, all but seven counties (Jefferson, Lee, Mobile, Madison, Montgomery, Shelby, and Tuscaloosa) in the state have little to no home rule. Instead, most counties in the state must lobby the Local Legislation Committee of the state legislature to get simple local policies such as waste disposal to land use zoning.

On November 9, 2011, Jefferson County declared bankruptcy. News - View Article 

Alabama is an alcoholic beverage control state. The state government holds a monopoly on the sale of alcohol. Some counties and municipalities are "dry", which bans all sales of alcohol in those areas.

 Rank County Population (2010 Census) Seat Largest city 
 1 Jefferson 658,466 Birmingham Birmingham 
 2 Mobile 412,992 Mobile Mobile 
 3 Madison 334,811 Huntsville Huntsville 
 4 Montgomery 229,363 Montgomery Montgomery 
 5 Shelby 195,085 Columbiana Hoover (part) Alabaster 
 6 Tuscaloosa 194,656 Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa 
 7 Baldwin 182,265 Bay Minette Daphne 
 8 Lee 140,247 Opelika Auburn 
 9 Morgan 119,490 Decatur Decatur 
 10 Calhoun 118,572 Anniston Anniston 
 11 Etowah 104,303 Gadsden Gadsden 

===Politics===
Robert J. Bentley, governor since January 17, 2011.
Kay Ivey, lieutenant governor.

During Reconstruction following the American Civil War, Alabama was occupied by federal troops of the Third Military District under General John Pope. In 1874, the political coalition known as the Redeemers took control of the state government from the Republicans, in part by suppressing the African American vote.

After 1890, a coalition of White politicians passed laws to segregate and disenfranchise African American residents, a process completed in provisions of the 1901 constitution. Provisions which disfranchised African Americans also disfranchised poor Whites, however. By 1941 more Whites than African Americans had been disfranchised: 600,000 to 520,000, although the impact was greater on the African-American community, as almost all of its citizens were disfranchised and relegated to separate and unequal treatment under the law.

From 1901 through the 1960s, the state did not redraw election districts as population grew and shifted within the state. The result was a rural minority that dominated state politics until a series of court cases required redistricting in 1972.

Alabama state politics gained nationwide and international attention in the 1950s and 1960s during the American Civil Rights Movement, when racist Whites bureaucratically, and at times, violently resisted protests for electoral and social reform. Democrat George Wallace, the state's only four-term governor, was a controversial figure. Only with the passage of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 did African Americans regain suffrage, among other civil rights.

In 2007, the Alabama Legislature passed, and Republican Governor Bob Riley signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" over slavery and its lingering impact. In a symbolic ceremony, the bill was signed in the Alabama State Capitol, which housed Congress of the Confederate States of America. 

In 2010, Republicans won control of both houses of the legislature for the first time in 136 years.

===Elections===

====State elections====
With the disfranchisement of African Americans, the state became part of the "Solid South", a system in which the Democratic Party became essentially the only political party in every Southern state. For nearly 100 years, local and state elections in Alabama were decided in the Democratic Party primary, with generally only token Republican challengers running in the General Election.

Republicans hold all nine seats on the Alabama Supreme Court and all ten seats on the state appellate courts. Until 1994, no Republicans held any of the court seats. This change also began, likely in part, due to the same perception by voters of Democratic party efforts to disenfranchise voters again in 1994. In that general election, the then-incumbent Chief Justice of Alabama, Ernest C. Hornsby, refused to leave office after losing the election by approximately 3,000 votes to Republican Perry O. Hooper, Sr.. Hornsby sued Alabama and defiantly remained in office for nearly a year before finally giving up the seat after losing in court. This ultimately led to a collapse of support for Democrats at the ballot box in the next three or four election cycles. The Democrats lost the last of the nineteen court seats in August 2011 with the resignation of the last Democrat on the bench.

Republicans hold all seven of the statewide elected executive branch offices. Republicans hold six of the eight elected seats on the Alabama State Board of Education. In 2010, Republicans took large majorities of both chambers of the state legislature giving them control of that body for the first time in 136 years. Democrats hold one of the three seats on the Alabama Public Service Commission. 

Only two Republican Lieutenant Governors have been elected since Reconstruction, one is Kay Ivey, the current Lieutenant Governor.

====Local elections====
Many local offices (County Commissioners, Boards of Education, Tax Assessors, Tax Collectors, etc.) in the state are still held by Democrats. Local elections in most rural counties are generally decided in the Democratic primary and local elections in metropolitan and suburban counties are generally decided in the Republican Primary, although there are exceptions. 

Alabama's 67 County Sheriffs are elected in partisan races and Democrats still retain the majority of those posts. The current split is 42 Democrats, 24 Republicans, and one Independent (Choctaw). However, most of the Democratic sheriffs preside over rural and less populated counties and the majority of Republican sheriffs preside over more urban/suburban and heavily populated counties. Two Alabama counties (Montgomery and Calhoun) with a population of over 100,000 have Democratic sheriffs and five Alabama counties with a population of under 75,000 have Republican sheriffs (Autauga, Coffee, Dale, Coosa, and Blount). As of 2012, the state of Alabama has one female sheriff, in Morgan County, Alabama, and nine African American sheriffs. Alabama Sheriffs Association 

====Federal elections====
The state's two U.S. senators are Jefferson B. Sessions III and Richard C. Shelby, both Republicans. Shelby was originally elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 1986 and re-elected in 1992, but switched parties in November 1994.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the state is represented by seven members, six of whom are Republicans: (Jo Bonner, Mike D. Rogers, Robert Aderholt, Morris J. Brooks, Martha Roby, and Spencer Bachus) and one Democrat: Terri Sewell.

==Education==

===Primary and secondary education===
Vestavia Hills High School in the suburbs of Birmingham

Public primary and secondary education in Alabama is under the overview of the Alabama State Board of Education as well as local oversight by 67 county school boards and 60 city boards of education. Together, 1,496 individual schools provide education for 744,637 elementary and secondary students. 

Public school funding is appropriated through the Alabama Legislature through the Education Trust Fund. In FY 2006–2007, Alabama appropriated $3,775,163,578 for primary and secondary education. That represented an increase of $444,736,387 over the previous fiscal year. In 2007, over 82 percent of schools made adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward student proficiency under the National No Child Left Behind law, using measures determined by the state of Alabama.

While Alabama's public education system has improved in recent decades, it lags behind in achievement compared to other states. According to U.S. Census data, Alabama's high school graduation rate—75%—is the fourth lowest in the U.S. (after Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi). http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf The largest educational gains were among people with some college education but without degrees. Education Statistics. CensusScope.org 

===Colleges and universities===

Harrison Plaza at the University of North Alabama in Florence. The school was chartered as LaGrange College by the Alabama Legislature in 1830.

Alabama's programs of higher education include 14 four-year public universities, two-year community colleges, and 17 private, undergraduate and graduate universities. In the state are three medical schools (University of Alabama School of Medicine, University of South Alabama and Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine), two veterinary colleges (Auburn University and Tuskegee University), a dental school (University of Alabama School of Dentistry), an optometry college (University of Alabama at Birmingham), two pharmacy schools (Auburn University and Samford University), and five law schools (University of Alabama School of Law, Birmingham School of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Miles Law School, and the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law). Public, post-secondary education in Alabama is overseen by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and the Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education. Colleges and universities in Alabama offer degree programs from two-year associate degrees to a multitude of doctoral level programs. 

William J. Samford Hall at Auburn University in Auburn
The largest single campus is the University of Alabama, located in Tuscaloosa, with 33,602 enrolled for fall 2012. University of Alabama sees record student enrollment for 2012. TuscaloosaNews.com (September 12, 2012). Retrieved on July 12, 2013. Troy University was the largest institution in the state in 2010, with an enrollment of 29,689 students across four Alabama campuses (Troy, Dothan, Montgomery, and Phenix City), as well as sixty learning sites in seventeen other states and eleven other countries. The oldest institutions are the public University of North Alabama in Florence and the Catholic Church-affiliated Spring Hill College in Mobile, both founded in 1830. 

Accreditation of academic programs is through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) as well as other subject-focused national and international accreditation agencies such as the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), the Council on Occupational Education (COE), and the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). 

According to the 2011 U.S. News & World Report, Alabama had three universities ranked in the top 100 Public Schools in America (University of Alabama at 31, Auburn University at 36, and University of Alabama at Birmingham at 73). 

According to the 2012 U.S. News & World Report, Alabama had four tier 1 universities (University of Alabama, Auburn University, University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Alabama in Huntsville). National University Rankings | Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges. Colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. Retrieved on July 12, 2013. 

==Sports==
Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile
Von Braun Center in Huntsville
Regions Park in Hoover

===Teams===

Alabama has several professional and semi-professional sports teams, including four minor league baseball teams.

 Club City Sport League Venue 
 Alabama Hammers Huntsville Indoor football Southern Indoor Football League Von Braun Center 
 Birmingham Barons Birmingham Baseball Southern League Regions Field 
 Birmingham Sabers Birmingham Basketball Continental Basketball League Altamont School 
 Dixie Derby Girls Huntsville Roller derby Women's Flat Track Derby Association Von Braun Center 
 Huntsville Havoc Huntsville Ice hockey Southern Professional Hockey League Von Braun Center 
 Huntsville Stars Huntsville Baseball Southern League Joe W. Davis Stadium 
 Mobile BayBears Mobile Baseball Southern League Hank Aaron Stadium 
 Mobile Bay Hurricanes Mobile Basketball American Basketball Association Davidson High School 
 Montgomery Biscuits Montgomery Baseball Southern League Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium 
 Rocket City United Madison Soccer National Premier Soccer League Madison City Schools Stadium 
 Rolling Arsenal of Derby Huntsville Roller derby Women's Flat Track Derby Association Apprentice Skate Odyssey 
 Tennessee Valley Tigers Huntsville Football Independent Women's Football League Milton Frank Stadium 
 Tragic City Rollers Birmingham Roller derby Women's Flat Track Derby Association Zamora Shrine Temple 

===Venues===
Alabama has four of the world's largest stadiums by seating capacity: Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn and Legion Field in Birmingham.

Bryant-Denny Stadium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
The Talladega Superspeedway motorsports complex hosts a series of NASCAR events. It has a seating capacity of 143,000 and is the thirteenth largest stadium in the world and sixth largest stadium in America. Bryant-Denny Stadium serves as the home of the University of Alabama football team and has a seating capacity of 101,821. It is the fifth largest stadium in America and the eighth largest non-racing stadium in the world. Jordan-Hare Stadium is the home field of the Auburn University football team and has a seating capacity of 87,451. It is the twelfth largest college football stadium in America. Legion Field is home for the UAB Blazers football program and the Papajohns.com Bowl. It seats 80,601. 

Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile serves as the home of the NCAA Senior Bowl, GoDaddy.com Bowl, Alabama-Mississippi All Star Classic and home of the University of South Alabama football team. Ladd-Peebles Stadium opened in 1948 and seats 40,646. 

In 2009, Bryant-Denny Stadium and Jordan-Hare Stadium became the homes of the Alabama High School Athletic Association state football championship games, known as the Super Six. Bryant-Denny hosts the Super Six in odd-numbered years, with Jordan-Hare taking the games in even-numbered years. Previously, the Super Six was held at Legion Field in Birmingham. 

==Transportation==
Terminal at the Montgomery Regional Airport in Montgomery.
Interstate 59 (co-signed with Interstate 20) approaching Interstate 65 in downtown Birmingham.
Aerial view of the port of Mobile.

===Aviation===

Major airports with sustained commercial operations in Alabama include Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Dothan Regional Airport (DHN), Mobile Regional Airport (MOB), Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM), and Muscle Shoals – Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL).

===Rail===
For rail transport, Amtrak schedules the Crescent, a daily passenger train, running from New York to New Orleans with stops at Anniston, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa.

===Roads===
Alabama has five major interstate roads that cross the state: Interstate 65 (I-65) travels north–south roughly through the middle of the state; I-20/I-59 travel from the central west Mississippi state line to Birmingham, where I-59 continues to the north-east corner of the state and I-20 continues east towards Atlanta; I-85 originates in Montgomery and travels east-northeast to the Georgia state line, providing a main thoroughfare to Atlanta; and I-10 traverses the southernmost portion of the state, traveling from west to east through Mobile. Another interstate, I-22, is currently under construction. When completed, it will connect Birmingham with Memphis, Tennessee. In addition, there are currently five auxiliary interstate routes in the state: I-165 in Mobile, I-359 in Tuscaloosa, I-459 around Birmingham, I-565 in Decatur and Huntsville, and I-759 in Gadsden. A sixth route, I-685, will be formed when I-85 is rerouted along a new southern bypass of Montgomery. A proposed northern bypass of Birmingham will be designated as I-422. Since a direct connection from I-22 to I-422 will not be possible, I-222 has been proposed, as well.

Several U.S. Highways also pass through the state, such as U.S. Route 11 (US-11), US-29, US-31, US-43, US-45, US-72, US-78, US-80, US-82, US-84, US-90, US-98, US-231, US-278, US-280, US-331, US-411, and US-431.

There are four toll roads in the state: Montgomery Expressway in Montgomery; Tuscaloosa Bypass in Tuscaloosa; Emerald Mountain Expressway in Wetumpka; and Beach Express in Orange Beach.

In April 2011, a study known as the American State Litter Scorecard ranked Alabama fifth (behind Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Nevada) among the "Worst" states for overall poor effectiveness and quality of its statewide public space cleanliness—primarily roadway and adjacent litter removals—from state and related efforts. 

===Ports===
The Port of Mobile, Alabama's only saltwater port, is a large seaport on the Gulf of Mexico with inland waterway access to the Midwest by way of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. The Port of Mobile was ranked 12th by tons of traffic in the United States during 2009. The newly expanded container terminal at the Port of Mobile was ranked as the 25th busiest for container traffic in the nation during 2011. The state's other ports are on rivers with access to the Gulf of Mexico.

Water ports of Alabama, listed from north to south:

+ Port name Location Connected to 
 Port of Florence Florence/Muscle Shoals, on Pickwick Lake Tennessee River 
 Port of Decatur Decatur, on Wheeler Lake Tennessee River 
 Port of Guntersville Guntersville, on Lake Guntersville Tennessee River 
 Port of Birmingham Birmingham, on Black Warrior River Tenn-Tom Waterway 
 Port of Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa, on Black Warrior River Tenn-Tom Waterway 
 Port of Montgomery Montgomery, on Woodruff Lake Alabama River 
 Port of Mobile Mobile, on Mobile Bay Gulf of Mexico 

==See also==

* Outline of Alabama – organized list of topics about Alabama
* Index of Alabama-related articles

==References==

==Further reading==
:For a detailed bibliography, see the History of Alabama.
* Atkins, Leah Rawls, Wayne Flynt, William Warren Rogers, and David Ward. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State (1994)
* Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century (2004)
* Owen Thomas M. History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography 4 vols. 1921.
* Jackson, Harvey H. Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State (2004)
* Mohl, Raymond A. "Latinization in the Heart of Dixie: Hispanics in Late-twentieth-century Alabama" Alabama Review 2002 55(4): 243–274. ISSN 0002-4341
* Peirce, Neal R. The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States (1974). Information on politics and economics 1960–72.
* Williams, Benjamin Buford. A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century 1979.
* WPA. Guide to Alabama (1939)

==External links==

* Alabama.gov – Official State Government Website
* Alabama State Guide, from the Library of Congress
* Alabama Association of Regional Councils
* Energy Data & Statistics for Alabama from the U.S. Department of Energy
* TourAlabama.org – Alabama Department of Tourism and Travel
* All About Alabama, at the Alabama Department of Archives and History
* AlabamaMosaic, a digital repository of materials on Alabama's history, culture, places, and people
* Code of Alabama 1975 – at the Alabama Legislature site
* 
* USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Alabama
* Alabama QuickFacts from the U.S. Census Bureau
* Alabama State Fact Sheet from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
* 

 



[[Achilles]]

Achilles and the Nereid Cymothoe: Attic red-figure kantharos from Volci (Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris)
Head of Achilles depicted on a 4th-century BC coin from Kremaste, Phthia. Reverse: Thetis, wearing chiton and holding shield of Achilles with his AX monogram.

In Greek mythology, Achilles (; , Akhilleus, ) was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. Achilles was said to be a demigod; his mother was the nymph Thetis, and his father, Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons.

Achilles’ most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with a poem by Statius in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Because of his death from a small wound in the heel, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a person's point of weakness.

== Etymology ==
Achilles' name can be analyzed as a combination of (akhos) "grief" and (Laos) "a people, tribe, nation, etc." In other words, Achilles is an embodiment of the grief of the people, grief being a theme raised numerous times in the Iliad (frequently by Achilles). Achilles' role as the hero of grief forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of Achilles as the hero of kleos (glory, usually glory in war).

Laos has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean a corps of soldiers, a muster. With this derivation, the name would have a double meaning in the poem: When the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring grief to the enemy, but when wrongly, his men get the grief of war. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership.

The name Achilleus was a common and attested name among the Greeks soon after the 7th century BC. Epigraphical database gives 476 matches for Ἀχιλ-.The earliest ones: Corinth 7th c. BC,Delphi 530 BC, Attica and Elis 5th c. BC. It was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία (Achilleía) attested in Attica in the 4th century BC (IG II² 1617) and, in the form Achillia, on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".

== Birth ==
Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (ca. 1625), Peter Paul Rubens

Achilles was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons. Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for the hand of Thetis until Prometheus, the fore-thinker, warned Zeus of a prophecy that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 755–768; Pindar, Nemean 5.34–37, Isthmian 8.26–47; Poeticon astronomicon (ii.15) 

There is a tale which offers an alternative version of these events: in Argonautica (iv.760) Zeus' sister and wife Hera alludes to Thetis' chaste resistance to the advances of Zeus, that Thetis was so loyal to Hera's marriage bond that she coolly rejected him. Thetis, although a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was also brought up by Hera, further explaining her resistance to the advances of Zeus.

The Education of Achilles (ca. 1772), by James Barry

According to the Achilleid, written by Statius in the 1st century AD, and to no surviving previous sources, when Achilles was born Thetis tried to make him immortal, by dipping him in the river Styx. However, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him, his heel (see Achilles heel, Achilles' tendon). It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier. In another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire, to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.869–879. 

However, none of the sources before Statius makes any reference to this general invulnerability. To the contrary, in the Iliad Homer mentions Achilles being wounded: in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelagon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander. He cast two spears at once, one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood".

Also, in the fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle in which we can find description of the hero's death, Cypria (unknown author), Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus, Little Iliad by Lesche of Mytilene, Iliou persis by Arctinus of Miletus, there is no trace of any reference to his general invulnerability or his famous weakness (heel); in the later vase paintings presenting Achilles' death, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his body.

Peleus entrusted Achilles to Chiron the Centaur, on Mt. Pelion, to be reared. Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fr. 204.87–89 MW; Iliad 11.830-32 

== Achilles in the Trojan War ==
The Rage of Achilles, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

The first two lines of the Iliad read:
:
:

:Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
:the accursed rage that brought great suffering to the Achaeans.

Achilles' consuming rage is at times wavering, but at other times he cannot be cooled. The humanization of Achilles by the events of the war is an important theme of the narrative.

According to the Iliad, Achilles arrived at Troy with 50 ships, each carrying 50 Myrmidons (Book 2). He appointed five leaders (each leader commanding 500 Myrmidons): Menesthius, Eudorus, Peisander, Phoenix and Alcimedon (Book 16).

=== Telephus ===
When the Greeks left for the Trojan War, they accidentally stopped in Mysia, ruled by King Telephus. In the resulting battle, Achilles gave Telephus a wound that would not heal; Telephus consulted an oracle, who stated that "he that wounded shall heal". Guided by the oracle, he arrived at Argos, where Achilles healed him in order that he might become their guide for the voyage to Troy. 

According to other reports in Euripides' lost play about Telephus, he went to Aulis pretending to be a beggar and asked Achilles to heal his wound. Achilles refused, claiming to have no medical knowledge. Alternatively, Telephus held Orestes for ransom, the ransom being Achilles' aid in healing the wound. Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound; therefore, the spear must be able to heal it. Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound and Telephus was healed. 

=== Troilus ===
According to the Cypria (the part of the Epic Cycle that tells the events of the Trojan War before Achilles' Wrath), when the Achaeans desired to return home, they were restrained by Achilles, who afterwards attacked the cattle of Aeneas, sacked neighboring cities and killed Troilus. 

In Dares Phrygius' Account of the Destruction of Troy, the Latin summary through which the story of Achilles was transmitted to medieval Europe, Troilus was a young Trojan prince, the youngest of King Priam's (or sometimes Apollo) and Hecuba's five legitimate sons. Despite his youth, he was one of the main Trojan war leaders. Prophecies linked Troilus' fate to that of Troy and so he was ambushed in an attempt to capture him. Yet Achilles, struck by the beauty of both Troilus and his sister Polyxena, and overcome with lust, directed his sexual attentions on the youth – who refusing to yield found instead himself decapitated upon an altar-omphalos of Apollo. Later versions of the story suggested Troilus was accidentally killed by Achilles in an over-ardent lovers' embrace. In this version of the myth, Achilles' death therefore came in retribution for this sacrilege. James Davidson, "Zeus Be Nice Now" in London Review of Books; 19 July 2007, access date 23 October 2007 Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents. Had Troilus lived to adulthood, the First Vatican Mythographer claimed, Troy would have been invincible.

=== Achilles in the Iliad ===

Achilles sacrificing to Zeus, from the Ambrosian Iliad, a 5th-century illuminated manuscript

Homer's Iliad is the most famous narrative of Achilles' deeds in the Trojan War. Achilles' wrath is the central theme of the poem. The Homeric epic only covers a few weeks of the war, and does not narrate Achilles' death. It begins with Achilles' withdrawal from battle after he is dishonored by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon had taken a woman named Chryseis as his slave. Her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return her to him. Agamemnon refuses and Apollo sends a plague amongst the Greeks. The prophet Calchas correctly determines the source of the troubles but will not speak unless Achilles vows to protect him. Achilles does so and Calchas declares Chryseis must be returned to her father. Agamemnon consents, but then commands that Achilles' battle prize Briseis be brought to him to replace Chryseis. Angry at the dishonor of having his plunder and glory taken away (and as he says later, because he loved Briseis), Iliad 9.334–343. with the urging of his mother Thetis, Achilles refuses to fight or lead his troops alongside the other Greek forces. At this same time, burning with rage over Agamemnon's theft, Achilles prays to Thetis to convince Zeus to help the Trojans gain ground in the war, so that he may regain his honor.

As the battle turns against the Greeks, thanks to the influence of Zeus, Nestor declares that the Trojans are winning because Agamemnon has angered Achilles, and urges the king to appease the warrior. Agamemnon agrees and sent Odysseus and two other chieftains, Ajax and Phoenix, to Achilles with the offer of the return of Briseis and other gifts. Achilles rejects all Agamemnon offers him, and simply urges the Greeks to sail home as he was planning to do.

The Trojans, led by Hector, subsequently pushed the Greek army back toward the beaches and assaulted the Greek ships. With the Greek forces on the verge of absolute destruction, Patroclus leads the Myrmidons into battle wearing Achilles' armor, though Achilles remains at his camp. Patroclus succeeds in pushing the Trojans back from the beaches, but is killed by Hector before he can lead a proper assault on the city of Troy.

Triumphant Achilles dragging Hector's lifeless body in front of the Gates of Troy (from a panoramic fresco on the upper level of the main hall of the Achilleion).

After receiving the news of the death of Patroclus from Antilochus, the son of Nestor, Achilles grieves over his beloved companion's death and holds many funeral games in his honor. His mother Thetis comes to comfort the distraught Achilles. She persuades Hephaestus to make new armor for him, in place of the armor that Patroclus had been wearing which was taken by Hector. The new armor includes the Shield of Achilles, described in great detail in the poem.

Enraged over the death of Patroclus, Achilles ends his refusal to fight and takes the field killing many men in his rage but always seeking out Hector. Achilles even engages in battle with the river god Scamander who becomes angry that Achilles is choking his waters with all the men he has killed. The god tries to drown Achilles but is stopped by Hera and Hephaestus. Zeus himself takes note of Achilles' rage and sends the gods to restrain him so that he will not go on to sack Troy itself before the time alloted for its destruction, seeming to show that the unhindered rage of Achilles can defy fate itself. Finally, Achilles finds his prey. Achilles chases Hector around the wall of Troy three times before Athena, in the form of Hector's favorite and dearest brother, Deiphobus, persuades Hector to stop running and fight Achilles face to face. After Hector realizes the trick, he knows the battle is inevitable. Wanting to go down fighting, he charges at Achilles with his only weapon, his sword, but misses. Accepting his fate, Hector begs Achilles, not to spare his life, but to treat his body with respect after killing him. Achilles tells Hector it is hopeless to expect that of him, declaring that "my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me". "The Iliad", Fagles translation. Penguin Books, 1991, p. 553. Achilles then kills Hector and drags his corpse behind his chariot during Patroclus' funeral games.

With the assistance of the god Hermes, Hector's father, Priam, goes to Achilles' tent to plead with Achilles for the return of Hector's body so that he can be buried. Achilles relents and promises a truce for the duration of the funeral. The poem ends with a description of Hector's funeral, with the doom of Troy and Achilles himself still to come.

=== Penthesilea ===
Achilles, after his temporary truce with Priam, fought and killed the Amazonian warrior queen Penthesilea, but later grieved over her death. At first, he was so distracted by her beauty, he did not fight as intensely as usual. Once he realized that his distraction was endangering his life, he refocused and killed her. As he grieved over the death of such a rare beauty, a notorious Greek jeerer by the name of Thersites laughed and mocked the great Achilles.

=== Memnon, and the fall of Achilles ===
Achilles dying in the gardens of the Achilleion in Corfu

Following the death of Patroclus, Achilles' closest companion was Nestor's son Antilochus. When Memnon, king of Ethiopia slew Antilochus, Achilles once more obtained revenge on the battlefield, killing Memnon. The fight between Achilles and Memnon over Antilochus echoes that of Achilles and Hector over Patroclus, except that Memnon (unlike Hector) was also the son of a goddess.

Many Homeric scholars argued that episode inspired many details in the Iliads description of the death of Patroclus and Achilles' reaction to it. The episode then formed the basis of the cyclic epic Aethiopis, which was composed after the Iliad, possibly in the 7th century B.C. The Aethiopis is now lost, except for scattered fragments quoted by later authors.

The death of Achilles, as predicted by Hector with his dying breath, was brought about by Paris with an arrow (to the heel according to Statius). In some versions, the god Apollo guided Paris' arrow. Some retellings also state that Achilles was scaling the gates of Troy and was hit with a poisoned arrow.

Ajax carries off the body of Achilles: Attic black-figure lekythos, ca. 510 BC, from Sicily (Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)
All of these versions deny Paris any sort of valor, owing to the common conception that Paris was a coward and not the man his brother Hector was, and Achilles remained undefeated on the battlefield. His bones were mingled with those of Patroclus, and funeral games were held. He was represented in the Aethiopis as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the river Danube.

Another version of Achilles' death is that he fell deeply in love with one of the Trojan princesses, Polyxena. Achilles asks Priam for Polyxena's hand in marriage. Priam is willing because it would mean the end of the war and an alliance with the world's greatest warrior. But while Priam is overseeing the private marriage of Polyxena and Achilles, Paris, who would have to give up Helen if Achilles married his sister, hides in the bushes and shoots Achilles with a divine arrow, killing him.

Achilles was cremated and his ashes buried in the same urn as those of Patroclus. Hamilton E. Mythology, New York: Penguin Books; 1969 

Paris was later killed by Philoctetes using the enormous bow of Heracles.

=== Fate of Achilles' armor ===
Achilles' armor was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Ajax the greater). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles to their Trojan prisoners, who after considering both men came to a consensus in favor of Odysseus. Furious, Ajax cursed Odysseus, which earned the ire of Athena. Athena temporarily made Ajax so mad with grief and anguish that he began killing sheep, thinking them his comrades. After a while, when Athena lifted his madness and Ajax realized that he had actually been killing sheep, Ajax was left so ashamed that he committed suicide. Odysseus eventually gave the armor to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.

A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was for centuries preserved in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 BC by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the Iliad with him, but his court biographers do not mention the spear. "Alexander came to rest at Phaselis, a coastal city which was later renowned for the possession of Achilles' original spear." Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great 1973.144. But it was being shown in the time of Pausanias in the 2nd century AD. Pausanias, iii.3.6; see Christian Jacob and Anne Mullen-Hohl, "The Greek Traveler's Areas of Knowledge: Myths and Other Discourses in Pausanias' Description of Greece", Yale French Studies 59: Rethinking History: Time, Myth, and Writing (1980:65–85) esp. p. 81. 

== Achilles and Patroclus ==

The exact nature of Achilles' relationship with Patroclus has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times. In the Iliad, it appears to be the model of a deep and loyal friendship, but commentators from classical antiquity to the present have often interpreted the relationship through the lens of their own cultures. In 5th-century BC Athens, the intense bond was often viewed in light of the Greek custom of paiderasteia. In Plato's Symposium, the participants in a dialogue about love assume that Achilles and Patroclus were a couple; Phaedrus argues that Achilles was the younger and more beautiful one so he was the beloved and Patroclus was the lover. Plato, Symposium, 180a; the beauty of Achilles was a topic already broached at Iliad 2.673–4. But ancient Greek had no words to distinguish heterosexual and homosexual, Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1978, 1989), p. 1 et passim. and it was assumed that a man could both desire handsome young men and have sex with women. Although epic decorum excluded explicit sexuality, the Iliad indicates that Achilles had sexual relations with women, with no direct evidence of sexual behaviors with Patroclus.

== Worship of Achilles in antiquity ==
Achilles and Briseis

There was an archaic heroic cult of Achilles on the White Island, Leuce, in the Black Sea off the modern coasts of Romania and Ukraine, with a temple and an oracle which survived into the Roman period. Guy Hedreen, "The Cult of Achilles in the Euxine" Hesperia 60.3 (July 1991), pp. 313–330. 

In the lost epic Aithiopis, a continuation of the Iliad attributed to Arktinus of Miletos, Achilles’ mother Thetis returned to mourn him and removed his ashes from the pyre and took them to Leuce at the mouths of the Danube. There the Achaeans raised a tumulus for him and celebrated funeral games.

Pliny's Natural History IV.27.1 mentions a tumulus that is no longer evident (Insula Akchillis tumulo eius viri clara), on the island consecrated to him, located at a distance of fifty Roman miles from Peuce by the Danube Delta, and the temple there. Pausanias has been told that the island is "covered with forests and full of animals, some wild, some tame. In this island there is also Achilles’ temple and his statue". III.19.11 Ruins of a square temple 30 meters to a side, possibly that dedicated to Achilles, were discovered by Captain Kritzikly in 1823, but there has been no modern archeological work done on the island.

Pomponius Mela tells that Achilles is buried in the island named Achillea, between Boristhene and Ister. De situ orbis, II, 7 The Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetus of Bithynia, who lived at the time of Domitian, writes that the island was called Leuce "because the wild animals which live there are white. It is said that there, in Leuce island, reside the souls of Achilles and other heroes, and that they wander through the uninhabited valleys of this island; this is how Jove rewarded the men who had distinguished themselves through their virtues, because through virtue they had acquired everlasting honor". Orbis descriptio, v. 541, quoted in Densuşianu 1913 

The Periplus of the Euxine Sea gives the following details: "It is said that the goddess Thetis raised this island from the sea, for her son Achilles, who dwells there. Here is his temple and his statue, an archaic work. This island is not inhabited, and goats graze on it, not many, which the people who happen to arrive here with their ships, sacrifice to Achilles. In this temple are also deposited a great many holy gifts, craters, rings and precious stones, offered to Achilles in gratitude. One can still read inscriptions in Greek and Latin, in which Achilles is praised and celebrated. Some of these are worded in Patroclus’ honor, because those who wish to be favored by Achilles, honor Patroclus at the same time. There are also in this island countless numbers of sea birds, which look after Achilles’ temple. Every morning they fly out to sea, wet their wings with water, and return quickly to the temple and sprinkle it. And after they finish the sprinkling, they clean the hearth of the temple with their wings. Other people say still more, that some of the men who reach this island, come here intentionally. They bring animals in their ships, destined to be sacrificed. Some of these animals they slaughter, others they set free on the island, in Achilles’ honor. But there are others, who are forced to come to this island by sea storms. As they have no sacrificial animals, but wish to get them from the god of the island himself, they consult Achilles’ oracle. They ask permission to slaughter the victims chosen from among the animals that graze freely on the island, and to deposit in exchange the price which they consider fair. But in case the oracle denies them permission, because there is an oracle here, they add something to the price offered, and if the oracle refuses again, they add something more, until at last, the oracle agrees that the price is sufficient. And then the victim doesn’t run away any more, but waits willingly to be caught. So, there is a great quantity of silver there, consecrated to the hero, as price for the sacrificial victims. To some of the people who come to this island, Achilles appears in dreams, to others he would appear even during their navigation, if they were not too far away, and would instruct them as to which part of the island they would better anchor their ships". (quoted in Densuşianu)

The heroic cult of Achilles on Leuce island was widespread in antiquity, not only along the sea lanes of the Pontic Sea but also in maritime cities whose economic interests were tightly connected to the riches of the Black Sea.

Achilles from Leuce island was venerated as Pontarches the lord and master of the Pontic Sea, the protector of sailors and navigation. Sailors went out of their way to offer sacrifice. To Achilles of Leuce were dedicated a number of important commercial port cities of the Greek waters: Achilleion in Messenia (Stephanus Byzantinus), Achilleios in Laconia (Pausanias, III.25,4) Nicolae Densuşianu (Densuşianu 1913) even though he recognized Achilles in the name of Aquileia and in the north arm of the Danube delta, the arm of Chilia ("Achileii"), though his conclusion, that Leuce had sovereign rights over Pontos, evokes modern rather than archaic sea-law."

Leuce had also a reputation as a place of healing. Pausanias (III.19,13) reports that the Delphic Pythia sent a lord of Croton to be cured of a chest wound. Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII.8) attributes the healing to waters (aquae) on the island.

=== Worship of Achilles in modern times: The Achilleion in Corfu ===
In the region of Gastouri (Γαστούρι) to the south of the city of Corfu Greece, Empress of Austria Elisabeth of Bavaria also known as Sissi built in 1890 a summer palace with Achilles as its central theme and it is a monument to platonic romanticism. The palace, naturally, was named after Achilles: Achilleion (Αχίλλειον). This elegant structure abounds with paintings and statues of Achilles both in the main hall and in the lavish gardens depicting the heroic and tragic scenes of the Trojan war.

== Other stories ==
Achilles as guardian of the palace in the gardens of the Achilleion in Corfu. He gazes northward toward the city. The inscription in Greek reads: ΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ i.e. Achilles

Some post-Homeric sources claim that in order to keep Achilles safe from the war, Thetis (or, in some versions, Peleus) hides the young man at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros. There, Achilles is disguised as a girl and lives among Lycomedes' daughters, perhaps under the name "Pyrrha" (the red-haired girl). With Lycomedes' daughter Deidamia, whom in the account of Statius he rapes, Achilles there fathers a son, Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus, after his father's possible alias). According to this story, Odysseus learns from the prophet Calchas that the Achaeans would be unable to capture Troy without Achilles' aid. Odysseus goes to Skyros in the guise of a peddler selling women's clothes and jewelry and places a shield and spear among his goods. When Achilles instantly takes up the spear, Odysseus sees through his disguise and convinces him to join the Greek campaign. In another version of the story, Odysseus arranges for a trumpet alarm to be sounded while he was with Lycomedes' women; while the women flee in panic, Achilles prepares to defend the court, thus giving his identity away. Philostratus Junior, Imagines i; Scholiast on Homer's Iliad, xix. 326; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.162ff., Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca iii. 13. 8, Statius, Achilleid, ii. 167ff. 

In book 11 of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus sails to the underworld and converses with the shades. One of these is Achilles, who when greeted as "blessed in life, blessed in death", responds that he would rather be a slave to the worst of masters than be king of all the dead. But Achilles then asks Odysseus of his son's exploits in the Trojan war, and when Odysseus tells of Neoptolemus' heroic actions, Achilles is filled with satisfaction. This leaves the reader with an ambiguous understanding of how Achilles felt about the heroic life. Achilles was worshipped as a sea-god in many of the Greek colonies on the Black Sea, the location of the mythical "White Island" which he was said to inhabit after his death, together with many other heroes.

The kings of the Epirus claimed to be descended from Achilles through his son, Neoptolemus. Alexander the Great, son of the Epirote princess Olympias, could therefore also claim this descent, and in many ways strove to be like his great ancestor. He is said to have visited the tomb of Achilles at Achilleion while passing Troy. Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri 1.12.1, Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta 24. In AD 216 the Roman Emperor Caracalla, while on his way to war against Parthia, emulated Alexander by holding games around Achilles' tumulus. Dio Cassius 78.16.7. 

Achilles fought and killed the Amazon Helene. Some also said he married Medea, and that after both their deaths they were united in the Elysian Fields of Hades – as Hera promised Thetis in Apollonius' Argonautica. In some versions of the myth, Achilles has a relationship with his captive Briseis.

== Achilles in Greek tragedy ==

The Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote a trilogy of plays about Achilles, given the title Achilleis by modern scholars. The tragedies relate the deeds of Achilles during the Trojan War, including his defeat of Hector and eventual death when an arrow shot by Paris and guided by Apollo punctures his heel. Extant fragments of the Achilleis and other Aeschylean fragments have been assembled to produce a workable modern play. The first part of the Achilleis trilogy, The Myrmidons, focused on the relationship between Achilles and chorus, who represent the Achaean army and try to convince Achilles to give up his quarrel with Agamemnon; only a few lines survive today. Pantelis Michelakis, Achilles in Greek Tragedy, 2002, p. 22 In Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus points out that Aeschylus portrayed Achilles as the lover and Patroclus as the beloved; Phaedrus argues that this is incorrect because Achilles, being the younger and more beautiful of the two, was the beloved, who loved his lover so much that he chose to die to revenge him. Plato, Symposium, translated Benjamin Jowett, Dover Thrift Editions, page 8 

The tragedian Sophocles also wrote The Lovers of Achilles, a play with Achilles as the main character. Only a few fragments survive. S. Radt. Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, vol. 4, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977) frr. 149–157a. 

== Achilles in Greek philosophy ==
The philosopher Zeno of Elea centered one of his paradoxes on an imaginary footrace between "swift-footed" Achilles and a tortoise, by which he attempted to show that Achilles could not catch up to a tortoise with a head start, and therefore that motion and change were impossible. As a student of the monist Parmenides and a member of the Eleatic school, Zeno believed time and motion to be illusions.

== Achilles in later art ==
The Wrath of Achilles, by François-Léon Benouville (1821–1859) (Musée Fabre)

* Achilles is portrayed as a former hero who has become lazy and devoted to the love of Patroclus, in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.
* Achilles appears in Dante's Inferno.
* Achilles is a major character in Madeline Miller's debut novel, The Song of Achilles (2011), which won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel explores the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles from boyhood to the fateful events of the Iliad.
* Achilles is a central and playable character in KOEI's .
* Achilles is mentioned in Tennyson's "Ulysses": "...we shall touch the happy isles and meet there the great Achilles whom we knew."
* Achilles (Akhilles) is killed by a poisoned Kentaur arrow shot by Kassandra in Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel The Firebrand (1987): 
* Achilles is one of various 'narrators' in Colleen McCullough's novel The Song of Troy (1998). 
* Achilles is the main character in David Malouf's novel Ransom (2009).
* The ghost of Achilles appears in Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian (2009).

The role of Achilles has been played in film by:
* Piero Lulli in Ulysses (1955)
* Stanley Baker in Helen of Troy (1956)
* Riley Ottenhof in Something about Zeus (1958)
* Arturo Dominici in La Guerra di Troia (1962)
* Gordon Mitchell in The Fury of Achilles (1962)
* Steve Davislim in La Belle Hélène (TV, 1996)
* Richard Trewett in the miniseries The Odyssey (TV, 1997)
* Joe Montana in Helen of Troy (TV, 2003)
* Brad Pitt in Troy (2004)

Achilles has frequently been mentioned in music:
* Achilles is a hardcore band.
* "Achilles" is an oratorio by German composer Max Bruch (1885).
* "Achilles, Agony & Ecstasy In Eight Parts", by Manowar (The Triumph of Steel, 1992).
* Achilles Heel is an album by Pedro the Lion.
* "Achilles Last Stand", by Led Zeppelin (Presence, 1976).
* "Achilles' Revenge" is a song by Warlord.
* "Achilles' Wrath" is a concert piece by Sean O'Loughlin.
* Achilles is referred to in Bob Dylan's song "Temporary Like Achilles".
* "Cry of Achilles" is the lead track off of Alter Bridge's fourth album, Fortress.

== Namesakes ==
* The name of Achilles has been used for at least nine Royal Navy warships since 1744 - both as HMS Achilles and with the French spelling HMS Achille. A 60-gun ship of that name served at the Battle of Belleisle in 1761 while a 74-gun ship served at the Battle of Trafalgar. Other battle honours include Walcheren 1809. An armored cruiser of that name served in the Royal Navy during the First World War.
* HMNZS Achilles was a Leander-class cruiser which served with the Royal New Zealand Navy in World War II. It became famous for its part in the Battle of the River Plate, alongside and . In addition to earning the battle honour 'River Plate', HMNZS Achilles also served at Guadalcanal 1942–43 and Okinawa in 1945. After returning to the Royal Navy, the ship was sold to the Indian Navy in 1948 but when she was scrapped parts of the ship were saved and preserved in New Zealand.
* Capois La Mort, a slave who fought in the Haitian Revolution, was nicknamed the Black Achilles because of his heroic performance during the last battle against the French.
* Prince Achileas-Andreas of Greece and Denmark, the grandson of the deposed Greek king, Constantine II.
* The character Achilles in Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card. Achilles shares his namesake's cunning mind and ruthless attitude.
* In the Star Trek universe, the Achilles Class is an advanced type of Federation battleship brought into service at the outbreak of the Dominion War, though not seen in any of the canon Star Trek TV series.
* Achilles armor and valour is included in Titan Quest and TQ Immortal Throne.
* the 2005 video game Spartan Total Warrior features two campaign missions located in the fictional buried city of Troy, with the story arch for this segment of the game culminating in the discovery of the Tomb of Achilles and the acquisition of the Spear of Achilles.

== Notes ==

== References ==
* Homer, Iliad
* Homer, Odyssey XI, 467–540
* Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca III, xiii, 5–8
* Apollodorus, Epitome III, 14-V, 7
* Ovid, Metamorphoses XI, 217–265; XII, 580-XIII, 398
* Ovid, Heroides III
* Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica IV, 783–879
* Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, V.

== Bibliography ==
* Ileana Chirassi Colombo, "Heroes Achilleus—Theos Apollon." In Il Mito Greco, ed. Bruno Gentili & Giuseppe Paione, Rome, 1977;
* Anthony Edwards:
** "Achilles in the Underworld: Iliad, Odyssey, and Æthiopis", Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 26 (1985): pp. 215–227 ;
** "Achilles in the Odyssey: Ideologies of Heroism in the Homeric Epic", Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie, 171, Meisenheim, 1985;
** "Kleos Aphthiton and Oral Theory," Classical Quarterly, 38 (1988): pp. 25–30;
* 
* 
* 
* Hélène Monsacré, Les larmes d'Achille. Le héros, la femme et la souffrance dans la poésie d'Homère, Paris, Albin Michel, 1984
* Gregory Nagy:
** The Best of The Acheans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, Johns Hopkins University, 1999 (rev. edition);
** The Name of Achilles: Questions of Etymology and 'Folk Etymology, Illinois Classical Studies, 19, 1994;
* Dale S. Sinos, The Entry of Achilles into Greek Epic, Ph.D. thesis, Johns Hopkins University;
* Jonathan S. Burgess, The Death and Afterlife of Achilles (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).

== External links ==

* Trojan War Resources
* Dacia Preistorică, 1913, I.4 Cult of Achilles: literary references to the island Leucos in Antiquity Nicolae Densuşianu
* Gallery of the Ancient Art: Achilles



[[Abraham Lincoln]]

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis. In so doing he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was a self-educated lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, state legislator during the 1830s, and a one-term member of the Congress during the 1840s. He promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, canals, railroads and tariffs to encourage the building of factories; he opposed the war with Mexico in 1846. After a series of highly publicized debates in 1858, during which Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery, he lost the U.S. Senate race to his archrival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state, secured the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1860. With very little support in the slave states, Lincoln swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederacy by February 1862. No compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery.

When the North enthusiastically rallied behind the national flag after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war effort. His goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, arresting and temporarily detaining thousands of suspected secessionists in the border states without trial. Lincoln averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair in late 1861. His numerous complex moves toward ending slavery centered on the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, using the Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraging the border states to outlaw slavery, and helping push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including commanding general Ulysses S. Grant. He made the major decisions on Union war strategy, Lincoln's Navy set up a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, helped take control of Kentucky and Tennessee, and gained control of the Southern river system using gunboats. He tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another until finally Grant succeeded in 1865.

An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, Lincoln reached out to "War Democrats" (who supported the North against the South), and managed his own re-election in the 1864 presidential election. As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats who called for more compromise, antiwar Democratics called Copperheads who despised him, and irreconcilable secessionists who plotted his death. Politically, Lincoln fought back with patronage, by pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory. Randall (1947), pp. 65–87. His Gettysburg Address of 1863 became an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a noted actor and Confederate sympathizer.

Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars "Ranking Our Presidents". James Lindgren. November 16, 2000. International World History Project. and the public "Americans Say Reagan Is the Greatest President". Gallup Inc. February 28, 2011. as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.

==Family and childhood==
===Early life===

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln (née Hanks), in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky Donald (1996), pp. 20–22. (now LaRue County). He is descended from Samuel Lincoln, who arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts, from Norfolk, England, in the 17th century. Donald (1996), p. 20. Lincoln's paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham, had moved his family from Virginia to Kentucky, where he was ambushed and killed in an Indian raid in 1786, as his children, including Lincoln's father Thomas, looked on. White, pp. 12–13. Thomas was left to make his own way on the frontier. Donald (1996), p. 21. 

Lincoln's mother, Nancy, was the daughter of Lucy Hanks, and was born in what is now Mineral County, West Virginia, then part of Virginia. Lucy moved with Nancy to Kentucky. Nancy Hanks married Thomas, who became a respected citizen. He bought or leased several farms, including Knob Creek Farm. The family attended a Separate Baptists church, which had restrictive moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery. Donald (1996), pp. 22–24. Thomas enjoyed considerable status in Kentucky—where he sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country slave patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas owned two 600 acre farms, several town lots, livestock, and horses. He was among the richest men in the county. However, in 1816, Thomas lost all of his land in court cases because of faulty property titles. 

According to the book: The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln by William Ensign Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, was the daughter of Joseph Hanks and Nancy Shipley. 

alt=A statue of young Lincoln sitting on a stump, holding a book open on his lap

The family moved north across the Ohio River to free (i.e., non-slave) territory and made a new start in what was then Perry County but is now Spencer County, Indiana. Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery" but mainly due to land title difficulties. Sandburg (1926), p. 20. In Indiana, when Lincoln was nine, his mother Nancy died of milk sickness in 1818. After the death of Lincoln's mother, his older sister, Sarah, took charge of caring for him until their father remarried in 1819; Sarah later died in her 20s while giving birth to a stillborn son. Donald (1996), p. 20, 30–33. 

Thomas Lincoln's new wife was the widow Sarah Bush Johnston, the mother of three children. Lincoln became very close to his stepmother, and referred to her as "Mother". Donald (1996), pp. 26–27. As a pre-teen, he did not like the hard labor associated with frontier life. Some in his family, and in the neighborhood, for a time considered him to be lazy. White, pp. 25, 31, 47. Donald (1996), p. 33. As he grew into his teens, he willingly took responsibility for all chores expected of him as one of the boys in the household and became an adept axeman in his work building rail fences. He attained a reputation for brawn and audacity after a very competitive wrestling match to which he was challenged by the renowned leader of a group of ruffians, "the Clary's Grove boys". Donald (1996), p. 41. 

Lincoln also agreed with the customary obligation of a son to give his father all earnings from work done outside the home until age 21. Donald (1996), pp. 30–33. In later years, Lincoln occasionally lent his father money. Donald (1996), pp. 28, 152. Lincoln became increasingly distant from his father, in part because of his father's lack of education. While young Lincoln's formal education consisted approximately of a year's worth of classes from several itinerant teachers, he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader and often sought access to any new books in the village. He read and reread the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and Franklin's Autobiography. Donald (1996), pp. 29–31, 38–43 

In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak along the Ohio River, the Lincoln family moved west, where they settled on public land 10 miles west of Decatur, in Macon County, Illinois, another free, non-slave state. Donald (1996), p. 36. In 1831, Thomas relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois. It was then that, as an ambitious 22-year-old who was now old enough to make his own decisions, Lincoln struck out on his own. Canoeing down the Sangamon River, Lincoln ended up in the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. Thomas (2008), pp. 23–53 In the spring of 1831, hired by a New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods by flatboat from New Salem to New Orleans via the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. After arriving in New Orleans—and witnessing slavery firsthand—he walked back home. Sandburg (1926), pp. 22–23. 

===Marriage and children===

Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem; by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died at the age of 22 on August 25, 1835, most likely of typhoid fever. Donald (1996), pp. 55–58. In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister. Donald (1996), pp. 67–69; Thomas (2008), pp. 56–57, 69–70. 

Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Mary if she returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836, and Lincoln courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied and the courtship ended. 

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky. Lamb, p. 43. They met in Springfield, Illinois, in December 1839 Sandburg (1926), pp. 46–48. and were engaged the following December. Donald (1996), p. 86. 
A wedding set for January 1, 1841, was canceled when the two broke off their engagement at Lincoln's initiative. Donald (1996), p. 87. They later met again at a party and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's married sister. Sandburg (1926), pp. 50–51. While preparing for the nuptials and feeling anxiety again, Lincoln, when asked where he was going, replied, "To hell, I suppose." Donald (1996), p. 93. 

In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near Lincoln's law office. Mary Todd Lincoln kept house, often with the help of a relative or hired servant girl. Baker, p. 142. Robert Todd Lincoln was born in 1843 and Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie) in 1846. Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children", White, p. 126. and the Lincolns were not considered to be strict with their children. Baker, p. 120. 

Edward died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, probably of tuberculosis. "Willie" Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever on February 20, 1862. The Lincolns' fourth son, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871. White, pp. 179–181, 476. Robert was the only child to live to adulthood and have children. His last descendant, grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985. 

The deaths of their sons had profound effects on both parents. Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and Robert Lincoln committed her temporarily to a mental health asylum in 1875. Steers, p. 341. Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy," a condition which now is referred to as clinical depression. 

Lincoln's father-in-law was based in Lexington, Kentucky; he and others of the Todd family were either slave owners or slave traders. Lincoln was close to the Todds, and he and his family occasionally visited the Todd estate in Lexington. Foner (1995), pp. 440–447. He was an affectionate, though often absent, husband and father of four children.

==Early career and militia service==

Lincoln depicted protecting a Native American from his own men in a scene often related about Lincoln's service during the Black Hawk War.

In 1832, at age 23, Lincoln and a partner bought a small general store on credit in New Salem, Illinois. Although the economy was booming in the region, the business struggled and Lincoln eventually sold his share. That March he began his political career with his first campaign for the Illinois General Assembly. He had attained local popularity and could draw crowds as a natural raconteur in New Salem, though he lacked an education, powerful friends, and money, which may be why he lost. He advocated navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. Donald (1996), pp. 40–42. 

Before the election, Lincoln served as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. Winkle, pp. 86–95. Following his return, Lincoln continued his campaign for the August 6 election for the Illinois General Assembly. At 6 ft, Sandburg (2002), p. 14 he was tall and "strong enough to intimidate any rival". At his first speech, when he saw a supporter in the crowd being attacked, Lincoln grabbed the assailant by his "neck and the seat of his trousers" and threw him. Donald (1996), p. 46. Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates (the top four were elected), though he received 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct. Winkle, pp. 114–116. 

Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, all the while reading voraciously. He then decided to become a lawyer and began teaching himself law by reading Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England and other law books. Of his learning method, Lincoln stated: "I studied with nobody". Donald (1996), pp. 53–55. His second campaign in 1834 was successful. He won election to the state legislature; though he ran as a Whig, many Democrats favored him over a more powerful Whig opponent. White, p. 59. 

Admitted to the bar in 1836, Donald (1996), p. 64. he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin. White, pp. 71, 79, 108. Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer with a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments. He partnered with Stephen T. Logan from 1841 until 1844, when he began his practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought "a studious young man". Donald (1948), p. 17. He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig representative from Sangamon County. Simon, p. 283. 

In the 1835–36 legislative session, he voted to expand suffrage to white males, whether landowners or not. Simon, p. 130. He was known for his "free soil" stance of opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He first articulated this in 1837, saying, " Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." Donald (1996), p. 134. He closely followed Henry Clay in supporting the American Colonization Society program of making the abolition of slavery practical by helping the freed slaves to settle in Liberia in Africa. Foner (2010), pp. 17–19, 67. 

==Congressman Lincoln==
Lincoln in his late 30s as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Photo taken by one of Lincoln's law students around 1846.
From the early 1830s, Lincoln was a steadfast Whig and professed to friends in 1861 to be, "an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay". Donald (1996), p. 222. The party, including Lincoln, favored economic modernization in banking, protective tariffs to fund internal improvements including railroads, and espoused urbanization as well. Boritt (1994), pp. 137–153. 

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but he showed his party loyalty by participating in almost all votes and making speeches that echoed the party line. Oates, p. 79. Lincoln, in collaboration with abolitionist Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, wrote a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a popular vote on the matter. He abandoned the bill when it failed to garner sufficient Whig supporters. Harris, p. 54; Foner (2010), p. 57. 

On foreign and military policy, Lincoln spoke out against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood". Heidler (2006), pp. 181–183. Lincoln also supported the Wilmot Proviso, which, if it had been adopted, would have banned slavery in any U.S. territory won from Mexico. Holzer, p. 63. 

Lincoln emphasized his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a Mexican slaughter of American soldiers in territory disputed by Mexico and the U.S. Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil. Oates, pp. 79–80. Basler (1946), pp. 199–202. Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed and prove that the spot was on American soil. 

Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it, the national papers ignored it, and it resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district. One Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln". McGovern, p. 33. Basler (1946), p. 202. Lincoln later regretted some of his statements, especially his attack on the presidential war-making powers. Donald (1996), p. 128. 

Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, Lincoln, who had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House, supported General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election. Donald (1996), pp. 124–126. Taylor won and Lincoln hoped to be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office, but that lucrative patronage job went to an Illinois rival, Justin Butterfield, considered by the administration to be a highly skilled lawyer, but in Lincoln's view, an "old fossil". Donald (1996), p. 140. The administration offered him the consolation prize of secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory. This distant territory was a Democratic stronghold, and acceptance of the post would have effectively ended his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined and resumed his law practice. Harris, pp. 55–57. 

==Prairie lawyer==
Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield, handling "every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer". Donald (1996), p. 96. Twice a year for 16 years, 10 weeks at a time, he appeared in county seats in the midstate region when the county courts were in session. Donald (1996), pp. 105–106, 158. Lincoln handled many transportation cases in the midst of the nation's western expansion, particularly the conflicts arising from the operation of river barges under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests, but ultimately represented whoever hired him. Donald (1996), pp. 142–143. In fact, he later represented a bridge company against a riverboat company in a landmark case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge. Bridging the Mississippi. Archives.gov (2011-10-19). Retrieved on 2013-08-17. Donald (1996), pp. 156–157. In 1849, he received a patent for a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water. The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent. White, p. 163. 

In 1851, he represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret, who had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to buy shares in the railroad on the grounds that the company had changed its original train route. Donald (1996), p. 155. Dirck (2007), p. 92. Lincoln successfully argued that the railroad company was not bound by its original charter in existence at the time of Barret's pledge; the charter was amended in the public interest to provide a newer, superior, and less expensive route, and the corporation retained the right to demand Barret's payment. The decision by the Illinois Supreme Court has been cited by numerous other courts in the nation. Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, in 51 as sole counsel, of which 31 were decided in his favor. Handy, p. 440. From 1853 to 1860, another of Lincoln's largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad. Donald (1996), pp. 155–156, 196–197. 

Lincoln's most notable criminal trial occurred in 1858 when he defended William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. Donald (1996), pp. 150–151. The case is famous for Lincoln's use of a fact established by judicial notice in order to challenge the credibility of an eyewitness. After an opposing witness testified seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac showing the moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Based on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted. 

Lincoln rarely raised objections in the courtroom; but in an 1859 case, where he defended a cousin, Peachy Harrison, who was accused of stabbing another to death, Lincoln angrily protested the judge's decision to exclude evidence favorable to his client. Instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court as was expected, the judge, a Democrat, reversed his ruling, allowing the evidence and acquitting Harrison. Harrison (1935), p. 270. 

==Republican politics 1854–60==
===Slavery and a "House Divided"===

By the 1850s, slavery was still legal in the southern United States, but had been generally outlawed in the northern states, including Illinois, whose original 1818 Constitution forbade slavery, as required by the Northwest Ordinance. Lincoln disapproved of slavery, and the spread of slavery to new U.S. territory in the west. He returned to politics to oppose the pro-slavery Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854); this law repealed the slavery-restricting Missouri Compromise (1820). Senior Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois had incorporated popular sovereignty into the Act. Douglas' provision, which Lincoln opposed, specified settlers had the right to determine locally whether to allow slavery in new U.S. territory, rather than have such a decision restricted by the national Congress. McGovern, pp. 36–37. 

Eric Foner (2010) contrasts the abolitionists and anti-slavery Radical Republicans of the Northeast who saw slavery as a sin, with the conservative Republicans who thought it was bad because it hurt white people and blocked progress. Foner argues that Lincoln was a moderate in the middle, opposing slavery primarily because it violated the republicanism principles of the Founding Fathers, especially the equality of all men and democratic self-government as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Foner (2010), pp. 84–88. 
A portrait of Dred Scott. Lincoln denounced the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford as part of a conspiracy to extend slavery.

On October 16, 1854, in his "Peoria Speech", Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery, which he repeated en route to the presidency. Thomas (2008), pp. 148–152. Speaking in his Kentucky accent, with a very powerful voice, White, p. 199. he said the Kansas Act had a "declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world ..." Basler (1953), p. 255. 

In late 1854, Lincoln ran as a Whig for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature. Oates, p. 119. After leading in the first six rounds of voting in the Illinois assembly, his support began to dwindle, and Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull, who defeated opponent Joel Aldrich Matteson. White, pp. 205–208. The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Lincoln wrote, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery." 

Drawing on remnants of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic Party members, he was instrumental in forging the shape of the new Republican Party. McGovern, pp. 38–39. At the 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for vice president. Donald (1996), p. 193. 

In 1857–1858, Douglas broke with President James Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas for the Senate in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. Oates, pp. 138–139. In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; Chief Justice Roger B. Taney opined that blacks were not citizens, and derived no rights from the Constitution. Lincoln denounced the decision, alleging it was the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power. Zarefsky, pp. 69–110. Lincoln argued, "The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended 'to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity', but they 'did consider all men created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'." Jaffa, pp. 299–300. 

After the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech, drawing on , "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." White, p. 251. The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the North. Harris, p. 98. The stage was then set for the campaign for statewide election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas as its U.S. senator. Donald (1996), p. 209. 

===Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech===

Lincoln in 1858, the year of his debates with Stephen Douglas over slavery.

The Senate campaign featured the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, the most famous political debates in American history. McPherson (1993), p. 182. The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically. Lincoln warned that "The Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal, while Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists. Donald (1996), pp. 214–224. The debates had an atmosphere of a prize fight and drew crowds in the thousands. Lincoln stated Douglas' popular sovereignty theory was a threat to the nation's morality and that Douglas represented a conspiracy to extend slavery to free states. Douglas said that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision. Donald (1996), p. 223. 

Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas to the Senate. Despite the bitterness of the defeat for Lincoln, his articulation of the issues gave him a national political reputation. Carwardine (2003), pp. 89–90. In May 1859, Lincoln purchased the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, a German-language newspaper which was consistently supportive; most of the state's 130,000 German Americans voted Democratic but there was Republican support that a German-language paper could mobilize. Donald (1996), pp. 242, 412. 

On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong". Jaffa, p. 473. Despite his inelegant appearance—many in the audience thought him awkward and even ugly Holzer, pp. 108–111. —Lincoln demonstrated an intellectual leadership that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." Carwardine (2003), p. 97. Holzer, p. 157. 

Historian Donald described the speech as a "superb political move for an unannounced candidate, to appear in one rival's (William H. Seward) own state at an event sponsored by the second rival's (Salmon P. Chase) loyalists, while not mentioning either by name during its delivery". Donald (1996), p. 240. In response to an inquiry about his presidential intentions, Lincoln said, "The taste is in my mouth a little." Donald (1996), p. 241. 

===1860 Presidential nomination and campaign===

"The Rail Candidate"—Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is depicted as held up by the slavery issue—a slave on the left and party organization on the right.

On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Donald (1996), p. 244. Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency. Oates, pp. 175–176. Exploiting the embellished legend of his frontier days with his father (clearing the land and splitting fence rails with an ax), Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate". Donald (1996), p. 245. 

On May 18, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln's friends promised and manipulated and won the nomination on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. A former Democrat, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, was nominated for Vice President to balance the ticket. Lincoln's success depended on his reputation as a moderate on the slavery issue, and his strong support for Whiggish programs of internal improvements and the protective tariff. Luthin, pp. 609–629. 

On the third ballot Pennsylvania put him over the top. Pennsylvania iron interests were reassured by his support for protective tariffs. Hofstadter, pp. 50–55. Lincoln's managers had been adroitly focused on this delegation as well as the others, while following Lincoln's strong dictate to "Make no contracts that bind me". Donald (1996), pp. 247–250. 

Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party, as the Slave Power tightened its grasp on the national government with the Dred Scott decision and the presidency of James Buchanan. Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession. Boritt (1994), pp. 10, 13, 18. Meanwhile, Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats. Delegates from 11 slave states walked out of the Democratic convention, disagreeing with Douglas' position on popular sovereignty, and ultimately selected John C. Breckinridge as their candidate. Donald (1996), p. 253. 

As Douglas and the other candidates went through with their campaigns, Lincoln was the only one of them who gave no speeches. Instead, he monitored the campaign closely and relied on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the leg work that produced majorities across the North, and produced an abundance of campaign posters, leaflets, and newspaper editorials. There were thousands of Republican speakers who focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the superior power of "free labor", whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts. Donald (1996), pp. 254–256. The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life, and sold 100,000 to 200,000 copies. Donald (1996), p. 254. 

==Presidency==

===1860 election and secession===

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party. His victory was entirely due to the strength of his support in the North and West; no ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states. Mansch, p. 61. 

Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. Harris, p. 243. Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South. White, p. 350. 

Although Lincoln won only a plurality of the popular vote, his victory in the electoral college was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the Electoral College. Nevins, Ordeal of the Union vol 4. p. 312. 

The first photographic image of the new president
As Lincoln's election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union before he took office the next March. Edgar, p. 350. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead by adopting an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Potter, p. 498. Six of these states then adopted a constitution and declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America. Donald (1996), p. 267. The upper South and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) listened to, but initially rejected, the secessionist appeal. White, p. 362. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal. Potter, pp. 520, 569–570. The Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis as its provisional President on February 9, 1861. White, p. 369. 

There were attempts at compromise. The Crittenden Compromise would have extended the Missouri Compromise line of 1820, dividing the territories into slave and free, contrary to the Republican Party's free-soil platform. White, pp. 360–361. Lincoln rejected the idea, saying, "I will suffer death before I consent ... to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right." Donald (1996), p. 268. 

Lincoln, however, did tacitly support the proposed Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which passed Congress before Lincoln came into office and was then awaiting ratification by the states. That proposed amendment would have protected slavery in states where it already existed and would have guaranteed that Congress would not interfere with slavery without Southern consent. Vorenberg, p. 22. Vile (2003), Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments: Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues 1789–2002 pp. 280–281 A few weeks before the war, Lincoln sent a letter to every governor informing them Congress had passed a joint resolution to amend the Constitution. Lupton (2006), Abraham Lincoln and the Corwin Amendment, Retrieved 2013-01-13 Lincoln was open to the possibility of a constitutional convention to make further amendments to the Constitution. Vile (2003), Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments: Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues 1789–2002 p. 281 

En route to his inauguration by train, Lincoln addressed crowds and legislatures across the North. Donald (1996), pp. 273–277. The president-elect then evaded possible assassins in Baltimore, who were uncovered by Lincoln's head of security, Allan Pinkerton. On February 23, 1861, he arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military guard. Donald (1996), pp. 277–279. Lincoln directed his inaugural address to the South, proclaiming once again that he had no intention, or inclination, to abolish slavery in the Southern states:

The President ended his address with an appeal to the people of the South: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies ... The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Donald (1996), pp. 283–284. The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 signaled that legislative compromise was impossible. By March 1861, no leaders of the insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Meanwhile, Lincoln and the Republican leadership agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated. Donald (1996), pp. 268, 279. Lincoln said as the war was ending:
:Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. March 4, 1865, Lincoln's second inaugural address. 

===Beginning of the war===

Major Anderson, Ft. Sumter commander

The commander of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Major Robert Anderson, sent a request for provisions to Washington, and the execution of Lincoln's order to meet that request was seen by the secessionists as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forcing them to surrender, and began the war. Historian Allan Nevins argued that the newly inaugurated Lincoln made three miscalculations: underestimating the gravity of the crisis, exaggerating the strength of Unionist sentiment in the South, and not realizing the Southern Unionists were insisting there be no invasion. Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (1959) vol 5 p 29 

William Tecumseh Sherman talked to Lincoln during inauguration week and was "sadly disappointed" at his failure to realize that "the country was sleeping on a volcano" and that the South was preparing for war. Sherman, pp. 185–186. Donald concludes that, "His repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that." Donald (1996), p. 293. 

On April 15, Lincoln called on all the states to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union", which, in his view, still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. This call forced the states to choose sides. Virginia declared its secession and was rewarded with the Confederate capital, despite the exposed position of Richmond so close to Union lines. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also voted for secession over the next two months. Secession sentiment was strong in Missouri and Maryland, but did not prevail; Kentucky tried to be neutral. Oates, p. 226. 

Troops headed south towards Washington to protect the capital in response to Lincoln's call. On April 19, secessionist mobs in Baltimore that controlled the rail links attacked Union troops traveling to the capital. George William Brown, the Mayor of Baltimore, and other suspected Maryland politicians were arrested and imprisoned, without a warrant, as Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Heidler (2000), p. 174. John Merryman, a leader in the secessionist group in Maryland, petitioned Chief Justice Roger B. Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus, saying holding Merryman without a hearing was unlawful. Taney issued the writ, thereby ordering Merryman's release, but Lincoln ignored it. Then and throughout the war, Lincoln came under heavy attack from antiwar Democrats, called Copperheads. Scott, pp. 326–341. 

===Assuming command for the Union in the war===
After the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln realized the importance of taking immediate executive control of the war and making an overall strategy to put down the rebellion. Lincoln encountered an unprecedented political and military crisis, and he responded as commander-in-chief, using unprecedented powers. He expanded his war powers, and imposed a blockade on all the Confederate shipping ports, disbursed funds before appropriation by Congress, and after suspending habeas corpus, arrested and imprisoned thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers. Lincoln was supported by Congress and the northern public for these actions. In addition, Lincoln had to contend with reinforcing strong Union sympathies in the border slave states and keeping the war from becoming an international conflict. Donald (1996), pp. 303–304; Carwardine (2003), pp. 163–164. 

"Running the 'Machine' ": An 1864 political cartoon takes a swing at Lincoln's administration—featuring William Fessenden, Edwin Stanton, William Seward, Gideon Welles, Lincoln and others.
The war effort was the source of continued disparagement of Lincoln, and dominated his time and attention. From the start, it was clear that bipartisan support would be essential to success in the war effort, and any manner of compromise alienated factions on both sides of the aisle, such as the appointment of Republicans and Democrats to command positions in the Union Army. Copperheads criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery. Donald (1996), pp. 315, 331–333, 338–339, 417. On August 6, 1861, Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act that authorized judiciary proceedings to confiscate and free slaves who were used to support the Confederate war effort. In practice the law had little effect, but it did signal political support for abolishing slavery in the Confederacy Donald (1996), p. 314; Carwardine (2003), p. 178. 

In late August 1861, General John C. Frémont, the 1856 Republican presidential nominee, issued, without consulting his superiors in Washington, a proclamation of martial law in Missouri. He declared that any citizen found bearing arms could be court-martialed and shot, and that slaves of persons aiding the rebellion would be freed. Frémont was already under a cloud with charges of negligence in his command of the Department of the West compounded with allegations of fraud and corruption. Lincoln overruled Frémont's proclamation. Lincoln believed that Fremont's emancipation was political; neither militarily necessary nor legal. Donald (1996), pp. 314–317. After Lincoln acted, Union enlistments from Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri increased by over 40,000 troops. Carwardine (2003), p. 181. 

The Trent Affair of late 1861 threatened war with Great Britain. The U.S. Navy illegally intercepted a British merchant ship, the Trent, on the high seas and seized two Confederate envoys; Britain protested vehemently while the U.S. cheered. Lincoln resolved the issue by releasing the two men and war was successfully averted with Britain. Adams, pp. 540–562. Lincoln's foreign policy approach had been initially hands off, due to his inexperience; he left most diplomacy appointments and other foreign policy matters to his Secretary of State, William Seward. Seward's initial reaction to the Trent affair, however, was too bellicose, so Lincoln also turned to Senator Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an expert in British diplomacy. Donald (1996), p. 322. 

To learn technical military terms, Lincoln borrowed and studied Henry Halleck's book, Elements of Military Art and Science from the Library of Congress. Prokopowicz, p. 127. Lincoln painstakingly monitored the telegraphic reports coming into the War Department in Washington, D.C. He kept close tabs on all phases of the military effort, consulted with governors, and selected generals based on their past success (as well as their state and party). In January 1862, after many complaints of inefficiency and profiteering in the War Department, Lincoln replaced Simon Cameron with Edwin Stanton as War Secretary. Stanton was a staunchly Unionist pro-business conservative Democrat who moved toward the Radical Republican faction. Nevertheless he worked more often and more closely with Lincoln than any other senior official. "Stanton and Lincoln virtually conducted the war together," say Thomas and Hyman. Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman, Stanton, the Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War (Knopf, 1962) pp 71, 87, 229–30, 385 (quote) 

In terms of war strategy, Lincoln articulated two priorities: to ensure that Washington was well-defended, and to conduct an aggressive war effort that would satisfy the demand in the North for prompt, decisive victory; major Northern newspaper editors expected victory within 90 days. Donald (1996), pp. 295–296. Twice a week, Lincoln would meet with his cabinet in the afternoon, and occasionally Mary Lincoln would force him to take a carriage ride because she was concerned he was working too hard. Donald (1996), pp. 391–392. Lincoln learned from his chief of staff General Henry Halleck, a student of the European strategist Jomini, of the critical need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River; Ambrose, pp. 7, 66, 159. he also knew well the importance of Vicksburg and understood the necessity of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing territory. Donald (1996), pp. 432–436. 

===General McClellan===
After the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run and the retirement of the aged Winfield Scott in late 1861, Lincoln appointed Major General George B. McClellan general-in-chief of all the Union armies. Donald (1996), pp. 318–319. McClellan, a young West Point graduate, railroad executive, and Pennsylvania Democrat, took several months to plan and attempt his Peninsula Campaign, longer than Lincoln wanted. The campaign's objective was to capture Richmond by moving the Army of the Potomac by boat to the peninsula and then overland to the Confederate capital. McClellan's repeated delays frustrated Lincoln and Congress, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington. Lincoln insisted on holding some of McClellan's troops in defense of the capital; McClellan, who consistently overestimated the strength of Confederate troops, blamed this decision for the ultimate failure of the Peninsula Campaign. Donald (1996), pp. 349–352. 

Lincoln and George McClellan after the Battle of Antietam in 1862.

Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief and appointed Henry Wager Halleck in March 1862, after McClellan's "Harrison's Landing Letter", in which he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort. Donald (1996), pp. 360–361. McClellan's letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint John Pope, a Republican, as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope complied with Lincoln's strategic desire to move toward Richmond from the north, thus protecting the capital from attack. Nevins (1960), pp. 2:159–162. 

However, lacking requested reinforcements from McClellan, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac to defend Washington for a second time. The war also expanded with naval operations in 1862 when the CSS Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, damaged or destroyed three Union vessels in Norfolk, Virginia, before being engaged and damaged by the USS Monitor. Lincoln closely reviewed the dispatches and interrogated naval officers during their clash in the Battle of Hampton Roads. Donald (1996), pp. 339–340. 

Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan's failure to reinforce Pope, Lincoln was desperate, and restored him to command of all forces around Washington, to the dismay of all in his cabinet but Seward. Goodwin, pp. 478–479. Two days after McClellan's return to command, General Robert E. Lee's forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. Goodwin, pp. 478–480. The ensuing Union victory was among the bloodiest in American history, but it enabled Lincoln to announce that he would issue an Emancipation Proclamation in January. Having composed the Proclamation some time earlier, Lincoln had waited for a military victory to publish it to avoid it being perceived as the product of desperation. Goodwin, p. 481. 

McClellan then resisted the President's demand that he pursue Lee's retreating and exposed army, while his counterpart General Don Carlos Buell likewise refused orders to move the Army of the Ohio against rebel forces in eastern Tennessee. As a result, Lincoln replaced Buell with William Rosecrans; and, after the 1862 midterm elections, he replaced McClellan with Republican Ambrose Burnside. Both of these replacements were political moderates and prospectively more supportive of the Commander-in-Chief. Donald (1996), pp. 389–390. 

Union soldiers before Marye's Heights, Fredericksburg, just prior to the battle of May 3, 1863.
Burnside, against the advice of the president, prematurely launched an offensive across the Rappahannock River and was stunningly defeated by Lee at Fredericksburg in December. Not only had Burnside been defeated on the battlefield, but his soldiers were disgruntled and undisciplined. Desertions during 1863 were in the thousands and they increased after Fredericksburg. Donald (1996), pp. 429–431. Lincoln brought in Joseph Hooker, despite his record of loose talk about the need for a military dictatorship. Nevins 6:433–44 

The mid-term elections in 1862 brought the Republicans severe losses due to sharp disfavor with the administration over its failure to deliver a speedy end to the war, as well as rising inflation, new high taxes, rumors of corruption, the suspension of habeas corpus, the military draft law, and fears that freed slaves would undermine the labor market. The Emancipation Proclamation announced in September gained votes for the Republicans in the rural areas of New England and the upper Midwest, but it lost votes in the cities and the lower Midwest. Nevins vol 6 pp. 318–322, quote on p. 322. 

While Republicans were discouraged, Democrats were energized and did especially well in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. The Republicans did maintain their majorities in Congress and in the major states, except New York. The Cincinnati Gazette contended that the voters were "depressed by the interminable nature of this war, as so far conducted, and by the rapid exhaustion of the national resources without progress". 

In the spring of 1863, Lincoln was optimistic about upcoming military campaigns to the point of thinking the end of the war could be near if a string of victories could be put together; these plans included Hooker's attack on Lee north of Richmond, Rosecrans' on Chattanooga, Grant's on Vicksburg, and a naval assault on Charleston. Donald (1996), pp. 422–423. 

Hooker was routed by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, Nevins 6:432–450. but continued to command his troops for some weeks. He ignored Lincoln's order to divide his troops, and possibly force Lee to do the same in Harper's Ferry, and tendered his resignation, which Lincoln accepted. He was replaced by George Meade, who followed Lee into Pennsylvania for the Gettysburg Campaign, which was a victory for the Union, though Lee's army avoided capture. At the same time, after initial setbacks, Grant laid siege to Vicksburg and the Union navy attained some success in Charleston harbor. Donald (1996), pp. 444–447. 
After the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln clearly understood that his military decisions would be more effectively carried out by conveying his orders through his War Secretary or his general-in-chief on to his generals, who resented his civilian interference with their own plans. Even so, he often continued to give detailed directions to his generals as Commander-in-Chief. Donald (1996), p. 446. 

===Emancipation Proclamation===

alt=A dark-haired, bearded, middle-aged man holding documents is seated among seven other men.

Lincoln understood that the Federal government's power to end slavery was limited by the Constitution, which before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. He argued before and during his election that the eventual extinction of slavery would result from preventing its expansion into new U.S. territory. At the beginning of the war, he also sought to persuade the states to accept compensated emancipation in return for their prohibition of slavery. Lincoln believed that curtailing slavery in these ways would economically expunge it, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, under the constitution. President Lincoln rejected two geographically limited emancipation attempts by Major General John C. Frémont in August 1861 and by Major General David Hunter in May 1862, on the grounds that it was not within their power, and it would upset the border states loyal to the Union. Guelzo (1999), pp. 290–291. 

On June 19, 1862, endorsed by Lincoln, Congress passed an act banning slavery on all federal territory. In July 1862, the Second Confiscation Act was passed, which set up court procedures that could free the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion. Although Lincoln believed it was not within Congress's power to free the slaves within the states, he approved the bill in deference to the legislature. He felt such action could only be taken by the Commander-in-Chief using war powers granted to the president by the Constitution, and Lincoln was planning to take that action. In that month, Lincoln discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet. In it, he stated that "as a fit and necessary military measure, on January 1, 1863, all persons held as slaves in the Confederate states will thenceforward, and forever, be free". Donald (1996), pp. 364–365. 

Privately, Lincoln concluded at this point that the slave base of the Confederacy had to be eliminated. However Copperheads argued that emancipation was a stumbling block to peace and reunification. Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential New York Tribune fell for the ploy, McPherson (1992), p. 124. and Lincoln refuted it directly in a shrewd letter of August 22, 1862. The President said the primary goal of his actions as president (he used the first person pronoun and explicitly refers to his "official duty") was preserving the Union: Guelzo (2004), pp. 147–153. 

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, and put into effect on January 1, 1863, declared free the slaves in 10 states not then under Union control, with exemptions specified for areas already under Union control in two states. Donald (1996), pp. 364, 379. Lincoln spent the next 100 days preparing the army and the nation for emancipation, while Democrats rallied their voters in the 1862 off-year elections by warning of the threat freed slaves posed to northern whites. Louis P. Masur, Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union (Harvard University Press; 2012) 

Once the abolition of slavery in the rebel states became a military objective, as Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until all three million of them in Confederate territory were freed. Lincoln's comment on the signing of the Proclamation was: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." Donald (1996), p. 407. For some time, Lincoln continued earlier plans to set up colonies for the newly freed slaves. He commented favorably on colonization in the Emancipation Proclamation, but all attempts at such a massive undertaking failed. Donald (1996), p. 408. A few days after Emancipation was announced, 13 Republican governors met at the War Governors' Conference; they supported the president's Proclamation, but suggested the removal of General George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army. Nevins (1960), pp. 2:239–240. 

Enlisting former slaves in the military was official government policy after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln was ready to recruit black troops in more than token numbers. In a letter to Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee, encouraging him to lead the way in raising black troops, Lincoln wrote, "The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once". Donald (1996), pp. 430–431. By the end of 1863, at Lincoln's direction, General Lorenzo Thomas had recruited 20 regiments of blacks from the Mississippi Valley. Donald (1996), p. 431. Frederick Douglass once observed of Lincoln: "In his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color". Douglass, pp. 259–260. 

===Gettysburg Address (1863)===

The only confirmed photo of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, some three hours before the speech.
With the great Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, and the defeat of the Copperheads in the Ohio election in the fall, Lincoln maintained a strong base of party support and was in a strong position to redefine the war effort, despite the New York City draft riots. The stage was set for his address at the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19, 1863. Donald (1996), pp. 453–460. Defying Lincoln's prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here," the Address became the most quoted speech in American history. Bulla (2010), p. 222. 

In 272 words, and three minutes, Lincoln asserted the nation was born not in 1789, but in 1776, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". He defined the war as an effort dedicated to these principles of liberty and equality for all. The emancipation of slaves was now part of the national war effort. He declared that the deaths of so many brave soldiers would not be in vain, that slavery would end as a result of the losses, and the future of democracy in the world would be assured, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth". Lincoln concluded that the Civil War had a profound objective: a new birth of freedom in the nation. Donald (1996), pp. 460–466. Wills, pp. 20, 27, 105, 146. 

===General Grant===
President Lincoln (center right) with, from left, Generals Sherman and Grant and Admiral Porter – 1868 painting of events aboard the River Queen in March 1865

Meade's failure to capture Lee's army as it retreated from Gettysburg, and the continued passivity of the Army of the Potomac, persuaded Lincoln that a change in command was needed. General Ulysses S. Grant's victories at the Battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign impressed Lincoln and made Grant a strong candidate to head the Union Army. Responding to criticism of Grant after Shiloh, Lincoln had said, "I can't spare this man. He fights." Thomas (2008), p. 315. With Grant in command, Lincoln felt the Union Army could relentlessly pursue a series of coordinated offensives in multiple theaters, and have a top commander who agreed on the use of black troops. Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (Vol. IV), pp. 6–17. 

Nevertheless, Lincoln was concerned that Grant might be considering a candidacy for President in 1864, as McClellan was. Lincoln arranged for an intermediary to make inquiry into Grant's political intentions, and being assured that he had none, submitted to the Senate Grant's promotion to commander of the Union Army. He obtained Congress's consent to reinstate for Grant the rank of Lieutenant General, which no officer had held since George Washington. Donald (1996), pp. 490–492. 

Grant waged his bloody Overland Campaign in 1864. This is often characterized as a war of attrition, given high Union losses at battles such as the Battle of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor. Even though they had the advantage of fighting on the defensive, the Confederate forces had "almost as high a percentage of casualties as the Union forces". McPherson (2009), p. 113. The high casualty figures of the Union alarmed the North; Grant had lost a third of his army, and Lincoln asked what Grant's plans were, to which the general replied, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Donald (1996), p. 501. 

The Confederacy lacked reinforcements, so Lee's army shrank with every costly battle. Grant's army moved south, crossed the James River, forcing a siege and trench warfare outside Petersburg, Virginia. Lincoln then made an extended visit to Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia. This allowed the president to confer in person with Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman about the hostilities, as Sherman coincidentally managed a hasty visit to Grant from his position in North Carolina. Lincoln and the Republican Party mobilized support for the draft throughout the North, and replaced the Union losses. Thomas (2008), pp. 422–424. 

Lincoln authorized Grant to target the Confederate infrastructure—such as plantations, railroads, and bridges—hoping to destroy the South's morale and weaken its economic ability to continue fighting. Grant's move to Petersburg resulted in the obstruction of three railroads between Richmond and the South. This strategy allowed Generals Sherman and Philip Sheridan to destroy plantations and towns in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The damage caused by Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia in 1864 was limited to a 60 mi swath, but neither Lincoln nor his commanders saw destruction as the main goal, but rather defeat of the Confederate armies. As Neely (2004) concludes, there was no effort to engage in "total war" against civilians, as in World War II. Neely (2004), pp. 434–458. 

Confederate general Jubal Anderson Early began a series of assaults in the North that threatened the Capital. During Early's raid on Washington, D.C. in 1864, Lincoln was watching the combat from an exposed position; Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes shouted at him, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!" Thomas (2008), p. 434. After repeated calls on Grant to defend Washington, Sheridan was appointed and the threat from Early was dispatched. Donald (1996), pp. 516–518. 

As Grant continued to wear down Lee's forces, efforts to discuss peace began. Confederate Vice President Stephens led a group to meet with Lincoln, Seward, and others at Hampton Roads. Lincoln refused to allow any negotiation with the Confederacy as a coequal; his sole objective was an agreement to end the fighting and the meetings produced no results. Donald (1996), p. 565. On April 1, 1865, Grant successfully outflanked Lee's forces in the Battle of Five Forks and nearly encircled Petersburg, and the Confederate government evacuated Richmond. Days later, when that city fell, Lincoln visited the vanquished Confederate capital; as he walked through the city, white Southerners were stone-faced, but freedmen greeted him as a hero. On April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox and the war was effectively over. Donald (1996), p. 589. 

===1864 re-election===

While the war was still being waged, Lincoln faced reelection in 1864. Lincoln was a master politician, bringing together—and holding together—all the main factions of the Republican Party, and bringing in War Democrats such as Edwin M. Stanton and Andrew Johnson as well. Lincoln spent many hours a week talking to politicians from across the land and using his patronage powers—greatly expanded over peacetime—to hold the factions of his party together, build support for his own policies, and fend off efforts by Radicals to drop him from the 1864 ticket. Fish, pp. 53–69. Tegeder, pp. 77–90. At its 1864 convention, the Republican Party selected Johnson, a War Democrat from the Southern state of Tennessee, as his running mate. To broaden his coalition to include War Democrats as well as Republicans, Lincoln ran under the label of the new Union Party. Donald (1996), pp. 494–507. 

When Grant's 1864 spring campaigns turned into bloody stalemates and Union casualties mounted, the lack of military success wore heavily on the President's re-election prospects, and many Republicans across the country feared that Lincoln would be defeated. Sharing this fear, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would still defeat the Confederacy before turning over the White House: Grimsley, p. 80. 
 Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope.

While the Democratic platform followed the "Peace wing" of the party and called the war a "failure", their candidate, General George B. McClellan, supported the war and repudiated the platform. Lincoln provided Grant with more troops and mobilized his party to renew its support of Grant in the war effort. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September and David Farragut's capture of Mobile ended defeatist jitters; Donald (1996), p. 531. the Democratic Party was deeply split, with some leaders and most soldiers openly for Lincoln. By contrast, the National Union Party was united and energized as Lincoln made emancipation the central issue, and state Republican parties stressed the perfidy of the Copperheads. Randall & Current (1955), p. 307. Lincoln was re-elected in a landslide, carrying all but three states, and receiving 78 percent of the Union soldiers' vote. Paludan, pp. 274–293. 

On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. In it, he deemed the high casualties on both sides to be God's will. Historian Mark Noll concludes it ranks "among the small handful of semi-sacred texts by which Americans conceive their place in the world". Noll, p. 426. Lincoln said:

===Reconstruction===

Reconstruction began during the war, as Lincoln and his associates anticipated questions of how to reintegrate the conquered southern states, and how to determine the fates of Confederate leaders and freed slaves. Shortly after Lee's surrender, a general had asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates should be treated, and Lincoln replied, "Let 'em up easy." Thomas (2008), pp. 509–512. In keeping with that sentiment, Lincoln led the moderates regarding Reconstruction policy, and was opposed by the Radical Republicans, under Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, Sen. Charles Sumner and Sen. Benjamin Wade, political allies of the president on other issues. Determined to find a course that would reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held throughout the war. His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office, had not mistreated Union prisoners, and would sign an oath of allegiance. Donald (1996), pp. 471–472. 

A political cartoon of Vice President Andrew Johnson (a former tailor) and Lincoln, 1865, entitled "The 'Rail Splitter' At Work Repairing the Union." The caption reads (Johnson): Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever. (Lincoln): A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended.

As Southern states were subdued, critical decisions had to be made as to their leadership while their administrations were re-formed. Of special importance were Tennessee and Arkansas, where Lincoln appointed Generals Andrew Johnson and Frederick Steele as military governors, respectively. In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P. Banks to promote a plan that would restore statehood when 10 percent of the voters agreed to it. Lincoln's Democratic opponents seized on these appointments to accuse him of using the military to ensure his and the Republicans' political aspirations. On the other hand, the Radicals denounced his policy as too lenient, and passed their own plan, the Wade-Davis Bill, in 1864. When Lincoln vetoed the bill, the Radicals retaliated by refusing to seat representatives elected from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Donald (1996), pp. 485–486. 

Lincoln's appointments were designed to keep both the moderate and Radical factions in harness. To fill Chief Justice Taney's seat on the Supreme Court, he named the choice of the Radicals, Salmon P. Chase, who Lincoln believed would uphold the emancipation and paper money policies. Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, Vol IV., p. 206. 

After implementing the Emancipation Proclamation, which did not apply to every state, Lincoln increased pressure on Congress to outlaw slavery throughout the entire nation with a constitutional amendment. Lincoln declared that such an amendment would "clinch the whole matter". Donald (1996), p. 561. By December 1863, a proposed constitutional amendment that would outlaw slavery was brought to Congress for passage. This first attempt at an amendment failed to pass, falling short of the required two-thirds majority on June 15, 1864, in the House of Representatives. Passage of the proposed amendment became part of the Republican/Unionist platform in the election of 1864. After a long debate in the House, a second attempt passed Congress on January 31, 1865, and was sent to the state legislatures for ratification. Donald (1996), pp. 562–563. Upon ratification, it became the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865. 

As the war drew to a close, Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction for the South was in flux; having believed the federal government had limited responsibility to the millions of freedmen. He signed into law Senator Charles Sumner's Freedmen's Bureau bill that set up a temporary federal agency designed to meet the immediate material needs of former slaves. The law assigned land for a lease of three years with the ability to purchase title for the freedmen. Lincoln stated that his Louisiana plan did not apply to all states under Reconstruction. Shortly before his assassination, Lincoln announced he had a new plan for southern Reconstruction. Discussions with his cabinet revealed Lincoln planned short-term military control over southern states, until readmission under the control of southern Unionists. Carwardine (2003), pp. 242–243. 

Historians agree that it is impossible to predict exactly what Lincoln would have done about Reconstruction if he had lived, but they make projections based on his known policy positions and political acumen.

Lincoln biographers James G. Randall and Richard Current, according to David Lincove, argue that:
:It is likely that had he lived, Lincoln would have followed a policy similar to Johnson's, that he would have clashed with congressional Radicals, that he would have produced a better result for the freedmen than occurred, and that his political skills would have helped him avoid Johnson's mistakes. 

Eric Foner argues that:
:Unlike Sumner and other Radicals, Lincoln did not see Reconstruction as an opportunity for a sweeping political and social revolution beyond emancipation. He had long made clear his opposition to the confiscation and redistribution of land. He believed, as most Republicans did in April 1865, that the voting requirements should be determined by the states. He assumed that political control in the South would pass to white Unionists, reluctant secessionists, and forward-looking former Confederates. But time and again during the war, Lincoln, after initial opposition, and come to embrace positions first advanced by abolitionists and Radical Republicans..... Lincoln undoubtedly would have listened carefully to the outcry for further protection for the former slaves.... It is entirely plausible to imagine Lincoln and Congress agreeing on a Reconstruction policy that encompassed federal protection for basic civil rights plus limited black suffrage, along the lines Lincoln proposed just before his death." 

===Redefining the republic and republicanism===
Lincoln in February 1865, about two months before his death.

The successful reunification of the states had consequences for the name of the country. The term "the United States" has historically been used, sometimes in the plural ("these United States"), and other times in the singular, without any particular grammatical consistency. The Civil War was a significant force in the eventual dominance of the singular usage by the end of the 19th century. 

In recent years, historians such as Harry Jaffa, Herman Belz, John Diggins, Vernon Burton and Eric Foner have stressed Lincoln's redefinition of republican values. As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln redirected emphasis to the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values—what he called the "sheet anchor" of republicanism. Jaffa, p. 399. The Declaration's emphasis on freedom and equality for all, in contrast to the Constitution's tolerance of slavery, shifted the debate. As Diggins concludes regarding the highly influential Cooper Union speech of early 1860, "Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself." Diggins, p. 307. His position gained strength because he highlighted the moral basis of republicanism, rather than its legalisms. Foner (2010), p. 215. Nevertheless, in 1861, Lincoln justified the war in terms of legalisms (the Constitution was a contract, and for one party to get out of a contract all the other parties had to agree), and then in terms of the national duty to guarantee a republican form of government in every state. Jaffa, p. 263. Burton (2008) argues that Lincoln's republicanism was taken up by the Freedmen as they were emancipated. Orville Vernon Burton, The Age of Lincoln (2008) p 243 

In March 1861, in Lincoln's first inaugural address, he explored the nature of democracy. He denounced secession as anarchy, and explained that majority rule had to be balanced by constitutional restraints in the American system. He said "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people." Belz (1998), p. 86. 

===Other enactments===
Lincoln adhered to the Whig theory of the presidency, which gave Congress primary responsibility for writing the laws while the Executive enforced them. Lincoln only vetoed four bills passed by Congress; the only important one was the Wade-Davis Bill with its harsh program of Reconstruction. Donald (2001), p. 137. He signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making millions of acres of government-held land in the West available for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States' First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869. Paludan, p. 116. The passage of the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts was made possible by the absence of Southern congressmen and senators who had opposed the measures in the 1850s. McPherson (1993), pp. 450–452. 

Other important legislation involved two measures to raise revenues for the Federal government: tariffs (a policy with long precedent), and a new Federal income tax. In 1861, Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariff, the first having become law under James Buchanan. Also in 1861, Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1861, creating the first U.S. income tax. Donald (1996), p. 424. This created a flat tax of 3 percent on incomes above $800 ($ in current dollar terms), which was later changed by the Revenue Act of 1862 to a progressive rate structure. Paludan, p. 111. 

Lincoln also presided over the expansion of the federal government's economic influence in several other areas. The creation of the system of national banks by the National Banking Act provided a strong financial network in the country. It also established a national currency. In 1862, Congress created, with Lincoln's approval, the Department of Agriculture. Donald (2001), p. 424. In 1862, Lincoln sent a senior general, John Pope, to put down the "Sioux Uprising" in Minnesota. Presented with 303 execution warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who were accused of killing innocent farmers, Lincoln conducted his own personal review of each of these warrants, eventually approving 39 for execution (one was later reprieved). Cox, p. 182. President Lincoln had planned to reform federal Indian policy. Nichols, pp. 210–232. 

In the wake of Grant's casualties in his campaign against Lee, Lincoln had considered yet another executive call for a military draft, but it was never issued. In response to rumors of one, however, the editors of the New York World and the Journal of Commerce published a false draft proclamation which created an opportunity for the editors and others employed at the publications to corner the gold market. Lincoln's reaction was to send the strongest of messages to the media about such behavior; he ordered the military to seize the two papers. The seizure lasted for two days. Donald (1996), pp. 501–502. 

Lincoln is largely responsible for the institution of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Donald (1996), p. 471. Before Lincoln's presidency, Thanksgiving, while a regional holiday in New England since the 17th century, had been proclaimed by the federal government only sporadically and on irregular dates. The last such proclamation had been during James Madison's presidency 50 years before. In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November of that year to be a day of Thanksgiving. In June 1864, Lincoln approved the Yosemite Grant enacted by Congress, which provided unprecedented federal protection for the area now known as Yosemite National Park. 

===Judicial appointments===

====Supreme Court appointments====
* Noah Haynes Swayne – 1862
* Samuel Freeman Miller – 1862
* David Davis – 1862
* Stephen Johnson Field – 1863
* Salmon Portland Chase – 1864 (Chief Justice)

Salmon Portland Chase was Lincoln's choice to be Chief Justice of the United States.
Lincoln's declared philosophy on court nominations was that "we cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known." Lincoln made five appointments to the United States Supreme Court. Noah Haynes Swayne, nominated January 21, 1862 and appointed January 24, 1862, was chosen as an anti-slavery lawyer who was committed to the Union. Samuel Freeman Miller, nominated and appointed on July 16, 1862, supported Lincoln in the 1860 election and was an avowed abolitionist. David Davis, Lincoln's campaign manager in 1860, nominated December 1, 1862 and appointed December 8, 1862, had also served as a judge in Lincoln's Illinois court circuit. Stephen Johnson Field, a previous California Supreme Court justice, was nominated March 6, 1863 and appointed March 10, 1863, and provided geographic balance, as well as political balance to the court as a Democrat. Finally, Lincoln's Treasury Secretary, Salmon P. Chase, was nominated as Chief Justice, and appointed the same day, on December 6, 1864. Lincoln believed Chase was an able jurist, would support Reconstruction legislation, and that his appointment united the Republican Party. Blue, p. 245. 

====Other judicial appointments====
Lincoln appointed 32 federal judges, including four Associate Justices and one Chief Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States, and 27 judges to the United States district courts. Lincoln appointed no judges to the United States circuit courts during his time in office.

===States admitted to the Union===
West Virginia, admitted to the Union June 20, 1863, contained the former north-westernmost counties of Virginia that seceded from Virginia after that commonwealth declared its secession from the Union. As a condition for its admission, West Virginia's constitution was required to provide for the gradual abolition of slavery. Nevada, which became the third State in the far-west of the continent, was admitted as a free state on October 31, 1864. Donald (1996), pp. 300, 539. 

==Assassination==

John Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland; though he never joined the Confederate army, he had contacts with the Confederate secret service. Donald (1996), pp. 586–587. In 1864, Booth formulated a plan (very similar to one of Thomas N. Conrad previously authorized by the Confederacy) Donald (1996), p. 587. to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. Shown in the presidential booth of Ford's Theatre, from left to right, are Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and his assassin John Wilkes Booth. After attending an April 11, 1865, speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and became determined to assassinate the president. Harrison (2000), pp. 3–4. Learning that the President, First Lady, and head Union general Ulysses S. Grant would be attending Ford's Theatre, Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William H. Seward and General Grant. Without his main bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14. Grant, along with his wife, chose at the last minute to travel to Philadelphia instead of attending the play. Donald (1996), pp. 594–597. 

Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford's Theater during intermission to join Lincoln's coachman for drinks in the Star Saloon next door. The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 pm, aimed at the back of Lincoln's head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth, but Booth stabbed him and escaped. Donald (1996), p. 597. 

After being on the run for 10 days, Booth was tracked down and found on a farm in Virginia, some 70 mi south of Washington, D.C. After a brief fight with Union troops, Booth was killed by Sergeant Boston Corbett on April 26. Donald (1996), p. 599. 

An Army surgeon, Doctor Charles Leale, was sitting nearby at the theater and immediately assisted the President. He found the President unresponsive, barely breathing and with no detectable pulse. Having determined that the President had been shot in the head, and not stabbed in the shoulder as originally thought, he made an attempt to clear the blood clot, after which the President began to breathe more naturally. The dying President was taken across the street to Petersen House. After remaining in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15. Presbyterian minister Phineas Densmore Gurley, then present, was asked to offer a prayer, after which Secretary of War Stanton saluted and said, "Now he belongs to the ages." Donald (1996), pp. 598–599, 686. Witnesses have provided other versions of the quote, i.e. "He now belongs to the ages." and "He is a man for the ages." 

Lincoln's flag-enfolded body was then escorted in the rain to the White House by bareheaded Union officers, while the city's church bells rang. President Johnson was sworn in at 10:00 am, less than 3 hours after Lincoln's death. The late President lay in state in the East Room, and then in the Capitol Rotunda from April 19 through April 21. For his final journey with his son Willie, both caskets were transported in the executive coach "United States" and for three weeks the Lincoln Special funeral train decorated in black bunting 

 bore Lincoln's remains on a slow circuitous waypoint journey from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois stopping at many cities across the North for large-scale memorials attended by hundreds of thousands, as well as many people who gathered in informal trackside tributes with bands, bonfires and hymn singing Trostel, pp. 31–58. Goodrich, pp. 231–238. or silent reverence with hat in hand as the railway procession slowly passed by.

==Religious and philosophical beliefs==

Lincoln, painting by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1869

As a young man, Lincoln was a religious skeptic, or, in the words of a biographer, even an iconoclast. Carwardine (2003), p. 4. Later in life, Lincoln's frequent use of religious imagery and language might have reflected his own personal beliefs or might have been a device to appeal to his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants. Carwardine (1997), pp. 27–55. He never joined a church, although he frequently attended with his wife. On claims that Lincoln was baptized by an associate of Alexander Campbell, see but he was deeply familiar with the Bible, quoted it and praised it. Donald (1996), pp. 48–49, 514–515. He was private about his beliefs and respected the beliefs of others. Lincoln never made a clear profession of Christian beliefs. However he did believe in an all-powerful God that shaped events and, by 1865, was expressing those beliefs in major speeches. 

In the 1840s Lincoln subscribed to the Doctrine of Necessity, a belief that asserted the human mind was controlled by some higher power. Donald (1996), pp. 48–49. In the 1850s, Lincoln acknowledged "providence" in a general way, and rarely used the language or imagery of the evangelicals; he regarded the republicanism of the Founding Fathers with an almost religious reverence. Grant R. Brodrecht, "Our country": Northern evangelicals and the Union during the Civil War and Reconstruction (2008) p. 40 When he suffered the death of his son Edward, Lincoln more frequently acknowledged his own need to depend on God. Parrillo, pp. 227–253. The death of his son Willie in February 1862 may have caused Lincoln to look toward religion for answers and solace. Wilson, pp. 251–254. After Willie's death, Lincoln considered why, from a divine standpoint, the severity of the war was necessary. He wrote at this time that God "could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds." Wilson, p. 254. On the day Lincoln was assassinated, he reportedly told his wife he desired to visit the Holy Land. Guelzo (1999), p. 434 

==Health==

Several claims abound that Lincoln's health was declining before the assassination. These are often based on photographs appearing to show weight loss and muscle wasting. One such claim is that he suffered from a rare genetic disorder MEN2b, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/05/was-lincoln-dying-before-he-was-shot/17955/ which manifests with a medullary thyroid carcinoma, mucosal neuromas and a Marfinoid appearance. Others simply claim he had Marfan's syndrome, based on his tall appearance with spindly fingers, and the association of possible aortic regurgitation, which can cause bobbing of the head (DeMusset's sign) based on blurring of Lincoln's head in photographs, which back then had a long exposure time.
DNA analysis is so far being refused by the Grand Army of the Republic museum in Philadelphia. 

==Historical reputation==

In surveys of scholars ranking Presidents since the 1940s, Lincoln is consistently ranked in the top three, often #1. A 2004 study found that scholars in the fields of history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while legal scholars placed him second after Washington. Taranto, p. 264. Of all the presidential ranking polls conducted since 1948, Lincoln has been rated at the very top in the majority of polls: Schlesinger 1948, Schlesinger 1962, 1982 Murray Blessing Survey, Chicago Tribune 1982 poll, Schlesinger 1996, CSPAN 1996, Ridings-McIver 1996, Time 2008, and CSPAN 2009. Generally, the top three presidents are rated as 1. Lincoln; 2. George Washington; and 3. Franklin D. Roosevelt, although Lincoln and Washington, and Washington and Roosevelt, occasionally are reversed. Densen, John V., Editor, Reassessing The Presidency, The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001), pgs. 1–32; Ridings, William H., & Stuard B. McIver, Rating The Presidents, A Ranking of U.S. Leaders, From the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent (Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Corp., 2000). 

President Lincoln's assassination made him a national martyr and endowed him with a recognition of mythic proportion. Lincoln was viewed by abolitionists as a champion for human liberty. Republicans linked Lincoln's name to their party. Many, though not all, in the South considered Lincoln as a man of outstanding ability. Chesebrough, pp. 76, 79, 106, 110. 

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum focuses on Lincoln scholarship and popular interpretation

Schwartz argues that Lincoln's reputation grew slowly in the late 19th century until the Progressive Era (1900–1920s) when he emerged as one of the most venerated heroes in American history, with even white Southerners in agreement. The high point came in 1922 with the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington. Schwartz (2000), p. 109. In the New Deal era liberals honored Lincoln not so much as the self-made man or the great war president, but as the advocate of the common man who doubtless would have supported the welfare state. In the Cold War years, Lincoln's image shifted to emphasize the symbol of freedom who brought hope to those oppressed by communist regimes. Schwartz (2009), pp. 23, 91–98. 

By the 1970s Lincoln had become a hero to political conservatives Havers, p. 96. Apart from neo-Confederates such as Mel Bradford who denounced his treatment of the white South. for his intense nationalism, support for business, his insistence on stopping the spread of human bondage, his acting in terms of Lockean and Burkean principles on behalf of both liberty and tradition, and his devotion to the principles of the Founding Fathers. Belz (2006), pp. 514–518. Graebner, pp. 67–94. Smith, pp. 43–45. As a Whig activist, Lincoln was a spokesman for business interests, favoring high tariffs, banks, internal improvements, and railroads in opposition to the agrarian Democrats. Boritt (1994), pp. 196, 198, 228, 301. William C. Harris found that Lincoln's "reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the laws under it, and the preservation of the Republic and its institutions undergirded and strengthened his conservatism". Harris, p. 2. James G. Randall emphasizes his tolerance and especially his moderation "in his preference for orderly progress, his distrust of dangerous agitation, and his reluctance toward ill digested schemes of reform". Randall concludes that, "he was conservative in his complete avoidance of that type of so-called 'radicalism' which involved abuse of the South, hatred for the slaveholder, thirst for vengeance, partisan plotting, and ungenerous demands that Southern institutions be transformed overnight by outsiders." Randall (1947), p. 175. 

By the late 1960s, liberals, such as historian Lerone Bennett, were having second thoughts, especially regarding Lincoln's views on racial issues. Zilversmit, pp. 22–24. Smith, p. 42. Bennett won wide attention when he called Lincoln a white supremacist in 1968. Bennett, pp. 35–42. He noted that Lincoln used ethnic slurs, told jokes that ridiculed blacks, insisted he opposed social equality, and proposed sending freed slaves to another country. Defenders, such as authors Dirck and Cashin, retorted that he was not as bad as most politicians of his day; Dirck (2008), p. 31. and that he was a "moral visionary" who deftly advanced the abolitionist cause, as fast as politically possible. Striner, pp. 2–4. The emphasis shifted away from Lincoln-the-emancipator to an argument that blacks had freed themselves from slavery, or at least were responsible for pressuring the government on emancipation. Cashin, p. 61. Kelley & Lewis, p. 228. Historian Barry Schwartz wrote in 2009 that Lincoln's image suffered "erosion, fading prestige, benign ridicule" in the late 20th century. Schwartz (2009), p. 146. On the other hand, Donald opined in his 1996 biography that Lincoln was distinctly endowed with the personality trait of negative capability, defined by the poet John Keats and attributed to extraordinary leaders who were "content in the midst of uncertainties and doubts, and not compelled toward fact or reason". Donald (1996), p. 15. 

Lincoln has often been portrayed by Hollywood, almost always in a flattering light. Steven Spielberg, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Tony Kushner, "Mr. Lincoln Goes to Hollywood", Smithsonian (2012) 43#7 pp. 46–53. Melvyn Stokes, "Abraham Lincoln and the Movies", American Nineteenth Century History 12 (June 2011), 203–31. 

==Memorials==

Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Lincoln's portrait appears on two denominations of United States currency, the penny and the $5 bill. His likeness also appears on many postage stamps and has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, Dennis, p. 194. including the capital of Nebraska.

The most famous and most visited memorials are the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; Lincoln's sculpture on Mount Rushmore; Ford's Theatre and Petersen House (where he died) in Washington and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, located in Springfield, Illinois, not far from Lincoln's home and his tomb. 

Barry Schwartz, a sociologist who has examined America's cultural memory, argues that in the 1930s and 1940s, the memory of Abraham Lincoln was practically sacred and provided the nation with "a moral symbol inspiring and guiding American life". During the Great Depression, he argues, Lincoln served "as a means for seeing the world's disappointments, for making its sufferings not so much explicable as meaningful". Franklin D. Roosevelt, preparing America for war, used the words of the Civil War president to clarify the threat posed by Germany and Japan. Americans asked, "What would Lincoln do?" Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America (2009) pp. xi, 9, 24 However, he also finds that since World War II, Lincoln's symbolic power has lost relevance, and this "fading hero is symptomatic of fading confidence in national greatness". Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America (2009) p. xi, 9 He suggested that postmodernism and multiculturalism have diluted greatness as a concept.

==See also==

* Blab school
* Dakota War of 1862
* Lincoln Tower
* List of photographs of Abraham Lincoln
* List of civil rights leaders

==References==

==Bibliography==

===Cited in footnotes===

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===Historiography===
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* Manning, Chandra, "The Shifting Terrain of Attitudes toward Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 34 (Winter 2013), 18–39.
* Smith, Adam I.P. "The 'Cult' of Abraham Lincoln and the Strange Survival of Liberal England in the Era of the World Wars," Twentieth Century British History, (Dec 2010) 21#4 pp 486–509
* Spielberg, Steven; Goodwin, Doris Kearns; Kushner, Tony. "Mr. Lincoln Goes to Hollywood," Smithsonian (2012) 43#7 pp 46–53.

===Additional references===

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* Green, Michael S. Lincoln and the Election of 1860 (Concise Lincoln Library) excerpt and text search
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* , vol 3. of detailed biography
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==External links==
 

* The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
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* Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library
* Abraham Lincoln: Original Letters and Manuscripts Shapell Manuscript Foundation
* Poetry written by Abraham Lincoln
* The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Springfield, Illinois
* The Papers of Abraham Lincoln documentary editing project
* —Manner of Buoying Vessels—A. Lincoln—1849
* National Endowment for the Humanities Spotlight – Abraham Lincoln
* The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation
* Lincoln/Net: Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Northern Illinois University Libraries
* Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
* Abraham Lincoln at C-SPAN's 
* C-SPAN's Lincoln 200 Years
* The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana From the Collections at the Library of Congress

 

Abraham



[[Aristotle]]

Aristotle (; "Aristotle" entry in Collins English Dictionary, HarperCollins Publishers, 1998. , Aristotélēs; 384) That these undisputed dates (the first half of the Olympiad year 384/383 BCE, and in 322 shortly before the death of Demosthenes) are correct was shown already by August Boeckh (Kleine Schriften VI 195); for further discussion, see Felix Jacoby on FGrHist 244 F 38. Ingemar Düring, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition, Göteborg, 1957, . was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in Stagirus, northern Greece, in . His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. At eighteen, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. ). His writings cover many subjectsincluding physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and governmentand constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great between 356 and . According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "Aristotle was the first genuine scientist in history. ... Every scientist is in his debt."

Teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books. The fact that Aristotle was a pupil of Plato contributed to his former views of Platonism, but, following Plato's death, Aristotle immersed himself in empirical studies and shifted from Platonism to empiricism. He believed all peoples' concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotle's views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works.

Aristotle's views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended into the Renaissance and were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic.

In metaphysics, Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophical and theological thought during the Middle Ages and continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as "The First Teacher" ().

His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialoguesCicero described his literary style as "a river of gold" it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Jonathan Barnes, "Life and Work" in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (1995), . 

==Life==

Aristotle, whose name means "the best purpose", was born in in Stagira, Chalcidice, about 55 km (34 miles) east of modern-day Thessaloniki. His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Although there is little information on Aristotle's childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. Anagnostopoulos, G., "Aristotle's Life" in A Companion to Aristotle (Blackwell Publishing, 2009), . 

At about the age of eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. He remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in . The traditional story about his departure records that he was disappointed with the Academy's direction after control passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus, although it is possible that he feared anti-Macedonian sentiments and left before Plato had died. Carnes Lord, introduction to The Politics by Aristotle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). Aristotle and Plato's compatibility has been a strongly debated topic. Recently, Harold Cherniss summarized Aristotle's Platonism from the standpoint of classicist Werner Jaeger, stating that: "Jaeger, in whose eyes Plato's philosophy was the "matter" out of which the newer and higher form of Aristotle's thought proceeded by a gradual but steady and undeviating development (Aristotles, ), pronounced the "old controversy", whether or not Aristotle understood Plato, to be "absolut verstandnislos". Yet this did not prevent Leisegang from reasserting that Aristotle's own pattern of thinking was incompatible with a proper understanding of Plato." Cherniss, Harold (1962). Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy, Russell and Russell, Inc., . Aristoteles: Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung (1923; English trans. Richard Robinson (1902–1996) as Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, 1934). Contrary to Leisegang's sympathies, Jaeger was sympathetic to a compatible reading of Aristotle and Plato.

Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. There, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermias's adoptive daughter or niece. She bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in . Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Simon & Schuster, 1972. 

An early Islamic portrayal of Aristotle (right) and Alexander the Great.

Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, University of California Press Ltd. (Oxford, England) 1991, Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest and his attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be "a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants". 

By , Artistotle had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stagira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. According to the Suda, he also had an eromenos, Palaephatus of Abydus. William George Smith,Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, , [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/2421.html ] 

This period in Athens, between 335 and , is when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works. He wrote many dialogues of which only fragments have survived. Those works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication; they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics.

Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, economics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also studied education, foreign customs, literature and poetry. His combined works constitute a virtual encyclopedia of Greek knowledge.

Near the end of his life, Alexander became paranoid and wrote threatening letters to Aristotle. Aristotle had made no secret of his contempt for Alexander's pretense of divinity and the king had executed Aristotle's grandnephew Callisthenes as a traitor. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence. Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, University of California Press Ltd. (Oxford, England), 1991, and 459. 

Following Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens was rekindled. In , Eurymedon the Hierophant denounced Aristotle for not holding the gods in honor, prompting him to flee to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining: "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy" Vita Marciana 41, cf. Aelian Varia historica 3.36, Ingemar Düring, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition, Göteborg, 1957, T44a-e. a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates. He died in Euboea of natural causes later that same year, having named his student Antipater as his chief executor and leaving a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife. Aristotle's Will, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt by Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase. 

In general, the details of the life of Aristotle are not well-established. The biographies of Aristotle written in ancient times are often speculative and historians only agree on a few salient points. See Shields, C., "Aristotle's Philosophical Life and Writings" in The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle (Oxford University Press, 2012), . Düring, I., Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition (Göteborg, 1957) is a collection of overview of? ancient biographies of Aristotle. 

==Thought==

===Logic===
Aristotle portrayed in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle as a scholar of the 15th century CE.

With the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic, MICHAEL DEGNAN, 1994. Recent Work in Aristotle's Logic. Philosophical Books 35.2 (April 1994): 81–89. and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th century advances in mathematical logic. Corcoran, John (2009). "Aristotle's Demonstrative Logic". History and Philosophy of Logic, 30: 1–20. Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Reason that Aristotle's theory of logic completely accounted for the core of deductive inference.

====History====
Aristotle "says that 'on the subject of reasoning' he 'had nothing else on an earlier date to speak of'". However, Plato reports that syntax was devised before him, by Prodicus of Ceos, who was concerned by the correct use of words. Logic seems to have emerged from dialectics; the earlier philosophers made frequent use of concepts like reductio ad absurdum in their discussions, but never truly understood the logical implications. Even Plato had difficulties with logic; although he had a reasonable conception of a deductive system, he could never actually construct one, thus he relied instead on his dialectic. Bocheński, 1951. 

Plato believed that deduction would simply follow from premises, hence he focused on maintaining solid premises so that the conclusion would logically follow. Consequently, Plato realized that a method for obtaining conclusions would be most beneficial. He never succeeded in devising such a method, but his best attempt was published in his book Sophist, where he introduced his division method. 

====Analytics and the Organon====

What we today call Aristotelian logic, Aristotle himself would have labeled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics. Most of Aristotle's work is probably not in its original form, because it was most likely edited by students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into six books in about the early 1st century CE:
#Categories
#On Interpretation
#Prior Analytics
#Posterior Analytics
#Topics
#On Sophistical Refutations

The order of the books (or the teachings from which they are composed) is not certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of simple terms in the Categories, the analysis of propositions and their elementary relations in On Interpretation, to the study of more complex forms, namely, syllogisms (in the Analytics) and dialectics (in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations). The first three treatises form the core of the logical theory stricto sensu: the grammar of the language of logic and the correct rules of reasoning. There is one volume of Aristotle's concerning logic not found in the Organon, namely the fourth book of Metaphysics. 

===Aristotle's epistemology===
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Forms, while holding a copy of Timaeus

"Aristotle" by Francesco Hayez (1791–1882)

Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle's ontology, however, finds the universal in particular things, which he calls the essence of things, while in Plato's ontology, the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, epistemology is based on the study of particular phenomena and rises to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato epistemology begins with knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) and descends to knowledge of particular imitations of these. For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below). In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles. 

In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and includes fields that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences. In modern times, the scope of philosophy has become limited to more generic or abstract inquiries, such as ethics and metaphysics, in which logic plays a major role. Today's philosophy tends to exclude empirical study of the natural world by means of the scientific method. In contrast, Aristotle's philosophical endeavors encompassed virtually all facets of intellectual inquiry.

In the larger sense of the word, Aristotle makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also would describe as "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that covered by the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical" (Metaphysics 1025b25). By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics.

If logic (or "analytics") is regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy would consist of: (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics and Mathematics; (3) Practical Philosophy and (4) Poetical Philosophy.

In the period between his two stays in Athens, between his times at the Academy and the Lyceum, Aristotle conducted most of the scientific thinking and research for which he is renowned today. In fact, most of Aristotle's life was devoted to the study of the objects of natural science. Aristotle's metaphysics contains observations on the nature of numbers but he made no original contributions to mathematics. He did, however, perform original research in the natural sciences, e.g., botany, zoology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and several other sciences.

Aristotle's writings on science are largely qualitative, as opposed to quantitative. Beginning in the 16th century, scientists began applying mathematics to the physical sciences, and Aristotle's work in this area was deemed hopelessly inadequate. His failings were largely due to the absence of concepts like mass, velocity, force and temperature. He had a conception of speed and temperature, but no quantitative understanding of them, which was partly due to the absence of basic experimental devices, like clocks and thermometers.

His writings provide an account of many scientific observations, a mixture of precocious accuracy and curious errors. For example, in his History of Animals he claimed that human males have more teeth than females. Aristotle, History of Animals, 2.3. In a similar vein, John Philoponus, and later Galileo, showed by simple experiments that Aristotle's theory that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object is incorrect. On the other hand, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Way was made up of "those stars which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays," pointing out (correctly, even if such reasoning was bound to be dismissed for a long time) that, given "current astronomical demonstrations" that "the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than that of the sun, then ... the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them." Aristotle, Meteorology 1.8, trans. E.W. Webster, rev. J. Barnes. 

In places, Aristotle goes too far in deriving 'laws of the universe' from simple observation and over-stretched reason. Today's scientific method assumes that such thinking without sufficient facts is ineffective, and that discerning the validity of one's hypothesis requires far more rigorous experimentation than that which Aristotle used to support his laws.

Aristotle also had some scientific blind spots. He posited a geocentric cosmology that we may discern in selections of the Metaphysics, which was widely accepted up until the 16th century. From the 3rd century to the 16th century, the dominant view held that the Earth was the rotational center of the universe.

Because he was perhaps the philosopher most respected by European thinkers during and after the Renaissance, these thinkers often took Aristotle's erroneous positions as given, which held back science in this epoch. Burent, John. 1928. Platonism, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 61, 103–104. However, Aristotle's scientific shortcomings should not mislead one into forgetting his great advances in the many scientific fields. For instance, he founded logic as a formal science and created foundations to biology that were not superseded for two millennia. Moreover, he introduced the fundamental notion that nature is composed of things that change and that studying such changes can provide useful knowledge of underlying constants.

===Geology===
As quoted from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology:
He refers to many examples of changes now constantly going on, and insists emphatically on the great results which they must produce in the lapse of ages. He instances particular cases of lakes that had dried up, and deserts that had at length become watered by rivers and fertilized. He points to the growth of the Nilotic delta since the time of Homer, to the shallowing of the Palus Maeotis within sixty years from his own time ... He alludes ... to the upheaving of one of the Eolian islands, previous to a volcanic eruption. The changes of the earth, he says, are so slow in comparison to the duration of our lives, that they are overlooked; and the migrations of people after great catastrophes, and their removal to other regions, cause the event to be forgotten.He says chapter of his Meteorics 'the distribution of land and sea in particular regions does not endure throughout all time, but it becomes sea in those parts where it was land, and again it becomes land where it was sea, and there is reason for thinking that these changes take place according to a certain system, and within a certain period.' The concluding observation is as follows: 'As time never fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais, nor the Nile, can have flowed for ever. The places where they rise were once dry, and there is a limit to their operations, but there is none to time. So also of all other rivers; they spring up and they perish; and the sea also continually deserts some lands and invades others The same tracts, therefore, of the earth are not some always sea, and others always continents, but every thing changes in the course of time.' Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1832, p.17 

===Physics===

====Five elements====

Aristotle proposed a fifth element, aether, in addition to the four proposed earlier by Empedocles.
*Earth, which is cold and dry; this corresponds to the modern idea of a solid.
*Water, which is cold and wet; this corresponds to the modern idea of a liquid.
*Air, which is hot and wet; this corresponds to the modern idea of a gas.
*Fire, which is hot and dry; this corresponds to the modern ideas of plasma and heat.
*Aether, which is the divine substance that makes up the heavenly spheres and heavenly bodies (stars and planets).

Each of the four earthly elements has its natural place. All that is earthly tends toward the center of the universe, i.e., the center of the Earth. Water tends toward a sphere surrounding the center. Air tends toward a sphere surrounding the water sphere. Fire tends toward the lunar sphere (in which the Moon orbits). When elements are moved out of their natural place, they naturally move back towards it. This is "natural motion"—motion requiring no extrinsic cause. So, for example, in water, earthy bodies sink while air bubbles rise up; in air, rain falls and flame rises. Outside all the other spheres, the heavenly, fifth element, manifested in the stars and planets, moves in the perfection of circles.

====Motion====

Aristotle defined motion as the actuality of a potentiality as such. Physics 201a10–11, 201a27–29, 201b4–5 Aquinas suggested that the passage be understood literally; that motion can indeed be understood as the active fulfillment of a potential, as a transition toward a potentially possible state. Because actuality and potentiality are normally opposites in Aristotle, other commentators either suggest that the wording which has come down to us is erroneous, or that the addition of the "as such" to the definition is critical to understanding it. 

====Causality, the four causes==== 

Aristotle suggested that the reason for anything coming about can be attributed to four different types of simultaneously active causal factors:
*Material cause describes the material out of which something is composed. Thus the material cause of a table is wood, and the material cause of a car is rubber and steel. It is not about action. It does not mean one domino knocks over another domino.

*The formal cause is its form, i.e., the arrangement of that matter. It tells us what a thing is, that any thing is determined by the definition, form, pattern, essence, whole, synthesis or archetype. It embraces the account of causes in terms of fundamental principles or general laws, as the whole (i.e., macrostructure) is the cause of its parts, a relationship known as the whole-part causation. Plainly put, the formal cause is the idea existing in the first place as exemplar in the mind of the sculptor, and in the second place as intrinsic, determining cause, embodied in the matter. Formal cause could only refer to the essential quality of causation. A simple example of the formal cause is the mental image or idea that allows an artist, architect, or engineer to create his drawings.

*The efficient cause is "the primary source", or that from which the change under consideration proceeds. It identifies 'what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed' and so suggests all sorts of agents, nonliving or living, acting as the sources of change or movement or rest. Representing the current understanding of causality as the relation of cause and effect, this covers the modern definitions of "cause" as either the agent or agency or particular events or states of affairs. So, take the two dominoes, this time of equal weighting, the first is knocked over causing the second also to fall over.

*The final cause is its purpose, or that for the sake of which a thing exists or is done, including both purposeful and instrumental actions and activities. The final cause or teleos is the purpose or function that something is supposed to serve. This covers modern ideas of motivating causes, such as volition, need, desire, ethics, or spiritual beliefs.

Additionally, things can be causes of one another, causing each other reciprocally, as hard work causes fitness and vice versa, although not in the same way or function, the one is as the beginning of change, the other as the goal. (Thus Aristotle first suggested a reciprocal or circular causality as a relation of mutual dependence or influence of cause upon effect). Moreover, Aristotle indicated that the same thing can be the cause of contrary effects; its presence and absence may result in different outcomes. Simply it is the goal or purpose that brings about an event. Our two dominoes require someone or something to intentionally knock over the first domino, because it cannot fall of its own accord.

Aristotle marked two modes of causation: proper (prior) causation and accidental (chance) causation. All causes, proper and incidental, can be spoken as potential or as actual, particular or generic. The same language refers to the effects of causes, so that generic effects assigned to generic causes, particular effects to particular causes, operating causes to actual effects. Essentially, causality does not suggest a temporal relation between the cause and the effect.

====Optics====
Aristotle held more accurate theories on some optical concepts than other philosophers of his day. The second oldest written evidence of a camera obscura (after Mozi c. 400 BC) can be found in Aristotle's documentation of such a device in 350 BC in Problemata. Aristotle's apparatus contained a dark chamber that had a single small hole, or aperture, to allow for sunlight to enter. Aristotle used the device to make observations of the sun and noted that no matter what shape the hole was, the sun would still be correctly displayed as a round object. In modern cameras, this is analogous to the diaphragm. Aristotle also made the observation that when the distance between the aperture and the surface with the image increased, the image was magnified. 

====Chance and spontaneity====
According to Aristotle, spontaneity and chance are causes of some things, distinguishable from other types of cause. Chance as an incidental cause lies in the realm of accidental things. It is "from what is spontaneous" (but note that what is spontaneous does not come from chance). For a better understanding of Aristotle's conception of "chance" it might be better to think of "coincidence": Something takes place by chance if a person sets out with the intent of having one thing take place, but with the result of another thing (not intended) taking place.

For example: A person seeks donations. That person may find another person willing to donate a substantial sum. However, if the person seeking the donations met the person donating, not for the purpose of collecting donations, but for some other purpose, Aristotle would call the collecting of the donation by that particular donator a result of chance. It must be unusual that something happens by chance. In other words, if something happens all or most of the time, we cannot say that it is by chance.

There is also more specific kind of chance, which Aristotle names "luck", that can only apply to human beings, because it is in the sphere of moral actions. According to Aristotle, luck must involve choice (and thus deliberation), and only humans are capable of deliberation and choice. "What is not capable of action cannot do anything by chance". Aristotle, Physics 2.6 

===Metaphysics===

Statue of Aristotle (1915) by Cipri Adolf Bermann at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau

Aristotle defines metaphysics as "the knowledge of immaterial being," or of "being in the highest degree of abstraction." He refers to metaphysics as "first philosophy", as well as "the theologic science."

====Substance, potentiality and actuality====

Aristotle examines the concepts of substance and essence (ousia) in his Metaphysics (Book VII), and he concludes that a particular substance is a combination of both matter and form. In book VIII, he distinguishes the matter of the substance as the substratum, or the stuff of which it is composed. For example, the matter of a house is the bricks, stones, timbers etc., or whatever constitutes the potential house, while the form of the substance is the actual house, namely 'covering for bodies and chattels' or any other differentia (see also predicables) that let us define something as a house. The formula that gives the components is the account of the matter, and the formula that gives the differentia is the account of the form. Aristotle, Metaphysics VIII 1043a 10–30 

With regard to the change (kinesis) and its causes now, as he defines in his Physics and On Generation and Corruption 319b–320a, he distinguishes the coming to be from:
# growth and diminution, which is change in quantity;
# locomotion, which is change in space; and
# alteration, which is change in quality.

The coming to be is a change where nothing persists of which the resultant is a property. In that particular change he introduces the concept of potentiality (dynamis) and actuality (entelecheia) in association with the matter and the form.

Referring to potentiality, this is what a thing is capable of doing, or being acted upon, if the conditions are right and it is not prevented by something else. For example, the seed of a plant in the soil is potentially (dynamei) plant, and if is not prevented by something, it will become a plant. Potentially beings can either 'act' (poiein) or 'be acted upon' (paschein), which can be either innate or learned. For example, the eyes possess the potentiality of sight (innate – being acted upon), while the capability of playing the flute can be possessed by learning (exercise – acting).

Actuality is the fulfillment of the end of the potentiality. Because the end (telos) is the principle of every change, and for the sake of the end exists potentiality, therefore actuality is the end. Referring then to our previous example, we could say that an actuality is when a plant does one of the activities that plants do.

"For that for the sake of which a thing is, is its principle, and the becoming is for the sake of the end; and the actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this that the potentiality is acquired. For animals do not see in order that they may have sight, but they have sight that they may see." Aristotle, Metaphysics IX 1050a 5–10 

In summary, the matter used to make a house has potentiality to be a house and both the activity of building and the form of the final house are actualities, which is also a final cause or end. Then Aristotle proceeds and concludes that the actuality is prior to potentiality in formula, in time and in substantiality.

With this definition of the particular substance (i.e., matter and form), Aristotle tries to solve the problem of the unity of the beings, for example, "what is it that makes a man one"? Since, according to Plato there are two Ideas: animal and biped, how then is man a unity? However, according to Aristotle, the potential being (matter) and the actual one (form) are one and the same thing. Aristotle, Metaphysics VIII 1045a–b 

====Universals and particulars====

Aristotle's predecessor, Plato, argued that all things have a universal form, which could be either a property, or a relation to other things. When we look at an apple, for example, we see an apple, and we can also analyze a form of an apple. In this distinction, there is a particular apple and a universal form of an apple. Moreover, we can place an apple next to a book, so that we can speak of both the book and apple as being next to each other.

Plato argued that there are some universal forms that are not a part of particular things. For example, it is possible that there is no particular good in existence, but "good" is still a proper universal form. Bertrand Russell is a 20th-century philosopher who agreed with Plato on the existence of "uninstantiated universals".

Aristotle disagreed with Plato on this point, arguing that all universals are instantiated. Aristotle argued that there are no universals that are unattached to existing things. According to Aristotle, if a universal exists, either as a particular or a relation, then there must have been, must be currently, or must be in the future, something on which the universal can be predicated. Consequently, according to Aristotle, if it is not the case that some universal can be predicated to an object that exists at some period of time, then it does not exist.

In addition, Aristotle disagreed with Plato about the location of universals. As Plato spoke of the world of the forms, a location where all universal forms subsist, Aristotle maintained that universals exist within each thing on which each universal is predicated. So, according to Aristotle, the form of apple exists within each apple, rather than in the world of the forms.

===Biology and medicine===
In Aristotelian science, especially in biology, things he saw himself have stood the test of time better than his retelling of the reports of others, which contain error and superstition. He dissected animals but not humans; his ideas on how the human body works have been almost entirely superseded.

====Empirical research program====
Octopus swimming
Torpedo fuscomaculata
Leopard shark
Aristotle is the earliest natural historian whose work has survived in some detail. Aristotle certainly did research on the natural history of Lesbos, and the surrounding seas and neighbouring areas. The works that reflect this research, such as History of Animals, Generation of Animals, and Parts of Animals, contain some observations and interpretations, along with sundry myths and mistakes. The most striking passages are about the sea-life visible from observation on Lesbos and available from the catches of fishermen. His observations on catfish, electric fish (Torpedo) and angler-fish are detailed, as is his writing on cephalopods, namely, Octopus, Sepia (cuttlefish) and the paper nautilus (Argonauta argo). His description of the hectocotyl arm, used in sexual reproduction, was widely disbelieved until its rediscovery in the 19th century. He separated the aquatic mammals from fish, and knew that sharks and rays were part of the group he called Selachē (selachians). Singer, Charles. A short history of biology. Oxford 1931. 

Another good example of his methods comes from the Generation of Animals in which Aristotle describes breaking open fertilized chicken eggs at intervals to observe when visible organs were generated.

He gave accurate descriptions of ruminants' four-chambered fore-stomachs, and of the ovoviviparous embryological development of the hound shark Mustelus mustelus. Emily Kearns, "Animals, knowledge about," in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1996, p. 92. 

====Classification of living things====
Aristotle's classification of living things contains some elements which still existed in the 19th century. What the modern zoologist would call vertebrates and invertebrates, Aristotle called 'animals with blood' and 'animals without blood' (he did not know that complex invertebrates do make use of hemoglobin, but of a different kind from vertebrates). Animals with blood were divided into live-bearing (humans and mammals), and egg-bearing (birds and fish). Invertebrates ('animals without blood') are insects, crustacea (divided into non-shelled – cephalopods – and shelled) and testacea (molluscs). In some respects, this incomplete classification is better than that of Linnaeus, who crowded the invertebrata together into two groups, Insecta and Vermes (worms).

For Charles Singer, "Nothing is more remarkable than efforts to the relationships of living things as a scala naturae" Aristotle's History of Animals classified organisms in relation to a hierarchical "Ladder of Life" (scala naturae or Great Chain of Being), placing them according to complexity of structure and function so that higher organisms showed greater vitality and ability to move. Aristotle, of course, is not responsible for the later use made of this idea by clerics. 

Aristotle believed that intellectual purposes, i.e., final causes, guided all natural processes. Such a teleological view gave Aristotle cause to justify his observed data as an expression of formal design. Noting that "no animal has, at the same time, both tusks and horns," and "a single-hooved animal with two horns I have never seen," Aristotle suggested that Nature, giving no animal both horns and tusks, was staving off vanity, and giving creatures faculties only to such a degree as they are necessary. Noting that ruminants had multiple stomachs and weak teeth, he supposed the first was to compensate for the latter, with Nature trying to preserve a type of balance. Mason, A History of the Sciences pp 43–44 

In a similar fashion, Aristotle believed that creatures were arranged in a graded scale of perfection rising from plants on up to man, the scala naturae. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 201–202; see also: Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being His system had eleven grades, arranged according "to the degree to which they are infected with potentiality", expressed in their form at birth. The highest animals laid warm and wet creatures alive, the lowest bore theirs cold, dry, and in thick eggs.

Aristotle also held that the level of a creature's perfection was reflected in its form, but not preordained by that form. Ideas like this, and his ideas about souls, are not regarded as science at all in modern times.

He placed emphasis on the type(s) of soul an organism possessed, asserting that plants possess a vegetative soul, responsible for reproduction and growth, animals a vegetative and a sensitive soul, responsible for mobility and sensation, and humans a vegetative, a sensitive, and a rational soul, capable of thought and reflection. Aristotle, De Anima II 3 

Aristotle, in contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the Egyptians, placed the rational soul in the heart, rather than the brain. Mason, A History of the Sciences pp 45 Notable is Aristotle's division of sensation and thought, which generally went against previous philosophers, with the exception of Alcmaeon. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. 1 pp. 348 

====Successor: Theophrastus====
The frontispiece to a 1644 version of the expanded and illustrated edition of Historia Plantarum (ca. 1200), which was originally written around 300 BC.

Aristotle's successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany—the History of Plants—which survived as the most important contribution of antiquity to botany, even into the Middle Ages. Many of Theophrastus' names survive into modern times, such as carpos for fruit, and pericarpion for seed vessel.

Rather than focus on formal causes, as Aristotle did, Theophrastus suggested a mechanistic scheme, drawing analogies between natural and artificial processes, and relying on Aristotle's concept of the efficient cause. Theophrastus also recognized the role of sex in the reproduction of some higher plants, though this last discovery was lost in later ages. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 90–91; Mason, A History of the Sciences, p 46 

====Influence on Hellenistic medicine====

After Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work. Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly. Annas, Classical Greek Philosophy pp 252 It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found.

The first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not. Mason, A History of the Sciences pp 56 Though a few ancient atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian ideas about life, teleology (and after the rise of Christianity, natural theology) would remain central to biological thought essentially until the 18th and 19th centuries. Ernst Mayr claimed that there was "nothing of any real consequence in biology after Lucretius and Galen until the Renaissance." Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 90–94; quotation from p 91 Aristotle's ideas of natural history and medicine survived, but they were generally taken unquestioningly. Annas, Classical Greek Philosophy, p 252 

===Psychology===
Aristotle's psychology, given in his treatise On the Soul (peri psyche, often known by its Latin title De Anima), posits three kinds of soul ("psyches"): the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul. Humans have a rational soul. This kind of soul is capable of the same powers as the other kinds: Like the vegetative soul it can grow and nourish itself; like the sensitive soul it can experience sensations and move locally. The unique part of the human, rational soul is its ability to receive forms of other things and compare them.

For Aristotle, the soul (psyche) was a simpler concept than it is for us today. By soul he simply meant the form of a living being. Because all beings are composites of form and matter, the form of living beings is that which endows them with what is specific to living beings, e.g. the ability to initiate movement (or in the case of plants, growth and chemical transformations, which Aristotle considers types of movement). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article "Psychology". 

====Memory====

According to Aristotle, memory is the ability to hold a perceived experience in your mind and to have the ability to distinguish between the internal "appearance" and an occurrence in the past. In other words, a memory is a mental picture (phantasm) in which Aristotle defines in De Anima, as an appearance which is imprinted on the part of the body that forms a memory. Aristotle believed an "imprint" becomes impressed on a semi-fluid bodily organ that undergoes several changes in order to make a memory. A memory occurs when a stimuli is too complex that the nervous system (semi-fluid bodily organ) cannot receive all the impressions at once. These changes are the same as those involved in the operations of sensation, common sense, and thinking . The mental picture imprinted on the bodily organ is the final product of the entire process of sense perception. It does not matter if the experience was seen or heard, every experience ends up as a mental image in memory
 

Aristotle uses the word "memory" for two basic abilities. First, the actual retaining of the experience in the mnemonic "imprint" that can develop from sensation. Second, the intellectual anxiety that comes with the "imprint" due to being impressed at a particular time and processing specific contents. These abilities can be explained as memory is neither sensation nor thinking because is arises only after a lapse of time. Therefore, memory is of the past, prediction is of the future, and sensation is of the present. The retrieval of our "imprints" cannot be performed suddenly. A transitional channel is needed and located in our past experiences, both for our previous experience and present experience.

Aristotle proposed that slow-witted people have good memory because the fluids in their brain do not wash away their memory organ used to imprint experiences and so the "imprint" can easily continue. However, they cannot be too slow or the hardened surface of the organ will not receive new "imprints". He believed the young and the old do not properly develop an "imprint". Young people undergo rapid changes as they develop, while the elderly's organs are beginning to decay, thus stunting new "imprints". Likewise, people who are too quick-witted are similar to the young and the image cannot be fixed because of the rapid changes of their organ. Because intellectual functions are not involved in memory, memories belong to some animals too, but only those in which have perception of time.

=====Recollection=====
Because Aristotle believes people receive all kinds of sense perceptions and people perceive them as images or "imprints", people are continually weaving together new "imprints" of things they experience. In order to search for these "imprints", people search the memory itself. Within the memory, if one experience is offered instead of a specific memory, that person will reject this experience until they find what they are looking for. Recollection occurs when one experience naturally follows another. If the chain of "images" is needed, one memory will stimulate the other. If the chain of "images" is not needed, but expected, then it will only stimulate the other memory in most instances. When people recall experiences, they stimulate certain previous experiences until they have stimulated the one that was needed .

Recollection is the self-directed activity of retrieving the information stored in a memory "imprint" after some time has passed. Retrieval of stored information is dependent on the scope of mnemonic capabilities of a being (human or animal) and the abilities the human or animal possesses . Only humans will remember "imprints" of intellectual activity, such as numbers and words. Animals that have perception of time will be able to retrieve memories of their past observations. Remembering involves only perception of the things remembered and of the time passed. Recollection of an "imprint" is when the present experiences a person remembers are similar with elements corresponding in character and arrangement of past sensory experiences. When an "imprint" is recalled, it may bring forth a large group of related "imprints" .

Aristotle believed the chain of thought, which ends in recollection of certain "imprints", was connected systematically in three sorts of relationships: similarity, contrast, and contiguity. These three laws make up his Laws of Association. Aristotle believed that past experiences are hidden within our mind. A force operates to awaken the hidden material to bring up the actual experience. According to Aristotle, association is the power innate in a mental state, which operates upon the unexpressed remains of former experiences, allowing them to rise and be recalled .

===Practical philosophy===

====Ethics====

Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, the Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function (ergon) of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see, because the proper function of an eye is sight. Aristotle reasoned that humans must have a function specific to humans, and that this function must be an activity of the psuchē (normally translated as soul) in accordance with reason (logos). Aristotle identified such an optimum activity of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, eudaimonia, generally translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well being". To have the potential of ever being happy in this way necessarily requires a good character (ēthikē aretē), often translated as moral (or ethical) virtue (or excellence). Nicomachean Ethics Book I. See for example chapter 7 1098a. 

Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated not deliberately, but by teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things. When the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom (phronesis) and their intellect (nous) can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other words, a philosopher. Nicomachean Ethics Book VI. 

====Politics====

In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled Politics. Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be prior in importance to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole must of necessity be prior to the part". Politics 1253a19–24 He also famously stated that "man is by nature a political animal". Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner. 

The common modern understanding of a political community as a modern state is quite different from Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city (polis) which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" (koinōnia). The aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together." This is distinguished from modern approaches, beginning with social contract theory, according to which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences." For a different reading of social and economic processes in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics see Polanyi, K. (1957) "Aristotle Discovers the Economy" in Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi ed. G. Dalton, Boston 1971, 78–115 

====Rhetoric and poetics====

Aristotle considered epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry and music to be imitative, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. Aristotle, Poetics I 1447a For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama. Aristotle, Poetics III Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages over animals. Aristotle, Poetics IV 

While it is believed that Aristotle's Poetics comprised two books – one on comedy and one on tragedy – only the portion that focuses on tragedy has survived. Aristotle taught that tragedy is composed of six elements: plot-structure, character, style, thought, spectacle, and lyric poetry. Aristotle, Poetics VI The characters in a tragedy are merely a means of driving the story; and the plot, not the characters, is the chief focus of tragedy. Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to effect the catharsis of those same emotions. Aristotle concludes Poetics with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis. He suggests that because tragedy possesses all the attributes of an epic, possibly possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be considered superior to epic. Aristotle, Poetics XXVI 

Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop. Temple, Olivia, and Temple, Robert (translators), The Complete Fables By Aesop Penguin Classics, 1998. ISBN 0-14-044649-4 Cf. Introduction, pp. xi–xii. 

===Views on women===

Aristotle's analysis of procreation describes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive female element. On this ground, feminist metaphysics have accused Aristotle of misogyny and sexism. However, Aristotle gave equal weight to women's happiness as he did to men's, and commented in his Rhetoric that a society cannot be happy unless women are happy too.

==Loss and preservation of his works==

Modern scholarship reveals that Aristotle's "lost" works stray considerably in characterization Terence Irwin and Gail Fine, Cornell University, Aristotle: Introductory Readings. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. (1996), Introduction, pp. xi–xii. from the surviving Aristotelian corpus. Whereas the lost works appear to have been originally written with an intent for subsequent publication, the surviving works do not appear to have been so. Rather the surviving works mostly resemble lecture notes unintended for publication. The authenticity of a portion of the surviving works as originally Aristotelian is also today held suspect, with some books duplicating or summarizing each other, the authorship of one book questioned and another book considered to be unlikely Aristotle's at all. 

Some of the individual works within the corpus, including the Constitution of Athens, are regarded by most scholars as products of Aristotle's "school," perhaps compiled under his direction or supervision. Others, such as On Colors, may have been produced by Aristotle's successors at the Lyceum, e.g., Theophrastus and Straton. Still others acquired Aristotle's name through similarities in doctrine or content, such as the De Plantis, possibly by Nicolaus of Damascus. Other works in the corpus include medieval palmistries and astrological and magical texts whose connections to Aristotle are purely fanciful and self-promotional. Lynn Thorndike, "Chiromancy in Medieval Latin Manuscripts," Speculum 40 (1965), pp. 674–706; Roger A. Pack, "Pseudo-Arisoteles: Chiromantia," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 39 (1972), pp. 289–320; Pack, "A Pseudo-Aristotelian Chiromancy," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 36 (1969), pp. 189–241. 

According to a distinction that originates with Aristotle himself, his writings are divisible into two groups: the "exoteric" and the "esoteric". Jonathan Barnes, "Life and Work" in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (1995), p. 12; Aristotle himself: Nicomachean Ethics 1102a26–27. Aristotle himself never uses the term "esoteric" or "acroamatic". For other passages where Aristotle speaks of exōterikoi logoi, see W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics (1953), vol. 2, pp. 408–410. Ross defends an interpretation according to which the phrase, at least in Aristotle's own works, usually refers generally to "discussions not peculiar to the Peripatetic school", rather than to specific works of Aristotle's own. Most scholars have understood this as a distinction between works Aristotle intended for the public (exoteric), and the more technical works intended for use within the school (esoteric). Modern scholars commonly assume these latter to be Aristotle's own (unpolished) lecture notes (or in some cases possible notes by his students). Barnes, "Life and Work", p. 12. However, one classic scholar offers an alternative interpretation. The 5th century neoplatonist Ammonius Hermiae writes that Aristotle's writing style is deliberately obscurantist so that "good people may for that reason stretch their mind even more, whereas empty minds that are lost through carelessness will be put to flight by the obscurity when they encounter sentences like these." p. 15 

Another common assumption is that none of the exoteric works is extant – that all of Aristotle's extant writings are of the esoteric kind. Current knowledge of what exactly the exoteric writings were like is scant and dubious, though many of them may have been in dialogue form. (Fragments of some of Aristotle's dialogues have survived.) Perhaps it is to these that Cicero refers when he characterized Aristotle's writing style as "a river of gold"; it is hard for many modern readers to accept that one could seriously so admire the style of those works currently available to us. However, some modern scholars have warned that we cannot know for certain that Cicero's praise was reserved specifically for the exoteric works; a few modern scholars have actually admired the concise writing style found in Aristotle's extant works. Barnes, "Roman Aristotle", in Gregory Nagy, Greek Literature, Routledge 2001, vol. 8, p. 174 n. 240. 

One major question in the history of Aristotle's works, then, is how were the exoteric writings all lost, and how did the ones we now possess come to us .The definitive, English study of these questions is Barnes, "Roman Aristotle". The story of the original manuscripts of the esoteric treatises is described by Strabo in his Geography and Plutarch in his Parallel Lives. "Sulla." The manuscripts were left from Aristotle to his successor Theophrastus, who in turn willed them to Neleus of Scepsis. Neleus supposedly took the writings from Athens to Scepsis, where his heirs let them languish in a cellar until the 1st century BC, when Apellicon of Teos discovered and purchased the manuscripts, bringing them back to Athens. According to the story, Apellicon tried to repair some of the damage that was done during the manuscripts' stay in the basement, introducing a number of errors into the text. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla occupied Athens in 86 BC, he carried off the library of Apellicon to Rome, where they were first published in 60 BC by the grammarian Tyrannion of Amisus and then by the philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes. Ancient Rome: from the early Republic to the assassination of Julius Caesar – Page 513, Matthew Dillon, Lynda Garland The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 22 – Page 131, Grolier Incorporated – Juvenile Nonfiction 

Carnes Lord attributes the popular belief in this story to the fact that it provides "the most plausible explanation for the rapid eclipse of the Peripatetic school after the middle of the third century, and for the absence of widespread knowledge of the specialized treatises of Aristotle throughout the Hellenistic period, as well as for the sudden reappearance of a flourishing Aristotelianism during the first century B.C." Lord voices a number of reservations concerning this story, however. First, the condition of the texts is far too good for them to have suffered considerable damage followed by Apellicon's inexpert attempt at repair.

Second, there is "incontrovertible evidence," Lord says, that the treatises were in circulation during the time in which Strabo and Plutarch suggest they were confined within the cellar in Scepsis. Third, the definitive edition of Aristotle's texts seems to have been made in Athens some fifty years before Andronicus supposedly compiled his. And fourth, ancient library catalogues predating Andronicus' intervention list an Aristotelian corpus quite similar to the one we currently possess. Lord sees a number of post-Aristotelian interpolations in the Politics, for example, but is generally confident that the work has come down to us relatively intact.

On the one hand, the surviving texts of Aristotle do not derive from finished literary texts, but rather from working drafts used within Aristotle's school, as opposed, on the other hand, to the dialogues and other "exoteric" texts which Aristotle published more widely during his lifetime. The consensus is that Andronicus of Rhodes collected the esoteric works of Aristotle's school which existed in the form of smaller, separate works, distinguished them from those of Theophrastus and other Peripatetics, edited them, and finally compiled them into the more cohesive, larger works as they are known today. Anagnostopoulos, G., "Aristotle's Works and Thoughts", A Companion to Aristotle (Blackwell Publishing, 2009), p. 16. See also, Barnes, J., "Life and Work", The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 10–15. 

==Legacy==
Aristotle with a bust of Homer, by Rembrandt.

More than 2300 years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived. He contributed to almost every field of human knowledge then in existence, and he was the founder of many new fields. According to the philosopher Bryan Magee, "it is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did". Among countless other achievements, Aristotle was the founder of formal logic, W. K. C. Guthrie (1990). "A history of Greek philosophy: Aristotle : an encounter". Cambridge University Press. p.156. ISBN 0-521-38760-4 pioneered the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method. 

Despite these achievements, the influence of Aristotle's errors is considered by some to have held back science considerably. Bertrand Russell notes that "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Russell also refers to Aristotle's ethics as "repulsive", and calls his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell notes that these errors make it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembers how large of an advance he made upon all of his predecessors. 

===Later Greek philosophers===
The immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school. Aristotle's notable students included Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Meno, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus. Aristotle's influence over Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him on his expedition a host of zoologists, botanists, and researchers. He had also learned a great deal about Persian customs and traditions from his teacher. Although his respect for Aristotle was diminished as his travels made it clear that much of Aristotle's geography was clearly wrong, when the old philosopher released his works to the public, Alexander complained "Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men's common property?" Plutarch, Life of Alexander 

===Influence on Byzantine scholars===
Greek Christian scribes played a crucial role in the preservation of Aristotle by copying all the extant Greek language manuscripts of the corpus. The first Greek Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were John Philoponus, Elias, and David in the sixth century, and Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century. Richard Sorabji, ed. Aristotle Transformed London, 1990, 20, 28, 35–36. John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought. Richard Sorabji, ed. Aristotle Transformed (London, 1990) 233–274. After a hiatus of several centuries, formal commentary by Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus reappears in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, apparently sponsored by Anna Comnena. Richard Sorabji, ed. Aristotle Transformed (London, 1990) 20–21; 28–29, 393–406; 407–408. 

===Influence on Islamic theologians===
Aristotle was one of the most revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology. Most of the still extant works of Aristotle, Encyclopedia of Islam, Aristutalis as well as a number of the original Greek commentaries, were translated into Arabic and studied by Muslim philosophers, scientists and scholars. Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius, who wrote on Aristotle in great depth, also influenced Thomas Aquinas and other Western Christian scholastic philosophers. Alkindus considered Aristotle as the outstanding and unique representative of philosophy Rasa'il I, 103, 17, Abu Rida and Averroes spoke of Aristotle as the "exemplar" for all future philosophers. Comm. Magnum in Aristotle, De Anima, III, 2, 43 Crawford Medieval Muslim scholars regularly described Aristotle as the "First Teacher". al-mua'llim al-thani, Aristutalis The title "teacher" was first given to Aristotle by Muslim scholars, and was later used by Western philosophers (as in the famous poem of Dante) who were influenced by the tradition of Islamic philosophy. 

In accordance with the Greek theorists, the Muslims considered Aristotle to be a dogmatic philosopher, the author of a closed system, and believed that Aristotle shared with Plato essential tenets of thought. Some went so far as to credit Aristotle himself with neo-Platonic metaphysical ideas. 

===Influence on Western Christian theologians===
With the loss of the study of ancient Greek in the early medieval Latin West, Aristotle was practically unknown there from c. CE 600 to c. 1100 except through the Latin translation of the Organon made by Boethius. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, interest in Aristotle revived and Latin Christians had translations made, both from Arabic translations, such as those by Gerard of Cremona, and from the original Greek, such as those by James of Venice and William of Moerbeke.

After Thomas Aquinas wrote his theology, working from Moerbeke's translations, the demand for Aristotle's writings grew and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe that continued into the Renaissance. 
Aristotle is referred to as "The Philosopher" by Scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas. See Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 3, etc. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. It required a repudiation of some Aristotelian principles for the sciences and the arts to free themselves for the discovery of modern scientific laws and empirical methods. The medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by having
: at his beddes heed
:Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed,
:Of aristotle and his philosophie, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, lines 295–295 
The Italian poet Dante says of Aristotle in the first circles of hell,
:I saw the Master there of those who know,
:Amid the philosophic family,
:By all admired, and by all reverenced;
:There Plato too I saw, and Socrates,
:Who stood beside him closer than the rest. vidi 'l maestro di color che sanno
seder tra filosofica famiglia.
Tutti lo miran, tutti onor li fanno:
quivi vid'ïo Socrate e Platone
che 'nnanzi a li altri più presso li stanno; Dante, L'Inferno (Hell), Canto IV. Lines 131–135 

===Post-Enlightenment thinkers===
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle. Durant, p. 86 However implausible this is, it is certainly the case that Aristotle's rigid separation of action from production, and his justification of the subservience of slaves and others to the virtue – or arete – of a few justified the ideal of aristocracy. It is Martin Heidegger, not Nietzsche, who elaborated a new interpretation of Aristotle, intended to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical tradition. Ayn Rand accredited Aristotle as "the greatest philosopher in history" and cited him as a major influence on her thinking. More recently, Alasdair MacIntyre has attempted to reform what he calls the Aristotelian tradition in a way that is anti-elitist and capable of disputing the claims of both liberals and Nietzscheans. Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy, Polity Press, 2007, passim. 

==List of works==

The works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's Royal Prussian Academy edition (Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica, Berlin, 1831–1870), which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.

==Eponym==
"ARISTOTLE" near the ceiling of the Great Hall in the Library of Congress.

The Aristotle Mountains along the Oscar II Coast of Graham Land, Antarctica, are named after Aristotle. He was the first person known to conjecture the existence of a landmass in the southern high-latitude region and call it "Antarctica". Aristotle Mountains. SCAR Composite Antarctic Gazetteer. 

==See also==
*Aristotelian physics
*Aristotelian theology
*Conimbricenses
*List of writers influenced by Aristotle
*Otium
*Philia

==Notes and references==

==Further reading==
The secondary literature on Aristotle is vast. The following references are only a small selection.

*Ackrill J. L. (1997). Essays on Plato and Aristotle, Oxford University Press, USA.
*
* A popular exposition for the general reader.
* 
* These translations are available in several places online; see External links.
*Bakalis Nikolaos. (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
*Barnes J. (1995). The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, Cambridge University Press.
*
*Bolotin, David (1998). An Approach to Aristotle's Physics: With Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of Writing. Albany: SUNY Press. A contribution to our understanding of how to read Aristotle's scientific works.
*Burnyeat, M. F. et al. (1979). Notes on Book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Oxford: Sub-faculty of Philosophy.
*
*Chappell, V. (1973). Aristotle's Conception of Matter, Journal of Philosophy 70: 679–696.
*Code, Alan. (1995). Potentiality in Aristotle's Science and Metaphysics, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76.
*
*Frede, Michael. (1987). Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
*
*Gendlin, Eugene T. (2012). Line by Line Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, Volume 1: Books I & II; Volume 2: Book III. Spring Valley, New York: The Focusing Institute. Available online in PDF.
*Gill, Mary Louise. (1989). Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*
*Halper, Edward C. (2007). One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Volume 1: Books Alpha – Delta, Parmenides Publishing, ISBN 978-1-930972-21-6.
*Halper, Edward C. (2005). One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Volume 2: The Central Books, Parmenides Publishing, ISBN 978-1-930972-05-6.
*Irwin, T. H. (1988). Aristotle's First Principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-824290-5.
*
* Jori, Alberto. (2003). Aristotele, Milano: Bruno Mondadori Editore (Prize 2003 of the "International Academy of the History of Science") ISBN 88-424-9737-1.
*
*Knight, Kelvin. (2007). Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Polity Press.
*Lewis, Frank A. (1991). Substance and Predication in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Lloyd, G. E. R. (1968). Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of his Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., ISBN 0-521-09456-9.
*Lord, Carnes. (1984). Introduction to The Politics, by Aristotle. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
*Loux, Michael J. (1991). Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Ζ and Η. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
*
* in J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R. R. K. Sorabji, eds.(1975). Articles on Aristotle Vol 1. Science. London: Duckworth 14–34.
*Pangle, Lorraine Smith (2003). Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aristotle's conception of the deepest human relationship viewed in the light of the history of philosophic thought on friendship.
*
*Reeve, C. D. C. (2000). Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle's Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett.
* 
* A classic overview by one of Aristotle's most prominent English translators, in print since 1923.
*Scaltsas, T. (1994). Substances and Universals in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
*Strauss, Leo (1964). "On Aristotle's Politics", in The City and Man, Chicago; Rand McNally.
* 
* 
* For the general reader.
*

==External links==

* .
* .

* At the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
*: 

* From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
*: 
* General article at The Catholic Encyclopedia
* 
* .
* Timeline of Aristotle's life
* .
* .

Collections of works
* At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (primarily in English).
* Project Gutenberg.
* Perseus Project at Tufts University.
* At the University of Adelaide (primarily in English).
* P. Remacle
* The 11-volume 1837 Bekker edition of Aristotle's Works in Greek (PDFDJVU)
* Bekker's Prussian Academy of Sciences edition of the complete works of Aristotle at Archive.org: 
* Aristotle Collection (translation).

 



[[An American in Paris]]

An American in Paris is a symphonic poem by the American composer George Gershwin, written in 1928. Inspired by the time Gershwin had spent in Paris, it evokes the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s and is one of his best-known compositions.

Gershwin composed An American in Paris on commission from the conductor Walter Damrosch. He scored the piece for the standard instruments of the symphony orchestra plus celesta, saxophones, and automobile horns. He brought back some Parisian taxi horns for the New York premiere of the composition, which took place on December 13, 1928 in Carnegie Hall, with Damrosch conducting the New York Philharmonic. http://nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/program-notes/1314/Gershwin-An%20American%20in%20Paris.pdf Gershwin completed the orchestration on November 18, less than four weeks before the work's premiere. 

Gershwin collaborated on the original program notes with the critic and composer Deems Taylor, noting that: "My purpose here is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere." When the tone poem moves into the blues, "our American friend ... has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness." But, "nostalgia is not a fatal disease." The American visitor "once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life" and "the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant."

==Background==
Maurice Ravel met Gershwin in New York during Ravel's tour of the United States. In that meeting, Gershwin asked Ravel to be his teacher, to which Ravel responded that it was better to be a first-rate Gershwin than a second-rate Ravel. Instead, Ravel recommended that Gershwin see Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Ravel's high praise of Gershwin in an introductory letter to Boulanger caused Gershwin to seriously consider taking time to study abroad in Paris.

Gershwin arrived in Paris in March 1928. Paris at this time hosted many expatriate writers: among them Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway; and artist Pablo Picasso. Gershwin met with Boulanger and at her request he played ten minutes of his music. Boulanger replied that she had nothing to teach him. This did not set Gershwin back, as his real intent abroad was to complete a new work based on Paris and perhaps a second rhapsody for piano and orchestra to follow his Rhapsody in Blue.

==Composition==
Gershwin based An American in Paris on a melodic fragment called "Very Parisienne", written in 1926 on his first visit to Paris as a gift to his hosts, Robert and Mabel Schirmer. He described the piece as a "rhapsodic ballet" because it was written freely and is more modern than his previous works. Gershwin explained in Musical America, "My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere."

The piece is structured into five sections, which culminate in a loose ABA format. Gershwin's first A episode introduces the two main "walking" themes in the "Allegretto grazioso" and develops a third theme in the "Subito con brio". The style of this A section is written in the typical French style of composers Claude Debussy and Les Six. This A section featured duple meter, singsong rhythms, and diatonic melodies with the sounds of oboe, English horn, and taxi horns. The B section's "Andante ma con ritmo deciso" introduces the American Blues and spasms of homesickness. The "Allegro" that follows continues to express homesickness in a faster twelve-bar blues. In the B section, Gershwin uses common time, syncopated rhythms, and bluesy melodies with the sounds of trumpet, saxophone, and snare drum. "Moderato con grazia" is the last A section that returns to the themes set in A. After recapitulating the "walking" themes, Gershwin overlays the slow blues theme from section B in the final “Grandioso.”

==Instrumentation==
An American in Paris is scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in B flat, bass clarinet in B flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in B flat, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, wood block, cymbals, low and high tom-toms, xylophone, glockenspiel, celesta, 4 taxi horns labeled as A, B, C and D, alto saxophone/soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone/soprano saxophone/alto saxophone, baritone saxophone/soprano saxophone/alto saxophone, and strings.

The revised edition by F. Campbell-Watson calls for three saxophones, alto, tenor and baritone. In this arrangement the soprano and alto doublings have been rewritten to avoid changing instruments.

William Daly arranged the score for piano solo which was published by New World Music in 1929.

==Response==
Gershwin did not particularly like Walter Damrosch's interpretation at the world premiere of An American in Paris. He stated that Damrosch's sluggish, dragging tempo caused him to walk out of the hall during a matinee performance of this work. The audience, according to Edward Cushing, responded with "a demonstration of enthusiasm impressively genuine in contrast to the conventional applause which new music, good and bad, ordinarily arouses." Critics believed that An American in Paris was better crafted than his lukewarm Concerto in F. Some did not think it belonged in a program with classical composers César Franck, Richard Wagner, or Guillaume Lekeu on its premiere. Gershwin responded to the critics, "It's not a Beethoven Symphony, you know… It's a humorous piece, nothing solemn about it. It's not intended to draw tears. If it pleases symphony audiences as a light, jolly piece, a series of impressions musically expressed, it succeeds."

==Recordings==
First recording
An American in Paris has been frequently recorded. The first recording was made for RCA Victor in 1929 with Nathaniel Shilkret conducting the Victor Symphony Orchestra, drawn from members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Gershwin was on hand to "supervise" the recording; however, Shilkret was reported to be in charge and eventually asked the composer to leave the recording studio. Then, a little later, Shilkret discovered there was no one to play the brief celesta solo during the slow section, so he hastily asked Gershwin if he might play the solo; Gershwin said he could and so he briefly participated in the actual recording. The radio broadcast of the September 8, 1937 Hollywood Bowl George Gershwin Memorial Concert, in which An American in Paris, also conducted by Shilkret, was second on the program, was recorded and was released in 1998 in a two-CD set. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra recorded the work for RCA Victor, including one of the first stereo recordings of the music. In 1945, Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra recorded the music in Carnegie Hall, one of the few commercial recordings Toscanini made of music by an American composer. The Seattle Symphony also recorded a version in the 1980s of Gershwin's original score, before he made numerous edits resulting in the score as we hear it today.

==Use in film==
In 1951, MGM released the musical An American in Paris, featuring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Winning the 1951 Best Picture Oscar and numerous other awards, the film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, featured many tunes of Gershwin, and concluded with an extensive, elaborate dance sequence built around the An American in Paris symphonic poem (arranged for the film by Johnny Green), costing $500,000.

A part of the symphonic composition is also featured in As Good as It Gets, released in 1997.

==References==

* Rimler, Walter. George Gershwin – An Intimate Portrait. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2009. 29–33.
* Pollack, Howard. George Gershwin – His Life and Work. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006. 431–42.

==External links==
* 
* 1944 recording by The New York Philharmonic conducted by Artur Rodziński
* , New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, 1959



[[Academy Award for Best Production Design]]

The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Production Design recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The category's original name was Best Art Direction, but was changed to its current name in 2012 for the 85th Academy Awards. This change resulted from the Art Director's branch of the Academy being renamed the Designer's branch. Since 1947, the award is shared with the Set Decorator(s). 

The films below are listed with their production year (for example, the 2000 Academy Award for Best Art Direction is given to a film from 1999). In the lists below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees.

== Superlatives ==

 Category Name Superlative Notes 
 Most Awards Cedric Gibbons 11 awards Awards resulted from 39 nominations. 
 Most Nominations Cedric Gibbons 39 nominations Nominations resulted in 11 awards. 
 Most Nominations(without ever winning) Roland Anderson 15 nominations Nominations resulted in no awards. 

==Best Interior Decoration==

===1920s===

 Year Interior Decorator Film 
 
 1927/28 
 William Cameron Menzies The Dove 
 
 Tempest 
 Harry Oliver Seventh Heaven 
 Rochus Gliese Sunrise 
 1928/29 
 Cedric Gibbons The Bridge of San Luis Rey 
 Mitchell Leisen Dynamite 
 William Cameron Menzies Alibi 
 The Awakening 
 Hans Dreier The Patriot 
 Harry Oliver Street Angel 

===1930s===

 Year Interior Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1929/30 
 Herman Rosse King of Jazz 
 William Cameron Menzies Bulldog Drummond 
 Hans Dreier The Love Parade 
 Jack Okey Sally 
 Hans Dreier The Vagabond King 
 1930/31 
 Max Ree Cimarron 
 Stephen GoossonRalph Hammeras Just Imagine 
 Hans Dreier Morocco 
 Anton Grot Svengali 
 Richard Day Whoopee! 
 1931/32 
 Gordon Wiles Transatlantic 
 Lazare Meerson À nous la liberté 
 Richard Day Arrowsmith 
 1932/33 
 William S. Darling Cavalcade 
 Hans DreierRoland Anderson A Farewell to Arms 
 Cedric Gibbons When Ladies Meet 
 1934 
 Cedric GibbonsFredric Hope The Merry Widow 
 Van Nest PolglaseCarroll Clark The Gay Divorcee 
 Richard Day The Affairs of Cellini 
 1935 
 Richard Day The Dark Angel 
 Hans DreierRoland Anderson The Lives of a Bengal Lancer 
 Carroll ClarkVan Nest Polglase Top Hat 
 1936 
 Richard Day Dodsworth 
 Anton Grot Anthony Adverse 
 Cedric GibbonsEddie ImazuEdwin B. Willis The Great Ziegfeld 
 William S. Darling Lloyd's of London 
 Albert S. D'AgostinoJack Otterson The Magnificent Brute 
 Cedric GibbonsFrederic HopeEdwin B. Willis Romeo and Juliet 
 Perry Ferguson Winterset 
 1937 
 Stephen Goosson Lost Horizon 
 Cedric GibbonsWilliam Horning Conquest 
 Carroll Clark A Damsel in Distress 
 Richard Day Dead End 
 Ward Ihnen Every Day's a Holiday 
 Anton Grot The Life of Emile Zola 
 John Victor MacKay Manhattan Merry-Go-Round 
 Lyle Wheeler The Prisoner of Zenda 
 Hans DreierRoland Anderson Souls at Sea 
 Alexander Toluboff Vogues of 1938 
 William S. DarlingDavid S. Hall Wee Willie Winkie 
 Jack Otterson You're a Sweetheart 
 1938 
 Carl J. Weyl The Adventures of Robin Hood 
 Lyle Wheeler The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 
 Bernard HerzbrunBoris Leven Alexander's Ragtime Band 
 Alexander Toluboff Algiers 
 Van Nest Polglase Carefree 
 Richard Day The Goldwyn Follies 
 Stephen GoossonLionel Banks Holiday 
 Hans DreierJohn B. Goodman If I Were King 
 Jack Otterson Mad About Music 
 Cedric Gibbons Marie Antoinette 
 Charles D. Hall Merrily We Live 
 1939 
 Lyle Wheeler Gone with the Wind 
 Hans DreierRobert Odell Beau Geste 
 Charles D. Hall Captain Fury 
 Jack OttersonMartin Obzina First Love 
 Van Nest PolglaseAlfred Herman Love Affair 
 John Victor Mackay Man of Conquest 
 Lionel Banks Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 
 Anton Grot The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex 
 William S. DarlingGeorge Dudley The Rains Came 
 Alexander Toluboff Stagecoach 
 Cedric GibbonsWilliam A. Horning The Wizard of Oz 
 James Basevi Wuthering Heights 

===1940s===

 Year Interior Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1940 From 1940, the award was split into Black-and-white and color. Black-and-white 
 Richard DayPaul Groesse Pride and Prejudice 
 Hans DreierRobert Usher Arise, My Love 
 Lionel BanksRobert Peterson Arizona 
 John Otterson The Boys from Syracuse 
 John Victor Mackay Dark Command 
 Alexander Golitzen Foreign Correspondent 
 Richard DayJoseph C. Wright Lillian Russell 
 Van Nest PolglaseMark-Lee Kirk My Favorite Wife 
 John DuCasse Schulze My Son, My Son 
 Lewis J. Rachmil Our Town 
 Lyle Wheeler Rebecca 
 Anton Grot The Sea Hawk 
 N/A (nomination withdrawn) Sis Hopkins 
 James Basevi The Westerner 
 Color 
 Vincent Korda The Thief of Bagdad 
 Cedric GibbonsJohn S. Detlie Bitter Sweet 
 Richard DayJoseph C. Wright Down Argentine Way 
 Hans DreierRoland Anderson North West Mounted Police 
 1941 Black-and-white 
 Cedric GibbonsNathan H. JuranThomas Little How Green Was My Valley 
 Perry FergusonVan Nest PolglaseAl FieldsDarrell Silvera Citizen Kane 
 Martin ObzinaJack OttersonRussell A. Gausman The Flame of New Orleans 
 Hans DreierRobert UsherSamuel M. Comer Hold Back the Dawn 
 Lionel BanksGeorge Montgomery Ladies in Retirement 
 Stephen GoossonHoward Bristol The Little Foxes 
 John HughesFred M. MacLean Sergeant York 
 John DuCasse SchultzeEdward G. Boyle Son of Monte Cristo 
 Alexander GolitzenRichard Irvine Sundown 
 Vincent KordaJulia Heron That Hamilton Woman 
 Cedric GibbonsRandall DuellEdwin B. Willis When Ladies Meet 
 Color 
 Cedric GibbonsUrie McClearyEdwin B. Willis Blossoms in the Dust 
 Richard DayJoseph C. WrightThomas Little Blood and Sand 
 Raoul Pene Du BoisStephen A. Seymour Louisiana Purchase 
 1942 Black-and-white 
 Richard DayJoseph WrightThomas Little This Above All 
 Max ParkerMark-Lee KirkCasey Roberts George Washington Slept Here 
 Albert S. D'AgostinoAl FieldsDarrell Silvera The Magnificent Ambersons 
 Perry FergusonHoward Bristol The Pride of the Yankees 
 Cedric GibbonsRandall DuellEdwin B. WillisJack Moore Random Harvest 
 Boris Leven The Shanghai Gesture 
 Ralph BergerEmile Kuri Silver Queen 
 John B. GoodmanJack OttersonRussell A. GausmanEdward Ray Robinson The Spoilers 
 Hans DreierRoland AndersonSamuel M. Comer Take a Letter, Darling 
 Lionel BanksRudolph SternadFay Babcock The Talk of the Town 
 Color 
 Richard DayJoseph WrightThomas Little My Gal Sal 
 Alexander GolitzenJack OttersonRussell A. GausmanIra S. Webb Arabian Nights 
 Ted SmithCasey Roberts Captains of the Clouds 
 Vincent KordaJulia Heron Jungle Book 
 Hans DreierRoland AndersonGeorge Sawley Reap the Wild Wind 
 1943 Black-and-white 
 James BaseviWilliam S. DarlingThomas Little The Song of Bernadette 
 Hans DreierErnst FegteBertram Granger Five Graves to Cairo 
 Albert S. D'AgostinoCarroll ClarkDarrell SilveraHarley Miller Flight for Freedom 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul GroesseEdwin B. WillisHugh Hunt Madame Curie 
 Carl WeylGeorge J. Hopkins Mission to Moscow 
 Perry FergusonHoward Bristol The North Star 
 Color 
 Alexander GolitzenJohn B. GoodmanRussell A. GausmanIra S. Webb Phantom of the Opera 
 Hans DreierHaldane DouglasBertram Granger For Whom the Bell Tolls 
 James BaseviJoseph C. WrightThomas Little The Gang's All Here 
 John HughesGeorge J. Hopkins This Is the Army 
 Cedric GibbonsDaniel CathcartEdwin B. WillisJacques Mersereau Thousands Cheer 
 1944 Black-and-white 
 Cedric GibbonsWilliam FerrariPaul HuldschinskyEdwin B. Willis Gaslight 
 Lionel BanksWalter HolscherJoseph Kish Address Unknown 
 John HughesFred M. MacLean The Adventures of Mark Twain 
 Perry FergusonJulia Heron Casanova Brown 
 Lyle WheelerLeland FullerThomas Little Laura 
 Hans DreierRobert UsherSamuel M. Comer No Time for Love 
 Mark-Lee KirkVictor A. Gangelin Since You Went Away 
 N/A (nomination withdrawn) Song of the Open Road 
 Albert S. D'AgostinoCarroll ClarkDarrell SilveraClaude Carpenter Step Lively 
 Color 
 Wiard IhnenThomas Little Wilson 
 John B. GoodmanAlexander GolitzenRussell A. GausmanIra S. Webb The Climax 
 Lionel BanksCary OdellFay Babcock Cover Girl 
 Charles NoviJack McConaghy The Desert Song 
 Cedric GibbonsDaniel B. CathcartEdwin B. WillisRichard Pefferle Kismet 
 Hans DreierRaoul Pene du BoisRay Moyer Lady in the Dark 
 Ernst FegteHoward Bristol The Princess and the Pirate 
 1945 Black-and-white 
 Wiard IhnenA. Roland Fields Blood on the Sun 
 Albert S. D'AgostinoJack OkeyDarrell SilveraClaude Carpenter Experiment Perilous 
 James BaseviWilliam S. DarlingThomas LittleFrank E. Hughes The Keys of the Kingdom 
 Hans DreierRoland AndersonSamuel M. ComerRay Moyer Love Letters 
 Cedric GibbonsHans PetersEdwin B. WillisJohn BonarHugh Hunt The Picture of Dorian Gray 
 Color 
 Hans DreierErnst FegteSamuel M. Comer Frenchman's Creek 
 Lyle WheelerMaurice RansfordThomas Little Leave Her to Heaven 
 Cedric GibbonsUrie McClearyEdwin B. WillisMildred Griffiths National Velvet 
 Ted SmithJack McConaghy San Antonio 
 Stephen GoossonRudolph SternadFrank Tuttle A Thousand and One Nights 
 1946 Black-and-white 
 William S. DarlingLyle WheelerThomas LittleFrank E. Hughes Anna and the King of Siam 
 Hans DreierWalter H. TylerSamuel M. ComerRay Moyer Kitty 
 Richard DayNathan H. JuranThomas LittlePaul S. Fox The Razor's Edge 
 Color 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul GroesseEdwin B. Willis The Yearling 
 John Bryan Caesar and Cleopatra 
 Paul SheriffCarmen Dillon Henry V 

==Best Art Direction &ndash; Set Decoration==

===1940s===

 Year Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1947 Black-and-white 
 Wilfred Shingleton John Bryan Great Expectations 
 Lyle WheelerMaurice Ransford Thomas LittlePaul S. Fox The Foxes of Harrow 
 Color 
 Alfred Junge — Black Narcissus 
 Robert M. Haas George James Hopkins Life with Father 
 1948 Black-and-white 
 Carmen Dillon Roger K. Furse Hamlet 
 Robert Haas William O. Wallace Johnny Belinda 
 Color 
 Arthur Lawson Hein Heckroth The Red Shoes 
 Richard Day Edwin Casey RobertsJoseph Kish Joan of Arc 
 1949 Black-and-white 
 Harry HornerJohn Meehan Emile Kuri The Heiress 
 Lyle WheelerJoseph C. Wright Thomas LittlePaul S. Fox Come to the Stable 
 Cedric GibbonsJack Martin Smith Edwin B. WillisRichard A. Pefferle Madame Bovary 
 Color 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul Groesse Edwin B. WillisJack D. Moore Little Women 
 Edward Carrere Lyle Reifsnider Adventures of Don Juan 
 Jim MorahanWilliam Kellner Michael Relph Saraband for Dead Lovers 

===1950s===

 Year Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1950 Black-and-white 
 Hans DreierJohn Meehan Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer Sunset Boulevard 
 George W. DavisLyle R. Wheeler Thomas LittleWalter M. Scott All About Eve 
 Cedric GibbonsHans Peters Edwin B. WillisHugh Hunt The Red Danube 
 Color 
 Hans DreierWalter Tyler Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer Samson and Delilah 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul Groesse Edwin B. WillisRichard A. Pefferle Annie Get Your Gun 
 Ernst Fegte George Sawley Destination Moon 
 1951 Black-and-white 
 Richard Day George James Hopkins A Streetcar Named Desire 
 Leland FullerLyle Wheeler Thomas LittleFred J. Rode Fourteen Hours 
 John DeCuirLyle Wheeler Paul S. FoxThomas Little House on Telegraph Hill 
 Jean d'Eaubonne — La Ronde 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul Groesse Edwin B. WillsJack D. Moore Too Young to Kiss 
 Color 
 E. Preston AmesCedric Gibbons Edwin B. WillisKeogh Gleason An American in Paris 
 George DavisLyle Wheeler Paul S. FoxThomas Little David and Bathsheba 
 Leland FullerLyle Wheeler Thomas LittleWalter M. Scott On the Riviera 
 Edward CarfagnoCedric GibbonsWilliam A. Horning Hugh Hunt Quo Vadis 
 Hein Heckroth — The Tales of Hoffmann 
 1952 Black-and-white 
 Edward CarfagnoCedric Gibbons Keogh GleasonEdwin B. Willis The Bad and the Beautiful 
 Roland AndersonHal Pereira Emile Kuri Carrie 
 John DeCuirLyle Wheeler Walter M. Scott My Cousin Rachel 
 So Matsuyama H. Motsumoto Rashōmon 
 Leland FullerLyle Wheeler Claude CarpenterThomas Little Viva Zapata! 
 Color 
 Marcel Vertes Paul Sheriff Moulin Rouge 
 ClavéRichard Day Howard Bristol Hans Christian Andersen 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul Groesse Arthur KramsEdwin B. Willis The Merry Widow 
 Frank Hotaling John McCarthy, Jr.Charles S. Thompson The Quiet Man 
 John DeCuirLyle Wheeler Paul S. FoxThomas Little The Snows of Kilimanjaro 
 1953 Black-and-white 
 Edward CarfagnoCedric Gibbons Hugh HuntEdwin B. Willis Julius Caesar 
 Paul MarkwitzFritz Maurischat — Martin Luther 
 Leland FullerLyle Wheeler Paul S. Fox The President's Lady 
 Hal PereiraWalter Tyler — Roman Holiday 
 Maurice RansfordLyle Wheeler Stuart Reiss Titanic 
 Color 
 George DavisLyle Wheeler Paul S. FoxWalter M. Scott The Robe 
 Alfred JungeHans Peters John Jarvis Knights of the Round Table 
 Cedric GibbonsPaul Groesse Arthur KramsEdwin B. Willis Lili 
 E. Preston AmesEdward CarfagnoCedric GibbonsGabriel Scognamillo Keogh GleasonArthur KramsJack D. MooreEdwin B. Willis The Story of Three Loves 
 Cedric GibbonsUrie McCleary Jack D. MooreEdwin B. Willis Young Bess 
 1954 Black-and-white 
 Richard Day — On the Waterfront 
 Roland AndersonHal Pereira Samuel M. ComerGrace Gregory The Country Girl 
 Cedric GibbonsEdward Carfagno Edwin B. WillisEmile Kuri Executive Suite 
 Max Ophüls — Le Plaisir 
 Hal PereiraWalter Tyler Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer Sabrina 
 Color 
 John Meehan Emile Kuri 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 
 Cedric GibbonsE. Preston Ames Edwin B. WillisKeogh Gleason Brigadoon 
 Lyle WheelerLeland Fuller Walter M. ScottPaul S. Fox Désirée 
 Hal PereiraRoland Anderson Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer Red Garters 
 Malcolm BertGene Allen Irene SharaffGeorge James Hopkins A Star Is Born 
 1955 Black-and-white 
 Hal PereiraTambi Larsen Samuel M. ComerArthur Krams The Rose Tattoo 
 Cedric GibbonsRandall Duell Edwin B. WillisHenry Grace Blackboard Jungle 
 Cedric GibbonsMalcolm Brown Edwin B. WillisHugh B. Hunt I'll Cry Tomorrow 
 Joseph C. Wright Darrell Silvera The Man with the Golden Arm 
 Edward S. HaworthWalter Simonds Robert Priestley Marty 
 Color 
 William Flannery Jo MielzinerRobert Priestley Picnic 
 Lyle WheelerJohn DeCuir Walter M. ScottPaul S. Fox Daddy Long Legs 
 Oliver SmithJoseph C. Wright Howard Bristol Guys and Dolls 
 Lyle WheelerGeorge Davis Walter M. ScottJack Stubbs Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing 
 Hal PereiraJoseph McMillan Johnson Samuel M. ComerArthur Krams To Catch a Thief 
 1956 Black-and-white 
 Cedric GibbonsMalcolm F. Brown Edwin B. WillisF. Keogh Gleason Somebody Up There Likes Me 
 Hal PereiraA. Earl Hedrick Samuel M. ComerFrank R. McKelvy The Proud and Profane 
 So Matsuyama — Seven Samurai 
 Ross Bellah William R. KiernanLouis Diage The Solid Gold Cadillac 
 Lyle R. WheelerJack Martin Smith Walter M. ScottStuart A. Reiss Teenage Rebel 
 Color 
 Lyle R. WheelerJohn DeCuir Walter M. ScottPaul S. Fox The King and I 
 James W. SullivanKen Adam Ross J. Dowd Around the World in 80 Days 
 Boris Leven Ralph S. Hurst Giant 
 Cedric GibbonsHans PetersE. Preston Ames Edwin B. WillisF. Keogh Gleason Lust for Life 
 Hal PereiraWalter H. TylerAlbert Nozaki Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer The Ten Commandments 
 1957 From 1957, the two awards were combined. 
 Ted Haworth Robert Priestley Sayonara 
 Hal PereiraGeorge Davis Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer Funny Face 
 William A. HorningGene Allen Edwin B. WillisRichard Pefferle Les Girls 
 Walter Holscher William KiernanLouis Diage Pal Joey 
 William A. HorningUrie McCleary Edwin B. WillisHugh Hunt Raintree County 
 1958 
 William A. Horning E. Preston Ames Henry GraceF. Keogh Gleason Gigi 
 Malcolm Bert George James Hopkins Auntie Mame 
 Cary Odell Louis Diage Bell, Book and Candle 
 Lyle R. WheelerJohn DeCuir Walter M. ScottPaul S. Fox A Certain Smile 
 Hal PereiraHenry Bumstead Samuel M. ComerFrank McKelvy Vertigo 
 1959 In 1959, the awards were again split in two. Black-and-white 
 Lyle R. WheelerGeorge Davis Walter M. ScottStuart A. Reiss The Diary of Anne Frank 
 Hal PereiraWalter Tyler Samuel M. ComerArthur Krams Career 
 Carl Anderson William Kiernan The Last Angry Man 
 Ted Haworth Edward G. Boyle Some Like It Hot 
 Oliver MesselWilliam Kellner Scot Slimon Suddenly, Last Summer 
 Color 
 William A. Horning Edward Carfagno Hugh Hunt Ben-Hur 
 John De Cuir Julia Heron The Big Fisherman 
 Lyle R. WheelerFranz BachelinHerman A. Blumenthal Walter M. ScottJoseph Kish Journey to the Center of the Earth 
 William A. Horning Robert F. BoyleMerrill Pye Henry GraceFrank McKelvy North by Northwest 
 Richard H. Riedel Russell A. GausmanRuby R. Levitt Pillow Talk 

===1960s===

 Year Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1960 Black-and-white 
 Alexander Trauner Edward G. Boyle The Apartment 
 Joseph McMillan JohnsonKenneth A. Reid Ross Dowd The Facts of Life 
 Joseph HurleyRobert Clatworthy George Milo Psycho 
 Tom Morahan Lionel Couch Sons and Lovers 
 Hal PereiraWalter Tyler Samuel M. ComerArthur Krams Visit to a Small Planet 
 Color 
 Harry Horner Russell A. GausmanJulia Heron Spartacus 
 George DavisAddison Hehr Henry GraceHugh HuntOtto Siegel Cimarron 
 Hal PereiraRoland Anderson Samuel M. ComerArrigo Breschi It Started in Naples 
 Ted Haworth William Kiernan Pepe 
 Edward Carrere George James Hopkins Sunrise at Campobello 
 1961 Black-and-white 
 Alexander Trauner Gene Callahan The Hustler 
 Carroll Clark Emile KuriHal Gausman The Absent-Minded Professor 
 Fernando Carrere Edward G. Boyle The Children's Hour 
 Rudolf Sternad George Milo Judgment at Nuremberg 
 Piero Gherardi — La Dolce Vita 
 Color 
 Boris Leven Victor A. Gangelin West Side Story 
 Hal PereiraRoland Anderson Samuel M. ComerRay Moyer Breakfast at Tiffany's 
 Veniero ColasantiJohn Moore — El Cid 
 Alexander GolitzenJoseph Wright Howard Bristol Flower Drum Song 
 Hal PereiraWalter Tyler Samuel M. ComerArthur Krams Summer and Smoke 
 1962 Black-and-white 
 Alexander GolitzenHenry Bumstead Oliver Emert To Kill a Mockingbird 
 Joseph Wright George James Hopkins Days of Wine and Roses 
 Ted HaworthLéon BarsacqVincent Korda Gabriel Bechir The Longest Day 
 George DavisEdward Carfagno Henry GraceDick Pefferle Period of Adjustment 
 Hal PereiraRoland Anderson Samuel M. ComerFrank R. McKelvy The Pigeon That Took Rome 
 Color 
 John BoxJohn Stoll Dario Simoni Lawrence of Arabia 
 Paul Groesse George James Hopkins The Music Man 
 George DavisJ. McMillan Johnson Henry GraceHugh Hunt Mutiny on the Bounty 
 Alexander GolitzenRobert Clatworthy George Milo That Touch of Mink 
 George DavisEdward Carfagno Henry GraceDick Pefferle The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm 
 1963 Black-and-white 
 Gene Callahan — America America 
 Piero Gherardi — 8½ 
 Hal PereiraTambi Larsen Samuel M. ComerRobert R. Benton Hud 
 Hal PereiraRoland Anderson Samuel M. ComerGrace Gregory Love with the Proper Stranger 
 George DavisPaul Groesse Henry GraceHugh Hunt Twilight of Honor 
 Color 
 John DeCuirJack Martin SmithHilyard BrownHerman BlumenthalElven WebbMaurice PellingBoris Juraga Walter M. ScottPaul S. FoxRay Moyer Cleopatra 
 Lyle Wheeler Gene Callahan The Cardinal 
 Hal PereiraRoland Anderson Samuel M. ComerJames W. Payne Come Blow Your Horn 
 George DavisWilliam Ferrari Addison Hehr Henry GraceDon Greenwood Jr.Jack Mills How the West Was Won 
 Ralph BrintonTed Marshall Jocelyn HerbertJosie MacAvin Tom Jones 
 1964 Black-and-white 
 Vassilis Fotopoulos — Zorba the Greek 
 George DavisHans PetersElliot Scott Henry GraceRobert R. Benton The Americanization of Emily 
 William Glasgow Raphael Bretton Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte 
 Stephen Grimes — The Night of the Iguana 
 Cary Odell Edward G. Boyle Seven Days in May 
 Color 
 Gene AllenCecil Beaton George James Hopkins My Fair Lady 
 John BryanMaurice Carter Patrick McLoughlinRobert Cartwright Becket 
 Carroll ClarkWilliam H. Tuntke Emile KuriHal Gausman Mary Poppins 
 George DavisE. Preston Ames Henry GraceHugh Hunt The Unsinkable Molly Brown 
 Jack Martin SmithTed Haworth Walter M. ScottStuart A. Reiss What a Way to Go! 
 1965 Black-and-white 
 Robert Clatworthy Joseph Kish Ship of Fools 
 Robert Emmet Smith Frank Tuttle King Rat 
 George DavisUrie McCleary Henry GraceCharles S. Thompson A Patch of Blue 
 Hal PereiraJack Poplin Robert R. BentonJoseph Kish The Slender Thread 
 Hal PereiraTambi Larsen Ted MarshallJosie MacAvin The Spy Who Came in from the Cold 
 Color 
 John BoxTerence Marsh Dario Simoni Doctor Zhivago 
 John DeCuirJack Martin Smith Dario Simoni The Agony and the Ecstasy 
 Richard DayWilliam CreberDavid S. Hall Ray MoyerFred M. MacLeanNorman Rockett The Greatest Story Ever Told 
 Robert Clatworthy George James Hopkins Inside Daisy Clover 
 Boris Leven Walter M. ScottRuby Levitt The Sound of Music 
 1966 Black-and-white 
 Richard Sylbert George James Hopkins Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 
 Robert Luthardt Edward G. Boyle The Fortune Cookie 
 Luigi Scaccianoce — The Gospel According to St. Matthew 
 Willy HoltMarc FrederixPierre Guffroy — Is Paris Burning? 
 George DavisPaul Groesse Henry GraceHugh Hunt Mister Buddwing 
 Color 
 Jack Martin SmithDale Hennesy Walter M. ScottStuart A. Reiss Fantastic Voyage 
 Alexander GolitzenGeorge C. Webb John McCarthy, Jr.John Austin Gambit 
 Piero Gherardi — Juliet of the Spirits 
 Hal PereiraArthur Lonergan Robert R. BentonJames W. Payne The Oscar 
 Boris Leven Walter M. ScottJohn SturtevantWilliam Kiernan The Sand Pebbles 
 1967 
 John TruscottEdward Carrere John W. Brown Camelot 
 Mario ChiariJack Martin SmithEd Graves Walter M. ScottStuart A. Reiss Doctor Dolittle 
 Robert Clatworthy Frank Tuttle Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 
 Renzo MongiardinoJohn DeCuirElven WebbGiuseppe Mariani Dario SimoniLuigi Gervasi The Taming of the Shrew 
 Alexander GolitzenGeorge C. Webb Howard Bristol Thoroughly Modern Millie 
 1968 
 John BoxTerence Marsh Vernon DixonKen Muggleston Oliver! 
 George DavisEdward Carfagno — The Shoes of the Fisherman 
 Boris Leven Walter M. ScottHoward Bristol Star! 
 Anthony MastersHarry LangeErnie Archer — 2001: A Space Odyssey 
 Mikhail BogdanovGennady Myasnikov Georgi KoshelevVladimir Uvarov War and Peace 
 1969 
 John DecuirJack Martin SmithHerman Blumenthal Walter M. ScottGeorge HopkinsRaphael Bretton Hello, Dolly! 
 Maurice CarterLionel Couch Patrick McLoughlin Anne of the Thousand Days 
 Robert F. BoyleGeorge B. Chan Edward G. BoyleCarl Biddiscombe Gaily, Gaily 
 Alexander GolitzenGeorge C. Webb Jack D. Moore Sweet Charity 
 Harry Horner Frank McKelvy They Shoot Horses, Don't They? 

===1970s===

 Year Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1970 
 Urie McClearyGil Parrondo Antonio MateosPierre-Louis Thevenet Patton 
 Alexander GolitzenE. Preston Ames Jack D. MooreMickey S. Michaels Airport 
 Tambi Larsen Darrell Silvera The Molly MaGuires 
 Terence MarshBob Cartwright Pamela Cornell Scrooge 
 Jack Martin SmithYoshirō MurakiRichard DayTaizoh Kawashima Samuel M. ComerArthur Krams Tora! Tora! Tora! 
 1971 
 John BoxErnest ArcherJack MaxstedGil Parrondo Vernon Dixon Nicholas and Alexandra 
 Boris LevenWilliam Tuntke Ruby Levitt The Andromeda Strain 
 John B. MansbridgePeter Ellenshaw Emile KuriHal Gausman Bedknobs and Broomsticks 
 Robert F. BoyleMichael Stringer Peter Lamont Fiddler on the Roof 
 Terence MarshRobert Cartwright Peter Howitt Mary, Queen of Scots 
 1972 
 Rolf ZehetbauerJurgen Kiebach Herbert Strabel Cabaret 
 Carl Anderson Reg Allen Lady Sings the Blues 
 William Creber Raphael Bretton The Poseidon Adventure 
 John BoxGil ParrondoRobert W. Laing — Travels with My Aunt 
 Donald M. AshtonGeoffrey Drake John GraysmarkWilliam HutchinsonPeter James Young Winston 
 1973 
 Henry Bumstead James W. Payne The Sting 
 Lorenzo MongiardinoGianni Quaranta Carmelo Patrono Brother Sun, Sister Moon 
 Bill Malley Jerry Wunderlich The Exorcist 
 Philip Jefferies Robert de Vestel Tom Sawyer 
 Stephen Grimes William Kiernan The Way We Were 
 1974 
 Dean TavoularisAngelo Graham George R. Nelson The Godfather Part II 
 Richard SylbertW. Stewart Campbell Ruby Levitt Chinatown 
 Alexander GolitzenE. Preston Ames Frank McKelvy Earthquake 
 Peter EllenshawJohn B. MansbridgeWalter TylerAl Roelofs Hal Gausman The Island at the Top of the World 
 William CreberWard Preston Raphael Bretton The Towering Inferno 
 1975 
 Ken AdamRoy Walker Vernon Dixon Barry Lyndon 
 Edward Carfagno Frank McKelvy The Hindenburg 
 Alexander TraunerTony Inglis Peter James The Man Who Would Be King 
 Richard SylbertW. Stewart Campbell George Gaines Shampoo 
 Albert Brenner Marvin March The Sunshine Boys 
 1976 
 George Jenkins George Gaines All the President's Men 
 Elliot Scott Norman Reynolds The Incredible Sarah 
 Gene CallahanJack Collis Jerry Wunderlich The Last Tycoon 
 Dale Hennesy Robert de Vestel Logan's Run 
 Robert F. Boyle Arthur Jeph Parker The Shootist 
 1977 
 John BarryNorman ReynoldsLeslie Dilley Roger Christian Star Wars] 
 George C. Webb Mickey S. Michaels Airport '77 
 Joe AlvesDan Lomino Phil Abramson Close Encounters of the Third Kind 
 Ken AdamPeter Lamont Hugh Scaife The Spy Who Loved Me 
 Albert Brenner Marvin March The Turning Point 
 1978 
 Paul SylbertEdwin O'Donovan George Gaines Heaven Can Wait 
 Dean TavoularisAngelo Graham George R. Nelson The Brink's Job 
 Albert Brenner Marvin March California Suite 
 Mel Bourne Daniel Robert Interiors 
 Tony WaltonPhilip Rosenberg Edward StewartRobert Drumheller The Wiz 
 1979 
 Philip RosenbergTony Walton Edward StewartGary Brink All That Jazz 
 Michael SeymourLes DilleyRoger Christian Ian Whittaker Alien 
 Dean TavoularisAngelo Graham George R. Nelson Apocalypse Now 
 George Jenkins Arthur Jeph Parker The China Syndrome 
 Harold MichelsonJoe JenningsLeon HarrisJohn Vallone Linda Descenna 

===1980s===

 Year Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) Film 
 
 1980 
 Pierre GuffroyJack Stephens — Tess 
 John W. Corso John M. Dwyer Coal Miner's Daughter 
 Stuart CraigRobert Cartwright Hugh Scaife The Elephant Man 
 Norman ReynoldsLeslie DilleyHarry LangeAlan Tomkins Michael D. Ford The Empire Strikes Back] 
 Yoshirō Muraki — Kagemusha 
 1981 
 Norman ReynoldsLeslie Dilley Michael D. Ford Raiders of the Lost Ark 
 Assheton Gorton Ann Mollo The French Lieutenant's Woman 
 Tambi Larsen James L. Berkey Heaven's Gate 
 John GraysmarkPatrizia von BrandensteinTony Reading George DeTitta Sr.George DeTitta, Jr.Peter Howitt Ragtime 
 Richard Sylbert Michael Seirton Reds 
 1982 
 Stuart CraigRobert W. Laing Michael Seirton Gandhi 
 Dale Hennesy Marvin March Annie 
 Lawrence G. PaullDavid L. Snyder Linda DeScenna Blade Runner 
 Franco ZeffirelliGianni Quaranta — La traviata 
 Rodger MausTim HutchinsonWilliam Craig Smith Harry Cordwell Victor Victoria 
 1983 
 Anna Asp Susanne Lingheim Fanny and Alexander 
 Norman ReynoldsFred HoleJames L. Schoppe Michael D. Ford Return of the Jedi] 
 Geoffrey KirklandRichard LawrenceW. Stewart CampbellPeter R. Romero Jim PoynterGeorge R. Nelson The Right Stuff 
 Polly PlattHarold Michelson Tom PedigoAnthony Mondell Terms of Endearment 
 Roy WalkerLeslie Tomkins Tessa Davies Yentl 
 1984 
 Patrizia von Brandenstein Karel Černý Amadeus 
 Richard Sylbert George Gaines The Cotton Club 
 Mel BourneAngelo P. Graham Bruce Weintraub The Natural 
 John Box Hugh Scaife A Passage to India 
 Albert Brenner Rick Simpson 2010 
 1985 
 Stephen Grimes Josie Macavin Out of Africa 
 Norman Garwood Maggie Gray Brazil 
 J. Michael RivaBo Welch Linda DeScenna The Color Purple 
 Yoshirō MurakiShinobu Muraki — Ran 
 Stan Jolley John H. Anderson Witness 
 1986 
 Gianni QuarantaBrian Ackland-Snow Brian SavegarElio Altamura A Room with a View 
 Peter Lamont Crispian Sallis Aliens 
 Boris Leven Karen O'Hara The Color of Money 
 Stuart Wurtzel Carol Joffe Hannah and Her Sisters 
 Stuart Craig Jack Stephens The Mission 
 1987 
 Ferdinando Scarfiotti Bruno CesariOsvaldo Desideri The Last Emperor 
 Norman Reynolds Harry Cordwell Empire of the Sun 
 Anthony Pratt Joanne Woollard Hope and Glory 
 Santo Loquasto Carol JoffeLeslie BloomGeorge DeTitta Jr. Radio Days 
 Patrizia von BrandensteinWilliam A. Elliott Hal Gausman The Untouchables 
 1988 
 Stuart Craig Gérard James Dangerous Liaisons 
 Albert Brenner Garrett Lewis Beaches 
 Ida Random Linda DeScenna Rain Man 
 Dean Tavoularis Armin Ganz 
 Elliot Scott Peter Howitt Who Framed Roger Rabbit 
 1989 
 Anton Furst Peter Young Batman 
 Leslie Dilley Anne Kuljian The Abyss 
 Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo The Adventures of Baron Munchausen 
 Bruno Rubeo Crispian Sallis Driving Miss Daisy 
 Norman Garwood Garrett Lewis Glory 

===1990s===

 Year Film Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) 
 1990(63rd) 
 Dick Tracy Richard Sylbert Rick Simpson 
 Cyrano de Bergerac Ezio Frigerio Jacques Rouxel 
 Dances with Wolves Jeffrey Beecroft Lisa Dean 
 The Godfather Part III Dean Tavoularis Gary Fettis 
 Hamlet Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 1991(64th) 
 Bugsy Dennis Gassner Nancy Haigh 
 Barton Fink Dennis Gassner Nancy Haigh 
 The Fisher King Mel Bourne Cindy Carr 
 Hook Norman Garwood Garrett Lewis 
 The Prince of Tides Paul Sylbert Caryl Heller 
 1992(65th) 
 Howards End Luciana Arrighi Ian Whittaker 
 Bram Stoker's Dracula Thomas E. Sanders Garrett Lewis 
 Chaplin Stuart Craig Chris A. Butler 
 Toys Ferdinando Scarfiotti Linda DeScenna 
 Unforgiven Henry Bumstead Janice Blackie-Goodine 
 1993(66th) 
 Schindler's List Allan Starski Ewa Braun 
 Addams Family Values Ken Adam Marvin March 
 The Age of Innocence Dante Ferretti Robert J. Franco 
 Orlando Ben Van Os and Jan Roelfs — 
 The Remains of the Day Luciana Arrighi Ian Whittaker 
 1994(67th) 
 The Madness of King George Ken Adam Carolyn Scott 
 Bullets Over Broadway Santo Loquasto Susan Bode 
 Forrest Gump Rick Carter Nancy Haigh 
 Interview with the Vampire] Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 Legends of the Fall Lilly Kilvert Dorree Cooper 
 1995(68th) 
 Restoration Eugenio Zanetti — 
 Apollo 13 Michael Corenblith Merideth Boswell 
 Babe Roger Ford Kerrie Brown 
 A Little Princess Bo Welch Cheryl Carasik 
 Richard III Tony Burrough — 
 1996(69th) 
 The English Patient Stuart Craig Stephenie McMillan 
 The Birdcage Bo Welch Cheryl Carasik 
 Evita Brian Morris Philippe Turlure 
 Hamlet Tim Harvey — 
 Romeo + Juliet Catherine Martin Brigitte Broch 
 1997(70th) 
 Titanic Peter Lamont Michael D. Ford 
 Gattaca Jan Roelfs Nancy Nye 
 Kundun Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 L.A. Confidential Jeannine Oppewall Jay Hart 
 Men in Black Bo Welch Cheryl Carasik 
 1998(71st) 
 Shakespeare in Love Martin Childs Jill Quertier 
 Elizabeth John Myhre Peter Howitt 
 Pleasantville Jeannine Oppewall Jay Hart 
 Saving Private Ryan Tom Sanders Lisa Dean Kavanaugh 
 What Dreams May Come Eugenio Zanetti Cindy Carr 
 1999(72nd) 
 Sleepy Hollow Rick Heinrichs Peter Young 
 Anna and the King Luciana Arrighi Ian Whittaker 
 The Cider House Rules David Gropman Beth Rubino 
 The Talented Mr. Ripley Roy Walker Bruno Cesari 
 Topsy-Turvy Eve Stewart John Bush 

===2000s===

 Year Film Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) 
 2000(73rd) 
 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Tim Yip — 
 Gladiator Arthur Max Crispian Sallis 
 How the Grinch Stole Christmas Michael Corenblith Merideth Boswell 
 Quills Martin Childs Jill Quertier 
 Vatel Jean Rabasse Françoise Benoît-Fresco 
 2001(74th) 
 Moulin Rouge! Catherine Martin Brigitte Broch 
 Amélie Aline Bonetto Marie-Laure Valla 
 Gosford Park Stephen Altman Anna Pinnock 
 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Stuart Craig Stephenie McMillan 
 Grant Major Dan Hennah 
 2002(75th) 
 Chicago John Myhre Gordon Sim 
 Frida Felipe Fernández del Paso Hania Robledo 
 Gangs of New York Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 Grant Major Dan Hennah and Alan Lee 
 Road to Perdition Dennis Gassner Nancy Haigh 
 2003(76th) 
 Grant Major Dan Hennah and Alan Lee 
 Girl with a Pearl Earring Ben Van Os Cecile Heideman 
 The Last Samurai Lilly Kilvert Gretchen Rau 
 William Sandell Robert Gould 
 Seabiscuit Jeannine Oppewall Leslie Pope 
 2004(77th) 
 The Aviator Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 Finding Neverland Gemma Jackson Trisha Edwards 
 Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Rick Heinrichs Cheryl Carasik 
 The Phantom of the Opera Anthony Pratt Celia Bobak 
 A Very Long Engagement Aline Bonetto — 
 2005(78th) 
 Memoirs of a Geisha John Myhre Gretchen Rau 
 Good Night, and Good Luck. Jim Bissell Jan Pascale 
 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Stuart Craig Stephenie McMillan 
 King Kong Grant Major Dan Hennah and Simon Bright 
 Pride & Prejudice Sarah Greenwood Katie Spencer 
 2006(79th) 
 Pan's Labyrinth Eugenio Caballero Pilar Revuelta 
 Dreamgirls John Myhre Nancy Haigh 
 The Good Shepherd Jeannine Claudia Oppewall Gretchen Rau and Leslie E. Rollins 
 Rick Heinrichs Cheryl Carasik 
 The Prestige Nathan Crowley Julie Ochipinti 
 2007(80th) 
 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street] Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 American Gangster Arthur Max Beth A. Rubino 
 Atonement Sarah Greenwood Katie Spencer 
 The Golden Compass Dennis Gassner Anna Pinnock 
 There Will Be Blood Jack Fisk Jim Erickson 
 2008(81st) 
 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Donald Graham Burt Victor J. Zolfo 
 Changeling James J. Murakami Gary Fettis 
 The Dark Knight Nathan Crowley Peter Lando 
 The Duchess Michael Carlin Rebecca Alleway 
 Revolutionary Road Kristi Zea Debra Schutt 
 2009(82nd) 
 Avatar Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg Kim Sinclair 
 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro Caroline Smith 
 Nine John Myhre Gordon Sim 
 Sherlock Holmes Sarah Greenwood Katie Spencer 
 The Young Victoria Patrice Vermette Maggie Gray 

===2010s===

 Year Film Art Director(s) Set Decorator(s) 
 
 2010(83rd) 
 Alice in Wonderland Robert Stromberg Karen O'Hara 
 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 Stuart Craig Stephenie McMillan 
 Inception Guy Hendrix Dyas Larry Dias and Doug Mowat 
 The King's Speech Eve Stewart Judy Farr 
 True Grit Jess Gonchor Nancy Haigh 
 2011(84th) 
 Hugo Dante Ferretti Francesca Lo Schiavo 
 The Artist Laurence Bennett Robert Gould 
 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 Stuart Craig Stephenie McMillan 
 Midnight in Paris Anne Seibel Hélène Dubreuil 
 War Horse Rick Carter Lee Sandales 
 2012(85th) 
 Lincoln Rick Carter Jim Erickson 
 Anna Karenina Sarah Greenwood Katie Spencer 
 Dan Hennah Ra Vincent and Simon Bright 
 Les Misérables Eve Stewart Anna Lynch-Robinson 
 Life of Pi David Gropman Anna Pinnock 
 2013(86th) 
 The Great Gatsby Catherine Martin Beverley Dunn 
 12 Years a Slave Adam Stockhausen Alice Baker 
 American Hustle Judy Becker Heather Loeffler 
 Gravity Andy Nicholson Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard 
 Her K.K. Barrett Gene Serdena 

==References==

Art Direction
*


[[Academy Awards]]

The Academy Awards, commonly known as The Oscars, is an annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. Winners are awarded the statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is much better known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The Oscar Academy Awards are an electoral race to the trophy to best film in any category. 

The awards ceremony was first televised in 1953 and is now seen live in more than 200 countries. The Oscars is also the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording, are modeled after the Academy Awards.

The 86th Academy Awards ceremony was held on March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. 

==History==
Gary Cooper and Joan Fontaine holding their Oscars at the Academy Awards, 1942
The first Academy Awards were presented on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post Academy Awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5 ($ as of ),. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other personalities of the film-making industry of the time for their works during the 1927–28 period; the ceremony ran for 15 minutes.

Winners had been announced to media three months earlier; however, that was changed in the second ceremony of the Academy Awards in 1930. Since then and during the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards. This method was used until the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has since 1941 used a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winners. 

The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. The honored professionals were awarded for all the work done in a certain category for the qualifying period; for example, Jannings received the award for two movies in which he starred during that period and Janet Gaynor later won a single Oscar for performances in three films. Since the fourth ceremony, the system changed, and professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.

At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27, 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Until then, foreign-language films were honored with the Special Achievement Award.

, a total of 2,894 Oscars have been given for 1,853 awards. 

== Oscar statuette ==

Although there are seven other types of annual awards presented by the Academy (the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, the Academy Scientific and Technical Award, the Academy Award for Technical Achievement, the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation, and the Student Academy Award) plus two awards that are not presented annually (the Special Achievement Award in the form of an Oscar statuette and the Honorary Award that may or may not be in the form of an Oscar statuette), the best known one is the Academy Award of Merit more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.85 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians. 

In 1928, MGM's art director Cedric Gibbons, one of the original Academy members, supervised the design of the award trophy by printing the design on a scroll. 
In need of a model for his statuette, Gibbons was introduced by his future wife Dolores del Río to Mexican film director and actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Reluctant at first, Fernández was finally convinced to pose nude to create what today is known as the "Oscar". Then, sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted Gibbons's design in clay and Sachin Smith cast the statuette in 92.5 percent tin and 7.5 percent copper and then gold-plated it. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Awards statuettes. Since 1983, approximately 50 Oscars are made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company. The awards weigh 8.5 lb each and take between three to four weeks to manufacture each statue. 

In support of the American effort in World War II, the statuettes were made of plaster and were traded in for gold ones after the war had ended. 

=== Naming ===

The origin of the name Oscar is disputed. One biography of Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson; one of the earliest mentions in print of the term Oscar dates back to a Time magazine article about the 1934 6th Academy Awards. Walt Disney is also quoted as thanking the Academy for his Oscar as early as 1932. Another claimed origin is that the Academy's Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, first saw the award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette's reminding her of her "Uncle Oscar" (a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce). "Oscar" in The Oxford English Dictionary, June 2008 Draft Revision. Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick's naming and seized the name in his byline, "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'". The trophy was officially dubbed the "Oscar" in 1939 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

=== Ownership of Oscar statuettes ===
Since 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums. (Levy 2003, pg 28) In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy. On December 20, 2011, it sold in an online auction for US$861,542. 

In 1992, Harold Russell needed money for his wife's medical expenses. In a controversial decision, he consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "The Best Years of Our Lives" to Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions, and on August 6, 1992, in New York City, the Oscar sold to a private collector for $60,500. Russell defended his action, saying, "I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't." Harold Russell is the only Academy Award winning actor to ever sell an Oscar.

While the Oscar is owned by the recipient, it is essentially not on the open market. Michael Todd's grandson tried to sell Todd's Oscar statuette to a movie prop collector in 1989, but the Academy won the legal battle by getting a permanent injunction. Although some Oscar sales transactions have been successful, some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury. (Levy 2003, pg 29) 

== Nomination ==
Since 2004, Academy Award nomination results have been announced to the public in late January. Prior to that, the results were announced in early February.

=== Voters ===
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,783 . 

Academy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) for the past 73 annual awards ceremonies. 

All AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures.

New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then. 

In 2012, the results of a study conducted by The Los Angeles Times was published which revealed the demographic breakdown of approximately 88% of AMPAS' voting membership. Of the 5,100+ active voters confirmed, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60. 33% of voting members are former nominees (14%) and winners (19%). 

In May 2011, the Academy sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an online system for Oscar voting will be implemented in 2013. 

=== Rules ===
According to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of 1 January to midnight at the end of 31 December, in Los Angeles County, California, to qualify (except for the Best Foreign Language Film). For example, the 2009 Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, was actually first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2008 awards as it did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for the 2009 awards.

Rule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scan digital cinema format with native resolution not less than 1280×720.

Producers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories. Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.

In late December ballots and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed to around 6000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In all major categories, voters use an instant runoff voting ballot, with potential nominees rewarded in the single transferable vote tally for having strong supporters who rank them first. There are some exceptions in the case of certain categories, like Foreign Film, Documentary and Animated Feature Film, in which movies are selected by special screening committees made up of members from all branches. In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to select the nominees for that category. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and each country can submit only one film per year. 

The winners are then determined by a second round of voting in which all members are then allowed to vote in most categories, including Best Picture. 

== Ceremony ==

=== Telecast ===
31st Academy Awards Presentations, Pantages Theater, Hollywood, 1959
81st Academy Awards Presentations, Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, 2009
The major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, most commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this. (The artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast).

The Academy Awards is televised live across the United States (excluding Hawaii; they aired live in Alaska starting in 2011 for the first time since 1996), Canada, the United Kingdom, and gathers millions of viewers elsewhere throughout the world. The 2007 ceremony was watched by more than 40 million Americans. Other awards ceremonies (such as the Emmys, Golden Globes, and Grammys) are broadcast live in the East Coast but are on tape delay in the West Coast and might not air on the same day outside North America (if the awards are even televised). The Academy has for several years claimed that the award show has up to a billion viewers internationally, but this has so far not been confirmed by any independent sources.
The Awards show was first televised in 1953, on NBC, which continued to broadcast the event until 1960 when the ABC Network took over, televising the festivities through 1970, after which NBC resumed the broadcasts. ABC once again took over broadcast duties in 1976 and it is under contract to do so through the year 2020. The first countries to broadcast the Academy Awards on television, aside from the United States, were Canada, the United Kingdom and Mexico; the latter two countries did not broadcast the live show, and Mexico did not carry the live event until 1964. By 1954, seven other countries, namely Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, were already broadcasting the Awards show, although previously filmed into a condensed 60-minute version, called the "International Edition" of the Academy Awards. The Awards show was broadcast for the first time via satellite in 1970, but only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil purchased the rights to air the live event. By that time, the television rights to the Awards show were sold in 50 countries. A decade later, the TV rights to the Oscars were already being sold to 60 countries, and by 1984, the TV rights to the Awards were licensed in 76 countries. Until the arrival of subscription television in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, which enabled the Oscars to be broadcast live through these territories, there was already available a previously filmed or taped 90-minute version of the Awards show which was aired on broadcast television in these territories. However, several Asian and Australasian countries, such as Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand were already carrying the live broadcast of the Awards show since the late 1970s. AMPAS still produces a condensed 90-minute version of the Academy Awards for those territories in which the rights to the live broadcast are expensive.

After more than 60 years of being held in late March or early April, the ceremonies were moved up to late February or early March starting in 2004 to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. Another reason was because of the growing TV ratings success of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, which would cut into the Academy Awards audience. The earlier date is also to the advantage of ABC, as it now usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. Some years, the ceremony is moved into early March in deference to the Winter Olympics. Another reason for the move to late February and early March is to avoid the awards ceremony occurring so close to the religious holidays of Passover and Easter, which for decades had been a grievance from members and the general public. Advertising is somewhat restricted, however, as traditionally no movie studios or competitors of official Academy Award sponsors may advertise during the telecast. The Awards show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 47 wins and 195 nominations. 

After many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, in 1999 the ceremonies were moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm Eastern/5:30 pm Pacific. The reasons given for the move were that more viewers would tune in on Sundays, that Los Angeles rush-hour traffic jams could be avoided, and that an earlier start time would allow viewers on the East Coast to go to bed earlier. Academy Awards will move to Sunday night Reading Eagle – 1 July 1998; From Google News Archive For many years the film industry had opposed a Sunday broadcast because it would cut into the weekend box office. Never Say Never: Academy Awards move to Sunday The Item – 19 March 1999. Google News Archive. 

On 30 March 1981, the awards ceremony was postponed for one day after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C.

In 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members. This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names.

In terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2000 ceremony lasted four hours and four minutes. Ehbar, Ned (February 28, 2014). "Did you know?" Metro. New York City. p. 18. In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced that winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds. This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed "the single most hated thing on the show" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion. 

The Academy has contemplated about moving the ceremony even further back into January, citing TV viewers' fatigue with the film industry's long awards season. However, such an accelerated schedule would dramatically decrease the voting period for its members, to the point where some voters would only have time to view the contending films streamed on their computers (as opposed to traditionally receiving the films and ballots in the mail). Also, a January ceremony would have to compete with National Football League playoff games. 

== Awards ceremonies ==

Historically, the "Oscarcast" has pulled in a bigger haul when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture trophy. More than 57.25 million viewers tuned to the telecast for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of Titanic, which generated close to US$600 million at the North American box office pre-Oscars. The 76th Academy Awards ceremony in which (pre-telecast box office earnings of US$368 million) received 11 Awards including Best Picture drew 43.56 million viewers. The most watched ceremony based on Nielsen ratings to date, however, was the 42nd Academy Awards (Best Picture Midnight Cowboy) which drew a 43.4% household rating on 7 April 1970. 

By contrast, ceremonies honoring films that have not performed well at the box office tend to show weaker ratings. The 78th Academy Awards which awarded low-budgeted, independent film Crash (with a pre-Oscar gross of US$53.4 million) generated an audience of 38.64 million with a household rating of 22.91%. In 2008, the 80th Academy Awards telecast was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, the lowest rated and least watched ceremony to date, in spite of celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards. The Best Picture winner of that particular ceremony was another independently financed film (No Country for Old Men).

== Venues ==
Pantages Theatre, 2008
In 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. From 1930 to 1943, the ceremony alternated between two venues: the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the Academy Award Theater at what was the Academy's headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. 

From 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. With the advent of television, the 1953–1957 awards took place simultaneously in Hollywood and New York first at the NBC International Theatre (1953) and then at the NBC Century Theatre (1954–1957), after which the ceremony took place solely in Los Angeles. The Oscars moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California in 1961. By 1969, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Los Angeles, this time to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Music Center.

In 2002, the Kodak Theatre became the permanent home of the award ceremonies. However, due to Eastman Kodak's bankruptcy issues, this theatre was renamed the Hollywood and Highland Center in the days preceding the 26 February 2012, awards ceremony. As of May 2012, the theatre was once again renamed – to the Dolby Theatre – after Dolby Laboratories acquired the naming rights. 

== Merit categories ==

=== Current categories ===

In the first year of the awards, the Best Director award was split into two separate categories (Drama and Comedy). At times, the Best Original Score award has also been split into separate categories (Drama and Comedy/Musical). From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Costume Design awards were likewise split into two separate categories (black-and-white films and color films). Prior to 2012, the Production Design award was called Art Direction, while the Makeup and Hairstyling award was called Makeup.

Another award, entitled the Academy Award for Best Original Musical, is still in the Academy rulebooks and has yet to be discontinued. However, due to continuous insufficient eligibility each year, it has not been awarded since 1984 (when Purple Rain won). 

=== Discontinued categories ===

=== Proposed categories ===
The Board of Governors meets each year and considers new award categories. To date, the following proposed categories have been rejected:
* Best Casting: rejected in 1999
* Best Stunt Coordination: rejected every year from 1991 to 2012 
* Best Title Design: rejected in 1999

== Special categories ==
The Special Academy Awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole. They are not always presented on a consistent annual basis.

=== Current special categories ===
* Academy Honorary Award: since 1929
* Academy Scientific and Technical Award: since 1931
* Gordon E. Sawyer Award: since 1981
* Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: since 1956
* Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: since 1938

=== Discontinued special categories===
* Academy Juvenile Award: 1934 to 1960
* Academy Special Achievement Award: 1972 to 1995

== Critical reception and review ==
Due to the positive exposure and prestige of the Academy Awards, studios spend millions of dollars and hire publicists specifically to promote their films during what is typically called the "Oscar season". This has generated accusations of the Academy Awards being influenced more by marketing than quality. William Friedkin, an Academy Award-winning film director and former producer of the ceremony, expressed this sentiment at a conference in New York in 2009, describing it as "the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself". 

In addition, some winners critical of the Academy Awards have boycotted the ceremonies and refused to accept their Oscars. The first to do so was Dudley Nichols (Best Writing in 1935 for The Informer). Nichols boycotted the 8th Academy Awards ceremony because of conflicts between the Academy and the Writers' Guild. George C. Scott became the second person to refuse his award (Best Actor in 1970 for Patton) at the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony. Scott described it as a 'meat parade', saying 'I don't want any part of it." The third was Marlon Brando, who refused his award (Best Actor in 1972 for The Godfather), citing the film industry's discrimination and mistreatment of Native Americans. At the 45th Academy Awards ceremony, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page speech detailing his criticisms. 

Tim Dirks, editor of AMC's filmsite.org, has written of the Academy Awards,

Typical criticism of the Academy Awards for Best Picture is that among the winners and nominees there is an over-representation of romantic historical epics, biographical dramas, romantic dramedies, and family melodramas, most of which are released in the U.S. the last three months of the calendar year. This has led to the coining of the term 'Oscar bait', describing such movies. Overall, the Academy appears to go through periods of rewarding a certain type of film: war-themed movies in the early 1940s; 'social issue' dramas in the late 1940s, late 1960s, and mid-2000s; musicals and historical epics in the early-to-mid-1960s; family melodramas and biographical epics in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s; atypical genres (movies formerly considered "B movies") in the early 1970s and 1990s; romantic historical epic dramas in the late 1990s and early 2000s; independent violent movies from critically acclaimed directors in the late 2000s; and 20th century historical movies in the 2010s. This has led at times to more specific criticisms that the Academy is disconnected from the audience, e.g. by favoring 'Oscar bait' over audience favorites, or favoring historical melodramas over critically acclaimed movies that depict current life issues. The Academy appears to compensate by nominating these movies in other categories, e.g. effects and editing awards for science-fiction and action movies, screenplay and supporting acting nominations for comedies, and directing, cinematography, and foreign language nominations for critically acclaimed art films.

Acting prizes in certain years have been criticized for not recognizing superior performances so much as being awarded for sentimental reasons, personal popularity, atonement for past mistakes, or presented as a "career honor" to recognize a distinguished nominee's entire body of work. 

== Associated events ==
The following events are closely associated with the annual Academy Awards ceremony:
* Nominees luncheon
* Governors Awards
* The 25th Independent Spirit Awards (in 2010), usually held in Santa Monica the Saturday before the Oscars, marked the first time it was moved to a Friday and a change of venue to L.A. Live.
* The annual "Night Before," traditionally held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, begun in 2002 and generally known as the party of the season, benefits the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which operates a retirement home for SAG actors in the San Fernando Valley.
* Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party airs the awards live at the nearby Pacific Design Center.
* The Governors' Ball is the Academy's official after-party, including dinner (until 2011), and is adjacent to the awards-presentation venue. In 2012, the three-course meal was replaced by appetizers.
* The Vanity Fair after-party, historically at the former Morton's restaurant, since 2009 has been at the Sunset Tower.

== Presenter and performer gifts ==
It has been a tradition to give out gift bags to the presenters and performers at the Oscars. In later years these gifts have also been extended to award nominees and winners. The total value of these gifts can reach into the 10s of thousands of dollars. In 2014 the value was reported to be as high as US$ 80,000. The value has risen to the point where the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued a statement regarding the gifts and their taxable status. 

The assortment of gifts varies significantly. Oscar gift bags have included deluxe vacation packages to Hawaii and Mexico and Japan, a private dinner party for the recipient and friends at any Morton's steakhouse worldwide, videophones, a four-night stay at Rosewood's Badrutt's Palace Hotel - a luxury hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Swiss-made watches, Jan Lewis Designs bangle bracelets, luxury vacation packages to the Canadian Rockies, spa treatments, bottles of luxury vodka, maple salad dressing, and weight-loss gummie candy. Some of the gifts have even had a "risque" element to them; in 2014 the adult products retailer Adam & Eve had a "Secret Room Gifting Suite". Celebrities visiting the gifting suite included Judith Hoag, Carolyn Hennesy, Kate Linder, Chris Mulkey, Jim O'Heir, and NBA star John Salley. 

== TV ratings and ad prices ==

2006-2011 results are Live+SD, all previous years are Live viewing 

 Year Viewers (Millions) Ad Price 
 2014 43.74 $1.8 million - $1.9 million 
 2013 40.376 $1.65 million and $1.8 million 
 2012 39.46 $1.610 million 
 2011 37.919 $1,368,400 
 2010 41.699 $1,126,700 
 2009 36.310 $1.3 million 
 2008 32.006 $1.82 million 
 2007 40.172 $1,665,800 
 2006 38.939 $1,646,800 
 2005 42.139 $1,503,000 
 2004 43.531 $1,503,100 
 2003 33.043 $1,345,800 
 2002 41.782 $1,290,000 
 2001 42.944 $1,450,000 
 2000 46.333 $1,305,000 
 1999 45.615 $1,000,000 
 1998 55.249 $950,000 
 1997 40.075 $850,000 
 1996 44.867 $795,000 
 1995 48.279 $700,000 
 1994 45.083 $643,500 
 1993 45.735 $607,800 
 1992 44.406 Not available 
 1991 42.727 Not available 
 1990 40.375 $450,000 
 1989 42.619 $375,000 
 1988 42.227 $360,000 
 1987 37.190 $335,000 
 1986 37.757 $320,000 
 1985 38.855 $315,000 
 1984 42.051 $275,000 
 1983 53.235 $245,000 
 1982 46.245 Not available 
 1981 39.919 Not available 
 1980 48.978 Not available 
 1979 46.301 Not available 
 1978 48.501 Not available 
 1977 39.719 Not available 
 1976 46.751 Not available 
 1975 48.127 Not available 
 1975 44.712 Not available 

== See also ==

* Academy Awards pre-show
* Oscar speech
* Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party
* Oscar season
* Film awards seasons
* Berlin International Film Festival
* Cannes Film Festival
* San Sebastián International Film Festival
* Venice Film Festival

Lists:
* List of Academy Award records
* List of Academy Award-winning families
* List of Academy Award-winning films
* List of Academy Awards ceremonies
* List of Academy Award trophies on public display
* List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
* List of actors who have appeared in multiple Best Picture Academy Award winners
* List of Best Picture milestones
* List of Big Five Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of fictitious Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of foreign-language films nominated for Academy Awards
* List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of people who have won multiple Academy Awards in a single year
* List of posthumous Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of presenters of Best Picture Academy Award
* List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees

Nationality:
* List of Australian Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Brazilian Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of English Academy Award nominees and winners
* List of French Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Italian Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Latin American Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of New Zealand Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Nordic Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Polish Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Spanish Academy Award winners and nominees

Race/Ethnicity:
* List of African-American Academy Award winners and nominees
* List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees
* Lists of Hispanic Academy Award winners and nominees by country

General:
* AACTA Awards (Australian equivalent)
* AMAA (Nigerian equivalent)
* Amanda Award (Norwegian equivalent)
* Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences
* Argentine Film Critics Association 
* Ariel Awards (Mexican equivalent)
* BAFTA (British equivalent)
* Canadian Screen Awards (Canadian equivalent)
* César Awards (French equivalent)
* David di Donatello Awards (Italian equivalent)
* Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards (Chinese/Taiwanese equivalent)
* Goya Awards (Spanish equivalent)
* Guldbagge Awards (Swedish equivalent)
* Japanese Academy Awards (Japanese equivalent)
* Lola Awards (German equivalent)
* Magritte Awards (Belgian equivalent)
* National Film Awards (Indian equivalent)
* ARY Film Awards (Pakistani equivalent)
* List of years in film

== Notes ==

== References ==
* Brokaw, Lauren (2010). "Wanna see an Academy Awards invite? We got it along with all the major annual events surrounding the Oscars". Los Angeles: The Daily Truffle.
* 
* 
* 
* Wright, Jon (2007). The Lunacy of Oscar: The Problems with Hollywood's Biggest Night. Thomas Publishing, Inc.

== External links ==

* Academy Awards Live Stream
* 
* Oscar.com—official Academy Award ceremony site.
* Official Academy Awards Database (searchable)
* .
* "Oscar Greats" at Time magazine.
* Oscars latest news.

We would like to thank the Academy for this page.

[[Actrius]]

Actrius (Catalan: Actresses) is a 1996 film directed by Ventura Pons. In the film, there are no male actors and the four leading actresses dubbed themselves in the Castilian version.

==Synopsis==
In order to prepare the role of an important old actress, a theatre student interviews three actresses who were her pupils: an international diva (Glòria Marc, played by Núria Espert), a television star (Assumpta Roca, played by Rosa Maria Sardà) and a dubbing director (Maria Caminal, played by Anna Lizaran).

==External links==
*
*Ficha técnica



[[Animalia (book)]]

Animalia is an illustrated children's book by Graeme Base. It was originally published in 1986, followed by a tenth anniversary edition in 1996 and a 25th anniversary edition in 2012. Over three million copies have been sold. A special numbered and signed anniversary edition was also published in 1996 with an embossed gold jacket. 

==Synopsis==
Animalia is an alliterative alphabet book and contains twenty-six illustrations, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each illustration features an animal from the animal kingdom (A is for alligator, B is for butterfly, etc.) along with a short poem utilizing the letter of the page for many of the words. The illustrations contain many other objects beginning with that letter that the reader can try to identify. As an additional challenge, the author has hidden a picture of himself as a child in every picture.

==Related products==
Penguin Books published an Animalia colouring book in 2008. H. N. Abrams also published a wall calendar colouring book version for children the same year. 

H. N. Abrams published The Animalia Wall Frieze, a fold-out over 26 feet in length, in which the author created new riddles for each letter. 

The Great American Puzzle Factory created a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle based on the book's cover. 

==Adaptations==
A television series was also created, based on the book, which airs in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway and Venezuela. It also airs on Minimax for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And recently in Greece on the channel ET1. The Australian Children's Television Foundation released a teaching resource DVD-ROM in 2011 to accompany the TV series with teaching aids for classroom use. 

In 2010, The Base Factory and AppBooks released Animalia as an application for iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch. 

==Awards==
Animalia won the Young Australian's Best Book Award in 1987 for Best Picture Story Book. 

The Children's Book Council of Australia designated Animalia a 1987 Book of the Year Award: Picture Book|Picture Book of the Year]: Honour Book. 

Kid's Own Australian Literature Awards named Animalia the 1988 Picture Book Winner. 

==References==

==External links==
* Graeme Base's official website
* Animalia The Television Series official website
* A Learning Time activity guide for Animalia created by The Little Big Book Club



[[International Atomic Time]]

International Atomic Time (TAI, from the French name Temps atomique international Temps atomique 1975 ) is a high-precision atomic coordinate time standard based on the notional passage of proper time on Earth's geoid. It is the basis for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is used for civil timekeeping all over the Earth's surface, and for Terrestrial Time, which is used for astronomical calculations. Since 30 June 2012 when the last leap second was added, TAI has been exactly 35 seconds ahead of UTC. The 35 seconds results from the initial difference of 10 seconds at the start of 1972, plus 25 leap seconds in UTC since 1972.

Time coordinates on the TAI scales are conventionally specified using traditional means of specifying days, carried over from non-uniform time standards based on the rotation of the Earth. Specifically, both Julian Dates and the Gregorian calendar are used. TAI in this form was synchronised with Universal Time at the beginning of 1958, and the two have drifted apart ever since, due to the changing motion of the Earth.

==Operation==

TAI as a time scale is a weighted average of the time kept by over 200 atomic clocks in over 50 national laboratories worldwide. The clocks are compared using GPS signals and two-way satellite time and frequency transfer. Circular T 2009. Due to the averaging it is far more stable than any clock would be alone (see signal averaging for a discussion). The majority of the clocks are caesium clocks; the definition of the SI second is written in terms of caesium. McCarthy &Seidelmann 2009, 207, 214 

The participating institutions each broadcast, in real time, a frequency signal with timecodes, which is their estimate of TAI. Time codes are usually published in the form of UTC, which differs from TAI by a well-known integer number of seconds. These time scales are denoted in the form UTC(NPL) in the UTC form, where NPL in this case identifies the National Physical Laboratory, UK. The TAI form may be denoted TAI(NPL). The latter is not to be confused with TA(NPL), which denotes an independent atomic time scale, not synchronised to TAI or to anything else.

The clocks at different institutions are regularly compared against each other. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM, France), combines these measurements to retrospectively calculate the weighted average that forms the most stable time scale possible. "Time" n.d. This combined time scale is published monthly in Circular T, and is the canonical TAI. This time scale is expressed in the form of tables of differences UTC-UTC(k) (equivalent to TAI-TAI(k)) for each participating institution k. (The same circular also gives tables of TAI-TA(k), for the various unsynchronised atomic time scales.)

Errors in publication may be corrected by issuing a revision of the faulty Circular T or by errata in a subsequent Circular T. Aside from this, once published in Circular T the TAI scale is not revised. In hindsight it is possible to discover errors in TAI, and to make better estimates of the true proper time scale. Doing so does not create another version of TAI; it is instead considered to be creating a better realisation of Terrestrial Time (TT).

==History==
Early atomic time scales consisted of quartz clocks with frequencies calibrated by a single atomic clock; the atomic clocks were not operated continuously. Atomic timekeeping services started experimentally in 1955, using the first caesium atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory, UK (NPL). The "Greenwich Atomic" (GA) scale began in 1955 at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The International Time Bureau (BIH) began a time scale, Tm or AM, in July 1955, using both local caesium clocks and comparisons to distant clocks using the phase of VLF radio signals. The United States Naval Observatory began the A.1 scale 13 September 1956, using an Atomichron commercial atomic clock, followed by the NBS-A scale at the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado. Both the BIH scale and A.1 was defined by an epoch at the beginning of 1958: it was set to read Julian Date 2436204.5 (1 January 1958 00:00:00) at the corresponding UT2 instant. The procedures used by the BIH evolved, and the name for the time scale changed: "A3" in 1963 and "TA(BIH)" in 1969. McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, 199&ndash;201. This synchronisation was inevitably imperfect, depending as it did on the astronomical realisation of UT2. At the time, UT2 as published by various observatories differed by several hundredths of a second.

In 1961, UTC began. UTC is a discontinuous time scale composed from segments that are linear transformations of atomic time, the discontinuities being arranged so that UTC approximated UT2 until the end of 1971, and UT1 thereafter. This was a compromise arrangement for a broadcast time scale: a linear transformation of the BIH's atomic time meant that the time scale was stable and internationally synchronised, while approximating UT1 means that tasks such as navigation which require a source of Universal Time continue to be well served by public time broadcasts. McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, 227&ndash;9. 

The SI second was defined in terms of the caesium atom in 1967, and in 1971 the name International Atomic Time (TAI) was assigned to a time scale based on SI seconds with no leap seconds. McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, 202&ndash;4. During this time, irregularities in the atomic time were detected and corrected. In 1967 it was suggested that nearby masses caused clocks to operate at different rates, but this was disproven in 1968. William Markowitz. "Nondependence of Frequency on Mass: A Differential Experiment" 

In the 1970s, it became clear that the clocks participating in TAI were ticking at different rates due to gravitational time dilation, and the combined TAI scale therefore corresponded to an average of the altitudes of the various clocks. Starting from Julian Date 2443144.5 (1 January 1977 00:00:00), corrections were applied to the output of all participating clocks, so that TAI would correspond to proper time at mean sea level (the geoid). Because the clocks had been on average well above sea level, this meant that TAI slowed down, by about 10−12. The former uncorrected time scale continues to be published, under the name EAL (Echelle Atomique Libre, meaning Free Atomic Scale). McCarthy & Seidelmann, 215. 

The instant that the gravitational correction started to be applied serves as the epoch for Barycentric Coordinate Time (TCB), Geocentric Coordinate Time (TCG), and Terrestrial Time (TT). All three of these time scales were defined to read JD 2443144.5003725 (1 January 1977 00:00:32.184) exactly at that instant. (The offset is to provide continuity with the older Ephemeris Time.) TAI was henceforth a realisation of TT, with the equation TT(TAI) = TAI + 32.184 s. McCarthy & Seidelmann, 218&ndash;9. 

The continued existence of TAI was questioned in a 2007 letter from the BIPM to the ITU-R which stated "In the case of a redefinition of UTC without leap seconds, the CCTF would consider discussing the possibility of suppressing TAI, as it would remain parallel to the continuous UTC." * 

==See also==
* Time and frequency transfer
* Clock synchronization
* Network Time Protocol
* Precision Time Protocol, a related though separate technology
* Magneto-optical trap

==Notes==

==References==
*
*
*
*
*

==External links==
* Bureau International des Poids et Mesures: TAI
* Time and Frequency Section - National Physical Laboratory, UK
* IERS website
* NIST Time and Frequency FAQs
* History of time scales
* NIST cesium fountain standard
* Optical frequency comb for metrology and timekeeping
* Japan Standard Time Project, NICT, Japan
* Bureau International des Poids et Mesures: TAI TIME DISSEMINATION SERVICES, AUTHORITIES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TIME DISSEMINATION SERVICES



[[Altruism]]

Giving alms to the poor is often considered an altruistic action.

Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core aspect of various religious traditions and secular worldviews, though the concept of "others" toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism or selflessness is the opposite of selfishness.

Altruism can be distinguished from feelings of loyalty. Pure altruism consists of sacrificing something for someone other than the self (e.g. sacrificing time, energy or possessions) with no expectation of any compensation or benefits, either direct, or indirect (e.g., receiving recognition for the act of giving).

Much debate exists as to whether "true" altruism is possible. The theory of psychological egoism suggests that no act of sharing, helping or sacrificing can be described as truly altruistic, as the actor may receive an intrinsic reward in the form of personal gratification. The validity of this argument depends on whether intrinsic rewards qualify as "benefits."

The term altruism may also refer to an ethical doctrine that claims that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. Used in this sense, it is usually contrasted with egoism, which is defined as acting to the benefit of one's self.

==The notion of altruism==
The concept has a long history in philosophical and ethical thought. The term was originally coined in the 19th century by the founding sociologist and philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, and has become a major topic for psychologists (especially evolutionary psychology researchers), evolutionary biologists, and ethologists. Whilst ideas about altruism from one field can have an impact on the other fields, the different methods and focuses of these fields always lead to different perspectives on altruism. In simple terms, altruism is caring about the welfare of other people and acting to help them.

== Individual variations ==
A certain individual may behave altruistically in one case and egoistically in another situation. However, some individuals tend to behave more altruistically, while others tend to behave more egoistically. Altruism may be considered a general attitude to the point where altruism has been considered as a trait. 

A 1986 study estimated that altruism was half-inherited. The study covered 5 related traits, giving a broad heritability estimate of 56% for altruism, but then approximated all to 50%, and raised the maximum-likelihood heritability to 60% after corrections for unreliability. Another study, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was published in 2009. Also based on the twin design, the new study estimated that genetic differences accounted for approximately 20% of individual variations. The study generally refers to the trait studied as "giving". It uses the word "altruism" too once. 

==Scientific viewpoints==

===Anthropology===
Marcel Mauss's book The Gift contains a passage: "Note on alms." This note describes the evolution of the notion of alms (and by extension of altruism) from the notion of sacrifice. In it, he writes:

Alms are the fruits of a moral notion of the gift and of fortune on the one hand,
and of a notion of sacrifice, on the other. Generosity is an obligation, because Nemesis
avenges the poor and the gods for the superabundance of happiness and wealth
of certain people who should rid themselves of it. This is the ancient morality of the
gift, which has become a principle of justice. The gods and the spirits accept that
the share of wealth and happiness that has been offered to them and had been
hitherto destroyed in useless sacrifices should serve the poor and children.

* Compare Altruism (ethics) – perception of altruism as self-sacrifice.
* Compare explanation of alms in various scriptures.

===Evolutionary explanations===

Giving alms to beggar children
In the science of ethology (the study of animal behaviour), and more generally in the study of social evolution, altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor. In evolutionary psychology this may be applied to a wide range of human behaviors such as charity, emergency aid, help to coalition partners, tipping, courtship gifts, production of public goods, and environmentalism. Pat Barcaly. The evolution of charitable behaviour and the power of reputation. In 

Theories of apparently altruistic behavior were accelerated by the need to produce theories compatible with evolutionary origins. Two related strands of research on altruism have emerged from traditional evolutionary analyses and from evolutionary game theory a mathematical model and analysis of behavioural strategies.

Some of the proposed mechanisms are:
* Kin selection. That animals and humans are more altruistic towards close kin than to distant kin and non-kin has been confirmed in numerous studies across many different cultures. Even subtle cues indicating kinship may unconsciously increase altruistic behavior. One kinship cue is facial resemblance. One study found that slightly altering photographs so that they more closely resembled the faces of study participants increased the trust the participants expressed regarding depicted persons. Another cue is having the same family name, especially if rare, and this has been found to increase helping behavior. Another study found more cooperative behavior the greater the number the perceived kin in a group. Using kinship terms in political speeches increased audience agreement with the speaker in one study. This effect was especially strong for firstborns, who are typically close to their families. 
* Vested interests. People are likely to suffer if their friends, allies, and similar social ingroups suffer or even disappear. Helping such group members may therefore eventually benefit the altruist. Making ingroup membership more noticeable increases cooperativeness. Extreme self-sacrifice towards the ingroup may be adaptive if a hostile outgroup threatens to kill the entire ingroup. 
* Reciprocal altruism. See also Reciprocity (evolution).
** Direct reciprocity. Research shows that it can be beneficial to help others if there is a chance that they can and will reciprocate the help. The effective tit for tat strategy is one game theoretic example. Many people seem to be following a similar strategy by cooperating if and only if others cooperate in return. 

::One consequence is that people are more cooperative if it is more likely that individuals will interact again in the future. People tend to be less cooperative if they perceive that the frequency of helpers in the population is lower. They tend to help less if they see non-cooperativeness by others and this effect tend to be stronger than the opposite effect of seeing cooperative behaviors. Simply changing the cooperative framing of a proposal may increase cooperativeness such as calling it a "Community Game" instead of a "Wall Street Game." 

::A tendency towards reciprocity implies that people will feel obligated to respond if someone helps them. This has been used by charities that give small gifts to potential donors hoping thereby to induce reciprocity. Another method is to announce publicly that someone has given a large donation. The tendency to reciprocate can even generalize so people become more helpful toward others in general after being helped. On the other hand, people will avoid or even retaliate against those perceived not to be cooperating. People sometimes mistakenly fail to help when they intended to, or their helping may not be noticed, which may cause unintended conflicts. As such, it may be an optimal strategy to be slightly forgiving of and have a slightly generous interpretation of non-cooperation. 

::People are more likely to cooperate on a task if they can communicate with one another first. This may be due to better assessments of cooperativeness or due to exchange of promises. They are more cooperative if they can gradually build trust, instead of being asked to give extensive help immediately. Direct reciprocity and cooperation in a group can be increased by changing the focus and incentives from intra-group competition to larger scale competitions such as between groups or against the general population. Thus, giving grades and promotions based only on an individual's performance relative to a small local group, as is common, may reduce cooperative behaviors in the group. 
** Indirect reciprocity. The avoidance of poor reciprocators and cheaters causes a person's reputation to become very important. A person with a good reputation for reciprocity have a higher chance of receiving help even from persons they have had no direct interactions with previously. 
** Strong reciprocity. A form of reciprocity where some individuals seem to spend more resources on cooperating and punishing than would be most beneficial as predicted by several established theories of altruism. A number of theories have been proposed as explanations as well as criticisms regarding its existence.
** Pseudo-reciprocity. An organism behaves altruistically and the recipient does not reciprocate but has an increased chance of acting in a way that is selfish but also as a byproduct benefits the altruist.
* Costly signaling and the handicap principle. Since altruism takes away resources from the altruist it can be an "honest signal" of resource availability and the abilities needed to gather resources. This may signal to others that the altruist is a valuable potential partner. It may also be a signal of interactive and cooperative intentions since those not interacting further in the future gain nothing from the costly signaling. It is unclear if costly signaling can indicate a long-term cooperative personality but people have increased trust for those who help. Costly signaling is pointless if everyone has the same traits, resources, and cooperative intentions but become a potentially more important signal if the population increasingly varies on these characteristics. 

:Hunters widely sharing the meat has been seen as a costly signal of ability and research has found that good hunters have higher reproductive success and more adulterous relations even if they themselves receive no more of the hunted meat than anyone else. Similarly, holding large feasts and giving large donations has been seen as ways of demonstrating one's resources. Heroic risk-taking has also been interpreted as a costly signal of ability. 

Volunteers assist Hurricane victims at the Houston Astrodome, following Hurricane Katrina.
:Both indirect reciprocity and costly signaling depend on the value of reputation and tend to make similar predictions. One is that people will be more helping when they know that their helping behavior will be communicated to people they will interact with later, is publicly announced, is discussed, or is simply being observed by someone else. This have been documented in many studies. The effect is sensitive to subtle cues such as people being more helpful when there were stylized eyespots instead of a logo on a computer screen. Weak reputational cues such as eyespots may become unimportant if there are stronger cues present and may lose their effect with continued exposure unless reinforced with real reputational effects. Public displays such as public weeping for dead celebrities and participation in demonstrations may be influenced by a desire to be seen as altruistic. People who know that they are publicly monitored sometimes even wastefully donate money they know are not needed by recipient which may be because of reputational concerns. Wendy Iredal and Mark van Vugt. Altruism as showing off: a signaling perspective on promoting green behaviour and acts of kindness. In 

:Women have been found to find altruistic men to be attractive partners. When looking for a long-term partner more conventional altruism may be preferred which may indicate that he is also willing to share resources with her and her children while when looking for a short-term partner heroic risk-taking, which may be costly signal showing good genes, may be more preferable. Men also perform more altruistic acts in the early stages of a romantic relationship or simply when in the presence of an attractive woman. While both sexes state that kindness is the most preferable trait in a partner there is some evidence that men place less value on this than women and that women may not be more altruistic in presence of an attractive man. Men may even avoid altruistic women in short-term relationships which may be because they expect less success. 

:People may compete over getting the benefits of a high reputation which may cause competitive altruism. On other hand, in some experiments a proportion of people do not seem to care about reputation and they do not help more even if this is conspicuous. This may possibly be due to reasons such as psychopathy or that they are so attractive that they need not be seen to be altruistic. The reputational benefits of altruism occur in the future as compared to the immediate costs of altruism in the present. While humans and other organisms generally place less value on future costs/benefits as compared to those in the present, some have shorter time horizons than others and these people tend to be less cooperative. 

:Explicit extrinsic rewards and punishments have been found to sometimes actually have the opposite effect on behaviors compared to intrinsic rewards. This may be because such extrinsic, top-down incentives may replace (partially or in whole) intrinsic and reputational incentives, motivating the person to focus on obtaining the extrinsic rewards, which overall may make the behaviors less desirable. Another effect is that people would like altruism to be due to a personality characteristic rather than due to overt reputational concerns and simply pointing out that there are reputational benefits of an action may actually reduce them. This may possibly be used as derogatory tactic against altruists, especially by those who are non-cooperators. A counterargument is that doing good due to reputational concerns is better than doing no good at all. 
* Group selection. It has controversially been argued by some evolutionary scientists such as E. O. Wilson that natural selection can act at the level of non-kin groups to produce adaptations that benefit a non-kin group even if these adaptions are detrimental at the individual level. Thus, while altruistic persons may under some circumstances be outcompeted by less altruistic persons at the individual level, according to group selection theory the opposite may occur at the group level where groups consisting of the more altruistic persons may outcompete groups consisting of the less altruistic persons. Such altruism may only extend to ingroup members while there may instead prejudice and antagonism against outgroup members (See also in-group favoritism). Group selection theory has been criticized by many other evolutionary scientists. Leon Neyfakh
Where does good come from?, 17 April 2011, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/04/17/where_does_good_come_from/ E. O. Wilson. Biologist E.O. Wilson on Why Humans, Like Ants, Need a Tribe. 2 April 2012. The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/01/biologist-e-o-wilson-on-why-humans-like-ants-need-a-tribe.html 

Helping the homeless in New York City
Such explanations do not imply that humans are always consciously calculating how to increase their inclusive fitness when they are doing altruistic acts. Instead, evolution has shaped psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, that promote altruistic behaviors. 

Every single instance of altruistic behavior need not always increase inclusive fitness; altruistic behaviors would have been selected for if such behaviors on average increased inclusive fitness in the ancestral environment. This need not imply that on average 50% or more of altruistic acts were beneficial for the altruist in the ancestral environment; if the benefits from helping the right person were very high it would be beneficial to err on the side of caution and usually be altruistic even if in most cases there were no benefits. 

The benefits for the altruist may be increased and the costs reduced by being more altruistic towards certain groups. Research has found that people are more altruistic to kin than to no-kin, to friends than to strangers, to those attractive than to those unattractive, to non-competitors than to competitors, and to members ingroups than to members of outgroup. 

The study of altruism was the initial impetus behind George R. Price's development of the Price equation, which is a mathematical equation used to study genetic evolution. An interesting example of altruism is found in the cellular slime moulds, such as Dictyostelium mucoroides. These protists live as individual amoebae until starved, at which point they aggregate and form a multicellular fruiting body in which some cells sacrifice themselves to promote the survival of other cells in the fruiting body.

Selective investment theory proposes that close social bonds, and associated emotional, cognitive, and neurohormonal mechanisms, evolved in order to facilitate long-term, high-cost altruism between those closely depending on one another for survival and reproductive success. 

Such cooperative behaviors have sometimes been seen as arguments for left-wing politics such by the Russian zoologist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 book and Peter Singer in his book A Darwinian Left.

Most recently, Jeremy Griffith has proposed a biological theory for the development of truly altruistic instincts that accommodates the biological imperative to reproduce, as evidenced by a moral conscience visible in humans today. Griffith J. 2011. Conscience. In The Book of Real Answers to Everything! ISBN 9781741290073. http://www.worldtransformation.com/conscience/ 

===Neurobiology===
Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman, neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health and LABS-D'Or Hospital Network (J.M.) provided the first evidence for the neural bases of altruistic giving in normal healthy volunteers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA in October 2006, Human fronto–mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation, PNAS 2006:103(42);15623–15628 they showed that both pure monetary rewards and charitable donations activated the mesolimbic reward pathway, a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food and sex. However, when volunteers generously placed the interests of others before their own by making charitable donations, another brain circuit was selectively activated: the subgenual cortex/septal region. These structures are intimately related to social attachment and bonding in other species. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable. 

Another experiment funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted in 2007 at the Duke University in Durham, North Carolina suggests a different view, "that altruistic behavior may originate from how people view the world rather than how they act in it." "Brain Scan Predicts Difference Between Altruistic And Selfish People" In the study published in the February 2007 print issue of Nature Neuroscience, researchers have found a part of the brain that behaves differently for altruistic and selfish people.

The researchers invited 45 volunteers to play a computer game and also to watch the computer play the game. In some rounds, the game resulted in the volunteers winning money for themselves, and in others it resulted in money being donated to a charity of the volunteer's choice. During these activities, the researchers took functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of the participants' brains and were "surprised by the results". Although they "were expecting to see activity in the brain's reward centers," based on the idea that "people perform altruistic acts because they feel good about it," what they found was that "another part of the brain was also involved, and it was quite sensitive to the difference between doing something for personal gain and doing it for someone else's gain." That part of the brain is called the posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC).

In the next stage, the scientists asked the participants some questions about type and frequency of their altruistic or helping behaviours. They then analysed the responses to generate an estimate of a person's tendency to act altruistically and compared each person's level of altruism against their fMRI brain scan. The results showed that pSTC activity rose in proportion to a person's self-reported level of altruism. According to the researchers, the results suggest that altruistic behavior may originate from how people view the world rather than how they act in it. "We believe that the ability to perceive other people's actions as meaningful is critical for altruism," said lead study investigator Dharol Tankersley. "Activation Of Brain Region Predicts Altruism" 

===Psychology===
The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences defines psychological altruism as "a motivational state with the goal of increasing another’s welfare." Psychological altruism is contrasted with psychological egoism, which refers to the motivation to increase one’s own welfare. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 87-88. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 10 April 2012. 

There has been some debate on whether or not humans are truly capable of psychological altruism. C. (2011). Altruism in humans. New York, NY US: Oxford University Press. Some definitions specify a self-sacrificial nature to altruism and a lack of external rewards for altruistic behaviors. C. (2012). A history of prosocial behavior research. In A. W. Kruglanski, W. Stroebe, A. W. Kruglanski, W. Stroebe (Eds.), Handbook of the history of social psychology (pp. 243–264). New York, NY US: Psychology Press. However, because altruism ultimately benefits the self in many cases, the selflessness of altruistic acts is brought to question. The social exchange theory postulates that altruism only exists when benefits outweigh costs. J. K., Luce, C. L., Neuberg, S. L., Cialdini, R. B., Brown, S., & Sagarin, B. J. (2002). The effects of perspective taking on motivations for helping: Still no evidence for altruism. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(11), 1601–1610. doi:10.1177/014616702237586 Daniel Batson is a psychologist who examined this question and argues against the social exchange theory. He identified four major motives for altruism: altruism to ultimately benefit the self (egoism), to ultimately benefit the other person (altruism), to benefit a group (collectivism), or to uphold a moral principle (principlism). Altruism that ultimately serves selfish gains is thus differentiated from selfless altruism, but the general conclusion has been that empathy-induced altruism can be genuinely selfless. C., Ahmad, N., & Stocks, E. L. (2011). Four forms of prosocial motivation: Egoism, altruism, collectivism, and principlism. In D. Dunning, D. Dunning (Eds.), Social motivation (pp. 103–126). New York, NY US: Psychology Press. The empathy-altruism hypothesis basically states that psychological altruism does exist and is evoked by the empathic desire to help someone who is suffering. Feelings of empathic concern are contrasted with feelings of personal distress, which compel people to reduce their own unpleasant emotions. People with empathic concern help others in distress even when exposure to the situation could be easily avoided, whereas those lacking in empathic concern avoid helping unless it is difficult or impossible to avoid exposure to another's suffering. Helping behavior is seen in humans at about two years old, when a toddler is capable of understanding subtle emotional cues. 
Peace Corps trainees swearing in as volunteers in Cambodia, 4 April 2007

In psychological research on altruism, studies often observe altruism as demonstrated through prosocial behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, cooperation, philanthropy, and community service. Research has found that people are most likely to help if they recognize that a person is in need and feel personal responsibility for reducing the person's distress. Research also suggests that the number of bystanders witnessing distress or suffering affects the likelihood of helping (the Bystander effect). Greater numbers of bystanders decrease individual feelings of responsibility. Hudson, James M. & Bruckman, Amy S. (2004). "The Bystander Effect: A Lens for Understanding Patterns of Participation". Journal of the Learning Sciences 13 (2): 165–195. doi:10.1207/s15327809jls1302_2. However, a witness with a high level of empathic concern is likely to assume personal responsibility entirely regardless of the number of bystanders. A feeling of personal responsibility or - moral norm - has also strongly been associated with other pro-social behaviors such as charitable giving. 

Many studies have observed the effects of volunteerism (as a form of altruism) on happiness and health and have consistently found a strong connection between volunteerism and current and future health and well-being. L. B., McGue, M., Krueger, R. F., & Bouchard, T. r. (2007). Religiousness, antisocial behavior, and altruism: Genetic and environmental mediation. Journal Of Personality, 75(2), 265-290. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00439.x In a study of older adults, those who volunteered were significantly higher on life satisfaction and will to live, and significantly lower in depression, anxiety, and somatization. Volunteerism and helping behavior have not only been shown to improve mental health, but physical health and longevity as well. Kayloe, J. C., & Krause, M. (1985). RARE FIND: or The value of volunteerism. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 8(4), 49-56. One study examined the physical health of mothers who volunteered over a 30-year period and found that 52% of those who did not belong to a volunteer organization experienced a major illness while only 36% of those who did volunteer experienced one. A study on adults ages 55+ found that during the four-year study period, people who volunteered for two or more organizations had a 63% lower likelihood of dying. After controlling for prior health status, it was determined that volunteerism accounted for a 44% reduction in mortality. Merely being aware of kindness in oneself and others is also associated with greater well-being. A study that asked participants to count each act of kindness they performed for one week significantly enhanced their subjective happiness. 
It is important to note that, while research supports the idea that altruistic acts bring about happiness, it has also been found to work in the opposite direction—that happier people are also kinder. The relationship between altruistic behavior and happiness is bidirectional. Studies have found that generosity increases linearly from sad to happy affective states. Studies have also been careful to note that feeling over-taxed by the needs of others has conversely negative effects on health and happiness. For example, one study on volunteerism found that feeling overwhelmed by others' demands had an even stronger negative effect on mental health than helping had a positive one (although positive effects were still significant). Additionally, while generous acts make people feel good about themselves, it is also important for people to appreciate the kindness they receive from others. Studies suggest that gratitude goes hand-in-hand with kindness and is also very important for our well-being. A study on the relationship happiness to various character strengths showed that "a conscious focus on gratitude led to reductions in negative affect and increases in optimistic appraisals, positive affect, offering emotional support, sleep quality, and well-being.". Psychologists generally refer to this virtuous cycle of helping others, doing good and subsequently feeling good as "the helper's high". 

===Sociology===
"Sociologists have long been concerned with how to build the good society" ("Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity". American Sociological Association. American Sociological Association: Altruism, Morality and Social Solidarity ). The structure of our societies and how individuals come to exhibit charitable, philanthropic, and other pro-social, altruistic actions for the common good is a largely researched topic within the field. The American Sociology Association (ASA) acknowledges Public sociology saying, "The intrinsic scientific, policy, and public relevance of this field of investigation in helping to construct 'good societies' is unquestionable" ("Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity" ASA). This type of sociology seeks contributions that aid grassroots and theoretical understandings of what motivates altruism and how it is organized, and promotes an altruistic focus in order to benefit the world and people it studies. How altruism is framed, organized, carried out, and what motivates it at the group level is an area of focus that sociologists seek to investigate in order to contribute back to the groups it studies and "build the good society".

==Religious viewpoints==

Most, if not all, of the world's religions promote altruism as a very important moral value. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism and Sikhism, etc., place particular emphasis on altruistic morality.

===Buddhism===
Monks collecting alms
Altruism figures prominently in Buddhism. Love and compassion are components of all forms of Buddhism, and are focused on all beings equally: love is the wish that all beings be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. "Many illnesses can be cured by the one medicine of love and compassion. These qualities are the ultimate source of human happiness, and the need for them lies at the very core of our being" (Dalai Lama). Speech by the Dalai LamaThe phrase "core of our being" is Freudian; see 

Since "all beings" includes the individual, love and compassion in Buddhism are outside the opposition between self and other. It is even said that the distinction between self and other is part of the root cause of our suffering. In practical terms, however, since most of us are spontaneously self-centered, Buddhism encourages us to focus love and compassion on others, and thus can be characterized as "altruistic." Many would agree with the Dalai Lama that Buddhism as a religion is kindness toward others.

Still, the notion of altruism is modified in such a world-view, since the belief is that such a practice promotes our own happiness: "The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes" (Dalai Lama ).

In the context of larger ethical discussions on moral action and judgment, Buddhism is characterized by the belief that negative (unhappy) consequences of our actions derive not from punishment or correction based on moral judgment, but from the law of karma, which functions like a natural law of cause and effect. A simple illustration of such cause and effect is the case of experiencing the effects of what I cause: if I cause suffering, then as a natural consequence I will experience suffering; if I cause happiness, then as a natural consequence I will experience happiness.

In Buddhism, karma (Pāli kamma) is strictly distinguished from vipāka, meaning "fruit" or "result". Karma is categorized within the group or groups of cause (Pāli hetu) in the chain of cause and effect, where it comprises the elements of "volitional activities" (Pali sankhara) and "action" (Pali bhava). Any action is understood to create "seeds" in the mind that sprout into the appropriate results (Pāli vipaka) when they meet the right conditions. Most types of karmas, with good or bad results, will keep one in the wheel of samsāra; others will liberate one to nirvāna.

Buddhism relates karma directly to motives behind an action. Motivation usually makes the difference between "good" and "bad", but motivation also includes the aspect of ignorance; so a well-intended action from an ignorant mind can easily be "bad" in that it creates unpleasant results for the "actor."

In Buddhism, karma is not the only cause of all that happens. As taught in the early texts, the commentarial tradition classified causal mechanisms governing the universe in five categories, known as Niyama Dhammas: 

* Kamma Niyama — Consequences of one's actions
* Utu Niyama — Seasonal changes and climate
* Biija Niyama — Laws of heredity
* Citta Niyama — Will of mind
* Dhamma Niyama — Nature's tendency to produce a perfect type

===Jainism===
The fundamental principles of Jainism revolve around the concept of altruism, not only for humans but for all sentient beings. Jainism preaches the view of Ahimsa – to live and let live, thereby not harming sentient beings, i.e. uncompromising reverence for all life. It also considers all living things to be equal. The first Thirthankar, Rishabh introduced the concept of altruism for all living beings, from extending knowledge and experience to others to donation, giving oneself up for others, non-violence and compassion for all living things.

Jainism prescribes a path of non-violence to progress the soul to this ultimate goal. Jains believe that to attain enlightenment and ultimately liberation, one must practice the following ethical principles (major vows) in thought, speech and action. The degree to which these principles are practiced is different for householders and monks. They are:
# Non-violence (Ahimsa);
# Truthfulness (Satya);
# Non-stealing (Asteya);
# Celibacy (Brahmacharya);
# Non-possession or non-materialism (Aparigraha);

A major characteristic of Jain belief is the emphasis on the consequences of not only physical but also mental behaviors. One's unconquered mind with anger, pride (ego), deceit, greed and uncontrolled sense organs are the powerful enemies of humans. Anger spoils good relations, pride destroys humility, deceit destroys peace and greed destroys everything. Jainism recommends conquering anger by forgiveness, pride (ego) by humility, deceit by straight-forwardness and greed by contentment.

The principle of non-violence seeks to minimize karmas which limit the capabilities of the soul. Jainism views every soul as worthy of respect because it has the potential to become Siddha (Param-atma – "highest soul"). Because all living beings possess a soul, great care and awareness is essential in one's actions. Jainism emphasizes the equality of all life, advocating harmlessness towards all, whether the creatures are great or small. This policy extends even to microscopic organisms. Jainism acknowledges that every person has different capabilities and capacities to practice and therefore accepts different levels of compliance for ascetics and householders. The "great vows" (mahavrata) are prescribed for monks and "limited vows" (anuvrata) are prescribed for householders. In other words, the house-holders are encouraged to practice the five cardinal principles of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, celibacy and non-possessiveness with their current practical limitations while the monks have to observe them very strictly. With consistent practice, it will be possible to overcome the limitations gradually, accelerating the spiritual progress.

===Christianity===
Statue of Mother Teresa in India
Altruism is central to the teachings of Jesus found in the Gospel, especially in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain. From biblical to medieval Christian traditions, tensions between self-affirmation and other-regard were sometimes discussed under the heading of "disinterested love", as in the Pauline phrase "love seeks not its own interests." In his book Indoctrination and Self-deception, Roderick Hindery tries to shed light on these tensions by contrasting them with impostors of authentic self-affirmation and altruism, by analysis of other-regard within creative individuation of the self, and by contrasting love for the few with love for the many. Love confirms others in their freedom, shuns propaganda and masks, assures others of its presence, and is ultimately confirmed not by mere declarations from others, but by each person's experience and practice from within. As in practical arts, the presence and meaning of love becomes validated and grasped not by words and reflections alone, but in the making of the connection.

St Thomas Aquinas interprets 'You should love your neighbour as yourself' Leviticus 19 and Matthew 22 as meaning that love for ourselves is the exemplar of love for others. Summa Theologica, II:II Quaestio 25, Article 4 Considering that "the love with which a man loves himself is the form and root of friendship" and quotes Aristotle that "the origin of friendly relations with others lies in our relations to ourselves," Nichomachean Ethics IX.4 1166a1 he concluded that though we are not bound to love others more than ourselves, we naturally seek the common good, the good of the whole, more than any private good, the good of a part. However, he thinks we should love God more than ourselves and our neighbours, and more than our bodily life—since the ultimate purpose of loving our neighbour is to share in eternal beatitude: a more desirable thing than bodily well being. In coining the word Altruism, as stated above, Comte was probably opposing this Thomistic doctrine, which is present in some theological schools within Catholicism.

Many biblical authors draw a strong connection between love of others and love of God. 1 John 4 states that for one to love God one must love his fellowman, and that hatred of one's fellowman is the same as hatred of God. Thomas Jay Oord has argued in several books that altruism is but one possible form of love. An altruistic action is not always a loving action. Oord defines altruism as acting for the other's good, and he agrees with feminists who note that sometimes love requires acting for one's own good when the other's demands undermine overall well-being.

German philosopher Max Scheler distinguishes two ways in which the strong can help the weak. One way is a sincere expression of Christian love, "motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence". Another way is merely "one of the many modern substitutes for love, ... nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people’s business." At its worst, Scheler says, "love for the small, the poor, the weak, and the oppressed is really disguised hatred, repressed envy, an impulse to detract, etc., directed against the opposite phenomena: wealth, strength, power, largesse." 

===Islam===
In Islam, the concept 'īthār' (altruism) is the notion of 'preferring others to oneself'. For Sufis, this means devotion to others through complete forgetfulness of one's own concerns, where concern for others is rooted to be a demand made by Allah on the human body, considered to be property of Allah alone. The importance lies in sacrifice for the sake of the greater good; Islam considers those practicing īthār as abiding by the highest degree of nobility. 
This is similar to the notion of chivalry, but unlike that European concept, in i'thar attention is focused on everything in existence. A constant concern for Allah (i.e. God) results in a careful attitude towards people, animals, and other things in this world. 
This concept was emphasized by Sufis of Islam like Rabia al-Adawiyya who paid attention to the difference between dedication to Allah (i.e. God) and dedication to people. Thirteenth-century Turkish Sufi poet Yunus Emre explained this philosophy as "Yaratılanı severiz, Yaratandan ötürü" or We love the creature, because of The Creator. For many Muslims, i'thar must be practiced as a religious obligation during specific Islamic holidays. However, i'thar is also still an Islamic ideal to which all Muslims should strive to adhere at all times.

===Judaism===
Judaism defines altruism as the desired goal of creation. The famous Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook stated that love is the most important attribute in humanity. This is defined as bestowal, or giving, which is the intention of altruism. This can be altruism towards humanity that leads to altruism towards the creator or God. Kabbalah defines God as the force of giving in existence. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in particular focused on the 'purpose of creation' and how the will of God was to bring creation into perfection and adhesion with this upper force. 

Modern Kabbalah developed by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, in his writings about the future generation, focuses on how society could achieve an altruistic social framework. Ashlag proposed that such a framework is the purpose of creation, and everything that happens is to raise humanity to the level of altruism, love for one another. Ashlag focused on society and its relation to divinity. 

===Sikhism===
Altruism is essential to the Sikh religion. 
The central faith in Sikhism is that the greatest deed any one can do is to imbibe and live the godly qualities like love, affection, sacrifice, patience, harmony, truthfulness.
The fifth Nanak, Guru Arjun Dev Sacrificed his life to uphold 22 Carats of pure truth, the greatest gift to humanity, the Guru Granth. The Ninth Nanak, Guru Tegh Bahadur Sacrificed his head to protect weak and defenseless people against atrocity. In the late 17th century, Guru Gobind Singh Ji (the tenth guru in Sikhism), was in war with the Moghul rulers to protect the people of different faiths, when a fellow Sikh, Bhai Kanhaiya, attended the troops of the enemy. He gave water to both friends and foes who were wounded on the battlefield. Some of the enemy began to fight again and some Sikh warriors were annoyed by Bhai Kanhaiya as he was helping their enemy. Sikh soldiers brought Bhai Kanhaiya before Guru Gobind Singh Ji, and complained of his action that they considered counterproductive to their struggle on the battlefield.
"What were you doing, and why?" asked the Guru. "I was giving water to the wounded because I saw your face in all of them," replied Bhai Kanhaiya.
The Guru responded, "Then you should also give them ointment to heal their wounds. You were practicing what you were coached in the house of the Guru."

It was under the tutelage of the Guru that Bhai Kanhaiya subsequently founded a volunteer corps for altruism. This volunteer corps still to date is engaged in doing good to others and trains new volunteering recruits for doing the same. 

===Hinduism===
Advaita Vedanta differs from the view that karma is a law of cause and effect but instead additionally hold that karma is mediated by the will of a personal supreme god. This view of karma is in contradiction to Buddhism, Jainism and other Indian religions that do view karma as a law of cause and effect.

Swami Sivananda, an Advaita scholar, reiterates the same views in his commentary synthesising Vedanta views on the Brahma Sutras, a Vedantic text. In his commentary on Chapter 3 of the Brahma Sutras, Sivananda notes that karma is insentient and short-lived, and ceases to exist as soon as a deed is executed. Hence, karma cannot bestow the fruits of actions at a future date according to one's merit. Furthermore, one cannot argue that karma generates apurva or punya, which gives fruit. Since apurva is non-sentient, it cannot act unless moved by an intelligent being such as a god. It cannot independently bestow reward or punishment. Sivananda, Swami. Phaladhikaranam, Topic 8, Sutras 38–41. 

==Philosophy==

There exists a wide range of philosophical views on man's obligations or motivations to act altruistically. Proponents of ethical altruism maintain that individuals are morally obligated to act altruistically. The opposing view is ethical egoism, which maintains that moral agents should always act in their own self-interest. Both ethical altruism and ethical egoism contrast with utilitarianism, which is the view that every individual's well-being (including one's own) is of equal moral importance.

A related concept in descriptive ethics is psychological egoism, the thesis that humans always act in their own self-interest and that true altruism is impossible. Rational egoism is the view that rationality consists in acting in one's self-interest (without specifying how this affects one's moral obligations).

==See also==

== Notes ==

==References==

;Bibliography

* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Comte, Auguste, Catechisme positiviste (1852) or Catechism of Positivism, tr. R. Congreve, (London: Kegan Paul, 1891)
* 
* Kropotkin, Peter, (1902)
* 
* Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil
* Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Philosophy of Poverty (1847)
* Lysander Spooner, Natural Law
* Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue
* Oliner, Samuel P. and Pearl M. Towards a Caring Society: Ideas into Action. West Port, CT: Praeger, 1995.
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Wedekind, C. and Milinski, M. Human Cooperation in the simultaneous and the alternating Prisoner's Dilemma: Pavlov versus Generous Tit-for-tat. Evolution, Vol. 93, pp. 2686–2689, April 1996.
* 

==External links==

;General

* 
;Society
* What is Altruism? from Altruists International
;Philosophy and religion
* "Giving and Receiving" from Kabbalah.info
* Selflessness: Toward a Buddhist Vision of Social Justice by Sungtaek Cho
;Science
* Altruism: Myth or Reality?, by Dan Batson and Nadia Ahmad
* 
* The Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute at Humboldt State University
* 
* "Unraveling altruism, conscience, and condemnation"



[[Ayn Rand]]

Ayn Rand (; ; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum; – March 6, 1982) was an American novelist, philosopher, ; ; ; . playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful in America, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead.

In 1957, she published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral ; ; ; ; and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights. ; In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for some Aristotelians and classical liberals. ; 

Literary critics received Rand's fiction with mixed reviews, and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, though academic interest has increased in recent decades. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. She has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives. ; 

==Life==

===Early life===
Rand was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum () on February 2, 1905, to a Russian Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of the three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum and his wife, Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan), largely non-observant Jews. Zinovy Rosenbaum was a successful pharmacist and businessman, eventually owning a pharmacy and the building in which it was located. ; ; With a passion for the liberal arts, Rand found school unchallenging, and said she began writing screenplays at the age of eight and novels at the age of ten. At the prestigious Stoiunina Gymnasium, her closest friend was Vladimir Nabokov's younger sister, Olga. The two girls shared an intense interest in politics and would engage in debates: while Nabokov defended constitutional monarchy, Rand supported republican ideals. ; She was twelve at the time of the February Revolution of 1917, during which she favored Alexander Kerensky over Tsar Nicholas II.

The subsequent October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted the comfortable life the family had previously enjoyed. Her father’s business was confiscated and the family displaced. They fled to the Crimean Peninsula, which was initially under control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. She later recalled that, while in high school, she determined that she was an atheist and that she valued reason above any other human virtue. After graduating from high school in the Crimea at 16, Rand returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was renamed at that time), where they faced desperate conditions, on occasion nearly starving. 

Rand completed a three-year program at Petrograd State University.
After the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, allowing Rand to be in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University, where, at the age of only 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. At the university she was introduced to the writings of Aristotle and Plato, who would be her greatest influence and counter-influence, respectively. ; A third figure whose philosophical works she studied heavily was Friedrich Nietzsche. Able to read French, German and Russian, Rand also discovered the writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, and Friedrich Schiller, who became her perennial favorites. 

Along with many other "bourgeois" students, Rand was purged from the university shortly before graduating. However, after complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate, ; which Rand did in October 1924. She subsequently studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For one of her assignments, she wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri, which became her first published work. 

By this time she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, possibly as a Cyrillic contraction of her birth surname, ; and she adopted the first name Ayn, either from a Finnish name or from the Hebrew word (ayin, meaning "eye"). Rand said the origin of Ayn was Finnish , but some biographical sources question this, suggesting it may come from a Hebrew nickname. provides a detailed discussion. 

=== Arrival in the United States ===
Cover of Rand's first published work, a 2,500-word monograph on femme fatale Pola Negri published in 1925. 
In the fall of 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit American relatives. She departed on January 17, 1926. When she arrived in New York City on February 19, 1926, she was so impressed with the skyline of Manhattan that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor". Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with relatives in Chicago, one of whom owned a movie theater and allowed her to watch dozens of films for free. She then set out for Hollywood, California. 

Initially, Rand struggled in Hollywood and took odd jobs to pay her basic living expenses. A chance meeting with famed director Cecil B. DeMille led to a job as an extra in his film The King of Kings as well as subsequent work as a junior screenwriter. While working on The King of Kings, she met an aspiring young actor, Frank O'Connor; the two were married on April 15, 1929. Rand became an American citizen in 1931. Taking various jobs during the 1930s to support her writing, she worked for a time as the head of the costume department at RKO Studios. ; She made several attempts to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they were unable to acquire permission to emigrate. ; 

===Early fiction===

Rand's first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios in 1932, although it was never produced. This was followed by the courtroom drama Night of January 16th, first produced by E.E. Clive in Hollywood in 1934 and then successfully reopened on Broadway in 1935. Each night the "jury" was selected from members of the audience, and one of the two different endings, depending on the jury's "verdict", would then be performed. In 1941, Paramount Pictures produced a movie loosely based on the play. Rand did not participate in the production and was highly critical of the result. ; 

Rand's first novel, the semi-autobiographical We the Living, was published in 1936. Set in Soviet Russia, it focused on the struggle between the individual and the state. In a 1959 foreword to the novel, Rand stated that We the Living "is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. It is not an autobiography in the literal, but only in the intellectual sense. The plot is invented, the background is not..." Initial sales were slow and the American publisher let it go out of print, although European editions continued to sell. Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing We the Living". In After the success of her later novels, Rand was able to release a revised version in 1959 that has since sold over three million copies. Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing We the Living". In Without Rand's knowledge or permission, the novel was made into a pair of Italian films, Noi vivi and Addio, Kira, in 1942. Rediscovered in the 1960s, these films were re-edited into a new version which was approved by Rand and re-released as We the Living in 1986. 

Her novella Anthem was written during a break from the writing of her next major novel, The Fountainhead. It presents a vision of a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that even the word 'I' has been forgotten and replaced with 'we'. ; It was published in England in 1938, but Rand initially could not find an American publisher. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, which has sold more than 3.5 million copies. Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing Anthem". In 

===The Fountainhead and political activism===

During the 1940s, Rand became politically active. Both she and her husband worked full-time in volunteer positions for the 1940 presidential campaign of Republican Wendell Willkie. This work led to Rand's first public speaking experiences, including fielding the sometimes hostile questions from New York City audiences who had just viewed pro-Willkie newsreels, an experience she greatly enjoyed. This activity also brought her into contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt and his wife, and Hazlitt introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite her philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and both of them expressed admiration for her. Once Mises referred to Rand as "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman". ; ; Rand also developed a friendship with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned the well-informed Paterson about American history and politics long into the night during their numerous meetings and gave Paterson ideas for her only nonfiction book, The God of the Machine. 

Rand's first major success as a writer came with The Fountainhead in 1943, a romantic and philosophical novel that she wrote over a period of seven years. The novel centers on an uncompromising young architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers"— those who attempt to live through others, placing others above themselves. It was rejected by twelve publishers before finally being accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company on the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it. While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed Benzedrine, a brand of amphetamine, to fight fatigue. The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the finished novel, but when the book was done, she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest. Her continued use of the drug for approximately three decades may have contributed to what some of her later associates described as volatile mood swings. ; 

The Fountainhead eventually became a worldwide success, bringing Rand fame and financial security. ; In 1943, Rand sold the rights for a film version to Warner Bros., and she returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Finishing her work on that screenplay, she was hired by producer Hal Wallis as a screenwriter and script-doctor. Her work for Wallis included the screenplays for the Oscar-nominated Love Letters and You Came Along. ; This role gave Rand time to work on other projects, including a planned nonfiction treatment of her philosophy to be called The Moral Basis of Individualism. Although the planned book was never completed, a condensed version was published as an essay titled "The Only Path to Tomorrow", in the January 1944 edition of Reader's Digest magazine. ; 

Rand extended her involvement with free-market and anti-communist activism while working in Hollywood. She became involved with the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Hollywood anti-Communist group, and wrote articles on the group's behalf. She also joined the anti-Communist American Writers Association. A visit by Isabel Paterson to meet with Rand's California associates led to a final falling out between the two when Paterson made comments that Rand saw as rude to valued political allies. ; In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee. Her testimony described the disparity between her personal experiences in the Soviet Union and the portrayal of it in the 1944 film Song of Russia. Rand argued that the film grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as being much better and happier than it actually was. She wanted to also criticize the lauded 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives for what she interpreted as its negative presentation of the business world, but she was not allowed to testify about it. When asked after the hearings about her feelings on the effectiveness of the investigations, Rand described the process as "futile". 

After several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was released in 1949. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end", complaining about its editing, acting, and other elements. 

===Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism===

In the years following the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received numerous letters from readers, some of whom it profoundly influenced. In 1951 Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers around her. This group (jokingly designated "The Collective") included future Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. At first the group was an informal gathering of friends who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment to discuss philosophy. Later she began allowing them to read the drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged, as the manuscript pages were written. In 1954 Rand's close relationship with the younger Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the consent of their spouses. 

Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, was considered Rand's magnum opus. ; Rand described the theme of the novel as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest." Salmieri, Gregory. "Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man's Existence". In It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists, and artists go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes the strike as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of the individuals most contributing to the nation's wealth and achievement. With this fictional strike, Rand intended to illustrate that without the efforts of the rational and productive, the economy would collapse and society would fall apart. The novel includes elements of romance, mystery, and science fiction, and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her works of fiction, a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt.

Despite many negative reviews, Atlas Shrugged became an international bestseller, and in an interview with Mike Wallace, Rand declared herself "the most creative thinker alive". After completing the novel, Rand fell into a severe depression. ; Atlas Shrugged was Rand's last completed work of fiction; a turning point in her life, it marked the end of Rand's career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher. ; ; 

In 1958 Nathaniel Branden established Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy. Collective members gave lectures for NBI and wrote articles for Objectivist periodicals that she edited. Rand later published some of these articles in book form. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, have described the culture of NBI as one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand, with some describing NBI or the Objectivist movement itself as a cult or religion. ; Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to sexuality and facial hair, and some of her followers mimicked her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers. Rand was unimpressed with many of the NBI students and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her. ; ; However, some former NBI students believe the extent of these behaviors has been exaggerated, with the problem being concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York. ; 

===Later years===
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through her nonfiction works and by giving talks to students at institutions such as Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, and MIT. She received an honorary doctorate from Lewis & Clark College in 1963. She also began delivering annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum, responding afterward to questions from the audience. During these speeches and Q&A sessions, she often took controversial stances on political and social issues of the day. These included supporting abortion rights, opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"), ; supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations as "civilized men fighting savages", ; saying European colonists had the right to take land from American Indians, ; and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", while also advocating the repeal of all laws about it. She also endorsed several Republican candidates for President of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964, whose candidacy she promoted in several articles for The Objectivist Newsletter. ; 
alt=A twin gravestone bearing the name "Frank O'Connor" on the left, and "Ayn Rand O'Connor" on the right
In 1964 Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic relationship with Branden had already ended, Rand terminated her relationship with both Brandens, which led to the closure of NBI. Rand published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and other "irrational behavior in his private life". Branden later apologized in an interview to "every student of Objectivism" for "perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique" and for "contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement." In subsequent years, Rand and several more of her closest associates parted company. 

Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking. 
In 1976, she retired from writing her newsletter and, despite her initial objections, was persuaded to allow Evva Pryor, a consultant from her attorney's office, to sign her up for Social Security and Medicare. During the late 1970s her activities within the Objectivist movement declined, especially after the death of her husband on November 9, 1979. One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. 

Rand died of heart failure on March 6, 1982, at her home in New York City, and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York. Rand's funeral was attended by some of her prominent followers, including Alan Greenspan. A 6 ft floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket. In her will, Rand named Leonard Peikoff the heir to her estate. 

==Philosophy==

Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism," describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy and aesthetics. ; ; 

In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism, and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion. Den Uyl, Douglas J. & Rasmussen, Douglas B. "Ayn Rand's Realism". In In epistemology, she considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception, the validity of which she considered axiomatic, ; and reason, which she described as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses." She rejected all claims of non-perceptual or a priori knowledge, including "'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing.'" In her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand presented a theory of concept formation and rejected the analytic–synthetic dichotomy. ; 

In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself." She referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title, in which she presented her solution to the is-ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man." ; ; She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness, and held that the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in Atlas Shrugged that "Force and mind are opposites." ; 

Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property rights), and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those rights. She opposed statism, which she understood to include theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, and dictatorship. Rand believed that rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government. Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, she preferred the term "radical for capitalism." She worked with conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics. ; ; ; She denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism. ; She rejected anarchism as a naïve theory based in subjectivism that could only lead to collectivism in practice. ; ; 

Rand's aesthetics defined art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." According to Rand, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be easily grasped, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness. As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature, where she considered romanticism to be the approach that most accurately reflected the existence of human free will. She described her own approach to literature as "romantic realism". ; 

Rand acknowledged Aristotle as her greatest influence and remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's" — Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. In a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, when asked where her philosophy came from, she responded, "Out of my own mind, with the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle, the only philosopher who ever influenced me. I devised the rest of my philosophy myself." However, she also found early inspiration in Friedrich Nietzsche, ; ; and scholars have found indications of his influence in early notes from Rand's journals, ; ; in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later revised), ; ; Loiret-Prunet, Valerie. "Ayn Rand and Feminist Synthesis: Rereading We the Living". In and in her overall writing style. ; Sheaffer, Robert. "Rereading Rand on Gender in the Light of Paglia". In . However, by the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas, ; ; and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed. ; ; Mayhew, Robert. "We the Living '36 and '59". In . Among the philosophers Rand held in particular disdain was Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as a "monster," although philosophers George Walsh and Fred Seddon have argued that she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences.

Rand said her most important contributions to philosophy were her "theory of concepts, ethics, and discovery in politics that evil—the violation of rights—consists of the initiation of force." She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her philosophy, stating, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows." 

==Reception and legacy==

===Reviews===
During Rand's lifetime, her work evoked both extreme praise and condemnation. Rand's first novel, We the Living, was admired by the literary critic H. L. Mencken, her Broadway play Night of January 16th was both a critical and popular success, and The Fountainhead was hailed by a reviewer in The New York Times as "masterful". Reprinted in Rand's novels were derided by some critics when they were first published as being long and melodramatic. However, they became bestsellers largely through word of mouth. ; 

The first reviews Rand received were for Night of January 16th. Reviews of the production were largely positive, but Rand considered even positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer. Rand believed that her first novel, We the Living, was not widely reviewed, but Rand scholar Michael S. Berliner says "it was the most reviewed of any of her works", with approximately 125 different reviews being published in more than 200 publications. Overall these reviews were more positive than the reviews she received for her later work. Berliner, Michael S. "Reviews of We the Living". In Her 1938 novella Anthem received little attention from reviewers, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues. Berliner, Michael S. "Reviews of Anthem". In 

Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed. Berliner, Michael S. "The Fountainhead Reviews". In There was a positive review in The New York Times that Rand greatly appreciated. The reviewer called Rand "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly", and stated that "you will not be able to read this masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time". There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them as either not understanding her message or as being from unimportant publications. Some negative reviews focused on the length of the novel, such as one that called it "a whale of a book" and another that said "anyone who is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper-rationing". Other negative reviews called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian". 

Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative. Berliner, Michael S. "The Atlas Shrugged Reviews". In In the National Review, conservative author Whittaker Chambers called the book "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly". He described the tone of the book as "shrillness without reprieve" and accused Rand of supporting a godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go! Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications, including praise from the noted book reviewer John Chamberlain, but Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", calling it "execrable claptrap" and "a nightmare"; they said it was "written out of hate" and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity". Author Flannery O'Connor wrote in a letter to a friend that "The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail." 

Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels had. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged, with philosopher Sidney Hook likening her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union", and author Gore Vidal calling her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality". Reprinted from Esquire, July 1961. Her subsequent books got progressively less attention from reviewers. 

On the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth in 2005, Edward Rothstein, writing for The New York Times, referred to her fictional writing as quaint utopian "retro fantasy" and programmatic neo-Romanticism of the misunderstood artist, while criticizing her characters' "isolated rejection of democratic society". In 2007, book critic Leslie Clark described her fiction as "romance novels with a patina of pseudo-philosophy". In 2009, GQs critic columnist Tom Carson described her books as "capitalism's version of middlebrow religious novels" such as Ben-Hur and the Left Behind series. 

===Popular interest===
A quote from Rand's book The Fountainhead, on the wall directly across from the entrance to The American Adventure rotunda at Walt Disney World's Epcot
In 1991, a survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club asked club members what the most influential book in the respondent's life was. Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice, after the Bible. Rand's books continue to be widely sold and read, with over 29 million copies sold as of 2013 (with about 10% of that total purchased for free distribution to schools by the Ayn Rand Institute). Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work. ; Rand's work continues to be among the top sellers among books in India. 

Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, such as Ira Levin, Kay Nolte Smith and L. Neil Smith, and later writers such as Erika Holzer and Terry Goodkind have been influenced by her. Other artists who have cited Rand as an important influence on their lives and thought include comic book artist Steve Ditko and musician Neil Peart of Rush. Rand provided a positive view of business, and in response business executives and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work. John Allison of BB&T and Ed Snider of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas, ; while Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and John P. Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, among others, have said they consider Rand crucial to their success. 

Rand and her works have been referred to in a variety of media: on television shows including animated sitcoms, live-action comedies, dramas, and game shows, as well as in movies and video games. She, or characters based on her, figure prominently (in positive and negative lights) in literary and science fiction novels by prominent American authors. Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason, has remarked that "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist..." and that "jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman, run through the popular culture". Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, , was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The Passion of Ayn Rand, a 1999 television adaptation of the book of the same name, won several awards. Rand's image also appears on a U.S. postage stamp designed by artist Nick Gaetano. 

===Political influence===

Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian", ; Rand has had continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism. Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, considers Rand one of the three most important women (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism, and David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, stated that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist". In his history of the libertarian movement, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large", and biographer Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right". 

alt=In a large outdoor crowd, a man holds up a poster with the words "I am John Galt" in all capital letters

She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley, Jr. and other contributors for the National Review magazine. They published numerous criticisms in the 1950s and 1960s by Whittaker Chambers, Garry Wills, and M. Stanton Evans. Nevertheless, her influence among conservatives forced Buckley and other National Review contributors to reconsider how traditional notions of virtue and Christianity could be integrated with support for capitalism. 

The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives (often members of the United States Republican Party), despite Rand taking some positions that are atypical for conservatives, such as being pro-choice and an atheist. A 1987 article in The New York Times referred to her as the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate". Republican Congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and recommended her novels. ; ; ; 

The late-2000s financial crisis spurred renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis, ; ; and opinion articles compared real-world events with the plot of the novel. ; During this time, signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests. There was also increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left, with critics blaming the economic crisis on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan. For example, Mother Jones remarked that "Rand's particular genius has always been her ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the talented, and the powerful as the oppressed", while The Nation alleged similarities between the "moral syntax of Randianism" and fascism. 

===Academic reaction===
During Rand's lifetime her work received little attention from academic scholars. When the first academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously. A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals before her death in 1982, many of them in The Personalist. One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, who argued that her meta-ethical argument is unsound and fails to solve the is–ought problem posed by David Hume. Some responses to Nozick by other academic philosophers were also published in The Personalist arguing that Nozick misstated Rand's case. Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was even more limited. Academic Mimi Gladstein was unable to find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s. 

Since Rand's death, interest in her work has gradually increased. ; ; Historian Jennifer Burns has identified "three overlapping waves" of scholarly interest in Rand, the most recent of which is "an explosion of scholarship" since the year 2000. However, few universities currently include Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area, with many literature and philosophy departments dismissing her as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for serious study. 

Gladstein, Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Allan Gotthelf, Edwin A. Locke and Tara Smith have taught her work in academic institutions. Sciabarra co-edits the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a nonpartisan peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of Rand's philosophical and literary work. In 1987 Gotthelf helped found the Ayn Rand Society with George Walsh and David Kelley, and has been active in sponsoring seminars about Rand and her ideas. ; Smith has written several academic books and papers on Rand's ideas, including Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, a volume on Rand's ethical theory published by Cambridge University Press. Rand's ideas have also been made subjects of study at Clemson and Duke universities. Scholars of English and American literature have largely ignored her work, although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s. 

Rand scholars Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen, while stressing the importance and originality of her thought, describe her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional". Philosopher Jack Wheeler says that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage", Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought." Wheeler, Jack. "Rand and Aristotle". In In the Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001, John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation". In a 1999 interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Sciabarra commented, "I know they laugh at Rand", while forecasting a growth of interest in her work in the academic community. 

Libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer has argued that very few people find Rand's ideas convincing, especially her ethics, which he believes is difficult to interpret and may lack logical coherence. He attributes the attention she receives to her being a "compelling writer", especially as a novelist. Thus, Atlas Shrugged outsells not only the works of other philosophers of classical liberalism such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, or Frederic Bastiat, but also Rand's own non-fiction works. 

Political scientist Charles Murray, while praising Rand's literary accomplishments, criticizes her claim that her only "philosophical debt" was to Aristotle, instead asserting that her ideas were derivative of previous thinkers such as John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Murray, "By insisting that Objectivism had sprung full blown from her own mind, with just a little help from Aristotle, Rand was being childish, as well as out of touch with reality." 

Although Rand maintained that Objectivism was an integrated philosophical system, philosopher Robert H. Bass has argued that her central ethical ideas are inconsistent and contradictory to her central political ideas. 

===Objectivist movement===

In 1985, Rand's heir Leonard Peikoff established the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas and works. In 1990, philosopher David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society. ; In 2001 historian John McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia. The charitable foundation of BB&T Corporation has also given grants for teaching Rand's ideas or works. The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pittsburgh, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are among the schools that have received grants. In some cases these grants have been controversial due to their requiring research or teaching related to Rand. ; 

==Selected works==

;Novels
* 1936 We the Living
* 1943 The Fountainhead
* 1957 Atlas Shrugged
;Other fiction
* 1934 Night of January 16th
* 1938 Anthem

;Non-fiction
* 1961 For the New Intellectual
* 1964 The Virtue of Selfishness
* 1966 
* 1969 The Romantic Manifesto
* 1971 
* 1979 Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
* 1982 

==References==

===Works cited===

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==External links==

* Ayn Rand Biographical FAQ from the Objectivism Reference Center
* Frequently Asked Questions About Ayn Rand from the Ayn Rand Institute
* What's Living and Dead in Ayn Rand's Moral and Political Thought by the Cato Institute
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* Rand's papers at The Library of Congress
* Ayn Rand Lexicon – searchable database
* Ayn Rand at C-SPAN's 
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[[Alain Connes]]

Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, currently Professor at the Collège de France, IHÉS, The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University.

==Work==
Alain Connes studies operator algebras. In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s, he succeeded in obtaining the almost complete classification of injective factors. Following this he made contributions in operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the 
Baum-Connes conjecture. He also introduced cyclic cohomology in the early 1980s as a first step in the study of noncommutative differential geometry.

Connes has applied his work in areas of mathematics and theoretical physics, including number theory, differential geometry and particle physics. Scientific Americain, The Geometer of Particle Physics, July 24, 2006 

==Awards and honours==

Connes was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982, the Crafoord Prize in 2001 and the gold medal of the CNRS in 2004. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and several foreign academies and societies, including the Danish Academy of Sciences, Norwegian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and US National Academy of Sciences.

==Books==
* Alain Connes and Matilde Marcolli: Noncommutative Geometry, Quantum Fields and Motives, Colloquium Publications, American Mathematical Society, 2007, ISBN 978-0821842102
* Alain Connes, Andre Lichnerowicz, Marcel Paul Schutzenberger, Jennifer Gage (translator): Triangle of Thought, American Mathematical Society, 2001, ISBN 978-0821826140
* Jean-Pierre Changeux, Alain Connes, M. B. DeBevoise (translator): Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics, Princeton University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0691004051
* Alain Connes: Noncommutative Geometry, Academic Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0121858605 

==See also==
* Cyclic homology
* Factor (functional analysis)
* Higgs boson
* C*-algebra
* M Theory
* Groupoid
*Criticism of non-standard analysis

==External links==

* Alain Connes Official Web Site containing downloadable papers, and his book Non-commutative geometry, ISBN 0-12-185860-X.
* 
* Alain Connes' Standard Model
* An interview with Alain Connes and a discussion about it
* 
* 



[[Allan Dwan]]

Allan Dwan (3 April 1885 – 28 December 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.

==Early life==
Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan moved with his family to the United States when he was 11 years old. At the University of Notre Dame, he trained as an engineer and began working for a lighting company in Chicago. However, he had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job. At that time, some of the East Coast movie makers began to spend winters in California where the climate allowed them to continue productions requiring warm weather. Soon, a number of movie companies worked there year-round and, in 1911, Dwan began working part-time in Hollywood. While still in New York, in 1917 he was the founding president of the East Coast chapter of the Motion Picture Directors Association.

==Career==
Dwan operated Flying A Studios in La Mesa, California from August 1911 to July 1912. Flying A was one of the first motion pictures studios in California history. On 12 August 2011, a plaque was unveiled on the Wolff building at Third Ave and La Mesa Bl commemorating Dwan and the Flying A Studios origins in La Mesa, California.

After making a series of westerns and comedies, Dwan directed fellow Canadian Mary Pickford in several very successful movies as well as her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, notably in the acclaimed 1922 Robin Hood.

Following the introduction of the talkies, in 1937 he directed child-star Shirley Temple in Heidi and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm the following year.

Dwan also helped launch the career of two other very successful Hollywood directors, Victor Fleming, who went on to direct The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, and Marshall Neilan, who became an actor, director, writer and producer.

Over his long and successful career spanning over 50 years, he directed over 400 motion pictures, many of them highly acclaimed, such as the 1949 box office smash, Sands of Iwo Jima. He directed his last movie in 1961.

He died in Los Angeles at the age of ninety-six, and is interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California.

Allan Dwan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard.

==Partial filmography as director==

*The Gold Lust (1911)
*The Picket Guard (1913)
*The Restless Spirit (1913)
*Back to Life (1913)
*Bloodhounds of the North (1913)
*The Lie (1914)
*The Honor of the Mounted (1914)
*Remember Mary Magdalen (1914)
*Discord and Harmony (1914)
*The Embezzler (1914)
*The Lamb, the Woman, the Wolf (1914)
*The End of the Feud (1914)
*The Tragedy of Whispering Creek (1914)
*The Unlawful Trade (1914)
*The Forbidden Room (1914)
*The Hopes of Blind Alley (1914)
*Richelieu (1914)
* Wildflower (1914)
*A Small Town Girl (1915)
*David Harum (1915)
*A Girl of Yesterday (1915)
*The Pretty Sister of Jose (1915)
*Jordan Is a Hard Road (1915)
*Betty of Graystone (1916)
*The Habit of Happiness (1916)
*The Good Bad Man (1916)
*An Innocent Magdalene (1916)
*'The Half-Breed' (1916)
*Manhattan Madness (1916)
*Accusing Evidence (1916)
*Panthea (1917)
*A Modern Musketeer (1917)
*Headin' South (1918)
*Mr. Fix-It (1918)
*He Comes Up Smiling (1918)
*Getting Mary Married (1919)
*In The Heart of a Fool (1920) also producer
*The Forbidden Thing (1920) also producer
*Robin Hood (1922)
*Zaza (1923)
*Big Brother (1923)
*Manhandled (1924)
*Night Life of New York (1925)
*Stage Struck (1925)
*Tin Gods (1926)
*The Joy Girl (1927)
*East Side, West Side (1927)
*The Big Noise (1928)
*The Iron Mask (1929)
*Tide of Empire (1929)
*The Far Call (1929)

*What a Widow! (1930)
*Man to Man (1930)
*Chances (1931)
*Wicked (1931)
*While Paris Sleeps (1932)
*Counsel's Opinion (1933)
*Black Sheep (1935)
*High Tension (1936)
*15 Maiden Lane (1936)
*One Mile From Heaven (1937)
*Heidi (1937)
*Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)
*Suez (1938)
*The Three Musketeers (1939)
*The Gorilla (1939)
*Frontier Marshal (1939)
*Sailor's Lady (1940)
*Young People (1940)
*Trail of the Vigilantes (1940)
*Look Who's Laughing (1941) also producer
*Rise and Shine (1941)
*Friendly Enemies (1942)
*Around the World (1943) also producer
*Up in Mabel's Room (1944)
*Abroad with Two Yanks (1944)
*Getting Gertie's Garter (1945) also screenwriter
*Brewster's Millions (1945)
*Rendezvous with Annie (1946)
*Driftwood (1947)
*Calendar Girl (1947)
*Northwest Outpost (1947) also associate producer
*The Inside Story (1948)
*Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
*Belle Le Grand (1951)
*Wild Blue Yonder (1951)
*I Dream of Jeanie (1952)
*Montana Belle (1952)
*Woman They Almost Lynched (1953)
* Sweethearts on Parade (1953)
*Silver Lode (1954)
*Passion (1954)
*Cattle Queen of Montana (1954)
*Tennessee's Partner (1955)
*Pearl of the South Pacific (1955)
*Escape to Burma (1955)
*Slightly Scarlet (1956)
*Hold Back the Night (1956)
*The Restless Breed (1957)
*The River's Edge (1957)
*Enchanted Island (1958)
*Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961)

==See also==
*Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood

==References==

==Further reading==
* Brownlow, Kevin, The Parade's Gone By... (1968) ISBN 0520030680 ISBN 978-0520030688
* Bogdanovich, Peter, Allan Dwan: The Last Pioneer (1971) ISBN 0289701228 ISBN 978-0289701225 
* Foster, Charles, Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood (2000) ISBN 1-55002-348-9

* Lombardi, Frederic, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios (2013)
Print ISBN 978-0-7864-3485-5 Ebook ISBN 978-0-7864-9040-0

==External links==

*
*Allan Dwan at Virtual History



[[Algeria]]

Algeria (; Literary Arabic: ; Tamazight: Dzayer, ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ; ), officially The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city is Algiers. With a total area of 2381741 km2, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest in Africa and in the Mediterranean. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea.

The territory of today's Algeria was the home of many ancient prehistoric cultures, including Aterian and Capsian cultures. Its area has known many empires and dynasties, including ancient Berber Numidians, Phoenecians, Lybio-Punic Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arab Umayyads, Arab Abbasids, Arab Fatimids, Berber Almoravids, Berber Almohads, Turkish Ottomans and the French colonial empire. Algeria is a semi-presidential republic, it consists of 48 provinces and 1541 communes. With a population of 37.9 million, it is the 35th most populated country on Earth. Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been the President of Algeria since 1999 and has won four consecutive elections. However, according to the Democracy Index Algeria is an authoritarian regime.

Algeria's economy is largely based on hydrocarbons, due to which manufacturing has suffered from Dutch disease. The country supplies large amounts of natural gas to Europe and energy exports are the backbone of the economy. According to OPEC Algeria has 17th largest reserves of oil in the world, and second largest in Africa, while it has the 9th largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa.

Algeria has the second largest military in North Africa with the largest defense budget in Africa. Algeria had a peaceful nuclear program since the 1990s. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC and the United Nations, and is a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union.

==Etymology==
The country's name derives from the city of Algiers. The city's name in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazā'ir (الجزائر, "The Islands"), Online Etymological Dictionary a truncated form of the older Jazā'ir Banī Mazghanna (جزائر بني مزغنة, "Islands of the Mazghanna Tribe"), employed by medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi.

==History==

===Ancient history===

Detail of Tassili rock paintings dating from about 3000 BC relating a probably lost civilization in what was known as the Green Sahara
At Ain Hanech region (Saïda Province), early remnants (200,000 BC) of hominid occupation in North Africa were found. Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant. 

Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).

The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghrib between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period.

The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa. 
Ancient Roman Empire ruins of Timgad. Street leading to the Arch of Trajan.
Ancient Roman theatre in Djémila

From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.

As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organization supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others.

Numidia along with Egypt, Rome, and Carthage 200 BCE

By the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.

In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Massinissa in the 2nd century BC.

After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Massinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.

For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Like the rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. The Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia. They did not make any significant settlement on the land. The region was later recaptured by the Eastern Roman Empire, which ruled it until the Muslim Conquest in the 7th century.

===Middle Ages===

Mansourah mosque, Tlemcen
Fatimid Caliphate 969 A.D.
Muslim Arabs conquered Algeria in the mid-7th century and a large number of locals converted to the new faith. After the fall of the Umayyad Arab Dynasty in 751, numerous local Berber dynasties emerged, including the Aghlabids, Almohads, Abdalwadid, Zirids, Rustamids, Hammadids, Almoravids and the Fatimids. Having converted the Berber Kutama of the Petite Kabylie to its cause, the Shia Fatimids overthrew the Rustamids and conquered Egypt, leaving Algeria and Tunisia to their Zirid vassals. When the latter rebelled, the Fatimids sent in the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym Arabian tribes who unexpectedly defeated the Zirids. 

During the Middle Ages the Fatimids or the sons of Fatima bent Muhammad as they were descended from Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, according to Fatimid claims https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimids came to the Maghreb. These "Fatimids" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz, and the Levant, boasting a secular inner government, and a powerful military and navy, primarily made up of the native North Africans or the Imazighen. The Imazighen or "berbers" controlled varying parts of the Maghreb, at times even unifying it (as under the Fatimids) as well as overseas conquests of Portugal, Senegal, Spain, Sicily, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen. Caliphates from Northern Africa traded tit for tat with the other empires of their time, as well forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during the highly competitive Islamic Era.

The "Berbers" or Imazighen consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja, Houaras, Zenata, Masmouda, Kutama, Awarba, and Berghwata). All these tribes were independent and made territorial decisions. 

Several Berber dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarizing the Berber dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid, Banu Ifran, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad, Merinid, Abdalwadid, Wattasid, Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties. 

In the early 16th century, Spain constructed fortified outposts (presidios) on or near the Algerian coast. Spain took control of Mers el Kebir in 1505; Oran in 1509; and Tlemcen, Mostaganem, and Ténès, in 1510. In the same year, the merchants of Algiers ceded one of the rocky islets in their harbor to Spain, which built a fort on it. The presidios in North Africa turned out to be a costly and largely ineffective military endeavor that did not guarantee access for Spain's merchant fleet. 

===Ottoman Algeria===

Hayreddin Barbarossa
Old Algiers in the 16th century, with the Spanish-built Peñón of Algiers in the forefront
In 1516 the Muslim privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force, Hayreddin subdued the coastal region between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1791). 

The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. Until 1587 the area was governed by officers who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular Ottoman administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by janissaries, known in Algeria as the ojaq and led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659. 

Plague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost from 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and suffered high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691, and 1740–42. 

In 1671, the taifa rebelled, killed the agha, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of dey. After 1689, the right to select the dey passed to the divan, a council of some sixty notables. It was at first dominated by the ojaq; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. In 1710, the dey persuaded the sultan to recognize him and his successors as regent, replacing the pasha in that role. Although Algiers remained a part of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman government ceased to have effective influence there. 

The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system survived, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups, and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronized the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylie. 

====Privateers era====
Christian slaves in Algiers, 1706
The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves. They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids, called Razzias, on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. 

In 1544, Hayreddin captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending the captives to Libya. In 1554, pirates sacked Vieste in southern Italy and took an estimated 7,000 captives as slaves. 

In 1558, Barbary corsairs captured the town of Ciutadella (Minorca), destroyed it, slaughtered the inhabitants and took 3,000 survivors as slaves to Istanbul. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands, and in response, the residents built many coastal watchtowers and fortified churches. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera. 

Between 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates. In the 19th century, the pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "license tax" in exchange for safe harbor of their vessels. One American slave reported that the Algerians had enslaved 130 American seamen in the Mediterranean and Atlantic from 1785 to 1793. 

Piracy on American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in the United States initiating the First (1801–1805) and Second Barbary Wars (1815). Following those wars, Algeria was weaker, and Europeans, with an Anglo-Dutch fleet commanded by the British Lord Exmouth, attacked Algiers. After a nine-hour bombardment, they obtained a treaty from the Dey that reaffirmed the conditions imposed by Decatur (US navy) concerning the demands of tributes. In addition, the Dey agreed to end the practice of enslaving Christians. 

===French Algeria===

Arrival of Marshal Randon in Algiers in 1857
On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. The conquest of Algeria by the French was long and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. The population of Algeria, which stood at about 1.5 million in 1830, reached nearly 11 million in 1960. French policy was predicated on "civilizing" the country. Algeria's social fabric suffered during the occupation: literacy plummeted. During this period, a small but influential French-speaking indigenous elite was formed, made up of Berbers mostly from Kabyles.
In the French policy of "divide to reign," its government favored the Kabyles. About 80% of Indigenous Schools were constructed for Kabyles.
Emir
Abdelkaderin 1865

From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. 

Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status in the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy, and eventually independence, from France. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used terrorist attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals and repression. The war concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum.

===Independence===

Houari Boumediene
Algeria's first president was the FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella. Morocco's claim to portions of western Algeria led to the Sand War in 1963. Ben Bella was overthrown in 1965 by Houari Boumediene, his former ally and defense minister. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian; Boumédienne continued this trend. But, he relied much more on the army for his support, and reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role. He collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialization drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalized. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis.

In the 1960s and 1970s under President Houari Boumediene, Algeria pursued a programme of industrialisation within a state-controlled socialist economy. Boumediene's successor, Chadli Bendjedid, introduced some liberal economic reforms. He promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread radical Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of political Islamism. 

The Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, leading to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut. Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s; by the end of the decade, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system. Political parties developed, such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a broad coalition of Islamist groups. 

===Civil War and aftermath===

In December 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front dominated the first of two rounds of legislative elections. Fearing the election of an Islamist government, the authorities intervened on 11 January 1992, cancelling the elections. Bendjedid resigned and a High Council of State was installed to act as Presidency. It banned the FIS, triggering a civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the Armed Islamic Group, and the national armed forces, in which more than 100,000 persons are thought to have died. The Islamist militants conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres. "98 Die in One of Algerian Civil War's Worst Massacres ". The New York Times. 30 August 1997. At several points in the conflict, the situation in Algeria became a point of international concern, most notably during the crisis surrounding Air France Flight 8969, a hijacking perpetrated by the Armed Islamic Group. The Armed Islamic Group declared a ceasefire in October 1997. 

Algeria held elections in 1999, considered biased by international observers and most opposition groups which were won by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He worked to restore political stability to the country and announced a 'Civil Concord' initiative, approved in a referendum, under which many political prisoners were pardoned, and several thousand members of armed groups were granted exemption from prosecution under a limited amnesty, in force until 13 January 2000. The AIS disbanded and levels of insurgent violence fell rapidly. The Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), a splinter group of the Group Islamic Armée, continued a terrorist campaign against the Government. 

Algeria is seemingly stable but popular angst is rapidly growing against the governing elite.
Bouteflika was re-elected in the April 2004 presidential election after campaigning on a programme of national reconciliation. The programme comprised economic, institutional, political and social reform to modernise the country, raise living standards, and tackle the causes of alienation. It also included a second amnesty initiative, the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which was approved in a referendum in September 2005. It offered amnesty to most guerrillas and Government security forces. 

In November 2008, the Algerian Constitution was amended following a vote in Parliament, removing the two-term limit on Presidential incumbents. This change enabled Bouteflika to stand for re-election in the 2009 presidential elections, and he was re-elected in April 2009. During his election campaign and following his re-election, Bouteflika promised to extend the programme of national reconciliation and a $150-billion spending programme to create three million new jobs, the construction of one million new housing units, and to continue public sector and infrastructure modernisation programmes. 

A continuing series of protests throughout the country started on 28 December 2010, inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. On 24 February 2011, the government lifted Algeria's 19-year-old state of emergency. The government enacted legislation dealing with political parties, the electoral code, and the representation of women in elected bodies. In April 2011, Bouteflika promised further constitutional and political reform. However, elections are routinely criticized by opposition groups as unfair and international human rights groups say that media censorship and harassment of political opponents continue.

==Geography==

image:Algeria-Lalla Khedidja.jpg|The Djurdjura Range in snow
image:Tadrart Rouge.jpg|The Tadrart red desert.
image:El Tarf-Algerie.jpg|El Taref Province, In eastern Algeria.
image:Ouarsenis 2012, Wilaya de Tissemsilt (Algérie).jpg|Ouarsenis, range of mountains in North-Western (1985m)
image:Les Aiguades.jpg|Maritime front of Bejaïa
image:Djanet, Tassili.jpg|The Tassili n'Ajjer.
image:Seraidi-Annaba.jpg|Eddoug National Park, Annaba

Algeria is the largest country in Africa, the Arab world, and the Mediterranean Basin. Its southern part includes a significant portion of the Sahara. To the north, the Tell Atlas form with the Saharan Atlas, further south, two parallel sets of reliefs in approaching eastbound, and between which are inserted vast plains and highlands. Both Atlas tend to merge in eastern Algeria. The vast mountain ranges of Aures and Nememcha occupy the entire northeastern Algeria and are delineated by the Tunisian border. The highest point is Mount Tahat ( m).
The Sahara, the Ahaggar and the Atlas mountains compose the Algerian relief
Algeria lies mostly between latitudes 19° and 37°N (a small area is north of 37°), and longitudes 9°W and 12°E. Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas; farther south, there is the Sahara desert. 

The Ahaggar Mountains (), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about 1500 km south of the capital, Algiers, and just west of Tamanghasset. Algiers, Oran, Constantine, and Annaba are Algeria's main cities. 

===Climate and hydrology===

An oasis in the Hoggar
Lake Agoulmime, Tikjda.

In this region, midday desert temperatures can be hot year round. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded.

The highest official temperature was 50.6 °C at In Salah. 

Rainfall is fairly plentiful along the coastal part of the Tell Atlas, ranging from 400 to annually, the amount of precipitation increasing from west to east. Precipitation is heaviest in the northern part of eastern Algeria, where it reaches as much as 1000 mm in some years.

Farther inland, the rainfall is less plentiful. Algeria also has ergs, or sand dunes, between mountains. Among these, in the summer time when winds are heavy and gusty, temperatures can get up to 110 °F.

===Fauna and flora===

Cedrus of Chélia in the Aures
The varied vegetation of Algeria includes coastal, mountainous and grassy desert-like regions which all support a wide range of wildlife. Many of the creatures comprising the Algerian wildlife live in close proximity to civilization. The most commonly seen animals include the wild boars, jackals, and gazelles, although it is not uncommon to spot fennecs (foxes), and jerboas. Algeria also has a few, leopard and cheetah populations, but these are seldom seen.

A variety of bird species makes the country an attraction for bird watchers. The forests are inhabited by boars and jackals. Barbary macaques are the sole native monkey. Snakes, monitor lizards, and numerous other reptiles can be found living among an array of rodents throughout the semi arid regions of Algeria. Many animals are now extinct, among which the Barbary lions and bears.

In the north, some of the native flora includes Macchia scrub, olive trees, oaks, cedars and other conifers. The mountain regions contain large forests of evergreens (Aleppo pine, juniper, and evergreen oak) and some deciduous trees. Fig, eucalyptus, agave, and various palm trees grow in the warmer areas. The grape vine is indigenous to the coast. In the Sahara region, some oases have palm trees. Acacias with wild olives are the predominant flora in the remainder of the Sahara.

Camels are used extensively; the desert also abounds with poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes, scorpions, and numerous insects.

==Politics==

The People's National Assembly
Algeria is an authoritarian regime, according to the Democracy Index 2010. The Freedom of the Press 2009 report gives it rating "Not Free". 

Elected politicians are considered to have relatively little sway over Algeria. Instead, a group of unelected civilian and military "décideurs", known as "le pouvoir" ("the power"), actually rule the country, even deciding who should be president. The most powerful man may be Mohamed Mediène, head of the military intelligence. In recent years, many of these generals have died or retired. After the death of General Larbi Belkheir, Bouteflika put loyalists in key posts, notably at Sonatrach, and secured constitutional amendments that make him re-electable indefinitely. 

The head of state is the president of Algeria, who is elected for a five-year term. The president was formerly limited to two five-year terms, but a constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament on 11 November 2008 removed this limitation. Algeria has universal suffrage at 18 years of age. The President is the head of the army, the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. He appoints the Prime Minister who is also the head of government. Articles: 85, 87, 77, 78 and 79 of the Algerian constitution 

The Algerian parliament is bicameral; the lower house, the People's National Assembly, has 462 members who are directly elected for five-year terms, while the upper house, the Council of the Nation, has 144 members serving six-year terms, of which 96 members are chosen by local assemblies and 48 are appointed by the president. According to the constitution, no political association may be formed if it is "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender, profession or region". In addition, political campaigns must be exempt from the aforementioned subjects. Article 42 of the Algerian constitution – 

Parliamentary elections were last held in May 2012, and were judged to be largely free by international monitors, though local groups alleged fraud and irregularities. In the elections, the FLN won 221 seats, the military-backed National Rally for Democracy won 70, and the Islamist Green Algeria Alliance won 47. 

===Foreign relations===

For over 30 years, several tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees have been living in the region of Tindouf in the heart of the desert.
In October 2009, Algeria cancelled a weapons deal with France over the possibility of inclusion of Israeli parts in them. 

Tensions between Algeria and Morocco in relation to the Western Sahara have been an obstacle to tightening the Arab Maghreb Union, nominally established in 1989, but which has carried little practical weight. 

Algeria is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer. 
Giving incentives and rewarding best performers, as well as offering funds in a faster and more flexible manner, are the two main principles underlying the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) that came into force in 2014. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes.

===Military===

Algerian Air Force Su-30MKA
The military of Algeria consists of the People's National Army (ANP), the Algerian National Navy (MRA), and the Algerian Air Force (QJJ), plus the Territorial Air Defense Force. It is the direct successor of the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).

Total military personnel include 147,000 active, 150,000 reserve, and 187,000 paramilitary staff (2008 estimate). Service in the military is compulsory for men aged 19–30, for a total of 18 months (six training and 12 in civil projects). The military expenditure was 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Algeria has the second largest military in North Africa with the largest defense budget in Africa ($10.3 billion). 

In 2007, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. It also agreed to return old aircraft purchased from the former USSR. Russia is also building two 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria. 

==Provinces and districts==

Algeria is divided into 48 provinces (wilayas), 553 districts (daïras) and 1,541 municipalities (baladiyahs). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its seat, which is usually the largest city.

The administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they are 

==Economy==

Graphical depiction of the country's exports in 28 colour-coded categories.
Algeria is classified as an upper middle income country by the World Bank. The economy remains dominated by the state, a legacy of the country's socialist post-independence development model. In recent years, the Algerian government has halted the privatization of state-owned industries and imposed restrictions on imports and foreign involvement in its economy. 

Algeria has struggled to develop industries outside hydrocarbons in part because of high costs and an inert state bureaucracy. The government's efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector have done little to reduce high youth unemployment rates or to address housing shortages. The country is facing a number of short-term and medium-term problems, including the need to diversify the economy, strengthen political, economic and financial reforms, improve the business climate and reduce inequalities amongst regions. 

A wave of economic protests in February and March 2011 prompted the Algerian government to offer more than $23 billion in public grants and retroactive salary and benefit increases. Public spending has increased by 27% annually during the past 5 years. The 2010–14 public-investment programme will cost US$286 billion, 40% of which will go to human development. 

The Algerian economy grew by 2.6% in 2011, driven by public spending, in particular in the construction and public-works sector, and by growing internal demand. If hydrocarbons are excluded, growth has been estimated at 4.8%. Growth of 3% is expected in 2012, rising to 4.2% in 2013. The rate of inflation was 4% and the budget deficit 3% of GDP. The current-account surplus is estimated at 9.3% of GDP and at the end of December 2011, official reserves were put at US$182 billion. Inflation, the lowest in the region, has remained stable at 4% on average between 2003 and 2007. 

Algeria, trends in the Human Development Index 1970-2010
In 2011 Algeria announced a budgetary surplus of $26.9 billion, 62% increase in comparison to 2010 surplus. In general, the country exported $73 billion worth of commodities while it imported $46 billion. 

Thanks to strong hydrocarbon revenues, Algeria has a cushion of $173 billion in foreign currency reserves and a large hydrocarbon stabilization fund. In addition, Algeria's external debt is extremely low at about 2% of GDP. The economy remains very dependent on hydrocarbon wealth, and, despite high foreign exchange reserves (US$178 billion, equivalent to three years of imports), current expenditure growth makes Algeria's budget more vulnerable to the risk of prolonged lower hydrocarbon revenues. 

In 2011, the agricultural sector and services recorded growth of 10% and 5.3%, respectively. About 14% of the labor force are employed in the agricultural sector. Fiscal policy in 2011 remained expansionist and made it possible to maintain the pace of public investment and to contain the strong demand for jobs and housing. 

Algeria has not joined the WTO, despite several years of negotiations. 

In March 2006, Russia agreed to erase $4.74 billion of Algeria's Soviet-era debt during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the country, the first by a Russian leader in half a century. In return, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika agreed to buy $7.5 billion worth of combat planes, air-defense systems and other arms from Russia, according to the head of Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport. 

===Hydrocarbons===

Algeria, whose economy is reliant on petroleum, has been an OPEC member since 1969. Its crude oil production stands at around 1.1 million barrels/day, but it is also a major gas producer and exporter, with important links to Europe. Hydrocarbons have long been the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and over 95% of export earnings. Algeria has the 10th-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the sixth-largest gas exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2005, Algeria had 160 Tcuft of proven natural-gas reserves. It also ranks 16th in oil reserves. 

Non-hydrocarbon growth for 2011 was projected at 5%. To cope with social demands, the authorities raised expenditure, especially on basic food support, employment creation, support for SMEs, and higher salaries. High hydrocarbon prices have improved the current account and the already large international reserves position. 

Income from oil and gas rose in 2011 as a result of continuing high oil prices, though the trend in production volume is downwards. Production from the oil and gas sector in terms of volume, continues to decline, dropping from 43.2 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes between 2007 and 2011. Nevertheless, the sector accounted for 98% of the total volume of exports in 2011, against 48% in 1962, and 70% of budgetary receipts, or USD 71.4 billion. 

The Algerian national oil company is Sonatrach, which plays a key role in all aspects of the oil and natural gas sectors in Algeria. All foreign operators must work in partnership with Sonatrach, which usually has majority ownership in production-sharing agreements. 

===Labour market===
Despite a decline in total unemployment, youth and women unemployment is high. Unemployment particularly affects the young, with a jobless rate of 21.5% among the 15–24 age group. 

The overall rate of unemployment was 10% in 2011, but remained higher among young people, with a rate of 21.5% for those aged between 15 and 24. The government strengthened in 2011 the job programmes introduced in 1988, in particular in the framework of the programme to aid those seeking work (Dispositif d'Aide à l'Insertion Professionnelle). 

===Tourism===

Djanet
The development of the tourism sector in Algeria had previously been hampered by a lack of facilities, but since 2004 a broad tourism development strategy has been implemented resulting in many hotels of a high modern standard being built.

There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria including Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the Hammadid empire; Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town; and Djémila and Timgad, both Roman ruins; M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanized oasis; also the Casbah of Algiers is an important citadel. The only natural World Heritage Sites is the Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range.

===Transport===

Algiers Metro
The main highway relaying the Moroccan to the Tunisian borders, was a part of the Cairo–Dakar Highway project
The Algerian road network is the most dense of the African continent, its length is estimated at 180,000 km of highways, with a rate of more than 3 756 structures and paving of 85%. This network should be complemented by a major highway infrastructure being completed, the East-West Highway. It is a 3-way 1 216 km, linking the city of Annaba in the extreme east to the city of Tlemcen in the far West. Algeria is also crossed by the Trans-Sahara Highway, which is now totally paved. This road is pushed forward by the Algerian government to increase trade between the six countries crossed (Algeria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Tunisia).

==Demographics==

As of a January 2013 estimate, Algeria's population was 37.9 million, who are mainly Arab-Berber ethnically. At the outset of the 20th century, its population was approximately four million. About 90% of Algerians live in the northern, coastal area; the inhabitants of the Sahara desert are mainly concentrated in oases, although some 1.5 million remain nomadic or partly nomadic. 28.1% of Algerians are under the age of 15. 

Women make up 70% of the country's lawyers and 60% of its judges and also dominate the field of medicine. Increasingly, women are contributing more to household income than men. 60% of university students are women, according to university researchers. 

Between 90,000 and 165,000 Sahrawis from Western Sahara live in the Sahrawi refugee camps, in the western Algerian Sahara desert. There are also more than 4,000 Palestinian refugees, who are well integrated and have not asked for assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). , 35,000 Chinese migrant workers lived in Algeria. 

The largest concentration of Algerian migrants outside Algeria is in France, which has reportedly over 1.7 million Algerians of up to the second generation. 

===Ethnic groups===

The Berbers are the indigenous ethnic group of Algeria and are believed to be the ancestral stock on which elements from the Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks as well as other ethnic groups have contributed to the ethnic makeup of Algeria. Descendants of Andalusian refugees are also present in the population of Algiers and other cities. Moreover, Spanish was spoken by these Aragonese and Castillian Morisco descendants deep into the 18th century, and even Catalan was spoken at the same time by Catalan Morisco descendants in the small town of Grish El-Oued. 
Algerians in traditional clothes

The majority of Algerians are Berbers in origins, but a majority identifies with an Arabic-based culture. Berbers are divided into many groups with varying languages. The largest of these are the Kabyles, who live in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, the Chaoui of North-East Algeria, the Tuaregs in the southern desert and the Shenwa people of North Algeria. 

There is also a minority of about 600,000 to 2 million Algerian Turks, descendants of Turks who came to the region during the Ottoman rule in North Africa. Today's Turkish descendants are often called Kouloughlis, meaning descendants of Turkish men and native Algerian women. 

During the colonial period, there was a large (10% in 1960) European population who became known as Pied-Noirs. They were primarily of French origin. Almost all of this population left during the war of independence or immediately after its end. 

===Languages===

Traffic sign in Isser in three languages: Arabic, Berber, and French

Modern Standard Arabic is the official language. Algerian Arabic (Darja) is the language used by the majority of the population. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is heavily infused with borrowings from French and Berber.

Berber is spoken by one fourth of the population and has been recognized as a "national language" by the constitutional amendment since 8 May 2002. The Kabyle language, the predominant Berber language, is taught and is partially co-official (with a few restrictions) in parts of Kabylie.

Although French has no official status, Algeria is the second largest Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers (Archive) "L'Algérie, non-membre de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, comptabilise la seconde communauté francophone au monde, avec environ 16 millions de locuteurs, suivie par la Côte d'Ivoire avec près de 12 millions de locuteurs francophones, le Québec avec 6 millions et la Belgique avec plus de 4 millions de francophones." and French is widely used in the government, in culture, media (newspapers, radio, local television), and both the education system (from primary school onwards) and academia due to Algeria's colonial history. It can be regarded as being the de facto co-official language of Algeria. In 2008, 11.2 million Algerians could read and write in French. (Archive) p. 9 "Nous y agrégeons néanmoins quelques données disponibles pour des pays n’appartenant pas à l’OIF mais dont nous savons, comme pour l’Algérie (11,2 millions en 20081)," and "1. Nombre de personnes âgées de cinq ans et plus déclarant savoir lire et écrire le français, d’après les données du recensement de 2008 communiquées par l’Office national des statistiques d’Algérie." 

Algeria emerged as a bilingual state after 1962. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is spoken by about 72% of the population and Berber by 27–30%. 

===Religion===

Islam is the predominant religion with 99% of the population. There are about 150,000 Ibadis in the M'zab Valley in the region of Ghardaia. 

There are an estimated 10,000 Christians in Algeria as of 2008. 

Following the Revolution and Algerian independence, all but 6,500 of the country's 140,000 Jews left the country, of whom about 90% moved to France with the Pied-Noirs and 10% moved to Israel.

===Cities===

Below is a list of the most important Algerian cities:

==Culture==

Algerian musicians in Tlemcen. Painting by Bachir Yellès

Modern Algerian literature, split between Arabic, Kabyle and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history. Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine and Ahlam Mosteghanemi while Assia Djebar is widely translated. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views. 

Malek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are noted for their thoughts on decolonization; Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras); and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria. The works of the Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely noted. The Latin author Apuleius was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.

Contemporary Algerian cinema is various in terms of genre, exploring a wider range of themes and issues. There has been a transition from cinema which focused on the war of independence to films more concerned with the everyday lives of Algerians. 

===Art===
Hamid Tibouchi, a painter and calligrapher]]

Algerian painters, like Mohamed Racim or Baya, attempted to revive the prestigious Algerian past prior to French colonization, at the same time that they have contributed to the preservation of the authentic values of Algeria. In this line, Mohamed Temam, Abdelkhader Houamel have also returned through this art, scenes from the history of the country, the habits and customs of the past and the country life. Other new artistic currents including the one of M'hamed Issiakhem, Mohammed Khadda and Bachir Yelles, appeared on the scene of Algerian painting, abandoning figurative classical painting to find new pictorial ways, in order to adapt Algerian paintings to the new realities of the country through its struggle and its aspirations. Mohammed Khadda and M'hamed Issiakhem have been notable in recent years. 

===Literature===

The historic roots of Algerian literature goes back to the Numidian era, when Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. This period had also known Augustine of Hippo, Nonius Marcellus and Martianus Capella, among many others. The Middle Ages have known many Arabic writers who revolutionized the Arab world literature, with authors like Ahmad al-Buni, Ibn Manzur and Ibn Khaldoun, who wrote the Muqaddimah while staying in Algeria, and many others.

Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French Pied-Noir author. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

Today Algeria contains, in its literary landscape, big names having not only marked the Algerian literature, but also the universal literary heritage in Arabic and French.

As a first step, Algerian literature was marked by works whose main concern was the assertion of the Algerian national entity, there is the publication of novels as the Algerian trilogy of Mohammed Dib, or even Nedjma of Kateb Yacine novel which is often regarded as a monumental and major work. Other known writers will contribute to the emergence of Algerian literature whom include Mouloud Feraoun, Malek Bennabi, Malek Haddad, Moufdi Zakaria, Ibn Badis, Mohamed Laïd Al-Khalifa, Mouloud Mammeri, Frantz Fanon, and Assia Djebar.

In the aftermath of the independence, several new authors emerged on the Algerian literary scene, they will attempt through their works to expose a number of social problems, among them there are Rachid Boudjedra, Rachid Mimouni, Leila Sebbar, Tahar Djaout and Tahir Wattar.

Currently, a part of Algerian writers tends to be defined in a literature of shocking expression, due to the terrorism that occurred during the 1990s, the other party is defined in a different style of literature who staged an individualistic conception of the human adventure. Among the most noted recent works, there is the writer, the swallows of Kabul and the attack of Yasmina Khadra, the oath of barbarians of Boualem Sansal, memory of the flesh of Ahlam Mosteghanemi and the last novel by Assia Djebar nowhere in my father's House.

===Music===

Dahmane El Harrachi
Chaâbi music is a typically Algerian musical genre characterized by specific rhythms and of Qacidate (Popular poems) in Arabic dialect. The undisputed master of this music is El Hadj M'Hamed El Anka. The Constantinois Malouf style is saved by musician from whom Mohamed Tahar Fergani is one of the best performers.
Cheb Khaled King raï 

Folk music styles include Bedouin music, characterized by the poetic songs based on long kacida (poems); Kabyle music, based on a rich repertoire that is poetry and old tales passed through generations; Shawiya music, a folklore from diverse areas of the Aurès Mountains. Rahaba music style is unique to the Aures. Souad Massi is a rising Algerian folk singer. Other Algerian singers of the diaspora include Manel Filali in Germany and Kenza Farah in France. Tergui music is sung in Tuareg languages generally, Tinariwen had a world wide success. Finally, the staïfi music is born in Sétif and remains a unique style of its kind.

Modern music is available in several facets, Raï music is a style typical of Western Algeria. Rap, relatively recent style in Algeria, is experiencing significant growth.

===Cinema===

The Algerian state’s interest in film-industry activities can be seen in the annual budget of DZD 200 million (EUR 1.8) allocated to production, specific measures and an ambitious programme plan implemented by the Ministry of Culture in order to promote national production, renovate the cinema stock and remedy the weak links in distribution and exploitation.

The financial support provided by the state, through the Fund for the Development of the Arts, Techniques and the Film Industry (FDATIC) and the Algerian Agency for Cultural Influence (AARC), plays a key role in the promotion of national production. Between 2007 and 2013, FDATIC subsidised 98 films (feature films, documentaries and short films). In mid-2013, AARC had already supported a total of 78 films, including 42 feature films, 6 short films and 30 documentaries.

According to the European Audiovisual Observatory’s LUMIERE database, 41 Algerian films were distributed in Europe between 1996 and 2013. 21 films in this repertoire are Algerian-French co productions. Indigènes (Days of Glory) (2006) and Hors la loi (Outside the Law) (2010) by the director Rachid Bouchareb are two films in this repertoire that recorded the highest number of admissions in the European Union, with 3,172,612 admissions for Indigènes and 474,722 for Hors la loi.

The European Audiovisual Observatory and Euromed Audiovisual releases a full report on Cinema and Television in Algeria in May 2014.

===Sports===

Stade 5 Juillet 1962 of Algiers
Various games have existed in Algeria since antiquity. In the Aures, people played several games such As El Kherdba or El khergueba (chess variant). Playing cards, checkers and chess games are part of Algerian culture. Racing (fantasia) and the rifle shooting are part of cultural recreation of the Algerians. 

The first Algerian, Arab and African gold medalist is Boughera El Ouafi in 1928 Olympics of Amsterdam in the Marathon. The second Algerian Medalist was Alain Mimoun in 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Several men and women were champions in athletics in the 1990s including Noureddine Morceli, Hassiba Boulmerka, Nouria Merah-Benida, and Taoufik Makhloufi, all specialized in middle distance running. 

Football is the most popular sport in Algeria. Several names are engraved in the history of the sport, including Lakhdar Belloumi, Rachid Mekhloufi, Hassen Lalmas, Rabah Madjer, Salah Assad and Djamel Zidane. The Algeria national football team qualified for the 1982 FIFA World Cup, 1986 FIFA World Cup,2010 FIFA World Cup and 2014 FIFA World Cup. In addition, several football clubs have won continental and international trophies as the club ES Sétif or JS Kabylia. The Algerian Football Federation is an association of Algeria football clubs organizing national competitions and international matches of the selection of Algeria national football team. 

===Cuisine===

A Couscous based Salad
Algerian cuisine is rich and diverse. The country was considered as the "granary of Rome". It offers a component of dishes and varied dishes, depending on the region and according to the seasons. The cuisine uses cereals as the main products, since they are always produced with abundance in the country. There is not a dish where cereals are not present.

Algerian cuisine varies from one region to another, according to seasonal vegetables. It can be prepared using meat, fish and/or vegetables. Among the dishes known, couscous, the chorba, the Rechta, the Chakhchoukha, the Berkoukes, the Shakshouka, the Mthewem, the Chtitha, the Mderbel, the Dolma, the Brik or Bourek, the Garantita, Lham'hlou, etc. Merguez sausage is very used in Algeria, but it differs, depending on the region and on the added spices.

The cakes are marketed and can the found in cities either in Algeria or in Europe or North America. However, traditional cakes made at home have a vast directory of revenue, according to the habits and customs of each family. Among these cakes, there are Tamina, Chrik, Garn logzelles, Griouech, Kalb el-louz, Makroud, Mbardja, Mchewek, Samsa, Tcharak, Baghrir, Khfaf, Zlabia, Aarayech, Ghroubiya, Mghergchette. The Algerian pastry also contains Tunisian or French cakes and it is marketed. The bread may be cooked such as Kessra or Khmira or Harchaya, chopsticks and so-called washers Khoubz dar or Matloue.
Other tradionel meals (Chakhchokha-Hassoua-T'chicha-Mahjouba and Doubara) are famous in Biskra.

==Health==

In 2002, Algeria had inadequate numbers of physicians (1.13 per 1,000 people), nurses (2.23 per 1,000 people), and dentists (0.31 per 1,000 people). Access to "improved water sources" was limited to 92% of the population in urban areas and 80% of the population in rural areas. Some 99% of Algerians living in urban areas, but only 82% of those living in rural areas, had access to "improved sanitation". According to the World Bank, Algeria is making progress toward its goal of "reducing by half the number of people without sustainable access to improved drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015". Given Algeria's young population, policy favors preventive health care and clinics over hospitals. In keeping with this policy, the government maintains an immunization program. However, poor sanitation and unclean water still cause tuberculosis, hepatitis, measles, typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. The poor generally receive health care free of charge. 

Health records have been maintained in Algeria since 1882 and began adding Muslims living in the South to their Vital record database in 1905 during French rule. 

==Education==

Algiers Medical School

Since the 1970s, in a centralized system that was designed to significantly reduce the rate of illiteracy, the Algerian government introduced a decree by which the school became compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years who have the ability to track their learning through the 20 facilities built since independence, now the literacy rate is around 78.7%. 

Since 1972, Arabic is used as the language of instruction during the first nine years of schooling. From the third year, French is taught and it is also the language of instruction for science classes. The students can also learn English, Italian, Spanish and German. In 2008, new programs at the elementary appeared, therefore the compulsory schooling does not start at the age of six anymore, but at the age of five. 
Apart from the 122 private, learning at school, the Universities of the State are free of charge. After nine years of primary school, students can go to the high school or to an educational institution. The school offers two programs: general or technical. At the end of the third year of secondary school, students pass the exam of the Bachelor's degree, which allows once it is successful to pursue graduate studies in universities and institutes. 

Education is officially compulsory for children between the ages of six and 15. In 2008, the illiteracy rate for people over 10 was 22.3%, 15.6% for men and 29.0% for women. The province with the lowest rate of illiteracy was Algiers Province at 11.6%, while the province with the highest rate was Djelfa Province at 35.5%. 

Algeria has 26 universities and 67 institutions of higher education, which must accommodate a million Algerians and 80,000 foreign students in 2008. The University of Algiers, founded in 1879, is the oldest, it offers education in various disciplines (law, medicine, science and letters). 25 of these universities and almost all of the institutions of higher education were founded after the independence of the country.

Even if some of them offer instruction in Arabic like areas of law and the economy, most of the other sectors as science and medicine continue to be provided in French and English. Among the most important universities, there are the University of sciences and technology Houari Boumediene, the University of Mentouri Constantine, Oran Es-Senia University. Best universities of qualifications remain the University of Tlemcen and Batna Hadj Lakhdar, they occupy the 26th and 45th row in Africa, which is a very bad standing. 

==See also==

* Index of Algeria-related articles
* Outline of Algeria
* 

==References==

==Bibliography==

* Ageron, Charles-Robert (1991). Modern Algeria – A History from 1830 to the Present. Translated from French and edited by Michael Brett. London: Hurst. ISBN 978-0-86543-266-6.
* Aghrout, Ahmed; Bougherira, Redha M. (2004). Algeria in Transition – Reforms and Development Prospects. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-34848-5.
* Bennoune, Mahfoud (1988). The Making of Contemporary Algeria – Colonial Upheavals and Post-Independence Development, 1830–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30150-3.
* Fanon, Frantz (1966; 2005 paperback). The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press. ASIN B0007FW4AW, ISBN 978-0-8021-4132-3.
* Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. Viking Adult. ISBN 978-0-670-61964-1, ISBN 978-1-59017-218-6 (2006 reprint)
* Laouisset, Djamel (2009). A Retrospective Study of the Algerian Iron and Steel Industry. New York City: Nova Publishers. ISBN 978-1-61761-190-2.
* Roberts, Hugh (2003). The Battlefield – Algeria, 1988–2002. Studies in a Broken Polity. London: Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-85984-684-1.
* Ruedy, John (1992). Modern Algeria – The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34998-9.
* Stora, Benjamin (2001). Algeria, 1830–2000 – A Short History. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3715-1.
* Sidaoui, Riadh (2009). "Islamic Politics and the Military – Algeria 1962–2008". Religion and Politics – Islam and Muslim Civilisation. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-7546-7418-5.

==External links==

* People's Democratic Republic of Algeria official government website / 
* 
* 
* 
* Algeria profile from the BBC News
* 
* Key Development Forecasts for Algeria from International Futures
* EU Neighbourhood Info Centre: Algeria

 



[[List of Atlas Shrugged characters]]

This is a list of characters in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.

==Major characters==
The following are major characters from the novel. Characters are listed as "major" if they meet one of the following criteria:
*they are listed as "major" characters in a widely available study guide, such as CliffsNotes, SparkNotes, or Gale's Novels for Students;
*they are listed as "primary heroic" or "arch-villain" characters in Gladstein's The New Ayn Rand Companion;
*they are the focus of an essay in a scholarly book about the novel, such as Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. 

===Protagonists===

====Dagny Taggart====

Dagny Taggart is the protagonist of the novel. She is Vice-President in Charge of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, under her brother, James Taggart. However, due to James' incompetence, it is Dagny who is responsible for all the workings of the railroad.

====Francisco d'Anconia====
Francisco d'Anconia is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged, and owner by inheritance of the world's largest copper mining empire. He is a childhood friend, and the first love of Dagny Taggart.

A child prodigy of exceptional talents, Francisco was dubbed the "climax" of the d'Anconia line, an already prestigious family of skilled industrialists. He attended Patrick Henry University and was a classmate of John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjöld and student of both Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. He began working at a young age, while still in school, proving that he could have made a successful career on his own merits without the aid of his family's wealth and power.

Francisco is one of the strikers and is slowly destroying the d'Anconia empire to put it out of the raiders' reach. His actions were designed both to "trap" looters into relying upon his worthless ventures in order to disrupt their schemes and to try to show the inevitable consequences of looting. He adopted the persona of a worthless playboy, by which he is known to the world, as an effective cover. However, he is forced to give up Dagny, knowing that she would not be ready to join the strikers. He remains deeply in love with her throughout the book, while also being a good and loyal friend of her other two lovers, Hank Rearden and John Galt.

His full name is given as Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia. The accent in the given name Sebastián is in accordance with Spanish orthography; however, the same rule would require writing Andrés. 

====John Galt====

The enigmatic John Galt is the primary male hero of Atlas Shrugged. He initially appears as an unnamed menial worker for Taggart Transcontinental, who often dines with Eddie Willers in the employee's cafeteria, and leads Eddie to reveal important information about Dagny Taggart and Taggart Transcontinental. Only Eddie's side of their conversations is given in the novel. Eddie tells him which suppliers and contractors Dagny is most dependent on; these men are consistently the next to disappear. Later in the novel, the reader discovers this worker's true identity.

Before working for Taggart Transcontinental, Galt worked as an engineer for the Twentieth Century Motor Company. While there, he invented his generator that produced usable electric energy from static electricity in the environment. His Prototype may or may not have been completed when he left due to the management deciding on a communistic pay system. This prototype was found by Dagny when she and Hank Rearden made a trip to the long-closed Twentieth Century Motor factory. Dagny would hire Quentin Daniels to try to figure out how the machine worked.

Galt would take over the radio airwaves during Mr. Thompson's much heralded speech at the end of the book and give his long soliloquy.

====Henry "Hank" Rearden====
Henry (also known as "Hank") is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged. Like many of Rand's capitalist characters, he is a self-made man. He owns the most important steel company in the United States. He invents Rearden Metal, an alloy stronger than steel (with similar properties to stainless steel). He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Lillian, his brother Philip, and his elderly mother, all of whom he supports.

Hank Rearden knows something is wrong with the world but he is unable to define the problem. His friend, Francisco d'Anconia, helps him understand and by this mechanism the reader is also prepared to understand the secret when it is revealed explicitly in Galt's Speech. Rearden also serves to illustrate Rand's theory of sex. Lillian Rearden cannot appreciate Hank Rearden's virtues, and she is portrayed as being disgusted by sex. Dagny Taggart clearly does appreciate Rearden's virtues, and this appreciation evolves into sexual desire. Rearden is torn because he accepts the premises of the traditional view of sex as a lower instinct, but he responds sexually to Dagny, who represents his highest values. Rearden struggles to resolve this internal conflict, and in doing so, illustrates Rand's sexual theory.

====Eddie Willers====
Edwin "Eddie" Willers is the Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. He grew up with Dagny Taggart. His father and grandfather worked for the Taggarts, and he followed in their footsteps. He is completely loyal to Dagny and to Taggart Transcontinental. He is also secretly in love with Dagny. Willers is generally assumed to represent the common man: someone who does not possess the Promethean creative ability of The Strikers, but matches them in moral courage and is capable of appreciating and making use of their creations. After Dagny shifts her attention and loyalty to saving the captive Galt, he does everything he can to keep the railroad running as the country falls apart. When the train he is riding on breaks down, he tries in vain to repair it as the passengers and crew abandon him, then collapses sobbing on the tracks.

====Ragnar Danneskjöld====
One of the original strikers, he is now world famous as a pirate. Ragnar attended Patrick Henry University and became friends with John Galt and Francisco d'Anconia while studying under Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. Danneskjöld seizes relief ships that are being sent from the United States to The People's States of Europe. As the novel progresses, Danneskjöld begins to become active in American waters. Danneskjöld's action is to restore to other creative people the money, in gold, which was unjustly taken away from them—specifically, their income tax payments. He explains this is not altruism; his motivation is to ensure that once those espousing Galt's philosophy are restored to their rightful place in society, they will have enough capital to rebuild the world.

Kept in the background for much of the book, Danneskjöld makes a personal appearance when he risks his life to meet Hank Rearden in the night and hand him a bar of gold as an "advance payment" to encourage Rearden to persevere in his increasingly difficult situation. Danneskjöld is married to the actress Kay Ludlow; their relationship is kept hidden from the outside world, which only knows of Ludlow as a film star who retired and dropped out of sight. It is mentioned that some of the strikers have strong reservations about his way of "conducting the common struggle."

According to Barbara Branden, who was closely associated with Rand at the time the book was written, there were sections written describing Danneskjöld's adventures at sea, which were cut from the final published text. Reedstrom, Karen. 1992 Interview with Full Context. Barbara Branden interview in Full Context, October 1992. Republished on barbarabranden.com. Retrieved 1 June 2007. In a 1974 comment at a lecture, Ayn Rand admitted that Danneskjöld's name was a tribute to Victor Hugo. The hero of Hugo's novel, Hans of Iceland, becomes the first of the Counts of Danneskjöld. In the published book, Danneskjöld is always seen through the eyes of others (Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden), except for a brief paragraph in the very last chapter.

===Antagonists===

====James Taggart====
The President of Taggart Transcontinental and the book's most important antagonist. Taggart is an expert influence peddler who is, however, incapable of making operational decisions on his own. He relies on his sister, Dagny Taggart, to actually run the railroad, but nonetheless opposes her in almost every endeavor. In a sense, he is the antithesis of Dagny.

As the novel progresses, the moral philosophy of the looters is revealed: it is a code of stagnation. The goal of this code is to not exist, to not move forward, to become a zero. Taggart struggles to remain unaware that this is his goal. He maintains his pretense that he wants to live, and becomes horrified whenever his mind starts to grasp the truth about himself. This contradiction leads to the recurring absurdity of his life: the desire to destroy those on whom his life depends, and the horror that he will succeed at this. In the final chapters of the novel, he suffers a complete mental breakdown upon realizing that he can no longer deceive himself in this respect.

====Lillian Rearden====
The unsupportive wife of Hank Rearden. They have been married eight years as the novel begins. Lillian is a frigid moocher who seeks to destroy her husband. She compares being Rearden's wife with owning the world's most powerful horse. Since she cannot comfortably ride a horse that goes too fast, she must bridle it down to her level, even if that means it will never reach its full potential and its power will be grievously wasted. Lillian tolerates sex with her husband only because she is "realistic" enough to know he is just a brute who requires satisfaction of his brute instincts. She indicates that she abhors Francisco d'Anconia, because she believes he is a sexual adventurer.

As her motives become more clear, Lillian is found to share the sentiments of many other moochers and their worship of destruction. Her actions are explained as the desire to destroy achievement in the false belief that such an act bestows a greatness to the destroyer equal to the accomplishment destroyed. She seeks, then, to ruin Rearden in an effort to prove her own value.

Lillian achieves her goal to destroy Rearden's business, when she passes on information to James Taggart about her husband's affair. This information is used to persuade Rearden to sign the Gift Certificate (which delivers all the property rights of Rearden Metal to the looters) and thereby destroys his business. Lillian discovers that she can accomplish her goal to destroy the business but she can neither achieve the greatness she desires nor her goal to destroy Hank's character. She uses James Taggart for sex as victory and revenge against Hank and Dagny. This does give her the satisfaction she desires and she continues to manipulate Hank until he finally leaves her and joins Galt's strikers.

====Dr. Floyd Ferris====

Ferris is a biologist who works as "co-ordinator" at the State Science Institute. He uses his position there to deride reason and productive achievement, and publishes a book entitled Why Do You Think You Think? He clashes on several occasions with Hank Rearden, and twice attempts to blackmail Rearden into giving up Rearden Metal. He is also one of the group of looters who tries to get Rearden to agree to the Steel Unification Plan. Ferris hosts the demonstration of the Project X weapon, and is the creator of the Ferris Persuader, a torture machine. When John Galt is captured by the looters, Ferris uses the device on Galt, but it breaks down before extracting the information Ferris wants from Galt. Ferris represents the group which uses brute force on the heroes to achieve the ends of the looters.

====Dr. Robert Stadler====
A former professor at Patrick Henry University, and along with colleague Hugh Akston, mentor to Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjöld. He has since become a sell-out, one who had great promise but squandered it for social approval, to the detriment of the free. He works at the State Science Institute where all his inventions are perverted for use by the military, including the instrument of his demise: Project X (Xylophone). The character was, in part, modeled on J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom Rand had interviewed for an earlier project, and his part in the creation of nuclear weapons. David Harriman, Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 311-344, esp. 330-331. To his former student Galt, Stadler represents the epitome of human evil, as the "man who knew better" but chose not to act for the good.

====Wesley Mouch====
The incompetent and treacherous lobbyist whom Hank Rearden reluctantly employs in Washington, who rises to prominence and authority throughout the novel through trading favours and disloyalty. In return for betraying Hank by helping broker the Equalization of Opportunity Bill (which, by restricting the number of businesses each person may own to one, forces Hank to divest most of his companies), he is given a senior position at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. Later in the novel he becomes its Top Co-ordinator, a position that eventually becomes Economic Dictator of the country.

==Secondary characters==
The following secondary characters also appear in the novel. Secondary characters are listed if they appear in character lists from any of the works used to establish the list of major characters above, but do not meet the criteria for "major." Minor characters who are not listed in secondary works are not listed here. 

*Hugh Akston is identified as "One of the last great advocates of reason." He was a renowned philosopher and the head of the Department of Philosophy at Patrick Henry University, where he taught Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt, and Ragnar Danneskjöld. He was, along with Robert Stadler, a father figure to these three. Akston's name is so hallowed that a young lady, on hearing that Francisco had studied under him, is shocked. She thought he must have been one of those great names from an earlier century. He now works as a cook in a roadside diner, and proves extremely skillful at that. When Dagny tracks him down, and before she discovers his true identity, he rejects her enthusiastic offer to manage the dining car services for Taggart Transcontinental. He is based on Aristotle.
*Jeff Allen is a tramp who stows away on a Taggart train during one of Dagny's cross-country trips. Instead of throwing him out, she allows him to ride as her guest. It is from Allen that she learns the full story behind the collapse of the Twentieth Century Motor Company (Rand's extensive metaphor for the inherent flaws of communism), as well as a hint of John Galt's true background.
*Calvin Atwood is owner of Atwood Light and Power Company and joins Galt's strike.
*Mayor Bascom is the mayor of Rome, Wisconsin, who reveals part of the history of the Twentieth Century Motor Company.
*Bill Brent is the chief dispatcher for the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental, who tries to prevent the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
*Dr. Blodgett is the scientist who pulls the lever to demonstrate Project X.
*Orren Boyle is the head of Associated Steel, antithesis of Hank Rearden and a friend of James Taggart. He is an investor in the San Sebastián Mines. He disappears from the story after having a nervous breakdown following the failed 'unification' of the steel industry.
*Laura Bradford is an actress and Kip Chalmers's mistress.
*Cherryl Brooks is a dime store shopgirl who marries James Taggart after a chance encounter in her store the night the John Galt Line was falsely deemed his greatest success. She marries him thinking he is the heroic person behind Taggart Transcontinental. Cherryl is at first harsh towards Dagny, having believed Jim Taggart's descriptions of his sister, until she questions employees of the railroad. Upon learning that her scorn had been misdirected, Cherryl puts off apologizing to Dagny out of shame until the night before she commits suicide, when she confesses to Dagny that when she married Jim, she thought he had the heroic qualities that she had looked up to - she thought she was marrying someone like Dagny. She eventually commits suicide, unable to live with her worthless husband, and unable to escape.
*Millie Bush was "a mean, ugly little eight-year-old" girl voted to receive gold braces to straighten her teeth by the Marxist "family" committee who determined how pay was allocated at The Twentieth Century Motor Company. Her teeth are later knocked out by a man denied an allowance by the committee to purchase the things he valued.
*Kip Chalmers is a Washington man who has decided to run for election as Legislator from California. On the way to his campaign, the Taggart Transcontinental train that is carrying him encounters a split rail, resulting in the destruction of its diesel engine. His demands lead to a coal-burning steam engine being attached to his train in its stead and used to pull it through an eight-mile tunnel. The result is the suffocation of all passengers and the destruction of the Taggart Tunnel.
*Emma Chalmers, Kip Chalmers's mother, gains some influence after his death. Known as "Kip's Ma," she starts a soybean-growing project in Louisiana and commandeers thousands of railcars to move the harvest. As a result, the year's wheat crop from Minnesota never reaches the rest of the country, but instead rots in storage; also, the soybean crop is lost, having been reaped too early.
*Dan Conway is the middle-aged president of the Phoenix-Durango railroad. Running a railroad is just about the only thing he knows. When the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule is used to drive his business out of Colorado, he loses the will to fight, and resigns himself to a quiet life of books and fishing.
*Ken Danagger owns Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania. He helps Hank Rearden illegally make Rearden Metal, then later decides to quit and join Galt's strike moments before Dagny arrives to try to persuade him otherwise.
*Quentin Daniels is an enterprising engineer hired by Dagny Taggart to reconstruct John Galt's motor. Partway through this process, Quentin withdraws his effort for the same reasons John Galt himself had. Dagny's pursuit of Quentin leads her to Galt's Gulch.
*Sebastian d'Anconia was the 16th (or 17th) Century founder of the d'Anconia dynasty. Escaped from Spain because of expressing his opinions too freely and coming in conflict with the Inquisition, leaving behind a palace and his beloved. Started a small mine in South America, which became the beginning of a mining empire and a new fortune (and a new palace). Eventually sent for his beloved who had waited for him many years. He is the role model which Francisco d'Anconia looks to, as Dagny Taggart looks to Nathaniel Taggart. Francisco remarks that their respective ancestors would have liked each other.
*Balph Eubank is called "the literary leader of the age", despite the fact that he has never sold more than three thousand copies of his books. He complains that it is disgraceful that artists are treated as peddlers, and that there should be a law limiting the sales of books to ten thousand copies. He is a misogynist who thinks it disgusting that Dagny Taggart is a railroad president.
*The Fishwife is one of the strikers, who earns her living by providing the fish for Hammond’s grocery market; she is described as having "dark, disheveled hair and large eyes", and is a writer. Galt says she "wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind." According to Barbara Branden in her book The Passion of Ayn Rand, "The Fishwife is Ayn's Hitchcock-like appearance in Atlas Shrugged." So says too Leonard Peikoff. 
*Lawrence Hammond runs Hammond Cars in Colorado, one of the few companies in existence that still produces top-quality vehicles. He eventually quits and joins the strike.
*Richard Halley is Dagny Taggart's favorite composer, who mysteriously disappeared after the evening of his greatest triumph. Halley spent years as a struggling and unappreciated composer. At age 24, his opera Phaethon was performed for the first time, to an audience who booed and heckled it. After 19 years, Phaethon was performed again, but this time it was received to the greatest ovation the opera house had ever heard. The following day, Halley retired, sold the rights to his music, and disappeared. It is later revealed that he has joined the strike and settled in Galt's Gulch.
*Mrs. William Hastings is the widow of the chief engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Her husband quit shortly after Galt did and joined the strike some years later. Her lead allows Dagny to find Hugh Akston.
*Dr. Thomas Hendricks is a famous brain surgeon who developed a new method of preventing strokes. He joined Galt's strike when the American medical system was put under government control.
*Tinky Holloway is one of the "looters" and is frequently referred to and quoted by other characters in the story, but he has only one major appearance: during the Washington meeting with Hank Rearden.
*Lee Hunsacker is in charge of a company called Amalgamated Service when takes over the Twentieth Century Motor Company. He files a lawsuit that eventually leads to Midas Mulligan and Judge Narragansett joining the strike. A failed businessman, he laments constantly that no-one ever gave him a chance.
*Gwen Ives is Hank Rearden's secretary.
*Owen Kellogg is Assistant to the Manager of the Taggart Terminal in New York. He catches Dagny Taggart's eye as one of the few competent men on staff. After seeing the sorry state of the Ohio Division, she decides to make him its new Superintendent. However, as soon as she returns to New York, Kellogg informs her that he is quitting his job. Owen Kellogg eventually reaches, and settles in, Galt's Gulch.
*Fred Kinnan is a labor leader and member of the looter cabal. Unlike the others, however, Kinnan is straightforward and honest about his purpose. Kinnan is the only one to openly state the true motivations of himself and his fellow conspirators. At the end of Galt's 3 hour speech, he expresses admiration for the man, as he says what he means. Despite this, Kinnan admits that he is one of the people Galt is out to destroy.
*Paul Larkin is an unsuccessful, middle-aged businessman, a friend of the Rearden family. He meets with the other Looters to work out a plan to bring Rearden down. James Taggart knows he is friends with Hank Rearden and challenges his loyalty, and Larkin assures Taggart that he will go along with them.
*Eugene Lawson heads the Community Bank of Madison, then gets a job with the government when it his bank goes bankrupt. One of the looter's cabal, he is a collectivist who abhors production and money-making.
*Mort Liddy is a hack composer who writes trite scores for movies and modern symphonies to which no one listens. He believes melody is a primitive vulgarity. He is one of Lillian Rearden's friends and a member of the cultural elite.
*Clifton Locey is a friend of Jim Taggart who takes the position of vice-president of operation when Dagny Taggart quits.
*Pat Logan is the engineer on the first run of the John Galt Line. He later strikes.
*Kay Ludlow is a beautiful actress and the wife of Ragnar Danneskjöld.
*Dick McNamara is a contractor who finished the San Sebastian Line. Dagny Taggart plans to hire him to lay the new Rearden Metal track for the Rio Norte Line, but before she does so, he mysteriously disappears. She later discovers that he has joined the strike and settled in Galt's Gulch.
*Cuffy Meigs is the Director of Unification for the railroad business. He carries a pistol and a lucky rabbit's foot, and he dresses in a military uniform, and has been described as "impervious to thought". Meigs seizes control of Project X and accidentally destroys it, demolishing the country's last railroad bridge across the Mississippi River and killing himself, his men, and Dr. Stadler.
*Dave Mitchum is a state-hired superintendent of the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental. He is partially responsible for the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
*Chick Morrison holds the position of "Morale Conditioner" in the government. He quits when society begins to collapse and flees to a stronghold in Tennessee. His fellow looters consider it unlikely that he will survive.
*Horace Bussby Mowen is the president of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company, Inc. of Connecticut. He is a businessman who sees nothing wrong with the moral code that is destroying society and would never dream of saying he is in business for any reason other than the good of society. Dagny Taggart hires Mowen to produce switches made of Rearden Metal. He is reluctant to build anything with this unproven technology, and has to be cajoled into accepting the contract. When pressured by public opinion, he discontinues production of the switches, forcing Dagny to find an alternative source.
*Midas Mulligan is a wealthy banker who mysteriously disappeared in protest after he was given a court order to lend money to an incompetent applicant. When the order came down he liquidated his entire business, paid off his depositors, and joined Galt's strike. He is the legal owner of the land where Galt's Gulch is located. Mulligan's birth name was Michael, but he had it legally changed after a news article called him "Midas" in a derogatory fashion, which Mulligan took as a compliment.
*Judge Narragansett is an American jurist who ruled in favor of Midas Mulligan during the case brought against him by the incompetent loan applicant. When Narragansett's ruling was reversed on appeal, he retired and joined the strike. At the end of the novel, he is seen editing the United States Constitution, crossing out the contradicting amendments of it and adding an amendment to prohibit Congress from passing laws that restrain freedom of trade.
*Ben Nealy is a railroad contractor whom Dagny Taggart hires to replace the track on the Rio Norte Line with Rearden Metal. Nealy is incompetent, but Dagny can find no one better in all the country. Nealy believes that anything can get done with enough muscle power. He sees no role for intelligence in human achievement. He relies on Dagny and Ellis Wyatt to run things, and resents them for doing it, because it appears to him like they are just bossing people around.
*Betty Pope is a wealthy socialite who is having a meaningless sexual affair with James Taggart. She is deliberately crude in a way that casts ridicule on her high social position.
*Dr. Potter holds some undefined position with the State Science Institute. He is sent to try to obtain the rights to Rearden Metal.
*Dr. Simon Pritchett is the prestigious head of the Department of Philosophy at Patrick Henry University and is considered the leading philosopher of the age. He believes that man is nothing but a collection of chemicals, reason is a superstition, it is futile to seek meaning in life, and the duty of a philosopher is to show that nothing can be understood.
*Rearden's mother, whose name is not mentioned, lives with Rearden at his home in Philadelphia. She is involved in charity work, and berates Rearden whenever she can. She dotes on her weak son Philip Rearden.
*Philip Rearden is the younger brother of Hank Rearden. He lives in his brother's home in Philadelphia and is completely dependent on him. He is resentful of his brother's charity.
*Dwight Sanders owns Sanders Aircraft, a producer of high-quality airplanes, and joins the strike.
*Bertram Scudder is an editorial writer for the magazine The Future. He typically bashes business and businessmen, but he never says anything specific in his articles, relying on innuendo, sneers, and denunciation. He wrote a hatchet job on Hank Rearden called The Octopus. He is also vocal in support of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. Scudder claims that the most important thing in life is "brother love" but seems to have nothing but hatred for those around him. He loses his job after Dagny Taggart reveals her affair with Hank Rearden over air on his radio show.
*Claude Slagenhop is president of political organization Friends of Global Progress and one of Lillian Rearden's friends. He believes that ideas are just air, that this is no time for talk, but for action. Global Progress is a sponsor of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.
*Gerald and Ivy Starnes are the two surviving children of Jed Starnes; together with their since-deceased brother Eric, they instituted a communistic payment-and-benefits program at Twentieth Century Motors which drove the company into bankruptcy. Gerald, a dying alcoholic, and Ivy, a pseudo-Buddhist ascetic, continue to insist that the plan was perfect and that the failure of their father's company was entirely due to the workers. Eric was a weak, attention-seeking man with a pathological desire to be loved. He committed suicide after the woman he loved married another man. Gerald is a vain, frivolous incompetent who claims to be altruistic while throwing lavish parties using money that should be paid to his employees. Ivy meanwhile is described as "pure evil", a sadist who revels in the poverty of others but has no desire for money or power herself.
*Andrew Stockton runs the Stockton Foundry in Stockton, Colorado. When he joins the strike, he opens a foundry in Galt's Gulch.
*Nathaniel Taggart was the founder of Taggart Transcontinental. He built his railroad without any government handouts, and ran the business for no other reason than to turn a profit. He began as a penniless adventurer and ended up as one of the wealthiest men in the country. He never earned money by force or fraud (except for bribing government officials and throwing an opponent down a flight of stairs), and never apologized for becoming wealthy and successful. He was one of the most hated men of his time. Dagny is often inspired by looking at a statue of Nat Taggart at the railroad headquarters.
*Mr. Thompson is the "Head of the State" for the United States. He is not particularly intelligent and has a very undistinguished look. He knows politics, however, and is a master of public relations and back-room deals. Rand's notes indicate that she modeled him on President Harry S. Truman, and that she deliberately decided not to call him "President of the United States" as this title has "honorable connotations" which the character does not deserve.
*Lester Tuck is the press agent for Kip Chalmers.
*Clem Weatherby is a government representative on the board of directors of Taggart Transcontinental. Dagny considers him the least bad of the government representatives, since he does have some real knowledge on the running of trains. She notices, however, that he is the least appreciated by his own bosses.
*The Wet Nurse (Tony) is a young bureaucrat sent by the government to watch over Rearden’s mills. Though he starts out as a cynical follower of the looters’ code, his experience at the mills transforms him, and he comes to respect and admire the producers. He is shot attempting to inform Hank Rearden about a government plot, but does succeed in warning Rearden just before he dies.
*Ellis Wyatt is the head of Wyatt Oil. He has almost single-handedly revived the economy of Colorado by discovering a new process for extracting more oil from what were thought to be exhausted oil wells. When first introduced, he is aggressive towards Dagny, whom he does not yet know and whom he blames for what are, in fact, her brother's policies which directly threaten his business. When the government passes laws and decrees which make it impossible for him to continue, he sets all his oil wells on fire, leaving a jeering note: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." One particular burning well that resists all efforts to extinguish it becomes known as "Wyatt's Torch". Later Dagny meets him in Galt's Gulch.

==See also==
*Companies in Atlas Shrugged

==Notes==

==References==
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[[Anthropology]]

Anthropology is the study of humans, past and present, "anthropology" at Britannica Online Encyclopedia that draws and builds upon knowledge from the social sciences and biological sciences, as well as the humanities and the natural sciences. Wolf, Eric (1994) Perilous Ideas: Race, Culture, People. Current Anthropology 35: 1-7. p.227 

Since the work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropology in Great Britain and the US has been distinguished from ethnology Han F. Vermeulen, "The German Invention of Völkerkunde: Ethnological Discourse in Europe and Asia, 1740–1798." In: Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore, eds. The German Invention of Race. 2006. and from other social sciences by its emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons, long-term in-depth examination of context, and the importance it places on participant-observation or experiential immersion in the area of research. Cultural anthropology in particular has emphasized cultural relativism, holism, and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques. Hylland Eriksen, Thomas. (2004) "What is Anthropology" Pluto. London. p. 79. This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas's arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism. Ethnography is one of its primary methods as well as the text that is generated from anthropological fieldwork. On varieties of cultural relativism in anthropology, see Spiro, Melford E. (1987) "Some Reflections on Cultural Determinism and Relativism with Special Reference to Emotion and Reason," in Culture and Human Nature: theoretical papers of Melford E. Spiro. Edited by B. Kilborne and L. L. Langness, pp. 32–58. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

While in Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries, the British tradition of Social Anthropology tends to dominate, in the United States anthropology is traditionally divided into the four field approach developed by Franz Boas in the early 20th century: biological or physical anthropology; social, cultural, or sociocultural anthropology; archaeology; and anthropological linguistics. These fields frequently overlap, but tend to use different methodologies and techniques.

In those European countries that did not have overseas colonies, where ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783) was more widespread, social anthropology is now defined as the study of social organization in non-state societies and is sometimes referred to as sociocultural anthropology in the parts of the world that were influenced by the European tradition. Layton, Robert (1998) An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

==Origin of the term==
The term anthropology originates from the Greek anthrōpos (), "human being" (understood to mean humankind or humanity), and -λογία -logia, "study."

==Fields==

Anthropology is a global discipline where humanities, social, and natural sciences are forced to confront one another. Anthropology builds upon knowledge from natural sciences, including the discoveries about the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens, human physical traits, human behavior, the variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture, and from social sciences, including the organization of human social and cultural relations, institutions, social conflicts, etc. What is Anthropology - American Anthropological Association What is Anthropology - Anthropology Report Early anthropology originated in Classical Greece and Persia and studied and tried to understand observable cultural diversity. Harris, Marvin. The Rise of Anthropological Theory. Alta Mira Press. 2000 (revised from 1968); Harris, Marvin. Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times. Altamira. 1998 As such, anthropology has been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, global studies, and various ethnic studies.

According to Clifford Geertz, 

Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies. During the 1970s and 1990s, there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline. Geertz, Behar, Clifford & James During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in cultural and social anthropology. In contrast, archaeology and biological anthropology remained largely positivist. Due to this difference in epistemology, the four sub-fields of anthropology have lacked cohesion over the last several decades.

===Sociocultural===

Sociocultural anthropology draws together the principle axes of cultural anthropology and social anthropology. Cultural anthropology is the comparative study of the manifold ways in which people make sense of the world around them, while social anthropology is the study of the relationships among persons and groups. Cultural anthropology is more akin to philosophy, literature and the arts, while social anthropology to sociology and history. 

Inquiry in sociocultural anthropology is guided in part by cultural relativism, the attempt to understand other societies in terms of their own cultural symbols and values. Accepting other cultures in their own terms moderates reductionism in cross-cultural comparison. This project is often accommodated in the field of ethnography. Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and the product of ethnographic research, i.e. an ethnographic monograph. As methodology, ethnography is based upon long-term fieldwork within a community or other research site. Participant observation is one of the foundational methods of social and cultural anthropology. Bernard, H. Russell, Research Methods in Anthropology. Altamira Press, 2002. p.322. Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. The process of participant-observation can be especially helpful to understanding a culture from an emic (conceptual, vs. etic, or technical) point of view.

The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of sociocultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal. Sociocultural anthropology also covers economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language (which is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology).

Comparison across cultures is a key element of method in sociocultural anthropology, including the industrialized (and de-industrialized) West. Cultures in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) of world societies are:

 Africa 30px Nama (Hottentot) • Kung (San) • Thonga • Lozi • Mbundu • Suku • Bemba • Nyakyusa (Ngonde) • Hadza • Luguru • Kikuyu • Ganda • Mbuti (Pygmies) • Nkundo (Mongo) • Banen • Tiv • Igbo • Fon • Ashanti (Twi) • Mende • Bambara • Tallensi • Massa • Azande • Otoro Nuba • Shilluk • Mao • Maasai 
 Circum-Mediterranean 30px Wolof • Songhai • Wodaabe Fulani • Hausa • Fur • Kaffa • Konso • Somali • Amhara • Bogo • Kenuzi Nubian • Teda • Tuareg • Riffians • Egyptians (Fellah) • Hebrews • Babylonians • Rwala Bedouin • Turks • Gheg (Albanians) • Romans • Basques • Irish • Sami (Lapps) • Russians • Georgian (Iberian) •Abkhaz • Armenians • Kurd 
 East Eurasia 30px Yurak (Samoyed) • Basseri • West Punjabi • Gond • Toda • Santal • Uttar Pradesh • Burusho • Kazak • Gujarati • Bengali • Khalka Mongols • Lolo • Lepcha • Garo • Lakher • Burmese • Lamet • Vietnamese • Rhade • Khmer • Siamese • Semang • Nicobarese • Andamanese • Vedda • Tanala • Negeri Sembilan • Atayal • Chinese • Manchu • Koreans • Japanese • Ainu • Gilyak • Yukaghir 
 Insular Pacific 30px Javanese (Miao) • Balinese • Iban • Badjau • Toraja • Tobelorese • Alorese • Tiwi • Aranda • Orokaiva • Kimam • Kapauku • Kwoma • Manus • New Ireland • Trobrianders • Siuai • Tikopia • Pentecost • Mbau Fijians • Ajie • Maori • Marquesans • Western Samoans • Gilbertese • Marshallese • Trukese • Yapese • Palauans • Ifugao • Chukchi 
 North America 30px Ingalik • Aleut • Copper Eskimo • Montagnais • Mi'kmaq • Saulteaux (Ojibwa) • Slave • Kaska (Nahane) • Eyak • Haida • Bellacoola • Twana • Yurok • Pomo • Yokuts • Paiute (Northern) • Klamath • Kutenai • Gros Ventres • Hidatsa • Pawnee • Omaha (Dhegiha) • Huron • Creek • Natchez • Comanche • Chiricahua • Zuni • Havasupai • Papago • Huichol • Aztec • Popoluca 
 South America 30px Quiché • Miskito (Mosquito) • Bribri (Talamanca) • Cuna • Goajiro • Haitians • Calinago • Warrau (Warao) • Yanomamo • Carib • Saramacca • Munduruku • Cubeo (Tucano) • Cayapa • Jivaro • Amahuaca • Inca • Aymara • Siriono • Nambicuara • Trumai • Timbira • Tupinamba • Botocudo • Shavante • Aweikoma • Cayua (Guarani) • Lengua • Abipon • Mapuche • Tehuelche • Yaghan 

See also the List of indigenous peoples.

===Biological===

Forensic anthropologists can help identify skeletonized human remains, such as these found lying in scrub in Western Australia, c. 1900–1910.

Biological Anthropology and Physical Anthropology are synonymous terms to describe anthropological research focused on the study of humans and non-human primates in their biological, evolutionary, and demographic dimensions. It examines the biological and social factors that have affected the evolution of humans and other primates, and that generate, maintain or change contemporary genetic and physiological variation. University of Toronto. (n.d.). Research Subfields: Physical or Biological. Retrieved 14 March 2012, from http://anthropology.utoronto.ca/about/research/physical-or-biological 

===Archaeological===

Excavations at the 3800-year-old Edgewater Park Site, Iowa
Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Artifacts, faunal remains, and human altered landscapes are evidence of the cultural and material lives of past societies. Archaeologists examine these material remains in order to deduce patterns of past human behavior and cultural practices. Ethnoarchaeology is a type of archaeology that studies the practices and material remains of living human groups in order to gain a better understanding of the evidence left behind by past human groups, who are presumed to have lived in similar ways. Robbins, R. H. & Larkin, S. N. (2007). Cultural Anthropology: A problem based approach. Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd. 

===Linguistic===

Linguistic anthropology (also called anthropological linguistics) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. Salzmann, Zdeněk. (1993) Language, culture, and society: an introduction to linguistic anthropology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 

== Key topics by field: sociocultural==

===Art, media, music, dance and film===

==== Art ====

One of the central problems in the anthropology of art concerns the universality of 'art' as a cultural phenomenon. Several anthropologists have noted that the Western categories of 'painting', 'sculpture', or 'literature', conceived as independent artistic activities, do not exist, or exist in a significantly different form, in most non-Western contexts. Robert Layton. (1981) The Anthropology of Art. To surmount this difficulty, anthropologists of art have focused on formal features in objects which, without exclusively being 'artistic', have certain evident 'aesthetic' qualities. Boas' Primitive Art, Claude Lévi-Strauss' The Way of the Masks (1982) or Geertz's 'Art as Cultural System' (1983) are some examples in this trend to transform the anthropology of 'art' into an anthropology of culturally specific 'aesthetics'.

==== Media ====

A Punu tribe mask. Gabon Central Africa
Anthropology of media (also anthropology of mass media, media anthropology) emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media. The types of ethnographic contexts explored range from contexts of media production (e.g., ethnographies of newsrooms in newspapers, journalists in the field, film production) to contexts of media reception, following audiences in their everyday responses to media. Other types include cyber anthropology, a relatively new area of internet research, as well as ethnographies of other areas of research which happen to involve media, such as development work, social movements, or health education. This is in addition to many classic ethnographic contexts, where media such as radio, the press, new media and television have started to make their presences felt since the early 1990s. Deborah Spitulnik. (1993) 'Anthropology and Mass Media', Annual Review of Anthropology, 22: 293-315 Lila Abu-Lughod. (1997) 'The Interpretation of Cultures after Television', Representations, 59: 109-133 

==== Music ====

Ethnomusicology is an academic field encompassing various approaches to the study of music (broadly defined), that emphasize its cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts instead of or in addition to its isolated sound component or any particular repertoire.

==== Visual ====

Visual anthropology is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with ethnographic film, visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and reception of mass media. Visual representations from all cultures, such as sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphics, paintings and photographs are included in the focus of visual anthropology.

=== Economic, political economic, applied and development ===

==== Economic ====

Economic anthropology attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It has a complex relationship with the discipline of economics, of which it is highly critical. Its origins as a sub-field of anthropology begin with the Polish-British founder of Anthropology, Bronislaw Malinowski, and his French compatriot, Marcel Mauss, on the nature of gift-giving exchange (or reciprocity) as an alternative to market exchange. Economic Anthropology remains, for the most part, focused upon exchange. The school of thought derived from Marx and known as Political Economy focuses on production, in contrast. Economic Anthropologists have abandoned the primitivist niche they were relegated to by economists, and have now turned to examine corporations, banks, and the global financial system from an anthropological perspective.

====Political economy====

Political economy in anthropology is the application of the theories and methods of Historical Materialism to the traditional concerns of anthropology, including, but not limited to, non-capitalist societies. Political Economy introduced questions of history and colonialism to ahistorical anthropological theories of social structure and culture. Three main areas of interest rapidly developed. The first of these areas was concerned with the "pre-capitalist" societies that were subject to evolutionary "tribal" stereotypes. Sahlins work on Hunter-gatherers as the 'original affluent society' did much to dissipate that image. The second area was concerned with the vast majority of the world's population at the time, the peasantry, many of whom were involved in complex revolutionary wars such as in Vietnam. The third area was on colonialism, imperialism, and the creation of the capitalist world-system. More recently, these Political Economists have more directly addressed issues of industrial (and post-industrial) capitalism around the world.

==== Applied ====

Applied Anthropology refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. It is a, "complex of related, research-based, instrumental methods which produce change or stability in specific cultural systems through the provision of data, initiation of direct action, and/or the formulation of policy". More simply, applied anthropology is the practical side of anthropological research; it includes researcher involvement and activism within the participating community. It is closely related to Development anthropology (distinct from the more critical Anthropology of development).

====Development====

Anthropology of development tends to view development from a critical perspective. The kind of issues addressed and implications for the approach involve asking why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short why does so much planned development fail?

===Kinship, feminism, gender and sexuality===

==== Kinship ====

Kinship can refer both to the study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures, or it can refer to the patterns of social relationships themselves. Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms, such as descent, descent groups, lineages, affines, cognates and even fictive kinship. Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related both by descent (one's social relations during development), and also relatives by marriage.

==== Feminist ====

Feminist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology (archeological, biological, cultural, linguistic) that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly production of knowledge. Anthropology engages often with feminists from non-Western traditions, whose perspectives and experiences can differ from those of white European and American feminists. Historically, such 'peripheral' perspectives have sometimes been marginalized and regarded as less valid or important than knowledge from the western world. Feminist anthropologists have claimed that their research helps to correct this systematic bias in mainstream feminist theory. Feminist anthropologists are centrally concerned with the construction of gender across societies. Feminist anthropology is inclusive of birth anthropology as a specialization.

===Medical, nutritional, psychological, cognitive and transpersonal===

==== Medical ====

Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole. It focuses on the following six basic fields:

* the development of systems of medical knowledge and medical care
* the patient-physician relationship
* the integration of alternative medical systems in culturally diverse environments
* the interaction of social, environmental and biological factors which influence health and illness both in the individual and the community as a whole
*the critical analysis of interaction between psychiatric services and migrant populations ("critical ethnopsychiatry": Beneduce 2004, 2007)
* the impact of biomedicine and biomedical technologies in non-Western settings

Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering (Farmer, 1999, 2003; Beneduce, 2010) as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not a result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as cultural psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry or ethnopsychiatry.

==== Nutritional ====

Nutritional anthropology is a synthetic concept that deals with the interplay between economic systems, nutritional status and food security, and how changes in the former affect the latter. If economic and environmental changes in a community affect access to food, food security, and dietary health, then this interplay between culture and biology is in turn connected to broader historical and economic trends associated with globalization. Nutritional status affects overall health status, work performance potential, and the overall potential for economic development (either in terms of human development or traditional western models) for any given group of people.

==== Psychological ====

Psychological anthropology is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes. This subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and enculturation within a particular cultural group—with its own history, language, practices, and conceptual categories—shape processes of human cognition, emotion, perception, motivation, and mental health. It also examines how the understanding of cognition, emotion, motivation, and similar psychological processes inform or constrain our models of cultural and social processes. D'Andrade, R. G. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. New York, Cambridge University Press. Schwartz, T., G. M. White, et al., Eds. (1992). New Directions in Psychological Anthropology. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. 

==== Cognitive ====

Cognitive anthropology seeks to explain patterns of shared knowledge, cultural innovation, and transmission over time and space using the methods and theories of the cognitive sciences (especially experimental psychology and evolutionary biology) often through close collaboration with historians, ethnographers, archaeologists, linguists, musicologists and other specialists engaged in the description and interpretation of cultural forms. Cognitive anthropology is concerned with what people from different groups know and how that implicit knowledge changes the way people perceive and relate to the world around them. 

==== Transpersonal ====

Transpersonal anthropology studies the relationship between altered states of consciousness and culture. As with transpersonal psychology, the field is much concerned with altered states of consciousness (ASC) and transpersonal experience. However, the field differs from mainstream transpersonal psychology in taking more cognizance of cross-cultural issues—for instance, the roles of myth, ritual, diet, and texts in evoking and interpreting extraordinary experiences (Young and Goulet 1994).

===Political and legal===

==== Political ====

Political anthropology concerns the structure of political systems, looked at from the basis of the structure of societies. Political anthropology developed as a discipline concerned primarily with politics in stateless societies, a new development started from the 1960s, and is still unfolding: anthropologists started increasingly to study more "complex" social settings in which the presence of states, bureaucracies and markets entered both ethnographic accounts and analysis of local phenomena. The turn towards complex societies meant that political themes were taken up at two main levels. First of all, anthropologists continued to study political organization and political phenomena that lay outside the state-regulated sphere (as in patron-client relations or tribal political organization). Second of all, anthropologists slowly started to develop a disciplinary concern with states and their institutions (and of course on the relationship between formal and informal political institutions). An anthropology of the state developed, and it is a most thriving field today. Geertz' comparative work on "Negara", the Balinese state is an early, famous example.

====Legal====

Legal anthropology, also known as Anthropology of Law specializes in "the cross-cultural study of social ordering". Earlier legal anthropological research often focused more narrowly on conflict management, crime, sanctions, or formal regulation. More recent applications include issues such as Human Rights, Legal pluralism, Islamaphobia and Political Uprisings.

====Public====

Public Anthropology was created by Robert Borofsky, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, to "demonstrate the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline - illuminating larger social issues of our times as well as encouraging broad, public conversations about them with the explicit goal of fostering social change" (Borofsky 2004).

=== Nature, science and technology===

====Cyborg====

Cyborg anthropology originated as a sub-focus group within the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting in 1993. The sub-group was very closely related to STS and the Society for the Social Studies of Science. Dumit, Joseph. Davis-Floyd, Robbie. Cyborg Anthropology. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, 2001 Donna Haraway's 1985 Cyborg Manifesto could be considered the founding document of cyborg anthropology by first exploring the philosophical and sociological ramifications of the term. Cyborg anthropology studies humankind and its relations with the technological systems it has built, specifically modern technological systems that have reflexively shaped notions of what it means to be human beings.

==== Digital ====

Digital anthropology is the study of the relationship between humans and digital-era technology, and extends to various areas where anthropology and technology intersect. It is sometimes grouped with sociocultural anthropology, and sometimes considered part of material culture. The field is new, and thus has a variety of names with a variety of emphases. These include techno-anthropology, digital ethnography, cyberanthropology, and virtual anthropology. 

==== Ecological ====

Ecological anthropology is defined as the "study of cultural adaptations to environments". The sub-field is also defined as, "the study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical environment". The focus of its research concerns "how cultural beliefs and practices helped human populations adapt to their environments, and how people used elements of their culture to maintain their ecosystems." 

====Environmental====

Environmental anthropology is a sub-specialty within the field of anthropology that takes an active role in examining the relationships between humans and their environment across space and time. The contemporary perspective of environmental anthropology, and arguably at least the backdrop, if not the focus of most of the ethnographies and cultural fieldworks of today, is political ecology. Many characterize this new perspective as more informed with culture, politics and power, globalization, localized issues, and more. The focus and data interpretation is often used for arguments for/against or creation of policy, and to prevent corporate exploitation and damage of land. Often, the observer has become an active part of the struggle either directly (organizing, participation) or indirectly (articles, documentaries, books, ethnographies). Such is the case with environmental justice advocate Melissa Checker and her relationship with the people of Hyde Park. 

===Historical===

Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today. Ethnohistory uses both historical and ethnographic data as its foundation. Its historical methods and materials go beyond the standard use of documents and manuscripts. Practitioners recognize the utility of such source material as maps, music, paintings, photography, folklore, oral tradition, site exploration, archaeological materials, museum collections, enduring customs, language, and place names. 

=== Religion ===

The anthropology of religion involves the study of religious institutions in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures. Modern anthropology assumes that there is complete continuity between magical thinking and religion, Cassirer, Ernst (1944) An Essay On Man, pt.II, ch.7 Myth and Religion, pp. 122–3. Quotation: and that every religion is a cultural product, created by the human community that worships it. Guthrie (2000) pp. 225–6 

=== Urban ===

Urban anthropology is concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, and neoliberalism. Ulf Hannerz quotes a 1960s remark that traditional anthropologists were "a notoriously agoraphobic lot, anti-urban by definition". Various social processes in the Western World as well as in the "Third World" (the latter being the habitual focus of attention of anthropologists) brought the attention of "specialists in 'other cultures'" closer to their homes. Hannerz, Ulf (1980). Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology, p.1 There are two principle approaches in urban anthropology: by examining the types of cities or examining the social issues within the cities. These two methods are overlapping and dependent of each other. By defining different types of cities, one would use social factors as well as economic and political factors to categorize the cities. By directly looking at the different social issues, one would also be studying how they affect the dynamic of the city. Griffiths, Michael. B., Flemming Christiansen, and Malcolm Chapman. (2010) 'Chinese Consumers: The Romantic Reappraisal'. Ethnography, Sept 2010, 11, 331-357. 

== Key topics by field: archaeological and biological==

=== Anthrozoology ===

Anthrozoology (also called human–animal studies or HAS) is the study of interaction between living things. It is a modern interdisciplinary and burgeoning field that overlaps with a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, ethology, medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and zoology. A major focus of anthrozoologic research is the quantifying of the positive effects of human-animal relationships on either party and the study of their interactions. Mills, Daniel S. "Anthrozoology", The Encyclopedia of Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare. CABI 2010, pp. 28–30. It includes scholars from a diverse range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, biology, and philosophy. DeMello, Margo. Teaching the Animal: Human–Animal Studies Across the Disciplines. Lantern Books, 2010, p. xi.
*Also see Animals & Society Institute, accessed 23 February 2011.
*Note: the term should not be confused with "animal studies," which often refers to animal testing. 

=== Biocultural ===

Biocultural anthropology is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. Physical anthropologists throughout the first half of the 20th century viewed this relationship from a racial perspective; that is, from the assumption that typological human biological differences lead to cultural differences. After World War II the emphasis began to shift toward an effort to explore the role culture plays in shaping human biology.

=== Evolutionary ===

Evolutionary anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and the relation between hominins and non-hominin primates. Evolutionary anthropology is based in natural science and social science, combining the human development with socioeconomic factors. Evolutionary anthropology is concerned with both biological and cultural evolution of humans, past and present. It is based on a scientific approach, and brings together fields such as archaeology, behavioral ecology, psychology, primatology, and genetics. It is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field, drawing on many lines of evidence to understand the human experience, past and present.

=== Forensic ===

Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology and human osteology in a legal setting, most often in criminal cases where the victim's remains are in the advanced stages of decomposition. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable. The adjective "forensic" refers to the application of this subfield of science to a court of law.

=== Palaeoanthropology ===

Paleoanthropology combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology. It is the study of ancient humans, as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints.

== Organizations ==
Contemporary anthropology is an established science with academic departments at most universities and colleges. The single largest organization of Anthropologists is the American Anthropological Association (AAA), which was founded in 1903. AAAnet.org Membership is made up of anthropologists from around the globe. AAAnet.org 

In 1989, a group of European and American scholars in the field of anthropology established the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) which serves as a major professional organization for anthropologists working in Europe. The EASA seeks to advance the status of anthropology in Europe and to increase visibility of marginalized anthropological traditions and thereby contribute to the project of a global anthropology or world anthropology.

Hundreds of other organizations exist in the various sub-fields of anthropology, sometimes divided up by nation or region, and many anthropologists work with collaborators in other disciplines, such as geology, physics, zoology, paleontology, anatomy, music theory, art history, sociology and so on, belonging to professional societies in those disciplines as well. Johanson, Donald and Kate Wong. Lucy's Legacy. Kindle Books. 2007; Netti, Bruno. The Study of Ethnomusicology. University of Illinois Press, 2005. Chapter One 

===List of major organizations===

* American Anthropological Association
* American Ethnological Society
* Asociación de Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red, AIBR
* Moving Anthropology Student Network
* Anthropological Society of London

* Center for World Indigenous Studies
* Ethnological Society of London
* Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography
* Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
* Network of Concerned Anthropologists

* N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology
* Radical Anthropology Group
* Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
* Society for anthropological sciences
* Society for Applied Anthropology
* USC Center for Visual Anthropology

==Controversial ethical stances==
Anthropologists, like other researchers (especially historians and scientists engaged in field research), have over time assisted state policies and projects, especially colonialism. Asad, Talal, ed. (1973) Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. van Breman, Jan, and Akitoshi Shimizu (1999) Anthropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. 

Some commentators have contended:

*That the discipline grew out of colonialism, perhaps was in league with it, and derived some of its key notions from it, consciously or not. (See, for example, Gough, Pels and Salemink, but cf. Lewis 2004). Gellner, Ernest (1992) Postmodernism, Reason, and Religion. London/New York: Routledge. Pp: 26-29. 
*That ethnographic work was often ahistorical, writing about people as if they were "out of time" in an "ethnographic present" (Johannes Fabian, Time and Its Other).

=== Ethics of cultural relativism ===
At the same time, anthropologists urge, as part of their quest for scientific objectivity, cultural relativism, which has an influence on all the sub-fields of anthropology. This is the notion that particular cultures should not be judged by one culture's values or viewpoints, but that all cultures should be viewed as relative to each other. There should be no notions, in good anthropology, of one culture being better or worse than another culture. Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. 1962; Womack, Mari. Being Human. 2001 

Ethical commitments in anthropology include noticing and documenting genocide, infanticide, racism, mutilation including circumcision and subincision, and torture. Topics like racism, slavery or human sacrifice, therefore, attract anthropological attention and theories ranging from nutritional deficiencies Harris, Marvin. Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches. to genes Timeshighereducation.co.uk to acculturation have been proposed, not to mention theories of colonialism and many others as root causes of Man's inhumanity to man. To illustrate the depth of an anthropological approach, one can take just one of these topics, such as "racism" and find thousands of anthropological references, stretching across all the major and minor sub-fields. Sciencemag.org, Shanklin, Eugenia. 1994. Anthropology & Race; Faye V. Harrison. 1995. "The Persistent Power of 'Race' in the Cultural and Political Economy of Racism." Annual Review of Anthropology. 24:47-74. Allan Goodman. 1995. "The Problematics of "Race" in Contemporary Biological Anthropology." In Biological Anthropology: The State of the Science.; Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 1945-. "Melanin, Afrocentricity ... ," 36(1993):33-58.; see Stanford's recent collection of overarching bibliographies on race and racism, Library.stanford.edu 

===Ethical stance to military involvement===
Anthropologists' involvement with the U.S. government, in particular, has caused bitter controversy within the discipline. Franz Boas publicly objected to US participation in World War I, and after the war he published a brief expose and condemnation of the participation of several American archaeologists in espionage in Mexico under their cover as scientists.

But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the "Axis" (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). Many served in the armed forces, while others worked in intelligence (for example, Office of Strategic Services and the Office of War Information). At the same time, David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the Cold War provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists from their jobs for communist sympathies.

Attempts to accuse anthropologists of complicity with the CIA and government intelligence activities during the Vietnam War years have turned up surprisingly little (although anthropologist Hugo Nutini was active in the stillborn Project Camelot). Horowitz, Lewis ed.(1967) The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot. Many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement. Numerous resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Professional anthropological bodies often object to the use of anthropology for the benefit of the state. Their codes of ethics or statements may proscribe anthropologists from giving secret briefings. The Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth (ASA) has called certain scholarship ethically dangerous. The AAA's current 'Statement of Professional Responsibility' clearly states that "in relation with their own government and with host governments ... no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given."

Anthropologists, along with other social scientists, are working with the US military as part of the US Army's strategy in Afghanistan. Christian Science Monitor The Christian Science Monitor reports that "Counterinsurgency efforts focus on better grasping and meeting local needs" in Afghanistan, under the Human Terrain System (HTS) program; in addition, HTS teams are working with the US military in Iraq. In 2009, the American Anthropological Association's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities released its final report concluding, in part, that, "When ethnographic investigation is determined by military missions, not subject to external review, where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in a potentially coercive environment – all characteristic factors of the HTS concept and its application – it can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology. In summary, while we stress that constructive engagement between anthropology and the military is possible, CEAUSSIC suggests that the AAA emphasize the incompatibility of HTS with disciplinary ethics and practice for job seekers and that it further recognize the problem of allowing HTS to define the meaning of "anthropology" within DoD." AAA Commission Releases Final Report on Army Human Terrain System American Anthropological Association 

==Post–World War II developments==
Before WWII British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. After the war, enough British and American anthropologists borrowed ideas and methodological approaches from one another that some began to speak of them collectively as 'sociocultural' anthropology.

===Basic trends===
There are several characteristics that tend to unite anthropological work. One of the central characteristics is that anthropology tends to provide a comparatively more holistic account of phenomena and tends to be highly empirical. The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a particular place, problem or phenomenon in detail, using a variety of methods, over a more extensive period than normal in many parts of academia.

In the 1990s and 2000s (decade), calls for clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and another begins, and other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard. These dynamic relationships, between what can be observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, biological, linguistic or archaeological. Rosaldo, Renato. Culture and Truth: The remaking of social analysis. Beacon Press. 1993; Inda, John Xavier and Renato Rosaldo. The Anthropology of Globalization. Wiley-Blackwell. 2007 

Biological anthropologists are interested in both human variation Robert Jurmain, Lynn Kilgore, Wenda Trevathan, and Russell L. Ciochon. Introduction to Physical Anthropology. 11th Edition. Wadsworth. 2007, chapters I, III and IV.; Wompack, Mari. Being Human. Prentice Hall. 2001, pp. 11–20. and in the possibility of human universals (behaviors, ideas or concepts shared by virtually all human cultures). Brown, Donald. Human Universals. McGraw Hill. 1991; Roughley, Neil. Being Humans: Anthropological Universality and Particularity in Transciplinary Perspectives. Walter de Gruyter Publishing. 2000 They use many different methods of study, but modern population genetics, participant observation and other techniques often take anthropologists "into the field," which means traveling to a community in its own setting, to do something called "fieldwork." On the biological or physical side, human measurements, genetic samples, nutritional data may be gathered and published as articles or monographs.

Along with dividing up their project by theoretical emphasis, anthropologists typically divide the world up into relevant time periods and geographic regions. Human time on Earth is divided up into relevant cultural traditions based on material, such as the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, of particular use in archaeology. Further cultural subdivisions according to tool types, such as Olduwan or Mousterian or Levalloisian help archaeologists and other anthropologists in understanding major trends in the human past. Anthropologists and geographers share approaches to Culture regions as well, since mapping cultures is central to both sciences. By making comparisons across cultural traditions (time-based) and cultural regions (space-based), anthropologists have developed various kinds of comparative method, a central part of their science.

===Commonalities between fields===
Because anthropology developed from so many different enterprises (see History of Anthropology), including but not limited to fossil-hunting, exploring, documentary film-making, paleontology, primatology, antiquity dealings and curatorship, philology, etymology, genetics, regional analysis, ethnology, history, philosophy, and religious studies, Erickson, Paul A. and Liam D. Murphy. A History of Anthropological Theory. Broadview Press. 2003. p. 11–12 George Stocking, "Paradigmatic Traditions in the History of Anthropology." In George Stocking, The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992):342-361. it is difficult to characterize the entire field in a brief article, although attempts to write histories of the entire field have been made. Leaf, Murray. Man, Mind and Science: A History of Anthropology. Columbia University Press. 1979 

Some authors argue that anthropology originated and developed as the study of "other cultures", both in terms of time (past societies) and space (non-European/non-Western societies). See the many essays relating to this in Prem Poddar and David Johnson, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought in English, Edinburgh University Press, 2004. See also Prem Poddar et al., Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures--Continental Europe and its Empires, Edinburgh University Press, 2008 For example, the classic of urban anthropology, Ulf Hannerz in the introduction to his seminal Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology mentions that the "Third World" had habitually received most of attention; anthropologists who traditionally specialized in "other cultures" looked for them far away and started to look "across the tracks" only in late 1960s. Ulf Hannerz (1980) "Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology", ISBN 0-231-08376-9, p. 1 

Now there exist many works focusing on peoples and topics very close to the author's "home". Lewis, Herbert S. (1998) The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences American Anthropologist "100:" 716-731 It is also argued that other fields of study, like History and Sociology, on the contrary focus disproportionately on the West. Jack Goody (2007) The Theft of History Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-87069-0 

In France, the study of Western societies has been traditionally left to sociologists, but this is increasingly changing, * starting in the 1970s from scholars like Isac Chiva and journals like Terrain ("fieldwork"), and developing with the center founded by Marc Augé (Le Centre d'anthropologie des mondes contemporains, the Anthropological Research Center of Contemporary Societies).

Since the 1980s it has become common for social and cultural anthropologists to set ethnographic research in the North Atlantic region, frequently examining the connections between locations rather than limiting research to a single locale. There has also been a related shift toward broadening the focus beyond the daily life of ordinary people; increasingly, research is set in settings such as scientific laboratories, social movements, governmental and nongovernmental organizations and businesses. Fischer, Michael M. J. Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice. Duke University Press, 2003. 

==See also==

*Anthropological Index Online (AIO)
*Anthropological science fiction
*Engaged theory
*Ethnology
*Ethology
*Folklore
*Human ethology
*Human evolution
*Human Relations Area Files
*Intangible Cultural Heritage

*Memetics
*Prehistoric medicine
*Qualitative research
*Sociology
*Theological anthropology, a sub-field of theology
*Philosophical anthropology, a sub-field of philosophy
*Anthropology in Tinbergen's four questions

==References==

==Further reading==

===Dictionaries and encyclopedias===
*Barnard, Alan and Spencer, Jonathan eds. (2010) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology London: Routledge
*Barfield, Thomas (1997). The dictionary of anthropology. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
* Jackson, John L. (2013) Oxford Bibliographies: Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
*Levinson, David and Melvin Ember. eds. (1996) Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology. (4 vols.) New York: Henry Holt.
*Rapport, Nigel and Overing, Joanna (2007) Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge

===Fieldnotes and memoirs===
*Barley, Nigel (1983) The innocent anthropologist: notes from a mud hut. London: British Museum Publications.
*Geertz, Clifford (1995) After the fact: two countries, four decades, one anthropologist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
*Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1967) Tristes tropiques. Translated from the French by John Russell. New York: Atheneum.
*Malinowski, Bronisław (1967) A diary in the strict sense of the term. Translated by Norbert Guterman. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World.
*Mead, Margaret (1972) Blackberry winter: my earlier years. New York: William Marrow.
*Mead, Margaret, (1977) Letters from the field, 1925–1975. New York: Harper & Row.
*Rabinow, Paul. (1977) Reflections on fieldwork in Morocco.

===Histories===
*Asad, Talal, ed. (1973) Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
*Barth, Fredrik, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin, One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*D'Andrade, R. "The Sad Story of Anthropology: 1950–1999." In E. L. Cerroni-Long, ed. Anthropological Theory in North America. Westport: Berin & Garvey 1999. Anthro.ucsd.edu
*Darnell, Regna. (2001) Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
*Harris, Marvin. (2001) The rise of anthropological theory: a history of theories of culture. AltaMira Press. Walnut Creek, CA.
*Kehoe, Alice B. (1998) The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Archaeology.
*
*Lewis, Herbert S. (2004) "Imagining Anthropology's History." Reviews in Anthropology, v. 33.
*Lewis, Herbert S. (2005) "Anthropology, the Cold War, and Intellectual History". In R. Darnell & F.W. Gleach, eds. Histories of Anthropology Annual, Vol. I.
*Pels, Peter & Oscar Salemink, eds. (2000) Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology.
*Price, David. (2004) Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists.
*Sera-Shriar, Efram. (2013) The Making of British Anthropology, 1813–1871. Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, 18. London and Vermont: Pickering and Chatto
*Stocking, George, Jr. (1968) Race, Culture and Evolution. New York: Free Press.
*Trencher, Susan. (2000) Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960–1980.
* Gisi, Lucas Marco. (2007) Einbildungskraft und Mythologie. Die Verschränkung von Anthropologie und Geschichte im 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
*Wolf, Eric. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: California University Press.

===Textbooks and key theoretical works===
*Clifford, James and George E. Marcus (1986) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Geertz, Clifford (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
*Harris, Marvin (1997) Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology (7th Edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon
*Salzmann, Zdeněk. (1993) Language, culture, and society: an introduction to linguistic anthropology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
*Shweder, Richard A., and Robert A. LeVine, eds. (1984) Culture Theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

==External links==

*Webpage "History of German Anthropology/Ethnology 1945/49-1990"
*American Anthropological Association Homepage Home page of largest professional organization of anthropologists
*European Association of Social Anthropologists
*American Association of Physical Anthropologists
*Australian Anthropological Society
*Iberoamerican Association of Anthropology AIBR
*European Association of Social Anthropologists
*Human Relations Area Files, Has published a database containing information on over 400 Cultures since the 1940s 
*Moving Anthropology Student Network - International Association of Social Anthropology Students
*Italian Institute of Anthropology
*National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
*Radical Anthropology Group
*The Royal Anthropological Institute Homepage—The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI)
*The Society for Applied Anthropology
*Annual Review of Anthropology
*Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History Online collections database with detailed description and digital images for over 160,000 ethnographic artifacts.
*National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution Collects and preserves historical and contemporary anthropological materials that document the world's cultures and the history of anthropology
*The Anthropological Index Online Online bibliographic database.
*Anthropology Researcher and Groups
*Anthropology at MIT OCW
*at video Anthropology ?
*at Cong dong Nhan Hoc_VietNam
*at Nhan Hoc Viet Nam

 


[[Agricultural science]]

Agricultural science is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. (Veterinary science, but not animal science, is often excluded from the definition.)

==Agriculture and agricultural science==

The two terms are often confused. However, they cover different concepts:
*Agriculture is the set of activities that transform the environment for the production of animals and plants for human use. Agriculture concerns techniques, including the application of agronomic research.
*Agronomy is research and development related to studying and improving plant-based agriculture.

Agricultural sciences include research and development on:
* Production techniques (e.g., irrigation management, recommended nitrogen inputs)
* Improving agricultural productivity in terms of quantity and quality (e.g., selection of drought-resistant crops and animals, development of new pesticides, yield-sensing technologies, simulation models of crop growth, in-vitro cell culture techniques)
* Minimizing the effects of pests (weeds, insects, pathogens, nematodes) on crop or animal production systems.
* Transformation of primary products into end-consumer products (e.g., production, preservation, and packaging of dairy products)
* Prevention and correction of adverse environmental effects (e.g., soil degradation, waste management, bioremediation)
* Theoretical production ecology, relating to crop production modeling
* Traditional agricultural systems, sometimes termed subsistence agriculture, which feed most of the poorest people in the world. These systems are of interest as they sometimes retain a level of integration with natural ecological systems greater than that of industrial agriculture, which may be more sustainable than some modern agricultural systems.
* Food production and demand on a global basis, with special attention paid to the major producers, such as China, India, Brazil, the USA and the EU.

== Fertilizer ==
One of the most common yield reducers is because of fertilizer not being applied in slightly higher quantities during transition period, the time it takes the soil to rebuild its aggregates and organic matter. Yields will decrease temporarily because of nitrogen being immobilized in the crop residue, which can take a few months to several years to decompose, depending on the crop's C to N ratio and the local environment

==Agricultural science: a local science==

With the exception of theoretical agronomy, research in agronomy, more than in any other field, is strongly related to local areas. It can be considered a science of ecoregions, because it is closely linked to soil properties and climate, which are never exactly the same from one place to another. Many people think an agricultural production system relying on local weather, soil characteristics, and specific crops has to be studied locally. Others feel a need to know and understand production systems in as many areas as possible, and the human dimension of interaction with nature.

==History of agricultural science==

Agricultural science began with Gregor Mendel's genetic work, but in modern terms might be better dated from the chemical fertilizer outputs of plant physiological understanding in 18th-century Germany. In the United States, a scientific revolution in agriculture began with the Hatch Act of 1887, which used the term "agricultural science". The Hatch Act was driven by farmers' interest in knowing the constituents of early artificial fertilizer. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 shifted agricultural education back to its vocational roots, but the scientific foundation had been built. Hillison J. (1996). The Origins of Agriscience: Or Where Did All That Scientific Agriculture Come From?. Journal of Agricultural Education. After 1906, public expenditures on agricultural research in the US exceeded private expenditures for the next 44 years. Huffman WE, Evenson RE. (2006). Science for Agriculture. Blackwell Publishing. 

Intensification of agriculture since the 1960s in developed and developing countries, often referred to as the Green Revolution, was closely tied to progress made in selecting and improving crops and animals for high productivity, as well as to developing additional inputs such as artificial fertilizers and phytosanitary products.

As the oldest and largest human intervention in nature, the environmental impact of agriculture in general and more recently intensive agriculture, industrial development, and population growth have raised many questions among agricultural scientists and have led to the development and emergence of new fields. These include technological fields that assume the solution to technological problems lies in better technology, such as integrated pest management, waste treatment technologies, landscape architecture, genomics, and agricultural philosophy fields that include references to food production as something essentially different from non-essential economic 'goods'. In fact, the interaction between these two approaches provide a fertile field for deeper understanding in agricultural science.

New technologies, such as biotechnology and computer science (for data processing and storage), and technological advances have made it possible to develop new research fields, including genetic engineering, agrophysics, improved statistical analysis, and precision farming. Balancing these, as above, are the natural and human sciences of agricultural science that seek to understand the human-nature interactions of traditional agriculture, including interaction of religion and agriculture, and the non-material components of agricultural production systems.

===Prominent agricultural scientists===
Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution.
* Robert Bakewell
* Norman Borlaug
* Luther Burbank
* George Washington Carver
* Sir Albert Howard
* Kailas Nath Kaul
* Justus von Liebig
* Jay Lush
* Gregor Mendel
* Louis Pasteur
* M. S. Swaminathan
* Jethro Tull
* Eli Whitney
* Sewall Wright

==Agricultural science and agriculture crisis==
Agriculture sciences seek to feed the world's population while preventing biosafety problems that may affect human health and the environment. This requires promoting good management of natural resources and respect for the environment, and increasingly concern for the psychological wellbeing of all concerned in the food production and consumption system.

Economic, environmental, and social aspects of agriculture sciences are subjects of ongoing debate. Recent crises (such as avian influenza, mad cow disease and issues such as the use of genetically modified organisms) illustrate the complexity and importance of this debate.

==Fields or related disciplines==

* Agricultural chemistry
* Agricultural diversification
* Agricultural economics
* Agricultural engineering
* Agricultural geography
* Agricultural philosophy
* Agricultural marketing
* Agrophysics
* Animal science
** Animal breeding
** Animal nutrition
* Agronomy
** Botany
** Theoretical production ecology
** Horticulture
** Plant breeding
** Plant fertilization

* Aquaculture
* Biological engineering
** Genetic engineering
* Nematology
* Microbiology
** Plant pathology
* Environmental science
* Entomology
* Food science
** Human nutrition
* Irrigation and water management
* Soil science
** Agrology
* Waste management
* Weed science

==See also==
* Agriculture ministry
*Agricultural sciences basic topics
*Agroecology
*American Society of Agronomy
*Genomics of domestication
*List of agriculture topics
*History of agricultural science
*Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
*International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development
*International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI
*Research Institute of Crop Production (RICP) (in the Czech Republic)
*University of Agricultural Sciences
*National FFA Organization

==Further reading==
*Agricultural Research, Livelihoods, and Poverty: Studies of Economic and Social Impacts in Six Countries Edited by Michelle Adato and Ruth Meinzen-Dick (2007), Johns Hopkins University Press Food Policy Report Agricultural research, livelihoods, and poverty | International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) 
*Claude Bourguignon, Regenerating the Soil: From Agronomy to Agrology, Other India Press, 2005
*Pimentel David, Pimentel Marcia, Computer les kilocalories, Cérès, n. 59, sept-oct. 1977
*Russell E. Walter, Soil conditions and plant growth, Longman group, London, New York 1973
*Salamini Francesco, Oezkan Hakan, Brandolini Andrea, Schaefer-Pregl Ralf, Martin William, Genetics and geography of wild cereal domestication in the Near East, in Nature, vol. 3, ju. 2002
*Saltini Antonio, Storia delle scienze agrarie, 4 vols, Bologna 1984-89, ISBN 88-206-2412-5, ISBN 88-206-2413-3, ISBN 88-206-2414-1, ISBN 88-206-2415-X
*Vavilov Nicolai I. (Starr Chester K. editor), The Origin, Variation, Immunity and Breeding of Cultivated Plants. Selected Writings, in Chronica botanica, 13: 1-6, Waltham, Mass., 1949–50
*Vavilov Nicolai I., World Resources of Cereals, Leguminous Seed Crops and Flax, Academy of Sciences of Urss, National Science Foundation, Washington, Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem 1960
*Winogradsky Serge, Microbiologie du sol. Problèmes et methodes. Cinquante ans de recherches, Masson & c.ie, Paris 1949

==References==

==External links==
* Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
* Agricultural Research Service
* Indian Council of Agricultural Research
* International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
* International Livestock Research Institute
* The National Agricultural Library (NAL) - The most comprehensive agricultural library in the world.
* Crop Science Society of America
* American Society of Agronomy
* Soil Science Society of America
* Agricultural Science Researchers, Jobs and Discussions
*Information System for Agriculture and Food Research
*South Dakota Agricultural Laboratories
*NMSU Department of Entomology Plant Pathology and Weed Science



[[Alchemy]]

The Emerald Tablet, a key text of Western Alchemy, in a 17th-century edition

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose practitioners have, from antiquity, claimed it to be the precursor to profound powers. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied, but historically have typically included one or more of the following goals: the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone; the ability to transform base metals into the noble metals (gold or silver); and development of an elixir of life, which would confer youth and longevity.

Alchemy differs significantly from modern science in its inclusion of Hermetic principles and practices related to mythology, magic, religion, and spirituality. It is recognized as a protoscience that contributed to the development of modern chemistry and medicine. Alchemists developed a structure of basic laboratory techniques, theory, terminology, and experimental method, some of which are still in use today.

==Overview==
The ostensible goals of alchemy are often given as the transmutation of common metals into gold (known as chrysopoeia), the creation of a panacea, and the discovery of a universal solvent. Alchemy at Dictionary.com. However, these only highlight certain aspects of alchemy. Alchemists have historically rewritten and evolved their explanation of alchemy, so that it is difficult to define it simply. H.J. Sheppard gives the following as a comprehensive summary:

Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its exoteric practical applications and its esoteric aspects. The former is pursued by historians of the physical sciences who have examined the subject in terms of protochemistry, medicine, and charlatanism. The latter interests psychologists, spiritual and new age communities, hermetic philosophers, and historians of esotericism. For a detailed look into the problems of defining alchemy, see The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts. Despite the modern split, numerous sources stress an integration of esoteric and exoteric approaches to alchemy. Holmyard, when writing on exoteric aspects, states that they cannot be properly appreciated if the esoteric is not always kept in mind. The prototype for this model can be found in Bolos of Mendes' 3rd-century BCE work, Physika kai Mystika ("On Physical and Mystical Matters"). Marie-Louise von Franz tells us the double approach of Western alchemy was set from the start, when Greek philosophy was mixed with Egyptian and Mesopotamian technology. The technological, operative approach, which she calls extraverted, and the mystic, contemplative, psychological one, which she calls introverted are not mutually exclusive, but complementary instead, as meditation requires practice in the real world, and conversely. 

===Relation to the science of chemistry===

Scientific apparatus in the alchemist's workshop, 1580

Practical applications of alchemy produced a wide range of contributions to medicine and the physical sciences. The alchemist Robert Boyle Arthur Greenburg. From alchemy to chemistry in picture and story. is credited as being the father of chemistry. Paracelsian iatrochemistry emphasized the medicinal application of alchemy (continued in plant alchemy, or spagyric). H. Stanley Redgrove. Alchemy Ancient and Modern p.60 Studies of alchemy also influenced Isaac Newton's theory of gravity. Mitch Stokes. Isaac Newton p. 57 Academic historical research supports that the alchemists were searching for a material substance using physical methods. 

It is a popular belief that alchemists made contributions to the "chemical" industries of the day—ore testing and refining, metalworking, production of gunpowder, ink, dyes, paints, cosmetics, leather tanning, ceramics, glass manufacture, preparation of extracts, liquors, and so on (it seems that the preparation of aqua vitae, the "water of life", was a fairly popular "experiment" among European alchemists). Alchemists contributed distillation to Western Europe. The attempts of alchemists to arrange information on substances, so as to clarify and anticipate the products of their chemical reactions, resulted in early conceptions of chemical elements and the first rudimentary periodic tables. They learned how to extract metals from ores, and how to compose many types of inorganic acids and bases.

During the 17th century, practical alchemy started to disappear in favor of its younger offshoot chemistry, William R Newman & Lawrence M Principe (1998) "The Etymological Origins of an Historiographic Mistake" in Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 1 pp. 32–65 as it was renamed by Robert Boyle, the "father of modern chemistry". In his book, The Skeptical Chymist, Boyle attacked Paracelsus and the natural philosophy of Aristotle, which was taught at universities. However, Boyle's biographers, in their emphasis that he laid the foundations of modern chemistry, neglect how steadily he clung to the scholastic sciences and to alchemy, in theory, practice and doctrine. The decline of alchemy continued in the 18th century with the birth of modern chemistry, which provided a more precise and reliable framework within a new view of the universe based on rational materialism.

===Relation to Hermeticism===
In the eyes of a variety of esoteric and Hermetic practitioners, the heart of alchemy is spiritual. Transmutation of lead into gold is presented as an analogy for personal transmutation, purification, and perfection. Antoine Faivre, Wouter J. Hanegraaff. Western esotericism and the science of religion. 1995. p.96 This approach is often termed 'spiritual', 'esoteric', or 'internal' alchemy.

Early alchemists, such as Zosimos of Panopolis (c. AD 300), highlight the spiritual nature of the alchemical quest, symbolic of a religious regeneration of the human soul. Allen G. Debus. Alchemy and early modern chemistry. The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. p.34. This approach continued in the Middle Ages, as metaphysical aspects, substances, physical states, and material processes were used as metaphors for spiritual entities, spiritual states, and, ultimately, transformation. In this sense, the literal meanings of 'Alchemical Formulas' were a blind, hiding their true spiritual philosophy. Practitioners and patrons such as Melchior Cibinensis and Pope Innocent VIII existed within the ranks of the church, while Martin Luther applauded alchemy for its consistency with Christian teachings. Raphael Patai. The Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book. Princeton University Press. p.4 Both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea symbolized evolution from an imperfect, diseased, corruptible, and ephemeral state towards a perfect, healthy, incorruptible, and everlasting state; and the philosopher's stone then represented a mystic key that would make this evolution possible. Applied to the alchemist himself, the twin goal symbolized his evolution from ignorance to enlightenment, and the stone represented a hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal. In texts that are written according to this view, the cryptic alchemical symbols, diagrams, and textual imagery of late alchemical works typically contain multiple layers of meanings, allegories, and references to other equally cryptic works; and must be laboriously decoded to discover their true meaning.

In his 1766 Alchemical Catechism, Théodore Henri de Tschudi denotes that the usage of the metals was a symbol:

During the renaissance, alchemy broke into more distinct schools placing spiritual alchemists in high contrast with those working with literal metals and chemicals. Raphael Patai. The Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book. Princeton University Press. p.3 While most spiritual alchemists also incorporate elements of exotericism, examples of a purely spiritual alchemy can be traced back as far as the 16th century, when Jacob Boehme used alchemical terminology in strictly mystical writings. Daniel Merkur. Gnosis: an esoteric tradition of mystical visions and unions. State University of New York Press. p.75 Another example can be found in the work of Heinrich Khunrath (1560–1605) who viewed the process of transmutation as occurring within the alchemist's soul. 

The recent work of L. M. Principe and William R. Newman, seeks to reject the 'spiritual interpretation' of alchemy, especially as applied to medieval, 16th- and 17th-century alchemy, stating it arose as a product of the Victorian occult revival. There is evidence to support that some classical alchemical sources were adulterated during this time to give greater weight to the spiritual aspects of alchemy. Newton and Newtonianism by James E. Force, Sarah Hutton, p211 Despite this, other scholars such as Calian and Tilton reject this view as entirely historically inaccurate, drawing examples of historical spiritual alchemy from Boehme, Isaac Newton, and Michael Maier. 

===Relationship to Magic===
====Similarities====
Medieval Europe was primarily an agrarian culture, which meant that most aspects of their lives were in direct or indirect response to agriculture. Magic, alchemy, medicine, philosophy, and religion were all tied together through agriculture. A major philosophy that pulled from agrarian life and largely affected alchemy and magic was cosmology. Cosmology had ruling over the philosophies of the four elements, like for like, and ultimately the belief in the essence of things. Sweet, Victoria. "Hildegard of Bingen and the Greening of Medieval Medicine." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73.3 (1999): 381-403. Print. These philosophies makes distinguishing between alchemy and magic difficult, blurring the lines and creating huge grey areas where all aspects of medieval life can be mixed at some point. 

Alchemy and Magic are often seen together in the modern world because of blurred lines between them. This is because medieval people were, "Living in a world infused with purpose." From ants to cosmic movement, "like things shared a relationship deeper and wider than they do in our modern view." Hansen, Bert. "Chapter 15, Science and Magic." Science in the Middle Ages. Ed. David C. Lindberg. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1978. 483-506. Print. It is from the notion of things sharing commonalities that the philosophy of essences came about. All of this resulted in magicians, philosophers, alchemists, and physicians to have blurred lines. Magic and alchemy especially were interrelated because both were interested in the essences of things or the, "inner structure of existence, as the principle of form for each kind of being." The essences of things were not, "simply conceptual entities, but to be real and have existence, they were regarded as discoverable and even at times transferable (as in alchemical operations and in the use of talismans)." And so alchemy, like magic, pursed the 'powers' of minerals, plants and animals to control nature through those forces that were more powerful than themselves. "The fundamental notion of exploiting secret powers in nature was part of a common culture that scientists and philosophers shared with practitioners and observers generally." Kieckhefer, Richard. "The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic." The American Historical Review 99.3 (1994): 813-36. Print. 

====Differences====
Alchemy and magic were distinctive from each other through the terminology of the time that distinguished each aspect of magic and philosophy. The modern term magic was broken down into, (enchantment, necromancy, conjuration, or sorcery) but the generic term magic was not common until the 16th century. Even though alchemists could have and did participate in any form of magic, and even though "Magic might accomplish the same effects as prayer or natural techniques ; its distinguishing feature lay not in its effects but in the causal principle it invoked, the intervention of demons." This is where alchemy is distinguished from magic. Magic involves the will of demons or other spiritual forces, whereas alchemy focused more on the essences of physical materials. Even though both trades worked at times for the same goal, and even crossed paths, the large distinction was the use or not of demonic forces. Another distinction is in the superstition of the time where, "a person using the generally unknown properties of some herb was doing magic, even though the effect might be perfectly "natural" in modern terms." This meant that many practices were clumped together under the umbrella of magic even though the practices were solely physical. Finally, it wasn't until the Victorian era that, "occultists reinterpreted alchemy as a spiritual practice, involving the self-transformation of the practitioner and only incidentally or not at all the transformation of laboratory substances." Principe, Lawrence M. "Alchemy Restored." Isis 102.2 (2011): 305-12. Web. This transition blurred the lines even more between the practices and would give alchemy the negative and cultic connotation that would cause it to fall out of the history of science.

====Convergence====
Despite the convergence of many aspects of medieval life into alchemy, "careful contextual readings of alchemical texts now continue to reveal that alchemy was never monolithic or static." and that, "Early modern European alchemy alone displays a staggering diversity of theories, practices, and purposes: Scholastic and anti-Aristotelian, Paracelsian and anti-Paracelsian, Hermetic, Neoplatonic, mechanistic, vitalistic, and more—plus virtually every combination and compromise thereof." The relationship between alchemy and magic is complex and different from case to case and in each era they were practiced. It is easy to conclude then that alchemy and magic were neither completely different nor completely the same at any given time, but rather that they have blurred lines between them. 

==Etymology==

The word alchemy may derive from the Old French alquimie, which is from the Medieval Latin alchimia, and which is in turn from the Arabic al-kimia (). This term itself is derived from the Ancient Greek chemeia (χημεία) or chemia (χημία) alchemy, Oxford Dictionaries with the addition of the Arabic definite article al- (). Or see . The ancient Greek word may have been derived from See, for example, the etymology for χημεία in a version of the Egyptian name for Egypt, which was itself based on the Ancient Egyptian word kēme (hieroglyphic Khmi, black earth, as opposed to desert sand). 

The word could also have originally derived from the Greek chumeia (χυμεία) meaning "mixture" and referring to pharmaceutical chemistry. See, for example, both the etymology given in the Oxford English Dictionary and also that for χυμεία in With the later rise of alchemy in Alexandria, the word may have derived from Χημία, and thus became spelled as χημεία, and the original meaning forgotten. The original source for this analysis is the article on pp. 81&ndash;85 of Its etymology is still open to question.

==History==
Kimiya-yi sa'ādat (The Alchemy of Happiness) &ndash; a text on Islamic philosophy and spiritual alchemy by Al-Ghazālī (1058–1111).

Alchemy covers several philosophical traditions spanning some four millennia and three continents. These traditions' general penchant for cryptic and symbolic language makes it hard to trace their mutual influences and "genetic" relationships. One can distinguish at least three major strands, which appear to be largely independent, at least in their earlier stages: Chinese alchemy, centered in China and its zone of cultural influence; Indian alchemy, centered around the Indian subcontinent; and Western alchemy, which occurred around the Mediterranean and whose center has shifted over the millennia from Greco-Roman Egypt, to the Islamic world, and finally medieval Europe. Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoism and Indian alchemy with the Dharmic faiths, whereas Western alchemy developed its own philosophical system that was largely independent of, but influenced by, various Western religions. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other.

===Alchemy in Greco-Roman Egypt===

 Ambix, cucurbit and retort of Zosimos, from Marcelin Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (3 vol., Paris, 1887–1888)

The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria was a center of alchemical knowledge, and retained its pre-eminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods. New Scientist, 24–31 December 1987 Here, elements of technology, religion, mythology, and Hellenistic philosophy, each with their own much longer histories, combined to form the earliest known records of alchemy in the West. Zosimos of Panopolis wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, while Mary the Jewess is credited as being the first non-fictitious Western alchemist. They wrote in Greek and lived in Egypt under Roman rule.

Mythology – Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion. Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation. Yves Bonnefoy. 'Roman and European Mythologies'. University of Chicago Press, 1992. pp. 211–213 These included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others.

The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes). His name is derived from the god Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge. Clement, Stromata, vi. 4. The Hermetica of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermetic philosophy by its early practitioners. These writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era.

Technology – The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of metallurgy, extending back to 3500 BCE. Many writings were lost when the emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books after suppressing a revolt in Alexandria (292 CE). Few original Egyptian documents on alchemy have survived, most notable among them the Stockholm papyrus and the Leyden papyrus X. Dating from 300 to 500 CE, they contained recipes for dyeing and making artificial gemstones, cleaning and fabricating pearls, and the manufacture of imitation gold and silver. These writings lack the mystical, philosophical elements of alchemy, but do contain the works of Bolus of Mendes (or Pseudo-Democritus) which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the Classical elements. A History of Chemistry, Bensaude-Vincent, Isabelle Stengers, Harvard University Press, 1996, p13 Between the time of Bolus and Zosimos, the change took place that transformed this metallurgy into a Hermetic art. 

Philosophy – Alexandria acted as a melting pot for philosophies of Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism which formed the origin of alchemy's character. An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed. The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter, not quantitative, as our modern elements are. "...True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present-day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form." Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept.
Alchemy coexisted alongside emerging Christianity. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. Augustine (354–430 CE) later affirmed this, but also condemned Trismegistus for idolatry. Fanning, Philip Ashley. Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy: An Alternative View of the Scientific Revolution. 2009. p.6 Examples of Pagan, Christian, and Jewish alchemists can be found during this period.

Most of the Greco-Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as Moses, Isis, Cleopatra, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, we only know through fragments of text. After 400 CE, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors. F. Sherwood Taylor. Alchemists, Founders of Modern Chemistry. p.26. By the middle of the 7th century alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline. Allen G. Debus. Alchemy and early modern chemistry: papers from Ambix. p. 36 It was at that time that Khalid Ibn Yazid sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries. Glen Warren Bowersock, Peter Robert Lamont Brown, Oleg Grabar. Late antiquity: a guide to the postclassical world. p. 284–285 

===Alchemy in the Islamic world===

Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), considered the "father of chemistry", introduced a scientific and experimental approach to alchemy.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the focus of alchemical development moved to the Islamic World. Much more is known about Islamic alchemy because it was better documented: indeed, most of the earlier writings that have come down through the years were preserved as Arabic translations. The word alchemy itself was derived from the Arabic word الكيمياء al-kimia. The Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy. Platonic and Aristotelian thought, which had already been somewhat appropriated into hermetical science, continued to be assimilated during the late 7th and early 8th centuries.

In the late 8th century, Jābir ibn Hayyān (known as "Geber" in Europe) introduced a new approach to alchemy, based on scientific methodology and controlled experimentation in the laboratory, in contrast to the ancient Greek and Egyptian alchemists whose works were often allegorical and unintelligible, with very little concern for laboratory work. Jabir is thus "considered by many to be the father of chemistry", albeit others reserve that title for Robert Boyle or Antoine Lavoisier. The historian of science, Paul Kraus, wrote:

Jabir himself clearly recognized and proclaimed the importance of experimentation:

Early Islamic chemists such as Jabir Ibn Hayyan (جابر بن حيان in Arabic, Geberus in Latin; usually rendered in English as Geber), Al-Kindi (Alkindus) and Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rasis or Rhazes in Latin) contributed a number of key chemical discoveries, such as the muriatic (hydrochloric acid), sulfuric and nitric acids, and more. The discovery that aqua regia, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, could dissolve the noblest metal, gold, was to fuel the imagination of alchemists for the next millennium.

Islamic philosophers also made great contributions to alchemical hermeticism. The most influential author in this regard was arguably Jabir. Jabir's ultimate goal was Takwin, the artificial creation of life in the alchemical laboratory, up to, and including, human life. He analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. According to Jabir, in each metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was externally cold and dry, while gold was hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorized, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result. By this reasoning, the search for the philosopher's stone was introduced to Western alchemy. Jabir developed an elaborate numerology whereby the root letters of a substance's name in Arabic, when treated with various transformations, held correspondences to the element's physical properties.

The elemental system used in medieval alchemy also originated with Jabir. His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five classical elements (aether, air, earth, fire and water), in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: sulphur, 'the stone which burns', which characterized the principle of combustibility, and mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties. Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and salt giving solidity. Strathern, Paul. (2000), Mendeleyev's Dream – the Quest for the Elements, New York: Berkley Books The atomic theory of corpuscularianism, where all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles, also has its origins in the work of Jabir. 

From the 9th to 14th centuries, alchemical theories faced criticism from a variety of practical Muslim chemists, including Alkindus, Felix Klein-Frank (2001), "Al-Kindi", in Oliver Leaman & Hossein Nasr, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 174. London: Routledge. Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Avicenna Robert Briffault (1938). The Making of Humanity, p. 196–197. and Ibn Khaldun. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the transmutation of metals.

===Alchemy in Medieval Europe===

 Painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1771

The introduction of alchemy to Latin Europe occurred on 11 February 1144, with the completion of Robert of Chester's translation of the Arabic Book of the Composition of Alchemy. Although European craftsmen and technicians preexisted, Robert notes in his preface that alchemy was unknown in Latin Europe at the time of his writing. The translation of Arabic texts concerning numerous disciplines including alchemy flourished in 12th-century Toledo, Spain, through contributors like Gerard of Cremona and Adelard of Bath. Translations of the time included the Turba Philosophorum, and the works of Avicenna and al-Razi. These brought with them many new words to the European vocabulary for which there was no previous Latin equivalent. Alcohol, carboy, elixir, and athanor are examples. 

Meanwhile, theologian contemporaries of the translators made strides towards the reconciliation of faith and experimental rationalism, thereby priming Europe for the influx of alchemical thought. Saint Anselm (1033–1109) put forth the opinion that faith and rationalism were compatible and encouraged rationalism in a Christian context.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) followed Anselm's work, laying down the foundation for acceptance of Aristotelian thought before the first works of Aristotle had reached the West. And later, Robert Grosseteste (1170–1253) used Abelard's methods of analysis and added the use of observation, experimentation, and conclusions when conducting scientific investigations. Grosseteste also did much work to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian thinking. 

Through much of the 12th and 13th centuries, alchemical knowledge in Europe remained centered around translations, and new Latin contributions were not made. The efforts of the translators were succeeded by that of the encyclopaedists. Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon are the most notable of these. John Read. From Alchemy to Chemistry. 1995 p.90 Their works explained and summarized the newly imported alchemical knowledge in Aristotelian terms. There is little to suggest that Albertus Magnus (1193–1280), a Dominican, was himself an alchemist. In his authentic works such as the Book of Minerals, he observed and commented on the operations and theories of alchemical authorities like Hermes and Democritus, and unnamed alchemists of his time. Albertus critically compared these to the writings of Aristotle and Avicenna, where they concerned the transmutation of metals. From the time shortly after his death through to the 15th century, twenty-eight or more alchemical tracts were misattributed to him, a common practice giving rise to his reputation as an accomplished alchemist. James A. Weisheipl. Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays. PIMS. 1980. p.187-202 Likewise, alchemical texts have been attributed to Albert's student Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).

Roger Bacon (1214–1294) was an Oxford Franciscan who studied a wide variety of topics including optics, languages and medicine. After studying the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum around 1247, he dramatically shifted his studies towards a vision of a universal science which included alchemy and astrology. Bacon maintained that Albertus Magnus' ignorance of the fundamentals of alchemy prevented a complete picture of wisdom. While alchemy was not more important to him than any of the other sciences, and he did not produce symbolic allegorical works, Bacon's contributions advanced alchemy's connections to soteriology and Christian theology. Bacon's writings demonstrated an integration of morality, salvation, alchemy, and the prolongation of life. His correspondence with Pope Clement IV highlighted this integration, calling attention to the importance of alchemy to the papacy. Edmund Brehm. "Roger Bacon's Place in the History of Alchemy." Ambix. Vol. 23, Part I, March 1976. Like the Greeks before him, Bacon acknowledged the division of alchemy into the practical and theoretical. He noted that the theoretical lay outside the scope of Aristotle, the natural philosophers, and all Latin writers of his time. The practical however, confirmed the theoretical through experiment, and Bacon advocated its uses in natural science and medicine. 

Soon after Bacon, the influential work of Pseudo-Geber (sometimes identified as Paul of Taranto) appeared. His Summa Perfectionis remained a staple summary of alchemical practice and theory through the medieval and renaissance periods. It was notable for its inclusion of practical chemical operations alongside sulphur-mercury theory, and the unusual clarity with which they were described. . By the end of the 13th century, alchemy had developed into a fairly structured system of belief. Adepts believed in the macrocosm-microcosm theories of Hermes, that is to say, they believed that processes that affect minerals and other substances could have an effect on the human body (for example, if one could learn the secret of purifying gold, one could use the technique to purify the human soul). They believed in the four elements and the four qualities as described above, and they had a strong tradition of cloaking their written ideas in a labyrinth of coded jargon set with traps to mislead the uninitiated. Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theories about how the universe operated. Their entire philosophy revolved around their belief that man's soul was divided within himself after the fall of Adam. By purifying the two parts of man's soul, man could be reunited with God. 

In the 14th century, alchemy became more accessible to Europeans outside the confines of Latin speaking churchmen and scholars. Alchemical discourse shifted from scholarly philosophical debate to an exposed social commentary on the alchemists themselves. Tara E. Nummedal. Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire. University of Chicago Press, 2007. p. 49 Dante, Piers the Ploughman, and Chaucer all painted unflattering pictures of alchemists as thieves and liars. Pope John XXII's 1317 edict, Spondent quas non exhibent forbade the false promises of transmutation made by pseudo-alchemists. John Hines, II, R. F. Yeager. John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition. Boydell & Brewer. 2010. p.170 In 1403, Henry IV of England banned the practice of multiplying metals (Although it was possible to buy a licence to attempt to make gold alchemically, and a number were granted by Henry VI and Edward IV D. Geoghegan, "A licence of Henry VI to practise Alchemy" Ambix, volume 6, 1957, pages 10-17 ). These critiques and regulations centered more around pseudo-alchemical charlatanism than the actual study of alchemy, which continued with an increasingly Christian tone. The 14th century saw the Christian imagery of death and resurrection employed in the alchemical texts of Petrus Bonus, John of Rupescissa and in works written in the name of Raymond Lull and Arnold of Villanova. Leah DeVun. From Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the late Middle Ages. Columbia University Press, 2009. p. 104 

Nicolas Flamel is a well known alchemist, but a good example of pseudepigraphy, the practice of giving your works the name of someone else, usually more famous. Though the historical Flamel existed, the writings and legends assigned to him only appeared in 1612. "Nicolas Flamel. Des Livres et de l'or" by Nigel Wilkins 
Flamel was not a religious scholar as were many of his predecessors, and his entire interest in the subject revolved around the pursuit of the philosopher's stone. His work spends a great deal of time describing the processes and reactions, but never actually gives the formula for carrying out the transmutations. Most of 'his' work was aimed at gathering alchemical knowledge that had existed before him, especially as regarded the philosopher's stone. 

Through the late Middle Ages (1300–1500) alchemists were much like Flamel: they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone. Bernard Trevisan and George Ripley made similar contributions in the 14th and 15th centuries. Their cryptic allusions and symbolism led to wide variations in interpretation of the art.

===Alchemy in the Renaissance and modern age===

Page from alchemic treatise of Ramon Llull, 16th century

During the Renaissance, Hermetic and Platonic foundations were restored to European alchemy. The dawn of medical, pharmaceutical, occult, and entrepreneurial branches of alchemy followed.

Francis Melville, in his translation of the Arabic Book of the Composition of Alchemy, commented on the Emerald Tablet and the Hermetic texts by stating, "Here was an ancient body of theological, philosophical, scientific, and medical writings of extraordinary beauty, intellectual power, and spiritual authority, in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims could find confirmations, amplifications, and refinements of their own sacred teachings."

In the late 15th century, Marsilo Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Plato into Latin. These were previously unavailable to Europeans who for the first time had a full picture of the alchemical theory that Bacon had declared absent. Renaissance Humanism and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics to refocus on mankind as the alchemical vessel.

Esoteric systems developed that blended alchemy into a broader occult Hermeticism, fusing it with magic, astrology, and Christian cabala. A key figure in this development was German Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) who received his Hermetic education in Italy in the schools of the humanists. In his De Occulta Philosophia he attempted to merge Kabbalah, Hermetism, and alchemy. He was instrumental in spreading this new blend of Hermeticism outside the borders of Italy. Glenn Alexander Magee. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition. Cornell University Press. 2008. p.30 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction. Oxford University Press. 2008 p.60 

Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541) cast alchemy into a new form, rejecting some of Agrippa's occultism and moving away from chrysopoeia. Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine, and wrote "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines." 

His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man the microcosm and Nature the macrocosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. Paracelsian practical alchemy, especially herbal medicine and plant remedies has since been named spagyrics (a synonym for alchemy from the Greek words meaning to separate and to join together, based on the Latin alchemic maxim: solve et coagula). Joseph Needham. Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 5, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Physiological Alchemy. Cambridge University Press. P.9 Iatrochemistry also refers to the pharmaceutical applications of alchemy championed by Paracelsus.

John Dee (13 July 1527 – December, 1608) followed Agrippa's occult tradition. Though better known for angel summoning, divination, and his role as astrologer, cryptographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I, Dee's alchemical Monas Hieroglyphica, written in 1564 was his most popular and influential work. His writing portrayed alchemy as a sort of terrestrial astronomy in line with the Hermetic axiom As above so below. William Royall Newman, Anthony Grafton. Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe. MIT Press, 2001. P.173. 

"Alchemist Sędziwój" (1566–1636) by Jan Matejko, 1867

Entrepreneurial opportunities were not uncommon for the alchemists of Renaissance Europe. Alchemists were contracted by the elite for practical purposes related to mining, medical services, and the production of chemicals, medicines, metals, and gemstones. Tara E. Nummedal. Alchemy and authority in the Holy Roman Empire. p.4 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in the late 16th century, famously received and sponsored various alchemists at his court in Prague, including Dee and his associate Edward Kelley. King James IV of Scotland, Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, vol. iii, (1901), 99, 202, 206, 209, 330, 340, 341, 353, 355, 365, 379, 382, 389, 409. Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Augustus, Elector of Saxony, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel all contracted alchemists. Tara E. Nummedal. Alchemy and authority in the Holy Roman Empire. p.85-98 John's son Arthur Dee worked as a court physician to Michael I of Russia and Charles I of England but also compiled the alchemical book Fasciculus Chemicus.

Though most of these appointments were legitimate, the trend of pseudo-alchemical fraud continued through the Renaissance. Betrüger would use sleight of hand, or claims of secret knowledge to make money or secure patronage. Legitimate mystical and medical alchemists such as Michael Maier and Heinrich Khunrath wrote about fraudulent transmutations, distinguishing themselves from the con artists. Tara E. Nummedal. Alchemy and authority in the Holy Roman Empire. p.171 False alchemists were sometimes prosecuted for fraud.

The terms "chemia" and "alchemia" were used as synonyms in the early modern period, and the differences between alchemy, chemistry and small-scale assaying and metallurgy were not as neat as in the present day. There were important overlaps between practitioners, and trying to classify them into alchemists, chemists and craftsmen is anachronistic. For example, Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), an alchemist better known for his astronomical and astrological investigations, had a laboratory built at his Uraniborg observatory/research institute. Michael Sendivogius (Michał Sędziwój, 1566–1636), a Polish alchemist, philosopher, medical doctor and pioneer of chemistry wrote mystical works but is also credited with distilling oxygen in a lab sometime around 1600. Sendivogious taught his technique to Cornelius Drebbel who, in 1621, applied this in a submarine. Isaac Newton devoted considerably more of his writing to the study of alchemy (see Isaac Newton's occult studies) than he did to either optics or physics. Other early modern alchemists who were eminent in their other studies include Robert Boyle, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. Their Hermetism complemented rather than precluded their practical achievements in medicine and science.

===The decline of European alchemy===
Robert Boyle
The decline of European alchemy was brought about by the rise of modern science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and its disdain for "ancient wisdom". Although the seeds of these events were planted as early as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for some two hundred years, and in fact may have reached its apogee in the 18th century. As late as 1781 James Price claimed to have produced a powder that could transmute mercury into silver or gold.

Meanwhile, Paracelsian alchemy led to the development of modern medicine. Experimentalists gradually uncovered the workings of the human body, such as blood circulation (Harvey, 1616), and eventually traced many diseases to infections with germs (Koch and Pasteur, 19th century) or lack of natural nutrients and vitamins (Lind, Eijkman, Funk, et al.). Supported by parallel developments in organic chemistry, the new science easily displaced alchemy from its medical roles, interpretive and prescriptive, while deflating its hopes of miraculous elixirs and exposing the ineffectiveness or even toxicity of its remedies.

During the 17th century, a short-lived "supernatural" interpretation of alchemy became popular, including support by fellows of the Royal Society: Robert Boyle and Elias Ashmole. Proponents of the supernatural interpretation of alchemy believed that the philosopher's stone might be used to summon and communicate with angels. 
* Journal of the History of Ideas, 41, 1980, p293-318
*
* The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest, by Lawrence M. Principe, 'Princeton University Press', 1998, pp 188 90
 

The words "alchemy" and "chemistry" were used interchangeably during most of the 17th century; only during the 18th century was a distinction drawn rigidly between the two. In the 18th century, "alchemy" was considered to be restricted to the realm of "gold making", leading to the popular belief that most, if not all, alchemists were charlatans, and the tradition itself nothing more than a fraud. The obscure and secretive writings of the alchemists was used as a case by those who wished to forward a fraudulent and non-scientific opinion of alchemy. In order to protect the developing science of modern chemistry from the negative censure of which alchemy was being subjected, academic writers during the scientific Enlightenment attempted, for the sake of survival, to separate and divorce the "new" chemistry from the "old" practices of alchemy. This move was mostly successful, and the consequences of this continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, and even to the present day. 

Robert Boyle (1627–1691), better known for his studies of gases (cf. Boyle's law) pioneered the scientific method in chemical investigations. He assumed nothing in his experiments and compiled every piece of relevant data; in a typical experiment, Boyle would note the place in which the experiment was carried out, the wind characteristics, the position of the Sun and Moon, and the barometer reading, all just in case they proved to be relevant. This approach eventually led to the founding of modern chemistry in the 18th and 19th centuries, based on revolutionary discoveries of Lavoisier and John Dalton — which finally provided a logical, quantitative and reliable framework for understanding matter transmutations, and revealed the futility of longstanding alchemical goals such as the philosopher's stone. The foregoing developments in alchemy and 'chymistry' from the 16th to the 18th centuries have lead many historians of science to argue that Lavoisier's work represented less of 'revolution' and more of an simple extension of the theories, methods and techniques that had been developed in previous centuries. In the words of Matthew Daniel Eddy, the Chemical Revolution was a series of sparks that took place over time and not one big explosion that occurred when Lavoisier first published his work. 

During the occult revival of the early 19th century, alchemy received new attention as an occult science. The esoteric or occultist school, which arose during the 19th century, held (and continues to hold) the view that the substances and operations mentioned in alchemical literature are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, and it downplays the role of the alchemy as a practical tradition or protoscience. This interpretation further forwarded the view that alchemy is an art primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment or illumination, as opposed to the physical manipulation of apparatus and chemicals, and claims that the obscure language of the alchemical texts were an allegorical guise for spiritual, moral or mystical processes. 

In the 19th-century revival of alchemy, the two most seminal figures were Mary Anne Atwood and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who independently published similar works regarding spiritual alchemy. Both forwarded a completely esoteric view of alchemy, as Atwood claimed: "No modern art or chemistry, notwithstanding all its surreptitious claims, has any thing in common with Alchemy." Atwood's work influenced subsequent authors of the occult revival including Eliphas Levi, Arthur Edward Waite, and Rudolf Steiner. Hitchcock, in his Remarks Upon Alchymists (1855) attempted to make a case for his spiritual interpretation with his claim that the alchemists wrote about a spiritual discipline under a materialistic guise in order to avoid accusations of blasphemy from the church and state. In 1845, Baron Carl Reichenbach, published his studies on Odic force, a concept with some similarities to alchemy, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion. Daniel Merkur. Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions. SUNY Press. 1993 p.55 

===Indian alchemy===

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Vedas describe a connection between eternal life and gold. The use of Mercury for alchemy is first documented in the 4th- to 3rd-century BC Artha-śāstra. Buddhist texts from the 2nd to 5th centuries AD mention the transmutation of base metals to gold. Greek alchemy was introduced to Ancient India through the invasions of Alexander the Great in 325 BC, and kingdoms that were culturally influenced by the Greeks like Gandhāra. Multhauf, Robert P. & Gilbert, Robert Andrew (2008). Alchemy. Encyclopædia Britannica (2008). 

An 11th-century Persian chemist and physician named Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī reported that they "have a science similar to alchemy which is quite peculiar to them, which in Sanskrit is called Rasayāna and in Persian Rasavātam. It means the art of obtaining/manipulating Rasa: nectar, mercury, and juice. This art was restricted to certain operations, metals, drugs, compounds, and medicines, many of which have mercury as their core element. Its principles restored the health of those who were ill beyond hope and gave back youth to fading old age." One thing is sure though, Indian alchemy like every other Indian science is focused on finding Moksha: perfection, immortality, liberation. As such it focuses its efforts on transmutation of the human body: from mortal to immortal. Many are the traditional stories of alchemists still alive since time immemorial due to the effects of their experiments.

Since alchemy eventually became ingrained in the vast field of Indian erudition, influences from other metaphysical and philosophical doctrines such as Samkhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika and Ayurveda were inevitable. Nonetheless, most of the Rasayāna texts track their origins back to Kaula tantric schools associated to the teachings of the personality of Matsyendranath.

Two famous early Indian alchemical authors were Nāgārjuna Siddha and Nityanātha Siddha. Nāgārjuna Siddha was a Buddhist monk. His book, Rasendramangalam, is an example of Indian alchemy and medicine. Nityanātha Siddha wrote Rasaratnākara, also a highly influential work. In Sanskrit, "rasa" translates as "mercury" and Nāgārjuna Siddha was said to have developed a method or converting mercury into gold. See Dominik Wujastyk, "An Alchemical Ghost: The Rasaratnākara of Nāgarjuna" in Ambix 31.2 (1984): 70-83. Online at http://univie.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk/Papers/152766/ 

Reliable scholarship on Indian alchemy has been advanced in a major way by the publication of The Alchemical Body by David Gordon White. See bibliographical details and links at http://openlibrary.org/works/OL3266066W/The_Alchemical_Body Trustworthy scholarship on Indian alchemy must now take the findings of this work into account.

An important modern bibliography on Indian alchemical studies has also been provided by David Gordon White at Oxford Bibliographies Online. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195399318-0046 

===Chinese alchemy===

Taoist Alchemists often use this alternate version of the Taijitu.

Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble ones, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine. The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Grand Elixir of Immortality sought by Chinese alchemists. However, in the hermetic view, these two goals were not unconnected, and the philosopher's stone was often equated with the universal panacea; therefore, the two traditions may have had more in common than initially appears.

Black powder may have been an important invention of Chinese alchemists. As previously stated above, Chinese alchemy was more related to medicine. It is said that the Chinese invented gunpowder while trying to find a potion for eternal life. Described in 9th-century texts and used in fireworks in China by the 10th century, it was used in cannons by 1290. From China, the use of gunpowder spread to Japan, the Mongols, the Arab world, and Europe. Gunpowder was used by the Mongols against the Hungarians in 1241, and in Europe by the 14th century.

Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoist forms of traditional Chinese medicine, such as Acupuncture and Moxibustion, and to martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan and Kung Fu (although some Tai Chi schools believe that their art derives from the philosophical or hygienic branches of Taoism, not Alchemical). In fact, in the early Song Dynasty, followers of this Taoist idea (chiefly the elite and upper class) would ingest mercuric sulfide, which, though tolerable in low levels, led many to suicide. Thinking that this consequential death would lead to freedom and access to the Taoist heavens, the ensuing deaths encouraged people to eschew this method of alchemy in favor of external sources (the aforementioned Tai Chi Chuan, mastering of the qi, etc.).

===Alchemy as a subject of historical research===
The history of alchemy has become a significant and recognized subject of academic study. Antoine Faivre, Wouter J. Hanegraaff. Western esotericism and the science of religion. 1995. p.viii–xvi As the language of the alchemists is analyzed, historians are becoming more aware of the intellectual connections between that discipline and other facets of Western cultural history, such as the evolution of science and philosophy, the sociology and psychology of the intellectual communities, kabbalism, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and other mystic movements. See Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism website Institutions involved in this research include The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project at Indiana University, the University of Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO), the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), and the University of Amsterdam's Sub-department for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. A large collection of books on alchemy is kept in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. 
Journals which publish regularly on the topic of Alchemy include 'Ambix', published by the Society for the History of alchemy and Chemistry, and 'Isis', published by The History of Science Society.

==Modern alchemy==
Due to the complexity and obscurity of alchemical literature, and the 18th-century disappearance of remaining alchemical practitioners into the area of chemistry; the general understanding of alchemy has been strongly influenced by several distinct and radically different interpretations. Those focusing on the exoteric, such as historians of science Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, have interpreted the 'decknamen' (or code words) of alchemy as physical substances. These practitioners have reconstructed physicochemical experiments that they say are described in medieval and early modern texts. Richard Conniff. "Alchemy May Not Have Been the Pseudoscience We All Thought It Was." Smithsonian Magazine. February 2014. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, esoteric alchemists interpret these same decknamen as spiritual, religious, or psychological concepts. Today new interpretations of alchemy are still perpetuated, sometimes merging in concepts from New Age or radical environmentalism movements. Groups like the rosicrucians and freemasons have a continued interest in alchemy and its symbolism.

===Alchemy in traditional medicine===
Traditional medicine sometimes involves the transmutation of natural substances, using pharmacological or a combination of pharmacological and spiritual techniques. In Ayurveda the samskaras are claimed to transform heavy metals and toxic herbs in a way that removes their toxicity. These processes are actively used to the present day. Junius, Manfred M; The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy: An Herbalist's Guide to Preparing Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs; Healing Arts Press 1985 
 
Spagyrists of the 20th century, Albert Richard Riedel and Jean Dubuis, merged Paracelsian alchemy with occultism, teaching laboratory pharmaceutical methods. The schools they founded, Les Philosophes de la Nature and The Paracelsus Research Society, popularized modern spagyrics including the manufacture of herbal tinctures and products. Joscelyn Godwin. The Golden Thread: The Ageless Wisdom of the Western Mystery Traditions. Quest Books, 2007. p.120 The courses, books, organizations, and conferences generated by their students continue to influence popular applications of alchemy as a new age medicinal practice.

=== Psychology ===
Alchemical symbolism has been used by psychologists such as Carl Jung who reexamined alchemical symbolism and theory and presented the inner meaning of alchemical work as a spiritual path. Jung, C. G. (1944). Psychology and Alchemy (2nd ed. 1968 Collected Works Vol. 12 ISBN 0-691-01831-6). London: Routledge. Jung, C. G., & Hinkle, B. M. (1912). Psychology of the Unconscious : a study of the transformations and symbolisms of the libido, a contribution to the history of the evolution of thought. London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner. (revised in 1952 as Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works Vol.5 ISBN 0-691-01815-4). Jung was deeply interested in the occult since his youth, participating in seances, which he used as the basis for his doctoral dissertation "On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena." The Jung Cult, by Ricard Noll, Princeton University Press, 1994, p144 In 1913, Jung had already adopted a "spiritualist and redemptive interpretation of alchemy", likely reflecting his interest in the occult literature of the 19th century. Noll. Aryan Christ. p171 Jung began writing his views on alchemy from the 1920s and continued until the end of his life. His interpretation of Chinese alchemical texts in terms of his analytical psychology also served the function of comparing Eastern and Western alchemical imagery and core concepts and hence its possible inner sources (archetypes). C.-G. Jung Preface to Richard Wilhelm's translation of the I Ching. C.-G. Jung Preface to the translation of The Secret of The Golden Flower. Polly Young-Eisendrath, Terence Dawson. The Cambridge companion to Jung. Cambridge University Press. 1997. p.33 

Jung saw alchemy as a Western proto-psychology dedicated to the achievement of individuation. In his interpretation, alchemy was the vessel by which Gnosticism survived its various purges into the Renaissance, Jung, C. G., & Jaffe A. (1962). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. London: Collins. This is Jung's autobiography, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe, ISBN 0-679-72395-1. a concept also followed by others such as Stephan A. Hoeller. In this sense, Jung viewed alchemy as comparable to a Yoga of the East, and more adequate to the Western mind than Eastern religions and philosophies. The practice of Alchemy seemed to change the mind and spirit of the Alchemist. Conversely, spontaneous changes on the mind of Western people undergoing any important stage in individuation seems to produce, on occasion, imagery known to Alchemy and relevant to the person's situation. Jung, C. G.—Psychology and Alchemy; Symbols of Transformation. Jung did not completely reject the material experiments of the alchemists, but he massively downplayed it, writing that the transmutation was performed in the mind of the alchemist. He claimed the material substances and procedures were only a projection of the alchemists' internal state, while the real substance to be transformed was the mind itself. Redemption in Alchemy, by Carl Jung, p210 

Marie-Louise von Franz, a disciple of Jung, continued Jung's studies on alchemy and its psychological meaning. Jung's work exercised a great influence on the mainstream perception of alchemy, his approach becoming a stock element in many popular texts on the subject to this day. Modern scholars are sometimes critical of the Jungian approach to alchemy as overly reflective of 19th-century occultism. 

== Magnum opus ==

The Great Work of Alchemy is often described as a series of four stages represented by colors.
*nigredo, a blackening or melanosis
*albedo, a whitening or leucosis
*citrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosis
*rubedo, a reddening, purpling, or iosis Joseph Needham. Science & Civilisation in China: Chemistry and chemical technology. Spagyrical discovery and invention: magisteries of gold and immortality. Cambridge. 1974. p.23 

== Alchemy in art and entertainment ==

Alchemy has had a long standing relationship with art, seen both in alchemical texts and in mainstream entertainment. Literary alchemy appears throughout the history of English literature from Shakespeare to J. K. Rowling. Here, characters or plot structure follow an alchemical magnum opus. In the 14th century, Chaucer began a trend of alchemical satire that can still be seen in recent fantasy works like those of Terry Pratchett.

Visual artists had a similar relationship with alchemy. While some of them used alchemy as a source of satire, others worked with the alchemists themselves or integrated alchemical thought or symbols in their work. Music was also present in the works of alchemists and continues to influence popular performers. In the last hundred years, alchemists have been portrayed in a magical and spagyric role in fantasy fiction, film, television, novels, comics and video games.

== See also ==

== Notes and references ==

== Bibliography ==

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

== External links ==

* SHAC: Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
* ESSWE: European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism
* Association for the Study of Esotericism
* The Alchemy Website. &ndash; Adam McLean's online collections and academic discussion.
* 
* Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Alchemy
* Book of Secrets: Alchemy and the European Imagination, 1500-2000 &ndash; A digital exhibition from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University

 



[[Alien]]

Alien may refer to:
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
* Alien (law), a non-citizen inhabitant of a country

==Science and technology==

* Introduced species, a species not native to its environment
* Alien (software), a Linux program
* AliEn (ALICE Environment), a grid framework
* Alien Technology, a manufacturer of RFID technology
* Aliens, a newsletter of the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group

==Entertainment==

===Film===
* Alien (film), a 1979 film by Ridley Scott
** Aliens (film), a 1986 sequel by James Cameron
** Alien (franchise), the film franchise, including other sequels
** Alien (creature in Alien franchise)
** Alien (soundtrack)
** Aliens (soundtrack)
** Aliens (novel series)
** Aliens (comic book)
* The Alien (film), an incomplete 1960s Indian-American film

===Music===
* Alien (album), by Strapping Young Lad
* Alien (band), a 1980s Swedish rock group
* The Aliens (Scottish band), a 2005–present rock group
* The Aliens (Australian band), a 1970s new wave group
* "Alien" (Pennywise song)
* "Alien" (Third Day song)
* "Alien" (Britney Spears song)
* "Alien", a song by Bush on the album Sixteen Stone
* "Alien", a song by Erasure on the album Loveboat
* "Alien", a song by Japan on the album Quiet Life
* "Alien", a song by Lamb on the album Fear of Fours
* "Alien", a song by Nerina Pallot on the album Dear Frustrated Superstar
* "Alien", a song by P-Model on the album Landsale
* "Alien", a song by Thriving Ivory on their self-titled album
* "Alien", a song by Tokio Hotel on the album Humanoid
* "The Aliens", a song by Warlord

===Other===
* Aliens (1902 novel), by Mary Tappan Wright
* The Alien (Animorphs), the eighth book in the Animorphs series
* Aliens (Kaypro video game), a text-only clone of Space Invaders written for the CP/M operating system

==Other uses==
* Alien (shipping company), a Russian company
* Alien (literary concept)
* Alien Sun (born 1974), Singaporean actress
* Alien, a perfume by Thierry Mugler

== See also ==
* Astrobiology
* List of Alien and Predator games
* "My Alien", a song by Simple Plan on the album No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls
* Alians, an Islamic order
* ATLiens, a 1996 album by OutKast
* 
* 



[[Astronomer]]

The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer (c. 1668)

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as black holes, moons, planets, stars, nebulae, and galaxies, as well as Gamma-ray bursts and cosmic microwave background radiation. A related but distinct subject, cosmology, is concerned with studying the universe as a whole. An astronomer researches the world beyond earth.

Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws. Today, that distinction has mostly disappeared and the terms "astronomer" and "astrophysicist" are interchangeable. Professional astronomers are highly educated individuals who typically have a PhD in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities. They spend the majority of their time working on research, although they quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments, or aiding in the operation of an observatory. The number of professional astronomers in the United States is actually quite small. The American Astronomical Society, which is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America, has approximately 7,700 members. This number includes scientists from other fields such as physics, geology, and engineering, whose research interests are closely related to astronomy. The International Astronomical Union comprises almost 10,145 members from 70 different countries who are involved in astronomical research at the PhD level and beyond. 

While there is a relatively low number of professional astronomers, the field is popular among amateurs. Most cities have amateur astronomy clubs that meet on a regular basis and often host star parties. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is the largest general astronomical society in the world, comprising both professional and amateur astronomers as well as educators from 70 different nations. Like any hobby, most people who think of themselves as amateur astronomers may devote a few hours a month to stargazing and reading the latest developments in research. However, amateurs span the range from so-called "armchair astronomers" to the very ambitious, who own science-grade telescopes and instruments with which they are able to make their own discoveries and assist professional astronomers in research.

==Modern astronomers==
Galileo is often referred to as the Father of Modern Astronomy.
Contrary to the classical image of an old astronomer peering through a telescope through the dark hours of the night, it is far more common to use a charge-coupled device camera to record a long, deep exposure, allowing a more sensitive image to be created because the light is added over time. Before CCDs, photographic plates were a common method of observation. Modern astronomers spend relatively little time at telescopes - most spend a few weeks per year. Analysis of observed phenomena or make predictions for observational astronomers.

Astronomers who serve as faculty spend much of their time teaching undergraduate and graduate classes. Most universities also have outreach programs including public telescope time and sometimes planetariums as a public service to encourage interest in the field.

==See also==
*List of astronomers
*List of Muslim astronomers
*Cosmologists
*List of Russian astronomers and astrophysicists

==Notes==

==References==
* 
* 
* 

==External links==
* American Astronomical Society
* International Astronomical Union
* Astronomical Society of the Pacific

 
 


[[Amoeboid]]

Foraminiferan (Ammonia tepida)
Amoeboids are single-celled life-forms characterized by an irregular shape. 

"Amoeboid" and "amœba" are often used interchangeably even by biologists, 

 and especially refer to a creature moving by using pseudopodia. Most references to "amoebas" or "amoebae" are to amoeboids in general rather than to the specific genus Amoeba. The genus Amoeba and amoeboids in general both derive their names from the ancient Greek word for change.

==Shape and structure==
Amoeboids move using pseudopodia, which are bulges of cytoplasm.

Amoebas breathe using their entire cell membrane that is constantly immersed in water. Excess water can cross into the cytosol. Amoebas have a contractile vacuole to expel excess water.

Food sources vary in amoeboids. They may consume bacteria or other protists. Some are detritivores and eat dead organic material. They extend a pair of pseudopodia around food. They fuse to make a food vacuole which then fuses with a lysosome to add digestive chemicals. Undigested food is expelled at the cell membrane.

Amoebas use pseudopodia to move and feed. They are powered by flexible microfilaments near the membrane. Microfilaments are at least 50% of the cytoskeleton. The other parts are more stiff and are composed of intermediate filaments and microtubules. These are not used in amoeboid movement, but are stiff skeletons on which organelles are supported or can move on.

The shells of amoebas are often composed of calcium. The proteins or materials are synthesised in the cell and exported just outside the cell membrane.

===Multicellular amoebas: Slime molds===

Amoebas seem to have connections with two phyla (now defunct) composed of multicellular organisms of the lineage of fungus-like protists, the so-called slime molds. These two defunct phyla were the Myxomycota (i.e., plasmodial slime molds, now classified in the taxon Myxogastria), and Acrasiomycota (i.e. cellular slime molds, now divided into the taxa Acrasida and Dictyosteliida). These two phyla use amoeboid movement in their feeding stage. The former is basically a giant multinucleate amoeba, while the latter lives solitary until food runs out; in which a colony of these functions as a unit. Myxomycete slime molds use amoeboid gametes, as well.

==Diversity==
They have appeared in a number of different groups. Some cells in multicellular animals may be amoeboid, for instance human white blood cells, which consume pathogens. Many protists also exist as individual amoeboid cells, or take such a form at some point in their life-cycle. The most famous such organism is Amoeba proteus; the name amoeba is variously used to describe its close relatives, other organisms similar to it, or the amoeboids in general.

==Classification==
As amoebas themselves are polyphyletic and subject to some imprecision in definition, the term "amoeboid" does not provide identification of an organism, and is better understood as description of locomotion.

When used in the broader sense, the term can include many different groups. One source includes 97 different genera. Others include far fewer.

===Older classification===
In older classification systems, amoeboids, under the taxon name Sarcodina, had been divided into several morphological categories based on the form and structure of their pseudopods.

Amoeboids with pseudopods supported by regular arrays of microtubules were called actinopods, whereas those that weren't were called rhizopods, which were further subdivided into lobose, filose, and reticulose amoebae. In contrast to "rhizopods", where most of their morphologies can be mapped to modern classification systems, "actinopods" appear to be extensively polyphyletic. Actinopods are divided into radiolaria and heliozoa (itself a polyphyletic grouping).

Finally, there was also a strange group of giant marine amoeboids, the xenophyophores, that did not fall into any of these categories.

===Modern classification===
More modern classifications are based upon cladistics. It has been stated that most amoeboid are now grouped in Amoebozoa or Rhizaria. However, in contexts where "amoeboid" is defined more loosely, there are many amoeboid species that are in the Excavata clade.

Phylogenetic analyses place these genera into the following groups (not all of these are considered amoeboid (or "amoebas") by all sources):

 Grouping Genera Morphology 
 Amoebozoa *Lobosea: ** Acanthamoeba, Amoeba, Balamuthia, Chaos, Clydonella, Discamoeba, Echinamoeba, Filamoeba, Flabellula, Gephyramoeba, Glaeseria, Hartmannella, Hydramoeba, Korotnevella (Dactylamoeba), Leptomyxa, Lingulamoeba, Mastigina, Mayorella, Metachaos, Neoparamoeba, Paramoeba, Polychaos, Phreatamoeba, Platyamoeba, Protoacanthamoeba, Rhizamoeba, Saccamoeba, Sappinia, Stereomyxa, Thecamoeba, Trichamoeba, Trichosphaerium, Unda, Vannella, Vexillifera *Conosa: Endamoeba, Entamoeba, Hyperamoeba, Mastigamoeba, Mastigella, Pelomyxa * Lobose pseudopods (Lobosea): Lobose pseudopods are blunt, and there may be one or several on a cell, which is usually divided into a layer of clear ectoplasm surrounding more granular endoplasm. 
 Rhizaria * Cercozoa: **Filosa: ***Monadofilosa: Gyromitus, Paulinella ***Granofilosea: **Endomyxa: ***Proteomyxidea: Vampyrella ***Gromiidea ***Ascetosporea * Foraminifera * Radiolaria * Filose pseudopods (Filosa): Filose pseudopods are narrow and tapering. The vast majority of filose amoebae, including all those that produce shells, are placed within the Cercozoa together with various flagellates that tend to have amoeboid forms. The naked filose amoebae also includes vampyrellids. * Reticulose pseudopods (Endomyxa): Reticulose pseudopods are cytoplasmic strands that branch and merge to form a net. They are found most notably among the Foraminifera, a large group of marine protists that generally produce multi-chambered shells. There are only a few sorts of naked reticulose amoeboids, notably the gymnophryids, and their relationships are not certain. * Radiolarians are a subgroup of actinopods that are now grouped with rhizarians. 
 Excavata * Heterolobosea: **Vahlkampfiidae: Monopylocystis, Naegleria, Neovahlkampfia, Paratetramitus, Paravahlkampfia, Psalteriomonas, Sawyeria, Tetramitus, Vahlkampfia, Willaertia **Gruberellidae: Gruberella, Stachyamoeba *Parabasalidea: Dientamoeba, Histomonas *Other: Rosculus, Acrasis, Heteramoeba, Learamoeba, Stygamoeba, Plaesiobystra, Tulamoeba * The Heterolobosea, includes protists that can transform between amoeboid and flagellate forms. 
 Chromalveolate Heterokont: Hyalodiscus, LabyrinthulaAlveolata: Pfiesteria * Hyalodiscus and Pfiesteria are sometimes considered to have amoeboid characteristics. 
 Nucleariid Micronuclearia, Nuclearia * Nucleariids appear to be close relatives of animals and fungi. 
 Ungrouped/unknown Adelphamoeba, Astramoeba, Cashia, Dinamoeba, Flagellipodium, Flamella, Gibbodiscus, Gocevia, Hollandella, Iodamoeba, Malamoeba, Nollandia, Oscillosignum, Paragocevia, Parvamoeba, Pernina, Pontifex, Protonaegleria, Pseudomastigamoeba, Rugipes, Striamoeba, Striolatus, Subulamoeba, Theratromyxa, Trienamoeba, Trimastigamoeba, Vampyrellium 

==Pathogenic interactions with other organisms==
Some amoeboids can infect other organisms pathogenically (causing disease):

*Entamoeba histolytica is the cause of amoebiasis, or amoebic dysentery.
*Naegleria fowleri (the "brain-eating amoeba") is a fresh-water-native species that can be fatal to humans if introduced through the nose.
*Acanthamoeba can cause amoebic keratitis and encephalitis in humans.
*Balamuthia mandrillaris is the cause of (often fatal) granulomatous amoebic meningoencephalitis

== References ==

== External links ==
* The Amoebae website brings together information from published sources.
* Amoebas are more than just blobs
* Sun Animacules and Amoebas
*Molecular Expressions Digital Video Gallery: Pond Life - Amoeba (Protozoa) Some good, informative Amoeba videos.
* Amoebae: Protists Which Move and Feed Using Pseudopodia at the Tree of Life web project
* Microworld: world of amoeboid organisms - Arcella.nl 

 


[[ASCII]]

A chart of ASCII from a 1972 printer manual

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII ) is a character-encoding scheme originally based on the English alphabet that encodes 128 specified characters - the numbers 0-9, the letters a-z and A-Z, some basic punctuation symbols, some control codes that originated with Teletype machines, and a blank space - into the 7-bit binary integers. 

ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text. Most modern character-encoding schemes are based on ASCII, though they support many additional characters.

ASCII developed from telegraphic codes. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services. Work on the ASCII standard began on October 6, 1960, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association's (ASA) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published during 1963, a major revision during 1967, and the most recent update during 1986. Compared to earlier telegraph codes, the proposed Bell code and ASCII were both ordered for more convenient sorting (i.e., alphabetization) of lists, and added features for devices other than teleprinters.

ASCII includes definitions for 128 characters: 33 are non-printing control characters (many now obsolete) that affect how text and space are processed International Organization for Standardization (December 1, 1975). "The set of control characters for ISO 646". Internet Assigned Numbers Authority Registry. Alternate U.S. version: . Accessed 2008-04-14. and 95 printable characters, including the space (which is considered an invisible graphic "RFC 20: ASCII format for Network Interchange", ANSI X3.4-1968, October 16, 1969. Mackenzie 1980, p. 223. ).

The IANA prefers the name US-ASCII. ASCII was
the most commonly used character encoding on the World Wide Web until December 2007, when it was surpassed by UTF-8, which includes ASCII as a subset.

==History==
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) was developed under the auspices of a committee of the American Standards Association, called the X3 committee, by its X3.2 (later X3L2) subcommittee, and later by that subcommittee's X3.2.4 working group. The ASA became the United States of America Standards Institute or USASI Mackenzie 1980, p. 211. and ultimately the American National Standards Institute.

The X3.2 subcommittee designed ASCII based on the earlier teleprinter encoding systems. Like other character encodings, ASCII specifies a correspondence between digital bit patterns and character symbols (i.e. graphemes and control characters). This allows digital devices to communicate with each other and to process, store, and communicate character-oriented information such as written language. Before ASCII was developed, the encodings in use included 26 alphabetic characters, 10 numerical digits, and from 11 to 25 special graphic symbols.
To include all these, and control characters compatible with the Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique (CCITT) International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2) standard, Fieldata, and early EBCDIC, more than 64 codes were required for ASCII.

The committee debated the possibility of a shift key function (like the Baudot code), which would allow more than 64 codes to be represented by six bits. In a shifted code, some character codes determine choices between options for the following character codes.
It allows compact encoding, but is less reliable for data transmission; an error in transmitting the shift code typically makes a long part of the transmission unreadable. The standards committee decided against shifting, and so ASCII required at least a seven-bit code. Mackenzie 1980, p. 215, Decision 4. 

The committee considered an eight-bit code, since eight bits (octets) would allow two four-bit patterns to efficiently encode two digits with binary coded decimal. However, it would require all data transmission to send eight bits when seven could suffice. The committee voted to use a seven-bit code to minimize costs associated with data transmission. Since perforated tape at the time could record eight bits in one position, it also allowed for a parity bit for error checking if desired. Mackenzie 1980, p. 217, Decision 5. Eight-bit machines (with octets as the native data type) that did not use parity checking typically set the eighth bit to 0. 

The code itself was patterned so that most control codes were together, and all graphic codes were together, for ease of identification. The first two columns (32 positions) were reserved for control characters. Mackenzie 1980, p. 220, Decisions 8,9. The "space" character had to come before graphics to make sorting easier, so it became position 20hex; Mackenzie 1980, p. 237, Decision 10. for the same reason, many special signs commonly used as separators were placed before digits. The committee decided it was important to support upper case 64-character alphabets, and chose to pattern ASCII so it could be reduced easily to a usable 64-character set of graphic codes. Mackenzie 1980, p. 228, Decision 14. Lower case letters were therefore not interleaved with upper case. To keep options available for lower case letters and other graphics, the special and numeric codes were arranged before the letters, and the letter "A" was placed in position 41hex to match the draft of the corresponding British standard. Mackenzie 1980, p. 238, Decision 18. The digits 0–9 were arranged so they correspond to values in binary prefixed with 011, making conversion with binary-coded decimal straightforward.

Many of the non-alphanumeric characters were positioned to correspond to their shifted position on typewriters. Thus #, $ and % were placed to correspond to 3, 4, and 5 in the adjacent column. The parentheses could not correspond to 9 and 0, however, because the place corresponding to 0 was taken by the space character. Since many European typewriters placed the parentheses with 8 and 9, those corresponding positions were chosen for the parentheses. The @ symbol was not used in continental Europe and the committee expected it would be replaced by an accented À in the French variation, so the @ was placed in position 40hex, right before the letter A. Mackenzie 1980, p. 243. 

The control codes felt essential for data transmission were the start of message (SOM), end of address (EOA), end of message (EOM), end of transmission (EOT), "who are you?" (WRU), "are you?" (RU), a reserved device control (DC0), synchronous idle (SYNC), and acknowledge (ACK). These were positioned to maximize the Hamming distance between their bit patterns. Mackenzie 1980, pp. 243-245. 

With the other special characters and control codes filled in, ASCII was published as ASA X3.4-1963, leaving 28 code positions without any assigned meaning, reserved for future standardization, and one unassigned control code. Mackenzie 1980, pp. 66, 245. There was some debate at the time whether there should be more control characters rather than the lower case alphabet. Mackenzie 1980, p. 435. The indecision did not last long: during May 1963 the CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet proposed to assign lower case characters to columns 6 and 7, Brief Report: Meeting of CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet, May 13–15, 1963. and International Organization for Standardization TC 97 SC 2 voted during October to incorporate the change into its draft standard. Report of ISO/TC/97/SC 2 – Meeting of October 29–31, 1963. The X3.2.4 task group voted its approval for the change to ASCII at its May 1963 meeting. Report on Task Group X3.2.4, June 11, 1963, Pentagon Building, Washington, DC. Locating the lowercase letters in columns 6 and 7 caused the characters to differ in bit pattern from the upper case by a single bit, which simplified case-insensitive character matching and the construction of keyboards and printers.

The X3 committee made other changes, including other new characters (the brace and vertical bar characters), Report of Meeting No. 8, Task Group X3.2.4, December 17 and 18, 1963 renaming some control characters (SOM became start of header (SOH)) and moving or removing others (RU was removed). Mackenzie 1980, p. 247–248. ASCII was subsequently updated as USASI X3.4-1967, then USASI X3.4-1968, ANSI X3.4-1977, and finally, ANSI X3.4-1986 (the first two are occasionally retronamed ANSI X3.4-1967, and ANSI X3.4-1968).

The X3 committee also addressed how ASCII should be transmitted (least significant bit first), and how it should be recorded on perforated tape. They proposed a 9-track standard for magnetic tape, and attempted to deal with some forms of punched card formats.

ASCII itself was first used commercially during 1963 as a seven-bit teleprinter code for American Telephone & Telegraph's TWX (TeletypeWriter eXchange) network. TWX originally used the earlier five-bit Baudot code, which was also used by the competing Telex teleprinter system. Bob Bemer introduced features such as the escape sequence. His British colleague Hugh McGregor Ross helped to popularize this work—according to Bemer, "so much so that the code that was to become ASCII was first called the Bemer-Ross Code in Europe". Bob Bemer (n.d.). Bemer meets Europe. Trailing-edge.com. Accessed 2008-04-14. Employed at IBM at that time Because of his extensive work on ASCII, Bemer has been called "the father of ASCII." 

On March 11, 1968, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandated that all computers purchased by the United States federal government support ASCII, stating: Lyndon B. Johnson (March 11, 1968). Memorandum Approving the Adoption by the Federal Government of a Standard Code for Information Interchange. The American Presidency Project. Accessed 2008-04-14. 

I have also approved recommendations of the Secretary of Commerce regarding standards for recording the Standard Code for Information Interchange on magnetic tapes and paper tapes when they are used in computer operations.
All computers and related equipment configurations brought into the Federal Government inventory on and after July 1, 1969, must have the capability to use the Standard Code for Information Interchange and the formats prescribed by the magnetic tape and paper tape standards when these media are used.

Other international standards bodies have ratified character encodings such as ISO/IEC 646 that are identical or nearly identical to ASCII, with extensions for characters outside the English alphabet and symbols used outside the United States, such as the symbol for the United Kingdom's pound sterling (£). Almost every country needed an adapted version of ASCII, since ASCII suited the needs of only the USA and a few other countries. For example, Canada had its own version that supported French characters. Other adapted encodings include ISCII (India), VISCII (Vietnam), and YUSCII (Yugoslavia). Although these encodings are sometimes referred to as ASCII, true ASCII is defined strictly only by the ANSI standard.

ASCII was incorporated into the Unicode character set as the first 128 symbols, so the 7-bit ASCII characters have the same numeric codes in both sets. This allows UTF-8 to be backward compatible with 7-bit ASCII, as a UTF-8 file containing only ASCII characters is identical to an ASCII file containing the same sequence of characters. Even more importantly, forward compatibility is ensured as software that recognizes only 7-bit ASCII characters as special and does not alter bytes with the highest bit set (as is often done to support 8-bit ASCII extensions such as ISO-8859-1) will preserve UTF-8 data unchanged. 

==ASCII control characters==

ASCII reserves the first 32 codes (numbers 0–31 decimal) for control characters: codes originally intended not to represent printable information, but rather to control devices (such as printers) that make use of ASCII, or to provide meta-information about data streams such as those stored on magnetic tape.

For example, character 10 represents the "line feed" function (which causes a printer to advance its paper), and character 8 represents "backspace". RFC 2822 refers to control characters that do not include carriage return, line feed or white space as non-whitespace control characters. RFC 2822 (April 2001). "NO-WS-CTL". Except for the control characters that prescribe elementary line-oriented formatting, ASCII does not define any mechanism for describing the structure or appearance of text within a document. Other schemes, such as markup languages, address page and document layout and formatting.

The original ASCII standard used only short descriptive phrases for each control character. The ambiguity this caused was sometimes intentional, for example where a character would be used slightly differently on a terminal link than on a data stream, and sometimes accidental, for example with the meaning of "delete".

Probably the most influential single device on the interpretation of these characters was the Teletype Model 33 ASR, which was a printing terminal with an available paper tape reader/punch option. Paper tape was a very popular medium for long-term program storage until the 1980s, less costly and in some ways less fragile than magnetic tape. In particular, the Teletype Model 33 machine assignments for codes 17 (Control-Q, DC1, also known as XON), 19 (Control-S, DC3, also known as XOFF), and 127 (Delete) became de facto standards. The Model 33 was also notable for taking the description of Control-G (BEL, meaning audibly alert the operator) literally; the unit contained an actual bell which it rang when it received a BEL character. Because the keytop for the O key also showed a left-arrow symbol (from ASCII-1963, which had this character instead of underscore), a noncompliant use of code 15 (Control-O, Shift In) interpreted as "delete previous character" was also adopted by many early timesharing systems but eventually became neglected.

When a Teletype 33 ASR equipped with the automatic paper tape reader received a Control-S (XOFF, an abbreviation for transmit off), it caused the tape reader to stop; receiving Control-Q (XON, "transmit on") caused the tape reader to resume. This technique became adopted by several early computer operating systems as a "handshaking" signal warning a sender to stop transmission because of impending overflow; it persists to this day in many systems as a manual output control technique. On some systems Control-S retains its meaning but Control-Q is replaced by a second Control-S to resume output. The 33 ASR also could be configured to employ Control-R (DC2) and Control-T (DC4) to start and stop the tape punch; on some units equipped with this function, the corresponding control character lettering on the keycap above the letter was TAPE and TAPE respectively. 

Code 127 is officially named "delete" but the Teletype label was "rubout". Since the original standard did not give detailed interpretation for most control codes, interpretations of this code varied. The original Teletype meaning, and the intent of the standard, was to make it an ignored character, the same as NUL (all zeroes). This was useful specifically for paper tape, because punching the all-ones bit pattern on top of an existing mark would obliterate it. Tapes designed to be "hand edited" could even be produced with spaces of extra NULs (blank tape) so that a block of characters could be "rubbed out" and then replacements put into the empty space.

As video terminals began to replace printing ones, the value of the "rubout" character was lost. DEC systems, for example, interpreted "Delete" to mean "remove the character before the cursor" and this interpretation also became common in Unix systems. Most other systems used "Backspace" for that meaning and used "Delete" to mean "remove the character at the cursor". That latter interpretation is the most common now.

Many more of the control codes have been given meanings quite different from their original ones. The "escape" character (ESC, code 27), for example, was intended originally to allow sending other control characters as literals instead of invoking their meaning. This is the same meaning of "escape" encountered in URL encodings, C language strings, and other systems where certain characters have a reserved meaning. Over time this meaning has been co-opted and has eventually been changed. In modern use, an ESC sent to the terminal usually indicates the start of a command sequence, usually in the form of a so-called "ANSI escape code" (or, more properly, a "Control Sequence Introducer") beginning with ESC followed by a "[" (left-bracket) character. An ESC sent from the terminal is most often used as an out-of-band character used to terminate an operation, as in the TECO and vi text editors. In graphical user interface (GUI) and windowing systems, ESC generally causes an application to abort its current operation or to exit (terminate) altogether.

The inherent ambiguity of many control characters, combined with their historical usage, created problems when transferring "plain text" files between systems. The best example of this is the newline problem on various operating systems. Teletype machines required that a line of text be terminated with both "Carriage Return" (which moves the printhead to the beginning of the line) and "Line Feed" (which advances the paper one line without moving the printhead). The name "Carriage Return" comes from the fact that on a manual typewriter the carriage holding the paper moved while the position where the typebars struck the ribbon remained stationary. The entire carriage had to be pushed (returned) to the right in order to position the left margin of the paper for the next line.

DEC operating systems (OS/8, RT-11, RSX-11, RSTS, TOPS-10, etc.) used both characters to mark the end of a line so that the console device (originally Teletype machines) would work. By the time so-called "glass TTYs" (later called CRTs or terminals) came along, the convention was so well established that backward compatibility necessitated continuing the convention. When Gary Kildall cloned RT-11 to create CP/M he followed established DEC convention. Until the introduction of PC DOS in 1981, IBM had no hand in this because their 1970s operating systems used EBCDIC instead of ASCII and they were oriented toward punch-card input and line printer output on which the concept of "carriage return" was meaningless. IBM's PC DOS (also marketed as MS-DOS by Microsoft) inherited the convention by virtue of being a clone of CP/M, and Windows inherited it from MS-DOS.

Unfortunately, requiring two characters to mark the end of a line introduces unnecessary complexity and questions as to how to interpret each character when encountered alone. To simplify matters plain text data streams, including files, on Multics used line feed (LF) alone as a line terminator. Unix and Unix-like systems, and Amiga systems, adopted this convention from Multics. The original Macintosh OS, Apple DOS, and ProDOS, on the other hand, used carriage return (CR) alone as a line terminator; however, since Apple replaced it with the Unix-based OS X operating system, they now use line feed (LF) as well.

Computers attached to the ARPANET included machines running operating systems such as TOPS-10 and TENEX using CR-LF line endings, machines running operating systems such as Multics using LF line endings, and machines running operating systems such as OS/360 that represented lines as a character count followed by the characters of the line and that used EBCDIC rather than ASCII. The Telnet protocol defined an ASCII "Network Virtual Terminal" (NVT), so that connections between hosts with different line-ending conventions and character sets could be supported by transmitting a standard text format over the network; it used ASCII, along with CR-LF line endings, and software using other conventions would translate between the local conventions and the NVT. The File Transfer Protocol adopted the Telnet protocol, including use of the Network Virtual Terminal, for use when transmitting commands and transferring data in the default ASCII mode. This adds complexity to implementations of those protocols, and to other network protocols, such as those used for E-mail and the World Wide Web, on systems not using the NVT's CR-LF line-ending convention. EOL translation plan for Mercurial 

Older operating systems such as TOPS-10, along with CP/M, tracked file length only in units of disk blocks and used Control-Z (SUB) to mark the end of the actual text in the file. For this reason, EOF, or end-of-file, was used colloquially and conventionally as a three-letter acronym (TLA) for Control-Z instead of SUBstitute. For a variety of reasons, the end-of-text code, ETX aka Control-C, was inappropriate and using Z as the control code to end a file is analogous to it ending the alphabet, a very convenient mnemonic aid. An historic common, and still prevalent, convention uses the ETX aka Control-C code convention to interrupt and halt a program via an input data stream, usually from a keyboard.

In C library and Unix conventions, the null character is used to terminate text strings; such null-terminated strings can be known in abbreviation as ASCIZ or ASCIIZ, where here Z stands for "zero".

===ASCII control code chart===

 Binary Oct Dec Hex Abbr The Unicode characters from the area U+2400 to U+2421 reserved for representing control characters when it is necessary to print or display them rather than have them perform their intended function. Some browsers may not display these properly. Caret notation often used to represent control characters on a terminal. On most text terminals, holding down the key while typing the second character will type the control character. Sometimes the shift key is not needed, for instance ^@ may be typable with just Ctrl and 2. Character Escape Codes in C programming language and many other languages influenced by it, such as Java and Perl (though not all implementations necessarily support all escape codes). Name 
 000 0000 000 0 00 NUL ␀ ^@ \0 Null character 
 000 0001 001 1 01 SOH ␁ ^A Start of Header 
 000 0010 002 2 02 STX ␂ ^B Start of Text 
 000 0011 003 3 03 ETX ␃ ^C End of Text 
 000 0100 004 4 04 EOT ␄ ^D End of Transmission 
 000 0101 005 5 05 ENQ ␅ ^E Enquiry 
 000 0110 006 6 06 ACK ␆ ^F Acknowledgment 
 000 0111 007 7 07 BEL ␇ ^G \a Bell 
 000 1000 010 8 08 BS ␈ ^H \b Backspace The Backspace character can also be entered by pressing the key on some systems. 
 000 1001 011 9 09 HT ␉ ^I \t Horizontal Tab The Tab character can also be entered by pressing the key on most systems. 
 000 1010 012 10 0A LF ␊ ^J \n Line feed 
 000 1011 013 11 0B VT ␋ ^K \v Vertical Tab 
 000 1100 014 12 0C FF ␌ ^L \f Form feed 
 000 1101 015 13 0D CR ␍ ^M \r Carriage return The Carriage Return character can also be entered by pressing the or key on most systems. 
 000 1110 016 14 0E SO ␎ ^N Shift Out 
 000 1111 017 15 0F SI ␏ ^O Shift In 
 001 0000 020 16 10 DLE ␐ ^P Data Link Escape 
 001 0001 021 17 11 DC1 ␑ ^Q Device Control 1 (oft. XON) 
 001 0010 022 18 12 DC2 ␒ ^R Device Control 2 
 001 0011 023 19 13 DC3 ␓ ^S Device Control 3 (oft. XOFF) 
 001 0100 024 20 14 DC4 ␔ ^T Device Control 4 
 001 0101 025 21 15 NAK ␕ ^U Negative Acknowledgment 
 001 0110 026 22 16 SYN ␖ ^V Synchronous idle 
 001 0111 027 23 17 ETB ␗ ^W End of Transmission Block 
 001 1000 030 24 18 CAN ␘ ^X Cancel 
 001 1001 031 25 19 EM ␙ ^Y End of Medium 
 001 1010 032 26 1A SUB ␚ ^Z Substitute 
 001 1011 033 27 1B ESC ␛ ^[ \e The '\e' escape sequence is not part of ISO C and many other language specifications. However, it is understood by several compilers, including GCC. Escape The Escape character can also be entered by pressing the key on some systems. 
 001 1100 034 28 1C FS ␜ ^\ File Separator 
 001 1101 035 29 1D GS ␝ ^] Group Separator 
 001 1110 036 30 1E RS ␞ ^^ ^^ means (pressing the \"Ctrl\" and caret keys). Record Separator 
 001 1111 037 31 1F US ␟ ^_ Unit Separator 
 
 111 1111 177 127 7F DEL ␡ ^? Delete The Delete character can sometimes be entered by pressing the key on some systems. The ambiguity of Backspace is due to early terminals designed assuming the main use of the keyboard would be to manually punch paper tape while not connected to a computer. To delete the previous character, one had to back up the paper tape punch, which for mechanical and simplicity reasons was a button on the punch itself and not the keyboard, then type the rubout character. They therefore placed a key producing rubout at the location used on typewriters for backspace. When systems used these terminals and provided command-line editing, they had to use the \"rubout\" code to perform a backspace, and often did not interpret the backspace character (they might echo \"^H\" for backspace). Other terminals not designed for paper tape made the key at this location produce Backspace, and systems designed for these used that character to back up. Since the delete code often produced a backspace effect, this also forced terminal manufacturers to make any key produce something other than the Delete character. 

Other representations might be used by specialist equipment, for example ISO 2047 graphics or hexadecimal numbers.

==ASCII printable characters==

Codes 20hex to 7Ehex, known as the printable characters, represent letters, digits, punctuation marks, and a few miscellaneous symbols. There are 95 printable characters in total.

Code 20hex, the space character, denotes the space between words, as produced by the space-bar of a keyboard. Since the space character is considered an invisible graphic (rather than a control character) and thus would not normally be visible, it is represented here by Unicode character U+2420 "␠"; Unicode characters U+2422 "␢" and U+2423 "␣" are also available for use when a visible representation of a space is necessary.

Code 7Fhex corresponds to the non-printable "Delete" (DEL) control character and is therefore omitted from this chart; it is covered in the previous section's chart. Earlier versions of ASCII used the up-arrow instead of the caret (5Ehex) and the left-arrow instead of the underscore (5Fhex). ASA X3.4-1963. 

===ASCII printable code chart===

 Binary Oct Dec Hex Glyph 010 0000 040 32 20 010 0001 041 33 21 ! 010 0010 042 34 22 \\" 010 0011 043 35 23 # 010 0100 044 36 24 $ 010 0101 045 37 25 % 010 0110 046 38 26 & 010 0111 047 39 27 ' 010 1000 050 40 28 ( 010 1001 051 41 29 ) 010 1010 052 42 2A * 010 1011 053 43 2B + 010 1100 054 44 2C , 010 1101 055 45 2D - 010 1110 056 46 2E . 010 1111 057 47 2F / 011 0000 060 48 30 0 011 0001 061 49 31 1 011 0010 062 50 32 2 011 0011 063 51 33 3 011 0100 064 52 34 4 011 0101 065 53 35 5 011 0110 066 54 36 6 011 0111 067 55 37 7 011 1000 070 56 38 8 011 1001 071 57 39 9 011 1010 072 58 3A :] 011 1011 073 59 3B ; 011 1100 074 60 3C ] 011 1111 077 63 3F ? Binary Oct Dec Hex Glyph 100 0000 100 64 40 @ 100 0001 101 65 41 A 100 0010 102 66 42 B 100 0011 103 67 43 C 100 0100 104 68 44 D 100 0101 105 69 45 E 100 0110 106 70 46 F 100 0111 107 71 47 G 100 1000 110 72 48 H 100 1001 111 73 49 I 100 1010 112 74 4A J 100 1011 113 75 4B K 100 1100 114 76 4C L 100 1101 115 77 4D M 100 1110 116 78 4E N 100 1111 117 79 4F O 101 0000 120 80 50 P 101 0001 121 81 51 Q 101 0010 122 82 52 R 101 0011 123 83 53 S 101 0100 124 84 54 T 101 0101 125 85 55 U 101 0110 126 86 56 V 101 0111 127 87 57 W 101 1000 130 88 58 X 101 1001 131 89 59 Y 101 1010 132 90 5A Z 101 1011 133 91 5B [ 101 1100 134 92 5C \ 101 1101 135 93 5D ] 101 1110 136 94 5E ^ 101 1111 137 95 5F _ Binary Oct Dec Hex Glyph 110 0000 140 96 60 ` 110 0001 141 97 61 a 110 0010 142 98 62 b 110 0011 143 99 63 c 110 0100 144 100 64 d 110 0101 145 101 65 e 110 0110 146 102 66 f 110 0111 147 103 67 g 110 1000 150 104 68 h 110 1001 151 105 69 i 110 1010 152 106 6A j 110 1011 153 107 6B k 110 1100 154 108 6C l 110 1101 155 109 6D m 110 1110 156 110 6E n 110 1111 157 111 6F o 111 0000 160 112 70 p 111 0001 161 113 71 q 111 0010 162 114 72 r 111 0011 163 115 73 s 111 0100 164 116 74 t 111 0101 165 117 75 u 111 0110 166 118 76 v 111 0111 167 119 77 w 111 1000 170 120 78 x 111 1001 171 121 79 y 111 1010 172 122 7A z 111 1011 173 123 7B { 111 1100 174 124 7C &#124; 111 1101 175 125 7D } 111 1110 176 126 7E ~ 

==Aliases==
A June 1992 RFC RFC 1345 (June 1992). and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority registry of character sets recognize the following case-insensitive aliases for ASCII as suitable for use on the Internet:

* ANSI_X3.4-1968 (canonical name)
* iso-ir-6
* ANSI_X3.4-1986
* ISO_646.irv:1991
* ASCII
* ISO646-US
* US-ASCII (preferred MIME name) Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (May 14, 2007). "Character Sets". Accessed 2008-04-14. 
* us
* IBM367
* cp367
* csASCII

Of these, the IANA encourages use of the name "US-ASCII" for Internet uses of ASCII (even if it is a redundant acronym, but the US is needed because of abuse of the ASCII term). One often finds this in the optional "charset" parameter in the Content-Type header of some MIME messages, in the equivalent "meta" element of some HTML documents, and in the encoding declaration part of the prologue of some XML documents.

==Variants==
As computer technology spread throughout the world, different standards bodies and corporations developed many variations of ASCII to facilitate the expression of non-English languages that used Roman-based alphabets. One could class some of these variations as "ASCII extensions", although some misuse that term to represent all variants, including those that do not preserve ASCII's character-map in the 7-bit range. Furthermore the ASCII extensions have also been mislabelled as ASCII.

Every language apart from English uses letters outside the A&ndash;Z range, so most countries needed variants, including United Kingdom which needed the £-sign, and Canada which needed support for French.

The PETSCII code Commodore International used for their 8-bit systems is probably unique among post-1970 codes in being based on ASCII-1963, instead of the more common ASCII-1967, such as found on the ZX Spectrum computer. Atari 8-bit computers and Galaksija computers also used ASCII variants.

===7-bit===
From early in its development, "Specific Criteria," attachment to memo from R. W. Reach, "X3-2 Meeting – September 14 and 15," September 18, 1961 ASCII was intended to be just one of several national variants of an international character code standard, ultimately published as ISO/IEC 646 (1972), which would share most characters in common but assign other locally useful characters to several code points reserved for "national use." However, the four years that elapsed between the publication of ASCII-1963 and ISO's first acceptance of an international recommendation during 1967 R. Maréchal, ISO/TC 97 – Computers and Information Processing: Acceptance of Draft ISO Recommendation No. 1052, December 22, 1967 caused ASCII's choices for the national use characters to seem to be de facto standards for the world, causing confusion and incompatibility once other countries did begin to make their own assignments to these code points.

ISO/IEC 646, like ASCII, was a 7-bit character set. It did not make any additional codes available, so the same code points encoded different characters in different countries. Escape codes were defined to indicate which national variant applied to a piece of text, but they were rarely used, so it was often impossible to know what variant to work with and therefore which character a code represented, and in general text-processing systems could cope with only one variant anyway.

Because the bracket and brace characters of ASCII were assigned to "national use" code points that were used for accented letters in other national variants of ISO/IEC 646, a German, French, or Swedish, etc. programmer using their national variant of ISO/IEC 646, rather than ASCII, had to write, and thus read, something such as
:ä aÄiÜ='Ön'; ü
instead of
:{ a[i]='\n'; }
C trigraphs were created to solve this problem for ANSI C, although their late introduction and inconsistent implementation in compilers limited their use. Many programmers kept their computers on US-ASCII, so plain-text in Swedish, German etc. (for example, in e-mail or Usenet) contained "{, }" and similar variants in the middle of words, something those programmers got used to.

===8-bit===
Eventually, as 8-, 16- and 32-bit (and later 64-bit) computers began to replace 18- and 36-bit computers as the norm, it became common to use an 8-bit byte to store each character in memory, providing an opportunity for extended, 8-bit, relatives of ASCII. In most cases these developed as true extensions of ASCII, leaving the original character-mapping intact, but adding additional character definitions after the first 128 (i.e., 7-bit) characters.

Most early home computer systems developed their own 8-bit character sets containing line-drawing and game glyphs, and often filled in some or all of the control characters from 0-31 with more graphics. The IBM PC defined code page 437, which replaced the control-characters with graphic symbols such as smiley faces, and mapped additional graphic characters to the upper 128 positions. Operating systems such as DOS supported these code-pages, and manufacturers of IBM PCs supported them in hardware. Digital Equipment Corporation developed the Multinational Character Set (DEC-MCS) for use in the popular VT220 terminal, this was one of the first extensions designed more for international languages than for block graphics. The Macintosh defined Mac OS Roman and Postscript also defined a set, both of these contained both international letters and typographic punctuation marks instead of graphics, more like modern character sets. The ISO/IEC 8859 standard (derived from the DEC-MCS) finally provided a standard that most systems copied (at least as accurately as they copied ASCII, but with many substitutions). A popular further extension designed by Microsoft, Windows-1252 (often mislabeled as ISO-8859-1), added the typographic punctuation marks needed for traditional text printing.

ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252, and the original 7-bit ASCII were the most common character encodings until 2008 when UTF-8 became more common. 

===Unicode===
Unicode and the ISO/IEC 10646 Universal Character Set (UCS) have a much wider array of characters, and their various encoding forms have begun to supplant ISO/IEC 8859 and ASCII rapidly in many environments. While ASCII is limited to 128 characters, Unicode and the UCS support more characters by separating the concepts of unique identification (using natural numbers called code points) and encoding (to 8-, 16- or 32-bit binary formats, called UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32).

To allow backward compatibility, the 128 ASCII and 256 ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) characters are assigned Unicode/UCS code points that are the same as their codes in the earlier standards. Therefore, ASCII can be considered a 7-bit encoding scheme for a very small subset of Unicode/UCS, and ASCII (when prefixed with 0 as the eighth bit) is valid UTF-8.

==Order==
ASCII-code order is also called ASCIIbetical order. 
Collation of data is sometimes done in this order rather than "standard" alphabetical order (collating sequence). The main deviations in ASCII order are:

* All uppercase come before lowercase letters, for example, "Z" before "a"
* Digits and many punctuation marks come before letters; for example, "4" precedes "one"
* Numbers are sorted naïvely as strings; for example, "10" precedes "2"

An intermediate order—readily implemented—converts uppercase letters to lowercase before comparing ASCII values. Naïve number sorting can be averted by zero-filling all numbers (e.g. "02" will sort before "10" as expected), although this is an external fix and has nothing to do with the ordering itself.

==See also==
* 3568 ASCII, an asteroid named after the character encoding
* ASCII art
* ASCII Ribbon Campaign
* Extended ASCII
* HTML decimal character rendering

==References==
;Footnotes

;Bibliography
* 

==Further reading==

* 
* from:
** 
** 
* 
* 

==External links==

* The ASCII subset of Unicode
* 
* Scanned copy of American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASA standard X3.4-1963



[[Austin (disambiguation)]]

Austin is an English language contracted form of Augustine.
Austin may refer to:

==Geographical locations==

===In the United States===
*Austin, Arkansas
*Austin, Colorado
* Austin, Illinois:
** Austin Township, Macon County, Illinois
**Austin, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
*Austin, Indiana
*Austin, Kentucky
*Austin, Minnesota
*Austin, Nevada
*Austin, Oregon
*Austin, Texas, the capital of the U.S. state of Texas.
*Austin County, Texas (note that the city of Austin is located in Travis County)
*Austin, Washington

===In Canada===
*Austin, Manitoba
*Austin, Ontario
*Austin, Quebec
*Austin Island, Nunavut

===In Australia===
*Austin, Western Australia

==People==
*Austin (name)

==Schools==
*Austin College, Sherman, Texas
*University of Texas at Austin, flagship institution of the University of Texas System
*Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee

==Religion==
*Augustine of Hippo or Augustine of Canterbury
*An adjective for the Augustinians

==Business==
*Austin Automobile Company, short-lived American automobile company
*Austin (brand), a brand owned by the Kellogg Company
*Austin Motor Company, British car manufacturer
*American Austin Car Company, short-lived American automobile maker

==Entertainment==
*"Austin" (song), a single by Blake Shelton
*Austin, a kangaroo Beanie Baby produced by Ty, Inc.
*Austin the kangaroo from the children's television series The Backyardigans

==Other uses==
*USS Austin, three ships
*Austin Station (disambiguation), various public transportation stations

==See also==
*Austen (disambiguation)
*Augustine (disambiguation)
*All pages beginning with Austin



[[Animation]]

Animation is the process of creating a continuous motion and shape change illusion by means of the rapid display of a sequence of static images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion&mdash;as in motion pictures in general&mdash;is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon. Animators are artists who specialize in the creation of animation.

The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these six frames.

This animation moves at 10 frames per second.

Animations can be recorded on either analogue media, such as a flip book, motion picture film, video tape, or on digital media, including formats such as animated GIF, Flash animation or digital video. To display it, a digital camera, computer, or projector are used.

Animation creation methods include the traditional animation creation method and those involving stop motion animation of two and three-dimensional objects, such as paper cutouts, puppets and clay figures. Images are displayed in a rapid succession, usually 24, 25, 30, or 60 frames per second.

== Etymology ==
From Latin animātiō, "the act of bringing to life"; from animō ("to animate" or "give life to") and -ātiō ("the act of").

== History ==

A phenakistoscope disc by Eadweard Muybridge (1893)
Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion into a still drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are often depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.

Ancient Chinese records contain several mentions of devices that were said to "give an impression of movement" to human or animal figures, Needham, Joseph (1962). Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV, part 1: Physics and Physical Technology. Cambridge University Press. p. 123-124. but these accounts are unclear and may only refer to the actual movement of the figures through space. 

In the 19th century, the phenakistoscope (1832), zoetrope (1834) and praxinoscope (1877), as well as the common flip book, were early animation devices that produced an illusion of movement from a series of sequential drawings, but animation did not develop further until the advent of motion picture film and cinematography in the 1890s.

The cinématographe was a projector, printer, and camera in one machine that allowed moving pictures to be shown successfully on a screen which was invented by history's earliest film makers, Auguste and Louis Lumière, in 1894. The first animated projection (screening) was created in France, by Charles-Émile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1877 and the Théâtre Optique in December 1888. On 28 October 1892, he projected the first animation in public, Pauvre Pierrot, at the Musée Grévin in Paris. This film is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. His films were not photographed, but drawn directly onto the transparent strip. In 1900, more than 500,000 people had attended these screenings.

A projecting praxinoscope, 1882, here shown superimposing an animated figure on a separately projected background scene

The first film that was recorded on standard picture film and included animated sequences was the 1900 Enchanted Drawing, which was followed by the first entirely animated film - the 1906 Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J. Stuart Blackton, who, because of that, is considered the father of American animation.

The first animated film created by using what came to be known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation - the 1908 Fantasmagorie by Émile Cohl

In Europe, the French artist, Émile Cohl, created the first animated film using what came to be known as traditional animation creation methods - the 1908 Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action in which the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look.

The author of the first puppet-animated film (The Beautiful Lukanida (1912)) was the Russian-born (ethnically Polish) director Wladyslaw Starewicz, known as Ladislas Starevich.

The more detailed hand-drawn animations, requiring a team of animators drawing each frame manually with detailed backgrounds and characters, were those directed by Winsor McCay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, including the 1911 Little Nemo, the 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur, and the 1918 The Sinking of the Lusitania.

During the 1910s, the production of animated short films, typically referred to as "cartoons", became an industry of its own and cartoon shorts were produced for showing in movie theaters. The most successful producer at the time was John Randolph Bray, who, along with animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process which dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade.

El Apóstol (Spanish: "The Apostle") was a 1917 Argentine animated film utilizing cutout animation, and the world's first animated feature film. "El Apóstol". www.bcdb.com, 4 May 2011 Unfortunately, a fire that destroyed producer Frederico Valle's film studio incinerated the only known copy of El Apóstol, and it is now considered a lost film.

Computer animation has become popular since Toy Story (1995), the first animated film completely made using this technique.

In 2008, the animation market was worth US$68.4 billion. 

== Techniques ==

=== Traditional animation ===

An example of traditional animation, a horse animated by rotoscoping from Eadweard Muybridge's 19th century photos
Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.

The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology.

Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and L'Illusionniste (British-French, 2010). Traditionally animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994), Akira (Japan, 1988), Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), Les Triplettes de Belleville (France, 2003), and The Secret of Kells (Irish-French-Belgian, 2009).

* Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement, having a smooth animation. Fully animated films can be made in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more 'cartoon' styles of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007).
* Limited animation involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement animation. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media such as television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons).
* Rotoscoping is a technique patented by Max Fleischer in 1917 where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are: Fire and Ice (US, 1983) and Heavy Metal (1981).
* Live-action/animation is a technique combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots. One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples include Who Framed Roger Rabbit (US, 1988), Space Jam (US, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (US, 2001).

=== Stop motion animation ===

Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation; however, traditional stop motion animation is usually less expensive and time-consuming to produce than current computer animation.

* Puppet animation typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting in a constructed environment, in contrast to real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as to constrain their motion to particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), The Nightmare Before Christmas (US, 1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Jiří Trnka and the TV series Robot Chicken (US, 2005–present).
** Puppetoon, created using techniques developed by George Pal, are puppet-animated films which typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet. Clay animation
* Clay animation, or Plasticine animation (often called claymation, which, however, is a trademarked name), uses figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside, similar to the related puppet animation (below), that can be manipulated to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, such as in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clay-animated works include The Gumby Show (US, 1957–1967) Morph shorts (UK, 1977–2000), Wallace and Gromit shorts (UK, as of 1989), Jan Švankmajer's Dimensions of Dialogue (Czechoslovakia, 1982), The Trap Door (UK, 1984). Films include , Chicken Run and The Adventures of Mark Twain.
* Cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving two-dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth. Examples include Terry Gilliam's animated sequences from Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK, 1969–1974); Fantastic Planet (France/Czechoslovakia, 1973) ; Tale of Tales (Russia, 1979), The pilot episode of the TV series (and sometimes in episodes) of South Park (US, 1997) and the music video Live for the moment, from Verona Riots band (produced by Alberto Serrano and Nívola Uyá, Spain 2014). A clay animation scene from a Finnish television commercial
** Silhouette animation is a variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes. Examples include The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Weimar Republic, 1926) and Princes et princesses (France, 2000).
* Model animation refers to stop-motion animation created to interact with and exist as a part of a live-action world. Intercutting, matte effects, and split screens are often employed to blend stop-motion characters or objects with live actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in films such Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and the work of Willis O'Brien on films such as King Kong (1933 film).
** Go motion is a variant of model animation that uses various techniques to create motion blur between frames of film, which is not present in traditional stop-motion. The technique was invented by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett to create special effects scenes for the film Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back|The Empire Strikes Back] (1980). Another example is the dragon named "Vermithrax" from Dragonslayer (1981 film).
* Object animation refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stop-motion animation, as opposed to specially created items.
** Graphic animation uses non-drawn flat visual graphic material (photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc.), which are sometimes manipulated frame-by-frame to create movement. At other times, the graphics remain stationary, while the stop-motion camera is moved to create on-screen action.
** Brickfilm A sub-genre of object animation involving using Lego or other similar brick toys to make an animation. These have had a recent boost in popularity with the advent of video sharing sites like YouTube and the availability of cheap cameras and animation software.
* Pixilation involves the use of live humans as stop motion characters. This allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other such effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb and Angry Kid shorts.

=== Computer animation ===

Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer. 2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.

==== 2D animation ====
Moving "W"

2D animation figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as interpolated morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping.
2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.

===== 2D Terms =====
* Final line advection animation, Disney’s Paperman animated short fuses CG and hand-drawn techniques a technique that gives the artists and animators a lot more influence and control over the final product as everything is done within the same department: In Paperman, we didn’t have a cloth department and we didn’t have a hair department. Here, folds in the fabric, hair silhouettes and the like come from of the committed design decision-making that comes with the 2D drawn process. Our animators can change things, actually erase away the CG underlayer if they want, and change the profile of the arm. And they can design all the fabric in that Milt Kahl kind-of way, if they want to. A Little More About Disney’s “Paperman” 

==== 3D animation ====

3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The animator starts by creating an external 3D mesh to manipulate. A mesh is a geometric configuration that gives the visual appearance of form to a 3D object or 3D environment. The mesh may have many vertices which are the geometric points which make up the mesh; it is given an internal digital skeletal structure called an armature that can be used to control the mesh with weights. This process is called rigging and can be programmed for movement with keyframes.

Other techniques can be applied, such as mathematical functions (e.g., gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, and effects such as fire and water simulations. These techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics.

===== 3D Terms =====
* Cel-shaded animation is used to mimic traditional animation using CG software. Shading looks stark, with less blending of colors. Examples include, Skyland (2007, France), Appleseed Ex Machina (2007, Japan), (2002, Japan)
* Machinima – Films created by screen capturing in video games and virtual worlds.
* Motion capture is used when live-action actors wear special suits that allow computers to copy their movements into CG characters. Examples include Polar Express (2004, US), Beowulf (2007, US), A Christmas Carol (2009, US), The Adventures of Tintin (2011, US)
* Photo-realistic animation is used primarily for animation that attempts to resemble real life, using advanced rendering that mimics in detail skin, plants, water, fire, clouds, etc. Examples include Up (2009, US), Kung-Fu Panda (2008, US), Ice Age (2002, US).

=== Mechanical animation ===
Audio-Animatronic version of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
* Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines which seem animate rather than robotic.
** Audio-Animatronics and Autonomatronics is a form of robotics animation, combined with 3-D animation, created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks move and make noise (generally a recorded speech or song), but are fixed to whatever supports them. They can sit and stand but cannot walk. An Audio-Animatron is different from an android-type robot in that it uses prerecorded movements and sounds, rather than responding to external stimuli. In 2009, Disney created an interactive version of the technology called Autonomatronics.
** Linear Animation Generator is a form of animation by using static picture frames installed in a tunnel or a shaft. The animation illusion is created by putting the viewer in a linear motion, parallel to the installed picture frames. The concept and the technical solution, were invented in 2007 by Mihai Girlovan in Romania.
* Chuckimation is a type of animation created by the makers of the cartoon Action League Now! in which characters/props are thrown, or chucked from off camera or wiggled around to simulate talking by unseen hands,
* Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance animation that involves the manipulation of puppets. It is very ancient, and is believed to have originated 3000 years BC. Puppetry takes many forms but they all share the process of animating inanimate performing objects. Puppetry is used in almost all human societies both as entertainment – in performance – and ceremonially in rituals and celebrations such as carnivals. Most puppetry involves storytelling.

Toy Story zoetrope at Disney California Adventure creates illusion of motion using figures, rather than static pictures.
* Zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words ζωή (zoē), meaning "alive, active", and τρόπος (tropos), meaning "turn", with "zoetrope" taken to mean "active turn" or "wheel of life".

=== Other animation styles, techniques and approaches ===
World of Color hydrotechnics at Disney California Adventure creates illusion of motion using 1200 fountains with high-definition projections on mist screens.
* Hydrotechnics: a technique that includes lights, water, fire, fog, and lasers, with high-definition projections on mist screens.
* Drawn on film animation: a technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, for example by Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage.
* Paint-on-glass animation: a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass, for example by Aleksandr Petrov.
* Erasure animation: a technique using traditional 2D media, photographed over time as the artist manipulates the image. For example, William Kentridge is famous for his charcoal erasure films, and Piotr Dumała for his auteur technique of animating scratches on plaster.
* Pinscreen animation: makes use of a screen filled with movable pins that can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel animation.
* Sand animation: sand is moved around on a back- or front-lighted piece of glass to create each frame for an animated film. This creates an interesting effect when animated because of the light contrast.
* Flip book: a flip book (sometimes, especially in British English, called a flick book) is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, but may appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custom-made flip books.
* Character animation
* Multi-sketching
* Special effects animation

==Awards==
As with any other form of media, animation too has instituted awards for excellence in the field. The original awards for animation were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for animated shorts from the year 1932, during the 5th Academy Awards function. The first winner of the Academy Award was the short Flowers and Trees, a production by Walt Disney Productions and United Artists. Flowers And Trees Ist Oscar Award Winner 3D Animation Movie | Free Maya Video Tutorials However, the Academy Award for a feature length animated motion picture was only instituted for the year 2001, and awarded during the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. It was won by the movie Shrek, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126029/awards Shrek (2001) - Awards produced by DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images. Since then, Disney/Pixar have produced the most movies either to win or be nominated for the award. The list of both awards can be obtained here:
*Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
*Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

Several other countries have instituted an award for best animated feature film as part of their national film awards: BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006), César Award for Best Animated Film (since 2011), Goya Award for Best Animated Film (since 1989), Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year (since 2007). Also since 2007, the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film has been awarded at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Since 2009, the European Film Awards have awarded the European Film Award for Best Animated Film.
 
The Annie Award is another award presented for excellence in the field of animation. Unlike the Academy Awards, the Annie Awards are only received for achievements in the field of animation and not for any other field of technical and artistic endeavor. They were re-organized in 1992 to create a new field for Best Animated feature. The 1990s winners were dominated by Walt Disney, however newer studios, led by Pixar & DreamWorks, have now begun to consistently vie for this award. The list of awardees is as follows: 
*Annie Award for Best Animated Feature

== See also ==

* 12 basic principles of animation
* Animation software
* Architectural animation
* Tradigital art
* Avar (animation variable)
* Computer generated imagery
* International Tournée of Animation
* List of motion picture topics
* Wire frame model
* Motion graphic design
* Model sheet

==Notes==

== References ==

== Further reading ==
* Anderson, Joseph and Barbara, "The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited", Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Spring 1993): 3-12
* Culhane, Shamus, Animation Script to Screen
* Laybourne, Kit, The Animation Book
* Musa, S; Ziatdinov, R; Griffiths, C. (2013). Introduction to computer animation and its possible educational applications. In M. Gallová, J. Gunčaga, Z. Chanasová, M.M. Chovancová (Eds.), New Challenges in Education. Retrospection of history of education to the future in the interdisciplinary dialogue among didactics of various school subjects (1st ed., pp. 177-205). Ružomberok, Slovakia: VERBUM – vydavateľstvo Katolíckej univerzity v Ružomberku.
* Ledoux, Trish, Ranney, Doug, & Patten, Fred (Ed.), Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide, Tiger Mountain Press 1997
* Lowe, Richard & Schnotz, Wolfgang (Eds) Learning with Animation. Research implications for design Cambridge University Press, 2008
* Masson, Terrence, CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference Unique and personal histories of early computer animation production, plus a comprehensive foundation of the industry for all reading levels. ISBN 978-0-9778710-0-1
* Serenko, Alexander, The development of an instrument to measure the degree of animation predisposition of agent users, Computers in Human Behavior Vol. 23, No. 1 (2007): 478-495.
* Thomas, Frank and Johnston, Ollie, , Abbeville 1981
* Walters, Faber and Helen (Ed.), Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940, HarperCollins Publishers, 2004
* Williams, Richard, The Animator's Survival Kit ISBN 978-0-571-20228-7
* Bob Godfrey and Anna Jackson, 'The Do-It-Yourself Film Animation Book' BBC Publications 1974 ISBN 978-0-563-10829-0 Now out of print but available s/hand through a range of sources such as Amazon Uk.
* Lawson, Tim and Alisa Persons. The Magic Behind the Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors. University Press of Mississippi. 2004. (A history of cartoon voice-overs and biographies and photographs of many prominent animation voice actors.)
* Ball, R., Beck, J., DeMott R., Deneroff, H., Gerstein, D., Gladstone, F., Knott, T., Leal, A., Maestri, G., Mallory, M., Mayerson, M., McCracken, H., McGuire, D., Nagel, J., Pattern, F., Pointer, R., Webb, P., Robinson, C., Ryan, W., Scott, K., Snyder, A. & Webb, G. (2004) Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel, the History of Cartoon, Anime & CGI. Fulhamm London.: Flame Tree Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84451-140-2
* Crafton, Donald (1982). Before Mickey. Cambridge, Massachusetts.: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-03083-0
* Solomon, Charles (1989). Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation. New York.: Random House, Inc. ISBN 978-0-394-54684-1

== External links ==

* 

* Experimental Animation Techniques
* The making of an 8-minute cartoon short
* "Animando", a 12-minute film demonstrating 10 different animation techniques (and teaching how to use them).

 



[[Apollo]]

Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: , Apollōn ( ); Doric: , Apellōn; Arcadocypriot: , Apeilōn; Aeolic: , Aploun; ) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.

As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musegetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the 3rd century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, Titan god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, Titan goddess of the moon. For the iconography of the Alexander–Helios type, see H. Hoffmann, 1963. "Helios", in Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 2, pp. 117–23; cf. Yalouris 1980, no. 42. In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the 1st century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161–215). Joseph Fontenrose, "Apollo and Sol in the Latin poets of the first century BC", Transactions of the American Philological Association 30 (1939), pp 439–55; "Apollo and the Sun-God in Ovid", American Journal of Philology 61 (1940) pp 429–44; and "Apollo and Sol in the Oaths of Aeneas and Latinus" Classical Philology 38.2 (April 1943), pp. 137–138. Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 3rd century CE.

==Etymology==
The name of Apollo is absent in the Linear B (Mycenean Greek) texts . The etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling Ἀπόλλων had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era, but the Doric form Apellon (), is more archaic, derived from an earlier . It cognates with the Doric month Apellaios (), and the offerings apellaia () at the initiation of the young men during the family-festival apellai (). "The young men became grown-up kouroi, and Apollon was the "megistos kouros" ( The Great Kouros) : Jane Ellen Harrison (2010): Themis: A study to the Social origins of Greek Religion Cambridge University Press. P.439-441 ISBN 1108009492 Visible Religion.Volume IV-V. Approaches to Iconology. Leiden,,E.J.Brill , 1985 p.143 
The words are derived from the Doric word apella (), which originally meant wall, fence for animals and later assembly within the limits of the square . The word usually appears in plural: Hesychius (apellai), (folds), ,(assemblies) , (elections): Nilsson, Vol I, p.556 spart.verb: ,(to assemble), and the festival (apellai), which surely belonged to Apollo. Nilsson, Vol I p.556 Apella () is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the Ecclesia () 

Several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollo's name with the Greek verb (apollymi), "to destroy". Plato in Cratylus connects the name with (apolysis), "redeem", with (apolousis), "purification", and with (aploun), "simple", The suggestion is repeated by Plutarch in Moralia in the sense of "unity". in particular in reference to the Thessalian form of the name, , and finally with (aeiballon), "ever-shooting". Hesychius connects the name Apollo with the Doric (apella), which means "assembly", so that Apollo would be the god of political life, and he also gives the explanation (sekos), "fold", in which case Apollo would be the god of flocks and herds. In the Ancient Macedonian language (pella) means stone, and some toponyms are derived from this word: (Pella:capital of Ancient Macedonia), (Pellene-Pallene).

A number of non-Greek etymologies have been suggested for the name, Martin Nilsson, Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion, vol. I (C.H. Beck) 1955:555-564. The form Apaliunas (d) is attested as a god of Wilusa, The reading of Apaliunas and the possible identification with Apollo is due to Emil Forrer (1931). It was doubted by Kretschmer, Glotta XXIV p.250.Martin Nilsson (1967) Vol I p.559 which is the city of Troy, in a treaty between Alaksandu of Wilusa and the Hittite great king Muwatalli II c. 1280 BCE. Alaksandu could be Paris-Alexander of Ilion, Latacz, Joachim, Troia und Homer: Der Weg zur Lösung eines alten Rätsels. (Munich) 2001:138. whose name is Greek. . The Hittite testimony reflects an early form , which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot with Doric . 

A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo "The One of Entrapment", perhaps in the sense of "Hunter". 

Among the proposed etymologies is the Hurrian and Hittite divinity, Aplu, who was widely invoked during the "plague years". Aplu, it is suggested, comes from the Akkadian Aplu Enlil, meaning "the son of Enlil", a title that was given to the god Nergal, who was linked to Shamash, Babylonian god of the sun. de Grummond, Nancy Thomson (2006) Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology); Mackenzie, Donald A. (2005) Myths of Babylonia and Assyria (Gutenberg) 

===Greco-Roman epithets===
Apollo, like other Greek deities, had a number of epithets applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a great number of appellations in Greek myth, only a few occur in Latin literature, chief among them Phoebus ( ; , Phoibos, literally "radiant"), which was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans in Apollo's role as the god of light.

As sun-god and god of light, Apollo was also known by the epithets Aegletes ( ; Αἰγλήτης, Aiglētēs, from , "light of the sun"), Apollonius of Rhodes, iv. 1730; Pseudo-Apollodorus, Biblioteca, i. 9. § 26 Helius ( ; , Helios, literally "sun"), Phanaeus ( ; , Phanaios, literally "giving or bringing light"), and Lyceus ( ; , Lykeios, from Proto-Greek *, "light"). The meaning of the epithet "Lyceus" later became associated Apollo's mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia () and who was identified with the wolf (), Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 4. 4 (A.F. Scholfield, tr.). earning him the epithets Lycegenes ( ; , Lukēgenēs, literally "born of a wolf" or "born of Lycia") and Lycoctonus ( ; , Lykoktonos, from , "wolf", and , "to kill"). As god of the sun, the Romans referred to Apollo as Sol ( ; literally "sun" in Latin).

In association with his birthplace, Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos, Apollo was called Cynthius ( ; , Kunthios, literally "Cynthian"), Cynthogenes ( ; , Kynthogenēs, literally "born of Cynthus"), and Delius ( ; Δήλιος, Delios, literally "Delian"). As Artemis's twin, Apollo had the epithet Didymaeus ( ; , Didymaios, from δίδυμος, "twin").

Partial view of the temple of Apollo Epikurios (healer) at Bassae in southern Greece

Apollo was worshipped as Actiacus ( ; , Aktiakos, literally "Actian"), Delphinius ( ; , Delphinios, literally "Delphic"), and Pythius ( ; , Puthios, from Πυθώ, Pythō, the area around Delphi), after Actium () and Delphi (Δελφοί) respectively, two of his principal places of worship. Ovid, Metamorphoses xiii. 715 Strabo, x. p. 451 An etiology in the Homeric hymns associated the epithet "Delphinius" with dolphins. He was worshipped as Acraephius ( ; , Akraiphios, literally "Acraephian") or Acraephiaeus ( ; , Akraiphiaios, literally "Acraephian") in the Boeotian town of Acraephia (), reputedly founded by his son Acraepheus; and as Smintheus ( ; , Smintheus, "Sminthian"—that is, "of the town of Sminthos or Sminthe") . near the Troad town of Hamaxitus. The epithet "Smintheus" has historically been confused with , "mouse", in association with Apollo's role as a god of disease. For this he was also known as Parnopius ( ; , Parnopios, from , "locust") and to the Romans as Culicarius ( ; from Latin culicārius, "of midges").

Temple of the Delians at Delos, dedicated to Apollo (478 BC). 19th-century pen-and-wash restoration.
Temple of Apollo Smintheus at Çanakkale, Turkey

In Apollo's role as a healer, his appellations included Acesius ( ; , Akesios, from , "healing"), Acestor ( ; , Akestōr, literally "healer"), Paean ( ; , Paiān, from , "to touch"), and Iatrus ( ; , Iātros, literally "physician"). Euripides, Andromache 901 Acesius was the epithet of Apollo worshipped in Elis, where he had a temple in the agora. At the Perseus Project. The Romans referred to Apollo as Medicus ( ; literally "physician" in Latin) in this respect. A temple was dedicated to Apollo Medicus at Rome, probably next to the temple of Bellona.

As a protector and founder, Apollo had the epithets Alexicacus ( ; , Alexikakos, literally "warding off evil"), Apotropaeus ( ; , Apotropaios, from , "to avert"), and Epicurius ( ; , Epikourios, from , "to aid"), and Archegetes ( ; , Arkhēgetēs, literally "founder"), Clarius ( ; , Klārios, from Doric , "allotted lot"), and Genetor ( ; , Genetōr, literally "ancestor"). To the Romans, he was known in this capacity as Averruncus ( ; from Latin āverruncare, "to avert"). He was also called Agyieus ( ; , Aguīeus, from , "street") for his role in protecting roads and homes; and Nomius ( ; , Nomios, literally "pastoral") and Nymphegetes ( ; , Numphēgetēs, from , "Nymph", and , "leader") for his role as a protector of shepherds and pastoral life.

In his role as god of prophecy and truth, Apollo had the epithets Manticus ( ; , Mantikos, literally "prophetic"), Leschenorius ( ; , Leskhēnorios, from , "converser"), and Loxias ( ; , Loxias, from , "to say"). The epithet "Loxias" has historically been associated with , "ambiguous". In this respect, the Romans called him Coelispex ( ; from Latin coelum, "sky", and specere, "to look at"). The epithet Iatromantis ( ; , Iātromantis, from , "physician", and , "prophet") refers to both his role as a god of healing and of prophecy. As god of music and arts, Apollo had the epithet Musagetes ( ; Doric , Mousāgetās) . or Musegetes ( ; , Mousēgetēs, from , "Muse", and , "leader").

As a god of archery, Apollo was known as Aphetor ( ; , Aphētōr, from , "to let loose") or Aphetorus ( ; , Aphētoros, of the same origin), Argyrotoxus ( ; , Argyrotoxos, literally "with silver bow"), Hecaërgus ( ; , Hekaergos, literally "far-shooting"), and Hecebolus ( ; , Hekēbolos, literally "far-shooting"). The Romans referred to Apollo as Articenens ( ; "bow-carrying"). Apollo was called Ismenius ( ; , Ismēnios, literally "of Ismenus") after Ismenus, the son of Amphion and Niobe, whom he struck with an arrow.

===Celtic epithets and cult titles===
Apollo was worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. In the traditionally Celtic lands he was most often seen as a healing and sun god. He was often equated with Celtic gods of similar character. Miranda J. Green, Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend, Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1997 
* Apollo Atepomarus ("the great horseman" or "possessing a great horse"). Apollo was worshipped at Mauvières (Indre). Horses were, in the Celtic world, closely linked to the sun. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XIII, 1863–1986; A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, 1967; M.J. Green, The Gods of the Celts, 1986, London 
* Apollo Belenus ('bright' or 'brilliant'). This epithet was given to Apollo in parts of Gaul, Northern Italy and Noricum (part of modern Austria). Apollo Belenus was a healing and sun god. J. Zwicker, Fontes Historiae Religionis Celticae, 1934–36, Berlin; Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum V, XI, XII, XIII; J. Gourcest, "Le culte de Belenos en Provence occidentale et en Gaule", Ogam 6.6 (1954:257–262); E. Thevonot, "Le cheval sacre dans la Gaule de l'Est", Revue archeologique de l'Est et du Centre-Est (vol 2), 1951; [], "Temoignages du culte de l'Apollon gaulois dans l'Helvetie romaine", Revue celtique (vol 51), 1934. 
* Apollo Cunomaglus ('hound lord'). A title given to Apollo at a shrine in Wiltshire. Apollo Cunomaglus may have been a god of healing. Cunomaglus himself may originally have been an independent healing god. W.J. Wedlake, The Excavation of the Shrine of Apollo at Nettleton, Wiltshire, 1956–1971, Society of Antiquaries of London, 1982. 
* Apollo Grannus. Grannus was a healing spring god, later equated with Apollo. M. Szabo, The Celtic Heritage in Hungary, (Budapest)1971, Budapest Divinites et sanctuaires de la Gaule, E. Thevonat, 1968, Paris La religion des Celtes, J. de Vries, 1963, Paris 
* Apollo Maponus. A god known from inscriptions in Britain. This may be a local fusion of Apollo and Maponus.
* Apollo Moritasgus ('masses of sea water'). An epithet for Apollo at Alesia, where he was worshipped as god of healing and, possibly, of physicians. J. Le Gall, Alesia, archeologie et histoire, (Paris) 1963. 
* Apollo Vindonnus ('clear light'). Apollo Vindonnus had a temple at Essarois, near Châtillon-sur-Seine in present-day Burgundy. He was a god of healing, especially of the eyes. 
* Apollo Virotutis ('benefactor of mankind?'). Apollo Virotutis was worshipped, among other places, at Fins d'Annecy (Haute-Savoie) and at Jublains (Maine-et-Loire). Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XIII 

==Origins==
The Omphalos in the Museum of Delphi
The cult centers of Apollo in Greece, Delphi and Delos, date from the 8th century BCE. The Delos sanctuary was primarily dedicated to Artemis, Apollo's twin sister. At Delphi, Apollo was venerated as the slayer of Pytho. For the Greeks, Apollo was all the Gods in one and through the centuries he acquired different functions which could originate from different gods. In archaic Greece he was the prophet, the oracular god who in older times was connected with "healing". In classical Greece he was the god of light and of music, but in popular religion he had a strong function to keep away evil. Martin Nilsson (1967)".Die Geschicte der Giechischen Religion.Vol I".C.F.Beck Verlag.Munchen. p 529 Walter Burkert Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion, 1985:144. discerned three components in the prehistory of Apollo worship, which he termed "a Dorian-northwest Greek component, a Cretan-Minoan component, and a Syro-Hittite component."

From his eastern-origin Apollo brought the art of inspection from "symbols and omina" (σημεία και τέρατα : semeia kai terata), and of the observation of the omens of the days. The inspiration oracular-cult was probably introduced from Anatolia. The ritualism belonged to Apollo from the beginning. The Greeks created the legalism, the supervision of the orders of the gods, and the demand for moderation and harmony. Apollo became the god of shining youth, the protector of music, spiritual-life, moderation and perceptible order. The improvement of the old Anatolian god, and his elevation to an intellectual sphere, may be considered an achievement of the Greek people. Martin Nilsson. Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion Vol I, pp. 563-564 

===Healer and god-protector from evil===
The function of Apollo as a "healer" is connected with Paean (), the physician of the Gods in the Iliad, who seems to come from a more primitive religion. Paieon () puts pain-relieving medicines on the wounds of Pluton and Ares ( Ilias E401). This art is related with Egypt: (Odyssey D232): M.Nilsson Vol I, p.543 Paeοn is probably connected with the Mycenean pa-ja-wo-ne (Linear B: ), At Google Books. but this is not certain. He did not have a separate cult, but he was the personification of the holy magic-song sung by the magicians that was supposed to cure disease. Later the Greeks knew the original meaning of the relevant song "paean" (). The magicians were also called "seer-doctors" (), and they used an ecstatic prophetic art which was used exactly by the god Apollo at the oracles. . Which is sung to stop the plagues and the diseases. Proklos: Chrestom from Photios Bibl. code. 239, p. 321: Martin Nilsson. Die Geschicthe der Griechischen religion. Vol I p.543 

In the Iliad, Apollo is the healer under the gods, but he is also the bringer of disease and death with his arrows, similar to the function of the terrible Vedic god of disease Rudra. "The conception that the diseases come from invisible shots sent by magicians or supernatural beings is common in primitive people and also in European folklore. In North-Europe they speak of the "Elf-shots". In Sweden where the Lapps were called magicians, they speak of the "Lappen-shots". Martin Nilsson (1967).Vol I p.541 He sends a terrible plague () to the Achaeans. The god who sends a disease can also prevent from it; therefore, when it stops, they make a purifying ceremony and offer him a hecatomb to ward off evil. When the oath of his priest appeases, they pray and with a song they call their own god, the beautiful Paean. Ilias A 314. Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I p.543 

Some common epithets of Apollo as a healer are "paion" (, literally "healer" or "helper") : Harper's Dictionary of classical antiquity "epikourios" (, "help"), "oulios" (, "healed wound", also a "scar" ) Perseus.tufts.edu: and "loimios" (, "plague"). In classical times, his strong function in popular religion was to keep away evil, and was therefore called "apotropaios" (, "divert", "deter", "avert") and "alexikakos" (from v. + n. , "defend from evil"). Pausanias VIII 41, 8-IV 34, 7-Sittig. Nom P. 48. f-Aristoph. Vesp. V. 61-Paus. I 3, 4. Martin Nilsson (1967) Vol I, p. 540, 544 In later writers, the word, usually spelled "Paean", becomes a mere epithet of Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing. 

Homer illustrated Paeon the god, and the song both of apotropaic thanksgiving or triumph.
Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods: to Dionysus, to Apollo Helios, to Apollo's son Asclepius the healer. About the 4th century BCE, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to implore protection against disease and misfortune, or to offer thanks after such protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo had become recognised as the god of music. Apollo's role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and also after a victory had been won.

===Dorian origin===
Apollo Victorious over the Python by the Florentine Pietro Francavilla (dated 1591) depicting Apollo's first triumph, when he slew with his bow and arrows the serpent Python, which lies dead at his feet (The Walters Art Museum).
The connection with Dorians and their initiation festival apellai is reinforced by the month Apellaios in northwest Greek calendars, Graf, Apollo p. 104-113; Burkert also notes in this context Archilochus Fr. 94. but it can explain only the Doric type of the name, which is connected with the Ancient Macedonian word "pella" (Pella), stone. Stones played an important part in the cult of the god, especially in the oracular shrine of Delphi (Omphalos). Compare: Baetylus. In Semitic: sacred stone Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I. p. 556 The "Homeric hymn" represents Apollo as a Northern intruder. His arrival must have occurred during the "dark ages" that followed the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization, and his conflict with Gaia (Mother Earth) was represented by the legend of his slaying her daughter the serpent Python. Herbert W. Park (1956). The delphic oracle. Vol.I, p.3 

The earth deity had power over the ghostly world, and it is believed that she was the deity behind the oracle. Lewis Farnel(1909)The cult of the city states. Clarendon Press. VIII pp.8-10 The older tales mentioned two dragons who were perhaps intentionally conflated. A female dragon named Delphyne (, "womb"), who is obviously connected with Delphi and Apollo Delphinios, and a male serpent Typhon (, "to smoke"), the adversary of Zeus in the Titanomachy, who the narrators confused with Python. "Many pictures show the serpent Python living in amity with Apollo and guarding the Omphalos. Karl Kerenyi (1951). ed. 1980: The gods of the Greeks pp.36-37 "In a Pompeian fresco Python is lying peacefully on the ground and the priests with the sacred double axe in their hand bring the bull (bouphronion). Jane. H. Harisson (1912): Themis. A study of the social origins of the Greek religion. Cambridge University Press. pp. 423-424 Python was the good daemon (ἀγαθὸς δαίμων) of the temple as it appears in Minoan religion, In Minoan religion the serpent is the protector of the household (underground stored corn). Also in Greek religion, "snake of the house" () in the temple of Athena at Acropolis, etc., and in Greek folklore. Martin Nilsson Vol.I pp.213-214 but she was represented as a dragon, as often happens in Northern European folklore as well as in the East. Nordig sagas. Hittite myth of Illuyankas. Also in the Bible: Leviathan. W. Porzig (1930). Illuyankas and Typhon. Kleinasiatische Forschung pp. 379-386 

Apollo and his sister Artemis can bring death with their arrows. The conception that diseases and death come from invisible shots sent by supernatural beings, or magicians is common in Germanic and Norse mythology. In Greek mythology Artemis was the leader (, "hegemon") of the nymphs, who had similar functions with the Nordic Elves. . Martin Nilsson (1967), Vol I, pp. 499-500 The "elf-shot" originally indicated disease or death attributed to the elves, but it was later attested denoting arrow-heads which were used by witches to harm people, and also for healing rituals. Hall, Alaric. 2005. 'Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials', , 116 (2005), 19-36. 

The Vedic Rudra has some similar functions with Apollo. The terrible god is called "The Archer", and the bow is also an attribute of Shiva. For as a name of Shiva see: Apte, p. 910. Rudra could bring diseases with his arrows, but he was able to free people of them, and his alternative Shiba, is a healer physician god. For association between Rudra and disease, with Rigvedic references, see: Bhandarkar, p. 146. However the Indo-European component of Apollo, does not explain his strong relation with omens, exorcisms, and with the oracular cult.

===Minoan origin===
Ornamented golden Minoan labrys
It seems an oracular cult existed in Delphi from the Mycenaean ages. Odyssey 8.80 In historical times, the priests of Delphi were called Labryaden, "the double-axe men", which indicates Minoan origin. The double-axe, labrys, was the holy symbol of the Cretan labyrinth. Huxley (1975).Cretan Paewones. Roman and Byzantine studies pp.129-134 H.G.Wunderlich. The secret of Creta Souvenir Press Ltd. London p. 319 The Homeric hymn adds that Apollo appeared as a dolphin and carried Cretan priests to Delphi, where they evidently transferred their religious practices. Apollo Delphinios was a sea-god especially worshiped in Crete and in the islands, and his name indicates his connection with Delphi Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I p. 529 and the holy serpent Delphyne ("womb"). Apollo's sister Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting, is identified with Britomartis (Diktynna), the Minoan "Mistress of the animals". In her earliest depictions she is accompanied by the "Mister of the animals", a male god of hunting who had the bow as his attribute. We don't know his original name, but it seems that he was absorbed by the more powerful Apollo, who stood by the "Mistress of the animals", becoming her brother. 

The old oracles in Delphi seem to be connected with a local tradition of the priesthood, and there is not clear evidence that a kind of inspiration-prophecy existed in the temple. This led some scholars to the conclusion that Pythia carried on the rituals in a consistent procedure through many centuries, according to the local tradition. In that regard, the mythical seeress Sibyl of Anatolian origin, with her ecstatic art, looks unrelated to the oracle itself. Hugh Bowden (2005). Classical Athens and the Delphic oracle pp. 17-18 However, the Greek tradition is referring to the existence of vapours and chewing of laurel-leaves, which seem to be confirmed by recent studies. 

Plato describes the priestesses of Delphi and Dodona as frenzied women, obsessed by "mania" (, "frenzy"), a Greek word he connected with mantis (, "prophet"). . Frenzied women like Sibyls from whose lips the god speaks are recorded in the Near East as Mari in the second millennium BC. Walter Burkert (1985).The Greek religion.p.116 Although Crete had contacts with Mari from 2000 BC, F.Schachermeyer (1964).p.128 there is no evidence that the ecstatic prophetic art existed during the Minoan and Mycenean ages. It is more probable that this art was introduced later from Anatolia and regenerated an existing oracular cult that was local to Delphi and dormant in several areas of Greece. Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I, pp. 543-545 

===Anatolian origin===
Illustration of a coin of Apollo Agyieus from Ambracia
A non-Greek origin of Apollo has long been assumed in scholarship. The name of Apollo's mother Leto has Lydian origin, and she was worshipped on the coasts of Asia Minor. The inspiration oracular cult was probably introduced into Greece from Anatolia, which is the origin of Sibyl, and where existed some of the oldest oracular shrines. Omens, symbols, purifications, and exorcisms appear in old Assyro-Babylonian texts, and these rituals were spread into the empire of the Hittites. In a Hittite text is mentioned that the king invited a Babylonian priestess for a certain "purification". 

A similar story is mentioned by Plutarch. He writes that the Cretan seer Epimenides, purified Athens after the pollution brought by the Alcmeonidae, and that the seer's expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices were of great help to Solon in his reform of the Athenian state. Plutarch, Life of Solon, 12; Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 1. The story indicates that Epimenides was probably heir to the shamanic religions of Asia, and proves together with the Homeric hymn, that Crete had a resisting religion up to the historical times. It seems that these rituals were dormant in Greece, and they were reinforced when the Greeks migrated to Anatolia.

Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War. He is pictured as a terrible god, less trusted by the Greeks than other gods. The god seems to be related to Appaliunas, a tutelary god of Wilusa (Troy) in Asia Minor, but the word is not complete. Paul Kretschmer (1936). Glotta XXIV p. 250. Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I p. 559. The stones found in front of the gates of Homeric Troy were the symbols of Apollo. The Greeks gave to him the name agyieus as the protector god of public places and houses who wards off evil, and his symbol was a tapered stone or column. Martin Nilsson, Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion. vol. I (C.H. Beck) 1955:563f. However, while usually Greek festivals were celebrated at the full moon, all the feasts of Apollo were celebrated at the seventh day of the month, and the emphasis given to that day (sibutu) indicates a Babylonian origin. Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I, p. 561. 

The Late Bronze Age (from 1700 to 1200 BCE) Hittite and Hurrian Aplu was a god of plague, invoked during plague years. Here we have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally bringing the plague was invoked to end it. Aplu, meaning the son of, was a title given to the god Nergal, who was linked to the Babylonian god of the sun Shamash. Homer interprets Apollo as a terrible god () who brings death and disease with his arrows, but who can also heal, possessing a magic art that separates him from the other Greek gods. Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I. pp. 559-560. In Iliad, his priest prays to Apollo Smintheus, "You Apollo Smintheus, let my tears become your arrows against the Danaans, for revenge". Iliad 1.33 (A 33). the mouse god who retains an older agricultural function as the protector from field rats. An ancient aetiological myth connects sminthos with mouse and suggests Cretan origin. Apollo is the mouse-god (Strabo 13.1.48). "Sminthia" in several areas of Greece. In Rhodes (Lindos) they belong to Apollo and Dionysos who have destroyed the rats that were swallowing the grapes". Martin Nilsson (1967). pp. 534-535. All these functions, including the function of the healer-god Paean, who seems to have Mycenean origin, are fused in the cult of Apollo.

==Oracular cult==
Columns of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
Unusually among the Olympic deities, Apollo had two cult sites that had widespread influence: Delos and Delphi. In cult practice, Delian Apollo and Pythian Apollo (the Apollo of Delphi) were so distinct that they might both have shrines in the same locality. Burkert 1985:143. Apollo's cult was already fully established when written sources commenced, about 650 BCE. Apollo became extremely important to the Greek world as an oracular deity in the archaic period, and the frequency of theophoric names such as Apollodorus or Apollonios and cities named Apollonia testify to his popularity. Oracular sanctuaries to Apollo were established in other sites. In the 2nd and 3rd century CE, those at Didyma and Clarus pronounced the so-called "theological oracles", in which Apollo confirms that all deities are aspects or servants of an all-encompassing, highest deity. "In the 3rd century, Apollo fell silent. Julian the Apostate (359 - 61) tried to revive the Delphic oracle, but failed." 

===Oracular shrines===
Delos lions
Apollo had a famous oracle in Delphi, and other notable ones in Clarus and Branchidae. His oracular shrine in Abae in Phocis, where he bore the toponymic epithet Abaeus (, Apollon Abaios) was important enough to be consulted by Croesus. Herodotus, 1.46. 
His oracular shrines include:
* Abae in Phocis.
* Bassae in the Peloponnese.
* At Clarus, on the west coast of Asia Minor; as at Delphi a holy spring which gave off a pneuma, from which the priests drank.
* In Corinth, the Oracle of Corinth came from the town of Tenea, from prisoners supposedly taken in the Trojan War.
* At Khyrse, in Troad, the temple was built for Apollo Smintheus.
* In Delos, there was an oracle to the Delian Apollo, during summer. The Hieron (Sanctuary) of Apollo adjacent to the Sacred Lake, was the place where the god was said to have been born.
* In Delphi, the Pythia became filled with the pneuma of Apollo, said to come from a spring inside the Adyton.
* In Didyma, an oracle on the coast of Anatolia, south west of Lydian (Luwian) Sardis, in which priests from the lineage of the Branchidae received inspiration by drinking from a healing spring located in the temple. Was believed to have been founded by Branchus, son or lover of Apollo.
* In Hierapolis Bambyce, Syria (modern Manbij), according to the treatise De Dea Syria, the sanctuary of the Syrian Goddess contained a robed and bearded image of Apollo. Divination was based on spontaneous movements of this image. Lucian (attrib.), De Dea Syria 35–37. 
* At Patara, in Lycia, there was a seasonal winter oracle of Apollo, said to have been the place where the god went from Delos. As at Delphi the oracle at Patara was a woman.
* In Segesta in Sicily.

Oracles were also given by sons of Apollo.
* In Oropus, north of Athens, the oracle Amphiaraus, was said to be the son of Apollo; Oropus also had a sacred spring.
* in Labadea, 20 mi east of Delphi, Trophonius, another son of Apollo, killed his brother and fled to the cave where he was also afterwards consulted as an oracle.

==Temples of Apollo==
A lot of temples dedicated to Apollo were built in Greece and in the Greek colonies.
*Thebes, Greece: The oldest Doric temple of Apollo Ismenius was built in the early 7th century B.C. Robertson p.324-329 
*Napes (Lesbos): An Aeolic temple probably of Apollo Napaios was built in the 7th century B.C. 
*Thermon (West Greece): The Doric temple of Apollo Thermios, was built in the middle of 7th century B.C Spivey P.112 
*Cyrene, Libya: The oldest Doric temple of Apollo was built in c.600 B.C. 
*Naukratis: An Ionic temple was a built in the early 6th century B.C. Robertson p.98 
*Syracuse, Sicily: A Doric temple was built at the beginning of the 6th century BC Mertens 2006, pp. 104-109. 
*Eretria: The temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, "Apollo, laurel-bearer", or "carrying off Daphne", was built in the 6th centuru B.C Rufus B. Richardson, "A Temple in Eretria" The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts, 10.3 (July – September 1895:326-337) 
*Selinus (Sicily):The Doric Temple C dates from 550 BC, and it was probably dedicated to Apollo . IG XIV 269 
*Corinth:A Doric temple was built in the middle of 6th century B.C. Robertson p. 87 
*Delphi: A Doric temple, the "Temple of Alcmonidae" was built in c.513 B.C Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Ancient-Greece.org 
*Chios: The temple of Apollo Phanaios was built at the end of 6th century B.C. 
*Abae (Phokis). The temple was destroyed by the Persians in the invasion of Xerxes in 480 BCE. It was rebuilt by Hadrian. Smith, William (2011) 
*Delos: A Doric temple was built in c.475 B.C. 
*Bassae (Peloponnesus): A temple dedicated to Apollo Epikourios ("Apollo the helper"), was built in 430 B.C and it was designed by Iktinos. It combined Doric and Ionic elements. Hellenic Ministry of Culture: The Temple of Epicurean Apollo. 
*Didyma (near Miletus): The gigantic Ionic temple of Apollo Didymaios started around 540 BC. The construction ceased and then it was restarted in 330 B.C Peter Schneider: Neue Funde vom archaischen Apollontempel in Didyma. In: Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner (Hrsg.): Säule und Gebälk. Zu Struktur und Wandlungsprozeß griechisch-römischer Architektur. Bauforschungskolloquium in Berlin vom 16.-18. Juni 1994. Diskussionen zur Archäologischen Bauforschung. Vol. 6, 1996, p. 78-83. 

==Mythology==

===Birth===
Apollo (left) and Artemis. Brygos (potter signed), tondo of an Attic red-figure cup c. 470 BC, Musée du Louvre.
When Zeus' wife Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on "terra firma". In her wanderings, Leto found the newly created floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island. She gave birth there and was accepted by the people, offering them her promise that her son would be always favourable toward the city. Afterwards, Zeus secured Delos to the bottom of the ocean. This island later became sacred to Apollo.

It is also stated that Hera kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor. The other gods tricked Hera into letting her go by offering her a necklace, nine yards (8 m) long, of amber. Mythographers agree that Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo, or that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo. Apollo was born on the seventh day (, hebdomagenes) . of the month Thargelion —according to Delian tradition—or of the month Bysios—according to Delphian tradition. The seventh and twentieth, the days of the new and full moon, were ever afterwards held sacred to him.

===Youth===
Four days after his birth, Apollo killed the chthonic dragon Python, which lived in Delphi beside the Castalian Spring. This was the spring which emitted vapors that caused the oracle at Delphi to give her prophecies. Hera sent the serpent to hunt Leto to her death across the world. To protect his mother, Apollo begged Hephaestus for a bow and arrows. After receiving them, Apollo cornered Python in the sacred cave at Delphi. Children of the Gods by Kenneth McLeish, page 32. Apollo killed Python but had to be punished for it, since Python was a child of Gaia.

Hera then sent the giant Tityos to kill Leto. This time Apollo was aided by his sister Artemis in protecting their mother. During the battle Zeus finally relented his aid and hurled Tityos down to Tartarus. There he was pegged to the rock floor, covering an area of 9 acre, where a pair of vultures feasted daily on his liver.

===Trojan War===
Apollo shot arrows infected with the plague into the Greek encampment during the Trojan War in retribution for Agamemnon's insult to Chryses, a priest of Apollo whose daughter Chryseis had been captured. He demanded her return, and the Achaeans complied, indirectly causing the anger of Achilles, which is the theme of the Iliad.

In the Iliad, when Diomedes injured Aeneas, Apollo rescued him. First, Aphrodite tried to rescue Aeneas but Diomedes injured her as well. Aeneas was then enveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who took him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy.

Apollo aided Paris in the killing of Achilles by guiding the arrow of his bow into Achilles' heel. One interpretation of his motive is that it was in revenge for Achilles' sacrilege in murdering Troilus, the god's own son by Hecuba, on the very altar of the god's own temple.

===Admetus===
When Zeus struck down Apollo's son Asclepius with a lightning bolt for resurrecting Hippolytus from the dead (transgressing Themis by stealing Hades's subjects), Apollo in revenge killed the Cyclopes, who had fashioned the bolt for Zeus. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliothke iii. 10.4. Apollo would have been banished to Tartarus forever for this, but was instead sentenced to one year of hard labor, due to the intercession of his mother, Leto. During this time he served as shepherd for King Admetus of Pherae in Thessaly. Admetus treated Apollo well, and, in return, the god conferred great benefits on Admetus.

Apollo helped Admetus win Alcestis, the daughter of King Pelias and later convinced the Fates to let Admetus live past his time, if another took his place. But when it came time for Admetus to die, his parents, whom he had assumed would gladly die for him, refused to cooperate. Instead, Alcestis took his place, but Heracles managed to "persuade" Thanatos, the god of death, to return her to the world of the living.

Artemis and Apollo Piercing Niobe's Children with their Arrows by Jacques-Louis David, Dallas Museum of Art

===Niobe===
Niobe, the queen of Thebes and wife of Amphion, boasted of her superiority to Leto because she had fourteen children (Niobids), seven male and seven female, while Leto had only two. Apollo killed her sons, and Artemis her daughters. Apollo and Artemis used poisoned arrows to kill them, though according to some versions of the myth, a number of the Niobids were spared (Chloris, usually). Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by Apollo after swearing revenge.

A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylos in Asia Minor and turned into stone as she wept. Her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned all the people of Thebes to stone and so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their death, when the gods themselves entombed them.

===Consorts and children===
Love affairs ascribed to Apollo are a late development in Greek mythology. "The love-stories themselves were not told until later." Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks 1951:140. Their vivid anecdotal qualities have made some of them favorites of painters since the Renaissance, the result being that they stand out more prominently in the modern imagination.

====Female lovers====

Apollo and Daphne by Bernini in the Galleria Borghese
Daphne was a nymph, daughter of the river god Peneus, who had scorned Apollo. The myth explains the connection of Apollo with δάφνη (daphnē), the laurel whose leaves his priestess employed at Delphi. The ancient Daphne episode is noted in late narratives, notably in Ovid, Metamorphoses, in Hyginus, Fabulae, 203 and by the fourth-century-CE teacher of rhetoric and Christian convert, Libanius, in Narrationes. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Phoebus Apollo chaffs Cupid for toying with a weapon more suited to a man, whereupon Cupid wounds him with a golden dart; simultaneously, however, Cupid shoots a leaden arrow into Daphne, causing her to be repulsed by Apollo. Following a spirited chase by Apollo, Daphne prays to her father, Peneus, for help, and he changes her into the laurel tree, sacred to Apollo.

Artemis Daphnaia, who had her temple among the Lacedemonians, at a place called Hypsoi G. Shipley, "The Extent of Spartan Territory in the Late Classical and Hellenistic Periods", The Annual of the British School at Athens, 2000. in Antiquity, on the slopes of Mount Cnacadion near the Spartan frontier, Pausanias, 3.24.8 (on-line text); Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus, Historiae Deorum Gentilium, Basel, 1548, Syntagma 10, is noted in this connection in Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 had her own sacred laurel trees. Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951:141 At Eretria the identity of an excavated 7th- and 6th-century temple to Apollo Daphnephoros, "Apollo, laurel-bearer", or "carrying off Daphne", a "place where the citizens are to take the oath", is identified in inscriptions. Rufus B. Richardson, "A Temple in Eretria" The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts, 10.3 (July - September 1895:326-337); Paul Auberson, Eretria. Fouilles et Recherches I, Temple d'Apollon Daphnéphoros, Architecture (Bern, 1968). See also Plutarch, Pythian Oracle, 16. 

Leucothea was daughter of Orchamus and sister of Clytia. She fell in love with Apollo who disguised himself as Leucothea's mother to gain entrance to her chambers. Clytia, jealous of her sister because she wanted Apollo for herself, told Orchamus the truth, betraying her sister's trust and confidence in her. Enraged, Orchamus ordered Leucothea to be buried alive. Apollo refused to forgive Clytia for betraying his beloved, and a grieving Clytia wilted and slowly died. Apollo changed her into an incense plant, either heliotrope or sunflower, which follows the sun every day.

Marpessa was kidnapped by Idas but was loved by Apollo as well. Zeus made her choose between them, and she chose Idas on the grounds that Apollo, being immortal, would tire of her when she grew old.

Castalia was a nymph whom Apollo loved. She fled from him and dove into the spring at Delphi, at the base of Mt. Parnassos, which was then named after her. Water from this spring was sacred; it was used to clean the Delphian temples and inspire the priestesses. In the last oracle is mentioned that the "water which could speak", has been lost for ever.

By Cyrene, Apollo had a son named Aristaeus, who became the patron god of cattle, fruit trees, hunting, husbandry and bee-keeping. He was also a culture-hero and taught humanity dairy skills, the use of nets and traps in hunting, and how to cultivate olives.

Hecuba, was the wife of King Priam of Troy, and Apollo had a son with her named Troilus. An oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated as long as Troilus reached the age of twenty alive. He was ambushed and killed by Achilleus.

Cassandra, was daughter of Hecuba and Priam, and Troilus' half-sister. Apollo fell in love with Cassandra and promised her the gift of prophecy to seduce her, but she rejected him afterwards. Enraged, Apollo indeed gave her the ability to know the future, with a curse that she could only see the future tragedies and that no one would ever believe her.

Coronis, was daughter of Phlegyas, King of the Lapiths. Pregnant with Asclepius, Coronis fell in love with Ischys, son of Elatus. A crow informed Apollo of the affair. When first informed he disbelieved the crow and turned all crows black (where they were previously white) as a punishment for spreading untruths. When he found out the truth he sent his sister, Artemis, to kill Coronis (in other stories, Apollo himself had killed Coronis). As a result he also made the crow sacred and gave them the task of announcing important deaths. Apollo rescued the baby and gave it to the centaur Chiron to raise. Phlegyas was irate after the death of his daughter and burned the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Apollo then killed him for what he did.

In Euripides' play Ion, Apollo fathered Ion by Creusa, wife of Xuthus. Creusa left Ion to die in the wild, but Apollo asked Hermes to save the child and bring him to the oracle at Delphi, where he was raised by a priestess.

Acantha, was the spirit of the acanthus tree, and Apollo had one of his other liaisons with her. Upon her death, Apollo transformed her into a sun-loving herb.

According to the Biblioteca, the "library" of mythology mis-attributed to Apollodorus, he fathered the Corybantes on the Muse Thalia. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 1.3.4. Other ancient sources, however, gave the Corybantes different parents; see Sir James Frazer's note on the passage in the Bibliotheca. 

====Consorts and children: extended list====

# Acacallis
## Amphithemis (Garamas) Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 1491 ff 
## Naxos, eponym of the island Naxos Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 1491 ff 
## Phylacides
## Phylander Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10. 16. 5 
# Acantha
# Aethusa
## Eleuther
# Aganippe
## Chios Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers, 7. 1 
# Alciope Photius, Lexicon s. v. Linos 
## Linus (possibly)
# Amphissa / Isse, daughter of Macareus
# Anchiale / Acacallis
## Oaxes Servius on Virgil's Eclogue 1, 65 
# Areia, daughter of Cleochus / Acacallis / Deione
## Miletus
# Astycome, nymph
## Eumolpus (possibly) Photius, Lexicon, s. v. Eumolpidai 
# Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus
## Asclepius (possibly)
## Eriopis
# Babylo
## Arabus Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 7. 56 - 57 p. 196 
# Bolina
# Calliope, Muse
## Orpheus (possibly)
## Linus (possibly)
## Ialemus
# Cassandra
# Castalia
# Celaeno, daughter of Hyamus / Melaina / Thyia
## Delphus
# Chione / Philonis / Leuconoe
## Philammon
# Chrysorthe
## Coronus
# Chrysothemis
## Parthenos
# Coronis
## Asclepius
# Coryceia
## Lycorus (Lycoreus)
# Creusa
## Ion
# Cyrene
## Aristaeus
## Idmon (possibly)
## Autuchus Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 2. 498 
# Danais, Cretan nymph
## The Curetes Tzetzes on Lycophron, 77 
# Daphne
# Dia, daughter of Lycaon
## Dryops
# Dryope
## Amphissus
# Euboea (daughter of Macareus of Locris)
## Agreus
# Evadne, daughter of Poseidon
## Iamus
# Gryne
# Hecate
## Scylla (possibly) Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.828, referring to "Hesiod", Megalai Ehoiai fr. 
# Hecuba
## Troilus
## Hector (possibly) Tzetzes on Lycophron, 266 
# Hestia (wooed her unsuccessfully)
# Hypermnestra, wife of Oicles
## Amphiaraus (possibly)
# Hypsipyle Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, 4. 26; not the same as Hypsipyle of Lemnos 
# Hyria (Thyria)
## Cycnus
# Lycia, nymph or daughter of Xanthus
## Eicadius Servius on Aeneid, 3. 332 
## Patarus Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Patara 
# Manto
## Mopsus
# Marpessa
# Melia
## Ismenus Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9. 10. 5 
## Tenerus Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9. 26. 1 
# Ocyrhoe
# Othreis
## Phager
# Parnethia, nymph
## Cynnes Photius, Lexicon, s. v. Kynneios 
# Parthenope
## Lycomedes
# Phthia
## Dorus
## Laodocus
## Polypoetes
# Prothoe Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, 4. 26 
# Procleia
## Tenes (possibly)
# Psamathe
## Linus, not the same as the singer Linus
# Rhoeo
## Anius
# Rhodoessa, nymph
## Ceos, eponym of the island Ceos Etymologicum Magnum 507, 54, under Keios 
# Rhodope
## Cicon, eponym of the tribe Cicones Etymologicum Magnum 513, 37, under Kikones 
# Sinope
## Syrus
# Stilbe
## Centaurus
## Lapithes
## Aineus
# Syllis / Hyllis
## Zeuxippus
# Thaleia, Muse / Rhetia, nymph
## The Corybantes
# Themisto, daughter of Zabius of Hyperborea Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. Galeōtai 
## Galeotes
## Telmessus (?)
# Thero
## Chaeron
# Urania, Muse
## Linus (possibly)
# Urea, daughter of Poseidon
## Ileus (Oileus?)
# Wife of Erginus
## Trophonius (possibly)
# Unknown consorts
## Acraepheus, eponym of the city Acraephia Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. Akraiphia 
## Chariclo (possibly) Scholia on Pindar, Pythian Ode 4. 181 
## Erymanthus
## Marathus, eponym of Marathon Suda s. v. Marathōn 
## Megarus Stephanus of Byzantium s. v Megara 
## Melaneus
## Oncius Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8. 25. 4 Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Ogkeion 
## Phemonoe
## Pisus, founder of Pisa in Etruria Servius on Aeneid, 10. 179 
## Younger Muses
### Cephisso
### Apollonis
### Borysthenis

====Male lovers====
Apollo and Hyacinthus, 16th-century Italian engraving by Jacopo Caraglio
Hyacinth or Hyacinthus was one of Apollo's male lovers. He was a Spartan prince, beautiful and athletic. The pair was practicing throwing the discus when a discus thrown by Apollo was blown off course by the jealous Zephyrus and struck Hyacinthus in the head, killing him instantly. Apollo is said to be filled with grief: out of Hyacinthus' blood, Apollo created a flower named after him as a memorial to his death, and his tears stained the flower petals with the interjection , meaning alas. , . The Festival of Hyacinthus was a celebration of Sparta.

Another male lover was Cyparissus, a descendant of Heracles. Apollo gave him a tame deer as a companion but Cyparissus accidentally killed it with a javelin as it lay asleep in the undergrowth. Cyparissus asked Apollo to let his tears fall forever. Apollo granted the request by turning him into the Cypress named after him, which was said to be a sad tree because the sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk.

Other male lovers of Apollo include:
* Admetus Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo, 49. 
* Atymnius, Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 11. 258; 19. 181. otherwise known as a beloved of Sarpedon
* Branchus (alternately, a son of Apollo)
* Carnus
* Clarus Philostratus, Letters, 5. 3. 
* Hippolytus of Sicyon (not the same as Hippolytus) Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5. 
* Hymenaios Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 23. 
* Iapis
* Leucates, who threw himself off a rock when Apollo attempted to carry him off Servius on Aeneid, 3. 279. 
* Phorbas (probably the son of Triopas) Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5, cf. also Hyginus, Poetical Astronomy, 2. 14. 
* Potnieus Clement of Rome, Homilia, 5. 15. 

===Apollo's lyre===
Apollo with his lyre. Statue from Pergamon Museum, Berlin.
Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. The story is told in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. His mother, Maia, had been secretly impregnated by Zeus. Maia wrapped the infant in blankets but Hermes escaped while she was asleep.

Hermes ran to Thessaly, where Apollo was grazing his cattle. The infant Hermes stole a number of his cows and took them to a cave in the woods near Pylos, covering their tracks. In the cave, he found a tortoise and killed it, then removed the insides. He used one of the cow's intestines and the tortoise shell and made the first lyre.

Apollo complained to Maia that her son had stolen his cattle, but Hermes had already replaced himself in the blankets she had wrapped him in, so Maia refused to believe Apollo's claim. Zeus intervened and, claiming to have seen the events, sided with Apollo. Hermes then began to play music on the lyre he had invented. Apollo, a god of music, fell in love with the instrument and offered to allow exchange of the cattle for the lyre. Hence, Apollo then became a master of the lyre.

===Apollo in the Oresteia===
In Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, Clytemnestra kills her husband, King Agamemnon because he had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to proceed forward with the Trojan war, and Cassandra, a prophetess of Apollo. Apollo gives an order through the Oracle at Delphi that Agamemnon's son, Orestes, is to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, her lover. Orestes and Pylades carry out the revenge, and consequently Orestes is pursued by the Erinyes (Furies, female personifications of vengeance).

Apollo and the Furies argue about whether the matricide was justified; Apollo holds that the bond of marriage is sacred and Orestes was avenging his father, whereas the Erinyes say that the bond of blood between mother and son is more meaningful than the bond of marriage. They invade his temple, and he says that the matter should be brought before Athena. Apollo promises to protect Orestes, as Orestes has become Apollo's supplicant. Apollo advocates Orestes at the trial, and ultimately Athena rules with Apollo.

===Other stories===
Apollo killed the Aloadae when they attempted to storm Mt. Olympus.

Callimachus sang Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo2.5 that Apollo rode on the back of a swan to the land of the Hyperboreans during the winter months.

Apollo turned Cephissus into a sea monster.

Another contender for the birthplace of Apollo is the Cretan islands of Paximadia.

====Musical contests====

=====Pan=====
Once Pan had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge Apollo, the god of the kithara, to a trial of skill. Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen to umpire. Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. He dissented, and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer, and caused them to become the ears of a donkey.

=====Marsyas=====
Marsyas under Apollo's punishment, İstanbul Archaeology Museum

Apollo has ominous aspects aside from his plague-bringing, death-dealing arrows: Marsyas was a satyr who challenged Apollo to a contest of music. He had found an aulos on the ground, tossed away after being invented by Athena because it made her cheeks puffy. The contest was judged by the Muses.

After they each performed, both were deemed equal until Apollo decreed they play and sing at the same time. As Apollo played the lyre, this was easy to do. Marsyas could not do this, as he only knew how to use the flute and could not sing at the same time. Apollo was declared the winner because of this. Apollo flayed Marsyas alive in a cave near Celaenae in Phrygia for his hubris to challenge a god. He then nailed Marsyas' shaggy skin to a nearby pine-tree. Marsyas' blood turned into the river Marsyas.

Another variation is that Apollo played his instrument (the lyre) upside down. Marsyas could not do this with his instrument (the flute), and so Apollo hung him from a tree and flayed him alive. Man Myth and Magic by Richard Cavendish 

=====Cinyras=====
Apollo also had a lyre-playing contest with Cinyras, his son, who committed suicide when he lost.
Head of Apollo, marble, Roman copy of a Greek original of the 4th century BCE, from the collection of Cardinal Albani

===Roman Apollo===
The Roman worship of Apollo was adopted from the Greeks. As a quintessentially Greek god, Apollo had no direct Roman equivalent, although later Roman poets often referred to him as Phoebus. There was a tradition that the Delphic oracle was consulted as early as the period of the kings of Rome during the reign of Tarquinius Superbus. Livy 1.56. 

On the occasion of a pestilence in the 430s BCE, Apollo's first temple at Rome was established in the Flaminian fields, replacing an older cult site there known as the "Apollinare". Livy 3.63.7, 4.25.3. During the Second Punic War in 212 BCE, the Ludi Apollinares ("Apollonian Games") were instituted in his honor, on the instructions of a prophecy attributed to one Marcius. Livy 25.12. In the time of Augustus, who considered himself under the special protection of Apollo and was even said to be his son, his worship developed and he became one of the chief gods of Rome. 

After the battle of Actium, which was fought near a sanctuary of Apollo, Augustus enlarged Apollo's temple, dedicated a portion of the spoils to him, and instituted quinquennial games in his honour. Suetonius, Augustus 18.2; Cassius Dio 51.1.1–3. He also erected a new temple to the god on the Palatine hill. Cassius Dio 53.1.3. Sacrifices and prayers on the Palatine to Apollo and Diana formed the culmination of the Secular Games, held in 17 BCE to celebrate the dawn of a new era. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 5050, translated by 

==Festivals==
The chief Apollonian festivals were the Boedromia, Carneia, Carpiae, Daphnephoria, Delia, Hyacinthia, Metageitnia, Pyanepsia, Pythia and Thargelia.

==Attributes and symbols==
Gold stater of the Seleucid king Antiochus I Soter (reigned 281–261 BCE) showing on the reverse a nude Apollo holding his key attributes: two arrows and a bow
Apollo's most common attributes were the bow and arrow. Other attributes of his included the kithara (an advanced version of the common lyre), the plectrum and the sword. Another common emblem was the sacrificial tripod, representing his prophetic powers. The Pythian Games were held in Apollo's honor every four years at Delphi. The bay laurel plant was used in expiatory sacrifices and in making the crown of victory at these games.

The palm tree was also sacred to Apollo because he had been born under one in Delos. Animals sacred to Apollo included wolves, dolphins, roe deer, swans, cicadas (symbolizing music and song), hawks, ravens, crows, snakes (referencing Apollo's function as the god of prophecy), mice and griffins, mythical eagle–lion hybrids of Eastern origin.

Apollo Citharoedus ("Apollo with a kithara"), Musei Capitolini, Rome
As god of colonization, Apollo gave oracular guidance on colonies, especially during the height of colonization, 750–550 BCE. According to Greek tradition, he helped Cretan or Arcadian colonists found the city of Troy. However, this story may reflect a cultural influence which had the reverse direction: Hittite cuneiform texts mention a Minor Asian god called Appaliunas or Apalunas in connection with the city of Wilusa attested in Hittite inscriptions, which is now generally regarded as being identical with the Greek Ilion by most scholars. In this interpretation, Apollo's title of Lykegenes can simply be read as "born in Lycia", which effectively severs the god's supposed link with wolves (possibly a folk etymology).

In literary contexts, Apollo represents harmony, order, and reason—characteristics contrasted with those of Dionysus, god of wine, who represents ecstasy and disorder. The contrast between the roles of these gods is reflected in the adjectives Apollonian and Dionysian. However, the Greeks thought of the two qualities as complementary: the two gods are brothers, and when Apollo at winter left for Hyperborea, he would leave the Delphic oracle to Dionysus. This contrast appears to be shown on the two sides of the Borghese Vase.

Apollo is often associated with the Golden Mean. This is the Greek ideal of moderation and a virtue that opposes gluttony.

==Apollo in the arts==
The Louvre Apollo Sauroctonos, Roman copy after Praxiteles (360 BC)
Apollo is a common theme in Greek and Roman art and also in the art of the Renaissance. The earliest Greek word for a statue is "delight" (, agalma), and the sculptors tried to create forms which would inspire such guiding vision. Greek art puts into Apollo the highest degree of power and beauty that can be imagined. The sculptors derived this from observations on human beings, but they also embodied in concrete form, issues beyond the reach of ordinary thought.

The naked bodies of the statues are associated with the cult of the body that was essentially a religious activity. The muscular frames and limbs combined with slim waists indicate the Greek desire for health, and the physical capacity which was necessary in the hard Greek environment. The statues of Apollo embody beauty, balance and inspire awe before the beauty of the world.

The evolution of the Greek sculpture can be observed in his depictions from the almost static formal Kouros type in early archaic period, to the representation of motion in a relative harmonious whole in late archaic period. In classical Greece the emphasis is not given to the illusive imaginative reality represented by the ideal forms, but to the analogies and the interaction of the members in the whole, a method created by Polykleitos. Finally Praxiteles seems to be released from any art and religious conformities, and his masterpieces are a mixture of naturalism with stylization.

===Art and Greek philosophy===
The evolution of the Greek art seems to go parallel with the Greek philosophical conceptions, which changed from the natural-philosophy of Thales to the metaphysical theory of Pythagoras. Thales searched for a simple material-form directly perceptible by the senses, behind the appearances of things, and his theory is also related to the older animism. This was paralleled in sculpture by the absolute representation of vigorous life, through unnaturally simplified forms. E. Homann-Wedeking. Transl. J.R. Foster (1968). Art of the world. Archaic Greece, Methuen & Co Ltd. London, pp 63-65, 193. 

Pythagoras believed that behind the appearance of things, there was the permanent principle of mathematics, and that the forms were based on a transcendental mathematical relation. C.M. Bowra (1957). The Greek experience, p.166. The forms on earth, are imperfect imitations (, eikones, "images") of the celestial world of numbers. His ideas had a great influence on post-Archaic art, and the Greek architects and sculptors were always trying to find the mathematical relation, that would lead to the esthetic perfection. R. Carpenter (1975). The esthetic basis of Greek art. Indiana University Press. p. 55-58. (canon).

In classical Greece, Anaxagoras asserted that a divine reason (mind) gave order to the seeds of the universe, and Plato extended the Greek belief of ideal forms to his metaphysical theory of forms (ideai, "ideas"). The forms on earth are imperfect duplicates of the intellectual celestial ideas. The Greek words oida (, "(I) know") and eidos (, "species") have the same root as the word idea (), indicating how the Greek mind moved from the gift of the senses, to the principles beyond the senses. The artists in Plato's time moved away from his theories and art tends to be a mixture of naturalism with stylization. The Greek sculptors considered the senses more important, and the proportions were used to unite the sensible with the intellectual.

===Archaic sculpture===
Sacred Gate Kouros, marble (610–600 BC), Kerameikos Archaeological Museum in Athens

Kouros (male youth) is the modern term given to those representations of standing male youths which first appear in the archaic period in Greece. This type served certain religious needs and was first proposed for what was previously thought to be depictions of Apollo. V.I. Leonardos(1895). Archaelogiki Ephimeris, Col 75, n 1. Lechat (1904). La sculpture Attic avant Phidias, p. 23. The first statues are certainly still and formal. The formality of their stance seems to be related with the Egyptian precedent, but it was accepted for a good reason. The sculptors had a clear idea of what a young man is, and embodied the archaic smile of good manners, the firm and springy step, the balance of the body, dignity, and youthful happiness. When they tried to depict the most abiding qualities of men, it was because men had common roots with the unchanging gods. C.M. Bowra (1957). The Greek experience, pp. 144-152. The adoption of a standard recognizable type for a long time, is probably because nature gives preference in survival of a type which has long be adopted by the climatic conditions, and also due to the general Greek belief that nature expresses itself in ideal forms that can be imagined and represented. These forms expressed immortality. Apollo was the immortal god of ideal balance and order. His shrine in Delphi, that he shared in winter with Dionysius had the inscriptions: (gnōthi seautón="know thyself") and (mēdén ágan, "nothing in excess"), and (eggýa pára d'atē, "make a pledge and mischief is nigh"). See . 

New York Kouros, Met. Mus. 32.11.1, marble (620–610 BC), Metropolitan Museum of Art
In the first large-scale depictions during the early archaic period (640–580 BC), the artists tried to draw one's attention to look into the interior of the face and the body which were not represented as lifeless masses, but as being full of life. The Greeks maintained, until late in their civilization, an almost animistic idea that the statues are in some sense alive. This embodies the belief that the image was somehow the god or man himself. C.M. Bowra. The Greek experience, p.159. A fine example is the statue of the Sacred gate Kouros which was found at the cemetery of Dipylon in Athens (Dipylon Kouros). The statue is the "thing in itself", and his slender face with the deep eyes express an intellectual eternity. According to the Greek tradition the Dipylon master was named Daedalus, and in his statues the limbs were freed from the body, giving the impression that the statues could move. It is considered that he created also the New York kouros, which is the oldest fully preserved statue of Kouros type, and seems to be the incarnation of the god himself. 

Piraeus Apollo, archaic-style bronze, Archaeological Museum of Piraeus
The animistic idea as the representation of the imaginative reality, is sanctified in the Homeric poems and in Greek myths, in stories of the god Hephaestus (Phaistos) and the mythic Daedalus (the builder of the labyrinth) that made images which moved of their own accord. This kind of art goes back to the Minoan period, when its main theme was the representation of motion in a specific moment. F. Schachermeyer (1964). Die Minoische Kultur des alten Creta, Kohlhammer Stuttgart, pp. 242-244. These free-standing statues were usually marble, but also the form rendered in limestone, bronze, ivory and terracotta.

The earliest examples of life-sized statues of Apollo, may be two figures from the Ionic sanctuary on the island of Delos. Such statues were found across the Greek speaking world, the preponderance of these were found at the sanctuaries of Apollo with more than one hundred from the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios, Boeotia alone. J. Ducat (1971). Les Kouroi des Ptoion. The last stage in the development of the Kouros type is the late archaic period (520–485 BC), in which the Greek sculpture attained a full knowledge of human anatomy and used to create a relative harmonious whole. Ranking from the very few bronzes survived to us is the masterpiece bronze Piraeus Apollo. It was found in Piraeus, the harbour of Athens. The statue originally held the bow in its left hand, and a cup of pouring libation in its right hand. It probably comes from north-eastern Peloponnesus. The emphasis is given in anatomy, and it is one of the first attempts to represent a kind of motion, and beauty relative to proportions, which appear mostly in post-Archaic art. The statue throws some light on an artistic centre which, with an independently developed harder, simpler, and heavier style, restricts Ionian influence in Athens. Finally, this is the germ from which the art of Polykleitos was to grow two or three generations later. Homann-Wedeking (1966). Art of the World. Archaic Greece pp. 144-150. 

===Classical Sculpture===
Apollo of the "Mantoua type", marble Roman copy after a 5th-century-BC Greek original attributed to Polykleitos, Musée du Louvre
In the next century which is the beginning of the Classical period, it was considered that beauty in visible things as in everything else, consisted of symmetry and proportions. The artists tried also to represent motion in a specific moment (Myron), which may be considered as the reappearance of the dormant Minoan element. Anatomy and geometry are fused in one, and each does something to the other. The Greek sculptors tried to clarify it by looking for mathematical proportions, just as they sought some reality behind appearances. Polykleitos in his Canon wrote that beauty consists in the proportion not of the elements (materials), but of the parts, that is the interrelation of parts with one another and with the whole. It seems that he was influenced by the theories of Pythagoras. "Each part (finger, palm, arm, etc) transmitted its individual existence to the next, and then to the whole" : Canon of Polykleitos, also Plotinus, Ennead I vi. i: Nigel Spivey (1997). Greek art, Phaidon Press Ltd. London. pp. 290-294. 
The famous Apollo of Mantua and its variants are early forms of the Apollo Citharoedus statue type, in which the god holds the cithara in his left arm. The type is represented by neo-Attic Imperial Roman copies of the late 1st or early 2nd century, modelled upon a supposed Greek bronze original made in the second quarter of the 5th century BCE, in a style similar to works of Polykleitos but more archaic. The Apollo held the cythara against his extended left arm, of which in the Louvre example, a fragment of one twisting scrolling horn upright remains against his biceps.

Though the proportions were always important in Greek art, the appeal of the Greek sculptures eludes any explanation by proportion alone. The statues of Apollo were thought to incarnate his living presence, and these representations of illusive imaginative reality had deep roots in the Minoan period, and in the beliefs of the first Greek speaking people who entered the region during the bronze-age. Just as the Greeks saw the mountains, forests, sea and rivers as inhabited by concrete beings, so nature in all of its manifestations possesses clear form, and the form of a work of art. Spiritual life is incorporated in matter, when it is given artistic form. Just as in the arts the Greeks sought some reality behind appearances, so in mathematics they sought permanent principles which could be applied wherever the conditions were the same. Artists and sculptors tried to find this ideal order in relation with mathematics, but they believed that this ideal order revealed itself not so much to the dispassionate intellect, as to the whole sentient self. Things as we see them, and as they really are, are one, that each stresses the nature of the other in a single unity.

===Pediments and Friezes===
Apollo, West Pediment Olympia. Munich, copy from original, 460 BC at the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece.
In the archaic pediments and friezes of the temples, the artists had a problem to fit a group of figures into an isosceles triangle with acute angles at the base.

The Siphnian Treasury in Delphi was one of the first Greek buildings utilizing the solution to put the dominating form in the middle, and to complete the descending scale of height with other figures sitting or kneeling. The pediment shows the story of Heracles stealing Apollo's tripod that was strongly associated with his oracular inspiration. Their two figures hold the centre. In the pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia, the single figure of Apollo is dominating the scene. 

Part of the Bassae Frieze at the British Museum. Apollo and Artemis in the northeast corner.
These representations rely on presenting scenes directly to the eye for their own visible sake. They care for the schematic arrangements of bodies in space, but only as parts in a larger whole. While each scene has its own character and completeness it must fit into the general sequence to which it belongs. In these archaic pediments the sculptors use empty intervals, to suggest a passage to and fro a busy battlefield. The artists seem to have been dominated by geometrical pattern and order, and this was improved when classical art brought a greater freedom and economy. 

===Hellenistic Greece-Rome===
Apollo as a handsome beardless young man, is often depicted with a kithara (as Apollo Citharoedus) or bow in his hand, or reclining on a tree (the Apollo Lykeios and Apollo Sauroctonos types). The Apollo Belvedere is a marble sculpture that was rediscovered in the late 15th century; for centuries it epitomized the ideals of Classical Antiquity for Europeans, from the Renaissance through the 19th century. The marble is a Hellenistic or Roman copy of a bronze original by the Greek sculptor Leochares, made between 350 and 325 BCE.

The life-size so-called "Adonis" found in 1780 on the site of a villa suburbana near the Via Labicana in the Roman suburb of Centocelle is identified as an Apollo by modern scholars. In the late 2nd century CE floor mosaic from El Djem, Roman Thysdrus, he is identifiable as Apollo Helios by his effulgent halo, though now even a god's divine nakedness is concealed by his cloak, a mark of increasing conventions of modesty in the later Empire.

Another haloed Apollo in mosaic, from Hadrumentum, is in the museum at Sousse. The conventions of this representation, head tilted, lips slightly parted, large-eyed, curling hair cut in locks grazing the neck, were developed in the 3rd century BCE to depict Alexander the Great. Bieber 1964, Yalouris 1980. Some time after this mosaic was executed, the earliest depictions of Christ would also be beardless and haloed.

==Modern reception==
The Overthrow of Apollo and the Pagan Gods, watercolour from William Blake's illustrations of On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1809)

Apollo has often featured in postclassical art and literature. Percy Bysshe Shelley composed a "Hymn of Apollo" (1820), and the god's instruction of the Muses formed the subject of Igor Stravinsky's Apollon musagète (1927–1928).

In discussion of the arts, a distinction is sometimes made between the Apollonian and Dionysian impulses where the former is concerned with imposing intellectual order and the latter with chaotic creativity. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that a fusion of the two was most desirable. Carl Jung's Apollo archetype represents what he saw as the disposition in people to over-intellectualise and maintain emotional distance.

==Genealogy of the Olympians in Greek mythology==

==See also==

*Dryad
*Epirus
*Pasiphaë
*Sibylline oracles
*Tegyra
*Temple of Apollo (disambiguation)

==Notes==

==References==
* 

===Primary sources===
Head of the Apollo Belvedere
* Homer, Iliad ii.595–600 (c. 700 BCE)
* Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
* Palaephatus, On Unbelievable Tales 46. Hyacinthus (330 BCE)
* Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.3.3 (140 BCE)
* Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 162–219 (1–8 CE)
* Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.1.3, 3.19.4 (160–176 CE)
* Philostratus the Elder, Images i.24 Hyacinthus (170–245 CE)
* Philostratus the Younger, Images 14. Hyacinthus (170–245 CE)
* Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods 14 (170 CE)
* First Vatican Mythographer, 197. Thamyris et Musae

===Secondary sources===
* M. Bieber, 1964. Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art. Chicago.
* Hugh Bowden, 2005. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy. Cambridge University Press.
* Walter Burkert, 1985. Greek Religion (Harvard University Press) III.2.5 passim
* 
* Robert Graves, 1960. The Greek Myths, revised edition. Penguin.
* Miranda J. Green, 1997. Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend, Thames and Hudson.
* Karl Kerenyi, 1953. Apollon: Studien über Antiken Religion und Humanität revised edition.
* Karl Kerenyi, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks
* Mertens, Dieter; Schutzenberger, Margareta. Città e monumenti dei Greci d'Occidente: dalla colonizzazione alla crisi di fine V secolo a.C.. Roma L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2006. ISBN 88-8265-367-6.
* Martin Nilsson, 1955. Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion, vol. I. C.H. Beck.
* Pauly–Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft: II, "Apollon". The best repertory of cult sites (Burkert).
* Pfeiff, K.A., 1943. Apollon: Wandlung seines Bildes in der griechischen Kunst. Traces the changing iconography of Apollo.
* D.S.Robertson (1945) A handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture Cambridge University Press
* Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Apollo"
*Spivey Nigel (1997) Greek art Phaedon Press Ltd. 

==External links==

* Apollo at the Greek Mythology Link, by Carlos Parada
* The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database: ca 1650 images of Apollo

 



[[Andre Agassi]]

Andre Kirk Agassi (; born April 29, 1970, in Las Vegas, Nevada) is an American retired professional tennis player and former World No. 1, who was one of the game's most dominant players from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. Generally considered by critics and fellow players to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time, "Stars pay tribute to Agassi". BBC. Retrieved 15 May 2010. Agassi has been called the best service returner in the history of the game. "Reed's shotmakers: Men's return of serve". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved 15 May 2010. "Adjectives Tangled in the Net". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 May 2010. "Sampras, Agassi Have Just Begun to Fight" Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 May 2010. Described by the BBC upon his retirement as "perhaps the biggest worldwide star in the sport's history", Agassi compiled performances that, along with his unorthodox apparel and attitude, saw him cited as one of the most charismatic players in the history of the game. As a result, he is credited for helping to revive the popularity of tennis during the 1990s. 

In singles tennis, Agassi is an eight-time Grand Slam champion and a 1996 Olympic gold medalist, as well as finishing runner-up in seven other Grand Slam tournaments. His four Australian Open titles are an Open Era record (shared with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer). He is one of four male singles players to achieve the Career Grand Slam (all four Grand Slam championships) in the Open Era and one of seven in history, the first of two to achieve the Career Golden Slam (Career Grand Slam and Olympic gold medal), and the only man to win the Career Golden Slam and the ATP Tour World Championships (won in 1990): a distinction dubbed as a "Career Super Slam" by Sports Illustrated. 

Agassi was the first male player to win all four Grand Slams on three different surfaces (hard, clay and grass), and the last American male to win the French Open (1999) and the Australian Open (2003). He also won 17 ATP Masters Series titles and was part of a winning Davis Cup team in 1990, 1992 and 1995. Agassi was troubled by personal issues during the mid-to-late 1990s and sank to World No. 141 in 1997, prompting many to believe that his career was over. Agassi, however, returned to World No. 1 in 1999 and enjoyed the most successful run of his career over the next four years. During his 20-plus year tour career, Agassi was known by the nickname "The Punisher". Jhabvala, Nick. "Tale of the Tape". Sports Illustrated. 2 November 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2012. Mehrotra, Abhishek. "Agassi: Last of the great Americans". ESPN Star. Retrieved 21 July 2012. "Nickometer: Popular nicknames in the world of sport". MSN Sport. 3 May 2012. Retrieved 21 July 2012. Calvert, Sean. "Australian Open Betting: The best finals ever". Betfair. 10 January 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2012. 

After suffering from sciatica caused by two bulging discs in his back, a spondylolisthesis (vertebral displacement) and a bone spur that interfered with the nerve, Agassi retired from professional tennis on September 3, 2006, after losing in the third round of the US Open to Benjamin Becker. He is the founder of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which has raised over $60 million for at-risk children in Southern Nevada. In 2001, the Foundation opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, a K-12 public charter school for at-risk children. He has been married to fellow tennis star Steffi Graf since 2001.

==1970–1985: Early life==
Andre Agassi was born in Las Vegas, Nevada to Emmanuel "Mike" Agassi and Elizabeth "Betty" Agassi (née Dudley). His father, a former Olympic boxer for Iran, is of Armenian and Assyrian descent. Andre Agassi's mother, Betty, is a breast cancer survivor. He has three older siblings – Rita (last wife to Pancho Gonzales), Philip and Tami. 

In a passage from the book Open, Agassi details how his father made him play a match for money with football legend Jim Brown, in 1979, when Agassi was 9 years old. Brown was at a Vegas tennis club complaining to the owner about a money match that was canceled. Agassi's father stepped in and told Brown that he could play his son and he would put up his house for the wager. Brown countered with a $10,000 bet, but after he was warned by the club owner not to take the bet because he would lose and be embarrassed, Brown agreed with Mike Agassi that they would set the amount after he and Andre played two sets. Brown lost those sets, 3–6, 3–6, declined the 10K wager, and offered to play the third set for $500. He lost 2–6. 

At age 13, Andre was sent to Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in Florida. He was meant to stay for only 3 months because that was all his father could afford. After thirty minutes of watching Agassi play, Bollettieri called Mike and said: "Take your check back. He's here for free," claiming that Agassi had more natural talent than anyone else he had seen. Agassi dropped out of school in the ninth grade. 

==International tennis career biography==

===1986–1993: Breakthrough and the first major title===

He turned professional at the age of 16 and competed in his first tournament at La Quinta, California. He won his first match against John Austin, but then lost his second match to Mats Wilander. By the end of the year, Agassi was ranked world no. 91. He won his first top-level singles title in 1987 at the Sul American Open in Itaparica and ended the year ranked world no. 25. He won six additional tournaments in 1988 (Memphis, U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, Forest Hills WCT, Stuttgart Outdoor, Volvo International and Livingston Open), and, by December of that year, he had surpassed US$1 million in career prize money after playing in just 43 tournaments—the fastest anyone in history had reached that level. Andre Agassi – Biography During the year, he set the open-era record for most consecutive victories by a male teenager, a record that stood for 17 years until Rafael Nadal broke it in 2005. His year-end ranking was world no. 3, behind second-ranked Ivan Lendl and top-ranked Mats Wilander. Both the Association of Tennis Professionals and Tennis magazine named Agassi the Most Improved Player of the Year for 1988. 

In addition to not playing the Australian Open (which later became his best Grand Slam event) for the first eight years of his career, Agassi chose not to play at Wimbledon from 1988 through 1990 and publicly stated that he did not wish to play there because of the event's traditionalism, particularly its "predominantly white" dress code to which players at the event are required to conform.

Strong performances on the tour meant that Agassi was quickly tipped as a future Grand Slam champion. While still a teenager, he reached the semifinals of both the French Open and the US Open in 1988 and made the US Open semifinals in 1989. He began the 1990s, however, with a series of near-misses. He reached his first Grand Slam final in 1990 at the French Open, where he was favored before losing in four sets to Andrés Gómez. He reached his second Grand Slam final of the year at the US Open, defeating defending champion Boris Becker in the semifinals. His opponent in the final was Pete Sampras; a year earlier, Agassi had crushed Sampras, after which he told his coach that he felt bad for Sampras because he was never going to make it as a pro. Agassi lost the US Open final to Sampras in three sets. The rivalry between these two American players became the dominant rivalry in tennis over the rest of the decade. Also in 1990, Agassi helped the United States win its first Davis Cup in 8 years and won his only Tennis Masters Cup, beating reigning Wimbledon champion Stefan Edberg in the final.

In 1991, Agassi reached his second consecutive French Open final, where he faced fellow Bollettieri Academy alumnus Jim Courier. Courier emerged the victor in a five-set final. Agassi decided to play at Wimbledon in 1991, leading to weeks of speculation in the media about the clothes he would wear. He eventually emerged for the first round in a completely white outfit. He reached the quarterfinals on that occasion, losing in five sets to David Wheaton.

Agassi's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came at Wimbledon, not at the French Open or the US Open, where he had previously enjoyed success. In 1992, he defeated Goran Ivanišević in a five-set final. Along the way, Agassi overcame two former Wimbledon champions: Boris Becker and John McEnroe. No other baseliner would triumph at Wimbledon until Lleyton Hewitt ten years later. Agassi was named the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year in 1992. Agassi once again played on the United States' Davis Cup winning team in 1992. It was their second Davis cup title in three years.

1993 saw Agassi win the only doubles title of his career, at the Cincinnati Masters, partnered with Petr Korda. Agassi missed much of the early part of that year with injuries. Although he made the quarterfinals in his Wimbledon title defense, he lost to eventual champion and world no. 1 Pete Sampras in five sets. Agassi lost in the first round at the US Open to Thomas Enqvist and required wrist surgery late in the year.

===1994–1997: Rise to the top, Olympic Gold and the fall===
With new coach Brad Gilbert on board, Agassi began to employ more of a tactical, consistent approach, which fueled his resurgence. He started slowly in 1994, losing in the first week at the French Open and Wimbledon. Nevertheless, he emerged during the hard-court season, winning the Canadian Open. His comeback culminated at the 1994 US Open with a five-set fourth-round victory against compatriot Michael Chang. He then became the first man to capture the US Open as an unseeded player, beating Michael Stich in the final. Along the way, he beat 5 seeded players.

In 1995, Agassi shaved his balding head, breaking with his old "image is everything" style. He competed in the 1995 Australian Open (his first appearance at the event) and won, beating Sampras in a four-set final. Agassi and Sampras met in five tournament finals in 1995, all on hardcourt, with Agassi winning three. Agassi won three Masters Series events in 1995 (Cincinnati, Key Biscayne, and the Canadian Open) and seven titles total. He compiled a career-best 26-match winning streak during the summer hard-court circuit, which ended when he lost the US Open final to Sampras.

Agassi reached the world no. 1 ranking for the first time in April 1995. He held that ranking until November, for a total of 30 weeks. Agassi skipped most of the fall indoor season which allowed Sampras to surpass him and finish ranked no. 1 at the year-ending ranking. In terms of win/loss record, 1995 was Agassi's best year. He won 73 matches while losing 9 and was also once again a key player on the United States' Davis Cup winning team—the third and final Davis Cup title of Agassi's career.

1996 was a less successful year for Agassi, as he failed to reach any Grand Slam final. He suffered two early-round losses at the hands of compatriots Chris Woodruff and Doug Flach at the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively, and lost to Chang in straight sets in the Australian and US Open semifinals. At the time, Agassi blamed the Australian Open loss on the windy conditions, but later said in his biography that he had lost the match on purpose, as he did not want to play Boris Becker, whom he would have faced in that final. The high point for Agassi was winning the men's singles gold medal at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, beating Sergi Bruguera of Spain in the final. Agassi also successfully defended his singles titles in Cincinnati and Key Biscayne.

1997 was the low point of Agassi's career. His wrist injury resurfaced, and he played only 24 matches during the year. He later confessed that he started using crystal methamphetamine at that time, allegedly on the urging of a friend. He failed an ATP drug test, but wrote a letter claiming the same friend had spiked a drink. The ATP dropped the failed drug test as a warning. In his autobiography, Agassi admitted that the letter was a lie. He quit the drug soon after. At this time Agassi was also in a failing marriage with actress Brooke Shields and had lost interest in the game. Andre Agassi interview. The Ellen DeGeneres Show. 19 November 2009. He won no top-level titles, and his ranking sank to world no. 141 on 10 November 1997, prompting many to believe that his run as one of the sport's premier competitors was over and that he would never again win any significant championships. 

===1998–2003: Return to glory and Career Golden Slam===
Agassi serving
In 1998, Agassi began a rigorous conditioning program and worked his way back up the rankings by playing in Challenger Series tournaments, a circuit for pro players ranked outside the world's top 50. After returning to top physical and mental shape, Agassi recorded the most succesful period of his tennis career and also played classic matches in that period against Pete Sampras and Patrick Rafter.

In 1998, Agassi won five titles and leapt from world no. 110 to no. 6, the highest jump into the top 10 made by any player during a calendar year. At Wimbledon, he had an early loss in the second round to Tommy Haas. He won five titles in ten finals and was runner-up at the Masters Series tournament in Key Biscayne, losing to Marcelo Ríos, who became world no. 1 as a result. At the year end he was awarded the ATP Most Improved Player of the Year for the second time in his career (first being 10 years earlier in 1988).

Agassi entered the history books in 1999 when he came back from two sets to love down to beat Andrei Medvedev in a five-set French Open final, becoming, at the time, only the fifth male player (joining Rod Laver, Fred Perry, Roy Emerson and Don Budge—these have since been joined by a sixth, Roger Federer and a seventh, Rafael Nadal) to win all four Grand Slam singles titles during his career. Only Laver, Agassi, Federer and Nadal have achieved this feat during the open era. This win also made him the first (of only three, the second and third being Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal respectively) male player in history to have won all four Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces (clay, grass and hard courts), a tribute to his adaptability, as the other four men won their Grand Slam titles on clay and grass courts. Agassi also became the first (of only two, the second being Rafael Nadal) male player to win the Career Golden Slam, consisting of all four Grand Slam tournaments plus an Olympic gold medal.

Agassi followed his 1999 French Open victory by reaching the Wimbledon final, where he lost to Sampras in straight sets. He rebounded from his Wimbledon defeat by winning the US Open, beating Todd Martin in five sets (rallying from a two sets to one deficit) in the final. Overall during the year Agassi won 5 titles including two majors and the ATP Masters Series in Paris, where he beat Marat Safin. Agassi ended 1999 as the world no. 1, ending Sampras's record of six consecutive year-ending top rankings (1993–1998). This was the only time Agassi ended the year at no. 1.

He began the next year by capturing his second Australian Open title, beating Sampras in a five-set semifinal and Yevgeny Kafelnikov in a four-set final. He was the first male player to have reached four consecutive Grand Slam finals since Rod Laver achieved the Grand Slam in 1969. At the time, Agassi was also only the fourth player since Laver to be the reigning champion of three of four Grand Slam events, missing only the Wimbledon title.. 2000 also saw Agassi reach the semifinals at Wimbledon, where he lost in five sets to Rafter in a match considered by many to be one of the best ever at Wimbledon. At the inaugural Tennis Masters Cup in Lisbon, Agassi reached the final after defeating Marat Safin in the semifinals to end the Russian's hopes to become the youngest world no. 1 in the history of tennis. Agassi then lost to Gustavo Kuerten in the final, allowing Kuerten to be crowned year-end world no. 1.

Agassi opened 2001 by successfully defending his Australian Open title with a straight-sets final win over Arnaud Clément. En route, he beat a cramping Rafter in five sets in front of a sell-out crowd in what turned out to be the Aussie's last Australian Open. At Wimbledon, they met again in the semifinals, where Agassi lost another close match to Rafter, 8–6 in the fifth set. In the quarterfinals at the US Open, Agassi lost a 3 hour, 33 minute epic match with Sampras, 7–6, 6–7, 6–7, 6–7, with no breaks of serve during the 52-game match. Despite the setback, Agassi finished 2001 ranked world no. 3, becoming the only male tennis player to finish a year ranked in the top 3 in three different decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s). He also was the oldest player (age 31) to finish in the top three since 32-year old Connors finished at world no. 2 in 1984. 

2002 opened with disappointment for Agassi, as injury forced him to skip the Australian Open, where he was a two-time defending champion. Agassi recovered from the injury and later that year defended his Key Biscayne title beating then rising Roger Federer in a four-set final. The last duel between Agassi and Sampras came in the final of the US Open, which Sampras won in four sets and left Sampras with a 20–14 edge in their 34 career meetings. The match was the last of Sampras's career. Agassi's US Open finish, along with his Masters Series victories in Key Biscayne, Rome and Madrid, helped him finish 2002 as the oldest year-end world no. 2 at 32 years and 8 months. 

In 2003, Agassi won the eighth (and final) Grand Slam title of his career at the Australian Open, where he beat Rainer Schüttler in straight sets in the final. In March, he won his sixth career and third consecutive Key Biscayne title, in the process surpassing his wife, Steffi Graf, who was a five-time winner of the event. The final was his 18th straight win in that tournament, which broke the previous record of 17 set by Sampras from 1993–1995. (Agassi's winning streak continued to 20 after winning his first two matches at the 2004 edition of that tournament before bowing to Agustín Calleri.) With the victory, Agassi became the youngest (19 years old) and oldest (32) winner of the Key Biscayne tournament.

On 28 April 2003, he recaptured the world no. 1 ranking after a quarterfinal victory over Xavier Malisse at the Queen's Club Championships to become the oldest top-ranked male player since the ATP rankings began at 33 years and 13 days. He had held the world no. 1 ranking for two weeks, when Lleyton Hewitt took it back on 12 May 2003. Agassi then recaptured the world no. 1 ranking once again on 16 June 2003, which he held for 12 weeks until 7 September 2003. During his career, Agassi held the world no. 1 ranking for a total of 101 weeks. Agassi's ranking slipped when injuries forced him to withdraw from many events. He did manage to reach the US Open semifinals, where he lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero and surrendered his world no. 1 ranking to Ferrero. At the year-end Tennis Masters Cup, Agassi lost in the final to Federer and finished the year ranked world no. 4. At age 33, he was the oldest player to rank in the top 5 since Connors, at age 35, was world no. 4 in 1987. 

===2004–2006: Final years===
In 2004, Agassi began the year with a five-set loss in the semifinals of the Australian Open to Marat Safin; the loss ended Agassi's 26-match winning streak at the event, a record that still stands. He won the Masters series event in Cincinnati to bring his career total to 59 top-level singles titles and a record 17 ATP Masters Series titles, having already won seven of the nine ATP Masters tournament—all except the tournaments in Monte Carlo and Hamburg. At 34, he became the second-oldest singles champion in Cincinnati tournament history (the tournament began in 1899), surpassed only by Ken Rosewall, who won the title in 1970 at age 35. He finished the year ranked world no. 8, the oldest player to finish in the top 10 since the 36-year-old Connors was world no. 7 in 1988. Agassi also became only the sixth male player during the open era to reach 800 career wins with his first-round victory over Alex Bogomolov in Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles.

Agassi's 2005 began with a quarterfinal loss to Federer at the Australian Open. Agassi had several other deep runs at tournaments, but had to withdraw from several events due to injury. He lost to Jarkko Nieminen in the first round of the French Open. He won his fourth title in Los Angeles and reached the final of the Rogers Cup, before falling to world no. 2 Rafael Nadal. On 25 July 2005 Agassi left Nike after 17 years and signed an endorsement deal with Adidas. A major reason for Agassi leaving Nike was because Nike refused to donate to Agassi's charities, and Adidas was more than happy to do so. On 13 May 2013 Agassi rejoined Nike. 

Agassi's 2005 was defined by an improbable run to the US Open final. After beating Răzvan Sabău and Ivo Karlović in straight sets and Tomáš Berdych in four sets, Agassi won three consecutive five-set matches to advance to the final. The most notable of these matches was his quarterfinal victory over James Blake, where he rallied from two sets down to win 7–6 in the fifth set. His other five-set victims were Xavier Malisse in the fourth round and Robby Ginepri in the semifinals. In the final, Agassi faced Federer, who was seeking his second consecutive US Open title and his sixth Grand Slam title in two years. Federer defeated Agassi in four sets. Agassi finished 2005 ranked world no. 7, his 16th time in the year-end top-10 rankings, which tied Connors for the most times ranked in the top 10 at year's end.

Agassi had a poor start to 2006. He was still recovering from an ankle injury and also suffering from back and leg pain and lack of match play. Agassi withdrew from the Australian Open because of the ankle injury, and his back injury and other pains forced him to withdraw from several other events, eventually skipping the entire clay-court season, including the French Open. This caused his ranking to drop out of the top 10 for the last time. Agassi returned for the grass-court season, playing a tune-up, and then Wimbledon. He was defeated in the third round by world no. 2 (and eventual runner-up) Rafael Nadal. Against conventions, Agassi, the losing player, was interviewed on court after the match. At Wimbledon, Agassi announced his plans to retire following the US Open. Agassi played only two events during the summer hard-court season, with his best result being a quarterfinal loss at the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles to Fernando González of Chile. As a result, he was unseeded at the US Open.

Agassi had a short, but dramatic, run in his final US Open. Because of extreme back pain, Agassi was forced to receive anti-inflammatory injections after every match. After a tough four-set win against Andrei Pavel, Agassi faced eighth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis in the second round, who had earlier advanced to the 2006 Australian Open final and Wimbledon semifinals. Agassi won in five tough sets as the younger Baghdatis succumbed to muscle cramping in the final set. In his last match, Agassi fell to 112th-ranked big-serving Benjamin Becker of Germany in four sets. Agassi received a four-minute standing ovation from the crowd after the match and delivered a retirement speech.

==Earnings==
Agassi earned more than US$30 million in prize-money during his career, fifth only to Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Sampras to date. He also earned more than US$25 million a year through endorsements during his career, fourth in all sports at the time. 

==Post-retirement==
Since retiring after the 2006 US Open, Agassi has participated in a series of charity tournaments and continues his work with his own charity. On 5 September 2007, he was a surprise guest commentator for the Andy Roddick/Roger Federer US Open quarter-final. He played an exhibition match at Wimbledon, teaming with his wife, Steffi Graf, to play with Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters. He played World Team Tennis for the Philadelphia Freedoms in the summer of 2009. Andre Agassi Will Play WTT SI.com, 1 March 2009 At the 2009 French Open, Agassi was on hand to present Roger Federer, who completed his Career Grand Slam by winning the tournament and joined Agassi as one of six men to complete the Career Grand Slam, with the trophy. Roger Federer beats Robin Soderling to win French Open tennis | Sport | guardian.co.uk 

Also in 2009 Agassi played at the Outback Champions Series event for the first time. He played the Cancer Treatment Centers of America Tennis Championships at Surprise, Arizona, where he reached the final before bowing to eventual champion Todd Martin. He also announced that he will not be playing the tour on a full-time basis, and played the tournament as a favor to long-time friend Jim Courier. Agassi returned to the tour renamed for the PowerShares Series in 2011 and participated in a total of seven events while winning two. Agassi beat Courier in the final of the Staples Champions Cup in Boston and later defeated Sampras at the CTCA Championships at his hometown Las Vegas. 

In 2012 Agassi took part in five tournaments, winning three of those. In November, at first he won BILT Champions Showdown in San Jose, beating John McEnroe in the final. The following day, he defended his title of the CTCA Championships, while defeating Courier in the decisive match. In the series season finale, he beat Michael Chang for the Acura Champions Cup. The series and Agassi came back to action in 2014. Agassi won both tournaments he participated in. At the Camden Wealth Advisors Cup's final in Houston, Agassi beat James Blake for a rematch of their 2005 US Open quarterfinal. He defeated Blake again in Portland to win the title of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America Championships. 

In 2009 Agassi and Sampras met for the first time on tennis court since the 2002 US Open final in Macau for an exhibition match which was won by Sampras in three sets. The rivalry between the former champions headlined sports media again in March 2010 after the two participated in the "Hit for Haiti" charity event organized to raise money for the victims of the earthquake. Partnered with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the old rivals began making jokes on each other what ended up with Sampras intentionally striking a serve at Agassi's body. After the event Agassi admitted that he had crossed the line with his jokes and publicly apologized to Sampras. Agassi and Sampras met again one year later for an exhibition match at Madison Square Garden in New York in front of the 19 000 spectators as Sampras defeated Agassi in two sets. On 3 March 2014 Agassi and Sampras squared off for an exhibition in London for the annual World Tennis Day. That time it was Agassi who came out on top in two straight sets. 

==Playing style==
Early in his career, Agassi would look to end points quickly by playing first strike tennis, typically by inducing a weak return with a deep, hard shot, and then playing a winner at an extreme angle. His groundstrokes, return of serve, baseline game, phenomenal hand-eye coordination and keen sense of anticipation were always among the best in the game. On the rare occasion that he charged the net, Agassi liked to take the ball in the air and hit a swinging volley for the winner. His favored groundstroke was his flat, laser-accurate two-handed backhand, hit well cross-court but in particular down the line. His slightly spinnier forehand was nearly as strong, in particular his inside-out forehand to the ad court. 

Agassi's strength was in dictating play from the back of the court. While he was growing up, his father and Nick Bollettieri trained him in this way. Open: Andre Agassi HarpersCollins 2009 When in control of a point, Agassi would often pass up an opportunity to attempt a winner and hit a conservative shot to minimize his errors, and to make his opponent run more. This change to more methodical, less aggressive baseline play was largely initiated by his longtime coach, Brad Gilbert, in their first year together in 1994. Gilbert encouraged Agassi to wear out opponents with his deep, flat groundstrokes and to use his fitness to win attrition wars, and noted Agassi's two-handed backhand down the line as his very best shot. 

Agassi's serve was never the strength of his game, but it improved steadily over the course of his career to being above average. He often used his hard slice serve to the deuce service box to send his opponent off the court, followed by a shot to the opposite corner. Agassi's service speed when hitting a flat first serve would range between 110 and. His second serve usually was a heavy "kick" serve in the mid-80s range.

Agassi was raised on hardcourts, but found much of his early major-tournament success on the red clay of Roland Garros, reaching two consecutive finals there early in his career. His first major win, however, was at the slick grass of Wimbledon in 1992, a tournament that he professed to hating at the time. His strongest surface over the course of his career, however, was indeed hardcourt, where he won six of his eight majors.

==Personal life==
===Relationships and family===
In the early 90's Agassi dated American entertainer Barbra Streisand. Writing about the relationship in his 2009 autobiography, he said: We agree that we're good for each other, and so what if she's twenty-eight years older? We're simpatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection. It makes our friendship feel forbidden, taboo &ndash; another piece of my overall rebellion. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava."

Agassi was married to Brooke Shields from 1997 to 1999. 

He married Steffi Graf on 22 October 2001 at their Las Vegas home, Graf being highly pregnant. They have two children: son Jaden Gil (born 26 October 2001) and daughter Jaz Elle (born 3 October 2003). Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. "Tennis: Agassi taking different tact with fatherhood," The New Zealand Herald, 25 January 2013 

Long-time trainer Gil Reyes has been called one of Agassi's closest friends; some have described him as being a "father figure" to Agassi. In 2012, Agassi and Reyes introduced their own line of fitness equipment, BILT By Agassi and Reyes. 

In December 2008, Agassi's childhood friend and former business manager, Perry Rogers, sued Graf for $50,000 in management fees he claimed that she owed him. Alliance Sports Management v. Stephanie Graf Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved 23 October 2009. "Ex-manager for Agassi sues Graf" Las Vegas Review-Journal 7 December 2008. Retrieved 23 October 2009. 

===Autobiography===
Agassi's autobiography, Open (written with assistance from J. R. Moehringer "Agassi Basks in His Own Spotlight" by Janet Malin New York Times 8 November 2009. Retrieved 11 December 2009. ), was published in November 2009. In it, Agassi admitted that he used and tested positive for methamphetamine in 1997. In response to this revelation, Roger Federer declared himself shocked and disappointed, while Marat Safin argued that Agassi should return his prize money and be stripped of his titles. In an exclusive interview with CBS, Agassi justified himself and asked for understanding, saying that "It was a period in my life where I needed help." He also revealed that he had always hated tennis during his career because of the constant pressure it exerted on him. He also revealed he thought Pete Sampras was "robotic". The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list and received favorable reviews. It won the Autobiography category of the 2010 British Sports Book Awards. 

==Politics==
Agassi has donated more than $100,000 to Democratic candidates. However, on 1 September 2010, when he appeared on daily WNYC public radio program "The Brian Lehrer Show," he stated that he is a registered Independent. 

==Philanthropy==
Agassi founded the Andre Agassi Charitable Association in 1994, which assists Las Vegas' young people. He was awarded the ATP Arthur Ashe Humanitarian award in 1995 for his efforts to help disadvantaged youth. He is regularly cited as the most charitable and socially involved player in professional tennis. It has also been claimed that he may be the most charitable athlete of his generation. 

Agassi's charities help in assisting children reach their athletic potential. His Boys & Girls Club sees 2,000 children throughout the year and boasts a world-class junior tennis team. It also has a basketball program (the Agassi Stars) and a rigorous system that encourages a mix of academics and athletics.

In 2001, Agassi opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk children in the area. In 2009, the graduating class had 100 percent graduation rate and expected a 100 percent college acceptance rate. Among other child-related programs that Agassi supports through his Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation is Clark County's only residential facility for abused and neglected children, Child Haven. In 1997, Agassi donated funding to Child Haven for a six-room classroom building now named the Agassi Center for Education. His foundation also provided $720,000 to assist in the building of the Andre Agassi Cottage for Medically Fragile Children. This 20-bed facility opened in December 2001, and accommodates developmentally delayed or handicapped children and children quarantined for infectious diseases. 

In 2007 Agassi, Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, Warrick Dunn, Jeff Gordon, Mia Hamm, Tony Hawk, Andrea Jaeger, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Mario Lemieux, Alonzo Mourning and Cal Ripken, Jr. founded the charity Athletes for Hope, which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and aims to inspire all people to volunteer and support their communities. 

==Career statistics==

===Singles timeline overview===

Tournament 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
 Grand Slams 
 Australian Open NH W SF 4R 4R W W W SF QF 
 French Open 2R SF 3R F F SF 2R QF 2R 1R W 2R QF QF QF 1R 1R 
 Wimbledon 1R QF W QF 4R SF 1R 2R F SF SF 2R 4R 3R 
 US Open 1R 1R SF SF F 1R QF 1R W F SF 4R 4R W 2R QF F SF QF F 3R 
 Year-End Championship 
 Masters Cup RR RR W SF SF RR RR F F RR RR F RR 
 Overall 
 Win–Loss 5–6 26–17 63–11 41–19 45–12 39–17 42–15 33–11 52–14 73–9 38–14 12–12 68–18 63–14 40–15 46–15 53–12 47–10 37–13 38–12 10–8 
 Titles 0 1 6 1 4 2 3 2 5 7 3 0 5 5 1 4 5 4 1 1 0 
 Ranking 91 25 3 7 4 10 9 24 2 2 8 110 6 1 6 3 2 4 8 7 150 

===Records===

 Time span Selected Grand Slam tournament records Players matched 
 1990 YEC — 1999 French Open Career \"Super Slam\" Stands alone 
 1992 Wimbledon — 1999 French Open Career Golden Slam Rafael Nadal 
 1992 Wimbledon — 1999 French Open Career Grand Slam Rod LaverRoger FedererRafael Nadal 
 1996 Olympics — 1999 US Open Simultaneous holder of Olympic singles gold medal and Majors on clay & hard court Rafael Nadal 
 1996 Olympics — 2000 Australian Open Simultaneous holder of Olympic singles gold medal and 3 Majors Rafael Nadal 
 

 Grand Slam tournaments Time Span Records at each Grand Slam tournament Players matched 
 Australian Open 1995–2003 4 titles overall Roger FedererNovak Djokovic 
 Australian Open 2000–2004 26 consecutive match wins Stands alone 
 Australian Open 1995–2005 88.89% (48–6) match winning percentage Stands alone 
 Australian Open 2003 71.6% (121–48) games winning percentage in 1 tournament Stands alone 
 US Open 1986–2006 21 consecutive tournaments played Stands alone 

 Time span Other selected records Players matched 
 1988–2005 13 Year-End Championship appearances Stands alone 
 1986–2006 598 hard court match wins Stands alone 
 1990–2003 6 Miami Masters titles Stands alone 
 1995–2003 Oldest player ranked no. 1 (33 years 4 months) Stands alone 
 1988–2005 Ended 16 years ranked inside the top 10 Jimmy Connors 

==Professional awards==
* ITF World Champion: 1999.
* ATP Player of the Year: 1999.
* ATP Most Improved Player: 1988, 1998

==Recognition==
* In 1992, Agassi was named the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
* In 2010, Sports Illustrated named Agassi the 7th greatest male player of all time. 
* On 9 July 2011, Agassi was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island. 

==Video==
* Wimbledon 2000 Semi-Final – Agassi vs. Rafter (2003) Starring: Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter; Standing Room Only, DVD Release Date: 16 August 2005, Run Time: 213 minutes, .
* Charlie Rose with Andre Agassi (May 7, 2001) Charlie Rose, Inc., DVD Release Date: 15 August 2006, Run Time: 57 minutes.
* Wimbledon: The Record Breakers (2005) Starring: Andre Agassi, Boris Becker; Standing Room Only, DVD Release Date: 16 August 2005, Run Time: 52 minutes, .

==Video games==

* Andre Agassi Tennis for the SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Master System, and Mobile phone Andre Agassi Tennis at MobyGames 
* Agassi Tennis Generation for PS2 and GBA
* Smash Court Pro Tournament for PS2
* Top Spin 4 (On cover of game) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii

==See also==

* List of Grand Slam Men's Singles champions
* Sampras–Agassi rivalry
* Tennis male players statistics
*ATP World Tour records
*Tennis records of All Time - Men's Singles
*Tennis records of the Open Era – Men's Singles
*Iranian American

==Notes==

==References==

==Further reading==
* 
* 

==External links==

* 
* 
* 
* 
* Player profile at TheTennisChannel.com
* AgassiOpen.com
* The Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation
* For Agassi, it's substance over style, 2004
* Farewell to Tennis Speech at the U.S. Open
* Agassi's Tennis Hall of Fame Induction for Steffi Graf
* 



[[Austroasiatic languages]]

The Austroasiatic languages, Sometimes also as Austro-Asiatic or Austroasian. in recent classifications synonymous with Mon–Khmer, Bradley (2012) notes, MK in the wider sense including the Munda languages of eastern South Asia is also known as Austroasiatic. are a large language family of continental Southeast Asia, also scattered throughout India, Bangladesh, and the southern border of China. The name Austroasiatic comes from the Latin words for "south" and "Asia", hence "South Asia". Among these languages, only Khmer, Vietnamese, and Mon have a long-established recorded history, and only Vietnamese and Khmer have official status (in Vietnam and Cambodia, respectively). The rest of the languages are spoken by minority groups. Ethnologue identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages. These form thirteen established families (plus perhaps Shompen, which is poorly attested, as a fourteenth), which have traditionally been grouped into two, as Mon–Khmer and Munda. However, one recent classification posits three groups (Munda, Nuclear Mon-Khmer and Khasi-Khmuic) Diffloth 2005 while another has abandoned Mon–Khmer as a taxon altogether, making it synonymous with the larger family. Sidwell 2009 

Austroasiatic languages have a disjunct distribution across India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, separated by regions where other languages are spoken. They appear to be the autochthonous languages of Southeast Asia, with the neighboring Indic, Tai, Dravidian, Austronesian, and Tibeto-Burman languages being the result of later migrations (Sidwell & Blench, 2011). Genetic studies of representatives from all branches of Austroasiatic indicate the ancestors of Austroasiatic speakers originated in present-day India and migrated into Southeast Asia from the Brahmaputra River Valley. 2007. Reddy, Battini M., et al. "Y-chromosome evidence suggests a common paternal heritage of Austro-Asiatic populations". BMC Journal of Evolutionary Biology 7:47 

== Typology ==

The Austroasiatic languages are well known for having a "sesquisyllabic" pattern, with basic nouns and verbs consisting of a reduced minor syllable plus a full syllable. Many of them also have infixes. The Austroasiatic languages are further characterized as having unusually large vowel inventories and employing some sort of register contrast, either between modal (normal) voice and breathy (lax) voice or between modal voice and creaky voice. DIPFLOTH, Gerard. "Proto-Austroasiatic creaky voice." (1989). Languages in the Pearic branch and some in the Vietic branch can have a three- or even four-way voicing contrast. However, some Austroasiatic languages have lost the register contrast by evolving more diphthongs or in a few cases, such as Vietnamese, tonogenesis.

==Proto-language==

Much work has been done on the reconstruction of Proto-Mon–Khmer in Harry L. Shorto's Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary. Little work has been done on the Munda languages, which are not well documented; with their demotion from a primary branch, Proto-Mon–Khmer becomes synonymous with Proto-Austroasiatic.

Sidwell (2005) reconstructs the consonant inventory of Proto-Mon–Khmer as follows:

 *p *t *c *k *ʔ 
 *b *d *ɟ *ɡ 
 *ɓ *ɗ *ʄ 
 *m *n *ɲ *ŋ 
 *w *l, *r *j 
 *s *h 

This is identical to earlier reconstructions except for . is better preserved in the Katuic languages, which Sidwell has specialized in. Sidwell (2011) suggests that the likely homeland of Austroasiatic is the middle Mekong, in the area of the Bahnaric and Katuic languages (approximately where modern Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia come together), and that the family is not as old as frequently assumed, dating to perhaps 2000 BCE. 

==Classification==
Linguists traditionally recognize two primary divisions of Austroasiatic: the Mon–Khmer languages of Southeast Asia, Northeast India and the Nicobar Islands, and the Munda languages of East and Central India and parts of Bangladesh. However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published.

Each of the families that is written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade. By contrast, the relationships between these families within Austroasiatic is debated. In addition to the traditional classification, two recent proposals are given, neither of which accept traditional "Mon–Khmer" as a valid unit. However, little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore cannot be evaluated by peer review.

In addition, there are suggestions that additional branches of Austroasiatic might be preserved in substrata of Acehnese in Sumatra (Diffloth), the Chamic languages of Vietnam, and the Land Dayak languages of Borneo (Adelaar 1995). Roger Blench, 2009. Are there four additional unrecognised branches of Austroasiatic? Presentation at ICAAL-4, Bangkok, 29–30 October. Summarized in Sidwell and Blench (2011). 

===Sidwell (2009, 2011)===
Sidwell (2009a), in a lexicostatistical comparison of 36 languages which are well-known enough to exclude loan words, finds little evidence for internal branching, though he did find an area of increased contact between the Bahnaric and Katuic languages, such that languages of all branches apart from the geographically distant Munda and Nicobarese show greater similarity to Bahnaric and Katuic the closer they are to those branches, without any noticeable innovations common to Bahnaric and Katuic. He therefore takes the conservative view that the thirteen branches of Austroasiatic should be treated as equidistant on current evidence. Sidwell & Blench (2011) discuss this proposal in more detail, and note that there is good evidence for a Khasi–Palaungic node, which could also possibly be closely related to Khmuic. Sidwell, Paul, and Roger Blench. 2011. "The Austroasiatic Urheimat: the Southeastern Riverine Hypothesis." Enfield, N.J. (ed.) Dynamics of Human Diversity, 317-345. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. http://rogerblench.info/Archaeology/SE%20Asia/SR09/Sidwell%20Blench%20offprint.pdf If this would the case, Sidwell & Blench suggest that Khasic may have been an early offshoot of Palaungic that had spread westward. Sidwell & Blench (2011) suggest Shompen as an additional branch, and believe that a Vieto-Katuic connection is worth investigating. In general, however, the family is thought to have diversified too quickly for a deeply nested structure to have developed, since Proto-Austroasiatic speakers are believed by Sidwell to have radiated out from the central Mekong River valley relatively quickly.

===Gérard Diffloth (2005)===
Diffloth compares reconstructions of various clades, and attempts to classify them based on shared innovations, though like other classifications the evidence has not been published. As a schematic, we have:

Or in more detail,

* Munda languages (India)
:* Koraput: 7 languages
:*Core Munda languages
::* Kharian–Juang: 2 languages
::*North Munda languages
::: Korku
::: Kherwarian: 12 languages

* Khasi–Khmuic languages (Northern Mon–Khmer)
:* Khasian: 3 languages of eastern India and Bangladesh
:*Palaungo-Khmuic languages
::* Khmuic: 13 languages of Laos and Thailand

::*Palaungo-Pakanic languages
::: Pakanic or Palyu: 4 or 5 languages of southern China and Vietnam
::: Palaungic: 21 languages of Burma, southern China, and Thailand

* Nuclear Mon–Khmer languages
:* Khmero-Vietic languages (Eastern Mon–Khmer)

::* Vieto-Katuic languages ? Sidwell (2005) casts doubt on Diffloth's Vieto-Katuic hypothesis, saying that the evidence is ambiguous, and that it is not clear where Katuic belongs in the family. 
::: Vietic: 10 languages of Vietnam and Laos, including the Vietnamese language, which has the most speakers of any Austroasiatic language. These are the only Austroasiatic languages to have highly developed tone systems.
::: Katuic: 19 languages of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.

::* Khmero-Bahnaric languages
:::* Bahnaric: 40 languages of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
:::*Khmeric languages
:::: The Khmer dialects of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
:::: Pearic: 6 languages of Cambodia.

:* Nico-Monic languages (Southern Mon–Khmer)
::* Nicobarese: 6 languages of the Nicobar Islands, a territory of India.

::* Asli-Monic languages
::: Aslian: 19 languages of peninsular Malaysia and Thailand.
::: Monic: 2 languages, the Mon language of Burma and the Nyahkur language of Thailand.

This family tree is consistent with recent studies of migration of Y-Chromosomal haplogroup O2a1-M95. However, the dates obtained from by Zhivotovsky method DNA studies are several times older than that given by linguists. Kumar, Vikrant et al., Y-chromosome evidence suggests a common paternal heritage of Austroasiatic populations, BMC Evol Biol. 2007, 7: 47. The route map of the people with haplogroup O2a1-M95, speaking this language can be seen in this link. Other geneticists criticise the Zhivotovsky method.

===Ilia Peiros (2004)===
Peiros is a lexicostatistic classification, based on percentages of shared vocabulary. This means that a language may appear to be more distantly related than it actually is due to language contact. Indeed, when Sidwell (2009a) replicated Peiros's study with languages known well enough to account for loans, he did not find the internal (branching) structure below.
500px
*Nicobarese
*Munda–Khmer
**Munda
**Mon–Khmer
***Khasi
***Nuclear Mon–Khmer
****Mangic (Mang + Palyu) (perhaps in Northern MK)
****Vietic (perhaps in Northern MK)
****Northern Mon–Khmer
*****Palaungic
*****Khmuic
****Central Mon–Khmer
*****Khmer dialects
*****Pearic
*****Asli-Bahnaric
******Aslian
******Mon–Bahnaric
*******Monic
*******Katu–Bahnaric
********Katuic
********Bahnaric

===Diffloth (1974)===
Diffloth's widely cited original classification, now abandoned by Diffloth himself, is used in Encyclopædia Britannica and—except for the breakup of Southern Mon–Khmer—in Ethnologue.

*Munda
**North Munda
*** Korku
***Kherwarian
**South Munda
***Kharia–Juang
***Koraput Munda
*Mon–Khmer
**Eastern Mon–Khmer
***Khmer (Cambodian)
***Pearic
***Bahnaric
***Katuic
***Vietic (includes Vietnamese)
**Northern Mon–Khmer
***Khasi (Meghalaya, India)
***Palaungic
***Khmuic
**Southern Mon–Khmer
***Mon
***Aslian (Malaya)
***Nicobarese (Nicobar Islands)

==Writing systems==
Other than Latin-based alphabets, many Austroasiatic languages are written with the ancient Khmer alphabet, Thai alphabet and Lao alphabet. Vietnamese divergently had an indigenous script based on Chinese logographic writing. This has since been supplanted by the Latin alphabet in the 20th century. 
*Chữ Nôm 
*Khmer alphabet 
*Ol Chiki alphabet (Santali alphabet) 
*Sorang Sompeng alphabet (Sora alphabet) 
*Varang Kshiti (Ho alphabet) 
*Khom script (used for a short period in the early 20th century for indigenous languages in Laos)

==See also==
*Austric languages

==Notes==

==References==

* Adams, K. L. (1989). Systems of numeral classification in the Mon–Khmer, Nicobarese and Aslian subfamilies of Austroasiatic. Canberra, A.C.T., Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. ISBN 0-85883-373-5
* Bradley, David (2012). "Languages and Language Families in China", in Rint Sybesma (ed.), Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics.
* Chakrabarti, Byomkes. (1994). A Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali.
*Diffloth, Gérard (2005). "The contribution of linguistic palaeontology and Austro-Asiatic". in Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, eds. The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. 77–80. London: Routledge Curzon. ISBN 0-415-32242-1
* Filbeck, D. (1978). T'in: a historical study. Pacific linguistics, no. 49. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. ISBN 0-85883-172-4
* Hemeling, K. (1907). Die Nanking Kuanhua. (German language)
* Peck, B. M., Comp. (1988). An Enumerative Bibliography of South Asian Language Dictionaries.
* Peiros, Ilia. 1998. Comparative Linguistics in Southeast Asia. Pacific Linguistics Series C, No. 142. Canberra: Australian National University.
* Shorto, Harry L. edited by Sidwell, Paul, Cooper, Doug and Bauer, Christian (2006). A Mon–Khmer comparative dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0-85883-570-3
* Shorto, H. L. Bibliographies of Mon–Khmer and Tai Linguistics. London oriental bibliographies, v. 2. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
* Sidwell, Paul (2005). "Proto-Katuic Phonology and the Sub-grouping of Mon–Khmer Languages". In Sidwell, ed., SEALSXV: papers from the 15th meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society.
*Sidwell, Paul (2009a). The Austroasiatic Central Riverine Hypothesis. Keynote address, SEALS, XIX.
* Sidwell, Paul (2009b). Classifying the Austroasiatic languages: history and state of the art. LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics, 76. Munich: Lincom Europa.
* Zide, Norman H., and Milton E. Barker. (1966) Studies in Comparative Austroasiatic Linguistics, The Hague: Mouton (Indo-Iranian monographs, v. 5.).

==External links==

*Swadesh lists for Austro-Asiatic languages (from Wiktionary's lists Swadesh-list appendix])
*Austro-Asiatic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project: Genealogical trees attributed to Sebeok 1942, Pinnow 1959, Diffloth 2005, and Matisoff 2006
*Mon–Khmer.com: Lectures by Paul Sidwell
*Mon–Khmer Languages Project at SEAlang

 

[[Afroasiatic languages]]

Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasian and traditionally Hamito-Semitic (Chamito-Semitic), Daniel Don Nanjira, African Foreign Policy and Diplomacy: From Antiquity to the 21st Century, (ABC-CLIO: 2010). is a large language family, of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 300 or so living languages and dialects, according to the 2009 Ethnologue estimate. Ethnologue family tree for Afroasiatic languages It includes languages spoken predominantly in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel. The Afro-Asiatic family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as possessing the longest recorded history of any language family.

Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken by 350+ million native speakers, the fourth largest number of any language family. Summary by language family The most widely spoken Afroasiatic language is Arabic (including literary Arabic and the spoken colloquial varieties), with about 200 to 230 million native speakers, spoken mostly in the Middle East and parts of North Africa. Languages of the World Berber (including all its varieties) is spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, northern Mali, and northern Niger by about 25 to 35 million people. Other widely spoken Afroasiatic languages are Hausa, the dominant language of northern Nigeria and southern Niger, spoken as a first language by 25 million people and used as a lingua franca by another 20 million across West Africa and the Sahel; Ethnologue - Hausa Oromo of Ethiopia and Kenya, with about 33 million speakers total; Amharic of Ethiopia, with over 25 million native speakers, not including the millions of other Ethiopians speaking it as a secondary language; Somali, spoken by 15.5 million people in Greater Somalia; and Modern Hebrew, spoken by about seven million people worldwide.

In addition to languages spoken today, Afroasiatic includes several important ancient languages, such as Ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, and Aramaic.

==Etymology==
The Afroasiatic language family was originally referred to as "Hamito-Semitic", a term introduced in the 1860s by the German scholar Karl Richard Lepsius. The name was later popularized by Friedrich Müller in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft (Wien 1876-88). 

The term "Afroasiatic" (often now spelled as "Afro-Asiatic") was later coined by Maurice Delafosse (1914). However, it did not come into general use until Joseph Greenberg (1963) formally proposed its adoption. In doing so, Greenberg sought to emphasize the fact that Afroasiatic was represented transcontinentally, in both Africa and Asia. 

Individual scholars have also called the family "Erythraean" (Tucker 1966) and "Lisramic" (Hodge 1972). In lieu of "Hamito-Semitic", the Russian linguist Igor Diakonoff later suggested the term "Afrasian", meaning "half African, half Asiatic", in reference to the geographic distribution of the family's constituent languages. 

The term "Hamito-Semitic" remains in use in the academic traditions of some European countries.

==Distribution and branches==
Some linguists' proposals for grouping within Afroasiatic
The Afroasiatic language family is usually considered to include the following branches:
* Berber
* Chadic
* Cushitic
* Egyptian
* Omotic
* Semitic

While there is general agreement on these six families, there are some points of disagreement among linguists who study Afroasiatic. In particular:
* The Omotic language branch is the most controversial member of Afroasiatic, since the grammatical formatives which most linguists have given greatest weight in classifying languages in the family "are either absent or distinctly wobbly" (Hayward 1995). Greenberg (1963) and others considered it a subgroup of Cushitic, while others have raised doubts about it being part of Afroasiatic at all (e.g. Theil 2006). Sands, Bonny (2009). "Africa’s Linguistic Diversity". Language and Linguistics Compass 3/2 (2009): 559–580, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00124.x 
* The Afroasiatic identity of Ongota is also broadly questioned, as is its position within Afroasiatic among those who accept it, due to the "mixed" appearance of the language and a paucity of research and data. Harold Fleming (2006) proposes that Ongota constitutes a separate branch of Afroasiatic. Harrassowitz Verlag - The Harrassowitz Publishing House Bonny Sands (2009) believes the most convincing proposal is by Savà and Tosco (2003), namely that Ongota is an East Cushitic language with a Nilo-Saharan substratum. In other words, it would appear that the Ongota people once spoke a Nilo-Saharan language but then shifted to speaking a Cushitic language while retaining some characteristics of their earlier Nilo-Saharan language. 
* Beja is sometimes listed as a separate branch of Afroasiatic but is more often included in the Cushitic branch, which has a high degree of internal diversity.
* Whether the various branches of Cushitic actually form a language family is sometimes questioned, but not their inclusion in Afroasiatic itself.
* There is no consensus on the interrelationships of the five non-Omotic branches of Afroasiatic (see "Subgrouping" below). This situation is not unusual, even among long-established language families: there are also many disagreements concerning the internal classification of the Indo-European languages, for instance.
* Meroitic has been proposed as an unclassified Afroasiatic language, as it shares the phonotactics characteristic of the family, but there is not enough evidence to secure a classification.

==Classification history==
In the 9th century, the Hebrew grammarian Judah ibn Quraysh of Tiaret in Algeria was the first to link two branches of Afroasiatic together; he perceived a relationship between Berber and Semitic. He knew of Semitic through his study of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

In the course of the 19th century, Europeans also began suggesting such relationships. In 1844, Theodor Benfey suggested a language family consisting of Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic (calling the latter "Ethiopic"). In the same year, T.N. Newman suggested a relationship between Semitic and Hausa, but this would long remain a topic of dispute and uncertainty.

Friedrich Müller named the traditional "Hamito-Semitic" family in 1876 in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft. He defined it as consisting of a Semitic group plus a "Hamitic" group containing Egyptian, Berber, and Cushitic; he excluded the Chadic group. These classifications relied in part on non-linguistic anthropological and racial arguments that have largely been discredited (see Hamitic hypothesis).

Leo Reinisch (1909) proposed linking Cushitic and Chadic, while urging a more distant affinity to Egyptian and Semitic, thus foreshadowing Greenberg, but his suggestion found little resonance.

Marcel Cohen (1924) rejected the idea of a distinct Hamitic subgroup and included Hausa (a Chadic language) in his comparative Hamito-Semitic vocabulary.

Joseph Greenberg (1950) strongly confirmed Cohen's rejection of "Hamitic", added (and sub-classified) the Chadic branch, and proposed the new name "Afroasiatic" for the family. Nearly all scholars have accepted Greenberg's classification.

In 1969, Harold Fleming proposed that what had previously been known as Western Cushitic is an independent branch of Afroasiatic, suggesting for it the new name Omotic. This proposal and name have met with widespread acceptance.

Several scholars, including Harold Fleming and Robert Hetzron, have since questioned the traditional inclusion of Beja in Cushitic.

Glottolog does not accept that the inclusion or even unity of Omotic has been established, nor that of Ongota or the unclassified Kujarge, and so splits off the following groups as small families:
:South Omotic, Mao, Dizoid, Gonga–Gimojan (North Omotic apart from the preceding), Ongota, Kujarge.

===Subgrouping===

 Proposed Afroasiatic sub-divisions 
 Greenberg (1963) Newman (1980) Fleming (post-1981) Ehret (1995) 
 * Semitic * Egyptian * Berber * Cushitic ** Northern Cushitic(equals Beja) ** Central Cushitic ** Eastern Cushitic ** Western Cushitic(equals Omotic) ** Southern Cushitic * Chadic * Berber–Chadic * Egypto-Semitic * Cushitic (excludes Omotic) * Omotic * Erythraean ** Cushitic ** Ongota ** Non-Ethiopian *** Chadic *** Berber *** Egyptian *** Semitic *** Beja * Omotic ** North Omotic ** South Omotic * Erythrean ** Cushitic *** Beja *** Agaw *** East–South Cushitic **** Eastern Cushitic **** Southern Cushitic ** North Erythrean *** Chadic *** Boreafrasian **** Egyptian **** Berber **** Semitic 
 Orel & Stobova (1995) Diakonoff (1996) Bender (1997) Militarev (2000) 
 * Berber–Semitic * Chadic–Egyptian * Omotic * Beja * Agaw * Sidamic * East Lowlands * Rift * East–West Afrasian ** Berber ** Cushitic ** Semitic * North–South Afrasian ** Chadic ** Egyptian (excludes Omotic) * Omotic * Chadic * Macro-Cushitic ** Berber ** Cushitic ** Semitic * North Afrasian ** African North Afrasian *** Chado-Berber *** Egyptian ** Semitic * South Afrasian ** Omotic ** Cushitic 

Little agreement exists on the subgrouping of the five or six branches of Afroasiatic: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic. However, Christopher Ehret (1979), Harold Fleming (1981), and Joseph Greenberg (1981) all agree that the Omotic branch split from the rest first.

Otherwise:
* Paul Newman (1980) groups Berber with Chadic and Egyptian with Semitic, while questioning the inclusion of Omotic in Afroasiatic. Rolf Theil (2006) concurs with the exclusion of Omotic, but does not otherwise address the structure of the family. Is Omotic Afroasiatic? (In Norwegian) 
* Harold Fleming (1981) divides non-Omotic Afroasiatic, or "Erythraean", into three groups, Cushitic, Semitic, and Chadic-Berber-Egyptian. He later added Semitic and Beja to Chadic-Berber-Egyptian and tentatively proposed Ongota as a new third branch of Erythraean. He thus divided Afroasiatic into two major branches, Omotic and Erythraean, with Erythraean consisting of three sub-branches, Cushitic, Chadic-Berber-Egyptian-Semitic-Beja, and Ongota.
* Like Harold Fleming, Christopher Ehret (1995: 490) divides Afroasiatic into two branches, Omotic and Erythrean. He divides Omotic into two branches, North Omotic and South Omotic. He divides Erythrean into Cushitic, comprising Beja, Agaw, and East-South Cushitic, and North Erythrean, comprising Chadic and "Boreafrasian." According to his classification, Boreafrasian consists of Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic.
* Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova (1995) group Berber with Semitic and Chadic with Egyptian. They split up Cushitic into five or more independent branches of Afroasiatic, viewing Cushitic as a Sprachbund rather than a language family.
* Igor M. Diakonoff (1996) subdivides Afroasiatic in two, grouping Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic together as East-West Afrasian (ESA), and Chadic with Egyptian as North-South Afrasian (NSA). He excludes Omotic from Afroasiatic.
* Lionel Bender (1997) groups Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic together as "Macro-Cushitic". He regards Chadic and Omotic as the branches of Afroasiatic most remote from the others.
* Alexander Militarev (2000), on the basis of lexicostatistics, groups Berber with Chadic and both more distantly with Semitic, as against Cushitic and Omotic. He places Ongota in South Omotic.

==Position among the world's languages==
Afroasiatic is one of the four language families of Africa identified by Joseph Greenberg in his book The Languages of Africa (1963). It is the only one that extends outside of Africa, via the Semitic branch.

There are no generally accepted relations between Afroasiatic and any other language family. However, several proposals grouping Afroasiatic with one or more other language families have been made. The best-known of these are the following:
* Hermann Möller (1906) argued for a relation between Semitic and the Indo-European languages. This proposal was accepted by some linguists (e.g. Holger Pedersen and Louis Hjelmslev) but has little currency today. (For a fuller account, see Indo-Semitic languages.)
* Apparently influenced by Möller (a colleague of his at the University of Copenhagen), Holger Pedersen included Hamito-Semitic (the term replaced by Afroasiatic) in his proposed Nostratic macro-family (cf. Pedersen 1931:336–338), which also included the Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, and Yukaghir languages. This inclusion was retained by subsequent Nostraticists, starting with Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dolgopolsky.
* Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002) did not reject a relationship of Afroasiatic to these other languages, but he considered it more distantly related to them than they were to each other, grouping instead these other languages in a separate macro-family, which he called Eurasiatic, and to which he added Chukotian, Gilyak, Korean, Japanese-Ryukyuan, Eskimo–Aleut, and Ainu.
* Most recently, Sergei Starostin's school has accepted Eurasiatic as a subgroup of Nostratic, with Afroasiatic, Dravidian, and Kartvelian in Nostratic outside of Eurasiatic. An even larger Borean group would contain Nostratic as well as Dené-Caucasian and Austric.

==Date of Afroasiatic==
The earliest written evidence of an Afroasiatic language is an Ancient Egyptian inscription of c. 3400 BC (5,400 years ago). Earliest Egyptian Glyphs Symbols on Gerzean pottery resembling Egyptian hieroglyphs date back to c. 4000 BC, suggesting a still earlier possible date. This gives us a minimum date for the age of Afroasiatic. However, Ancient Egyptian is highly divergent from Proto-Afroasiatic (Trombetti 1905: 1–2), and considerable time must have elapsed in between them. Estimates of the date at which the Proto-Afroasiatic language was spoken vary widely. They fall within a range between approximately 7500 BC (9,500 years ago) and approximately 16,000 BC (18,000 years ago). According to Igor M. Diakonoff (1988: 33n), Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken c. 10,000 BC. According to Christopher Ehret (2002: 35–36), Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken c. 11,000 BC at the latest and possibly as early as c. 16,000 BC. These dates are older than dates associated with most other proto-languages.

==Afroasiatic Urheimat==
Map showing the popular hypothesis of the expansion of Afroasiatic out of Africa.
The term Afroasiatic Urheimat (Urheimat meaning "original homeland" in German) refers to the 'hypothetical' place where Proto-Afroasiatic speakers lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today primarily spoken in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel. Their distribution seems to have been influenced by the Saharan pump operating over the last 10,000 years.

There is no agreement on when and where this Urheimat existed, though the language is generally believed to have originated somewhere in the area between the Eastern Sahara and the Horn of Africa, including Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. Blench R (2006) Archaeology, Language, and the African Past, Rowman Altamira, ISBN 0-7591-0466-2, ISBN 978-0-7591-0466-2, http://books.google.be/books?id=esFy3Po57A8C Ehret C, Keita SOY, Newman P (2004) The Origins of Afroasiatic a response to Diamond and Bellwood (2003) in the Letters of SCIENCE 306, no. 5702, p. 1680 DOI: 10.1126/science.306.5702.1680c Bernal M (1987) Black Athena: the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, Rutgers University Press, ISBN 0-8135-3655-3, ISBN 978-0-8135-3655-2. http://books.google.be/books?id=yFLm_M_OdK4C Bender ML (1997), Upside Down Afrasian, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 50, pp. 19-34 Militarev A (2005) Once more about glottochronology and comparative method: the Omotic-Afrasian case, Аспекты компаративистики - 1 (Aspects of comparative linguistics - 1). FS S. Starostin. Orientalia et Classica II (Moscow), p. 339-408. http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/fleming.pdf 

==Similarities in grammar and syntax==

 Verbal paradigms in several Afroasiatic languages: 
 ↓ Number Language → Arabic Coptic Kabyle Somali Beja Hausa 
 Meaning → write die fly come eat drink 
 singular 1 ʼaktubu timou ttafgeɣ imaadaa tamáni ina shan 
 2f taktubīna temou tettafgeḍ timaadaa tamtínii kina shan 
 2m taktubu kmou tamtíniya kana shan 
 3f smou tettafeg tamtíni tana shan 
 3m yaktubu fmou yettafeg yimaadaa tamíni yana shan 
 dual 2 taktubāni 
 3f 
 3m yaktubāni 
 plural 1 naktubu tənmou nettafeg nimaadnaa támnay muna shan 
 2m taktubūna tetənmou tettafgem timaadaan támteena kuna shan 
 2f taktubna tettafgemt 
 3m yaktubūna semou ttafgen yimaadaan támeen suna shan 
 3f yaktubna ttafgent 

Widespread (though not universal) features of the Afroasiatic languages include:
* A set of emphatic consonants, variously realized as glottalized, pharyngealized, or implosive.
* VSO typology with SVO tendencies.
* A two-gender system in the singular, with the feminine marked by the sound /t/.
* All Afroasiatic subfamilies show evidence of a causative affix s.
* Semitic, Berber, Cushitic (including Beja), and Chadic support possessive suffixes.
* Morphology in which words inflect by changes within the root (vowel changes or gemination) as well as with prefixes and suffixes.

One of the most remarkable shared features among the Afroasiatic languages is the prefixing verb conjugation (see table above), with a distinctive pattern of prefixes beginning with /ʔ t n y/, and in particular a pattern whereby third-singular masculine /y-/ is opposed to third-singular feminine and second-singular /t-/.

Tonal languages appear in the Omotic, Chadic, and Cushitic branches of Afroasiatic, according to Ehret (1996). The Semitic, Berber, and Egyptian branches do not use tones phonemically.

==Shared vocabulary==
Following are some examples of Afroasiatic cognates, including ten pronouns, three nouns, and three verbs.

:Source: Christopher Ehret, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

:Note: Ehret does not make use of Berber in his etymologies, stating (1995: 12): "the kind of extensive reconstruction of proto-Berber lexicon that might help in sorting through alternative possible etymologies is not yet available." The Berber cognates here are taken from previous version of table in this article and need to be completed and referenced.

:Abbreviations: NOm = 'North Omotic', SOm = 'South Omotic'. MSA = 'Modern South Arabian', PSC = 'Proto-Southern Cushitic', PSom-II = 'Proto-Somali, stage 2'. masc. = 'masculine', fem. = 'feminine', sing. = 'singular', pl. = 'plural'. 1s. = 'first person singular', 2s. = 'second person singular'.

:Symbols: Following Ehret (1995: 70), a caron ˇ over a vowel indicates rising tone, a circumflex ^ over a vowel indicates falling tone. V indicates a vowel of unknown timbre. Ɂ indicates a glottal stop. * indicates reconstructed forms based on comparison of related languages.

 Proto-Afroasiatic Omotic Cushitic Chadic Egyptian Semitic Berber 
 *Ɂân- / *Ɂîn- or *ân- / *în- ‘I’ (independent pronoun) *in- ‘I’ (Maji (NOm)) *Ɂâni ‘I’ *nV ‘I’ ink 'I' *Ɂn ‘I’ nek / nec \"I, me\" 
 *i or *yi ‘me, my’ (bound) i ‘I, me, my’ (Ari (SOm)) *i or *yi ‘my’ *i ‘me, my’ (bound) -i (1s. suffix) *-i ‘me, my’ inu \"my\" 
 *Ɂǎnn- / *Ɂǐnn- or *ǎnn- / *ǐnn- ‘we’ *nona / *nuna / *nina (NOm) *Ɂǎnn- / *Ɂǐnn- ‘we’ — inn ‘we’ *Ɂnn ‘we’ nekni \"we\" 
 *Ɂânt- / *Ɂînt- or *ânt- / *înt- ‘you’ (sing.) *int- ‘you’ (sing.) *Ɂânt- ‘you’ (sing.) — ntt IInd pers fem *Ɂnt ‘you’ (sing.) keyy / kem \"you\" (sing.) 
 *ku, *ka ‘you’ (masc. sing., bound) — *ku ‘your’ (masc. sing.) (PSC) *ka, *ku (masc. sing.) -k (2s. masc. suffix) -ka (2s. masc. suffix) (Arabic) -k / nnek \"your\" (masc. sing.) 
 *ki ‘you’ (fem. sing., bound) — *ki ‘your’ (fem. sing.) *ki ‘you’ (fem. sing.) -ṯ (fem. sing. suffix, < *ki) -ki (2s. fem. sing. suffix) (Arabic) nnem / inem \"your\" (fem. sing.) 
 *kūna ‘you’ (plural, bound) — *kuna ‘your’ (pl.) (PSC) *kun ‘you’ (pl.) -ṯn ‘you’ (pl.) *-kn ‘you, your’ (fem. pl.) kent, kennint \"you\" (fem. pl.) 
 *si, *isi ‘he, she, it’ *is- ‘he’ *Ɂusu ‘he’, *Ɂisi ‘she’ *sV ‘he’ sw ‘he, him’, sy ‘she, her’ *-šɁ ‘he’, *-sɁ ‘she’ (MSA) -s / nnes / ines \"his/her/its\" 
 *ma, *mi ‘what?’ *ma- ‘what?’ (NOm) *ma, *mi (interr. root) *mi, *ma ‘what?’ m ‘what?’, ‘who?’ mā ‘what?’ (Arabic) Ma / Mayen / Min? \"what?\" 
 *wa, *wi ‘what?’ *w- ‘what?’ *wä / *wɨ ‘what?’ (Agaw) *wa ‘who?’ wy ‘how ...!’ mamek? \"how?\" 
 *dîm- / *dâm- ‘blood’ *dam- ‘blood’ (Gonga) *dîm- / *dâm- ‘red’ *d-m- ‘blood’ (West Chadic) i-dm-i ‘red linen’ *dm ‘blood’ idammen \"blood\" 
 *îts ‘brother’ *itsim- ‘brother’ *itsan or *isan ‘brother’ *sin ‘brother’ sn ‘brother’ ax \"brother\" 
 *sǔm / *sǐm- ‘name’ *sum(ts)- ‘name’ (NOm) *sǔm / *sǐm- ‘name’ *ṣǝm ‘name’ smi ‘to report, announce’ *ism ‘name’ isem 
 *-lisʼ- ‘to lick’ litsʼ- ‘to lick’ (Dime (SOm)) — *alǝsi ‘tongue’ ns ‘tongue’ *lsn ‘tongue’ iles \"tongue\" 
 *-maaw- ‘to die’ — *-umaaw- / *-am-w(t)- ‘to die’ (PSom-II) *mǝtǝ ‘to die’ mwt ‘to die’ *mwt ‘to die’ mmet \"to die\" 
 *-bǐn- ‘to build, to create; house’ bin- ‘to build, create’ (Dime (SOm)) *mǐn- / *mǎn- ‘house’; man- ‘to create’ (Beja) *bn ‘to build’; *bǝn- ‘house’ — *bnn ‘to build’ *bn (?) 
 

There are two etymological dictionaries of Afroasiatic, one by Christopher Ehret, and one by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova. The two dictionaries disagree on almost everything. The following table contains the thirty roots or so (out of thousands) that represent a fragile consensus of present research:

 Number Proto-Afroasiatic Form Meaning Berber Chadic Cushitic Egyptian Omotic Semitic 
 1 *ʔab father ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 2 (ʔa-)bVr bull ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 3 (ʔa-)dVm red, blood ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 4 *(ʔa-)dVm land, field, soil ✔ ✔ 
 5 ʔa-pay- mouth ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 6 ʔigar/ *ḳʷar- house, enclosure ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 7 *ʔil- eye ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 8 (ʔi-)sim- name ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 9 *ʕayn- eye ✔ ✔ 
 10 *baʔ- go ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 11 *bar- son ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 12 *gamm- mane, beard ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 13 *gVn cheek, chin ✔ ✔ 
 14 *gʷarʕ- throat ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 15 *gʷinaʕ- hand ✔ ✔ 
 16 *kVn- co-wife ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 17 *kʷaly kidney ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 18 *ḳa(wa)l-/ *qʷar- to say, call ✔ ✔ 
 19 *ḳas- bone ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 20 *libb heart ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 21 *lis- tongue ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 22 *maʔ- water *aman *aman ✔ ✔ 
 23 *mawVt- to die ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 24 *sin- tooth ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 25 *siwan- know ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 26 *inn- I, we ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 27 *-k- thou ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 
 28 *zwr seed ✔ ✔ 
 29 *ŝVr root ✔ ✔ 
 30 *šun to sleep, dream ✔ ✔ 
 

* paras - horse (Semitic, Chadic, Cushitic) is a very old loanword and does not belong here, as the horse was introduced in the region in the late fifth- early fourth millennium BP, after the split of Afroasiatic and even Semitic.

===Etymological bibliography===
Some of the main sources for Afroasiatic etymologies include:
* Cohen, Marcel. 1947. Essai comparatif sur le vocabulaire et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique. Paris: Champion.
* Diakonoff, Igor M. et al. 1993–1997. "Historical-comparative vocabulary of Afrasian", St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies 2–6.
* Ehret, Christopher. 1995. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (= University of California Publications in Linguistics 126). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
* Orel, Vladimir E. and Olga V. Stolbova. 1995. Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a Reconstruction. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-10051-2.

==See also==
* African languages
* Afroasiatic Urheimat
* Asian languages
* Indo-Semitic languages
* Nostratic languages
* Proto-Afroasiatic language

==References==

==Bibliography==
* Anthony, David. 2007. . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
* Barnett, William and John Hoopes (editors). 1995. The Emergence of Pottery. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-517-8
* Bender, Lionel et al. 2003. Selected Comparative-Historical Afro-Asiatic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff. LINCOM.
* Bomhard, Alan R. 1996. Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis. Signum.
* Diakonoff, Igor M. 1988. Afrasian Languages. Moscow: Nauka.
* Diakonoff, Igor M. 1996. "Some reflections on the Afrasian linguistic macrofamily." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55, 293.
* Diakonoff, Igor M. 1998. "The earliest Semitic society: Linguistic data." Journal of Semitic Studies 43, 209.
* Dimmendaal, Gerrit, and Erhard Voeltz. 2007. "Africa". In Christopher Moseley, ed., Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages.
* Ehret, Christopher. 1995. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
* Ehret, Christopher. 1997. Abstract of "The lessons of deep-time historical-comparative reconstruction in Afroasiatic: reflections on Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic: Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (U.C. Press, 1995)", paper delivered at the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the North American Conference on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics, held in Miami, Florida on 21–23 March 1997.
* Finnegan, Ruth H. 1970. "Afro-Asiatic languages West Africa". Oral Literature in Africa, pg 558.
* Fleming, Harold C. 2006. Ongota: A Decisive Language in African Prehistory. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950. "Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. Hamito-Semitic." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 6, 47-63.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 1955. Studies in African Linguistic Classification. New Haven: Compass Publishing Company. (Photo-offset reprint of the SJA articles with minor corrections.)
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. The Languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University. (Heavily revised version of Greenberg 1955.)
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. The Languages of Africa (2nd ed. with additions and corrections). Bloomington: Indiana University.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 1981. "African linguistic classification." General History of Africa, Volume 1: Methodology and African Prehistory, edited by Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 292–308. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000–2002. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1: Grammar, Volume 2: Lexicon. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Hayward, R. J. 1995. "The challenge of Omotic: an inaugural lecture delivered on 17 February 1994". London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
* Heine, Bernd and Derek Nurse. 2000. African Languages, Chapter 4. Cambridge University Press.
* Hodge, Carleton T. (editor). 1971. Afroasiatic: A Survey. The Hague – Paris: Mouton.
* Hodge, Carleton T. 1991. "Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic." In Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (editors), Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 141–165.
* Huehnergard, John. 2004. "Afro-Asiatic." In R.D. Woodard (editor), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, Cambridge – New York, 2004, 138–159.
* Militarev, Alexander. "Towards the genetic affiliation of Ongota, a nearly-extinct language of Ethiopia," 60 pp. In Orientalia et Classica: Papers of the Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies, Issue 5. Мoscow. (Forthcoming.)
* Newman, Paul. 1980. The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.
* Ruhlen, Merritt. 1991. A Guide to the World's Languages. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
* Sands, Bonny. 2009. "Africa’s linguistic diversity". In Language and Linguistics Compass 3.2, 559–580.
* Theil, R. 2006. Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic? Proceedings from the David Dwyer retirement symposium, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 21 October 2006.
* Trombetti, Alfredo. 1905. L'Unità d'origine del linguaggio. Bologna: Luigi Beltrami.

==External links==
* Afro-Asiatic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project: Genealogical trees attributed to Delafosse 1914, Greenberg 1950–1955, Greenberg 1963, Fleming 1976, Hodge 1976, Orel & Stolbova 1995, Diakonoff 1996–1998, Ehret 1995–2000, Hayward 2000, Militarev 2005, Blench 2006, and Fleming 2006
* Afro-Asiatic and Semitic genealogical trees, presented by Alexander Militarev at his talk "Genealogical classification of Afro-Asiatic languages according to the latest data" at the conference on the 70th anniversary of V.M. Illich-Svitych, Moscow, 2004; short annotations of the talks given there 
* The prehistory of a dispersal: the Proto-Afrasian (Afroasiatic) farming lexicon, by Alexander Militarev in "Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis", eds. P. Bellwood & C. Renfrew. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2002, p. 135-­50.
* Once More About Glottochronology And The Comparative Method: The Omotic-Afrasian case, by Alexander Militarev in "Aspects of Comparative Linguistics", v. 1. Moscow: RSUH Publishers, 2005, pp. 339–408.
* Root Extension And Root Formation In Semitic And Afrasian, by Alexander Militarev in "Proceedings of the Barcelona Symposium on comparative Semitic", 19-20/11/2004. Aula Orientalis 23/1-2, 2005, pp. 83–129.
* Akkadian-Egyptian lexical matches, by Alexander Militarev in "Papers on Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics in Honor of Gene B. Gragg." Ed. by Cynthia L. Miller. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 60. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2007, p. 139-145.
* A comparison of Orel-Stolbova's and Ehret's Afro-Asiatic reconstructions
* "Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic?" by Rolf Theil (2006)
* NACAL The North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics, now in its 35th year
* Afro-Asiatic webpage of Roger Blench (with family tree).

 



[[Andorra]]

Andorra (; , ), officially the Principality of Andorra (), also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia, 1993 (), is a landlocked microstate in Southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe, having an area of 468 km² and an estimated population of 85,000 in 2012. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1023 m above sea level. The official language is Catalan, although Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken. 

Created under a charter in A.D. 988, the present Principality was formed in A.D. 1278. It is known as a principality as it is a monarchy headed by two Co-Princes – the Spanish/Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgell and the President of France.

Andorra is a prosperous country mainly because of its tourism industry, which services an estimated 10.2 million visitors annually, Estadistica.ad, Departament d'Estadística, Govern d'Andorra. and because of its status as a tax haven, although it is in the process of reforming its tax regime. It is not a member of the European Union, but the euro is the de facto currency. It has been a member of the United Nations since 1993. United Nations Member States The people of Andorra have the 3rd highest human life expectancy at birth in the world – 84 years. 

==History==

Sant Joan de Caselles church, dating from the 11th century.
Tradition holds that Charles the Great (Charlemagne) granted a charter to the Andorran people in return for fighting against the Moors. Overlordship of the territory was by the Count of Urgell and eventually by the bishop of the Diocese of Urgell. In 988, Borrell II, Count of Urgell, gave the Andorran valleys to the Diocese of Urgell in exchange for land in Cerdanya. Since then the Bishop of Urgell, based in Seu d'Urgell, has owned Andorra. 

Before 1095, Andorra did not have any type of military protection and the Bishop of Urgell, who knew that the Count of Urgell wanted to reclaim the Andorran valleys, asked for help and protection from the Lord of Caboet. In 1095, the Lord of Caboet and the Bishop of Urgell signed under oath a declaration of their co-sovereignty over Andorra. Arnalda, daughter of Arnau of Caboet, married the Viscount of Castellbò and both became Viscounts of Castellbò and Cerdanya. Years later their daughter, Ermessenda, married Roger Bernat II, the French Count of Foix. They became Roger Bernat II and Ermessenda I, Counts of Foix, Viscounts of Castellbò and Cerdanya, and co-sovereigns of Andorra (shared with the Bishop of Urgell).

In the 11th century, a dispute arose between the Bishop of Urgell and the Count of Foix. The conflict was resolved in 1278 with the mediation of Aragon by the signing of the first paréage which provided that Andorra's sovereignty be shared between the count of Foix (whose title would ultimately transfer to the French head of state) and the Bishop of Urgell, in Catalonia. This gave the principality its territory and political form.

Over the years, the co-title to Andorra passed to the kings of Navarre. After Henry of Navarre became King Henry IV of France, he issued an edict in 1607 that established the head of the French state and the Bishop of Urgell as co-princes of Andorra. In 1812–13, the First French Empire annexed Catalonia and divided it in four départements, with Andorra being made part of the district of Puigcerdà (département of Sègre).

===20th century===
Boris Skossyreff, briefly self-proclaimed "King of Andorra" in 1934.
Andorra declared war on Imperial Germany during World War I, but did not actually take part in the fighting. It remained in an official state of belligerency until 1939 as it was not included in the Treaty of Versailles. 

In 1933, France occupied Andorra as a result of social unrest before elections. On 12 July 1934, adventurer Boris Skossyreff issued a proclamation in Urgell, declaring himself "Boris I, King of Andorra", simultaneously declaring war on the Bishop of Urgell. He was arrested by Spanish authorities on 20 July and ultimately expelled from Spain. From 1936 to 1940, a French detachment was garrisoned in Andorra to prevent influences of the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain. Francoist troops reached the Andorran border in the later stages of the war. During World War II, Andorra remained neutral and was an important smuggling route between Vichy France and Spain.

Given its relative isolation, Andorra has existed outside the mainstream of European history, with few ties to countries other than France, Spain and Portugal. In recent times, however, its thriving tourist industry along with developments in transport and communications have removed the country from its isolation. Its political system was modernised in 1993, when it became a member of the United Nations and the Council of Europe.

==Politics==

Andorra is a parliamentary co-principality with the President of France and the Bishop of Urgell (Catalonia, Spain), as co-princes. This peculiarity makes the President of France, in his capacity as Prince of Andorra, an elected reigning monarch, although he is not elected by a popular vote of the Andorran people. The politics of Andorra take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, whereby the Head of Government is the chief executive, and of a pluriform multi-party system.

The current Head of Government is Antoni Martí of the Democrats for Andorra (DA). Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both government and parliament.

The Parliament of Andorra is known as the General Council. The General Council consists of between 28 and 42 Councillors, as the members of the legislative branch are called. The Councillors serve for four-year terms and elections are held between the thirtieth and fortieth days following the dissolution of the previous Council. The Councillors can be elected on two equal constituencies.

Half are elected in equal number from each of the seven administrative parishes and the other half of the Councillors are elected from a single national constituency. 15 days after the election, the Councillors hold their inauguration. During this session, the Syndic General, who is the head of the General Council, and the Subsyndic General, his assistant, are elected. Eight days later, the Council convenes once more. During this session the Head of Government is chosen from among the Councillors.

Casa de la Vall, Andorran Parliament

Candidates for the nomination can be proposed by a minimum of one-fifth of the Councillors. The Council then elects the candidate with the absolute majority of votes to be Head of Government. The Syndic General then notifies the Co-princes who in turn appoint the elected candidate as the Head of Government of Andorra. The General Council is also responsible for proposing and passing laws. Bills may be presented to the Council as Private Members' Bills by three of the Local Parish Councils jointly or by at least one tenth of the citizens of Andorra.

The Council also approves the annual budget of the principality. The government must submit the proposed budget for parliamentary approval at least two months before the previous budget expires. If the budget is not approved by the first day of the next year, the previous budget is extended until a new one is approved. Once any bill is approved, the Syndic General is responsible for presenting it to the Co-princes so that they may sign and enact it.

If the Head of Government is not satisfied with the Council, he may request that the Co-princes dissolve the Council and order new elections. In turn, the Councillors have the power to remove the Head of Government from office. After a motion of censure is approved by at least one-fifth of the Councillors, the Council will vote and if it receives the absolute majority of votes, the Head of Government is removed.

==Law and criminal justice==
The judiciary is composed of the Magistrates Court, the Criminal Law Court, the High Court of Andorra, and the Constitutional Court. The High Court of Justice is composed of five judges: one appointed by the Head of Government, one each by the Co-princes, one by the Syndic General, and one by the Judges and Magistrates. It is presided over by the member appointed by the Syndic General and the judges hold office for six-year terms.

The Magistrates and Judges are appointed by the High Court, and so is the President of the Criminal Law Court. The High Court also appoints members of the Office of the Attorney General. The Constitutional Court is responsible for interpreting the Constitution and reviewing all appeals of unconstitutionality against laws and treaties. It is composed of four judges, one appointed by each of the Co-princes and two by the General Council. They serve eight-year terms. The Court is presided over by one of the Judges on a two-year rotation so that each judge at one point will be the leader of the Court.

==Foreign relations, defence, and security==

The embassy of Andorra in Brussels.
Andorra does not have its own armed forces, although there is a small ceremonial Army. Responsibility for defending the nation rests primarily with France and Spain. However, in case of emergencies or natural disasters, the Sometent (an alarm) is called and all able-bodied men between 21 and 60 of Andorran nationality must serve. This is why all Andorrans, and especially the head of each house (usually the eldest able-bodied man of a house), should by law, keep a rifle, even though the law also states that the police will offer a fire-arm in case of need. Andorra is a full member of the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and has a special agreement with the European Union (EU).

===Military===
Andorra has a small army, which has historically been raised or reconstituted at various dates, but has never in modern times amounted to a standing army. The basic principle of Andorran defence is that all able-bodied men are available to fight if called upon by the sounding of the Sometent. Being a landlocked country, Andorra has no navy.

In the modern era, the army has consisted of a very small body of volunteers willing to undertake ceremonial duties. Uniforms were handed down from generation to generation within families and communities. Despite not being involved in any fighting, Andorra was technically the longest combatant in the First World War, as the country was left out of the Versailles Peace Conference, and technically remained at war with Germany from 1914 until 1939. 

The army's role in internal security was largely taken over by the formation of the Police Corps of Andorra in 1931. Brief civil disorder associated with the elections of 1933 led to assistance being sought from the French National Gendarmerie, with a detachment resident in Andorra for two months under the command of René-Jules Baulard. The Andorran Army was reformed in the following year, with eleven soldiers appointed to supervisory roles. The force consisted of six Corporals, one for each parish (although there are currently seven parishes, there were only six until 1978), plus four junior staff officers to co-ordinate action, and a commander with the rank of Major. It was the responsibility of the six corporals, each in his own parish, to be able to raise a fighting force from among the able-bodied men of the parish.

Today a small, twelve-man ceremonial unit remains the only permanent section of the Andorran Army, but all able-bodied men remain technically available for military service, with a requirement for each family to have access to a firearm. The army has not fought for more than 700 years, and its main responsibility is to present the flag of Andorra at official ceremonial functions. According to Marc Forné Molné, Andorra's military budget is strictly from voluntary donations, and the availability of full-time voluntaries. 

The myth that all members of the Andorran Army are ranked as officers is popularly maintained in many works of reference. An example from the United States State Department website. An alternative example of the report. In reality, all those serving in the permanent ceremonial reserve hold ranks as officers, or non-commissioned officers, because the other ranks are considered to be the rest of the able-bodied male population, who may still be called upon by the Sometent to serve, although such a call has not been made in modern times.

===GIPA===
The Grup d'Intervenció Policia d'Andorra (GIPA) is a small special forces unit trained in counter-terrorism, and hostage recovery tasks. Although it is the closest in style to an active military force, it is part of the Police Corps, and not the Army. As terrorist and hostage situations are a rare threat to the nation, the GIPA is commonly assigned to prisoner escort duties, and at other times to routine policing. Police structures detailed here. 

===Police corps===

Andorra maintains a small, but modern and well-equipped internal police force with around 240 police officers, supported by civilian assistants. The principal services supplied by the Corps are uniformed community policing, criminal detection, border control, and traffic policing. There are also small specialist units including police dogs, mountain rescue, and bomb disposal. 

===Fire brigade===
The Andorran Fire Brigade, with headquarters at Santa Coloma, operates from four modern fire stations, and has a staff of around 120 firefighters. The service is equipped with 16 heavy appliances (fire tenders, turntable ladders, and specialist four-wheel drive vehicles), 4 light support vehicles (cars and vans), and 4 ambulances. 

Historically, the families of the six ancient parishes of Andorra maintained local arrangements to assist each other in fighting fires. The first fire pump purchased by the government was acquired in 1943. The serious fires (which lasted for two days) in parts of the principality in December 1959 led to calls for a permanent fire service, and the Andorran Fire Brigade was formed on 21 April 1961. 

The fire service maintains full-time cover with five fire crews on duty at any time – two at the brigade's headquarters in Santa Coloma, and one crew at each of the other three fire stations. 

==Geography==
Map of Andorra with its seven parishes labelled.

===Parishes===

Andorra consists of seven parishes:
* Andorra la Vella
* Canillo
* Encamp
* Escaldes-Engordany
* La Massana
* Ordino
* Sant Julià de Lòria

===Physical geography===
Scenery of Andorran mountains
Topographic map of Andorra

Due to its location in the eastern Pyrenees mountain range, Andorra consists predominantly of rugged mountains, the highest being the Coma Pedrosa at 2942 m, and the average elevation of Andorra is 1996 m. Atlas of Andorra (1991), Andorran Government. ISBN 99913-9-063-4. These are dissected by three narrow valleys in a Y shape that combine into one as the main stream, the Gran Valira river, leaves the country for Spain (at Andorra's lowest point of 840 m). Andorra's land area is 468 km2.

Phytogeographically, Andorra belongs to the Atlantic European province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the WWF, the territory of Andorra belongs to the ecoregion of Pyrenees conifer and mixed forests.

===Climate===
Andorra has an alpine climate and continental climate. Its higher elevation means there is, on average, more snow in winter, lower humidity, and it is slightly cooler in summer. There are, on average, 300 days per year of sunshine.

==Economy==

Caldea spa in Escaldes-Engordany, heated by natural hot spring water which is plentiful in the parish.
Exports in 2009
Tourism, the mainstay of Andorra's tiny, well-to-do economy, accounts for roughly 80% of GDP. An estimated 10.2 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. Andorra's relative advantage has recently eroded as the economies of adjoining France and Spain have been opened up, providing broader availability of goods and lower tariffs.

The banking sector, with its tax haven status, also contributes substantially to the economy. Agricultural production is limited—only 2% of the land is arable—and most food has to be imported. Some tobacco is grown locally. The principal livestock activity is domestic sheep raising. Manufacturing output consists mainly of cigarettes, cigars, and furniture. Andorra's natural resources include hydroelectric power, mineral water, timber, iron ore, and lead. 

Andorra is not a member of the European Union, but enjoys a special relationship with it, such as being treated as an EU member for trade in manufactured goods (no tariffs) and as a non-EU member for agricultural products. Andorra lacked a currency of its own and used both the French franc and the Spanish peseta in banking transactions until 31 December 1999, when both currencies were replaced by the EU's single currency, the euro. Coins and notes of both the franc and the peseta remained legal tender in Andorra until 31 December 2002. Andorra negotiated to issue its own euro coins to be issued during 2014.

Andorra has traditionally had one of the world's lowest unemployment rates. In 2009, it stood at 2.9%. 

Andorra has long benefited from its status as a tax haven, with revenues raised exclusively through import tariffs. However, during the European sovereign-debt crisis of the 21st century, its tourist economy suffered a decline, partly caused by a drop in the prices of goods in Spain, which undercut Andorran duty-free shopping. This led to a growth in unemployment. On 1 January 2012, a business tax of 10% was introduced, followed by a sales tax of 2% a year later, which raised just over 14 million euros in its first quarter. On 31 May 2013, it was announced that Andorra intended to legislate for the introduction of income tax by the end of June, against a background of increasing dissatisfaction with the existence of tax havens among EU members. The announcement was made following a meeting in Paris between the Head of Government Antoni Marti and the French President and Prince of Andorra, François Hollande. Hollande welcomed the move as part of a process of Andorra "bringing its taxation in line with international standards". 

==Demography==
View of the Ordino valley
The town of Encamp, Andorra, as seen from the Vall dels Cortals

===Population===
The population of Andorra is estimated to be 85,082 (July 2011). The population has grown from 5,000 in 1900.

Andorran nationals form a plurality, but not a majority, in the country (31,363 / 33%); Departament d'Estadistica, 2008 other nationalities include Spaniards (27,300 / 23%), Portuguese (13,794 / 21%), French (5,213 / 17%), Britons (1,085) and Italians.

Two-thirds of the population is made up of citizens without Andorran nationality, who do not have the right to vote (suffrage) in communal elections. Moreover, they are not allowed to be elected as president or to own more than 33% of the capital stock of a privately held company. El País 01/08/1985, El País 27/10/1985, El País 09/05/1992, El País 14/07/2007 

===Languages===

The historic and official language is Catalan, a Romance language. The Andorran government is keen to encourage the use of Catalan. It funds a Commission for Catalan Toponymy in Andorra (Catalan: la Comissió de Toponímia d'Andorra), and provides free Catalan classes to assist immigrants. Andorran television and radio stations use Catalan.

Because of immigration, historical links, and close geographic proximity, Spanish, Portuguese and French are also commonly spoken. Most Andorran residents can speak one or more of these, in addition to Catalan. English is less commonly spoken among the general population, though it is understood to varying degrees in the major tourist resorts. Andorra is one of only four European countries (together with France, Monaco, and Turkey) that have never signed the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities. 

According to the Observatori Social d'Andorra, the linguistic usage in Andorra are as follows: 

 Mother tongue 
 Catalan 38.8% 
 Spanish 35.4% 
 Portuguese 15% 
 French 5.4% 
 Others 5.5% 
 Source: Observatori de l'Institut d'Estudis Andorrans 

===Religion===
The population of Andorra is predominantly (90%) Roman Catholic. Their patron saint is Our Lady of Meritxell. Though it is not an official state religion, the constitution acknowledges a special relationship with the Catholic Church, offering some special privileges to that group. Other Christian denominations include the Anglican Church, the Reunification Church, the New Apostolic Church, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Muslim community is primarily made up of North African immigrants. There is a small community of Hindus and Bahá'ís. Roughly 100 Jews live in Andorra. (see History of the Jews in Andorra).

==Statistics==

===Largest cities===

==Education==

===Schools===
Children between the ages of 6 and 16 are required by law to have full-time education. Education up to secondary level is provided free of charge by the government.

There are three systems of schools – Andorran, French and Spanish – which use Catalan, French and Spanish, respectively, as the main language of instruction. Parents may choose which system their children attend. All schools are built and maintained by Andorran authorities, but teachers in the French and Spanish schools are paid for the most part by France and Spain. About 50% of Andorran children attend the French primary schools, and the rest attend Spanish or Andorran schools.

===University of Andorra===
The Universitat d'Andorra (UdA) is the state public university and is the only university in Andorra. It was established in 1997. The University provides first-level degrees in nursing, computer science, business administration, and educational sciences, in addition to higher professional education courses. The only two graduate schools in Andorra are the Nursing School and the School of Computer Science, the latter having a PhD programme.

====Virtual Studies Centre====
The geographical complexity of the country as well as the small number of students prevents the University of Andorra from developing a full academic program, and it serves principally as a centre for virtual studies, connected to Spanish and French universities. The Virtual Studies Centre (Centre d’Estudis Virtuals) at the University runs in the region of twenty degrees at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in fields including tourism, law, Catalan philology, humanities, psychology, political sciences, audiovisual communication, telecommunications engineering, and East Asia studies. The Centre also runs various postgraduate programs and continuing-education courses for professionals.

==Healthcare==
Healthcare in Andorra is provided to all employed persons and their families by the government-run social security system, CASS (Caixa Andorrana de Seguretat Social), which is funded by employer and employee contributions in respect of salaries. Travailler en Andorre (May 2006), Govern d'Andorra, Servei d'Ocupació, p.30. The cost of healthcare is covered by CASS at rates of 75% for out-patient expenses such as medicines and hospital visits, 90% for hospitalisation, and 100% for work-related accidents. The remainder of the costs may be covered by private health insurance. Other residents and tourists require full private health insurance. 

The main hospital, Meritxell, is in Escaldes-Engordany. There are also 12 primary health care centres in various locations around the Principality. 

==Transport==

A train at Latour-de-Carol (La Tor de Querol), one of the two stations serving Andorra. Andorra has no railways, although the line connecting Latour-de-Carol and Toulouse, which in turn connects to France's TGVs at Toulouse, runs within two kilometres of the Andorran border.

Until the 20th century, Andorra had very limited transport links to the outside world, and development of the country was affected by its physical isolation. Even now, the nearest major airports at Toulouse and Barcelona are both three hours' drive from Andorra.

Andorra has a road network of 279 km, of which 76 km is unpaved. The two main roads out of Andorra la Vella are the CG-1 to the Spanish border, and the CG-2 to the French border via the Envalira Tunnel near El Pas de la Casa. Bus services cover all metropolitan areas and many rural communities, with services on most major routes running half-hourly or more frequently during peak travel times. There are frequent long-distance bus services from Andorra to Barcelona and Toulouse. Bus services are mostly run by private companies, but some local ones are operated by the government.

There are no railways, ports, or airports for fixed-wing aircraft in Andorra. There are, however, heliports in La Massana, Arinsal and Escaldes-Engordany with commercial helicopter services. Heliand – Serveis (2009). Heliand.com Helitrans – Services (2009). Helitrans.ad Nearby airports are located in Barcelona, Toulouse, Perpignan, Reus, and Girona. The closest public airport is Perpignan - Rivesaltes Airport, which is 160 km away and has short-haul services to several destinations in the United Kingdom and France. La Seu d'Urgell Airport, a small airfield 12 km north of Spain, near to Andorra, currently used only by private aeroplanes, is being studied as a possible future airport for public aviation services. La Generalitat es reuneix amb els pobles afectats per l'aeroport (31 October 2008). Viurealspirineus.cat 

The nearest railway station is L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre 10 km east of Andorra which is on the -gauge line from Latour-de-Carol, (25 km) southeast of Andorra, to Toulouse and on to Paris by the French high-speed trains. This line is operated by the SNCF. Latour-de-Carol has a scenic trainline to Villefranche-de-Conflent, as well as the SNCF's gauge line connecting to Perpignan, and the RENFE's -gauge line to Barcelona. 

==Media and telecommunications==

In Andorra, mobile and fixed telephone and internet services are operated exclusively by the Andorran national telecommunications company, SOM, also known as Servei de Telecomunicacions d'Andorra (STA). The same company also manages the technical infrastructure for national broadcasting of digital television and radio.

By the end of 2010, it is planned that every home in the country will have fibre-to-the-home for internet access at a minimum speed of 100 Mbit/s. SOM Newsletter, March 2009. 

There is only one Andorran television station, Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra (RTVA). Radio Nacional d’Andorra operates two radio stations, Radio Andorra and Andorra Música. There are three national newspapers, Diari d'Andorra, El Periòdic d'Andorra, and Bondia as well as several local newspapers.

==Culture==

Andorran flag on balcony, Ordino
The official and historic language is Catalan. Thus the culture is Catalan, with its own specificity.

Andorra is home to folk dances like the contrapàs (ca) and marratxa, which survive in Sant Julià de Lòria especially. Andorran folk music has similarities to the music of its neighbours, but is especially Catalan in character, especially in the presence of dances such as the sardana. Other Andorran folk dances include contrapàs in Andorra la Vella and Saint Anne's dance in Escaldes-Engordany. Andorra's national holiday is Our Lady of Meritxell Day, 8 September. American Folk Artist Malvina Reynolds, intrigued by its defence budget of $4.90, wrote a song "Andorra". Pete Seeger added verses, and sang "Andorra" on his 1962 album "The Bitter and the Sweet.".

==Sports==
Andorra is famous for the practice of Winter Sports. Popular sports played in Andorra include football, rugby union, basketball and roller hockey.

In roller hockey Andorra usually plays in CERH Euro Cup and in FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup. In 2011, Andorra was the host country to the 2011 European League Final Eight.

The country is represented in association football by the Andorra national football team. However, the team has had little success internationally because of Andorra's small population. Football is ruled in Andorra by the Andorran Football Federation founded in 1994, it organizes the national competitions of association football (Primera Divisió, Copa Constitució and Supercopa) and futsal. FC Andorra, a club based in Andorra la Vella founded in 1942, compete in the Spanish football league system.

Rugby is a traditional sport in Andorra, manly influenced by the popularity in southern France. The Andorra national rugby union team, nicknamed "Els Isards", has impressed on the international stage in rugby union and rugby sevens. http://www.irb.com/rankings/sportid=1/news/newsid=2070876.html#usa+andorra+improve+rating+rankings VPC Andorra XV is a rugby team based in Andorra la Vella actually playing in the French championship.

Basketball popularity has increased in the country since the 1990s when the Andorran team BC Andorra played in the top league of Spain (Liga ACB). http://www.marca.com/2012/11/13/baloncesto/basketfeb/1352828175.html After 18 years the club returned to the top league in 2014. http://www.elmundo.es/deportes/2014/03/22/532e12b2e2704e1a3d8b457f.html 

Other sports practiced in Andorra include cycling, volleyball, judo, Australian football, handball, swimming, gymnastics, tennis and motorsports. In 2012, Andorra raised its first national cricket team and played a home match against the Dutch Fellowship of Fairly Odd Places Cricket Club, the first match played in the history of Andorra at an altitude of 1300 m. 

Andorra first participated at the Olympic Games in 1976. The country have also appeared in every Winter Olympic Games since 1976. Andorra compete in the Games of the Small States of Europe being twice the host country in 1991 and 2005.

==See also==

* Index of Andorra-related articles
* Outline of Andorra
* Andorra–European Union relations
* Bibliography of Andorra
* European microstates
* List of Andorrans
* List of Co-Princes of Andorra
* Lists of ecoregions by country
* Recognition of same-sex unions in Andorra
* Scouts d'Andorra
* Tourism in Andorra

==References==

==External links==

*
*Govern d'Andorra – Official governmental site 
*
*Portals to the World from the United States Library of Congress
*Andorra from UCB Libraries GovPubs
*
*Andorra from the BBC News
* History of Andorra: Primary Documents from EuroDocs
*A New Path for Andorra – slideshow by The New York Times
*
*

 



[[Arithmetic mean]]

In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean (), or simply the mean or average when the context is clear, is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the number of numbers in the collection. The collection is often a set of results of an experiment, or a set of results from a survey. The term "arithmetic mean" is preferred in some contexts in mathematics and statistics because it helps distinguish it from other means, such as the geometric mean and the harmonic mean.

In addition to mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean is used frequently in fields such as economics, sociology, and history, and it is used in almost every academic field to some extent. For example, per capita income is the arithmetic average income of a nation's population.

While the arithmetic mean is often used to report central tendencies, it is not a robust statistic, meaning that it is greatly influenced by outliers (values that are very much larger or smaller than most of the values). Notably, for skewed distributions, such as the distribution of income for which a few people's incomes are substantially greater than most people's, the arithmetic mean may not accord with one's notion of "middle", and robust statistics, such as the median, may be a better description of central tendency.

In a more obscure usage, any sequence of values that form an arithmetic sequence between two numbers x and y can be called "arithmetic means between x and y." 

==Definition==
Suppose we have a data set containing the values The arithmetic mean is defined by the formula
:.

If the data set is a statistical population (i.e., consists of every possible observation and not just a subset of them), then the mean of that population is called the population mean. If the data set is a statistical sample (a subset of the population), we call the statistic resulting from this calculation a sample mean.

The arithmetic mean of a variable is often denoted by a bar, for example as in (read "x bar"), which is the mean of the values . 

==Motivating properties==

The arithmetic mean has several properties that make it useful, especially as a measure of central tendency. These include:

* If numbers have mean , then . Since is the distance from a given number to the mean, one way to interpret this property is as saying that the numbers to the left of the mean are balanced by the numbers to the right of the mean. The mean is the only single number for which the residuals (deviations from the estimate) sum to zero.
* If it is required to use a single number as a "typical" value for a set of known numbers , then the arithmetic mean of the numbers does this best, in the sense of minimizing the sum of squared deviations from the typical value: the sum of . (It follows that the sample mean is also the best single predictor in the sense of having the lowest root mean squared error.) If the arithmetic mean of a population of numbers is desired, then the estimate of it that is unbiased is the arithmetic mean of a sample drawn from the population.

==Contrast with median==

The arithmetic mean may be contrasted with the median. The median is defined such that half the values are larger than, and half are smaller than, the median. If elements in the sample data increase arithmetically, when placed in some order, then the median and arithmetic average are equal. For example, consider the data sample . The average is , as is the median. However, when we consider a sample that cannot be arranged so as to increase arithmetically, such as , the median and arithmetic average can differ significantly. In this case, the arithmetic average is 6.2 and the median is 4. In general, the average value can vary significantly from most values in the sample, and can be larger or smaller than most of them.

There are applications of this phenomenon in many fields. For example, since the 1980s, the median income in the United States has increased more slowly than the arithmetic average of income.

==Generalizations==

===Weighted average===

A weighted average, or weighted mean, is an average in which some data points count more strongly than others, in that they are given more weight in the calculation. For example, the arithmetic mean of and is , or equivalently . In contrast, a weighted mean in which the first number receives twice as much weight as the second (perhaps because it is assumed to appear twice as often in the general population from which these numbers were sampled) would be calculated as . Here the weights, which necessarily sum to the value one, are and , the former being twice the latter. Note that the arithmetic mean (sometimes called the "unweighted average" or "equally weighted average") can be interpreted as a special case of a weighted average in which all the weights are equal to each other (equal to in the above example, and equal to in a situation with numbers being averaged).

===Continuous probability distributions===

Comparison of mean, median and mode of two log-normal distributions with different skewness.

When a population of numbers, and any sample of data from it, could take on any of a continuous range of numbers, instead of for example just integers, then the probability of a number falling into one range of possible values could differ from the probability of falling into a different range of possible values, even if the lengths of both ranges are the same. In such a case, the set of probabilities can be described using a continuous probability distribution. The analog of a weighted average in this context, in which there are an infinitude of possibilities for the precise value of the variable, is called the mean of the probability distribution. The most widely encountered probability distribution is called the normal distribution; it has the property that all measures of its central tendency, including not just the mean but also the aforementioned median and the mode, are equal to each other. This property does not hold however, in the cases of a great many probability distributions, such as the lognormal distribution illustrated here.

==Angles==

Particular care must be taken when using cyclic data, such as phases or angles. Naïvely taking the arithmetic mean of 1° and 359° yields a result of 180°.
This is incorrect for two reasons:
* Firstly, angle measurements are only defined up to an additive constant of 360° (or 2π, if measuring in radians). Thus one could as easily call these 1° and −1°, or 361° and 719°, each of which gives a different average.
* Secondly, in this situation, 0° (equivalently, 360°) is geometrically a better average value: there is lower dispersion about it (the points are both 1° from it, and 179° from 180°, the putative average).

In general application, such an oversight will lead to the average value artificially moving towards the middle of the numerical range. A solution to this problem is to use the optimization formulation (viz., define the mean as the central point: the point about which one has the lowest dispersion), and redefine the difference as a modular distance (i.e., the distance on the circle: so the modular distance between 1° and 359° is 2°, not 358°).

==See also==
* Average
* Fréchet mean
* Generalized mean
* Geometric mean
* Mode
* Sample mean and covariance
* Summary statistics

==References==

==Further reading==
* 

==External links==
* Calculations and comparisons between arithmetic and geometric mean of two numbers
* 



[[American Football Conference]]

The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL). This conference and its counterpart, the National Football Conference (NFC), currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL.

==Current teams==
Since 2002, the AFC has 16 teams, organized into four divisions each with four teams: East, North, South and West.

 Division Team City/Town Stadium 
 East Buffalo Bills Orchard Park, NY Ralph Wilson Stadium 
 Miami Dolphins Miami Gardens, FL Sun Life Stadium 
 New England Patriots Foxborough, MA Gillette Stadium 
 New York Jets East Rutherford, NJ MetLife Stadium 
 North Baltimore Ravens Baltimore, MD M&T Bank Stadium 
 Cincinnati Bengals Cincinnati, OH Paul Brown Stadium 
 Cleveland Browns Cleveland, OH FirstEnergy Stadium 
 Pittsburgh Steelers Pittsburgh, PA Heinz Field 
 South Houston Texans Houston, TX Reliant Stadium 
 Indianapolis Colts Indianapolis, IN Lucas Oil Stadium 
 Jacksonville Jaguars Jacksonville, FL EverBank Field 
 Tennessee Titans Nashville, TN LP Field 
 West Denver Broncos Denver, CO Sports Authority Field at Mile High 
 Kansas City Chiefs Kansas City, MO Arrowhead Stadium 
 Oakland Raiders Oakland, CA O.co Coliseum 
 San Diego Chargers San Diego, CA Qualcomm Stadium 

==Season structure==

A sample scheduling grid, with a single team's (the Browns) schedule highlighted. Under this hypothetical schedule, the Browns would play the teams in blue twice and the teams in yellow once, for a total of 16 games.

Each AFC team plays the other teams in its division twice (home and away) during the regular season, in addition to 10 other games assigned to their schedule by the NFL the previous May. Two of these games are assigned on the basis of the team's final division standing in the previous season. The remaining 8 games are split between the roster of two other NFL divisions. This assignment shifts each year. For instance, in the 2007 regular season, each team in the AFC West played one game against each team in both the AFC South and the NFC North. In this way division competition consists of common opponents, with the exception of the 2 games assigned on the strength of each team's prior division standing. (i.e. the division winner will face the other two division winners in the AFC divisions that they are not scheduled to play) The NFC operates according to the same system.

At the end of each football season, there are playoff games involving the top six teams in the AFC (the four division champions by place standing and the top two remaining non-division-champion teams ("wild cards") by record). The last two teams remaining play in the AFC Championship game with the winner receiving the Lamar Hunt Trophy. The AFC champion plays the NFC champion in the Super Bowl. After Super Bowl XLVII the AFC has won 20 Super Bowls to the 24 won by the NFC. Since losing 13 consecutive Super Bowls in the 1980s and 1990s (XIX&ndash;XXXI), the AFC has won 10 of the last 16. The coach of the team with the best record that lost in the AFC Divisional round is the coach of the Pro Bowl.

==History==
Original American Football Conference logo, based on the AFL logo with blue stars
Both the AFC and the NFC were created after the NFL merged with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970. The AFL began play in 1960 with eight teams, and added two more expansion clubs (the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968) before the merger. In order to equalize the number of teams in each conference, three NFL teams that predated the AFL's launch (the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the then-Baltimore Colts) joined the ten former AFL teams to form the AFC. The two AFL divisions AFL East and AFL West were more or less intact, while the Century Division, in which the Browns and the Steelers had played since 1967, was moved from the NFL to become the new AFC Central.

Since the merger, five expansion teams have joined the AFC and two have left, thus making the current total 16. When the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, they were temporarily placed in the NFC and AFC respectively. This arrangement lasted for one season only before the two teams switched conferences. The Seahawks eventually returned to the NFC as a result of the 2002 realignment. The expansion Jacksonville Jaguars joined the AFC in 1995.

Due to the relocation controversy of the Cleveland Browns, a new AFC franchise called the Baltimore Ravens was officially established in 1996 while the Browns were reactivated in 1999.

The Houston Texans were then added to the league in 2002, joining the AFC.

Between 2000 and 2012, the AFC had sent either the Baltimore Ravens (2 times), the Indianapolis Colts (2 times), the New England Patriots (5 times), the Pittsburgh Steelers (3 times), or the Oakland Raiders (1 time) to the Super Bowl. By contrast, the NFC has sent 11 different teams during that same time frame.

==Logo==
216x216px
The merged league created a new logo for the AFC that took elements of the old AFL logo, specifically the "A" and the six stars surrounding it. The AFC logo basically remained unchanged from 1970 to 2009. The 2010 NFL season introduced an updated AFC logo, with the most notable revision being the removal of two stars (leaving four representing the four divisions of the AFC), and moving the stars inside the letter, similar to the NFC logo. 

==Notes==

Conference


[[Albert Gore]]

#redirect Al Gore 

[[Animal Farm]]

Animal Farm is an allegorical and dystopian novel by George Orwell, published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. BBC Learning Zone, Animal Farm Orwell, a democratic socialist, Orwell, George. "Why I Write" (1936) (The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 1 – An Age Like This 1945–1950 p. 23 (Penguin)) was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Gordon Bowker, Orwell p.224 ; Orwell, writing in his review of Franz Borkenau's The Spanish Cockpit in Time and Tide, 31 July 1937, and "Spilling the Spanish Beans", New English Weekly, 29 July 1937 The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin "un conte satirique contre Staline", and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he had tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".

The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, though the subtitle was dropped by U.S. publishers for its 1946 publication and subsequently all but one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime omitted it. Other variations in the title include: A Satire and A Contemporary Satire. Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which recalled the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques, and which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin for "bear", a symbol of Russia.

Orwell wrote the book from November 1943 – February 1944, when the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union was at its height and Stalin was regarded highly by the British people and intelligentsia, a circumstance that Orwell hated. Bradbury, Malcolm, Introduction, p. vi, Animal Farm, Penguin edition, 1989 It was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, History Today Vol.55, Issue 8, 2005 including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz. Its publication was thus delayed, though it became a great commercial success when it did finally appear partly because the Cold War so quickly followed World War II. Dickstein, Morris. Cambridge Companion to Orwell, p. 134 

Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996, and is also included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.

==Plot summary==

Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, summons the animals on the farm together for a meeting, during which he refers to humans as parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song called Beasts of England. When Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and consider it a duty to prepare for the Rebellion. The animals revolt and drive the drunken and irresponsible farmer Mr. Jones from the farm, renaming it "Animal Farm". They adopt Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, "All animals are equal."

Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while Napoleon educates young puppies on the principles of Animalism. Food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their personal health. Napoleon and Snowball struggle for preeminence. When Snowball announces his plans to build a windmill, Napoleon has his dogs chase Snowball away and subsequently declares himself leader of Animal Farm.

Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs who will run the farm. Through a young pig named Squealer, Napoleon claims credit for the windmill idea. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. When the animals find the windmill collapsed after a violent storm, Napoleon and Squealer convince the animals that Snowball is trying to sabotage their project. Once Snowball becomes a scapegoat, Napoleon begins to purge the farm with his dogs, killing animals he accuses of consorting with his old rival. Beasts of England is replaced by an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man. The animals remain convinced that they are better off than they were under Mr. Jones.

Mr Frederick, one of the neighbouring farmers, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Though the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Despite his injuries, Boxer continues working harder and harder, until he collapses while working on the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer to the veterinary surgeon, explaining that better care can be given there. Benjamin, the cynical donkey who "could read as well as any pig", Orwell, George (1946). Animal Farm. London: Penguin Group. p. 21. notices that the van belongs to a knacker, and attempts a futile rescue. Squealer reports that the van was purchased by the hospital and the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted. But in reality, Napoleon has sold his most loyal and long-suffering worker for money to buy himself whisky.

Years pass, and the pigs start to resemble humans, as they walk upright, carry whips, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are abridged to a single phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and local farmers, with whom he celebrates a new alliance. He abolishes the practice of the revolutionary traditions and restores the name "The Manor Farm". As the animals look from pigs to humans, they realise they can no longer distinguish between the two.

==Characters==

===Pigs===

*Old Major – An aged prize Middle White boar provides the inspiration that fuels the Rebellion in the book. He is an allegorical combination of Karl Marx, one of the creators of communism, and Lenin, the communist leader of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet nation, in that he draws up the principles of the revolution. His skull being put on revered public display recalls Lenin, whose embalmed body was put on display. 
*Napoleon – "A large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way". An allegory of Joseph Stalin, Napoleon is the main villain of Animal Farm. In the first French version of Animal Farm, Napoleon is called , the French form of Caesar, although another translation has him as . 
*Snowball – Napoleon's rival and original head of the farm after Jones' overthrow. He is mainly based on Leon Trotsky, but also combines elements from Lenin. 
*Squealer – A small, white, fat porker who serves as Napoleon's right-trotter pig and minister of propaganda, holding a position similar to that of Molotov. 
*Minimus – A poetic pig who writes the second and third national anthems of Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned.
*The Piglets – Hinted to be the children of Napoleon and are the first generation of animals subjugated to his idea of animal inequality.
*The young pigs – Four pigs who complain about Napoleon's takeover of the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed.
*Pinkeye – A minor pig who is mentioned only once; he is the pig that tastes Napoleon's food to make sure it is not poisoned, in response to rumours about an assassination attempt on Napoleon.

===Humans===

*Mr Jones – The former owner of the farm, Jones is a very heavy drinker. The animals revolt against him after he drinks so much that he does not feed or take care of them. He is an allegory of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 and was executed, along with the rest of his family, by the Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918.
*Mr Frederick – The tough owner of Pinchfield, a small but well-kept neighbouring farm, who briefly enters into an alliance with Napoleon. He is an allegory of Adolf Hitler, Meyers, Readers Guide to Orwell, p. 141 who enters into a neutrality pact with Joseph Stalin's USSR only to later break it by invading the Soviet Union. 
*Mr Pilkington – The easy-going but crafty and well-to-do owner of Foxwood, a large neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds. 
*Mr Whymper – A man hired by Napoleon to act as the liaison between Animal Farm and human society. At first he is used to acquire goods needed for the farm, such as dog biscuits and paraffin, but later he procures luxuries like alcohol for the pigs.

===Horses and donkeys ===

*Boxer – A loyal, kind, dedicated, hard working, and respectable cart-horse, although quite naive and gullible. Boxer does a large share of the physical labor on the farm, adhering to the simplistic belief that working harder will solve all the animal's problems.
*Mollie – A self-centered, self-indulgent and vain young white mare who quickly leaves for another farm after the revolution. She is only once mentioned again, in a manner similar to those who left Russia after the fall of the Tsar.
*Clover - A gentle, caring female horse, who shows concern especially for Boxer, who often pushes himself too hard. She seems to catch on to the sly tricks and schemes set up by Napoleon and Squealer.
*Benjamin – A donkey, one of the oldest, wisest animals on the farm, and one of the few who can read properly. He is skeptical, temperamental and pessimistic: his most frequent remark is, "Life will go on as it has always gone on—that is, badly." The academic Morris Dickstein has suggested there is "a touch of Orwell himself in this creature's timeless skepticism" Cambridge Companion to Orwell, p. 141 and indeed, friends called Orwell "Donkey George", "after his grumbling donkey Benjamin, in Animal Farm." The Lost Orwell, p. 236 

===Other animals===
*Muriel – A wise old goat who is friends with all of the animals on the farm. She, like Benjamin and Snowball, is one of the few animals on the farm who can read.
*The Puppies – Offspring of Jessie and Bluebell, taken away from them by Napoleon at birth and reared by Napoleon to be his security force.
*Moses – The raven "was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker." Initially following Mrs. Jones into exile, he reappears several years later and resumes his role of talking but not working. He regales Animal Farm's denizens with tales of a wondrous place beyond the clouds called "Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labours!" Orwell portrays established religion as "the black raven of priestcraft—promising pie in the sky when you die, and faithfully serving whoever happens to be in power." Napoleon brings the raven back (Ch. IX) as Stalin brought back the Russian Orthodox Church. 
*The Sheep – They show limited understanding of the Animalism and the political atmosphere of the farm, yet nonetheless they blindly support Napoleon's ideals with vocal jingles during his speeches and meetings with Snowball.
*The Hens – The hens are among the first to rebel against Napoleon.
*The Cows – Their milk is stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk them. The milk is stirred into the pigs' mash every day, while the other animals are denied such luxuries. 
*The Cat – Never seen to carry out any work, the cat is absent for long periods, and is forgiven because her excuses are so convincing and she "purred so affectionately that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions". She has no interest in the politics of the farm, and the only time she is recorded as having participated in an election, she is found to have actually "voted on both sides". 

==Composition and publication==

===Origin===
George Orwell wrote the manuscript in 1943 and 1944 subsequent to his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, which he described in Homage to Catalonia (1938). In the preface of a 1947 Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, he explained how escaping the communist purges in Spain taught him "how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries". This motivated Orwell to expose and strongly condemn what he saw as the Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals.

Immediately prior to his writing, Orwell had quit the BBC. He was also upset about a booklet for propagandists the Ministry of Information had put out. The booklet included instructions on how to quell ideological fears of the Soviet Union, such as directions to claim that the Red Terror was a figment of Nazi imagination. Overy, Richard, Why the Allies Won, p. 297 ISBN 0-393-03925-0 

In the preface, Orwell also described the source of the idea of setting the book on a farm:

===Efforts to find a publisher===
Orwell encountered great difficulty getting the manuscript published, as it was feared that the book might upset the alliance between the US, UK, and the Soviet Union. Four publishers refused; one had initially accepted the work but declined after consulting the Ministry of Information. Orwell 1976 page 25 La libertà di stampa Eventually, Secker and Warburg published the first edition in 1945.

During World War II, it became apparent to Orwell that anti-Soviet literature was not something which most major publishing houses would touch — including his regular publisher Gollancz. He also submitted the manuscript to Faber and Faber, where the poet T. S. Eliot (who was a director of the firm) rejected it; Eliot wrote back to Orwell praising its "good writing" and "fundamental integrity", but declared that they would only accept it for publication if they had some sympathy for the viewpoint "which I take to be generally Trotskyite". Eliot said he found the view "not convincing", and contended that the pigs were made out to be the best to run the farm; he posited that someone might argue "what was needed.. was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs". Orwell let André Deutsch, who was working for Nicholson & Watson in 1944, read the typescript, and Deutsch was convinced that Nicholson & Watson would want to publish it; however, they did not, and "lectured Orwell on what they perceived to be errors in Animal Farm." Peter Davison, editorial note, Orwell, Collected Works, I Have Tried to Tell the Truth,p.156 In his London Letter on 17 April 1944 for Partisan Review, Orwell wrote that it was "now next door to impossible to get anything overtly anti-Russian printed. Anti-Russian books do appear, but mostly from Catholic publishing firms and always from a religious or frankly reactionary angle."

The publisher Jonathan Cape, who had initially accepted Animal Farm, subsequently rejected the book after an official at the British Ministry of Information warned him off — although the civil servant who it is assumed gave the order was later found to be a Soviet spy. Writing to Leonard Moore, a partner in the literary agency of Christy & Moore, publisher Jonathan Cape explained that the decision had been taken on the advice of a senior official in the Ministry of Information. Such flagrant anti-Soviet bias was unacceptable, and the choice of pigs as the dominant class was thought to be especially offensive. It may reasonably be assumed that the 'important official' was a man named Peter Smollett, who was later unmasked as a Soviet agent. Orwell Subverted, Daniel J. Leab, Penn State Press, 2007 p. 3 Orwell was suspicious of Smollett/Smolka, and he would be one of the names Orwell included in his list of Crypto-Communists and Fellow-Travellers sent to the Information Research Department in 1949. Born Hans Peter Smolka in Vienna in 1912, he came to Britain in 1933 as an NKVD agent with the codename 'Abo', The Lost Orwell, p. 210; The Mitrokhin Archive, The KGB in Europe and the West, Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, p. 158 became a naturalised British subject in 1938, changed his name, and after the outbreak of World War II joined the Ministry of Information where he organised pro-Soviet propaganda, working with Kim Philby in 1943-45. Gordievsky, Oleg. KGB: The Inside Story, 1991, p. 325 Smollett's family have rejected the accusation that he was a spy. The publisher wrote to Orwell, saying: 

Frederic Warburg also faced pressures against publication, even from people in his own office and from his wife Pamela, who felt that it was not the moment for ingratitude towards Stalin and the heroic Red Army, George Orwell, A Personal Memoir, T. R. Fyvel, p. 139 which had played a major part in defeating Hitler. A Russian translation was printed in the paper Posev, and in giving permission for a Russian translation of Animal Farm, Orwell refused in advance all royalties. A translation in Ukrainian, which was produced in Germany, was confiscated in large part by the American wartime authorities and handed over to the Soviet repatriation commission. Struve, Gleb. Telling the Russians, written for the Russian journal New Russian Wind, reprinted in Remembering Orwell, p.260-261 

In October 1945, Orwell wrote to Frederic Warburg expressing interest in pursuing the possibility that the political cartoonist David Low might illustrate Animal Farm. Low had written a letter saying that he had had "a good time with ANIMAL FARM - an excellent bit of satire - it would illustrate perfectly." Nothing came of this, and a trial issue produced by Secker & Warburg in 1956 illustrated by John Driver was abandoned, but the Folio Society published an edition in 1984 illustrated by Quentin Blake and an edition illustrated by the cartoonist Ralph Steadman was published by Secker & Warburg in 1995 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of Animal Farm. Smothered Under Journalism, p.123 & I Belong to the Left, p.313-314 

==="The Freedom of the Press"===
Orwell originally wrote a preface complaining about British self-censorship and how the British people were suppressing criticism of the USSR, their World War II ally. "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.... Things are kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervenes but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact." Although the first edition allowed space for the preface, it was not included, and as of June 2009 it has not been published with most editions of the book. Bailey83221 (Bailey83221 includes a preface and two cites: 26 August 1995 The Guardian page 28; 1995-08-26 New Statesman & Society 8 (366): 11. ISSN: 0954-2361) 

Secker and Warburg published the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945 without any introduction. However, the publisher had provided space for a preface in the author's proof composited from the manuscript. For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and all the page numbers needed to be redone at the last minute. 

Years later, in 1972, Ian Angus found the original typescript titled "The Freedom of the Press", and Bernard Crick published it, together with his own introduction, in The Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972 as "How the essay came to be written". Orwell's essay criticised British self-censorship by the press, specifically the suppression of unflattering descriptions of Stalin and the Soviet government. The same essay also appeared in the Italian 1976 Animal Farm edition, with another introduction by Crick, claiming to be the first edition with the preface. Other publishers were still declining to publish it.

==Critical response==
Contemporary reviews of the work were not universally positive. Writing in the American New Republic magazine, George Soule expressed his disappointment in the book, writing that it "puzzled and saddened me. It seemed on the whole dull. The allegory turned out to be a creaking machine for saying in a clumsy way things that have been said better directly." Soule believed that the animals were not consistent enough with their real world inspirations, and said, "It seems to me that the failure of this book (commercially it is already assured of tremendous success) arises from the fact that the satire deals not with something the author has experienced, but rather with stereotyped ideas about a country which he probably does not know very well". Soule, G. (2September 1946). "Orwell's Fables". The New Republic, 

Tosco Fyvel, writing in Tribune, 24 August 1945, called the book "a gentle satire on a certain State and on the illusions of an age which may already be behind us." Julian Symons responded, on 7 September, "Should we not expect, in Tribune at least, acknowledgement of the fact that it is a satire not at all gentle upon a particular State - Soviet Russia? It seems to me that a reviewer should have the courage to identify Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with Trotsky, and express an opinion favourable or unfavourable to the author, upon a political ground. In a hundred years time perhaps, Animal Farm may be simply a fairy story, today it is a political satire with a good deal of point."

Animal Farm has been subject to much comment in the decades since these early remarks. Orwell, Collected Works, I Belong to the Left, p.253 

==Analysis==

===Animalism===

The pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into "a complete system of thought", which they formally name Animalism, an allegoric reference to Communism. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer partake in activities associated with the humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading), which were explicitly prohibited by the Seven Commandments. Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising of history in order to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society. 
Squealer sprawls at the foot of the end wall of the big barn where the Seven Commandments were written (ch. viii)—preliminary artwork for a 1950 strip cartoon by Norman Pett and Donald Freeman

The original commandments are:
# Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
# Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
# No animal shall wear clothes.
# No animal shall sleep in a bed.
# No animal shall drink alcohol.
# No animal shall kill any other animal.
# All animals are equal.

Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking. The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:

No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

Eventually, these are replaced with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better!" as the pigs become more human. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which were supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans and preventing animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda. 

===Significance and allegory===
The Horn and Hoof Flag described in the book appears to be based on the hammer and sickle.

In the Eastern Bloc, both Animal Farm and later Nineteen Eighty-Four were on the list of forbidden books until the end of communism in 1989, and were only available via clandestine Samizdat networks.

Orwell biographer Jeffrey Meyers has written, "virtually every detail has political significance in this allegory." Orwell himself wrote in 1946, "Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution.. that kind of revolution (violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power hungry people) can only lead to a change of masters revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert." In a preface for a 1947 Ukrainian edition, he stated, "... for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement. On my return from Spain 1937 I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages." Crick, Bernard. Orwell, A Life, p. 450 

The revolt of the animals against Farmer Jones is Orwell's analogy with the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and Jones's attempt to regain control, with the aid of neighbouring farmers, parallels the Western powers' efforts of 1918-21 to crush the Bolsheviks. The pigs' rise to pre-eminence mirrors the rise of a Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR, just as Napoleon's emergence as the farm's sole leader reflects Stalin's emergence. The pigs' appropriation of milk and apples for their own use, "the turning point of the story" as Orwell termed it in a letter to Dwight Macdonald, Orwell, George. A Life in Letters, Penguin ISBN 978-0-141-19263-5 p. 334 stands as an analogy for the crushing of the left-wing 1921 Kronstadt revolt against the Bolsheviks, Orwell, Letter to Dwight Macdonald, 5 December 1946, A Life in Letters, p.334 Penguin 2011 and the difficult efforts of the animals to build the windmill suggest the various Five Year Plans. The puppies controlled by Napoleon parallel the nurture of the secret police in the Stalinist structure, and the pigs' treatment of the other animals on the farm recalls the internal terror faced by the populace in the 1930s. Orwell Subverted, 6–7 Daniel Leab, Penn State Press 2007 In chapter seven, when the animals confess their nonexistent crimes and are killed, Orwell directly alludes to the purges, confessions and show trials of the late 1930s. These contributed to Orwell's conviction that the Bolshevik revolution had been corrupted and the Soviet system become rotten. Cambridge Companion to George Orwell, p. 135, CUP 2007 

Peter Edgerly Firchow and Peter Davison consider that in real life, with events in Animal Farm mirroring those in the Soviet Union, the Battle of the Windmill represents the Great Patriotic War (World War II), especially the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Moscow. During the battle, Frederick drills a hole and places explosives inside, and then "All the animals, including Napoleon" took cover; Orwell had the publisher alter this to "All the animals except Napoleon" in recognition of Joseph Stalin's decision to remain in Moscow during the German advance. A Reader's Guide to George Orwell, Jeffrey Meyers, Thames & Hudson, p. 142 This very particular alteration had been occasioned by Orwell having been in Paris in March 1945, working as a war correspondent for the Observer and the Manchester Evening News. In Paris he met Joseph Czapski, a survivor of the Katyn Massacre. In spite of Czapski's opposition to the Soviet regime, he told Orwell, as Orwell wrote to Arthur Koestler, that it had been "the character greatness of Stalin" that saved Russia from the German invasion. A Note on the Text, Peter Davison, Animal Farm, Penguin edition 1989, p. xx 

The Battle of the Cowshed represents the allied invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918, and the defeat of the White Russians in the Russian Civil War. 
Front row (left to right): Rykov, Skrypnyk, and Stalin—'When Snowball comes to the crucial points in his speeches he is drowned out by the sheep (Ch. V), just as in the party Congress in 1927 , at Stalin's instigation 'pleas for the opposition were drowned in the continual, hysterically intolerant uproar from the floor'. Isaac Deutscher, Stalin, p. 311, Jeffrey Meyers, A Readers Guide to George Orwell, p. 138 
Other connections that writers have suggested illustrate Orwell's telescoping of Russian history from 1917 to 1943 Jeffrey Meyers, A Readers Guide to George Orwell, p. 135. In the Preface to Animal Farm Orwell noted however, 'although various episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution, they are dealt with schematically and their chronological order is changed.' include the wave of rebelliousness that ran through the countryside after the Rebellion, which stands for the abortive revolutions in Hungary and in Germany (Ch IV); the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball (Ch V), paralleling "the two rival and quasi-Messianic beliefs that seemed pitted against one another: Trotskyism, with its faith in the revolutionary vocation of the proletariat of the West; and Stalinism with its glorification of Russia's socialist destiny"; Isaac Deutscher, quoted in Jeffrey Meyers, Readers Guide to George Orwell, p. 138 Napoleon's dealings with Whymper and the Willingdon markets (Ch VI), paralleling the Treaty of Rapallo; and Frederick's bank notes, paralleling the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of August 1939, which are forgeries. Frederick attacks Animal Farm without warning and destroys the windmill. 

The book's close, with the pigs and men in a kind of rapprochement, reflected Orwell's view of the 1943 Teheran Conference Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm,reprinted in Orwell:Collected Works, It Is What I Think p.89 that seemed to display the establishment of "the best possible relations between the USSR and the West"—but in reality were destined, as Orwell presciently predicted, to continue to unravel. Orwell Subverted, p. 7, Daniel J. Leab, Penn State Press 2007. The disagreement between the allies and the start of the Cold War is suggested when Napoleon and Pilkington, both suspicious, "played an ace of spades simultaneously". Jeffrey Meyers, A Reader's Guide to George Orwell p. 142 

==Adaptations==
A BBC radio version, produced by Rayner Heppenstall, was broadcast in January 1947. Orwell listened to the production at his home in Canonbury Square in London, with Hugh Gordon Porteous, amongst others. Orwell later wrote to Heppenstall that Porteous, "who had not read the book, grasped what was happening after a few minutes." The Lost Orwell, edited by Peter Davison, p. 112 A further radio production, again using Orwell's own dramatisation of the book, was broadcast in January 2013 on BBC Radio Four. Tamsin Greig narrated and the cast included Nicky Henson as Napoleon, Toby Jones as the propagandist Squealer, and Ralph Ineson as Boxer. Radio Times, 26 January-1 February 2013 

Animal Farm has been adapted to film twice. The 1954 Animal Farm film was an animated feature and the 1999 Animal Farm film was a TV live action version. Both differ from the novel, and have been accused of taking significant liberties, including sanitising some aspects. In the 1954 version, Napoleon is apparently overthrown in a second revolution. The 1999 film shows Napoleon's regime collapsing in on itself, with the farm having new human owners, as happened in the Soviet Union, appropriating the new political reality to the story. In 2012, a HFR-3D version of Animal Farm potentially directed by Andy Serkis was announced. 

A theatrical version, with music by Richard Peaslee and lyrics by Adrian Mitchell, was staged at the National Theatre London on 25 April 1984, directed by Peter Hall. It toured nine cities in 1985. Orwell, A Life in Letters, Penguin Books 2011, p. 341 A solo version, adapted and performed by Guy Masterson, premièred at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in January 1995 and has toured worldwide since. Lancashire Telegraph, 25 January 2013 Theatre Tours International 

==Cultural references==

References to the novel are frequent in other works of popular culture, particularly in popular music and television series.

==Editions==
* LCCN 46006290 (hardcover, 1946, First American Edition)
* ISBN 0-451-51679-6 (paperback, 1956, Signet Classic)
* ISBN 0-582-02173-1 (paper text, 1989)
* ISBN 0-15-107255-8 (hardcover, 1990)
* ISBN 0-582-06010-9 (paper text, 1991)
* ISBN 0-679-42039-8 (hardcover, 1993)
* ISBN 0-606-00102-6 (prebound, 1996)
* ISBN 0-15-100217-7 (hardcover, 1996, Anniversary Edition)
* ISBN 0-452-27750-7 (paperback, 1996, Anniversary Edition)
* ISBN 0-451-52634-1 (mass market paperback, 1996, Anniversary Edition)
* ISBN 0-582-53008-3 (1996)
* ISBN 1-56000-520-3 (cloth text, 1998, Large Type Edition)
* ISBN 0-7910-4774-1 (hardcover, 1999)
* ISBN 0-451-52536-1 (paperback, 1999)
* ISBN 0-7641-0819-0 (paperback, 1999)
* ISBN 0-8220-7009-X (e-book, 1999)
* ISBN 0-7587-7843-0 (hardcover, 2002)
* ISBN 0-15-101026-9 (hardcover, 2003, with Nineteen Eighty-Four)
* ISBN 0-452-28424-4 (paperback, 2003, Centennial Edition)
* ISBN 0-8488-0120-2 (hardcover)
* ISBN 0-03-055434-9 (hardcover) Animal Farm with Connections
* ISBN 0-395-79677-6 (hardcover) Animal Farm & Related Readings, 1997
* ISBN 0-582-43447-5 (hardcover, 2007)
* ISBN 0-14-103349-5 (paperback, 2007)

On 17 July 2009, Amazon.com withdrew certain Amazon Kindle titles, including Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, from sale, refunded buyers, and remotely deleted items from purchasers' devices after discovering that the publisher lacked rights to publish the titles in question. Notes and annotations for the books made by users on their devices were also deleted. After the move prompted outcry and comparisons to Nineteen Eighty-Four itself, Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener stated that the company is "hanging our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances." 

==See also==
* History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–1927)
* History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)
* New class
* Polish Nobel laureate Władysław Reymont, with his Revolt, anticipated by two decades Orwell's Animal Farm.

Books:
* Gulliver's Travels, a favourite book of Orwell's—Swift reverses the role of horses and human beings in the fourth book—Orwell brought also to Animal Farm "a dose of Swiftian misanthropy, looking ahead to a time 'when the human race had finally been overthrown.'" Cambridge Companion to Orwell, p. 135 
* Bunt (Revolt), published in 1924, is a book by Polish Nobel laureate Władysław Reymont with a theme similar to Animal Farms.
* White Acre vs. Black Acre, published in 1856 and written by William M. Burwell, is a satirical novel that features allegories for slavery in the United States similar to Animal Farm's portrayal of Soviet history.
* George Orwell's own Nineteen Eighty-Four, the classic dystopian novel about totalitarianism.

==Notes==

==References==

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* (Bernard Crick's preface quotes Orwell writing to T. S. Eliot about Cape's suggestion to find another animal than pigs to represent the Bolsheviks)
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==External links==

*Animal Farm full text at eBooks@Adelaide
*Animal Farm Audio Book (web archive)
*Animal Farm Book Notes from Literapedia
*Excerpts from Orwell's letters to his agent concerning Animal Farm
*Literary Journal review
*Orwell's original preface to the book
*

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[[Amphibian]]

The world's smallest known vertebrate, Paedophryne amauensis, sitting on a U.S. dime, 17.9 mm, for scale
Amphibians are ectothermic, tetrapod vertebrates of the class Amphibia. Modern amphibians are all Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Amphibians typically start out as larva living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this. The young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs. Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely upon skin. They are superficially similar to reptiles but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes and do not require water bodies in which to breed. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often ecological indicators and in recent decades there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations for many species around the globe.

The earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian Period from sarcopterygian fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins, features that were helpful in adapting to dry land. They diversified and became dominant during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, but were later displaced by reptiles and other vertebrates. Over time, amphibians shrank in size and decreased in diversity, leaving only the modern subclass Lissamphibia. The three modern orders of amphibians are Anura (the frogs and toads), Caudata/Urodela (the salamanders), and Gymnophiona/Apoda (the caecilians). The total number of known amphibian species is approximately 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. The smallest amphibian (and vertebrate) in the world is a frog from New Guinea (Paedophryne amauensis) with a length of just 7.7 mm. The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) but this is dwarfed by the extinct 9 m Prionosuchus from the middle Permian of Brazil. The study of amphibians is called batrachology, while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology.

== Evolutionary history ==

The first major groups of amphibians developed in the Devonian period, around 370 million years ago, from lobe-finned fish similar to the modern coelacanth and lungfish, which had evolved multi-jointed leg-like fins with digits that enabled them to crawl along the sea bottom. Some fish had developed primitive lungs to help them breathe air when the stagnant pools of the Devonian swamps were low in oxygen. They could also use their strong fins to hoist themselves out of the water and onto dry land if circumstances so required. Eventually, their bony fins would evolve into limbs and they would become the ancestors to all tetrapods, including modern amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Despite being able to crawl on land, many of these prehistoric tetrapodomorph fish still spent most of their time in the water. They had started to develop lungs, but still breathed predominantly with gills. 

Ichthyostega was one of the first primitive amphibians, with nostrils and more efficient lungs. It had four sturdy limbs, a neck, a tail with fins and a skull very similar to that of the lobe-finned fish, Eusthenopteron. Amphibians evolved adaptations that allowed them to stay out of the water for longer periods. Their lungs improved and their skeletons became heavier and stronger, better able to cope with the increased gravitational effect of life on land. They developed "hands" and "feet" with five or more digits; the skin became more capable of retaining body fluids and resisting desiccation. The fish's hyomandibula bone in the hyoid region behind the gills diminished in size and became the stapes of the amphibian ear, an adaptation necessary for hearing on dry land. An affinity between the amphibians and the teleost fish is the multi-folded structure of the teeth and the paired supra-occipital bones at the back of the head, neither of these features being found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. 

The Permian lepospondyl Diplocaulus was largely aquatic
At the end of the Devonian period (360 million years ago), the seas, rivers and lakes were teeming with life while the land was the realm of early plants and devoid of vertebrates, though some, such as Ichthyostega, may have sometimes hauled themselves out of the water. It is thought they may have propelled themselves with their forelimbs, dragging their hindquarters in a similar manner to that used by the elephant seal. In the early Carboniferous (360 to 345 million years ago), the climate became wet and warm. Extensive swamps developed with mosses, ferns, horsetails and calamites. Air-breathing arthropods evolved and invaded the land where they provided food for the carnivorous amphibians that began to adapt to the terrestrial environment. There were no other tetrapods on the land and the amphibians were at the top of the food chain, occupying the ecological position currently held by the crocodile. Though equipped with limbs and the ability to breathe air, most still had a long tapering body and strong tail. They were the top land predators, sometimes reaching several metres in length, preying on the large insects of the period and the many types of fish in the water. They still needed to return to water to lay their shell-less eggs, and even most modern amphibians have a fully aquatic larval stage with gills like their fish ancestors. It was the development of the amniotic egg, which prevents the developing embryo from drying out, that enabled the reptiles to reproduce on land and which led to their dominance in the period that followed. 

During the Triassic Period (250 to 200 million years ago), the reptiles began to out-compete the amphibians, leading to a reduction in both the amphibians' size and their importance in the biosphere. According to the fossil record, Lissamphibia, which includes all modern amphibians and is the only surviving lineage, may have branched off from the extinct groups Temnospondyli and Lepospondyli at some period between the Late Carboniferous and the Early Triassic. The relative scarcity of fossil evidence precludes precise dating, but the most recent molecular study, based on multilocus sequence typing, suggests a Late Carboniferous/Early Permian origin of extant amphibians. 

The temnospondyl Eryops had sturdy limbs to support its body on land
The origins and evolutionary relationships between the three main groups of amphibians is a matter of debate. A 2005 molecular phylogeny, based on rDNA analysis, suggests that salamanders and caecilians are more closely related to each other than they are to frogs. It also appears that the divergence of the three groups took place in the Paleozoic or early Mesozoic (around 250 million years ago), before the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea and soon after their divergence from the lobe-finned fish. The briefness of this period, and the swiftness with which radiation took place, would help account for the relative scarcity of primitive amphibian fossils. There are large gaps in the fossil record, but the discovery of a proto-frog from the Early Permian in Texas in 2008 provided a missing link with many of the characteristics of modern frogs. Molecular analysis suggests that the frog–salamander divergence took place considerably earlier than the palaeontological evidence indicates. 

As they evolved from lunged fish, amphibians had to make certain adaptations for living on land including the need to develop new means of locomotion. In the water, the sideways thrusts of their tails had propelled them forward but on land, quite different mechanisms were required. Their vertebral columns, limbs, limb girdles and musculature needed to be strong enough to raise them off the ground for locomotion and feeding. Terrestrial adults discarded their lateral line systems and adapted their sensory systems to receive stimuli via the medium of air. They needed to develop new methods to regulate their body heat to cope with fluctuations in ambient temperature. They developed behaviours suitable for reproduction in a terrestrial environment. Their skins were exposed to harmful ultraviolet rays that had previously been absorbed by the water. The skin changed to become more protective and prevent excessive water loss.

== Classification ==

The word "Amphibian" is derived from the Ancient Greek term ἀμφίβιος (amphíbios), which means "both kinds of life", ἀμφί meaning "of both kinds" and βιος meaning "life". The term was initially used as a general adjective for animals that could live on land or in water, including seals and otters. Traditionally, the class Amphibia includes all tetrapod vertebrates that are not amniotes. Amphibia in its widest sense (sensu lato) was divided into three subclasses, two of which are extinct: 
* Subclass Labyrinthodontia† (diverse Paleozoic and early Mesozoic group)
* Subclass Lepospondyli† (small Paleozoic group, sometimes included in the Labyrinthodontia, which may actually be more closely related to amniotes than Lissamphibia)
* Subclass Lissamphibia (all modern amphibians, including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians)
** Order Anura (frogs and toads): Jurassic to present—6,200 current species in 53 families
** Order Caudata or Urodela (salamanders, newts): Jurassic to present—652 current species in 9 families
** Order Gymnophiona or Apoda (caecilians): Jurassic to present—192 current species in 10 families

Triadobatrachus massinoti, a proto-frog from the Early Triassic of Madagascar
The actual number of species in each group depends on the taxonomic classification followed. The two most common systems are the classification adopted by the website AmphibiaWeb, University of California (Berkeley) and the classification by herpetologist Darrel Frost and the American Museum of Natural History, available as the online reference database Amphibian Species of the World. The numbers of species cited above follow Frost and the total number of known amphibian species is over 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. 

With the phylogenetic classification, the taxon Labyrinthodontia has been discarded as it is a paraphyletic group without unique defining features apart from shared primitive characteristics. Classification varies according to the preferred phylogeny of the author and whether they use a stem-based or a node-based classification. Traditionally, amphibians as a class are defined as all tetrapods with a larval stage, while the group that includes the common ancestors of all living amphibians (frogs, salamanders and caecilians) and all their descendants is called Lissamphibia. The phylogeny of Paleozoic amphibians is uncertain, and Lissamphibia may possibly fall within extinct groups, like the Temnospondyli (traditionally placed in the subclass Labyrinthodontia) or the Lepospondyli, and in some analyses even in the amniotes. This means that advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature have removed a large number of basal Devonian and Carboniferous amphibian-type tetrapod groups that were formerly placed in Amphibia in Linnaean taxonomy, and included them elsewhere under cladistic taxonomy. If the common ancestor of amphibians and amniotes is included in Amphibia, it becomes a paraphyletic group. 

All modern amphibians are included in the subclass Lissamphibia, which is usually considered a clade, a group of species that have evolved from a common ancestor. The three modern orders are Anura (the frogs and toads), Caudata (or Urodela, the salamanders), and Gymnophiona (or Apoda, the caecilians). It has been suggested that salamanders arose separately from a Temnospondyl-like ancestor, and even that caecilians are the sister group of the advanced reptiliomorph amphibians, and thus of amniotes. Although the fossils of several older proto-frogs with primitive characteristics are known, the oldest "true frog" is Prosalirus bitis, from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona. It is anatomically very similar to modern frogs. The oldest known caecilian is another Early Jurassic species, Eocaecilia micropodia and is also from Arizona. The earliest salamander is Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis from the Late Jurassic of northeastern China. 

Authorities disagree as to whether Salientia is a superorder that includes the order Anura, or whether Anura is a sub-order of the order Salientia. The Lissamphibia are traditionally divided into three orders, but an extinct salamander-like family, the Albanerpetontidae, is now considered part of the Lissamphibia alongside the superorder Salientia. Furthermore, Salientia includes all three recent orders plus the Triassic proto-frog, Triadobatrachus. 

== Characteristics ==
The superclass Tetrapoda is divided into four classes of vertebrate animals with four limbs. Reptiles, birds and mammals are amniotes, the eggs of which are either laid or carried by the female and are surrounded by several membranes, some of which are impervious. Lacking these membranes, amphibians require water bodies for reproduction, although some species have developed various strategies for protecting or bypassing the vulnerable aquatic larval stage. They are not found in the sea with the exception of one or two frogs that live in brackish water in mangrove swamps. On land, amphibians are restricted to moist habitats because of the need to keep their skin damp.

The smallest amphibian (and vertebrate) in the world is a microhylid frog from New Guinea (Paedophryne amauensis) first discovered in 2012. It has an average length of 7.7 mm and is part of a genus which contains four of the world's ten smallest frog species. The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m Chinese Giant Salamander (Andrias davidianus) but this is a great deal smaller than the largest amphibian that ever existed—the extinct 9 m Prionosuchus, a crocodile-like temnospondyl dating to 270 million years ago from the middle Permian of Brazil. The largest frog is the African Goliath frog (Conraua goliath) which can reach 32 cm and weigh 3 kg. 

Amphibians are ectothermic (cold-blooded) vertebrates that do not maintain their body temperature through internal physiological processes. Their metabolic rate is low and as a result, their food and energy requirements are limited. In the adult state, they have tear ducts and movable eyelids, and most species have ears that can detect airborne or ground vibrations. They have muscular tongues, which in many species can be protruded. Modern amphibians have fully ossified vertebrae with articular processes. Their ribs are usually short and may be fused to the vertebrae. Their skulls are mostly broad and short, and are often incompletely ossified. Their skin contains little keratin and lacks scales, apart from a few fish-like scales in certain caecilians. The skin contains many mucous glands and in some species, poison glands. The hearts of amphibians have three chambers, two atria and one ventricle. They have a urinary bladder and nitrogenous waste products are excreted primarily as urea. Most amphibians lay their eggs in water and have aquatic larvae that undergo metamorphosis to become terrestrial adults. Amphibians breathe by means of a pump action in which air is first drawn into the buccopharyngeal region through the nostrils. These are then closed and the air is forced into the lungs by contraction of the throat. They supplement this with gas exchange through the skin.

=== Anura ===
Red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas) with limbs and feet specialised for climbing
The order Anura (from the Ancient Greek a(n)- meaning "without" and oura meaning "tail") comprises the frogs and toads. They usually have long hind limbs that fold underneath them, shorter forelimbs, webbed toes with no claws, no tails, large eyes and glandular moist skin. Members of this order with smooth skins are commonly referred to as frogs, while those with warty skins are known as toads. The difference is not a formal one taxonomically and there are numerous exceptions to this rule. Members of the family Bufonidae are known as the "true toads". Frogs range in size from the 30 cm goliath frog (Conraua goliath) of West Africa to the 7.7 mm Paedophryne amauensis, first described in Papua New Guinea in 2012, which is also the smallest known vertebrate. Although most species are associated with water and damp habitats, some are specialised to live in trees or in deserts. They are found worldwide except for polar areas. 

Anura is divided into three suborders that are broadly accepted by the scientific community, but the relationships between some families remain unclear. Future molecular studies should provide further insights into their evolutionary relationships. The suborder Archaeobatrachia contains four families of primitive frogs. These are Ascaphidae, Bombinatoridae, Discoglossidae and Leiopelmatidae which have few derived features and are probably paraphyletic with regard to other frog lineages. The six families in the more evolutionarily advanced suborder Mesobatrachia consist of the fossorial Megophryidae, Pelobatidae, Pelodytidae, Scaphiopodidae and Rhinophrynidae and the obligatorily aquatic Pipidae. These have certain characteristics that are intermediate between the two other suborders. Neobatrachia is by far the largest suborder and includes the remaining families of modern frogs, including most common species. 96% of the over 5,000 extant species of frog are neobatrachians. 

=== Caudata ===
Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus), a primitive salamander

The order Caudata (from the Latin cauda meaning "tail") consists of the salamanders&mdash;elongated, low-slung animals that mostly resemble lizards in form. This is a symplesiomorphic trait and they are no more closely related to lizards than they are to mammals. Salamanders lack claws, have scale-free skins, either smooth or covered with tubercles, and tails that are usually flattened from side to side and often finned. They range in size from the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), which has been reported to grow to a length of 1.8 m, to the diminutive Thorius pennatulus from Mexico which seldom exceeds 20 mm in length. Salamanders are distributed widely in the Holarctic region of the northern hemisphere. The family Plethodontidae is also found in Central America and South America north of the Amazon Basin. Urodela is a name sometimes used for all the extant species of salamanders. Members of several families of salamanders have become paedomorphic and either fail to complete their metamorphosis or retain some larval characteristics as adults. Most salamanders are under 15 cm long. They may be terrestrial or aquatic and many spend part of the year in each habitat. When on land, they mostly spend the day hidden under stones or logs or in dense vegetation, emerging in the evening and night to forage for worms, insects and other invertebrates. 

Danube crested newt (Triturus dobrogicus), an advanced salamander

The suborder Cryptobranchoidea contains the primitive salamanders. A number of fossil cryptobranchids have been found, but there are only three living species, the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) and the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) from North America. These large amphibians retain several larval characteristics in their adult state; gills slits are present and the eyes are unlidded. A unique feature is their ability to feed by suction, depressing either the left side of their lower jaw or the right. The males excavate nests, persuade females to lay their egg strings inside them, and guard them. As well as breathing with lungs, they respire through the many folds in their thin skin, which has capillaries close to the surface. 

The suborder Salamandroidea contains the advanced salamanders. They differ from the cryptobranchids by having fused prearticular bones in the lower jaw, and by using internal fertilisation. In salamandrids, the male deposits a bundle of sperm, the spermatophore, and the female picks it up and inserts it into her cloaca where the sperm is stored until the eggs are laid. The largest family in this group is Plethodontidae, the lungless salamanders, which includes 60% of all salamander species. The family Salamandridae includes the true salamanders and the name "newt" is given to members of its subfamily Pleurodelinae.

The third suborder, Sirenoidea, contains the four species of sirens, which are in a single family, Sirenidae. Members of this order are eel-like aquatic salamanders with much reduced forelimbs and no hind limbs. Some of their features are primitive while others are derived. Fertilisation is likely to be external as sirenids lack the cloacal glands used by male salamandrids to produce spermatophores and the females lack spermathecae for sperm storage. Despite this, the eggs are laid singly, a behaviour not conducive for external fertilisation. 

=== Gymnophiona ===
The limbless South American caecilian Siphonops paulensis
The order Gymnophiona (from the Greek gymnos meaning "naked" and ophis meaning "serpent") or Apoda (from the Latin an- meaning "without" and the Greek poda meaning "legs") comprises the caecilians. These are long, cylindrical, limbless animals with a snake- or worm-like form. The adults vary in length from 8 to 75 centimetres (3 to 30 inches) with the exception of Thomson's caecilian (Caecilia thompsoni) which can reach 150 cm. A caecilian's skin has a large number of transverse folds and in some species contains tiny embedded dermal scales. It has rudimentary eyes covered in skin, which are probably limited to discerning differences in light intensity. It also has a pair of short tentacles near the eye that can be extended and which have tactile and olfactory functions. Most caecilians live underground in burrows in damp soil, in rotten wood and under plant debris, but some are aquatic. Most species lay their eggs underground and when the larvae hatch, they make their way to adjacent bodies of water. Others brood their eggs and the larvae undergo metamorphosis before the eggs hatch. A few species give birth to live young, nourishing them with glandular secretions while they are in the oviduct. Caecilians are found in tropical Africa, Asia and Central and South America. 

== Anatomy and physiology ==

=== Skin ===
The bright colours of the common reed frog (Hyperolius viridiflavus) show that it is a toxic species
The integumentary structure contains some typical characteristics common to terrestrial vertebrates, such as the presence of highly cornified outer layers, renewed periodically through a moulting process controlled by the pituitary and thyroid glands. Local thickenings (often called warts) are common, such as those found on toads. The outside of the skin is shed periodically more or less in one piece, in contrast to mammals and birds where it is shed in flakes. Amphibians often eat the sloughed skin. Caecilians are unique among amphibians in having mineralized dermal scales embedded in the dermis between the furrows in the skin. The similarity of these to the scales of bony fish is largely superficial. Lizards and some frogs have somewhat similar osteoderms forming bony deposits in the dermis, but this is an example of convergent evolution with similar structures having arisen independently in diverse vertebrate lineages. 
Cross section of frog skin. A: Mucus gland, B: Chromatophore, C: Granular poison gland, D: Connective tissue, E: Stratum corneum, F: Transition zone, G: Epidermis, H: Dermis
Amphibian skin is permeable to water. Gas exchange can take place through the skin (cutaneous respiration) and this allows adult amphibians to respire without rising to the surface of water and to hibernate at the bottom of ponds. To compensate for their thin and delicate skin, amphibians have evolved mucous glands, principally on their heads, backs and tails. The secretions produced by these help keep the skin moist. In addition, most species of amphibian have granular glands that secrete distasteful or poisonous substances. Some amphibian toxins can be lethal to humans while others have little effect. The main poison-producing glands, the paratoids, produce the neurotoxin bufotoxin and are located behind the ears of toads, along the backs of frogs, behind the eyes of salamanders and on the upper surface of caecilians.

The skin colour of amphibians is produced by three layers of pigment cells called chromatophores. These three cell layers consist of the melanophores (occupying the deepest layer), the guanophores (forming an intermediate layer and containing many granules, producing a blue-green colour) and the lipophores (yellow, the most superficial layer). The colour change displayed by many species is initiated by hormones secreted by the pituitary gland. Unlike bony fish, there is no direct control of the pigment cells by the nervous system, and this results in the colour change taking place more slowly than happens in fish. A vividly coloured skin usually indicates that the species is toxic and is a warning sign to predators. 

=== Skeletal system and locomotion ===
Amphibians have a skeletal system that is structurally homologous to other tetrapods, though with a number of variations. They all have four limbs except for the legless caecilians and a few species of salamander with reduced or no limbs. The bones are hollow and lightweight. The musculoskeletal system is strong to enable it to support the head and body. The bones are fully ossified and the vertebrae interlock with each other by means of overlapping processes. The pectoral girdle is supported by muscle, and the well-developed pelvic girdle is attached to the backbone by a pair of sacral ribs. The ilium slopes forward and the body is held closer to the ground than is the case in mammals.

Skeleton of Surinam horned frog(Ceratophrys cornuta)
In most amphibians, there are four digits on the fore foot and five on the hind foot, but no claws on either. Some salamanders have fewer digits and the amphiumas are eel-like in appearance with tiny, stubby legs. The sirens are aquatic salamanders with stumpy forelimbs and no hind limbs. The caecilians are limbless. They burrow in the manner of earthworms with zones of muscle contractions moving along the body. On the surface of the ground or in water they move by undulating their body from side to side.

In frogs, the hind legs are larger than the fore legs, especially so in those species that principally move by jumping or swimming. In the walkers and runners the hind limbs are not so large, and the burrowers mostly have short limbs and broad bodies. The feet have adaptations for the way of life, with webbing between the toes for swimming, broad adhesive toe pads for climbing, and keratinised tubercles on the hind feet for digging (frogs usually dig backwards into the soil). In most salamanders, the limbs are short and more or less the same length and project at right angles from the body. Locomotion on land is by walking and the tail often swings from side to side or is used as a prop, particularly when climbing. In their normal gait, only one leg is advanced at a time in the manner adopted by their ancestors, the lobe-finned fish. Some salamanders in the genus Aneides and certain plethodontids climb trees and have long limbs, large toepads and prehensile tails. In aquatic salamanders and in frog tadpoles, the tail has dorsal and ventral fins and is moved from side to side as a means of propulsion. Adult frogs do not have tails and caecilians have only very short ones.

Salamanders use their tails in defence and some are prepared to jettison them to save their lives in a process known as autotomy. Certain species in the Plethodontidae have a weak zone at the base of the tail and use this strategy readily. The tail often continues to twitch after separation which may distract the attacker and allow the salamander to escape. Both tails and limbs can be regenerated. Adult frogs are unable to regrow limbs but tadpoles can do so.

=== Circulatory system ===
The ringed caecilian (Siphonops annulatus) resembles an earthworm
Amphibians have a juvenile stage and an adult stage, and the circulatory systems of the two are distinct. In the juvenile (or tadpole) stage, the circulation is similar to that of a fish; the two-chambered heart pumps the blood through the gills where it is oxygenated, around the body and back to the heart in a single loop. In the adult stage, amphibians (especially frogs) lose their gills and develop lungs. They have a heart that consists of a single ventricle and two atria. When the ventricle starts contracting, deoxygenated blood is pumped through the pulmonary artery to the lungs. Continued contraction then pumps oxygenated blood around the rest of the body. Mixing of the two bloodstreams is minimized by the anatomy of the chambers.

=== Nervous and sensory systems ===
The nervous system is basically the same as in other vertebrates, with a central brain, a spinal cord, and nerves throughout the body. The amphibian brain is less well developed than that of reptiles, birds and mammals but is similar in morphology and function to that of a fish. It consists of equal parts cerebrum, midbrain and cerebellum. Various parts of the cerebrum process sensory input, such as smell in the olfactory lobe and sight in the optic lobe, and it is additionally the centre of behaviour and learning. The cerebellum is the centre of muscular coordination and the medulla oblongata controls some organ functions including heartbeat and respiration. The brain sends signals through the spinal cord and nerves to regulate activity in the rest of the body. The pineal body, known to regulate sleep patterns in humans, is thought to produce the hormones involved in hibernation and aestivation in amphibians.

Tadpoles retain the lateral line system of their ancestral fishes but this is lost in terrestrial adult amphibians. Some caecilians possess electroreceptors that allow them to locate objects around them when submerged in water. The ears are well developed in frogs. There is no external ear, but the large circular eardrum lies on the surface of the head just behind the eye. This vibrates and sound is transmitted through a single bone, the stapes, to the inner ear. Only high frequency sounds like mating calls are heard in this way but low frequency noises can be detected through another mechanism. There is a patch of specialized haircells, called papilla amphibiorum, in the inner ear capable of detecting deeper sounds. Another feature, unique to frogs and salamanders, is the columella-operculum complex adjoining the auditory capsule which is involved in the transmission of both airborne and seismic signals. The ears of salamanders and caecilians are less highly developed than those of frogs as they do not normally communicate with each other through the medium of sound. 

The eyes of tadpoles lack lids but at metamorphosis, the cornea becomes more dome-shaped, the lens becomes flatter, and eyelids and associated glands and ducts develop. The adult eyes are an improvement on invertebrate eyes and were a first step in the development of more advanced vertebrate eyes. They allow colour vision and depth of focus. In the retinas are green rods, which are receptive to a wide range of wavelengths. 

=== Digestive and excretory systems ===
Dissected frog:1 Right atrium, 2 Lungs, 3 Aorta, 4 Egg mass, 5 Colon, 6 Left atrium, 7 Ventricle, 8 Stomach, 9 Liver, 10 Gallbladder, 11 Small intestine, 12 Cloaca
Many amphibians catch their prey by flicking out an elongated tongue with a sticky tip and drawing it back into the mouth before seizing the item with their jaws. Some use inertial feeding to help them swallow the prey, repeatedly thrusting their head forward sharply causing the food to move backwards in their mouth by inertia. Most amphibians swallow their prey whole without much chewing so they possess voluminous stomachs. The short oesophagus is lined with cilia that help to move the food to the stomach and mucus produced by glands in the mouth and pharynx eases its passage. The enzyme chitinase produced in the stomach helps digest the chitinous cuticle of arthropod prey.

Amphibians possess a pancreas, liver and gall bladder. The liver is usually large with two lobes. Its size is determined by its function as a glycogen and fat storage unit, and may change with the seasons as these reserves are built or used up. Adipose tissue is another important means of storing energy and this occurs in the abdomen, under the skin and, in some salamanders, in the tail.

There are two kidneys located dorsally, near the roof of the body cavity. Their job is to filter the blood of metabolic waste and transport the urine via ureters to the urinary bladder where it is stored before being passed out periodically through the cloacal vent. Larvae and most aquatic adult amphibians excrete the nitrogen as ammonia in large quantities of dilute urine, while terrestrial species, with a greater need to conserve water, excrete the less toxic product urea. Some tree frogs with limited access to water excrete most of their metabolic waste as uric acid.

=== Respiratory system ===
The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) retains its larval form with gills into adulthood
The lungs in amphibians are primitive compared to those of amniotes, possessing few internal septa and large alveoli, and consequently having a comparatively slow diffusion rate for oxygen entering the blood. Ventilation is accomplished by buccal pumping. Most amphibians, however, are able to exchange gases with the water or air via their skin. To enable sufficient cutaneous respiration, the surface of their highly vascularized skin must remain moist to allow the oxygen to diffuse at a sufficiently high rate. Because oxygen concentration in the water increases at both low temperatures and high flow rates, aquatic amphibians in these situations can rely primarily on cutaneous respiration, as in the Titicaca water frog and the hellbender salamander. In air, where oxygen is more concentrated, some small species can rely solely on cutaneous gas exchange, most famously the plethodontid salamanders, which have neither lungs nor gills. Many aquatic salamanders and all tadpoles have gills in their larval stage, with some (such as the axolotl) retaining gills as aquatic adults.

== Reproduction ==
Male orange-thighed frog (Litoria xanthomera) grasping the female during amplexus
For the purpose of reproduction most amphibians require fresh water although some lay their eggs on land and have developed various means of keeping them moist. A few (e.g. Fejervarya raja) can inhabit brackish water but there are no true marine amphibians. There are reports however of particular amphibian populations unexpectedly invading marine waters. Such was the case with the Black Sea invasion of the natural hybrid Pelophylax esculentus reported in 2010. 

Several hundred frog species in adaptive radiations (e.g., Eleutherodactylus, the Pacific Platymantines, the Australo-Papuan microhylids, and many other tropical frogs), however, do not need any water for breeding in the wild. They reproduce via direct development, an ecological and evolutionary adaptation that has allowed them to be completely independent from free-standing water. Almost all of these frogs live in wet tropical rainforests and their eggs hatch directly into miniature versions of the adult, passing through the tadpole stage within the egg. Reproductive success of many amphibians is dependent not only on the quantity of rainfall, but the seasonal timing. 

In the tropics, many amphibians breed continuously or at any time of year. In temperate regions, breeding is mostly seasonal, usually in the spring, and is triggered by increasing day length, rising temperatures or rainfall. Experiments have shown the importance of temperature but the trigger event, especially in arid regions, is often a storm. In anurans, males usually arrive at the breeding sites before females and the vocal chorus they produce may stimulate ovulation in females and the endocrine activity of males that are not yet reproductively active.

In caecilians, fertilisation is internal, the male extruding an intromittent organ, the phallodeum, and inserting it into the female cloaca. The paired Müllerian glands inside the male cloaca secrete a fluid which resembles that produced by mammalian prostate glands and which may transport and nourish the sperm. Fertilisation probably takes place in the oviduct. 

The majority of salamanders also engage in internal fertilisation. In most of these, the male deposits a spermatophore, a small packet of sperm on top of a gelatinous cone, on the substrate either on land or in the water. The female takes up the sperm packet by grasping it with the lips of the cloaca and pushing it into the vent. The spermatozoa move to the spermatheca in the roof of the cloaca where they remain until ovulation which may be many months later. Courtship rituals and methods of transfer of the spermatophore vary between species. In some, the spermatophore may be placed directly into the female cloaca while in others, the female may be guided to the spermatophore or restrained with an embrace called amplexus. Certain primitive salamanders in the families Sirenidae, Hynobiidae and Cryptobranchidae practice external fertilisation in a similar manner to frogs, with the female laying the eggs in water and the male releasing sperm onto the egg mass. 

With a few exceptions, frogs use external fertilisation. The male grasps the female tightly with his forelimbs either behind the arms or in front of the back legs, or in the case of Epipedobates tricolor, around the neck. They remain in amplexus with their cloacae positioned close together while the female lays the eggs and the male covers them with sperm. Roughened nuptial pads on the male's hands aid in retaining grip. Often the male collects and retains the egg mass, forming a sort of basket with the hind feet. An exception is the granular poison frog (Oophaga granulifera) where the male and female place their cloacae in close proximity while facing in opposite directions and then release eggs and sperm simultaneously. The tailed frog (Ascaphus truei) exhibits internal fertilisation. The "tail" is only possessed by the male and is an extension of the cloaca and used to inseminate the female. This frog lives in fast-flowing streams and internal fertilisation prevents the sperm from being washed away before fertilisation occurs. The sperm may be retained in storage tubes attached to the oviduct until the following spring. 

Most frogs can be classified as either prolonged or explosive breeders. Typically, prolonged breeders congregate at a breeding site, the males usually arriving first, calling and setting up territories. Other satellite males remain quietly nearby, waiting for their opportunity to take over a territory. The females arrive sporadically, mate selection takes place and eggs are laid. The females depart and territories may change hands. More females appear and in due course, the breeding season comes to an end. Explosive breeders on the other hand are found where temporary pools appear in dry regions after rainfall. These frogs are typically fossorial species that emerge after heavy rains and congregate at a breeding site. They are attracted there by the calling of the first male to find a suitable place, perhaps a pool that forms in the same place each rainy season. The assembled frogs may call in unison and frenzied activity ensues, the males scrambling to mate with the usually smaller number of females.

== Life cycle ==
Most amphibians go through metamorphosis, a process of significant morphological change after birth. In typical amphibian development, eggs are laid in water and larvae are adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. Frogs, toads and salamanders all hatch from the egg as larvae with external gills. Metamorphosis in amphibians is regulated by thyroxine concentration in the blood, which stimulates metamorphosis, and prolactin, which counteracts thyroxine's effect. Specific events are dependent on threshold values for different tissues. Because most embryonic development is outside the parental body, it is subject to many adaptations due to specific environmental circumstances. For this reason tadpoles can have horny ridges instead of teeth, whisker-like skin extensions or fins. They also make use of a sensory lateral line organ similar to that of fish. After metamorphosis, these organs become redundant and will be reabsorbed by controlled cell death, called apoptosis. The variety of adaptations to specific environmental circumstances among amphibians is wide, with many discoveries still being made. 

=== Eggs ===
Frogspawn, a mass of eggs surrounded by jelly
Amphibian Egg: 1. Jelly Capsule 2. Vitelline Membrane 3. Perivitelline Fluid 4. Yolk Plug 5. Embryo

The egg of an amphibian is typically surrounded by a transparent gelatinous covering secreted by the oviducts and containing mucoproteins and mucopolysaccharides. This capsule is permeable to water and gases, and swells considerably as it absorbs water. The ovum is at first rigidly held but in fertilised eggs, the innermost layer liquefies and allows the embryo to move freely. This also happens in salamander eggs even when they are unfertilised. Eggs of some salamanders and frogs contain unicellular green algae. These penetrate the jelly envelope after the eggs are laid and may increase the supply of oxygen to the embryo through photosynthesis. They seem to both speed up the development of the larvae and reduce mortality. Most eggs contain the pigment melanin which raises their temperature through the absorption of light and also protects them against ultraviolet radiation. Caecilians, some plethodontid salamanders and certain frogs that lay eggs underground have unpigmented eggs. In the wood frog (Rana sylvatica), the interior of the globular egg cluster has been found to be up to 6 °C warmer than its surroundings which is an advantage in its cool northern habitat. 

The eggs may be deposited singly or in small groups, or may take the form of spherical egg masses, rafts or long strings. In terrestrial caecilians, the eggs are laid in grape-like clusters in burrows near streams. The amphibious salamander Ensatina attaches its similar clusters by stalks to underwater stems and roots. The greenhouse frog (Eleutherodactylus planirostris) lays eggs in small groups in the soil where they develop in about two weeks directly into juvenile frogs without an intervening larval stage. The tungara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) builds a floating nest from foam to protect its eggs. First a raft is built, then eggs are laid in the centre, and finally a foam cap is overlaid. The foam has anti-microbial properties. It contains no detergents but is created by whipping up proteins and lectins secreted by the female. 

=== Larvae ===
Early stages in the development of the embryos of the common frog (Rana temporaria)
The eggs of amphibians are typically laid in water and hatch into free-living larvae that complete their development in water and later transform into either aquatic or terrestrial adults. In many species of frog and in most lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae), direct development takes place, the larvae growing within the eggs and emerging as miniature adults. Many caecilians and some other amphibians lay their eggs on land, and the newly hatched larvae wriggle or are transported to water bodies. Some caecilians, the Alpine salamander (Salamandra atra) and some of the African live-bearing toads (Nectophrynoides spp.) are viviparous. Their larvae feed on glandular secretions and develop within the female's oviduct, often for long periods. Other amphibians, but not caecilians, are ovoviviparous. The eggs are retained in or on the parent's body but the larvae subsist on the yolks of their eggs and receive no nourishment from the adult. The larvae emerge at varying stages of their growth, either before or after metamorphosis, according to their species. The toad genus Nectophrynoides exhibits all of these developmental patterns among its dozen or so members. 

==== Frogs ====
Frog larvae are known as tadpoles and typically have oval bodies and long, vertically flattened tails with fins. The free living larvae are normally fully aquatic but the tadpoles of some species such as (Nannophrys ceylonensis) are semi-terrestrial and live among wet rocks. Tadpoles have cartilaginous skeletons, gills for respiration (external gills at first, internal gills later), lateral line systems and large tails that they use for swimming. Newly hatched tadpoles soon develop gill pouches that cover the gills. The lungs develop early and are used as accessory breathing organs, the tadpoles rising to the water surface to gulp air. Some species complete their development inside the egg and hatch directly into small frogs. These larvae do not have gills but instead have specialised areas of skin through which respiration takes place. While tadpoles do not have true teeth, in most species, the jaws have long, parallel rows of small keratinized structures called keradonts surrounded by a horny beak. Front legs are formed under the gill sac and hind legs become visible a few days later. Tadpoles are typically herbivorous, feeding mostly on algae, including diatoms filtered from the water through the gills. They are also detritivores, stirring up the sediment at the pond bottom and ingesting edible fragments. They have a relatively long, spiral-shaped gut to enable them to digest this diet. Some species are carnivorous at the tadpole stage, eating insects, smaller tadpoles and fish. Young of the Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) can occasionally be cannibalistic, the younger tadpoles attacking a larger, more developed tadpole when it is undergoing metamorphosis. 

At metamorphosis, rapid changes in the body take place as the lifestyle of the frog changes completely. The spiral‐shaped mouth with horny tooth ridges is reabsorbed together with the spiral gut. The animal develops a large jaw, and its gills disappear along with its gill sac. Eyes and legs grow quickly, and a tongue is formed. There are associated changes in the neural networks such as development of stereoscopic vision and loss of the lateral line system. All this can happen in about a day. A few days later, the tail is reabsorbed, due to the higher thyroxine concentration required for this to take place. 

==== Salamanders ====
Larva of the long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum)
Larvae of the Alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris)
At hatching, a typical salamander larva has eyes without lids, teeth in both upper and lower jaws, three pairs of feathery external gills, a somewhat laterally flattened body and a long tail with dorsal and ventral fins. The forelimbs may be partially developed and the hind limbs are rudimentary in pond-living species but may be rather more developed in species that reproduce in moving water. Pond-type larvae often have a pair of balancers, rod-like structures on either side of the head that may prevent the gills from becoming clogged up with sediment. Some members of the genera Ambystoma and Dicamptodon have larvae that never fully develop into the adult form but this varies with species and with populations. The northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) is one of these and, depending on environmental factors, either remains permanently in the larval state, a condition known as neoteny, or transforms into an adult. Both of these are able to breed. Neoteny occurs when the animal's growth rate is very low and is usually linked to adverse conditions such as low water temperatures that may change the response of the tissues to the hormone thyroxine. Other factors that may inhibit metamorphosis include lack of food, lack of trace elements and competition from conspecifics. The tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) also sometimes behaves in this way and may grow particularly large in the process. The adult tiger salamander is terrestrial, but the larva is aquatic and able to breed while still in the larval state. When conditions are particularly inhospitable on land, larval breeding may allow continuation of a population that would otherwise die out. There are fifteen species of obligate neotenic salamanders, including species of Necturus, Proteus and Amphiuma, and many examples of facultative ones that adopt this strategy under appropriate environmental circumstances. 

Lungless salamanders in the family Plethodontidae are terrestrial and lay a small number of unpigmented eggs in a cluster among damp leaf litter. Each egg has a large yolk sac and the larva feeds on this while it develops inside the egg, emerging fully formed as a juvenile salamander. The female salamander often broods the eggs. In the genus Ensatinas, the female has been observed to coil around them and press her throat area against them, effectively massaging them with a mucous secretion.

In newts and salamanders, metamorphosis is less dramatic than in frogs. This is because the larvae are already carnivorous and continue to feed as predators when they are adults so few changes are needed to their digestive systems. Their lungs are functional early but the larvae don't make as much use of them as do tadpoles. Their gills are never covered by gill sacs and are reabsorbed just before the animals leave the water. Other changes include the reduction in size or loss of tail fins, the closure of gill slits, thickening of the skin, the development of eyelids, and certain changes in dentition and tongue structure. Salamanders are at their most vulnerable at metamorphosis as swimming speeds are reduced and transforming tails are encumbrances on land. Adult salamanders often have an aquatic phase in spring and summer, and a land phase in winter. For adaptation to a water phase, prolactin is the required hormone, and for adaptation to the land phase, thyroxine. External gills do not return in subsequent aquatic phases because these are completely absorbed upon leaving the water for the first time. 

==== Caecilians ====
The caecilian Ichthyophis glutinosus with eggs and developing embryo
Most terrestrial caecilians that lay eggs do so in burrows or moist places on land near bodies of water. The development of the young of Ichthyophis glutinosus, a species from Sri Lanka, has been much studied. The eel-like larvae hatch out of the eggs and make their way to water. They have three pairs of external red feathery gills, a blunt head with two rudimentary eyes, a lateral line system and a short tail with fins. They swim by undulating their body from side to side. They are mostly active at night, soon lose their gills and make sorties onto land. Metamorphosis is gradual. By the age of about ten months they have developed a pointed head with sensory tentacles near the mouth and lost their eyes, lateral line systems and tails. The skin thickens, embedded scales develop and the body divides into segments. By this time, the caecilian has constructed a burrow and is living on land. 

In the majority of species of caecilians, the young are produced by vivipary. Typhlonectes compressicauda, a species from South America, is typical of these. Up to nine larvae can develop in the oviduct at any one time. They are elongated and have paired sac-like gills, small eyes and specialised scraping teeth. At first, they feed on the yolks of the eggs but as this source of nourishment declines they begin to rasp at the ciliated epithelial cells that line the oviduct. This stimulates the secretion of fluids rich in lipids and mucoproteins on which they feed along with scrapings from the oviduct wall. They may increase their length sixfold and be two-fifths as long as their mother before being born. By this time they have undergone metamorphosis, lost their eyes and gills, developed a thicker skin and mouth tentacles, and reabsorbed their teeth. A permanent set of teeth grow through soon after birth. 

The ringed caecilian (Siphonops annulatus) has developed a unique adaptation for the purposes of reproduction. The progeny feed on a skin layer that is specially developed by the adult in a phenomenon known as maternal dermatophagy. The brood feed as a batch for about seven minutes at intervals of approximately three days which gives the skin an opportunity to regenerate. Meanwhile they have been observed to ingest fluid exuded from the maternal cloaca. 

=== Parental care ===
Male common rocket frog (Colostethus panamensis) carrying tadpoles on his back

The care of offspring among amphibians has been little studied but, in general, the larger the number of eggs in a batch, the less likely it is that any degree of parental care takes place. Nevertheless, it is estimated that in up to 20% of amphibian species, one or both adults play some role in the care of the young. Those species that breed in smaller water bodies or other specialised habitats tend to have complex patterns of behaviour in the care of their young. 

Many woodland salamanders lay clutches of eggs under dead logs or stones on land. The black mountain salamander (Desmognathus welteri) does this, the mother brooding the eggs and guarding them from predation as the embryos feed on the yolks of their eggs. When fully developed, they break their way out of the egg capsules and disperse as juvenile salamanders. The male hellbender, a primitive salamander, excavates an underwater nest and encourages females to lay there. The male then guards the site for the two or three months before the eggs hatch, using body undulations to fan the eggs and increase their supply of oxygen. 

Male common midwife toad (Alytes obstetricans) carrying eggs
The male Colostethus subpunctatus, a tiny frog, protects the egg cluster which is hidden under a stone or log. When the eggs hatch, the male transports the tadpoles on his back, stuck there by a mucous secretion, to a temporary pool where he dips himself into the water and the tadpoles drop off. The male midwife toad (Alytes obstetricans) winds egg strings round his thighs and carries the eggs around for up to eight weeks. He keeps them moist and when they are ready to hatch, he visits a pond or ditch and releases the tadpoles. The female gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus spp.) reared larvae in her stomach after swallowing either the eggs or hatchlings, however this stage was never observed before the species became extinct. The tadpoles secrete a hormone that inhibits digestion in the mother whilst they develop by consuming their very large yolk supply. The pouched frog (Assa darlingtoni) lays eggs on the ground. When they hatch, the male carries the tadpoles around in brood pouches on his hind legs. The aquatic Surinam toad (Pipa pipa) raises its young in pores on its back where they remain until metamorphosis. The granular poison frog (Oophaga granulifera) is typical of a number of tree frogs in the poison dart frog family Dendrobatidae. Its eggs are laid on the forest floor and when they hatch, the tadpoles are carried one by one on the back of an adult to a suitable water-filled crevice such as the axil of a leaf or the rosette of a bromeliad. The female visits the nursery sites regularly and deposits unfertilised eggs in the water and these are consumed by the tadpoles. 

== Feeding and diet ==
Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) eating a worm
With a few exceptions, adult amphibians are predators, feeding on virtually anything that moves that they can swallow. The diet mostly consists of small prey that do not move too fast such as beetles, caterpillars, earthworms and spiders. The sirens (Siren spp.) often ingest aquatic plant material with the invertebrates on which they feed and a Brazilian tree frog Xenohyla truncata includes a large quantity of fruit in its diet. The Mexican burrowing toad (Rhinophrynus dorsalis) has a specially adapted tongue for picking up ants and termites. It projects it with the tip foremost whereas other frogs flick out the rear part first, their tongues being hinged at the front. 

Food is mostly selected by sight, even in conditions of dim light. Movement of the prey triggers a feeding response. Frogs have been caught on fish hooks baited with red flannel and green frogs (Rana clamitans) have been found with stomachs full of elm seeds that they had seen floating past. Toads, salamanders and caecilians also use smell to detect prey. This response is mostly secondary because salamanders have been observed to remain stationary near odoriferous prey but only feed if it moves. Cave-dwelling amphibians normally hunt by smell. Some salamanders seem to have learned to recognize immobile prey when it has no smell, even in complete darkness.

Amphibians usually swallow food whole but may chew it lightly first to subdue it. They typically have small hinged pedicellate teeth, a feature unique to amphibians. The base and crown of these are composed of dentine separated by an uncalcified layer and they are replaced at intervals. Salamanders, caecilians and some frogs have one or two rows of teeth in both jaws but some frogs (Rana spp.) lack teeth in the lower jaw, and toads (Bufo spp.) have no teeth. In many amphibians there are also vomerine teeth attached to a facial bone in the roof of the mouth.

Edible frog (Pelophylax esculentus) exhibiting cannibalism
The tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) is typical of the frogs and salamanders that hide under cover ready to ambush unwary invertebrates. Others amphibians, such as the Bufo spp. toads, actively search for prey, while the Argentine horned frog (Ceratophrys ornata) lures inquisitive prey closer by raising its hind feet over its back and vibrating its yellow toes. Among leaf litter frogs in Panama, frogs that actively hunt prey have narrow mouths and are slim, often brightly coloured and toxic, while ambushers have wide mouths and are broad and well-camouflaged. Caecilians do not flick their tongues, but catch their prey by grabbing it with their slightly backward-pointing teeth. The struggles of the prey and further jaw movements work it inwards and the caecilian usually retreats into its burrow. The subdued prey is gulped down whole. 

When they are newly hatched, frog larvae feed on the yolk of the egg. When this is exhausted some move on to feed on bacteria, algal crusts, detritus and raspings from submerged plants. Water is drawn in through their mouths, which are usually at the bottom of their heads, and passes through branchial food traps between their mouths and their gills where fine particles are trapped in mucus and filtered out. Others have specialised mouthparts consisting of a horny beak edged by several rows of labial teeth. They scrape and bite food of many kinds as well as stirring up the bottom sediment, filtering out larger particles with the papillae around their mouths. Some, such as the spadefoot toads, have strong biting jaws and are carnivorous or even cannibalistic.

== Vocalization ==
Male treefrog (Dendropsophus microcephalus) inflating his air sac as he calls
The calls made by caecilians and salamanders are limited to occasional soft squeaks, grunts or hisses and have not been much studied. A clicking sound sometimes produced by caecilians may be a means of orientation, as in bats, or a form of communication. Most salamanders are considered voiceless but the California giant salamander (Dicamptodon ensatus) has vocal cords and can produce a rattling or barking sound. Some species of salamander emit a quiet squeak or yelp if attacked.

American Toad, (Anaxyrus americanus) singing
Frogs are much more vocal, especially during the breeding season when they use their voices to attract mates. The presence of a particular species in an area may be more easily discerned by its characteristic call than by a fleeting glimpse of the animal itself. In most species, the sound is produced by expelling air from the lungs over the vocal cords into an air sac or sacs in the throat or at the corner of the mouth. This may distend like a balloon and acts as a resonator, helping to transfer the sound to the atmosphere, or the water at times when the animal is submerged. The main vocalisation is the male's loud advertisement call which seeks to both encourage a female to approach and discourage other males from intruding on its territory. This call is modified to a quieter courtship call on the approach of a female or to a more aggressive version if a male intruder draws near. Calling carries the risk of attracting predators and involves the expenditure of much energy. Other calls include those given by a female in response to the advertisement call and a release call given by a male or female during unwanted attempts at amplexus. When a frog is attacked, a distress or fright call is emitted, often resembling a scream. The usually nocturnal Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) produces a rain call when there is rainfall during daylight hours. 

== Territorial behaviour ==
Little is known of the territorial behaviour of caecilians, but some frogs and salamanders defend home ranges. These are usually feeding, breeding or sheltering sites. Males normally exhibit such behaviour though in some species, females and even juveniles are also involved. Although in many frog species, females are larger than males, this is not the case in most species where males are actively involved in territorial defence. Some of these have specific adaptations such as enlarged teeth for biting or spines on the chest, arms or thumbs. 

The red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) defends a territory against intruders.
In salamanders, defence of a territory involves adopting an aggressive posture and if necessary attacking the intruder. This may involve snapping, chasing and sometimes biting, occasionally causing the loss of a tail. The behaviour of red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) has been much studied. 91% of marked individuals that were later recaptured were within a metre (yard) of their original daytime retreat under a log or rock. A similar proportion, when moved experimentally a distance of 30 m, found their way back to their home base. The salamanders left odour marks around their territories which averaged 0.16 to in size and were sometimes inhabited by a male and female pair. These deterred the intrusion of others and delineated the boundaries between neighbouring areas. Much of their behaviour seemed stereotyped and did not involve any actual contact between individuals. An aggressive posture involved raising the body off the ground and glaring at the opponent who often turned away submissively. If the intruder persisted, a biting lunge was usually launched at either the tail region or the naso-labial grooves. Damage to either of these areas can reduce the fitness of the rival, either because of the need to regenerate tissue or because it impairs its ability to detect food. 

In frogs, male territorial behaviour is often observed at breeding locations; calling is both an announcement of ownership of part of this resource and an advertisement call to potential mates. In general, a deeper voice represents a heavier and more powerful individual, and this may be sufficient to prevent intrusion by smaller males. Much energy is used in the vocalization and it takes a toll on the territory holder who may be displaced by a fitter rival if he tires. There is a tendency for males to tolerate the holders of neighbouring territories while vigorously attacking unknown intruders. Holders of territories have a "home advantage" and usually come off better in an encounter between two similar-sized frogs. If threats are insufficient, chest to chest tussles may take place. Fighting methods include pushing and shoving, deflating the opponent's vocal sac, seizing him by the head, jumping on his back, biting, chasing, splashing, and ducking him under the water. 

== Defence mechanisms ==
Cane toad (Bufo marinus) with poison glands behind the eyes

Amphibians have soft bodies and thin skins, lack claws, defensive armour or spines and seem relatively helpless. Nevertheless they have evolved various defence mechanisms to keep themselves alive. The first line of defence in salamanders and frogs is the mucous secretion that they produce. This keeps their skin moist and makes them slippery and difficult to grip. The secretion is often sticky and distasteful or toxic. Snakes have been observed yawning and gaping when trying to swallow African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis), which gives the frogs an opportunity to escape. Caecilians have been little studied in this respect but the Cayenne caecilian (Typhlonectes compressicauda) produces toxic mucus that has killed predatory fish in a feeding experiment in Brazil. In some salamanders, the skin is poisonous. The rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) from North America and other members of its genus contain the neurotoxin tetrodotoxin (TTX), the most toxic non-protein substance known and almost identical to that produced by pufferfish. Handling the newts does not cause harm but ingestion of even the most minute amounts of the skin is deadly. In feeding trials, fish, frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals were all found to be susceptible. The only predators with some tolerance to the poison are certain populations of common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis).
In locations where both snake and salamander co-exist, the snakes have developed immunity through genetic changes and they feed on the amphibians with impunity. Coevolution occurs with the newt increasing its toxic capabilities at the same rate as the snake further develops its immunity. Some frogs and toads are toxic, the main poison glands being at the side of the neck and under the warts on the back. These regions are presented to the attacking animal and their secretions may be foul-tasting or cause various physical or neurological symptoms. Altogether, over 200 toxins have been isolated from the limited number of amphibian species that have been investigated.

The fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra), a toxic species, wears warning colours.
Perhaps the most poisonous animal in the world, the golden poison frog Phyllobates terribilis is endemic to Colombia. 

Poisonous species often use bright colouring to warn potential predators of their toxicity. These warning colours tend to be red or yellow combined with black, with the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) being an example. Once a predator has sampled one of these, it is likely to remember the colouration next time it encounters a similar animal. In some species, such as the fire-bellied toad (Bombina spp.), the warning colouration is on the belly and these animals adopt a defensive pose when attacked, exhibiting their bright colours to the predator. The frog Allobates zaparo is not poisonous, but mimics the appearance of other toxic species in its locality, a strategy that may deceive predators. 

Many amphibians are nocturnal and hide during the day, thereby avoiding diurnal predators that hunt by sight. Other amphibians use camouflage to avoid being detected. They have various colourings such as mottled browns, greys and olives to blend into the background. Some salamanders adopt defensive poses when faced by a potential predator such as the North American northern short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda). Their bodies writhe and they raise and lash their tails which makes it difficult for the predator to avoid contact with their poison-producing granular glands. A few salamanders will autotomise their tails when attacked, sacrificing this part of their anatomy to enable them to escape. The tail may have a constriction at its base to allow it to be easily detached. The tail is regenerated later but the energy cost to the animal of replacing it is significant. 

Some frogs and toads inflate themselves to make themselves look large and fierce, and some spadefoot toads (Pelobates spp) scream and leap towards the attacker. Giant salamanders of the genus Andrias, as well as Ceratophrine and Pyxicephalus frogs possess sharp teeth and are capable of drawing blood with a defensive bite. The blackbelly salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus) can bite an attacking common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) two or three times its size on the head and often manages to escape. 

== Conservation ==

The extinct golden toad (Bufo periglenes), last seen in 1989
Dramatic declines in amphibian populations, including population crashes and mass localized extinction, have been noted since the late 1980s from locations all over the world, and amphibian declines are thus perceived to be one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity. In 2004, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported stating that currently birds, mammals, and amphibians extinction rates were at maximum 48 times greater than natural extinction rates—possibly 1,024 times higher.
In 2006 there were believed to be 4,035 species of amphibians that depended on water at some stage during their life cycle. Of these, 1,356 (33.6%) were considered to be threatened and this figure is likely to be an underestimate because it excludes 1,427 species for which there was insufficient data to assess their status. A number of causes are believed to be involved, including habitat destruction and modification, over-exploitation, pollution, introduced species, climate change, endocrine-disrupting pollutants, destruction of the ozone layer (ultraviolet radiation has shown to be especially damaging to the skin, eyes, and eggs of amphibians), and diseases like chytridiomycosis. However, many of the causes of amphibian declines are still poorly understood, and are a topic of ongoing discussion. 

The Hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer) was believed to be extinct but was rediscovered in 2011.
With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often considered to be ecological indicators. In many terrestrial ecosystems, they constitute one of the largest parts of the vertebrate biomass. Any decline in amphibian numbers will have an impact on the patterns of predation. The loss of carnivorous species near the top of the food chain will upset the delicate ecosystem balance and may cause dramatic increases in opportunistic species. In the Middle East, a growing appetite for eating frog legs and the consequent gathering of them for food was linked to an increase in mosquitoes. Predators that feed on amphibians are affected by their decline. The western terrestrial garter snake (Thamnophis elegans) in California is largely aquatic and depends heavily on two species of frog that are diminishing in numbers, the Yosemite toad (Bufo canorus) and the mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), putting the snake's future at risk. If the snake were to become scarce, this would affect birds of prey and other predators that feed on it. Meanwhile, in the ponds and lakes, fewer frogs means fewer tadpoles. These normally play an important role in controlling the growth of algae and also forage on detritus that accumulates as sediment on the bottom. A reduction in the number of tadpoles may lead to an overgrowth of algae, resulting in depletion of oxygen in the water when the algae later die and decompose. Aquatic invertebrates and fish might then die and there would be unpredictable ecological consequences.

A global strategy to stem the crisis was released in 2005 in the form of the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan. Developed by over eighty leading experts in the field, this call to action details what would be required to curtail amphibian declines and extinctions over the following five years and how much this would cost. The Amphibian Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) is spearheading efforts to implement a comprehensive global strategy for amphibian conservation. Amphibian Ark is an organization that was formed to implement the ex-situ conservation recommendations of this plan, and they have been working with zoos and aquaria around the world, encouraging them to create assurance colonies of threatened amphibians. One such project is the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project that built on existing conservation efforts in Panama to create a country-wide response to the threat of chytridiomycosis. 

==Study==
The study of amphibians is called batrachology while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology. These are part of the broader discipline of zoology but are seldom studied alone. Research in these fields may explore the animals' taxonomy, morphology, behaviour, ecology, physiology or biochemistry. The results of the research are peer-reviewed and published in scientific journals. Career opportunities include field research, university teaching and research, curating, museum research or management, zoo keeping, breeding or selling animals and wildlife management. 

==See also==

*List of threatened reptiles and amphibians of the United States

== References ==

===Cited texts===
* 
* 

== Further reading ==
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

== External links ==

* Amphibians - AnimalSpot.net
* ArchéoZooThèque : Amphibians skeletons drawings : available in vector, image and PDF formats
* Amphibian Specialist Group
* Amphibian Ark
* AmphibiaWeb
* Global Amphibian Assessment
* Amphibian vocalisations on Archival Sound Recordings

 



[[Alaska]]

Alaska () is a U.S. state situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent. Bordering the state to the east is Yukon, a Canadian territory, and the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia (specifically, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and Kamchatka Krai) further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's 731,449 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska's economy is dominated by the oil, natural gas, and fishing industries, resources which it has in abundance. Tourism is also a significant part of the economy.

Although it had been occupied for thousands of years by indigenous peoples, from the 18th century onward, European powers considered the territory of Alaska ripe for exploitation. The United States purchased Alaska from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million ($ adjusted for inflation) at approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km²). The area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11, 1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959. 

The name "Alaska" (Аляска) had been introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used to refer to the peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut idiom, which figuratively refers to the mainland of Alaska. Literally, it means object to which the action of the sea is directed. , at pp. 49 (Alaxsxi-x = mainland Alaska), 50 (alagu-x = sea), 508 (-gi = suffix, object of its action). Ransom, J. Ellis. 1940. "Derivation of the Word "Alaska", " American Anthropologist n.s., 42: pp. 550–551 It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.

==Geography==

Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined. It is the only non-contiguous U.S. state on continental North America; about 500 mi of British Columbia (Canada) separates Alaska from Washington. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States, possibly the largest exclave in the world. It is technically part of the continental U.S., but is often not included in colloquial use; Alaska is not part of the contiguous U.S., often called "the Lower 48". The other three exclaves of the United States are the Northwest Angle of Minnesota, Point Roberts, Washington and Alburgh, Vermont. The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent, but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system.

The state is bordered by Yukon and British Columbia in Canada, to the east, the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south, the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west and the Arctic Ocean to the north. Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only 3 mi apart. With the extension of the Aleutian Islands into the eastern hemisphere, it is technically both the westernmost and easternmost state in the United States, as well as also being the northernmost.

Alaska's size compared with the 48 contiguous states.
Alaska is the largest state in the United States in land area at 586412 sqmi, over twice the size of Texas, the next largest state. Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries. Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the combined area of the next three largest states: Texas, California, and Montana. It is also larger than the combined area of the 22 smallest U.S. states.

===Regions===
There are no officially defined borders demarcating the various regions of Alaska, but there are six widely accepted regions:

====South Central====

The most populous region of Alaska, containing Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and the Kenai Peninsula. Rural, mostly unpopulated areas south of the Alaska Range and west of the Wrangell Mountains also fall within the definition of Southcentral, as well as the Prince William Sound area and the communities of Cordova and Valdez.

====Southeast====

Also referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the rest of the United States. As such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase. The region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States. It contains the state capital Juneau, the former capital Sitka, and Ketchikan, at one time Alaska's largest city. The Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital surface transportation link throughout the area, as only three communities (Haines, Hyder and Skagway) enjoy direct connections to the contiguous North American road system.

====Interior====

Mount McKinley (Denali) is the highest peak in both Alaska and in all of North America.
The largest region of Alaska, much of the interior is uninhabited wilderness. Fairbanks is the only large city in the region. Small towns and Alaska Native villages are scattered throughout, mostly along the highway and river systems. Denali National Park and Preserve is located here, home to Mount McKinley (also widely known by its local name of Denali), the highest point in North America.

====Southwest====

Grizzly bear fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls, part of Katmai National Park and Preserve.
Southwest Alaska is a sparsely inhabited region stretching some 500 mi inland from the Bering Sea. Most of the population lives along the coast. Kodiak Island is also located in Southwest. The massive Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest river deltas in the world, is here. Portions of the Alaska Peninsula are considered part of Southwest, with the remaining portions included with the Aleutian Islands (see below).

====North Slope====

The North Slope is mostly tundra peppered with small villages. The area is known for its massive reserves of crude oil, and contains both the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field. Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, is located here. The Northwest Arctic area, anchored by Kotzebue and also containing the Kobuk River valley, is often regarded as being part of this region. However, the respective Inupiat of the North Slope and of the Northwest Arctic seldom consider themselves to be one people.

====Aleutian Islands====

More than 300 small, volcanic islands make up this chain, which stretches over 1200 mi into the Pacific Ocean. The International Date Line was drawn west of 180° to keep the whole state, and thus the entire North American continent, within the same legal day. However, because some of these islands fall in the Eastern Hemisphere, this makes Alaska the northernmost, easternmost and westernmost state in the union, with the southernmost state being Hawaii. Two of the islands, Attu and Kiska, were occupied by Japanese forces during World War II.

===Natural features===
Augustine Volcano erupting on January 12, 2006.
With its myriad islands, Alaska has nearly 34000 mi of tidal shoreline. The Aleutian Islands chain extends west from the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians and in coastal regions. Unimak Island, for example, is home to Mount Shishaldin, which is an occasionally smoldering volcano that rises to 10000 ft above the North Pacific. It is the most perfect volcanic cone on Earth, even more symmetrical than Japan's Mount Fuji. The chain of volcanoes extends to Mount Spurr, west of Anchorage on the mainland. Geologists have identified Alaska as part of Wrangellia, a large region consisting of multiple states and Canadian provinces in the Pacific Northwest, which is actively undergoing continent building.

One of the world's largest tides occurs in Turnagain Arm, just south of Anchorage – tidal differences can be more than 35 ft. 

Alaska has more than three million lakes. Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover 188320 sqmi (mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands). Glacier ice covers some 16000 sqmi of land and 1200 sqmi of tidal zone. The Bering Glacier complex near the southeastern border with Yukon covers 2250 sqmi alone. With over 100,000 glaciers, Alaska has half of all in the world.

===Land ownership===
Alaska has more public land owned by the federal government than any other state. 
According to an October 1998 report by the United States Bureau of Land Management, approximately 65% of Alaska is owned and managed by the U.S. federal government as public lands, including a multitude of national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. Of these, the Bureau of Land Management manages 87 e6acre, or 23.8% of the state. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the world's largest wildlife refuge, comprising 16 e6acre.

Of the remaining land area, the state of Alaska owns 101 e6acre, its entitlement under the Alaska Statehood Act. A portion of that acreage is occasionally ceded to organized boroughs, under the statutory provisions pertaining to newly formed boroughs. Smaller portions are set aside for rural subdivisions and other homesteading-related opportunities. These are not very popular due to the often remote and roadless locations. The University of Alaska, as a land grant university, also owns substantial acreage which it manages independently.

Another 44 e6acre are owned by 12 regional, and scores of local, Native corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. Regional Native corporation Doyon, Limited often promotes itself as the largest private landowner in Alaska in advertisements and other communications. Provisions of ANCSA allowing the corporations' land holdings to be sold on the open market starting in 1991 were repealed before they could take effect. Effectively, the corporations hold title (including subsurface title in many cases, a privilege denied to individual Alaskans) but cannot sell the land. Individual Native allotments can be and are sold on the open market, however.

Various private interests own the remaining land, totaling about one percent of the state. Alaska is, by a large margin, the state with the smallest percentage of private land ownership when Native corporation holdings are excluded.

===Climate===

Map depicting the climate zones of Alaska.
The climate in Southeast Alaska is a mid-latitude oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb) in the southern sections and a subarctic oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) in the northern parts. On an annual basis, Southeast is both the wettest and warmest part of Alaska with milder temperatures in the winter and high precipitation throughout the year. Juneau averages over 50 in of precipitation a year, and Ketchikan averages over 150 in. This is also the only region in Alaska in which the average daytime high temperature is above freezing during the winter months.

The climate of Anchorage and south central Alaska is mild by Alaskan standards due to the region's proximity to the seacoast. While the area gets less rain than southeast Alaska, it gets more snow, and days tend to be clearer. On average, Anchorage receives 16 in of precipitation a year, with around 75 in of snow, although there are areas in the south central which receive far more snow. It is a subarctic climate (climate classification#GROUP D: Continental/microthermal climate|Köppen: Dfc]) due to its brief, cool summers.

The climate of Western Alaska is determined in large part by the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. It is a subarctic oceanic climate in the southwest and a continental subarctic climate farther north. The temperature is somewhat moderate considering how far north the area is. This region has a tremendous amount of variety in precipitation. An area stretching from the northern side of the Seward Peninsula to the Kobuk River valley (i. e., the region around Kotzebue Sound) is technically a desert, with portions receiving less than 10 in of precipitation annually. On the other extreme, some locations between Dillingham and Bethel average around 100 in of precipitation. 

The climate of the interior of Alaska is subarctic. Some of the highest and lowest temperatures in Alaska occur around the area near Fairbanks. The summers may have temperatures reaching into the 90s °F (the low-to-mid 30s °C), while in the winter, the temperature can fall below -60 °F. Precipitation is sparse in the Interior, often less than 10 in a year, but what precipitation falls in the winter tends to stay the entire winter.

The highest and lowest recorded temperatures in Alaska are both in the Interior. The highest is 100 °F in Fort Yukon (which is just 8 mi inside the arctic circle) on June 27, 1915, making Alaska tied with Hawaii as the state with the lowest high temperature in the United States. The lowest official Alaska temperature is −80 °F in Prospect Creek on January 23, 1971, one degree above the lowest temperature recorded in continental North America (in Snag, Yukon, Canada). 

The climate in the extreme north of Alaska is Arctic (climate classification#GROUP E: Polar climates|Köppen: ET]) with long, very cold winters and short, cool summers. Even in July, the average low temperature in Barrow is 34 °F. History for Barrow, Alaska. Monthly Summary for July 2006. Weather Underground. Retrieved October 23, 2006. Precipitation is light in this part of Alaska, with many places averaging less than 10 in per year, mostly as snow which stays on the ground almost the entire year.

==History==

===Alaska natives===

A modern Alutiiq dancer in traditional festival garb.
Numerous indigenous peoples occupied Alaska for thousands of years before the arrival of European peoples to the area. The Tlingit people developed a society with a matrilineal kinship system of property inheritance and descent in what is today Southeast Alaska, along with parts of British Columbia and the Yukon. Also in Southeast were the Haida, now well known for their unique arts. The Tsimshian people came to Alaska from British Columbia in 1887, when President Grover Cleveland, and later the U.S. Congress, granted them permission to settle on Annette Island and found the town of Metlakatla. All three of these peoples, as well as other indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, experienced smallpox outbreaks from the late 18th through the mid-19th century, with the most devastating epidemics occurring in the 1830s and 1860s, resulting in high fatalities and social disruption. Brian C. Hosmer, American Indians in the Marketplace: Persistence and Innovation among the Menominees and Metlakatlans, 1870–1920 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1999), pp. 129–131, 200. 

The Aleutian Islands are still home to the Aleut people's seafaring society, although they were the first Native Alaskans to be exploited by Russians. Western and Southwestern Alaska are home to the Yup'ik, while their cousins the Alutiiq ~ Sugpiaq lived in what is now Southcentral Alaska. The Gwich'in people of the northern Interior region are Athabaskan and primarily known today for their dependence on the caribou within the much-contested Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The North Slope and Little Diomede Island are occupied by the widespread Inupiat people.

===Colonization===

Some researchers believe that the first Russian settlement in Alaska was established in the 17th century. Свердлов Л. М. Русское поселение на Аляске в XVII в.? "Природа". М., 1992. № 4. С.67–69. According to this hypothesis, in 1648 several koches of Semyon Dezhnyov's expedition came ashore in Alaska by storm and founded this settlement. This hypothesis is based on the testimony of Chukchi geographer Nikolai Daurkin, who had visited Alaska in 1764–1765 and who had reported on a village on the Kheuveren River, populated by "bearded men" who "pray to the icons". Some modern researchers associate Kheuveren with Koyuk River. 

The Russian settlement of St. Paul's Harbor (present-day Kodiak town), Kodiak Island, 1814.
The first European vessel to reach Alaska is generally held to be the St. Gabriel under the authority of the surveyor M. S. Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fyodorov on August 21, 1732 during an expedition of Siberian cossak A. F. Shestakov and Belorussian explorer Dmitry Pavlutsky (1729—1735). Аронов В. Н. Патриарх Камчатского мореходства. // "Вопросы истории рыбной промышленности Камчатки": Историко-краеведческий сб. – Вып. 3. – 2000. Вахрин С. Покорители великого океана. Петроп.-Камч.: Камштат, 1993. 

Another European contact with Alaska occurred in 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia with sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia toward the Aleutian Islands. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784.

Between 1774 and 1800, Spain sent several expeditions to Alaska in order to assert its claim over the Pacific Northwest. In 1789 a Spanish settlement and fort were built in Nootka Sound. These expeditions gave names to places such as Valdez, Bucareli Sound, and Cordova. Later, the Russian-American Company carried out an expanded colonization program during the early-to-mid-19th century.

Sitka, renamed New Archangel from 1804 to 1867, on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago in what is now Southeast Alaska, became the capital of Russian America. It remained the capital after the colony was transferred to the United States. The Russians never fully colonized Alaska, and the colony was never very profitable. Evidence of Russian settlement in names and churches survive throughout southeast Alaska.

William H. Seward, the United States Secretary of State, negotiated the Alaska Purchase (also known as Seward's Folly) with the Russians in 1867 for $7.2 million. Alaska was loosely governed by the military initially, and was administered as a district starting in 1884, with a governor appointed by the President of the United States. A federal district court was headquartered in Sitka.
Miners and prospectors climb the Chilkoot Trail during the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush.
For most of Alaska's first decade under the United States flag, Sitka was the only community inhabited by American settlers. They organized a "provisional city government," which was Alaska's first municipal government, but not in a legal sense. Legislation allowing Alaskan communities to legally incorporate as cities did not come about until 1900, and home rule for cities was extremely limited or unavailable until statehood took effect in 1959.

===U.S. Territory===
Starting in the 1890s and stretching in some places to the early 1910s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was officially incorporated as an organized territory in 1912. Alaska's capital, which had been in Sitka until 1906, was moved north to Juneau. Construction of the Alaska Governor's Mansion began that same year. European immigrants from Norway and Sweden also settled in southeast Alaska, where they entered the fishing and logging industries.

U.S. troops negotiate snow and ice during the Battle of Attu in May 1943.
During World War II, the Aleutian Islands Campaign focused on the three outer Aleutian Islands – Attu, Agattu and Kiska these three Aleutian outer islands are about 460 mi away from continental USSR, 920 mi from continental Alaska (U.S.), 950 mi from Japan. – that were invaded by Japanese troops and occupied between June 1942 and August 1943. Unalaska/Dutch Harbor became a significant base for the U.S. Army Air Corps and Navy submariners.

The U.S. Lend-Lease program involved the flying of American warplanes through Canada to Fairbanks and thence Nome; Soviet pilots took possession of these aircraft, ferrying them to fight the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities.

===Statehood===

Statehood for Alaska was an important cause of James Wickersham early in his tenure as a congressional delegate. Decades later, the statehood movement gained its first real momentum following a territorial referendum in 1946. The Alaska Statehood Committee and Alaska's Constitutional Convention would soon follow. Statehood supporters also found themselves fighting major battles against political foes, mostly in the U.S. Congress but also within Alaska. Statehood was approved by Congress on July 7, 1958. Alaska was officially proclaimed a state on January 3, 1959.

Kodiak, before and after the tsunami which followed the Good Friday earthquake, destroying much of the townsite.
In 1960, the Census Bureau reported Alaska's population as 77.2% White, 3% Black, and 18.8% American Indian and Alaska Native. 

On March 27, 1964, the massive "Good Friday Earthquake" killed 133 people and destroyed several villages and portions of large coastal communities, mainly by the resultant tsunamis and landslides. It was the third-most-powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the world, with a moment magnitude of 9.2. It was over one thousand times more powerful than the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. The time of day (5:36 pm), time of year and location of the epicenter were all cited as factors in potentially sparing thousands of lives, particularly in Anchorage.

The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline led to an oil boom. Royalty revenues from oil have funded large state budgets from 1980 onward. That same year, not coincidentally, Alaska repealed its state income tax.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Prince William Sound, spilling over 11 MUSgal of crude oil over 1100 mi of coastline. Today, the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the proposed Pebble Mine.

===Alaska Heritage Resources Survey===
The Alaska Heritage Resources Survey (AHRS) is a restricted inventory of all reported historic and prehistoric sites within the state of Alaska and is maintained by the Office of History and Archaeology. The survey's inventory of cultural resources includes objects, structures, buildings, sites, districts, and travel ways, with a general provision that they are over 50 years old. As of January 31, 2012 over 35,000 sites have been reported. Alaska Heritage Resources Survey, Department of Natural Resources – Alaska.gov (retrieved May 9th, 2014) 

==Demographics==

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Alaska was 735,132 on July 1, 2013, a 3.5% increase since the 2010 United States Census. 

In 2010, Alaska ranked as the 47th state by population, ahead of North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming (and Washington, D.C.) Alaska is the least densely populated state, and one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world, at 1.2 PD/sqmi, with the next state, Wyoming, at 5.8 PD/sqmi. Alaska is the largest U.S. state by area, and the tenth wealthiest (per capita income). As of April 2014, the state's unemployment rate was 6.4%. 

===Race and ancestry===
According to the 2010 United States Census, Alaska had a population of 710,231. In terms of race and ethnicity, the state was 66.7% White (64.1% Non-Hispanic White), 14.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 5.4% Asian, 3.3% Black or African American, 1.0% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 1.6% from Some Other Race, and 7.3% from Two or More Races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race made up 5.5% of the population. 

As of 2011, 50.7% of Alaska's population younger than one year of age belonged to minority groups (i.e., did not have two parents of non-Hispanic white ancestry). 

 Alaska Racial Breakdown of Population 
 Racial composition 1990 Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, For The United States, Regions, Divisions, and States 2000 Population of Alaska: Census 2010 and 2000 Interactive Map, Demographics, Statistics, Quick Facts 2010 2010 Census data 
 White 75.5% 69.3% 66.7% 
 Native 15.6% 15.6% 14.8% 
 Asian 3.6% 4.0% 5.4% 
 Black 4.1% 3.5% 3.3% 
 Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander - 0.5% 1.0% 
 Other race 1.2% 1.6% 1.6% 
 Two or more races - 5.5% 7.3% 

===Languages===
According to the 2011 American Community Survey, 82.4% of people over the age of five speak only English at home. About 3.5% speak Spanish at home. About 2.2% speak another Indo-European language at home and about 4.3% speak an Asian language at home. About 5.3% speak other languages at home. 

A total of 5.2% of Alaskans speak one of the state's 22 indigenous languages, known locally as "native languages". These languages belong to two major language families: Eskimo–Aleut and Na-Dene. As the homeland of these two major language families of North America, Alaska has been described as the crossroads of the continent. Linguistic and DNA studies done here have provided evidence for the settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge.

===Religion===
St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Sitka.
According to statistics collected by the Association of Religion Data Archives from 2010, about 34% of Alaska residents were members of religious congregations. 100,960 people identified as Evangelical Protestants, 50,866 as Roman Catholic, and 32,550 as mainline Protestants. Roughly 4% are Mormon, 0.5% are Jewish, 1% are Muslim, 0.5% are Buddhist, and 0.5% are Hindu. http://religions.pewforum.org/maps 

In 1795, the First Russian Orthodox Church was established in Kodiak. Intermarriage with Alaskan Natives helped the Russian immigrants integrate into society. As a result, an increasing number of Russian Orthodox churches gradually became established within Alaska. Alaska also has the largest Quaker population (by percentage) of any state. In 2009 there were 6,000 Jews in Alaska (for whom observance of halakha may pose special problems). Table 76. Religious Bodies—Selected Data. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011. Estimates for the number of Alaskan Muslims range from 2,000 to 5,000. In 2010, the local Muslim community broke ground on the first mosque in the state. Alaskan Hindus often share venues and celebrations with members of other Asian religious communities, including Sikhs and Jains. 

Alaska has been identified, along with Pacific Northwest states Washington and Oregon, as being the least religious states of the USA, in terms of church membership. 

==Economy==

Aerial view of infrastructure at the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field.
The 2007 gross state product was $44.9 billion, 45th in the nation. Its per capita personal income for 2007 was $40,042, ranking 15th in the nation. According to a 2013 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Alaska had the fifth-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 6.75 percent. The oil and gas industry dominates the Alaskan economy, with more than 80% of the state's revenues derived from petroleum extraction. Alaska's main export product (excluding oil and natural gas) is seafood, primarily salmon, cod, Pollock and crab.

Agriculture represents a very small fraction of the Alaskan economy. Agricultural production is primarily for consumption within the state and includes nursery stock, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock. Manufacturing is limited, with most foodstuffs and general goods imported from elsewhere.

Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation. Military bases are a significant component of the economy in both Fairbanks and Anchorage. Federal subsidies are also an important part of the economy, allowing the state to keep taxes low. Its industrial outputs are crude petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, precious metals, zinc and other mining, seafood processing, timber and wood products. There is also a growing service and tourism sector. Tourists have contributed to the economy by supporting local lodging.

===Largest private employers===
BP's Alaska headquarters in Anchorage.
Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-490 taking off from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in Sitka, one of the main facilities of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium.
Alyeska Prince Hotel in Girdwood, as viewed from a tram along Mount Alyeska.
Ocean Beauty Seafoods cannery in Petersburg.
Most major government units in Alaska employ into the thousands of people apiece, including general units of the federal and state governments, the military and within the University of Alaska System. According to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the following were the state's largest private sector employers in 2010: "Alaska's 100 Largest Private Sector Employers in 2010 (July 2011 Alaska Economic Trends)." Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development (2007). 

 Rank Employer name Average monthlyemployment in 2010 
 1 Providence Health & Services 4,000+ 
 2 Walmart/Sam's Club 3,000–3,249 
 3 Carrs Safeway Alaska Division 2,750–2,999 
 4 Fred Meyer 2,500–2,749 
 5 ASRC Energy Services 
 6 Trident Seafoods 2,250–2,499 
 7 BP Exploration Alaska 2,000–2,249 
 8 CH2M Hill 1,750–1,999 
 9 NANA Management Services 
 10 Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium 1,500–1,749 
 11 Alaska Airlines 
 12 GCI Communications 1,250–1,499 
 13 Banner Health (includes Fairbanks Memorial Hospital) 
 14 Southcentral Foundation 
 15 Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation 1,000–1,249 
 16 FedEx 
 17 ConocoPhillips Alaska 
 18 Alaska USA Federal Credit Union 
 19 United Parcel Service 
 20 McDonald's Restaurants of Alaska 750–999 
 21 Wells Fargo 
 22 Doyon Universal Services 
 23 Home Depot 
 24 Alaska Regional Hospital 
 25 The Alaska Club 
 26 Icicle Seafoods 
 27 Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium 
 28 Hope Community Resources 
 29 UniSea 
 30 Alaska Commercial Company 
 31 Costco 
 32 Spenard Builders Supply 
 33 Lowe's 
 34 Alyeska Pipeline Service Company 
 35 Alaska Communication Systems 500–749 
 36 First National Bank Alaska 
 37 Central Peninsula Hospital 
 38 First Student 
 39 Westward Seafood 
 40 Mat-Su Regional Medical Center 
 41 Alaska Consumer Direct Personal Care 
 42 Tanana Chiefs Conference 
 43 PeterPan Seafoods 
 44 Udelhoven Oilfield System Services 
 45 Job Ready/ReadyCare 
 46 Schlumberger Technologies 
 47 Maniilaq Association 
 48 Alaska Hotel Properties/Princess Hotels 
 49 Alyeska Resort (includes O'Malley's on the Green) 
 50 Ocean Beauty Seafoods 250–499 

===Energy===

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline transports oil, Alaska's most financially important export, from the North Slope to Valdez. Pertinent are the heat pipes in the column mounts, which disperse heat upwards and prevent melting of permafrost.
Alaska has vast energy resources, although its oil reserves have been largely depleted. Major oil and gas reserves were found in the Alaska North Slope (ANS) and Cook Inlet basins, but according to the Energy Information Administration, by 2014 Alaska had fallen to fourth place in the nation in crude oil production after Texas, North Dakota, and California. Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope is still the second highest-yielding oil field in the United States, typically producing about 400000 oilbbl/d, although by early 2014 North Dakota's Bakken Formation was producing over 900000 oilbbl/d. Prudhoe Bay was the largest conventional oil field ever discovered in North America, but was much smaller than Canada's enormous Athabasca oil sands field, which by 2014 was producing about of unconventional oil, and had hundreds of years of producible reserves at that rate. 

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline can transport and pump up to 2.1 Moilbbl of crude oil per day, more than any other crude oil pipeline in the United States. Additionally, substantial coal deposits are found in Alaska's bituminous, sub-bituminous, and lignite coal basins. The United States Geological Survey estimates that there are 85.4 Tcuft of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas from natural gas hydrates on the Alaskan North Slope. Alaska also offers some of the highest hydroelectric power potential in the country from its numerous rivers. Large swaths of the Alaskan coastline offer wind and geothermal energy potential as well. 

Alaska's economy depends heavily on increasingly expensive diesel fuel for heating, transportation, electric power and light. Though wind and hydroelectric power are abundant and underdeveloped, proposals for state-wide energy systems (e.g. with special low-cost electric interties) were judged uneconomical (at the time of the report, 2001) due to low (less than 50¢/gal) fuel prices, long distances and low population. The cost of a gallon of gas in urban Alaska today is usually 30–60¢ higher than the national average; prices in rural areas are generally significantly higher but vary widely depending on transportation costs, seasonal usage peaks, nearby petroleum development infrastructure and many other factors.

Alaska was 4th in domestically produced United States oil in February 2014. 

====Permanent Fund====
The Alaska Permanent Fund is a constitutionally authorized appropriation of oil revenues, established by voters in 1976 to manage a surplus in state petroleum revenues from oil, largely in anticipation of the recently constructed Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The fund was originally proposed by Governor Keith Miller on the eve of the 1969 Prudhoe Bay lease sale, out of fear that the legislature would spend the entire proceeds of the sale (which amounted to $900 million) at once. It was later championed by Governor Jay Hammond and Kenai state representative Hugh Malone. It has served as an attractive political prospect ever since, diverting revenues which would normally be deposited into the general fund.

The Alaska Constitution was written so as to discourage dedicating state funds for a particular purpose. The Permanent Fund has become the rare exception to this, mostly due to the political climate of distrust existing during the time of its creation. From its initial principal of $734,000, the fund has grown to $50 billion as a result of oil royalties and capital investment programs. Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation Most if not all the principal is invested conservatively outside Alaska. This has led to frequent calls by Alaskan politicians for the Fund to make investments within Alaska, though such a stance has never gained momentum.

Starting in 1982, dividends from the fund's annual growth have been paid out each year to eligible Alaskans, ranging from an initial $1,000 in 1982 (equal to three years' payout, as the distribution of payments was held up in a lawsuit over the distribution scheme) to $3,269 in 2008 (which included a one-time $1,200 "Resource Rebate"). Every year, the state legislature takes out 8% from the earnings, puts 3% back into the principal for inflation proofing, and the remaining 5% is distributed to all qualifying Alaskans. To qualify for the Permanent Fund Dividend, one must have lived in the state for a minimum of 12 months, maintain constant residency subject to allowable absences, and not be subject to court judgments or criminal convictions which fall under various disqualifying classifications or may subject the payment amount to civil garnishment.

===Cost of living===
The cost of goods in Alaska has long been higher than in the contiguous 48 states. Federal government employees, particularly United States Postal Service (USPS) workers and active-duty military members, receive a Cost of Living Allowance usually set at 25% of base pay because, while the cost of living has gone down, it is still one of the highest in the country.

The introduction of big-box stores in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau also did much to lower prices. Wal-Mart opened their first Anchorage store in 1993, and debuted in Fairbanks in 2004. The company currently has locations covering most of the population centers of Alaska, including Juneau, Ketchikan and Kodiak. However, rural Alaska suffers from extremely high prices for food and consumer goods compared to the rest of the country, due to the relatively limited transportation infrastructure. Many rural residents come into these cities and purchase food and goods in bulk from warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club. Some have embraced the free shipping offers FreeShipping.org for examples of companies offering free shipping to Alaska of some online retailers to purchase items much more cheaply than they could in their own communities, if they are available at all.

===Agriculture and fishing===

Halibut is important to the state's economy as both a commercial and sport-caught fish.
Due to the northern climate and short growing season, relatively little farming occurs in Alaska. Most farms are in either the Matanuska Valley, about 40 mi northeast of Anchorage, or on the Kenai Peninsula, about 60 mi southwest of Anchorage. The short 100-day growing season limits the crops that can be grown, but the long sunny summer days make for productive growing seasons. The primary crops are potatoes, carrots, lettuce, and cabbage.

The Tanana Valley is another notable agricultural locus, especially the Delta Junction area, about 100 mi southeast of Fairbanks, with a sizable concentration of farms growing agronomic crops; these farms mostly lie north and east of Fort Greely. This area was largely set aside and developed under a state program spearheaded by Hammond during his second term as governor. Delta-area crops consist predominately of barley and hay. West of Fairbanks lies another concentration of small farms catering to restaurants, the hotel and tourist industry, and community-supported agriculture.

Alaskan agriculture has experienced a surge in growth of market gardeners, small farms and farmers' markets in recent years, with the highest percentage increase (46%) in the nation in growth in farmers' markets in 2011, compared to 17% nationwide. The peony industry has also taken off, as the growing season allows farmers to harvest during a gap in supply elsewhere in the world, thereby filling a niche in the flower market. 

Alaska, with no counties, lacks county fairs. However, a small assortment of state and local fairs (with the Alaska State Fair in Palmer the largest), are held mostly in the late summer. The fairs are mostly located in communities with historic or current agricultural activity, and feature local farmers exhibiting produce in addition to more high-profile commercial activities such as carnival rides, concerts and food. "Alaska Grown" is used as an agricultural slogan.

Alaska has an abundance of seafood, with the primary fisheries in the Bering Sea and the North Pacific. Seafood is one of the few food items that is often cheaper within the state than outside it. Many Alaskans take advantage of salmon seasons to harvest portions of their household diet while fishing for subsistence, as well as sport. This includes fish taken by hook, net or wheel. 

Hunting for subsistence, primarily caribou, moose, and Dall sheep is still common in the state, particularly in remote Bush communities. An example of a traditional native food is Akutaq, the Eskimo ice cream, which can consist of reindeer fat, seal oil, dried fish meat and local berries.

Alaska's reindeer herding is concentrated on Seward Peninsula, where wild caribou can be prevented from mingling and migrating with the domesticated reindeer. 

Most food in Alaska is transported into the state from "Outside", and shipping costs make food in the cities relatively expensive. In rural areas, subsistence hunting and gathering is an essential activity because imported food is prohibitively expensive. Though most small towns and villages in Alaska lie along the coastline, the cost of importing food to remote villages can be high, because of the terrain and difficult road conditions, which change dramatically, due to varying climate and precipitation changes. The cost of transport can reach as high as 50¢ per pound ($1.10/kg) or more in some remote areas, during the most difficult times, if these locations can be reached at all during such inclement weather and terrain conditions. The cost of delivering a 1 USgal of milk is about $3.50 in many villages where per capita income can be $20,000 or less. Fuel cost per gallon is routinely 20–30¢ higher than the continental United States average, with only Hawaii having higher prices. 

==Transportation==
The Sterling Highway, near its intersection with the Seward Highway.

===Roads===

The Susitna River bridge on the Denali Highway is 1036 ft long.
Alaska Interstate Highways.
Alaska has few road connections compared to the rest of the U.S. The state's road system covers a relatively small area of the state, linking the central population centers and the Alaska Highway, the principal route out of the state through Canada. The state capital, Juneau, is not accessible by road, only a car ferry, which has spurred several debates over the decades about moving the capital to a city on the road system, or building a road connection from Haines. The western part of Alaska has no road system connecting the communities with the rest of Alaska.

One unique feature of the Alaska Highway system is the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, an active Alaska Railroad tunnel recently upgraded to provide a paved roadway link with the isolated community of Whittier on Prince William Sound to the Seward Highway about 50 mi southeast of Anchorage at Portage. At 2.5 mi, the tunnel was the longest road tunnel in North America until 2007. completion of the 3.5 mi Interstate 93 tunnel as part of the "Big Dig" project in Boston, Massachusetts. The tunnel is the longest combination road and rail tunnel in North America.

===Rail===
An Alaska Railroad locomotive and tanker cars crossing the George Parks Highway in 1994.
The White Pass and Yukon Route traverses rugged terrain north of Skagway near the Canadian border.
Built around 1915, the Alaska Railroad (ARR) played a key role in the development of Alaska through the 20th century. It links north Pacific shipping through providing critical infrastructure with tracks that run from Seward to Interior Alaska by way of South Central Alaska, passing through Anchorage, Eklutna, Wasilla, Talkeetna, Denali, and Fairbanks, with spurs to Whittier, Palmer and North Pole. The cities, towns, villages, and region served by ARR tracks are known statewide as "The Railbelt". In recent years, the ever-improving paved highway system began to eclipse the railroad's importance in Alaska's economy.

The railroad played a vital role in Alaska's development, moving freight into Alaska while transporting natural resources southward (i.e., coal from the Usibelli coal mine near Healy to Seward and gravel from the Matanuska Valley to Anchorage). It is well known for its summertime tour passenger service.

The Alaska Railroad was one of the last railroads in North America to use cabooses in regular service and still uses them on some gravel trains. It continues to offer one of the last flag stop routes in the country. A stretch of about 60 mi of track along an area north of Talkeetna remains inaccessible by road; the railroad provides the only transportation to rural homes and cabins in the area. Until construction of the Parks Highway in the 1970s, the railroad provided the only land access to most of the region along its entire route.

In northern Southeast Alaska, the White Pass and Yukon Route also partly runs through the state from Skagway northwards into Canada (British Columbia and Yukon Territory), crossing the border at White Pass Summit. This line is now mainly used by tourists, often arriving by cruise liner at Skagway. It was featured in the 1983 BBC television series Great Little Railways.

The Alaska Rail network is not connected to Outside. In 2000, the U.S. Congress authorized $6 million to study the feasibility of a rail link between Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48. 

Alaska Rail Marine provides car float service between Whittier and Seattle.

===Marine transport===
Many cities, towns and villages in the state do not have road or highway access; the only modes of access involve travel by air, river, or the sea.
The (named after Tustumena Glacier) is one of the state's many ferries, providing service between the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island and the Aleutian Chain.
Alaska's well-developed state-owned ferry system (known as the Alaska Marine Highway) serves the cities of southeast, the Gulf Coast and the Alaska Peninsula. The ferries transport vehicles as well as passengers. The system also operates a ferry service from Bellingham, Washington and Prince Rupert, British Columbia in Canada through the Inside Passage to Skagway. The Inter-Island Ferry Authority also serves as an important marine link for many communities in the Prince of Wales Island region of Southeast and works in concert with the Alaska Marine Highway.

In recent years, cruise lines have created a summertime tourism market, mainly connecting the Pacific Northwest to Southeast Alaska and, to a lesser degree, towns along Alaska's gulf coast. The population of Ketchikan may rise by over 10,000 people on many days during the summer, as up to four large cruise ships at a time can dock, debarking thousands of passengers.

===Air transport===
Cities not served by road, sea, or river can be reached only by air, foot, dogsled, or snowmachine, accounting for Alaska's extremely well developed bush air services—an Alaskan novelty. Anchorage and, to a lesser extent Fairbanks, is served by many major airlines. Because of limited highway access, air travel remains the most efficient form of transportation in and out of the state. Anchorage recently completed extensive remodeling and construction at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to help accommodate the upsurge in tourism (in 2012-2013, Alaska received almost 2 million visitors). State of Alaska Office of Economic Development. Economic Impact of Alaska's Visitor Industry. January 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2014. 

Regular flights to most villages and towns within the state that are commercially viable are challenging to provide, so they are heavily subsidized by the federal government through the Essential Air Service program. Alaska Airlines is the only major airline offering in-state travel with jet service (sometimes in combination cargo and passenger Boeing 737-400s) from Anchorage and Fairbanks to regional hubs like Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, Dillingham, Kodiak, and other larger communities as well as to major Southeast and Alaska Peninsula communities.

A Bombardier Dash 8, operated by Era Alaska, on approach to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
The bulk of remaining commercial flight offerings come from small regional commuter airlines such as Era Aviation, PenAir, and Frontier Flying Service. The smallest towns and villages must rely on scheduled or chartered bush flying services using general aviation aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan, the most popular aircraft in use in the state. Much of this service can be attributed to the Alaska bypass mail program which subsidizes bulk mail delivery to Alaskan rural communities. The program requires 70% of that subsidy to go to carriers who offer passenger service to the communities.

Many communities have small air taxi services. These operations originated from the demand for customized transport to remote areas. Perhaps the most quintessentially Alaskan plane is the bush seaplane. The world's busiest seaplane base is Lake Hood, located next to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, where flights bound for remote villages without an airstrip carry passengers, cargo, and many items from stores and warehouse clubs. Alaska has the highest number of pilots per capita of any U.S. state: out of the estimated 663,661 residents, 8,550 are pilots, or about one in 78. Federal Aviation Administration. 2005 U.S. Civil Airman Statistics 

===Other transport===
Another Alaskan transportation method is the dogsled. In modern times (that is, any time after the mid-late 1920s), dog mushing is more of a sport than a true means of transportation. Various races are held around the state, but the best known is the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, a 1150 mi trail from Anchorage to Nome (although the distance varies from year to year, the official distance is set at 1049 mi). The race commemorates the famous 1925 serum run to Nome in which mushers and dogs like Togo and Balto took much-needed medicine to the diphtheria-stricken community of Nome when all other means of transportation had failed. Mushers from all over the world come to Anchorage each March to compete for cash, prizes, and prestige. The "Serum Run" is another sled dog race that more accurately follows the route of the famous 1925 relay, leaving from the community of Nenana (southwest of Fairbanks) to Nome. 

In areas not served by road or rail, primary transportation in summer is by all-terrain vehicle and in winter by snowmobile or "snow machine," as it is commonly referred to in Alaska.

===Data transport===
Alaska's internet and other data transport systems are provided largely through the two major telecommunications companies: GCI and Alaska Communications. GCI owns and operates what it calls the Alaska United Fiber Optic system and as of late 2011 Alaska Communications advertised that it has "two fiber optic paths to the lower 48 and two more across Alaska. Alaska Communications Coverage Map. Alaska Communications. In January 2011, it was reported that a $1 billion project to run connect Asia and rural Alaska was being planned, aided in part by $350 million in stimulus from the federal government. Arctic fiber-optic cable could benefit far-flung Alaskans. Anchorage Daily News. 

==Law and government==
===State government===
The center of state government in Juneau. The large buildings in the background are, from left to right: the Court Plaza Building (known colloquially as the "Spam Can"), the State Office Building (behind), the Alaska Office Building, the John H. Dimond State Courthouse, and the Alaska State Capitol. Many of the smaller buildings in the foreground are also occupied by state government agencies.

Like all other U.S. states, Alaska is governed as a republic, with three branches of government: an executive branch consisting of the Governor of Alaska and the other independently elected constitutional officers; a legislative branch consisting of the Alaska House of Representatives and Alaska Senate; and a judicial branch consisting of the Alaska Supreme Court and lower courts.

The state of Alaska employs approximately 16,000 people statewide. 

The Alaska Legislature consists of a 40-member House of Representatives and a 20-member Senate. Senators serve four-year terms and House members two. The Governor of Alaska serves four-year terms. The lieutenant governor runs separately from the governor in the primaries, but during the general election, the nominee for governor and nominee for lieutenant governor run together on the same ticket.

Alaska's court system has four levels: the Alaska Supreme Court, the Alaska Court of Appeals, the superior courts and the district courts. The superior and district courts are trial courts. Superior courts are courts of general jurisdiction, while district courts only hear certain types of cases, including misdemeanor criminal cases and civil cases valued up to $100,000. 

The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals are appellate courts. The Court of Appeals is required to hear appeals from certain lower-court decisions, including those regarding criminal prosecutions, juvenile delinquency, and habeas corpus. The Supreme Court hears civil appeals and may in its discretion hear criminal appeals. 

===State politics===

Although in its early years of statehood Alaska was a Democratic state, since the early 1970s it has been characterized as Republican-leaning. Local political communities have often worked on issues related to land use development, fishing, tourism, and individual rights. Alaska Natives, while organized in and around their communities, have been active within the Native corporations. These have been given ownership over large tracts of land, which require stewardship.

Alaska was formerly the only state in which possession of one ounce or less of marijuana in one's home was completely legal under state law, though the federal law remains in force. 

The state has an independence movement favoring a vote on secession from the United States, with the Alaskan Independence Party. 

Six Republicans and four Democrats have served as governor of Alaska. In addition, Republican Governor Wally Hickel was elected to the office for a second term in 1990 after leaving the Republican party and briefly joining the Alaskan Independence Party ticket just long enough to be reelected. He subsequently officially rejoined the Republican party in 1994.

===Taxes===
To finance state government operations, Alaska depends primarily on petroleum revenues and federal subsidies. This allows it to have the lowest individual tax burden in the United States. CNN Money (2005). "How tax friendly is your state?" Retrieved from CNN website. It is one of five states with no state sales tax, one of seven states that do not levy an individual income tax, and one of the two states that has neither. The Department of Revenue Tax Division reports regularly on the state's revenue sources. The Department also issues an annual summary of its operations, including new state laws that directly affect the tax division.

While Alaska has no state sales tax, 89 municipalities collect a local sales tax, from 1.0–7.5%, typically 3–5%. Other local taxes levied include raw fish taxes, hotel, motel, and bed-and-breakfast 'bed' taxes, severance taxes, liquor and tobacco taxes, gaming (pull tabs) taxes, tire taxes and fuel transfer taxes. A part of the revenue collected from certain state taxes and license fees (such as petroleum, aviation motor fuel, telephone cooperative) is shared with municipalities in Alaska.

Fairbanks has one of the highest property taxes in the state as no sales or income taxes are assessed in the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB). A sales tax for the FNSB has been voted on many times, but has yet to be approved, leading law makers to increase taxes dramatically on goods such as liquor and tobacco.

In 2014 the Tax Foundation ranked Alaska as having the fourth most "business friendly" tax policy, behind only Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nevada. 

===Federal politics===

 Presidential election results 1960-2012 
 Year Republican Democratic 
 2012 54.80% 164,676 40.81% 122,640 
 2008 59.42% 193,841 37.83% 123,594 
 2004 61.07% 190,889 35.52% 111,025 
 2000 58.62% 167,398 27.67% 79,004 
 1996 50.80% 122,746 33.27% 80,380 
 1992 39.46% 102,000 30.29% 78,294 
 1988 59.59% 119,251 36.27% 72,584 
 1984 66.65% 138,377 29.87% 62,007 
 1980 54.35% 86,112 26.41% 41,842 
 1976 57.90% 71,555 35.65% 44,058 
 1972 58.13% 55,349 34.62% 32,967 
 1968 45.28% 37,600 42.65% 35,411 
 1964 34.09% 22,930 65.91% 44,329 
 1960 50.94% 30,953 49.06% 29,809 

Alaska regularly supports Republicans in presidential elections and has done so since statehood. Republicans have won the state's electoral college votes in all but one election that it has participated in (1964). No state has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate fewer times. Alaska was carried by Democratic nominee Lyndon B. Johnson during his landslide election in 1964, while the 1960 and 1968 elections were close. Since 1972, however, Republicans have carried the state by large margins. In 2008, Republican John McCain defeated Democrat Barack Obama in Alaska, 59.49% to 37.83%. McCain's running mate was Sarah Palin, the state's governor and the first Alaskan on a major party ticket. Obama lost Alaska again in 2012, but he captured 40% of the state's vote in that election, making him the first Democrat to do so since 1968.

The Alaska Bush, central Juneau, midtown and downtown Anchorage, and the areas surrounding the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus and Ester have been strongholds of the Democratic Party. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the majority of Fairbanks (including North Pole and the military base), and South Anchorage typically have the strongest Republican showing. As of 2004, well over half of all registered voters have chosen "Non-Partisan" or "Undeclared" as their affiliation, despite recent attempts to close primaries to unaffiliated voters.

Because of its population relative to other U.S. states, Alaska has only one member in the U.S. House of Representatives. This seat is held by Republican Don Young, who was re-elected to his 21st consecutive term in 2012. Alaska's At-large congressional district is one of the largest parliamentary constituencies in the world.

In 2008, Governor Sarah Palin became the first Republican woman to run on a national ticket when she became John McCain's running mate. She continued to be a prominent national figure even after resigning from the governor's job in July 2009. 

Alaska's United States Senators belong to Class 2 and Class 3. In 2008, Democrat Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage, defeated long-time Republican senator Ted Stevens. Stevens had been convicted on seven felony counts of failing to report gifts on Senate financial discloser forms one week before the election. The conviction was set aside in April 2009 after evidence of prosecutorial misconduct emerged.

Republican Frank Murkowski held the state's other senatorial position. After being elected governor in 2002, he resigned from the Senate and appointed his daughter, State Representative Lisa Murkowski as his successor. She won full six-year terms in 2004 and 2010.

File:Sean Parnell Elmendorf crop.jpg|Sean Parnell, Governor
File:Mead Treadwell.jpg|Mead Treadwell, Lieutenant Governor
File:Lisa Murkowski.jpg|Lisa Murkowski, senior United States Senator
File:Mark Begich, official portrait, 112th Congress.jpg|Mark Begich, junior United States Senator
File:Don Young, official photo portrait, color, 2006.jpg|Don Young, at-large United States Representative

==Cities, towns and boroughs==

Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.
Fairbanks, Alaska's second-largest city and by a significant margin the largest city in Alaska's interior.
Juneau, Alaska's third-largest city and its capital.
Bethel, the largest city in the Unorganized Borough and in rural Alaska.
Homer, showing (from bottom to top) the edge of downtown, its airport and the Spit.
Barrow (Browerville neighborhood near Eben Hopson Middle School shown), known colloquially for many years by the nickname "Top of the World", is the northernmost city in the United States.
Cordova, built in the early 20th century to support the Kennecott Mines and the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, has persevered as a fishing community since their closure.
Main Street in Talkeetna.
Alaska is not divided into counties, as most of the other U.S. states, but it is divided into boroughs. Many of the more densely populated parts of the state are part of Alaska's 16 boroughs, which function somewhat similarly to counties in other states. However, unlike county-equivalents in the other 49 states, the boroughs do not cover the entire land area of the state. The area not part of any borough is referred to as the Unorganized Borough.

The Unorganized Borough has no government of its own, but the U.S. Census Bureau in cooperation with the state divided the Unorganized Borough into 11 census areas solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation. A recording district is a mechanism for administration of the public record in Alaska. The state is divided into 34 recording districts which are centrally administered under a State Recorder. All recording districts use the same acceptance criteria, fee schedule, etc., for accepting documents into the public record.

Whereas many U.S. states use a three-tiered system of decentralization—state/county/township—most of Alaska uses only two tiers—state/borough. Owing to the low population density, most of the land is located in the Unorganized Borough. As the name implies, it has no intermediate borough government but is administered directly by the state government. In 2000, 57.71% of Alaska's area has this status, with 13.05% of the population.

Anchorage merged the city government with the Greater Anchorage Area Borough in 1975 to form the Municipality of Anchorage, containing the city proper and the communities of Eagle River, Chugiak, Peters Creek, Girdwood, Bird, and Indian. Fairbanks has a separate borough (the Fairbanks North Star Borough) and municipality (the City of Fairbanks).

The state's most populous city is Anchorage, home to 278,700 people in 2006, 225,744 of whom live in the urbanized area. The richest location in Alaska by per capita income is Halibut Cove ($89,895). Yakutat City, Sitka, Juneau, and Anchorage are the four largest cities in the U.S. by area.

===Cities and census-designated places (by population)===
As reflected in the 2010 United States Census, Alaska has a total of 355 incorporated cities and census-designated places (CDPs). The tally of cities includes four unified municipalities, essentially the equivalent of a consolidated city–county. The majority of these communities are located in the rural expanse of Alaska known as "The Bush" and are unconnected to the contiguous North American road network. The table at the bottom of this section lists the 100 largest cities and census-designated places in Alaska, in population order.

Of Alaska's 2010 Census population figure of 710,231, 20,429 people, or 2.88% of the population, did not live in an incorporated city or census-designated place. Approximately three-quarters of that figure were people who live in urban and suburban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city limits of Ketchikan, Kodiak, Palmer and Wasilla. CDPs have not been established for these areas by the United States Census Bureau, except that six CDPs were established for the Ketchikan-area neighborhoods in the 1980 Census (Clover Pass, Herring Cove, Ketchikan East, Mountain Point, North Tongass Highway, Pennock Island and Saxman East), but have not been used since. The remaining population was scattered throughout Alaska, both within organized boroughs and in the Unorganized Borough, in largely remote areas.

 № Community name Type 2010 Pop. 1 Anchorage City 291,826 2 Fairbanks City 31,535 3 Juneau City 31,275 4 Badger CDP 19,482 5 Knik-Fairview CDP 14,923 6 College CDP 12,964 7 Sitka City 8,881 8 Lakes CDP 8,364 9 Tanaina CDP 8,197 10 Ketchikan City 8,050 11 Kalifornsky CDP 7,850 12 Wasilla City 7,831 13 Meadow Lakes CDP 7,570 14 Kenai City 7,100 15 Steele Creek CDP 6,662 16 Kodiak City 6,130 17 Bethel City 6,080 18 Palmer City 5,937 19 Chena Ridge CDP 5,791 20 Sterling CDP 5,617 21 Gateway CDP 5,552 22 Homer City 5,003 23 Farmers Loop CDP 4,853 24 Fishhook CDP 4,679 25 Nikiski CDP 4,493 26 Unalaska City 4,376 27 Barrow City 4,212 28 Soldotna City 4,163 29 Valdez City 3,976 30 Nome City 3,598 31 Goldstream CDP 3,557 32 Big Lake CDP 3,350 33 Butte CDP 3,246 34 Kotzebue City 3,201 35 Petersburg City 2,948 36 Seward City 2,693 37 Eielson AFB CDP 2,647 38 Ester CDP 2,422 39 Wrangell City 2,369 40 Dillingham City 2,329 41 Deltana CDP 2,251 42 Cordova City 2,239 43 Prudhoe Bay CDP 2,174 44 North Pole City 2,117 45 Willow CDP 2,102 46 Ridgeway CDP 2,022 47 Bear Creek CDP 1,956 48 Fritz Creek CDP 1,932 49 Anchor Point CDP 1,930 50 Houston City 1,912 № Community name Type 2010 Pop. 51 Haines CDP 1,713 52 Lazy Mountain CDP 1,479 53 Sutton-Alpine CDP 1,447 54 Metlakatla CDP 1,405 55 Cohoe CDP 1,364 56 Kodiak Station CDP 1,301 57 Susitna North CDP 1,260 58 Tok CDP 1,258 59 Craig City 1,201 60 Diamond Ridge CDP 1,156 61 Salcha CDP 1,095 62 Hooper Bay City 1,093 63 Farm Loop CDP 1,028 64 Akutan City 1,027 65 Healy CDP 1,021 66 Salamatof CDP 980 67 Sand Point City 976 68 Delta Junction City 958 69 Chevak City 938 King Cove City 71 Skagway CDP 920 72 Ninilchik CDP 883 73 Funny River CDP 877 74 Talkeetna CDP 876 75 Buffalo Soapstone CDP 855 76 Selawik City 829 77 Togiak City 817 78 Mountain Village City 813 79 Emmonak City 762 80 Hoonah City 760 81 Klawock City 755 82 Moose Creek CDP 747 83 Knik River CDP 744 84 Pleasant Valley CDP 725 85 Kwethluk City 721 86 Two Rivers CDP 719 Women's Bay CDP 88 Unalakleet City 688 89 Fox River CDP 685 90 Gambell City 681 91 Alakanuk City 677 92 Point Hope City 674 93 Savoonga City 671 94 Quinhagak City 669 95 Noorvik City 668 96 Yakutat CDP 662 97 Kipnuk CDP 639 98 Akiachak CDP 627 99 Happy Valley CDP 593 100 Big Delta CDP 591 

==Education==
The Kachemak Bay Campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage, located in downtown Homer.
The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development administers many school districts in Alaska. In addition, the state operates a boarding school, Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, and provides partial funding for other boarding schools, including Nenana Student Living Center in Nenana and The Galena Interior Learning Academy in Galena. 

There are more than a dozen colleges and universities in Alaska. Accredited universities in Alaska include the University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Alaska Southeast, and Alaska Pacific University. These are the only three universities in the state ranked by U.S. News & World Report. Alaska is the only state that has no institutions that are part of the NCAA Division I program.

The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development operates AVTEC, Alaska's Institute of Technology. Campuses in Seward and Anchorage offer 1 week to 11-month training programs in areas as diverse as Information Technology, Welding, Nursing, and Mechanics.

Alaska has had a problem with a "brain drain". Many of its young people, including most of the highest academic achievers, leave the state after high school graduation and do not return. As of 2013, Alaska did not have a law school or medical school. The University of Alaska has attempted to combat this by offering partial four-year scholarships to the top 10% of Alaska high school graduates, via the Alaska Scholars Program. 

==Public health and public safety==

The Alaska State Troopers are Alaska's statewide police force. They have a long and storied history, but were not an official organization until 1941. Before the force was officially organized, law enforcement in Alaska was handled by various federal agencies. Larger towns usually have their own local police and some villages rely on "Public Safety Officers" who have police training but do not carry firearms. In much of the state, the troopers serve as the only police force available. In addition to enforcing traffic and criminal law, wildlife Troopers enforce hunting and fishing regulations. Due to the varied terrain and wide scope of the Troopers' duties, they employ a wide variety of land, air, and water patrol vehicles.

Many rural communities in Alaska are considered "dry," having outlawed the importation of alcoholic beverages. Suicide rates for rural residents are higher than urban. 

Domestic abuse and other violent crimes are also at high levels in the state; this is in part linked to alcohol abuse. Alaska has the highest rate of sexual assault in the nation, especially in rural areas. The average age of sexually assaulted victims is 16 years old. In four out of five cases, the suspects were relatives, friends or acquaintances. 

==Culture==

A dog team in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, arguably the most popular winter event in Alaska.
Some of Alaska's popular annual events are the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race that starts in Anchorage and ends in Nome, World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, the Blueberry Festival and Alaska Hummingbird Festival in Ketchikan, the Sitka Whale Fest, and the Stikine River Garnet Fest in Wrangell. The Stikine River attracts the largest springtime concentration of American Bald Eagles in the world.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center celebrates the rich heritage of Alaska's 11 cultural groups. Their purpose is to encourage cross-cultural exchanges among all people and enhance enhance self-esteem among Native people. The Alaska Native Arts Foundation promotes and markets Native art from all regions and cultures in the State, using the internet. http://www.alaskanativearts.org 

===Music===

Influences on music in Alaska include the traditional music of Alaska Natives as well as folk music brought by later immigrants from Russia and Europe. Prominent musicians from Alaska include singer Jewel, traditional Aleut flautist Mary Youngblood, folk singer-songwriter Libby Roderick, Christian music singer/songwriter Lincoln Brewster, metal/post hardcore band 36 Crazyfists and the groups Pamyua and Portugal. The Man.

There are many established music festivals in Alaska, including the Alaska Folk Festival, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, the Anchorage Folk Festival, the Athabascan Old-Time Fiddling Festival, the Sitka Jazz Festival, and the Sitka Summer Music Festival. The most prominent orchestra in Alaska is the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, though the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and Juneau Symphony are also notable. The Anchorage Opera is currently the state's only professional opera company, though there are several volunteer and semi-professional organizations in the state as well.

The official state song of Alaska is "Alaska's Flag", which was adopted in 1955; it celebrates the flag of Alaska.

===Alaska in film and on television===

Films featuring Alaskan wolves usually employ domesticated wolf-dog hybrids to stand in for wild wolves.
Alaska's first independent picture entirely made in Alaska was The Chechahcos, produced by Alaskan businessman Austin E. Lathrop and filmed in and around Anchorage. Released in 1924 by the Alaska Moving Picture Corporation, it was the only film the company made.

One of the most prominent movies filmed in Alaska is MGM's Eskimo/Mala The Magnificent, starring Alaska Native Ray Mala. In 1932 an expedition set out from MGM's studios in Hollywood to Alaska to film what was then billed as "The Biggest Picture Ever Made." Upon arriving in Alaska, they set up "Camp Hollywood" in Northwest Alaska, where they lived during the duration of the filming. Louis B. Mayer spared no expense in spite of the remote location, going so far as to hire the chef from the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to prepare meals.

When Eskimo premiered at the Astor Theatre in New York City, the studio received the largest amount of feedback in its history to that point. Eskimo was critically acclaimed and released worldwide; as a result, Mala became an international movie star. Eskimo won the first Oscar for Best Film Editing at the Academy Awards, and showcased and preserved aspects of Inupiat culture on film.

The 1983 Disney movie Never Cry Wolf was at least partially shot in Alaska. The 1991 film White Fang, based on Jack London's novel and starring Ethan Hawke, was filmed in and around Haines. Steven Seagal's 1994 On Deadly Ground, starring Michael Caine, was filmed in part at the Worthington Glacier near Valdez. The 1999 John Sayles film Limbo, starring David Strathairn, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Kris Kristofferson, was filmed in Juneau.

The psychological thriller Insomnia, starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams, was shot in Canada, but was set in Alaska. The 2007 film directed by Sean Penn, Into The Wild, was partially filmed and set in Alaska. The film, which is based on the novel of the same name, follows the adventures of Christopher McCandless, who died in a remote abandoned bus along the Stampede Trail west of Healy in 1992.

Many films and television shows set in Alaska are not filmed there; for example, Northern Exposure, set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, was filmed in Roslyn, Washington. The 2007 horror feature 30 Days of Night is set in Barrow, but was filmed in New Zealand.

Many reality television shows are filmed in Alaska. In 2011 the Anchorage Daily News found ten set in the state. 

==State symbols==

The Forget-me-not is the state's official flower and bears the same blue and gold as the state flag.
* State Motto: North to the Future
* Nicknames: "The Last Frontier" or "Land of the Midnight Sun" or "Seward's Icebox"
* State bird: Willow Ptarmigan, adopted by the Territorial Legislature in 1955. It is a small (15 –) Arctic grouse that lives among willows and on open tundra and muskeg. Plumage is brown in summer, changing to white in winter. The Willow Ptarmigan is common in much of Alaska.
* State fish: King Salmon, adopted 1962.
* State flower: wild/native Forget-me-not, adopted by the Territorial Legislature in 1917. It is a perennial that is found throughout Alaska, from Hyder to the Arctic Coast, and west to the Aleutians.
* State fossil: Woolly Mammoth, adopted 1986.
* State gem: Jade, adopted 1968.
* State insect: Four-spot skimmer dragonfly, adopted 1995.
* State land mammal: Moose, adopted 1998.
* State marine mammal: Bowhead Whale, adopted 1983.
* State mineral: Gold, adopted 1968.
* State song: "Alaska's Flag"
* State sport: Dog Mushing, adopted 1972.
* State tree: Sitka Spruce, adopted 1962.
* State dog: Alaskan Malamute, adopted 2010. 
* State soil: Tanana, TANANA – ALASKA STATE SOIL U.S. Department of Agriculture adopted unknown.

==See also==

* Outline of Alaska – organized list of topics about Alaska
* Index of Alaska-related articles
* Sports in Alaska

==References==

==External links==

* 
* Alaska Community Database System
* Alaska's Digital Archives
* Alaska, project area of the American Land Conservancy
* Alaska Inter-Tribal Council
* 
* 

; U.S. Government
* Alaska State Guide from the Library of Congress
* Energy & Environmental Data for Alaska
* USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Alaska
* US Census Bureau
* Alaska State Facts
* Alaska Statehood Subject Guide from the Eisenhower Presidential Library
* Alaska Statehood documents, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

; State government
* State of Alaska website
* Alaska State Databases – Annotated list of searchable databases produced by Alaska state agencies and compiled by the Government Documents Roundtable of the American Library Association.
* Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Recorder's Office

 



[[Agriculture]]

Agriculture, also called farming or husbandry, is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinals and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. However, all farming generally relies on techniques to expand and maintain the lands that are suitable for raising domesticated species. For plants, this usually requires some form of irrigation, although there are methods of dryland farming. Livestock are raised in a combination of grassland-based and landless systems, in an industry that covers almost one-third of the world's ice- and water-free area. In the developed world, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture has become the dominant system of modern farming, although there is growing support for sustainable agriculture, including permaculture and organic agriculture.

Until the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority of the human population labored in agriculture. Pre-industrial agriculture was typically subsistence agriculture/self-sufficiency in which farmers raised most of their crops for their own consumption instead of cash crops for trade. A remarkable shift in agricultural practices has occurred over the past century in response to new technologies, and the development of world markets. This also has led to technological improvements in agricultural techniques, such as the Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate which made the traditional practice of recycling nutrients with crop rotation and animal manure less important.

Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological improvements have sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal welfare and the health effects of the antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals commonly used in industrial meat production. Genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts. Significant degradation of land and water resources, including the depletion of aquifers, has been observed in recent decades, and the effects of global warming on agriculture and of agriculture on global warming are still not fully understood.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, oils, meats and spices. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. Other useful materials are produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. Over one third of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the services' sector, although the percentages of agricultural workers in developed countries has decreased significantly over the past several centuries.

==Etymology and terminology==
The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, "field", and cultūra, "cultivation" or "growing". Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use natural resources to "produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops, and their related services." This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, animal husbandry and forestry. A distinction is sometimes made between forestry and agriculture, based on the former's longer management rotations, extensive versus intensive management practices and development mainly by nature, rather than by man. Even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture (the management of forests) and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry. 

==History==

A Sumerian harvester's sickle made from baked clay (ca. 3000 BC).
Agricultural practices such as irrigation, crop rotation, application of fertilizers and pesticides, and the domestication of livestock were developed long ago, but have made great progress in the past century. The history of agriculture has played a major role in human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change. Division of labour in agricultural societies made commonplace specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures, which allowed the growth of towns and cities, and the complex societies we call civilizations. When farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in their society were free to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition. Historians and anthropologists have long argued that the development of agriculture made civilization possible. According to geographer Jared Diamond, the costs of agriculture were: "the average daily number of work hours increased, nutrition deteriorated, infectious disease and body wear increased, and lifespan shortened." 

===Prehistoric origins===
Forest gardening, a plant-based food production system, is thought to be the world's oldest agroecosystem. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of a family improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually superior foreign species were selected and incorporated into the family's garden. 

===Neolithic===

Threshing of grain in ancient Egypt
The Fertile Crescent of Western Asia first saw the domestication of animals, starting the Neolithic Revolution. Between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern cattle, sheep, goats and pigs were domesticated in this area. The gradual transition from wild harvesting to deliberate cultivation happened independently in several areas around the globe. Agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for greater organization of political power (and the creation of social stratification), as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water and land. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, which led to the accumulation of material goods. 

Early Neolithic villages show evidence of the ability to process grain, and the Near East is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas. There is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal (grain) production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods and fires as part of their cultivation regimen. Fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and the Near East domesticating flax. The use of soil amendments, including manure, fish, compost and ashes, appears to have begun early, and developed independently in several areas of the world, including Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley and Eastern Asia. 

left
Squash was grown in Mexico nearly 10,000 years ago, while maize-like plants, derived from the wild teosinte, began to be seen at around 9,000 years ago. The derivation of teosinte into modern corn was slow, however, and it took until 5,500 to 6,000 years ago to turn into what we know today as maize. It then gradually spread across North America and was the major crop of Native Americans at the time of European exploration. Beans were domesticated around the same time, and together these three plants formed the Three Sisters nutritional foundation of many native populations in North and Central America. Combined with peppers, these crops provided a balanced diet for much of the continent. Grapes were first grown for wine approximately 8,000 years ago, in the Southern Caucasus, and by 3000 BC had spread to the Fertile Crescent, the Jordan Valley and Egypt. 

Agriculture advanced to Europe slightly later, reaching the northeast of the continent from the east around 4000 BC. The idea that agriculture spread to Europe, rather than independently developing there, has led to two main hypotheses. The first is a "wave of advance", which holds that agriculture traveled slowly and steadily across the continent, while the second, "population pulse" theory, holds that it moved in jumps. Also around 6000 years ago, horses first began to be domesticated in the Eurasian steppes. Initially used for food, it was quickly discovered that they were useful for field work and carrying goods and people. Around 5,000 years ago, sunflowers were first cultivated in North America, while South America's Andes region was developing the potato. A minor center of domestication, the indigenous peoples of the eastern United States appear to have domesticated numerous crops, including tobacco. 

===Bronze and Iron Ages===
Beginning around 3000 BC, nomadic pastoralism, with societies focused on the care of livestock for subsistence, appeared independently in several areas in Europe and Asia. The main region was the steppes stretching from the Hungarian Plain to Manchuria, where cattle, sheep, horses, and to a lesser extent yaks and bactrian camels provided sustenance. The second was in Arabia, where one-humped camels were the main animal, with sheep, goats and horses also seen. The third area was a band of societies in areas of eastern and central Africa with a tropical savannah climate. Cattle and goats were found most often in this area, with smaller numbers of sheep, horses and camels. A fourth area, more minor than the others, was found in northern Europe and Asia and was focused on reindeer herding. 

Between 2500 and 2000 BC, the simplest form of the plough, called the ard, spread throughout Europe, replacing the hoe. This change in equipment significantly increased cultivation ability, and affected the demand for land, as well as ideas about property, inheritance and family rights. Before this period, simple digging sticks or hoes were used. These tools would have also been easier to transport, which was a benefit as people only stayed until the soil's nutrients were depleted. However, as the continuous cultivating of smaller pieces of land became a sustaining practice throughout the world, ards were much more efficient than digging sticks. As humanity became more stationary, empires, such as the New Kingdom of Egypt and the Ancient Romans, arose, dependent upon agriculture to feed their growing populations, and slavery, which was used to provide the labor needed for continually intensifying agricultural processes. Agricultural technology continued to improve, allowing the expansion of available crop varieties, including a wide range of fruits, vegetables, oil crops, spices and other products. China was also an important center for agricultural technology development during this period. During the Zhou dynasty (1666–221 BC), the first canals were built, and irrigation was used extensively. The later Three Kingdoms and Northern and Southern dynasties (221–581 AD) brought the first biological pest control, extensive writings on agricultural topics and technological innovations such as steel and the wheelbarrow. 

In the ancient world, fresh products, such as meats, dairy products and fresh fruits and vegetables, were likely consumed relatively close to where they were produced. Less perishable products, such as grains, preserved foods, olive oil and wine, were often traded over an extensive network of land and sea routes. The ancient trade in agricultural goods was well established, with wine traded in the Mediterranean region in the 6th century BC and Rome receiving extensive shipments of grain as tax payments by the 2nd century BC. Huge amounts of grain were transported, mainly by sea, and it was during this period that the subsidization of grain farming began, for the prevention of famine. Ancient Rome was a major center for agricultural trade. Trade routes stretched from Britain and Scandinavia in the west to India and China in the east, and included major crops, such as grain, wine and olive oil (also a fuel for oil lamps), as well as additional products, including spices, fabrics and drugs. 

In Ancient Greece and Rome, many scholars documented farming techniques, including the use of fertilizers. Much of what was believed about farming and plant nutrition at this time was later found to be incorrect, but their theories provided the scientific foundation for the development of agricultural theories through the Middle Ages. Ideas about soil fertility and fertilization remained much the same from the time of Greco-Roman scholars until the 19th century, with correspondingly low crop yields. By the time of Alexander the Great's conquests (330–323 BC), the role of horses had developed, and they played a huge role in warfare and agriculture. Innovations continued to be developed which allowed them to work longer, harder and more efficiently. By medieval times they became the primary source of power for agriculture, transport and warfare, a position they held until the development of the steam and internal combustion engines. The Mayan culture developed several innovations in agriculture during its peak, which ranged from 400 BC to 900 AD and was heavily dependent upon agriculture to support its population. The Mayans used extensive canal and raised field systems to farm the large portions of swampland on the Yucatán Peninsula. 

===Middle Ages===

Agricultural calendar from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi.

The Middle Ages saw significant improvements in the agricultural techniques and technology. During this time period, monasteries spread throughout Europe and became important centers for the collection of knowledge related to agriculture and forestry. The manorial system, which existed under different names throughout Europe and Asia, allowed large landowners significant control over both their land and its laborers, in the form of peasants or serfs. During the medieval period, the Arab world was critical in the exchange of crops and technology between the European, Asia and African continents. Besides transporting numerous crops, they introduced the concept of summer irrigation to Europe and developed the beginnings of the plantation system of sugarcane growing through the use of slaves for intensive cultivation. Population continued to increase along with land use. From 100 BC to 1600 AD, methane emissions, produced by domesticated animals and rice growing, increased substantially. 

By 900 AD in Europe, developments in iron smelting allowed for increased production, leading to developments in the production of agricultural implements such as ploughs, hand tools and horse shoes. The plough was significantly improved, developing into the mouldboard plough, capable of turning over the heavy, wet soils of northern Europe. This led to the clearing of forests in that area and a significant increase in agricultural production, which in turn led to an increase in population. A similar plough, which may have developed independently, was also found in China as early as the 9th century. At the same time, farmers in Europe moved from a two field crop rotation to a three field crop rotation in which one field of three was left fallow every year. This resulted in increased productivity and nutrition, as the change in rotations led to different crops being planted, including legumes such as peas, lentils and beans. Inventions such as improved horse harnesses and the whippletree also changed methods of cultivation. Watermills were initially developed by the Romans, but were improved throughout the Middle Ages, along with windmills, and used to grind grains into flour, cut wood and process flax and wool, among other uses. 

Ancient methods of planting are still widespread in many countries. Here, two members of the Brao ethnic group plant seeds on their land in LaosCrops included wheat, rye, barley and oats. Peas, beans, and vetches became common from the 13th century onward as a fodder crop for animals and also for their nitrogen-fixation fertilizing properties. Crop yields peaked in the 13th century, and stayed more or less steady until the 18th century. Though the limitations of medieval farming were once thought to have provided a ceiling for the population growth in the Middle Ages, recent studies have shown that the technology of medieval agriculture was always sufficient for the needs of the people under normal circumstances, and that it was only during exceptionally harsh times, such as the terrible weather of 1315–17, that the needs of the population could not be met. The Medieval Warm Period, between 900–1300 AD, brought generally warmer global temperatures, leading to increased harvests throughout Europe and a greater northern range for subtropical crops such as figs and olives. Greenland and Iceland were settled by Europeans during this period, and supported agricultural activities. The long-term warming period is generally thought to have occurred mainly in Europe, but other areas of the world experienced shorter warming periods at different times during this period, including China in the 11th and 12th centuries, with similar effects on agriculture. The climate variations found in Europe during the Medieval Warm Period returned to more moderate levels in the 15th century, and terminated in the Little Ice Age of the 16th-mid 19th centuries. 

===Global exchange===
The Harvesters. Pieter Bruegel – 1565
After 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Key crops involved in this exchange included maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes and manioc traveling from the New World to the Old, and several varieties of wheat, barley, rice and turnips going from the Old World to the New. There were very few livestock species in the New World, with horses, cattle, sheep and goats being completely unknown before their arrival with Old World settlers. Crops moving in both directions across the Atlantic Ocean caused population growth around the world, and had a lasting effect on many cultures. 

After its introduction from South America to Spain in the late 1500s, the potato became an important staple crop throughout Europe by the late 1700s. The potato allowed farmers to produce more food, and initially added variety to the European diet. The nutrition boost caused by increased potato consumption resulted in lower disease rates, higher birth rates and lower mortality rates, causing a population boom throughout the British Empire, the US and Europe. The introduction of the potato also brought about the first intensive use of fertilizer, in the form of guano imported to Europe from Peru, and the first artificial pesticide, in the form of an arsenic compound used to fight Colorado potato beetles. Before the adoption of the potato as a major crop, the dependence on grain caused repetitive regional and national famines when the crops failed: 17 major famines in England alone between 1523 and 1623. Although initially almost eliminating the danger of famine, the resulting dependence on the potato eventually caused the European Potato Failure, a disastrous crop failure from disease resulting in widespread famine, and the death of over one million people in Ireland alone. 

===Modern developments===

Plans for Jethro Tull's seed drill, from 1752.
The British Agricultural Revolution, with its massive increases in agricultural productivity and net output, is a topic of ongoing debate among historians and agricultural scholars. The changes in agriculture in Britain between the 16th and 19th centuries would subsequently affect agriculture around the world. Major points of development included enclosure, mechanization, crop rotation and selective breeding. Prior to the 1960s, historians viewed the British Agricultural Revolution of having been "largely facilitated by a small number of key innovators," including Robert Bakewell, Thomas Coke and Charles Townshend. However, modern historians disperse much of the importance surrounding these individual men, and instead point to them holding a smaller position within a major societal shift regarding agriculture in Britain.

The agricultural changes, along with industrialization and migration, allowed the population of Britain, as well as other countries who followed its model, such as the US, Germany and Belgium, to escape from the Malthusian trap and increase both their population and their standard of living. It is estimated that the productivity of wheat in England went up from about 19 bushels per acre in 1720 to 21–22 bushels by the middle of the century and finally stabilized at around 30 bushels by 1840. Chapter 4 

Premodern agriculture across Europe was characterized by the feudal open field system, where farmers worked on strips of land in fields that were held in common; this was inefficient and reduced the incentive to improve productivity. Many farms began to be enclosed by yeomen who improved the use of their land. This process of land reform accelerated in the 18th century with special acts of Parliament to expedite the legal process. The consolidation of large, privately owned holdings, encouraged the improvement of productivity through experimentation by enterprising landowners. By the 1750s, the market for agriculture was substantially commercialized - crop surpluses were routinely sold by the producers on the market or exported elsewhere. 

These social changes were coupled with technical improvements. New methods of crop rotation and land use resulted in large additions to the amount of arable land. The four-field crop rotation was popularized by Charles Townshend in the 18th century. The system (wheat, turnips, barley and clover), opened up a fodder crop and grazing crop allowing livestock to be bred year-round. Yields of cereal crops increased as farmers utilized nitrogen-rich manure and nitrogen fixing-crops such as clover, increasing the available nitrogen in the soil and removing the limiting factor on cereal productions that had existed prior to the early 19th century. This improved production per farmer led to an increase in population and in the available workforce, creating the labor force needed for the Industrial Revolution. 

The development of agriculture into its modern form was made possible through a continuing process of mechanization. Prior to this, basic agricultural tools had slowly been improved over centuries of use. The plough, for example, was a heavy implement with wheels in the 1500s. By the 1600s it was lighter, and by 1730, the Rotherham plough dramatically changed farming with no wheels, interchangeable parts, stronger construction and less weight. During the early 1800s, cast iron replaced wood for many parts, leading to longer-lasting implements. Seed drills had been under development since the early 1500s, but it was Jethro Tull's 1731 invention of a horse-drawn seed drill and horse hoe (a small plough to hoe between crop rows) that would eventually revolutionize planting in Britain, although they would not become popular until the early 1800s. Andrew Meikle patented the first practical threshing machine in 1784. 

The Industrial Revolution caused a boom in international trade and shipping. Increased production caused a rise in the need for raw materials, with European merchants purchasing the majority of the goods. The value of goods traded worldwide increased by five times between 1750 and 1914, with annual shipping tonnages increasing from 4 million to 30 million tons between 1800 and 1900. In the second half of the 19th century, trade also expanded in the food (including grain and meat) and wool markets, and England (with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846) began to trade quantities of industrial products for wheat from around the world. The vast expansion of railroads that followed the invention of the steam engine further revolutionized world trade, especially in the Americas and East Asia, as goods could now be more easily traded across vast land distances. The developments of heat processing and refrigeration in the 19th century led to a similar revolution in the meat industry, as they allowed meat to be shipped long distances without spoiling. Countries in tropical locations, such as Australia and South America, were at the forefront of this effort. 

Early 20th century image of a tractor ploughing an alfalfa field.
In the mid-1800s, horse drawn machinery, such as the McCormick reaper, revolutionized harvesting, while inventions such as the cotton gin made possible the processing of large amounts of crops. During this same period, farmers began to use steam-powered threshers and tractors, although they were found to be expensive, dangerous and a fire hazard. The first gasoline-powered tractors were successfully developed around 1900, and in 1923, the International Harvester Farmall tractor became the first all-purpose tractor, and marked a major point in the replacement of draft animals (particularly horses) with machines. Since that time, self-propelled mechanical harvesters (combines), planters, transplanters and other equipment have been developed, further revolutionizing agriculture. These inventions allowed farming tasks to be done with a speed and on a scale previously impossible, leading modern farms to output much greater volumes of high-quality produce per land unit. 

The scientific investigation of fertilization began at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in 1843 by John Bennet Lawes. He developed the first commercial process for fertilizer production - the obtaining of phosphate from the dissolution of coprolites in sulphuric acid. Coprolite Fertilizer Industry in Britain Accessed 3 April 2012 In 1909 the revolutionary Haber-Bosch method to synthesize ammonium nitrate was first demonstrated; it represented a major breakthrough and allowed crop yields to overcome previous constraints. In the years after World War II, the use of synthetic fertilizer increased rapidly, in sync with the increasing world population. 

====Recent====

Despite the tremendous gains in agricultural productivity, famines continued to sweep the globe through the 20th century. Through the effects of climatic events, government policy, war and crop failure, millions of people died in each of at least ten famines between the 1920s and the 1990s. 

Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, is often credited with saving hundreds of millions of people worldwide from starvation. 
The Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. It involved the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers. The initiatives, led by Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", are credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation. Demographer Thomas Malthus in 1798 famously predicted that the Earth would not be able to support its growing population, but technologies such as those promoted by the Green Revolution have thus far allowed the world to produce a surplus of food. 

Although the Green Revolution significantly increased rice yields in Asia, yield increases have not occurred in the past 15–20 years. The genetic yield potential has increased for wheat, but the yield potential for rice has not increased since 1966, and the yield potential for maize has "barely increased in 35 years". It takes a decade or two for herbicide-resistant weeds to emerge, and insects become resistant to insecticides within about a decade. Crop rotation helps to prevent resistances. 

The cereals rice, corn, and wheat provide 60% of human food supply. Between 1700 and 1980, "the total area of cultivated land worldwide increased 466%" and yields increased dramatically, particularly because of selectively bred high-yielding varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and machinery. However, concerns have been raised over the sustainability of intensive agriculture. Intensive agriculture has become associated with decreased soil quality in India and Asia, and there has been increased concern over the effects of fertilizers and pesticides on the environment, particularly as population increases and food demand expands. The monocultures typically used in intensive agriculture increase the number of pests, which are controlled through pesticides. Integrated pest management (IPM), which "has been promoted for decades and has had some notable successes" has not significantly affected the use of pesticides because policies encourage the use of pesticides and IPM is knowledge-intensive. In the 21st century, plants have been used to grow biofuels, pharmaceuticals (including biopharmaceuticals), and bioplastics. 

==Contemporary agriculture==
Satellite image of farming in Minnesota
Infrared image of the above farms. Various colors indicate healthy crops (red), flooding (black) and unwanted pesticides (brown).

In the past century agriculture has been characterized by increased productivity, the substitution of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for labor, water pollution, and farm subsidies. In recent years there has been a backlash against the external environmental effects of conventional agriculture, resulting in the organic and sustainable agriculture movements. One of the major forces behind this movement has been the European Union, which first certified organic food in 1991 and began reform of its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2005 to phase out commodity-linked farm subsidies, also known as decoupling. The growth of organic farming has renewed research in alternative technologies such as integrated pest management and selective breeding. Recent mainstream technological developments include genetically modified food.

In 2007, higher incentives for farmers to grow non-food biofuel crops combined with other factors, such as overdevelopment of former farm lands, rising transportation costs, climate change, growing consumer demand in China and India, and population growth, caused food shortages in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Mexico, as well as rising food prices around the globe. As of December 2007, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls. Some of these shortages resulted in food riots and even deadly stampedes. Watts, Jonathan (4 December 2007). "Riots and hunger feared as demand for grain sends food costs soaring", The Guardian (London). Mortished, Carl (7 March 2008)."Already we have riots, hoarding, panic: the sign of things to come?", The Times (London). Borger, Julian (26 February 2008). "Feed the world? We are fighting a losing battle, UN admits", The Guardian (London). The International Fund for Agricultural Development posits that an increase in smallholder agriculture may be part of the solution to concerns about food prices and overall food security. They in part base this on the experience of Vietnam, which went from a food importer to large food exporter and saw a significant drop in poverty, due mainly to the development of smallholder agriculture in the country. 

Disease and land degradation are two of the major concerns in agriculture today. For example, an epidemic of stem rust on wheat caused by the Ug99 lineage is currently spreading across Africa and into Asia and is causing major concerns due to crop losses of 70% or more under some conditions. Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. Sample, Ian (31 August 2007). "Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land", The Guardian (London). In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to UNU's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. "Africa may be able to feed only 25% of its population by 2025", mongabay.com, 14 December 2006. 

In 2009, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, followed by the European Union, India and the United States, according to the International Monetary Fund (see below). Economists measure the total factor productivity of agriculture and by this measure agriculture in the United States is roughly 1.7 times more productive than it was in 1948. 

==Workforce==
As of 2011, the International Labour Organization states that approximately one billion people, or over 1/3 of the available work force, are employed in the global agricultural sector. Agriculture constitutes approximately 70% of the global employment of children, and in many countries employs the largest percentage of women of any industry. The service sector only overtook the agricultural sector as the largest global employer in 2007. Between 1997 and 2007, the percentage of people employed in agriculture fell by over four percentage points, a trend that is expected to continue. The number of people employed in agriculture varies widely on a per-country basis, ranging from less than 2% in countries like the US and Canada to over 80% in many African nations. In developed countries, these figures are significantly lower than in previous centuries. During the 16th century in Europe, for example, between 55 and 75 percent of the population was engaged in agriculture, depending on the country. By the 19th century in Europe, this had dropped to between 35 and 65 percent. In the same countries today, the figure is less than 10%. 

===Safety===
Rollover protection bar on a Fordson tractor

Agriculture remains a hazardous industry, and farmers worldwide remain at high risk of work-related injuries, lung disease, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, as well as certain cancers related to chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. On industrialized farms, injuries frequently involve the use of agricultural machinery, and a common cause of fatal agricultural injuries in developed countries is tractor rollovers. Pesticides and other chemicals used in farming can also be hazardous to worker health, and workers exposed to pesticides may experience illness or have children with birth defects. As an industry in which families commonly share in work and live on the farm itself, entire families can be at risk for injuries, illness, and death. Common causes of fatal injuries among young farm workers include drowning, machinery and motor vehicle-related accidents. 

The International Labour Organization considers agriculture "one of the most hazardous of all economic sectors." It estimates that the annual work-related death toll among agricultural employees is at least 170,000, twice the average rate of other jobs. In addition, incidences of death, injury and illness related to agricultural activities often go unreported. The organization has developed the Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention, 2001, which covers the range of risks in the agriculture occupation, the prevention of these risks and the role that individuals and organizations engaged in agriculture should play. 

==Agricultural production systems==

===Crop cultivation systems===
Rice cultivation at a paddy field in Bihar state of India
The Banaue Rice Terraces in Ifugao, Philippines
Cropping systems vary among farms depending on the available resources and constraints; geography and climate of the farm; government policy; economic, social and political pressures; and the philosophy and culture of the farmer. Acquaah, G. 2002. Agricultural Production Systems. pp. 283–317 in "Principles of Crop Production, Theories, Techniques and Technology". Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 

Shifting cultivation (or slash and burn) is a system in which forests are burnt, releasing nutrients to support cultivation of annual and then perennial crops for a period of several years. Chrispeels, M.J.; Sadava, D.E. 1994. "Farming Systems: Development, Productivity, and Sustainability". pp. 25–57 in Plants, Genes, and Agriculture. Jones and Bartlett, Boston, MA. Then the plot is left fallow to regrow forest, and the farmer moves to a new plot, returning after many more years (10–20). This fallow period is shortened if population density grows, requiring the input of nutrients (fertilizer or manure) and some manual pest control. Annual cultivation is the next phase of intensity in which there is no fallow period. This requires even greater nutrient and pest control inputs.

Further industrialization led to the use of monocultures, when one cultivar is planted on a large acreage. Because of the low biodiversity, nutrient use is uniform and pests tend to build up, necessitating the greater use of pesticides and fertilizers. Multiple cropping, in which several crops are grown sequentially in one year, and intercropping, when several crops are grown at the same time, are other kinds of annual cropping systems known as polycultures. 

In subtropical and arid environments, the timing and extent of agriculture may be limited by rainfall, either not allowing multiple annual crops in a year, or requiring irrigation. In all of these environments perennial crops are grown (coffee, chocolate) and systems are practiced such as agroforestry. In temperate environments, where ecosystems were predominantly grassland or prairie, highly productive annual cropping is the dominant farming system. 

====Crop statistics====

Important categories of crops include cereals and pseudocereals, pulses (legumes), forage, and fruits and vegetables. Specific crops are cultivated in distinct growing regions throughout the world. In millions of metric tons, based on FAO estimate.

 Top agricultural products, by crop types (million tonnes) 2004 data 
 Cereals 2,263 
 Vegetables and melons 866 
 Roots and Tubers 715 
 Milk 619 
 Fruit 503 
 Meat 259 
 Oilcrops 133 
 Fish (2001 estimate) 130 
 Eggs 63 
 Pulses 60 
 Vegetable Fiber 30 
 Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 

 Top agricultural products, by individual crops (million tonnes) 2011 data 
 Sugar cane 1794 
 Maize 883 
 Rice 722 
 Wheat 704 
 Potatoes 374 
 Sugar beet 271 
 Soybeans 260 
 Cassava 252 
 Tomatoes 159 
 Barley 134 
 Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 

===Livestock production systems===

Ploughing rice paddies with water buffalo, in Indonesia
Animals, including horses, mules, oxen, water buffalo, camels, llamas, alpacas, donkeys, and dogs, are often used to help cultivate fields, harvest crops, wrangle other animals, and transport farm products to buyers. Animal husbandry not only refers to the breeding and raising of animals for meat or to harvest animal products (like milk, eggs, or wool) on a continual basis, but also to the breeding and care of species for work and companionship.

Livestock production systems can be defined based on feed source, as grassland-based, mixed, and landless. As of 2010, 30% of Earth's ice- and water-free area was used for producing livestock, with the sector employing approximately 1.3 billion people. Between the 1960s and the 2000s, there was a significant increase in livestock production, both by numbers and by carcass weight, especially among beef, pigs and chickens, the latter of which had production increased by almost a factor of 10. Non-meat animals, such as milk cows and egg-producing chickens, also showed significant production increases. Global cattle, sheep and goat populations are expected to continue to increase sharply through 2050. Aquaculture or fish farming, the production of fish for human consumption in confined operations, is one of the fastest growing sectors of food production, growing at an average of 9% a year between 1975 and 2007. 

During the second half of the 20th century, producers using selective breeding focused on creating livestock breeds and crossbreeds that increased production, while mostly disregarding the need to preserve genetic diversity. This trend has led to a significant decrease in genetic diversity and resources among livestock breeds, leading to a corresponding decrease in disease resistance and local adaptations previously found among traditional breeds. 

Grassland based livestock production relies upon plant material such as shrubland, rangeland, and pastures for feeding ruminant animals. Outside nutrient inputs may be used, however manure is returned directly to the grassland as a major nutrient source. This system is particularly important in areas where crop production is not feasible because of climate or soil, representing 30–40 million pastoralists. Mixed production systems use grassland, fodder crops and grain feed crops as feed for ruminant and monogastric (one stomach; mainly chickens and pigs) livestock. Manure is typically recycled in mixed systems as a fertilizer for crops. 

Landless systems rely upon feed from outside the farm, representing the de-linking of crop and livestock production found more prevalently in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) member countries. Synthetic fertilizers are more heavily relied upon for crop production and manure utilization becomes a challenge as well as a source for pollution. Industrialized countries use these operations to produce much of the global supplies of poultry and pork. Scientists estimate that 75% of the growth in livestock production between 2003 and 2030 will be in confined animal feeding operations, sometimes called factory farming. Much of this growth is happening in developing countries in Asia, with much smaller amounts of growth in Africa. Some of the practices used in commercial livestock production, including the usage of growth hormones, are controversial. 

==Production practices==
Road leading across the farm allows machinery access to the farm for production practices.
Tillage is the practice of plowing soil to prepare for planting or for nutrient incorporation or for pest control. Tillage varies in intensity from conventional to no-till. It may improve productivity by warming the soil, incorporating fertilizer and controlling weeds, but also renders soil more prone to erosion, triggers the decomposition of organic matter releasing CO2, and reduces the abundance and diversity of soil organisms. Brady, N.C. and R.R. Weil. 2002. Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Acquaah, G. 2002. "Land Preparation and Farm Energy" pp.318–338 in Principles of Crop Production, Theories, Techniques and Technology. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 

Pest control includes the management of weeds, insects, mites, and diseases. Chemical (pesticides), biological (biocontrol), mechanical (tillage), and cultural practices are used. Cultural practices include crop rotation, culling, cover crops, intercropping, composting, avoidance, and resistance. Integrated pest management attempts to use all of these methods to keep pest populations below the number which would cause economic loss, and recommends pesticides as a last resort. Acquaah, G. 2002. "Pesticide Use in U.S. Crop Production" pp.240–282 in Principles of Crop Production, Theories, Techniques and Technology. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 

Nutrient management includes both the source of nutrient inputs for crop and livestock production, and the method of utilization of manure produced by livestock. Nutrient inputs can be chemical inorganic fertilizers, manure, green manure, compost and mined minerals. Acquaah, G. 2002. "Soil and Land" pp.165–210 in Principles of Crop Production, Theories, Techniques and Technology. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Crop nutrient use may also be managed using cultural techniques such as crop rotation or a fallow period. Chrispeels, M.J.; Sadava, D.E. 1994. "Nutrition from the Soil" pp.187–218 in Plants, Genes, and Agriculture. Jones and Bartlett, Boston, MA. Brady, N.C.; Weil, R.R. 2002. "Practical Nutrient Management" pp.472–515 in Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Manure is used either by holding livestock where the feed crop is growing, such as in managed intensive rotational grazing, or by spreading either dry or liquid formulations of manure on cropland or pastures.

Water management is needed where rainfall is insufficient or variable, which occurs to some degree in most regions of the world. Some farmers use irrigation to supplement rainfall. In other areas such as the Great Plains in the U.S. and Canada, farmers use a fallow year to conserve soil moisture to use for growing a crop in the following year. Acquaah, G. 2002. "Plants and Soil Water" pp.211–239 in Principles of Crop Production, Theories, Techniques and Technology. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Agriculture represents 70% of freshwater use worldwide. 

==Crop alteration and biotechnology==

Tractor and chaser bin
Crop alteration has been practiced by humankind for thousands of years, since the beginning of civilization. Altering crops through breeding practices changes the genetic make-up of a plant to develop crops with more beneficial characteristics for humans, for example, larger fruits or seeds, drought-tolerance, or resistance to pests. Significant advances in plant breeding ensued after the work of geneticist Gregor Mendel. His work on dominant and recessive alleles, although initially largely ignored for almost 50 years, gave plant breeders a better understanding of genetics and breeding techniques. Crop breeding includes techniques such as plant selection with desirable traits, self-pollination and cross-pollination, and molecular techniques that genetically modify the organism. 

Domestication of plants has, over the centuries increased yield, improved disease resistance and drought tolerance, eased harvest and improved the taste and nutritional value of crop plants. Careful selection and breeding have had enormous effects on the characteristics of crop plants. Plant selection and breeding in the 1920s and 1930s improved pasture (grasses and clover) in New Zealand. Extensive X-ray and ultraviolet induced mutagenesis efforts (i.e. primitive genetic engineering) during the 1950s produced the modern commercial varieties of grains such as wheat, corn (maize) and barley. 

The Green Revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to sharply increase yield by creating "high-yielding varieties". For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the USA have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (t/ha) (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001. Similarly, worldwide average wheat yields have increased from less than 1 t/ha in 1900 to more than 2.5 t/ha in 1990. South American average wheat yields are around 2 t/ha, African under 1 t/ha, and Egypt and Arabia up to 3.5 to 4 t/ha with irrigation. In contrast, the average wheat yield in countries such as France is over 8 t/ha. Variations in yields are due mainly to variation in climate, genetics, and the level of intensive farming techniques (use of fertilizers, chemical pest control, growth control to avoid lodging). Conversion note: 1 bushel of wheat = 60 pounds (lb) ≈ 27.215 kg. 1 bushel of maize = 56 pounds ≈ 25.401 kg 

===Genetic engineering===

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are organisms whose genetic material has been altered by genetic engineering techniques generally known as recombinant DNA technology. Genetic engineering has expanded the genes available to breeders to utilize in creating desired germlines for new crops. Increased durability, nutritional content, insect and virus resistance and herbicide tolerance are a few of the attributes bred into crops through genetic engineering. For some, GMO crops cause food safety and food labeling concerns. Numerous countries have placed restrictions on the production, import and/or use of GMO foods and crops, which have been put in place due to concerns over potential health issues, declining agricultural diversity and contamination of non-GMO crops. Currently a global treaty, the Biosafety Protocol, regulates the trade of GMOs. There is ongoing discussion regarding the labeling of foods made from GMOs, and while the EU currently requires all GMO foods to be labeled, the US does not. 

Herbicide-resistant seed has a gene implanted into its genome that allows the plants to tolerate exposure to herbicides, including glyphosates. These seeds allow the farmer to grow a crop that can be sprayed with herbicides to control weeds without harming the resistant crop. Herbicide-tolerant crops are used by farmers worldwide. With the increasing use of herbicide-tolerant crops, comes an increase in the use of glyphosate-based herbicide sprays. In some areas glyphosate resistant weeds have developed, causing farmers to switch to other herbicides. Some studies also link widespread glyphosate usage to iron deficiencies in some crops, which is both a crop production and a nutritional quality concern, with potential economic and health implications. Ozturk, et al., "Glyphosate inhibition of ferric reductase activity in iron deficient sunflower roots", New Phytologist, 177:899–906, 2008. 

Other GMO crops used by growers include insect-resistant crops, which have a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which produces a toxin specific to insects. These crops protect plants from damage by insects. Some believe that similar or better pest-resistance traits can be acquired through traditional breeding practices, and resistance to various pests can be gained through hybridization or cross-pollination with wild species. In some cases, wild species are the primary source of resistance traits; some tomato cultivars that have gained resistance to at least 19 diseases did so through crossing with wild populations of tomatoes. 

==Environmental impact==

Agriculture imposes external costs upon society through pesticides, nutrient runoff, excessive water usage, loss of natural environment and assorted other problems. A 2000 assessment of agriculture in the UK determined total external costs for 1996 of £2,343 million, or £208 per hectare. A 2005 analysis of these costs in the USA concluded that cropland imposes approximately $5 to 16 billion ($30 to $96 per hectare), while livestock production imposes $714 million. Both studies, which focused solely on the fiscal impacts, concluded that more should be done to internalize external costs. Neither included subsidies in their analysis, but they noted that subsidies also influence the cost of agriculture to society. In 2010, the International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme published a report assessing the environmental impacts of consumption and production. The study found that agriculture and food consumption are two of the most important drivers of environmental pressures, particularly habitat change, climate change, water use and toxic emissions. 

===Livestock issues===
A senior UN official and co-author of a UN report detailing this problem, Henning Steinfeld, said "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems". Livestock production occupies 70% of all land used for agriculture, or 30% of the land surface of the planet. It is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases, responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. It produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2,) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2.) It also generates 64% of the ammonia emission. Livestock expansion is cited as a key factor driving deforestation; in the Amazon basin 70% of previously forested area is now occupied by pastures and the remainder used for feedcrops. Through deforestation and land degradation, livestock is also driving reductions in biodiversity.

===Land and water issues===

Land transformation, the use of land to yield goods and services, is the most substantial way humans alter the Earth's ecosystems, and is considered the driving force in the loss of biodiversity. Estimates of the amount of land transformed by humans vary from 39 to 50%. Land degradation, the long-term decline in ecosystem function and productivity, is estimated to be occurring on 24% of land worldwide, with cropland overrepresented. The UN-FAO report cites land management as the driving factor behind degradation and reports that 1.5 billion people rely upon the degrading land. Degradation can be deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, mineral depletion, or chemical degradation (acidification and salinization). 

Eutrophication, excessive nutrients in aquatic ecosystems resulting in algal blooms and anoxia, leads to fish kills, loss of biodiversity, and renders water unfit for drinking and other industrial uses. Excessive fertilization and manure application to cropland, as well as high livestock stocking densities cause nutrient (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) runoff and leaching from agricultural land. These nutrients are major nonpoint pollutants contributing to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems. 

Agriculture accounts for 70% of withdrawals of freshwater resources. Agriculture is a major draw on water from aquifers, and currently draws from those underground water sources at an unsustainable rate. It is long known that aquifers in areas as diverse as northern China, the Upper Ganges and the western US are being depleted, and new research extends these problems to aquifers in Iran, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. Increasing pressure is being placed on water resources by industry and urban areas, meaning that water scarcity is increasing and agriculture is facing the challenge of producing more food for the world's growing population with reduced water resources. Agricultural water usage can also cause major environmental problems, including the destruction of natural wetlands, the spread of water-borne diseases, and land degradation through salinization and waterlogging, when irrigation is performed incorrectly. 

===Pesticides===

Pesticide use has increased since 1950 to 2.5 million tons annually worldwide, yet crop loss from pests has remained relatively constant. The World Health Organization estimated in 1992 that 3 million pesticide poisonings occur annually, causing 220,000 deaths. WHO. 1992. Our planet, our health: Report of the WHO commission on health and environment. Geneva: World Health Organization. Pesticides select for pesticide resistance in the pest population, leading to a condition termed the 'pesticide treadmill' in which pest resistance warrants the development of a new pesticide. Chrispeels, M.J. and D.E. Sadava. 1994. "Strategies for Pest Control" pp.355–383 in Plants, Genes, and Agriculture. Jones and Bartlett, Boston, MA. 

An alternative argument is that the way to 'save the environment' and prevent famine is by using pesticides and intensive high yield farming, a view exemplified by a quote heading the Center for Global Food Issues website: 'Growing more per acre leaves more land for nature'. However, critics argue that a trade-off between the environment and a need for food is not inevitable, Lappe, F.M., J. Collins, and P. Rosset. 1998. "Myth 4: Food vs. Our Environment" pp. 42–57 in World Hunger, Twelve Myths, Grove Press, New York. and that pesticides simply replace good agronomic practices such as crop rotation. 

===Climate change===

Climate change has the potential to affect agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall (timing and quantity), CO2, solar radiation and the interaction of these elements. Extreme events, such as droughts and floods, are forecast to increase as climate change takes hold. Agriculture is among sectors most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; water supply for example, will be critical to sustain agricultural production and provide the increase in food output required to sustain the world's growing population. Fluctuations in the flow of rivers are likely to increase in the twenty-first century. Based on the experience of countries in the Nile river basin (Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan) and other developing countries, depletion of water resources during seasons crucial for agriculture can lead to a decline in yield by up to 50%. Transformational approaches will be needed to manage natural resources in the future. For example, policies, practices and tools promoting climate-smart agriculture will be important, as will better use of scientific information on climate for assessing risks and vulnerability. Planners and policy-makers will need to help create suitable policies that encourage funding for such agricultural transformation. 

Agriculture can both mitigate or worsen global warming. Some of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the decomposition of organic matter in the soil, and much of the methane emitted into the atmosphere is caused by the decomposition of organic matter in wet soils such as rice paddies, Brady, N.C. and R.R. Weil. 2002. "Soil Organic Matter" pp. 353–385 in Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. as well as the normal digestive activities of farm animals. Further, wet or anaerobic soils also lose nitrogen through denitrification, releasing the greenhouse gases nitric oxide and nitrous oxide. Brady, N.C. and R.R. Weil. 2002. "Nitrogen and Sulfur Economy of Soils" pp. 386–421 in Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Changes in management can reduce the release of these greenhouse gases, and soil can further be used to sequester some of the CO2 in the atmosphere. 

There are several factors within the field of agriculture that contribute to the large amount of CO2 emissions. The diversity of the sources ranges from the production of farming tools to the transport of harvested produce. Approximately 8% of the national carbon footprint is due to agricultural sources. Of that, 75% is of the carbon emissions released from the production of crop assisting chemicals. Factories producing insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers are a major culprit of the greenhouse gas. Productivity on the farm itself and the use of machinery is another source of the carbon emission. Almost all the industrial machines used in modern farming are powered by fossil fuels. These instruments are burning fossil fuels from the beginning of the process to the end. Tractors are the root of this source. The tractor is going to burn fuel and release CO2 just to run. The amount of emissions from the machinery increase with the attachment of different units and need for more power. During the soil preparation stage tillers and plows will be used to disrupt the soil. During growth watering pumps and sprayers are used to keep the crops hydrated. And when the crops are ready for picking a forage or combine harvester is used. These types of machinery all require additional energy which leads to increased carbon dioxide emissions from the basic tractors. The final major contribution to CO2 emissions in agriculture is in the final transport of produce. Local farming suffered a decline over the past century due to large amounts of farm subsidies. The majority of crops are shipped hundreds of miles to various processing plants before ending up in the grocery store. These shipments are made using fossil fuel burning modes of transportation. Inevitably these transport adds to carbon dioxide emissions. 

===Sustainability===

Some major organisations are hailing farming within agroecosystems as the way forward for mainstream agriculture. Current farming methods have resulted in over-stretched water resources, high levels of erosion and reduced soil fertility. According to a report by the International Water Management Institute and UNEP, there is not enough water to continue farming using current practices; therefore how critical water, land, and ecosystem resources are used to boost crop yields must be reconsidered. The report suggested assigning value to ecosystems, recognizing environmental and livelihood tradeoffs, and balancing the rights of a variety of users and interests. Inequities that result when such measures are adopted would need to be addressed, such as the reallocation of water from poor to rich, the clearing of land to make way for
more productive farmland, or the preservation of a wetland system that limits fishing rights. 

Technological advancements help provide farmers with tools and resources to make farming more sustainable. New technologies have given rise to innovations like conservation tillage, a farming process which helps prevent land loss to erosion, water pollution and enhances carbon sequestration. 

==Agricultural economics==

Agricultural economics refers to economics as it relates to the "production, distribution and consumption of goods and services". Combining agricultural production with general theories of marketing and business as a discipline of study began in the late 1800s, and grew significantly through the 20th century. Although the study of agricultural economics is relatively recent, major trends in agriculture have significantly affected national and international economies throughout history, ranging from tenant farmers and sharecropping in the post-American Civil War Southern United States to the European feudal system of manorialism. In the United States, and elsewhere, food costs attributed to food processing, distribution, and agricultural marketing, sometimes referred to as the value chain, have risen while the costs attributed to farming have declined. This is related to the greater efficiency of farming, combined with the increased level of value addition (e.g. more highly processed products) provided by the supply chain. Market concentration has increased in the sector as well, and although the total effect of the increased market concentration is likely increased efficiency, the changes redistribute economic surplus from producers (farmers) and consumers, and may have negative implications for rural communities. 

National government policies can significantly change the economic marketplace for agricultural products, in the form of taxation, subsidies, tariffs and other measures. Since at least the 1960s, a combination of import/export restrictions, exchange rate policies and subsidies have affected farmers in both the developing and developed world. In the 1980s, it was clear that non-subsidized farmers in developing countries were experiencing adverse affects from national policies that created artificially low global prices for farm products. Between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s, several international agreements were put into place that limited agricultural tariffs, subsidies and other trade restrictions. 

However, as of 2009, there was still a significant amount of policy-driven distortion in global agricultural product prices. The three agricultural products with the greatest amount of trade distortion were sugar, milk and rice, mainly due to taxation. Among the oilseeds, sesame had the greatest amount of taxation, but overall, feed grains and oilseeds had much lower levels of taxation than livestock products. Since the 1980s, policy-driven distortions have seen a greater decrease among livestock products than crops during the worldwide reforms in agricultural policy. Despite this progress, certain crops, such as cotton, still see subsidies in developed countries artificially deflating global prices, causing hardship in developing countries with non-subsidized farmers. Unprocessed commodities (i.e. corn, soybeans, cows) are generally graded to indicate quality. The quality affects the price the producer receives. Commodities are generally reported by production quantities, such as volume, number or weight. 

==List of countries by agricultural output==

== Energy and agriculture ==
Since the 1940s, agricultural productivity has increased dramatically, due largely to the increased use of energy-intensive mechanization, fertilizers and pesticides. The vast majority of this energy input comes from fossil fuel sources. "World oil supplies are set to run out faster than expected, warn scientists". The Independent. 14 June 2007. Between the 1960–65 measuring cycle and the cycle from 1986 to 1990, the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, with world grain production increasing significantly (between 70% and 390% for wheat and 60% to 150% for rice, depending on geographic area) as world population doubled. Modern agriculture's heavy reliance on petrochemicals and mechanization has raised concerns that oil shortages could increase costs and reduce agricultural output, causing food shortages. 

 Agriculture and food system share (%) of total energyconsumption by three industrialized nations 
 Country Year Agriculture(direct & indirect) Foodsystem 
 United Kingdom 2005 1.9 11 
 United States 1996 2.1 10 
 United States 2002 2.0 14 
 Sweden 2000 2.5 13 

Modern or industrialized agriculture is dependent on fossil fuels in two fundamental ways: 1) direct consumption on the farm and 2) indirect consumption to manufacture inputs used on the farm. Direct consumption includes the use of lubricants and fuels to operate farm vehicles and machinery; and use of gasoline, liquid propane, and electricity to power dryers, pumps, lights, heaters, and coolers. American farms directly consumed about 1.2 exajoules (1.1 quadrillion BTU) in 2002, or just over 1% of the nation's total energy. 

Indirect consumption is mainly oil and natural gas used to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides, which accounted for 0.6 exajoules (0.6 quadrillion BTU) in 2002. The natural gas and coal consumed by the production of nitrogen fertilizer can account for over half of the agricultural energy usage. China utilizes mostly coal in the production of nitrogen fertilizer, while most of Europe uses large amounts of natural gas and small amounts of coal. According to a 2010 report published by The Royal Society, agriculture is increasingly dependent on the direct and indirect input of fossil fuels. Overall, the fuels used in agriculture vary based on several factors, including crop, production system and location. The energy used to manufacture farm machinery is also a form of indirect agricultural energy consumption. Together, direct and indirect consumption by US farms accounts for about 2% of the nation's energy use. Direct and indirect energy consumption by U.S. farms peaked in 1979, and has gradually declined over the past 30 years. Food systems encompass not just agricultural production, but also off-farm processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, and disposal of food and food-related items. Agriculture accounts for less than one-fifth of food system energy use in the US. 

===Mitigation of effects of petroleum shortages===
M. King Hubbert's prediction of world petroleum production rates. Modern agriculture is totally reliant on petroleum energy. 
In the event of a petroleum shortage (see peak oil for global concerns), organic agriculture can be more attractive than conventional practices that use petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. Some studies using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming. In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, with shortages of conventional petroleum-based inputs, Cuba made use of mostly organic practices, including biopesticides, plant-based pesticides and sustainable cropping practices, to feed its populace. However, organic farming may be more labor-intensive and would require a shift of the workforce from urban to rural areas. The reconditioning of soil to restore nutrients lost during the use of monoculture agriculture techniques also takes time. 

It has been suggested that rural communities might obtain fuel from the biochar and synfuel process, which uses agricultural waste to provide charcoal fertilizer, some fuel and food, instead of the normal food vs fuel debate. As the synfuel would be used on-site, the process would be more efficient and might just provide enough fuel for a new organic-agriculture fusion. 

It has been suggested that some transgenic plants may some day be developed which would allow for maintaining or increasing yields while requiring fewer fossil-fuel-derived inputs than conventional crops. The possibility of success of these programs is questioned by ecologists and economists concerned with unsustainable GMO practices such as terminator seeds. While there has been some research on sustainability using GMO crops, at least one prominent multi-year attempt by Monsanto Company has been unsuccessful, though during the same period traditional breeding techniques yielded a more sustainable variety of the same crop. 

==Policy==

Agricultural policy is the set of government decisions and actions relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets. Some overarching themes include risk management and adjustment (including policies related to climate change, food safety and natural disasters), economic stability (including policies related to taxes), natural resources and environmental sustainability (especially water policy), research and development, and market access for domestic commodities (including relations with global organizations and agreements with other countries). Agricultural policy can also touch on food quality, ensuring that the food supply is of a consistent and known quality, food security, ensuring that the food supply meets the population's needs, and conservation. Policy programs can range from financial programs, such as subsidies, to encouraging producers to enroll in voluntary quality assurance programs. 

There are many influences on the creation of agricultural policy, including consumers, agribusiness, trade lobbies and other groups. Agribusiness interests hold a large amount of influence over policy making, in the form of lobbying and campaign contributions. Political action groups, including those interested in environmental issues and labor unions, also provide influence, as do lobbying organizations representing individual agricultural commodities. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads international efforts to defeat hunger and provides a forum for the negotiation of global agricultural regulations and agreements. Dr. Samuel Jutzi, director of FAO's animal production and health division, states that lobbying by large corporations has stopped reforms that would improve human health and the environment. For example, proposals in 2010 for a voluntary code of conduct for the livestock industry that would have provided incentives for improving standards for health, and environmental regulations, such as the number of animals an area of land can support without long-term damage, were successfully defeated due to large food company pressure. 

==See also==

* Aeroponics
* Agricultural engineering
* Agricultural value chain
* Agroecology
* Building-integrated agriculture
* Contract farming
* Crofting
* Ecoagriculture
* Feed additive
* Hill farming
* List of documentary films about agriculture
* List of subsistence techniques
* Pharming (genetics)
* Remote sensing
* Vertical farming

==References==

==Further reading==
* Alvarez, Robert A. (2007). "The March of Empire: Mangos, Avocados, and the Politics of Transfer". Gastronomica, Vol. 7, No. 3, 28–33. Retrieved on 12 November 2008.
* Bolens, L. (1997). "Agriculture" in Selin, Helaine (ed.), Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, pp. 20–22.
* Collinson, M. (ed.) A History of Farming Systems Research. CABI Publishing, 2000. ISBN 978-0-85199-405-5
* Jared Diamond, Guns, germs and steel. A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years, 1997.
* Mazoyer, Marcel; Roudart, Laurence (2006). A history of world agriculture: from the Neolithic Age to the current crisis. Monthly Review Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-58367-121-4
* Watson, A.M. (1983). Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World, Cambridge University Press.

==External links==

* U.S. Department of Agriculture
* Agriculture from UCB Libraries GovPubs
* Agriculture and Rural development from the World Bank
* The World Bank on Agricultural water management
* Gender in agriculture and rural development (FAO)
* The American Society of Agronomy (ASA)
* International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP)
* UKAgriculture.com – Advance the education of the public in all aspects of agriculture, the countryside and the rural economy
* Collection of Agriculture Dictionaries
* Peace Palace Library – Research Guide
* Farmer Power: The Continuing Confrontation between Subsistence Farmers and Development Bureaucrats by Tony Waters at Ethnography.com 
* Agritrade articles and reports on agricultural trade

 



[[Aldous Huxley]]

Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and a prominent member of the Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World, set in a dystopian London, The Doors of Perception, which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug, and a wide-ranging output of essays. Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel writing, film stories and scripts. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.

Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist. He became deeply concerned that human beings might become subjugated through the sophisticated use of the mass media or mood-altering drugs, or tragically impacted by misunderstanding or the misapplication of increasingly sophisticated technology.

Huxley later became interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism, in particular, Universalism. He is also well known for his use of psychedelic drugs. By the end of his life Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. Thody, Philipe (1973) 

== Early life ==

Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, England, in 1894. He was the third son of the writer and schoolmaster Leonard Huxley and his first wife, Julia Arnold, who founded Prior's Field School. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the sister of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Aldous was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the zoologist, agnostic and controversialist ("Darwin's Bulldog"). His brother Julian Huxley and half-brother Andrew Huxley also became outstanding biologists. Aldous had another brother, Noel Trevelyan Huxley (1891–1914), who committed suicide after a period of clinical depression. Holmes, Charles Mason (1978) Aldous Huxley and the Way to Reality. Greenwood Press, 1978, p. 5 

Huxley began his learning in his father's well-equipped botanical laboratory, then went to Hillside School, Malvern. His teacher was his mother, who supervised him for several years until she became terminally ill. After Hillside, he was educated at Eton College. Huxley's mother died in 1908 when he was 14. In 1911, he suffered an illness (keratitis punctata) which "left practically blind for two to three years". Aldous volunteered to join the army at the outbreak of the First World War, but was rejected on health grounds: he was half-blind in one eye. Once his eyesight recovered sufficiently, he was able to study English literature at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1916 he edited Oxford Poetry and later graduated (B.A.) with first class honours. His brother Julian wrote,

I believe his blindness was a blessing in disguise. For one thing, it put paid to his idea of taking up medicine as a career ... His uniqueness lay in his universalism. He was able to take all knowledge for his province. Julian Huxley 1965. Aldous Huxley 1894–1963: a Memorial Volume. Chatto & Windus, London. p. 22 

Following his education at Balliol, Huxley was financially indebted to his father and had to earn a living. He taught French for a year at Eton, where Eric Blair (later to become George Orwell) and Steven Runciman were among his pupils, but was remembered as an incompetent and hopeless teacher who couldn't keep discipline. Nevertheless, Blair and others were impressed by his use of words. 
 For a short while in 1918, he was employed acquiring provisions at the Air Ministry.

Significantly, Huxley also worked for a time in the 1920s at the technologically advanced Brunner and Mond chemical plant in Billingham, Teesside, and the most recent introduction to his famous science fiction novel Brave New World (1932) states that this experience of "an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence" was one source for the novel. 

==Career==
Huxley completed his first (unpublished) novel at the age of 17 and began writing seriously in his early 20s. His first published novels were social satires, beginning with Crome Yellow (1921).

=== Bloomsbury set ===
Left to right: Bloomsbury Group members – Lady Ottoline Morrell, Maria Nys, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell.
During the First World War, Huxley spent much of his time at Garsington Manor, home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, working as a farm labourer. Here he met several Bloomsbury figures including Bertrand Russell and Clive Bell. Later, in Crome Yellow (1921) he caricatured the Garsington lifestyle. Jobs were very scarce, but in 1919 Middleton Murray was reorganising the Athenaeum and invited Huxley to join the staff. He accepted immediately, and quickly married the Belgian refugee Maria Nys, also at Garsington. The Huxleys, Ronald W. Clark, William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1968. They lived with their young son in Italy part of the time in the 1920s, where Huxley would visit his friend D. H. Lawrence. Following Lawrence's death in 1930, Huxley edited Lawrence's letters (1933).

Works of this period included important novels on the dehumanising aspects of scientific progress, most famously Brave New World, and on pacifist themes (for example, Eyeless in Gaza). In Brave New World Huxley portrays a society operating on the principles of mass production and Pavlovian conditioning. Huxley was strongly influenced by F. Matthias Alexander and included him as a character in Eyeless in Gaza.

Starting from this period, Huxley began to write and edit non-fiction works on pacifist issues, including Ends and Means, An Encyclopedia of Pacifism, and Pacifism and Philosophy, and was an active member of the Peace Pledge Union. 

=== United States ===
In 1937, Huxley moved to Hollywood, with his wife Maria, son Matthew, and friend Gerald Heard. He lived in the US, mainly in southern California, until his death, but also for a time in Taos, New Mexico, where he wrote Ends and Means (published in 1937). In this work he examines the fact that although most people in modern civilisation agree that they want a world of "liberty, peace, justice, and brotherly love", they have not been able to agree on how to achieve it.

Heard introduced Huxley to Vedanta (Upanishad-centered philosophy), meditation, and vegetarianism through the principle of ahimsa. In 1938 Huxley befriended J. Krishnamurti, whose teachings he greatly admired. He also became a Vedantist in the circle of Hindu Swami Prabhavananda, and introduced Christopher Isherwood to this circle. Not long after, Huxley wrote his book on widely held spiritual values and ideas, The Perennial Philosophy, which discussed the teachings of renowned mystics of the world. Huxley's book affirmed a sensibility that insists there are realities beyond the generally accepted "five senses" and that there is genuine meaning for humans beyond both sensual satisfactions and sentimentalities.

Huxley became a close friend of Remsen Bird, president of Occidental College. He spent much time at the college, which is in the Eagle Rock neighbourhood of Los Angeles. The college appears as "Tarzana College" in his satirical novel After Many a Summer (1939). The novel won Huxley that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Haugrud Reiff, Raychel (2003) Aldous Huxley: Brave New World p.103. Marshall Cavendish, 2009 Huxley also incorporated Bird into the novel.

During this period Huxley earned some Hollywood income as a writer. In March 1938, his friend Anita Loos, a novelist and screenwriter, put him in touch with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who hired Huxley for Madame Curie which was originally to star Greta Garbo and be directed by George Cukor. (The film was eventually completed by MGM in 1943 with a different director and cast.) Huxley received screen credit for Pride and Prejudice (1940) and was paid for his work on a number of other films, including Jane Eyre (1944).

However, his success in Hollywood was minimal. When he wrote a synopsis of Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney rejected it on the grounds that "he could only understand every third word". Huxley's leisurely development of ideas, it seemed, was not suitable for the movie moguls, who demanded fast, dynamic dialogue above all else. For Dick Huemer, during the 1940s, Huxley went to the first of a five meetings' session to elaborate the script of Alice in Wonderland but never came again. David Koenig, Mouse Under Glass, p.82 For author John Grant, although the movie's character the Caterpillar displays some characteristics familiar from Huxley's discussion of his experiments with hallucinogens, Huxley's contribution to the movie is nonexistent. John Grant, The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney's Animated Characters, p.233. 

Huxley wrote an introduction to the posthumous publication of J.D. Unwin's 1940 book Hopousia or The Sexual and Economic Foundations of a New Society. J.D. Unwin, Hopousia OR The Sexual and Economic Foundations of a New Society (1940), Oscar Piest, NY 

On 21 October 1949, Huxley wrote to George Orwell, author of Nineteen Eighty-Four, congratulating him on "how fine and how profoundly important the book is". In his letter to Orwell, he predicted:

Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience. 

Huxley had deeply felt apprehensions about the future the developed world might make for itself. From these he put forward some warnings in his writings and talks. In a 1958 televised interview conducted by journalist Mike Wallace, Huxley outlined several major concerns: the difficulties and dangers of world overpopulation; the tendency toward distinctly hierarchical social organisation; the crucial importance of evaluating the use of technology in mass societies susceptible to wily persuasion; the tendency to promote modern politicians, to a naive public, as well-marketed commodities. 

=== Post World War II ===
After the Second World War, Huxley applied for United States citizenship. His application was continuously deferred on the grounds that he would not say he would take up arms to defend the U.S. He claimed a philosophical, rather than a religious objection, and therefore was not exempt under the McCarran Act. He withdrew his application. Nevertheless, he remained in the country; and in 1959 he turned down an offer of a Knight Bachelor by the Macmillan government. During the 1950s, Huxley's interest in the field of psychical research grew keener, and his later works are strongly influenced by both mysticism and his experiences with psychedelic drugs.

In October 1930, the English occultist Aleister Crowley had dined with Huxley in Berlin, and to this day rumours persist that Crowley introduced Huxley to peyote on that occasion. He was introduced to mescaline (the key active ingredient of peyote) by the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in 1953, taking it for the first time in the afternoon of 5 May. Martin, Douglas. Friday, 22 August 2008 "Humphry Osmond, 86, Who Sought Medicinal Value in Psychedelic Drugs, Dies". New York: New York Times Through Dr. Osmond, Huxley met millionaire Alfred Matthew Hubbard, who was by this point introducing creative and influential people to LSD on a wide-ranging basis. On 24 December 1955, Huxley took his first dose of LSD. Indeed, Huxley was a pioneer of self-directed psychedelic drug use "in a search for enlightenment". According to a letter written by his wife Laura, Huxley requested and received two intramuscular injections of 100 micrograms of LSD as he lay dying. His psychedelic drug experiences are described in the essays The Doors of Perception (the title deriving from some lines in the book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake), and Heaven and Hell. Some of his writings on psychedelics became frequent reading among early hippies. While living in Los Angeles, Huxley was a friend of Ray Bradbury. According to Sam Weller's biography of Bradbury, the latter was dissatisfied with Huxley, especially after Huxley encouraged Bradbury to take psychedelic drugs.

== Association with Vedanta ==
Beginning in 1939 and continuing until his death in 1963, Huxley had an extensive association with the Vedanta Society of Southern California, founded and headed by Swami Prabhavananda. Together with Gerald Heard, Christopher Isherwood, and other followers he was initiated by the Swami and was taught meditation and spiritual practices.

In 1944 Huxley wrote the introduction to the "Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God", translated by Swami Prabhavanada and Christopher Isherwood, which was published by The Vedanta Society of Southern California.

From 1941 through 1960 Huxley contributed 48 articles to Vedanta and the West, published by the Society. He also served on the editorial board with Isherwood, Heard, and playwright John van Druten from 1951 through 1962.

Huxley also occasionally lectured at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta temples. Two of those lectures have been released on CD: Knowledge and Understanding and Who Are We from 1955.

After the publication of The Doors of Perception, Huxley and the Swami disagreed about the meaning and importance of the LSD drug experience, which may have caused the relationship to cool, but Huxley continued to write articles for the Society's journal, lecture at the temple, and attend social functions.

== Eyesight ==
With respect to details about the true quality of Huxley's eyesight at specific points in his life, there are differing accounts. Around 1939, Huxley encountered the Bates Method for better eyesight, and a teacher, Margaret Corbett, who was able to teach him in the method. In 1940, Huxley relocated from Hollywood to a 40 acre ranchito in the high desert hamlet of Llano, California, in northernmost Los Angeles County. Huxley then said that his sight improved dramatically with the Bates Method and the extreme and pure natural lighting of the southwestern American desert. He reported that for the first time in over 25 years, he was able to read without glasses and without strain. He even tried driving a car along the dirt road beside the ranch. He wrote a book about his successes with the Bates Method, The Art of Seeing, which was published in 1942 (US), 1943 (UK). It was from this period, with the publication of the generally disputed theories contained in the latter book, that a growing degree of popular controversy arose over the subject of Huxley's eyesight.

It was, and to a noticeable extent still is, widely held that, for most of his life, since the illness in his teens which left Huxley nearly blind, that his eyesight was exceedingly poor (despite the partial recovery which had enabled him to study at Oxford). For instance, some ten years after publication of The Art of Seeing, in 1952, Bennett Cerf was present when Huxley spoke at a Hollywood banquet, wearing no glasses and apparently reading his paper from the lectern without difficulty: "Then suddenly he faltered—and the disturbing truth became obvious. He wasn't reading his address at all. He had learned it by heart. To refresh his memory he brought the paper closer and closer to his eyes. When it was only an inch or so away he still couldn't read it, and had to fish for a magnifying glass in his pocket to make the typing visible to him. It was an agonising moment." From Bennet Cerf’s column in The Saturday Review, 12 April 1952, quoted in
 

On the other hand, Huxley's second wife, Laura Archera Huxley, would later emphasise in her biographical account, This Timeless Moment: "One of the great achievements of his life: that of having regained his sight." After revealing a letter she wrote to the Los Angeles Times disclaiming the label of Huxley as a "poor fellow who can hardly see" by Walter C. Alvarez, she tempers this: "Although I feel it was an injustice to treat Aldous as though he were blind, it is true there were many indications of his impaired vision. For instance, although Aldous did not wear glasses, he would quite often use a magnifying lens." Laura Huxley proceeds to elaborate a few nuances of inconsistency peculiar to Huxley's vision. Her account, in this respect, is discernibly congruent with the following sample of Huxley's own words from The Art of Seeing. "The most characteristic fact about the functioning of the total organism, or any part of the organism, is that it is not constant, but highly variable." Nevertheless, the topic of Huxley's eyesight continues to endure similar, significant controversy, regardless of how trivial a subject matter it might initially appear. Rolfe, Lionel (1981) Literary L.A. p. 50. Chronicle Books, 1981. University of California. 

American popular science author Steven Johnson, in his book Mind Wide Open, quotes Huxley about his difficulties with visual encoding: "I am and, for as long as I can remember, I have always been a poor visualizer. Words, even the pregnant words of poets, do not evoke pictures in my mind. No hypnagogic visions greet me on the verge of sleep. When I recall something, the memory does not present itself to me as a vividly seen event or object. By an effort of the will, I can evoke a not very vivid image of what happened yesterday afternoon..." (Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, HarperPerennial, 1963, p. 15.) 

==Personal life==
He married Maria Nys (10 September 1899 – 12 February 1955), a Belgian he met at Garsington, in 1919. They had one child, Matthew Huxley (19 April 1920 – 10 February 2005), who had a career as an author, anthropologist, and prominent epidemiologist. "Author, NIMH Epidemiologist Matthew Huxley Dies at 84". 17 February 2005 Washington Post In 1955, Maria died of breast cancer.

In 1956 he married Laura Archera (1911–2007), also an author. She wrote This Timeless Moment, a biography of Huxley. Laura felt inspired to illuminate the story of their provocative marriage through Mary Ann Braubach's 2010 documentary, "Huxley on Huxley". 

In 1960 Aldous Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, and in the years that followed, with his health deteriorating, he wrote the Utopian novel Island, Peter Bowering Aldous Huxley: A Study of the Major Novels, p. 197, Oxford University Press, 1969 and gave lectures on "Human Potentialities" at the Esalen Institute, which were fundamental to the forming of the Human Potential Movement. excerpt. 

Despite his interest in spirituality and mysticism, Huxley called himself an agnostic. 

Huxley was a close friend of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Rosalind Rajagopal and was involved in the creation of the Happy Valley School (now Besant Hill School of Happy Valley) in Ojai, California. 

The most substantial collection of Huxley's few remaining papers (following the destruction of most in a fire) is at the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles. Some are also at the Stanford University Library. 

== Death ==
On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley made a written request to his wife Laura for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular". According to her account of his death in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:45 am and a second dose a few hours later; Huxley died aged 69, at 5:20 pm on 22 November 1963.
Media coverage of Huxley's passing was overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, on the same day (as was the death of the British author C. S. Lewis). This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book Heaven and Hell (novel)|Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley].

Huxley's ashes were interred in the family grave at the Watts Cemetery, home of the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Compton, a village near Guildford, Surrey, England. On 26 July 2013 a commemorative bench was unveiled there, donated by the Aldous and Laura Huxley Literary Trust and the International Aldous Huxley Society.

Huxley had been a long-time friend of famous Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who later dedicated his last orchestral composition to Huxley. Stravinsky began 'Variations' in Santa Fé, New Mexico in July 1963, and completed the composition in Hollywood on 28 October 1964. It was first performed in Chicago on 17 April 1965, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Craft (Spies 1965, 62; White 1979, 534)(White 1979, 536–37).

Although not composed for the purpose, Stravinsky's music was twice choreographed for the New York City Ballet by George Balanchine, a first version in 1966, and a second version in 1982, both times under the title "Variations" (Barnes 1966; Anderson 1982).

Huxley's literary legacy continues to be represented by the literary agency headed by Georges Borchardt.

== Awards ==
* 1939 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.
* 1959 Aldous Huxley American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit for Brave New World.
* 1962 the Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. 

== Film adaptations of Huxley's work ==
* 1968: Point Counter Point BBC mini-series by Simon Raven
* 1971: The Devils (Ken Russell) adapted Huxley's The Devils of Loudun
* 1980: US TV adaptation of Brave New World
* 1998: US TV adaptation of Brave New World

== Selected works ==

=== Novels ===
* Crome Yellow (1921)
* Antic Hay (1923)
* Those Barren Leaves (1925)
* Point Counter Point (1928)
* Brave New World (1932)
* Eyeless in Gaza (1936)
* After Many a Summer (1939)
* Time Must Have a Stop (1944)
* Ape and Essence (1948)
* The Genius and the Goddess (1955)
* Island (1962)

=== Short story collections ===
* Limbo (1920)
* Mortal Coils (1922)
* Little Mexican (US title: Young Archimedes) (1924)
* Two or Three Graces (1926)
* Brief Candles (1930)
* (discovered 1997) co-written with Christopher Isherwood
* Collected Short Stories (1944)

=== Poetry collections ===
* Oxford Poetry (magazine editor) (1916)
* The Burning Wheel (1916)
* Jonah (1917)
* The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems (1918)
* Leda (1920)
* Selected Poems (1925)
* Arabia Infelix and Other Poems (1929)
* The Cicadas and Other Poems (1931)
* Collected Poems (1971, posthumous)

=== Essay collections ===
* On the Margin (1923)
* Along the Road (1925)
* Essays New and Old (1926)
* Proper Studies (1927)
* Do What You Will (1929)
* Vulgarity in Literature (1930)
* Music at Night (1931)
* Texts and Pretexts (1932)
* The Olive Tree and other essays (1936)
* Ends and Means (1937)
* Words and their Meanings (1940)
* The Art of Seeing (1942)
* The Perennial Philosophy (1945)
* Science, Liberty and Peace (1946)
* Themes and Variations (1950)
* The Doors of Perception (1954)
* Heaven and Hell (1956)
* Adonis and the Alphabet (US title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow) (1956)
* Collected Essays (1958)
* Brave New World Revisited (1958)
* Literature and Science (1963)
* Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience 1931–63 (1977)
* The Human Situation: Lectures at Santa Barbara, 1959 (1977)

===Screenplays===
* Brave New World
* Ape and Essence
* Pride and Prejudice (Collaboration. 1940)
* Madame Curie (Collaboration. 1943)
* Jane Eyre (Collaboration with John Houseman. 1944)
* A Woman's Vengeance 1947
* Original screenplay for Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland 1951 (rejected) 
* Eyeless in Gaza BBC Mini-series (Collaboration with Robin Chapman. Aired 1971) "Eyeless in Gaza" (1971) 

=== Travel books ===
* Along The Road: Notes and essays of a tourist (1925)
* Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey (1926)
* the Mexique Bay|Beyond the Mexique Bay: A Traveller's Journey] (1934)

=== Children's fiction ===
* The Crows of Pearblossom (1967)

=== Drama ===
* The Discovery (adapted from Francis Sheridan, 1924)
* The World of Light (1931)
* Mortal Coils – A Play. (Stage version of The Gioconda Smile, 1948)
* The Genius and the Goddess (stage version, co-written with Betty Wendel, 1958)
* The Ambassador of Captripedia (1967)
* Now More Than Ever (Huxley's lost play discovered in 2000 in the University of Münster, Germany's Department of English Literature)

=== Articles written for Vedanta and the West ===
* Distractions (1941)
* Distractions II (1941)
* Action and Contemplation (1941)
* An Appreciation (1941)
* The Yellow Mustard (1941)
* Lines (1941)
* Some Reflections of the Lord's Prayer (1941)
* Reflections of the Lord's Prayer (1942)
* Reflections of the Lord's Prayer II (1942)
* Words and Reality (1942)
* Readings in Mysticism (1942)
* Man and Reality (1942)
* The Magical and the Spiritual (1942)
* Religion and Time (1943)
* Idolatry (1943)
* Religion and Temperament (1943)
* A Note on the Bhagavatam (1943)
* Seven Meditations (1943)
* On a Sentence From Shakespeare (1944)
* The Minimum Working Hypothesis (1944)
* From a Notebook (1944)
* The Philosophy of the Saints (1944)
* That Art Thou (1945)
* That Art Thou II (1945)
* The Nature of the Ground (1945)
* The Nature of the Ground II (1945)
* God in the World (1945)
* Origins and Consequences of Some Contemporary Thought-Patterns (1946)
* The Sixth Patriarch (1946)
* Some Reflections on Time (1946)
* Reflections on Progress (1947)
* Further Reflections on Progress (1947)
* William Law (1947)
* Notes on Zen (1947)
* Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (1948)
* A Note on Gandhi (1948)
* Art and Religion (1949)
* Foreword to an Essay on the Indian Philosophy of Peace (1950)
* A Note on Enlightenment (1952)
* Substitutes for Liberation (1952)
* The Desert (1954)
* A Note on Patanjali (1954)
* Who Are We? (1955)
* Foreword to the Supreme Doctrine (1956)
* Knowledge and Understanding (1956)
* The "Inanimate" is Alive (1957)
* Symbol and Immediate Experience (1960)

=== Audio Recordings on CD ===
* Knowledge and Understanding (1955) < 
* Who Are We? (1955) 

=== Other ===
* Pacifism and Philosophy (1936)
* An Encyclopedia of Pacifism (editor, 1937)
* Grey Eminence (1941)
* The Devils of Loudun (1953)
* The Politics of Ecology (1962)
* Selected Letters (2007)

==See also==

*List of peace activists

==References==

==Sources==

* 
* Anderson, Jack 1982. "Ballet: Suzanne Farrell in 'Variations' Premiere". New York Times (4 July).
* Barnes Clive. 1966. "Ballet: Still Another Balanchine-Stravinsky Pearl; City Troupe Performs in Premiere Here 'Variations' for Huxley at State Theater". New York Times (1 April): 28.
* Spies, Claudio. 1965. "Notes on Stravinsky's Variations". Perspectives of New Music 4, no. 1 (Fall-Winter): 62–74. Reprinted in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, revised edition, edited by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone, . New York:W. W. Norton, 1972.
* White, Eric Walter. 1979. Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, second edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03985-8.

==Further reading==

* Atkins, John. Aldous Huxley: A Literary Study, J. Calder, 1956
* 
* 
* Firchow, Peter. Aldous Huxley: Satirist and Novelist, U of Minnesota P, 1972
* Firchow, Peter. The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Bucknell UP, 1984
* Huxley, Aldous. The Human Situation: Aldous Huxley Lectures at Santa Barbara 1959, Flamingo Modern Classic, 1994, ISBN 0-00-654732-X 
* Huxley, Laura Archera. This Timeless Moment, Celestial Arts, 2001, ISBN 0-89087-968-0 
* Meckier, Jerome. Aldous Huxley: Modern Satirical Novelist of ideas, Firchow and Nugel editors, LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9668-4 
* Murray, Nicholas. Aldous Huxley, Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 0-312-30237-1 
* Rolo, Charles J. (ed.). The World of Aldous Huxley, Grosset Universal Library, 1947.
* Sexton, James (ed.). Aldous Huxley: Selected Letters, Ivan R. Dee, 2007, ISBN 1-56663-629-9 
* Sawyer, Dana. Aldous Huxley, Crossroad Publishing Co., 2002, ISBN 0-8245-1987-6 
* Watt, Conrad (ed.). Aldous Huxley, Routledge, 1997, ISBN 0-415-15915-6 

==External links==

* 
* 
* Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery
* BBC discussion programme In our time: "Brave New World". Huxley and the novel. 9 April 2009. (Audio, 45 mins)
* BBC In their own words series. 12 October 1958. (Video, 12 mins).
* "The Ultimate Revolution" (talk at UC Berkeley, 20 March 1962)
* Huxley interviewed on The Mike Wallace interview 18 May 1958. (Video)
* 
* 
* 
* Centre for Huxley Research
* Aldous Huxley Papers at UCLA Library Special Collections



[[Ada]]

Ada, ADA, or A.D.A. may refer to:

==Food==
* Ada (food), traditional Kerala delicacy, made with rice, coconut powder mix, and sugar

==People==

* Ada (name), feminine given name (and list of people with the name)
* St. Ada, 7th-century French abbess
* Ada, Countess of Atholl (died 1264)
* Ada, Countess of Holland
* Ada de Warenne, Countess of Northumbria and Huntingdon (died 1178)
* Ada of Caria, satrap deposed by her brother Idrieus and restored by Alexander the Great
* Ada, sister of Charlemagne, for whom the Ada Gospels at Trier were produced
* Ada Lovelace (Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace) (1815–1852), English mathematician and writer

==Places==

===Europe===
* Ada, Croatia, village in Croatia, municipality Šodolovci, Vukovar-Syrmia County
* Ada (Serbia), town and municipality

=== Africa ===
* Ada, Ghana, or Ada Foah
* Ada (Ghana parliament constituency)
* Ada, Delta, Isoka town in Delta State, Nigeria
* Ada Estate, luxury residential suburb of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

=== Asia ===
* Ada, Iran, a village in West Azerbaijan Province
* Ada, Karaman, a village in the central district (Karaman) of Karaman Province, Turkey

=== North America ===
* Ada, Alabama, unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Alabama
* Ada County, Idaho
* Ada, Minnesota, Norman County, Minnesota
* Ada, Ohio, Hardin County, Ohio
* Ada, Oklahoma, Pontotoc County, Oklahoma
* Ada, Oregon, Lane County, Oregon
* Ada, West Virginia, Mercer County, West Virginia
* Ada, Wisconsin, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin

==Literature, film, music, and the arts==
* , 1969 novel by Vladimir Nabokov
* Alternative Distribution Alliance, music distributor owned by Warner Music Group

=== Television and film ===
* Ada TV, broadcasts in both satellite and terrestrial in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
* Ada (film), 1961 film by Daniel Mann
* ADA...A Way of Life, 2008 Bollywood musical by Tanvir Ahmed
* Ada (dog actor), dog that played Colin on the sitcom Spaced

=== Video games ===
* Ada (Castlevania), character in Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness
* Ada Wong, character in the Resident Evil franchise
* ADA, character in Zone of the Enders

==Politics and government==
* Aeronautical Development Agency, agency of India's Ministry of Defence
* Air Defense Artillery Branch (United States Army)
* Amazon Development Agency, development agency in Brazil
* American Decency Association, American political organization advocating against pornography and "indecent" media
* Americans for Democratic Action, American liberal political advocacy organization
* Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, U.S. law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability
* Amigos dos Amigos, drug cartel in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro
* Angehöriger der Armee, or AdA, member of the Swiss Armed Forces
* Anti-Deficiency Act, U.S. law that prohibits the federal government from incurring debts not authorized by Congress
* Anti-Dumping Agreement, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) about anti-competitive dumping pricing practices
* Armée de l'Air or AdA, the French Air Force
* Assistant District Attorney, US government attorney position
* Austrian Development Agency, development aid agency
* Australian Digital Alliance, copyright advocacy group
* Association of Drainage Authorities, membership body for those involved in water level management in the United Kingdom

==Science and engineering==
* ADA collider, the first electron–positron collider
* Adenosine deaminase enzyme
* Analog-to-digital converter/Digital-to-analog converter, seen as ADA or A/DA, conversion occurring in some electronic devices, often musical
* Adangme language's ISO 639-2 code
* Advanced Distribution Automation, the extension of intelligent control over an electrical power grid
* After the Development of Agriculture, A.D.A., system of counting years, like Anno Domini and Anno Mundi
* Ada (ship), wooden Ketch, wrecked near Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
* USS Little Ada (1864), steamer captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War
* Azodicarbonamide, a food additive also used in plastics production

=== Astronomy ===
*523 Ada, minor planet orbiting the Sun

=== Biology ===
* Ada (orchid), genus of orchids
* Ada aurantiaca, species of orchid and the type species of its genus
* Ada keiliana, species of orchid

=== Computer science ===
* Ada (programming language), programming language based on Pascal
* Ada (computer virus)
* Apple Design Awards

=== Biochemistry ===
* Adenosine deaminase, enzyme involved in purine metabolism
* Ada (protein), enzyme induced by treatment of bacterial cells
* Ada regulon, one of the Escherichia coli adaptive response proteins

=== Meteorology ===
* Cyclone Ada (disambiguation), two tropical cyclones named Ada

=== Scientific and medical organizations ===
* AdA (physics) or Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (National Institute for Nuclear Physics), Italy
* American Dental Association
* American Diabetes Association
* American Dietetic Association

=== Air travel ===
* Ada Air, regional airline based in Tirana, Albania
* Ada International Airport or Saipan International Airport, Saipan Island, Northern Mariana Islands
* Aerolínea de Antioquia, Colombian Airline
* Airline Deregulation Act, 1978 US bill removing governmental control from commercial aviation
* Adana Şakirpaşa Airport's IATA code

==See also==
* Adah (disambiguation)
* Adha (disambiguation)



[[Aberdeen (disambiguation)]]

Aberdeen is a city in Scotland, United Kingdom.

Aberdeen may also refer to:

==Africa==
;Sierra Leone
* Aberdeen, Sierra Leone
;South Africa
* Aberdeen, Eastern Cape

==Asia==
;Hong Kong
* Aberdeen, Hong Kong
;Sri Lanka
* Aberdeen Falls, a waterfall in Sri Lanka.

==Australia==
* Aberdeen, New South Wales
* Aberdeen, Tasmania

==Europe==
* Aberdeen (UK Parliament constituency) 1832-1885
* Aberdeen Burghs (UK Parliament constituency) 1801-1832
* Aberdeen Central (Scottish Parliament constituency)
* Aberdeen Central (UK Parliament constituency)

==North America==
;Canada
* Aberdeen, Kamloops, an area in the City of Kamloops, British Columbia
* Aberdeen, Abbotsford, a neighbourhood in the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia
* Aberdeen Parish, New Brunswick
* Aberdeen, Nova Scotia, part of the Municipality of Inverness County, Nova Scotia
* Aberdeen, Grey County, Ontario
* Aberdeen, Saskatchewan
* Aberdeen No. 373, Saskatchewan
* Aberdeen, community in the township of Champlain, Prescott and Russell County, Ontario
* Aberdeen Township, Quebec, until 1960 part of Sheen-Esher-Aberdeen-et-Malakoff, now part of Rapides-des-Joachims, Quebec
;United States of America
* Aberdeen, Arkansas, of places in Arkansas: A|place in Arkansas]
* Aberdeen, California
* Aberdeen, Florida
* Aberdeen, Georgia, of places in Georgia (U.S. state): A-D|place in Georgia]
* Aberdeen, Idaho
* Aberdeen, Ohio County, Indiana
* Aberdeen, Porter County, Indiana
* Aberdeen, Kentucky
* Aberdeen, Maryland
* Aberdeen, Mississippi
* Aberdeen, Montana, place near Interstate 90 in Montana
* Aberdeen Township, New Jersey
* Aberdeen, North Carolina
* Aberdeen, Ohio
* Aberdeen, Pennsylvania, of places in Pennsylvania: A|place in Pennsylvania]
* Aberdeen, South Dakota
* Aberdeen, Washington
* Aberdeen, West Virginia

==Other==
* Some members of the Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair house
* Aberdeen (band), an American rock band
* Aberdeen City (band), Boston based indie/alternative rock band.
* Aberdeen (2000 film), a 2000 film directed by Hans Petter Moland, starring Stellan Skarsgård and Lena Headey
* Aberdeen (2014 film)
* Aberdeen Asset Management, an investment management group
* Aberdeen Station (TransLink), SkyTrain station on the Canada Line in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
* Aberdeen Group, an IT-consulting firm
* Aberdeen LLC, a server and storage server computer system manufacturer
* Aberdeen (song) A song by alternative rock band Cage The Elephant
* Aberdeen Line, a British shipping company founded in 1825
* SS Aberdeen, an innovative British steamship built for the Aberdeen Line in 1881



[[Algae]]

The lineage of algae according to Thomas Cavalier-Smith. The exact number and placement of endosymbiotic events is currently unknown, so this diagram can be taken only as a general guide It represents the most parsimonious way of explaining the three types of endosymbiotic origins of plastids. These types include the endosymbiotic events of cyanobacteria, red algae and green algae, leading to the hypothesis of the supergroups Archaeplastida, Chromalveolata and Cabozoa respectively. However, the monophyly of Cabozoa has been refuted and the monophylies of Archaeplastida and Chromalveolata are currently strongly challenged. Endosymbiotic events are noted by dotted lines.

Algae ( or ; singular alga , Latin for "seaweed") are a very large and diverse group of eukaryotic organisms, ranging from unicellular genera such as Chlorella and the diatoms to multicellular forms such as the giant kelp, a large brown alga that may grow up to 50 meters in length. Most are autotrophic and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types found in land plants such as stomata, xylem and phloem. The largest and most complex marine algae are called seaweeds, while the most complex freshwater forms are the Charophyta, a division of algae that includes Spirogyra and the stoneworts.

There is no generally accepted definition of algae. One definition is that algae "have chlorophyll as their primary photosynthetic pigment and lack a sterile covering of cells around their reproductive cells". Other authors exclude all prokaryotes and thus do not consider cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) as algae. 

Algae constitute a polyphyletic group since they do not include a common ancestor, and although their plastids seem to have a single origin, from cyanobacteria, they were acquired in different ways. Green algae are examples of algae that have primary chloroplasts derived from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. Diatoms are examples of algae with secondary chloroplasts derived from an endosymbiotic red alga. 

Algae exhibit a wide range of reproductive strategies, from simple asexual cell division to complex forms of sexual reproduction. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History; Department of Botany. http://botany.si.edu/projects/algae/introduction.htm 

Algae lack the various structures that characterize land plants, such as the phyllids (leaf-like structures) of bryophytes, rhizoids in nonvascular plants, and the roots, leaves, and other organs that are found in tracheophytes (vascular plants). Most are phototrophic, although some groups contain members that are mixotrophic, deriving energy both from photosynthesis and uptake of organic carbon either by osmotrophy, myzotrophy, or phagotrophy. Some unicellular species such as the green algae Prototheca and Helicosporidium, and many euglenids and dinoflagellates, have become heterotrophs, sometimes parasitic, relying entirely on external energy sources and have limited or no photosynthetic apparatus. Some other heterotrophic organisms, like the apicomplexans, are also derived from cells whose ancestors possessed plastids, but are not traditionally considered as algae. Algae have photosynthetic machinery ultimately derived from cyanobacteria that produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis, unlike other photosynthetic bacteria such as purple and green sulfur bacteria. Fossilized filamentous algae from the Vindhya basin have been dated back to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago. 

==Etymology and study==
Eliza A. Jordson, Brooklyn L.I. 1848. Algae or seaweed specimen, pasted on colored construction paper, framed by paper lace doilies. The algae have been arranged into designs and scenes. Brooklyn Museum
Title page of Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin, Historia Fucorum, dated 1768. The singular alga is the Latin word for a particular seaweed and retains that meaning in English. The etymology is obscure. Although some speculate that it is related to Latin algēre, "be cold", there is no known reason to associate seaweed with temperature. A more likely source is alliga, "binding, entwining." 

The Ancient Greek word for seaweed was φῦκος (fūkos or phykos), which could mean either the seaweed (probably red algae) or a red dye derived from it. The Latinization, fūcus, meant primarily the cosmetic rouge. The etymology is uncertain, but a strong candidate has long been some word related to the Biblical פוך (pūk), "paint" (if not that word itself), a cosmetic eye-shadow used by the ancient Egyptians and other inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean. It could be any color: black, red, green, blue. 

Accordingly the modern study of marine and freshwater algae is called either phycology or algology, depending on whether the Greek or Latin root is used. The name Fucus appears in a number of taxa.

==Classification==

False-color Scanning electron micrograph of the unicellular coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa oceanica.

Most algae contain chloroplasts that are similar in structure to cyanobacteria. Chloroplasts contain circular DNA like that in cyanobacteria and presumably represent reduced endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. However, the exact origin of the chloroplasts is different among separate lineages of algae, reflecting their acquisition during different endosymbiotic events. The table below describes the composition of the three major groups of algae. Their lineage relationships are shown in the figure in the upper right. Many of these groups contain some members that are no longer photosynthetic. Some retain plastids, but not chloroplasts, while others have lost plastids entirely.

Phylogeny based on plastid not nucleocytoplasmic genealogy:

 Supergroup affiliation Members Endosymbiont Summary 
 Primoplantae/Archaeplastida * Chlorophyta * Rhodophyta * Glaucophyta Cyanobacteria These algae have primary chloroplasts, i.e. the chloroplasts are surrounded by two membranes and probably developed through a single endosymbiotic event. The chloroplasts of red algae have chlorophylls a and c (often), and phycobilins, while those of green algae have chloroplasts with chlorophyll a and b without phycobilins. Higher plants are pigmented similarly to green algae and probably developed from them, and thus Chlorophyta is a sister taxon to the plants; sometimes Chlorophyta, Charophyta and land plants are grouped together as Viridiplantae. 
 Excavata and Rhizaria * Chlorarachniophytes * Euglenids Green algae These groups have green chloroplasts containing chlorophylls a and b. Their chloroplasts are surrounded by four and three membranes, respectively, and were probably retained from ingested green algae. Chlorarachniophytes, which belong to the phylum Cercozoa, contain a small nucleomorph, which is a relict of the algae's nucleus. Euglenids, which belong to the phylum Euglenozoa, live primarily in freshwater and have chloroplasts with only three membranes. It has been suggested that the endosymbiotic green algae were acquired through myzocytosis rather than phagocytosis. 
 Chromista and Alveolata * Heterokonts * Haptophyta * Cryptomonads * Dinoflagellates Red algae These groups have chloroplasts containing chlorophylls a and c, and phycobilins.The shape varies from plant to plant. they may be of discoid, plate-like, reticulate, cup-shaped, spiral or ribbon shaped. They have one or more pyrenoids to preserve protein and starch. The latter chlorophyll type is not known from any prokaryotes or primary chloroplasts, but genetic similarities with red algae suggest a relationship there. In the first three of these groups (Chromista), the chloroplast has four membranes, retaining a nucleomorph in Cryptomonads, and they likely share a common pigmented ancestor, although other evidence casts doubt on whether the Heterokonts, Haptophyta, and Cryptomonads are in fact more closely related to each other than to other groups. The typical dinoflagellate chloroplast has three membranes, but there is considerable diversity in chloroplasts within the group, and it appears there were a number of endosymbiotic events. The Apicomplexa, a group of closely related parasites, also have plastids called apicoplasts. Apicoplasts are not photosynthetic but appear to have a common origin with Dinoflagellate chloroplasts. 

Linnaeus, in Species Plantarum (1753), Linnæus, C. (1753). Species Plantarum, vol. 2, p. 1131, . the starting point for modern botanical nomenclature, recognized 14 genera of algae, of which only 4 are currently considered among algae (Chara, Conferva, Fucus and Ulva, and in part Tremella and Byssus). Sharma, O. P. (1986). Textbook of Algae. McGraw Hill. p. 22, . In Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described the genera Volvox and Corallina, among the animals.

W.H.Harvey (1811—1866) and Lamouroux (1813) Medlin, L. K., W. H. C. F. Kooistra, D. Potter, G. W. Saunders, and R. A. Anderson (1997). Phylogenetic relationships of the “golden algae” (haptophytes, heterokont chromophytes) and their plastids. Plant Systematics and Evolution, p. 188. were the first to divide macroscopic algae into four divisions based on their pigmentation. This is the first use of a biochemical criterion in plant systematics. Harvey's four divisions are: red algae (Rhodophyta), brown algae (Heteromontophyta), green algae (Chlorophyta) and Diatomaceae. 

At this time, microscopic algae were discovered and reported by a different group of workers (e.g., O. F. Müller and Ehrenberg) studying the Infusoria (microscopic organisms). Unlike macroalgae, which were clearly viewed as plants, microalgae were frequently considered animals because they are often motile. Medlin et al. (1997), p. 188. 

Although used as a taxonomic category in some pre-Darwinian classifications, e.g., Linnaeus (1753), de Jussieu (1789), Horaninow (1843), Agassiz (1859), Wilson & Cassin (1864), in further classifications, the "algae" are seen as an artificial, polyphyletic group.

==Relationship to higher plants==
The first plants on earth probably evolved from shallow freshwater charophyte algae much like Chara almost 500 million years ago. These probably had an isomorphic alternation of generations and were probably filamentous. Fossils of isolated land plant spores suggest land plants may have been around as long as 475 million years ago. 

==Morphology==
The kelp forest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. A three-dimensional, multicellular thallus.
A range of algal morphologies are exhibited, and convergence of features in unrelated groups is common. The only groups to exhibit three-dimensional multicellular thalli are the reds and browns, and some chlorophytes. Apical growth is constrained to subsets of these groups: the florideophyte reds, various browns, and the charophytes. The form of charophytes is quite different to those of reds and browns, because they have distinct nodes, separated by internode 'stems'; whorls of branches reminiscent of the horsetails occur at the nodes. Conceptacles are another polyphyletic trait; they appear in the coralline algae and the Hildenbrandiales, as well as the browns. 

Most of the simpler algae are unicellular flagellates or amoeboids, but colonial and non-motile forms have developed independently among several of the groups. Some of the more common organizational levels, more than one of which may occur in the life cycle of a species, are
* Colonial: small, regular groups of motile cells
* Capsoid: individual non-motile cells embedded in mucilage
* Coccoid: individual non-motile cells with cell walls
* Palmelloid: non-motile cells embedded in mucilage
* Filamentous: a string of non-motile cells connected together, sometimes branching
* Parenchymatous: cells forming a thallus with partial differentiation of tissues
Cyanobacteria Merismopedia
In three lines even higher levels of organization have been reached, with full tissue differentiation. These are the brown algae, —some of which may reach 50 m in length (kelps) —the red algae, and the green algae. Introduction to the Green Algae The most complex forms are found among the green algae (see Charales and Charophyta), in a lineage that eventually led to the higher land plants. The point where these non-algal plants begin and algae stop is usually taken to be the presence of reproductive organs with protective cell layers, a characteristic not found in the other alga groups.

==Physiology==
Many algae, particularly members of the Characeae, have served as model experimental organisms to understand the mechanisms of the water permeability of membranes, osmoregulation, turgor regulation, salt tolerance, cytoplasmic streaming, and the generation of action potentials.

Phytohormones are found not only in higher plants, but in algae too. E. R.; Maslov, Yu, I.; Shishova, M. F., 200: Phytohormones in algae. Russian Journal of Plant Physiology 54(2): 163–170 

==Symbiotic algae==
Some species of algae form symbiotic relationships with other organisms. In these symbioses, the algae supply photosynthates (organic substances) to the host organism providing protection to the algal cells. The host organism derives some or all of its energy requirements from the algae. Examples are as follows.

===Lichens===

Rock lichens in Ireland.Lichens are defined by the International Association for Lichenology to be "an association of a fungus and a photosynthetic symbiont resulting in a stable vegetative body having a specific structure." The fungi, or mycobionts, are mainly from the Ascomycota with a few from the Basidiomycota. They are not found alone in nature but when they began to associate is not known. One mycobiont associates with the same phycobiont species, rarely two, from the green algae, except that alternatively the mycobiont may associate with a species of cyanobacteria (hence "photobiont" is the more accurate term). A photobiont may be associated with many different mycobionts or may live independently; accordingly, lichens are named and classified as fungal species. Brodo et al. (2001), page 6: "A species of lichen collected anywhere in its range has the same lichen-forming fungus and, generally, the same photobiont. (A particular photobiont, on the other hand, may associate with scores of different lichen fungi)." The association is termed a morphogenesis because the lichen has a form and capabilities not possessed by the symbiont species alone (they can be experimentally isolated). It is possible that the photobiont triggers otherwise latent genes in the mycobiont. Brodo et al. (2001), page 8. 

===Coral reefs===

Floridian coral reef Coral reefs are accumulated from the calcareous exoskeletons of marine invertebrates of the order Scleractinia (stony corals). As animals they metabolize sugar and oxygen to obtain energy for their cell-building processes, including secretion of the exoskeleton, with water and carbon dioxide as byproducts. As the reef is the result of a favorable equilibrium between construction by the corals and destruction by marine erosion, the rate at which metabolism can proceed determines the growth or deterioration of the reef.

Dinoflagellates (algal protists) are often endosymbionts in the cells of marine invertebrates, where they accelerate host-cell metabolism by generating immediately available sugar and oxygen through photosynthesis using incident light and the carbon dioxide produced by the host. Stony corals that are reef-building corals (hermatypic corals) require endosymbiotic algae from the genus Symbiodinium to be in a healthy condition. The loss of Symbiodinium from the host is known as coral bleaching, a condition which leads to the deterioration of a reef.

===Sea sponges===

Green algae live close to the surface of some sponges, for example, breadcrumb sponge (Halichondria panicea). The alga is thus protected from predators; the sponge is provided with oxygen and sugars which can account for 50 to 80% of sponge growth in some species. http://uwsp.edu/cnr/UWEXlakes/laketides/vol26-4/vol26-4.pdf 

==Life-cycle==
Rhodophyta, Chlorophyta and Heterokontophyta, the three main algal phyla, have life-cycles which show tremendous variation with considerable complexity. In general there is an asexual phase where the seaweed's cells are diploid, a sexual phase where the cells are haploid followed by fusion of the male and female gametes. Asexual reproduction is advantageous in that it permits efficient population increases, but less variation is possible. Sexual reproduction allows more variation, but is more costly. Often there is no strict alternation between the sporophyte and also because there is often an asexual phase, which could include the fragmentation of the thallus. Algae II 

==Numbers==
Shihtiping in Taiwan]]
The Algal Collection of the US National Herbarium (located in the National Museum of Natural History) consists of approximately 320,500 dried specimens, which, although not exhaustive (no exhaustive collection exists), gives an idea of the order of magnitude of the number of algal species (that number remains unknown). Estimates vary widely. For example, according to one standard textbook, John (2002), page 1. in the British Isles the UK Biodiversity Steering Group Report estimated there to be 20000 algal species in the UK. Another checklist reports only about 5000 species. Regarding the difference of about 15000 species, the text concludes: "It will require many detailed field surveys before it is possible to provide a reliable estimate of the total number of species ..."

Regional and group estimates have been made as well:
* 5000–5500 species of red algae worldwide
* "some 1300 in Australian Seas" Huisman (2000), page 25. 
* 400 seaweed species for the western coastline of South Africa, Stegenga (1997). and 212 species from the coast of KwaZulu-Natal. Some of these are duplicates as the range extends across both coasts, and the total recorded is probably about 500 species. Most of these are listed in List of seaweeds of South Africa. These exclude phytoplankton and crustose corallines.
* 669 marine species from California (US) Abbott and Hollenberg (1976), page 2. 
* 642 in the check-list of Britain and Ireland Hardy and Guiry (2006). 
and so on, but lacking any scientific basis or reliable sources, these numbers have no more credibility than the British ones mentioned above. Most estimates also omit microscopic algae, such as phytoplankton.

The most recent estimate suggests a total number of 72,500 algal species worldwide. 

==Distribution==
The distribution of algal species has been fairly well studied since the founding of phytogeography in the mid-19th century AD. Round (1981), Chapter 8, Dispersal, continuity and phytogeography. Algae spread mainly by the dispersal of spores analogously to the dispersal of Plantae by seeds and spores. Spores are everywhere in all parts of the Earth: the waters fresh and marine, the atmosphere, free-floating and in precipitation or mixed with dust, the humus and in other organisms, such as humans. Whether a spore is to grow into an organism depends on the combination of the species and the environmental conditions of where the spore lands.

The spores of fresh-water algae are dispersed mainly by running water and wind, as well as by living carriers. Round (1981), page 360. The bodies of water into which they are transported are chemically selective. Marine spores are spread by currents. Ocean water is temperature selective, resulting in phytogeographic zones, regions and provinces. Round (1981), page 362. 

To some degree the distribution of algae is subject to floristic discontinuities caused by geographical features, such as Antarctica, long distances of ocean or general land masses. It is therefore possible to identify species occurring by locality, such as "Pacific Algae" or "North Sea Algae". When they occur out of their localities, it is usually possible to hypothesize a transport mechanism, such as the hulls of ships. For example, Ulva reticulata and Ulva fasciata travelled from the mainland to Hawaii in this manner.

Mapping is possible for select species only: "there are many valid examples of confined distribution patterns." Round (1981), Page 357. For example, Clathromorphum is an arctic genus and is not mapped far south of there. Round (1981), page 371. On the other hand, scientists regard the overall data as insufficient due to the "difficulties of undertaking such studies." Round (1981), page 366. 

Phytoplankton, Lake Chuzenji

==Locations==
Algae are prominent in bodies of water, common in terrestrial environments and are found in unusual environments, such as on snow and on ice. Seaweeds grow mostly in shallow marine waters, under 100 m; however some have been recorded to a depth of 360 m. Round (1981), page 176. 

The various sorts of algae play significant roles in aquatic ecology. Microscopic forms that live suspended in the water column (phytoplankton) provide the food base for most marine food chains. In very high densities (algal blooms) these algae may discolor the water and outcompete, poison, or asphyxiate other life forms.

Algae are variously sensitive to different factors, which has made them useful as biological indicators in the Ballantine Scale and its modification.

==Cultural associations==
In Classical Chinese, the word is used both for "algae" and (in the modest tradition of the imperial scholars) for "literary talent". The third island in Kunming Lake beside the Summer Palace in Beijing is known as the Zaojian Tang Dao which thus simultaneously means "Island of the Algae-Viewing Hall" and "Island of the Hall for Reflecting on Literary Talent".

==Uses==

Harvesting algae

===Agar===
Agar, a gelatinous substance derived from red algae, has a number of commercial uses. It is a good medium on which to grow bacteria and fungi as most microorganisms cannot digest agar.

===Alginates===
Between 100,000 and 170,000 wet tons of Macrocystis are harvested annually in New Mexico for alginate extraction and abalone feed. 

===Energy source===

To be competitive and independent from fluctuating support from (local) policy on the long run, biofuels should equal or beat the cost level of fossil fuels. Here, algae based fuels hold great promise, directly related to the potential to produce more biomass per unit area in a year than any other form of biomass. The break-even point for algae-based biofuels is estimated to occur by 2025. An Outlook on Microalgal Biofuels
René H. Wijffels and Maria J. Barbosa
Science 13 August 2010: 329 (5993), 796–799. 

===Fertilizer===
Seaweed is used as a fertilizer.

For centuries seaweed has been used as a fertilizer; George Owen of Henllys writing in the 16th century referring to drift weed in South Wales: Downloadable Google Books. This kind of ore they often gather and lay on great heapes, where it heteth and rotteth, and will have a strong and loathsome smell; when being so rotten they cast on the land, as they do their muck, and thereof springeth good corn, especially barley ... After spring-tydes or great rigs of the sea, they fetch it in sacks on horse backes, and carie the same three, four, or five miles, and cast it on the lande, which doth very much better the ground for corn and grass.

Today, algae are used by humans in many ways; for example, as fertilizers, soil conditioners and livestock feed. Aquatic and microscopic species are cultured in clear tanks or ponds and are either harvested or used to treat effluents pumped through the ponds. Algaculture on a large scale is an important type of aquaculture in some places. Maerl is commonly used as a soil conditioner.

===Nutrition===
Seaweed-fertilized gardens on Inisheer.

Naturally growing seaweeds are an important source of food, especially in Asia. They provide many vitamins including: A, B1, B2, B6, niacin and C, and are rich in iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium and calcium. In addition commercially cultivated microalgae, including both algae and cyanobacteria, are marketed as nutritional supplements, such as Spirulina, Chlorella and the Vitamin-C supplement, Dunaliella, high in beta-carotene.

Algae are national foods of many nations: China consumes more than 70 species, including fat choy, a cyanobacterium considered a vegetable; Japan, over 20 species; Ireland, dulse; Chile, cochayuyo. Laver is used to make "laver bread" in Wales where it is known as bara lawr; in Korea, gim; in Japan, nori and aonori. It is also used along the west coast of North America from California to British Columbia, in Hawaii and by the Māori of New Zealand. Sea lettuce and badderlocks are a salad ingredient in Scotland, Ireland, Greenland and Iceland.

Dulse, a type of food.The oils from some algae have high levels of unsaturated fatty acids. For example, Parietochloris incisa is very high in arachidonic acid, where it reaches up to 47% of the triglyceride pool. Some varieties of algae favored by vegetarianism and veganism contain the long-chain, essential omega-3 fatty acids, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Fish oil contains the omega-3 fatty acids, but the original source is algae (microalgae in particular), which are eaten by marine life such as copepods and are passed up the food chain. Algae has emerged in recent years as a popular source of omega-3 fatty acids for vegetarians who cannot get long-chain EPA and DHA from other vegetarian sources such as flaxseed oil, which only contains the short-chain Alpha-Linolenic acid (ALA).

===Pollution control===
* Sewage can be treated with algae, reducing the usage of large amounts of toxic chemicals that would otherwise be needed.
* Algae can be used to capture fertilizers in runoff from farms. When subsequently harvested, the enriched algae itself can be used as fertilizer.
* Aquariums and ponds can be filtered using algae, which absorb nutrients from the water in a device called an algae scrubber, also known as an "ATS". Nutrient Cycling In The Great Barrier Reef Aquarium. Proceedings of the 6th International Coral Reef Symposium, Australia, 1988, Vol. 2 U.S. Patent 4333263, Issue Date 8 June 1982 Hydromentia Water Treatment Technologies Algal Response To Nutrient Enrichment In Forested Oligotrophic Stream. Journal of Phycology, June 2008 

Agricultural Research Service scientists found that 60–90% of nitrogen runoff and 70–100% of phosphorus runoff can be captured from manure effluents using a horizontal algae scrubber, also called an algal turf scrubber (ATS). Scientists developed the ATS, which are shallow, 100-foot raceways of nylon netting where algae colonies can form, and studied its efficacy for three years. They found that algae can readily be used to reduce the nutrient runoff from agricultural fields and increase the quality of water flowing into rivers, streams, and oceans. The enriched algae itself also can be used as a fertilizer. Researchers collected and dried the nutrient-rich algae from the ATS and studied its potential as an organic fertilizer. They found that cucumber and corn seedlings grew just as well using ATS organic fertilizer as they did with commercial fertilizers. Algae scrubbers, using bubbling upflow or vertical waterfall versions, are now also being used to filter aquariums and ponds.

===Bioremediation===

The algae Stichococcus bacillaris, has been seen to colonize silcone resins used at archaeological sites; biodeterriorating the synthetic substance. 

===Pigments===
The natural pigments produced by algae can be used as an alternative to chemical dyes and coloring agents. 

===Stabilizing substances===

Carrageenan, from the red alga Chondrus crispus, is used as a stabilizer in milk products.

==See also==
* Algaculture
* AlgaeBase
* AlgaePARC
* Anatoxin
* Eutrophication
* Iron fertilization
* Microalgae
* Microbiofuels
* Microphyte
* Photobioreactor
* Phytoplankton
* Plant

==References==

==Bibliography==

===General===
* 
* Fritsch, F.E. (1935/1945). The Structure and Reproduction of the Algae. I. and II. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
* van den Hoek, C., D.G. Mann, and H.M. Jahns (1995). Algae: an introduction to phycology. Cambridge University Press (623 pp).
* 
* .
* 
* Smith, G.M. (1938). Cryptogamic Botany, vol. 1. McGraw-Hill, New York.

===Regional===
;Britain and Ireland
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

;Australia
* 

;New Zealand
* 

;Europe
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

;Arctic
* 

;Greenland
* 

;Faroe Islands
* .

;Canary Islands
* 

;Morocco
* 

;South Africa
* 

;North America
* 
* 
* 
* 

==External links==

* – a database of all algal names including images, nomenclature, taxonomy, distribution, bibliography, uses, extracts
* Algae – Cell Centered Database
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Algae: Protists with Chloroplasts
* 
* Algae glossary (Australian Biological Resources Study).
* 

 



[[Analysis of variance]]

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models used to analyze the differences between group means and their associated procedures (such as "variation" among and between groups), developed by R.A. Fisher. In the ANOVA setting, the observed variance in a particular variable is partitioned into components attributable to different sources of variation. In its simplest form, ANOVA provides a statistical test of whether or not the means of several groups are equal, and therefore generalizes the t-test to more than two groups. As doing multiple two-sample t-tests would result in an increased chance of committing a statistical type I error, ANOVAs are useful in comparing (testing) three or more means (groups or variables) for statistical significance.

==Motivating example==
No fit.Fair fitVery good fitThe analysis of variance can be used as an exploratory tool to explain observations. A dog show provides an example. A dog show is not a random sampling of the breed: it is typically limited to dogs that are male, adult, pure-bred and exemplary. A histogram of dog weights from a show might plausibly be rather complex, like the yellow-orange distribution shown in the illustrations. Suppose we wanted to predict the weight of a dog based on a certain set of characteristics of each dog. Before we could do that, we would need to explain the distribution of weights by dividing the dog population into groups based on those characteristics. A successful grouping will split dogs such that a) each group has a low variance of dog weights (meaning the group is relatively homogeneous) and b) the mean of each group is distinct (if two groups have the same mean, then it isn't reasonable to conclude that the groups are, in fact, separate in any meaningful way).
In the illustrations to the right, each group is identified as X1, X2, etc. In the first illustration, we divide the dogs according to the product (interaction) of two binary groupings: young vs old, and short-haired vs long-haired (thus, group 1 is young, short-haired dogs, group 2 is young, long-haired dogs, etc.). Since the distributions of dog weight within each of the groups (shown in blue) has a large variance, and since the means are very close across groups, grouping dogs by these characteristics does not produce an effective way to explain the variation in dog weights: knowing which group a dog is in does not allow us to make any reasonable statements as to what that dog's weight is likely to be. Thus, this grouping fails to fit the distribution we are trying to explain (yellow-orange).

An attempt to explain the weight distribution by grouping dogs as (pet vs working breed) and (less athletic vs more athletic) would probably be somewhat more successful (fair fit). The heaviest show dogs are likely to be big strong working breeds, while breeds kept as pets tend to be smaller and thus lighter. As shown by the second illustration, the distributions have variances that are considerably smaller than in the first case, and the means are more reasonably distinguishable. However, the significant overlap of distributions, for example, means that we cannot reliably say that X1 and X2 are truly distinct (i.e., it is perhaps reasonably likely that splitting dogs according to the flip of a coin—by pure chance—might produce distributions that look similar).

An attempt to explain weight by breed is likely to produce a very good fit. All Chihuahuas are light and all St Bernards are heavy. The difference in weights between Setters and Pointers does not justify separate breeds. The analysis of variance provides the formal tools to justify these intuitive judgments. A common use of the method is the analysis of experimental data or the development of models. The method has some advantages over correlation: not all of the data must be numeric and one result of the method is a judgment in the confidence in an explanatory relationship.

==Background and terminology==
ANOVA is a particular form of statistical hypothesis testing heavily used in the analysis of experimental data. A statistical hypothesis test is a method of making decisions using data. A test result (calculated from the null hypothesis and the sample) is called statistically significant if it is deemed unlikely to have occurred by chance, assuming the truth of the null hypothesis. A statistically significant result, when a probability (p-value) is less than a threshold (significance level), justifies the rejection of the null hypothesis, but only if the a priori probability of the null hypothesis is not high.

In the typical application of ANOVA, the null hypothesis is that all groups are simply random samples of the same population. For example, when studying the effect of different treatments on similar samples of patients, the null hypothesis would be that all treatments have the same effect (perhaps none). Rejecting the null hypothesis would imply that different treatments result in altered effects.

By construction, hypothesis testing limits the rate of Type I errors (false positives leading to false scientific claims) to a significance level. Experimenters also wish to limit Type II 
errors (false negatives resulting in missed scientific discoveries). 
The Type II error rate is a function of several things including 
sample size (positively correlated with experiment cost), significance 
level (when the standard of proof is high, the chances of overlooking 
a discovery are also high) and effect size (when the effect is 
obvious to the casual observer, Type II error rates are low).

The terminology of ANOVA is largely from the statistical 
design of experiments. The experimenter adjusts factors and 
measures responses in an attempt to determine an effect. Factors are 
assigned to experimental units by a combination of randomization and 
blocking to ensure the validity of the results. Blinding keeps the
weighing impartial. Responses show a variability that is partially 
the result of the effect and is partially random error.

ANOVA is the synthesis of several ideas and it is used for multiple 
purposes. As a consequence, it is difficult to define concisely or precisely.

"Classical ANOVA for balanced data does three things at once:

In short, ANOVA is a statistical tool used in several ways to develop and confirm an explanation for the observed data.

Additionally:

As a result:
ANOVA "has long enjoyed the status of being the most used (some would 
say abused) statistical technique in psychological research." 
Howell (2002, p 320) 
ANOVA "is probably the most useful technique in the field of 
statistical inference." Montgomery (2001, p 63) 

ANOVA is difficult to teach, particularly for complex experiments, with split-plot designs being notorious. Gelman (2005, p 1) In some cases the proper 
application of the method is best determined by problem pattern recognition 
followed by the consultation of a classic authoritative test. 
Gelman (2005, p 5) 

===Design-of-experiments terms===
(Condensed from the NIST Engineering Statistics handbook: Section 5.7. A 
Glossary of DOE Terminology.) 

; Balanced design: An experimental design where all cells (i.e. treatment combinations) have the same number of observations.
; Blocking: A schedule for conducting treatment combinations in an experimental study such that any effects on the experimental results due to a known change in raw materials, operators, machines, etc., become concentrated in the levels of the blocking variable. The reason for blocking is to isolate a systematic effect and prevent it from obscuring the main effects. Blocking is achieved by restricting randomization.
; Design: A set of experimental runs which allows the fit of a particular model and the estimate of effects.
; DOE: Design of experiments. An approach to problem solving involving collection of data that will support valid, defensible, and supportable conclusions. 
; Effect: How changing the settings of a factor changes the response. The effect of a single factor is also called a main effect.
; Error: Unexplained variation in a collection of observations. DOE's typically require understanding of both random error and lack of fit error.
; Experimental unit: The entity to which a specific treatment combination is applied.
; Factors: Process inputs an investigator manipulates to cause a change in the output.
; Lack-of-fit error: Error that occurs when the analysis omits one or more important terms or factors from the process model. Including replication in a DOE allows separation of experimental error into its components: lack of fit and random (pure) error.
; Model: Mathematical relationship which relates changes in a given response to changes in one or more factors.
; Random error: Error that occurs due to natural variation in the process. Random error is typically assumed to be normally distributed with zero mean and a constant variance. Random error is also called experimental error.
; Randomization: A schedule for allocating treatment material and for conducting treatment combinations in a DOE such that the conditions in one run neither depend on the conditions of the previous run nor predict the conditions in the subsequent runs. Randomization is a term used in multiple ways in this
material. "Randomization has three roles in applications: as a device 
for eliminating biases, for example from unobserved explanatory 
variables and selection effects: as a basis for estimating standard 
errors: and as a foundation for formally exact significance tests." 
Cox (2006, page 192) Hinkelmann and Kempthorne use randomization 
both in experimental design and for statistical analysis. 
; Replication: Performing the same treatment combination more than once. Including replication allows an estimate of the random error independent of any lack of fit error.
; Responses: The output(s) of a process. Sometimes called dependent variable(s).
; Treatment: A treatment is a specific combination of factor levels whose effect is to be compared with other treatments.

==Classes of models==
There are three classes of models used in the analysis of variance, and these are outlined here.

===Fixed-effects models===

The fixed-effects model of analysis of variance applies to situations in which the experimenter applies one or more treatments to the subjects of the experiment to see if the response variable values change. This allows the experimenter to estimate the ranges of response variable values that the treatment would generate in the population as a whole.

===Random-effects models===

Random effects models are used when the treatments are not fixed. This occurs when the various factor levels are sampled from a larger population. Because the levels themselves are random variables, some assumptions and the method of contrasting the treatments (a multi-variable generalization of simple differences) differ from the fixed-effects model. Montgomery (2001, Chapter 12: Experiments with random factors) 

===Mixed-effects models===

A mixed-effects model contains experimental factors of both fixed and random-effects types, with appropriately different interpretations and analysis for the two types.

Example:
Teaching experiments could be performed by a university department 
to find a good introductory textbook, with each text considered a 
treatment. The fixed-effects model would compare a list of candidate 
texts. The random-effects model would determine whether important 
differences exist among a list of randomly selected texts. The 
mixed-effects model would compare the (fixed) incumbent texts to 
randomly selected alternatives.

Defining fixed and random effects has proven elusive, with competing 
definitions arguably leading toward a linguistic quagmire. 
Gelman (2005, pp 20–21) 

==Assumptions of ANOVA==
The analysis of variance has been studied from several approaches, the most common of which uses a linear model that relates the response to the treatments and blocks. Note that the model is linear in parameters but may be nonlinear across factor levels. Interpretation is easy when data is balanced across factors but much deeper understanding is needed for unbalanced data.

===Textbook analysis using a normal distribution===
The analysis of variance can be presented in terms of a linear model, which makes the following assumptions about the probability distribution of the responses: Cochran & Cox (1992, p 48) Howell (2002, p 323) 

 
* Independence of observations &ndash; this is an assumption of the model that simplifies the statistical analysis.
* Normality &ndash; the distributions of the residuals are normal.
* Equality (or "homogeneity") of variances, called homoscedasticity &mdash; the variance of data in groups should be the same.

The separate assumptions of the textbook model imply that the errors are independently, identically, and normally distributed for fixed effects models, that is, that the errors ('s) are independent and

:

===Randomization-based analysis===

In a randomized controlled experiment, the treatments are randomly assigned to experimental units, following the experimental protocol. This randomization is objective and declared before the experiment is carried out. The objective random-assignment is used to test the significance of the null hypothesis, following the ideas of C. S. Peirce and Ronald A. Fisher. This design-based analysis was discussed and developed by Francis J. Anscombe at Rothamsted Experimental Station and by Oscar Kempthorne at Iowa State University. Anscombe (1948) Kempthorne and his students make an assumption of unit treatment additivity, which is discussed in the books of Kempthorne and David R. Cox.

====Unit-treatment additivity====
In its simplest form, the assumption of unit-treatment additivity Unit-treatment additivity is simply termed additivity
in most texts. Hinkelmann and Kempthorne add adjectives and
distinguish between additivity in the strict and broad senses. This 
allows a detailed consideration of multiple error sources (treatment, 
state, selection, measurement and sampling) on page 161. states that the observed response from experimental unit when receiving treatment can be written as the sum of the unit's response and the treatment-effect , that is Kempthorne (1979, p 30) Cox (1958, Chapter 2: Some Key Assumptions) Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Throughout. Introduced in Section 2.3.3: Principles of experimental design; The linear model; Outline of a model) 
: 
The assumption of unit-treatment additivity implies that, for every treatment , the th treatment have exactly the same effect on every experiment unit.

The assumption of unit treatment additivity usually cannot be directly falsified, according to Cox and Kempthorne. However, many consequences of treatment-unit additivity can be falsified. For a randomized experiment, the assumption of unit-treatment additivity implies that the variance is constant for all treatments. Therefore, by contraposition, a necessary condition for unit-treatment additivity is that the variance is constant.

The use of unit treatment additivity and randomization is similar to the design-based inference that is standard in finite-population survey sampling.

====Derived linear model====
Kempthorne uses the randomization-distribution and the assumption of unit treatment additivity to produce a derived linear model, very similar to the textbook model discussed previously. Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Section 6.3: 
Completely Randomized Design; Derived Linear Model) The test statistics of this derived linear model are closely approximated by the test statistics of an appropriate normal linear model, according to approximation theorems and simulation studies. Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Section 6.6: Completely randomized design; Approximating the randomization test) However, there are differences. For example, the randomization-based analysis results in a small but (strictly) negative correlation between the observations. Bailey (2008, Chapter 2.14 "A More General Model" in Bailey, pp. 38–40) Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Chapter 7: Comparison of Treatments) In the randomization-based analysis, there is no assumption of a normal distribution and certainly no assumption of independence. On the contrary, the observations are dependent!

The randomization-based analysis has the disadvantage that its exposition involves tedious algebra and extensive time. Since the randomization-based analysis is complicated and is closely approximated by the approach using a normal linear model, most teachers emphasize the normal linear model approach. Few statisticians object to model-based analysis of balanced randomized experiments.

====Statistical models for observational data====
However, when applied to data from non-randomized experiments or observational studies, model-based analysis lacks the warrant of randomization. 
Kempthorne (1979, pp 125–126, 
"The experimenter must decide which of the various causes that he 
feels will produce variations in his results must be controlled 
experimentally. Those causes that he does not control experimentally, 
because he is not cognizant of them, he must control by the device of 
randomization." "nly when the treatments in the experiment are 
applied by the experimenter using the full randomization procedure is 
the chain of inductive inference sound. It is only under these 
circumstances that the experimenter can attribute whatever effects he 
observes to the treatment and the treatment only. Under these 
circumstances his conclusions are reliable in the statistical sense.") 
 For observational data, the derivation of confidence intervals must use subjective models, as emphasized by Ronald A. Fisher and his followers. In practice, the estimates of treatment-effects from observational studies generally are often inconsistent. In practice, "statistical models" and observational data are useful for suggesting hypotheses that should be treated very cautiously by the public. Freedman 

===Summary of assumptions===
The normal-model based ANOVA analysis assumes the independence, normality and 
homogeneity of the variances of the residuals. The 
randomization-based analysis assumes only the homogeneity of the 
variances of the residuals (as a consequence of unit-treatment 
additivity) and uses the randomization procedure of the experiment. 
Both these analyses require homoscedasticity, as an assumption for the normal-model analysis and as a consequence of randomization and additivity for the randomization-based analysis.

However, studies of processes that 
change variances rather than means (called dispersion effects) have 
been successfully conducted using ANOVA. Montgomery 
(2001, Section 3.8: Discovering dispersion effects) There are
no necessary assumptions for ANOVA in its full generality, but the
F-test used for ANOVA hypothesis testing has assumptions and practical 
limitations which are of continuing interest.

Problems which do not satisfy the assumptions of ANOVA can often be transformed to satisfy the assumptions. 
The property of unit-treatment additivity is not invariant under a "change of scale", so statisticians often use transformations to achieve unit-treatment additivity. If the response variable is expected to follow a parametric family of probability distributions, then the statistician may specify (in the protocol for the experiment or observational study) that the responses be transformed to stabilize the variance. Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Section 6.10: Completely randomized design; Transformations) Also, a statistician may specify that logarithmic transforms be applied to the responses, which are believed to follow a multiplicative model. Bailey (2008) 
According to Cauchy's functional equation theorem, the logarithm is the only continuous transformation that transforms real multiplication to addition.

==Characteristics of ANOVA==
ANOVA is used in the analysis of comparative experiments, those in 
which only the difference in outcomes is of interest. The statistical
significance of the experiment is determined by a ratio of two 
variances. This ratio is independent of several possible alterations
to the experimental observations: Adding a constant to all 
observations does not alter significance. Multiplying all 
observations by a constant does not alter significance. So ANOVA 
statistical significance results are independent of constant bias and 
scaling errors as well as the units used in expressing observations. 
In the era of mechanical calculation it was common to 
subtract a constant from all observations (when equivalent to 
dropping leading digits) to simplify data entry. Montgomery 
(2001, Section 3-3: Experiments with a single factor: The analysis of 
variance; Analysis of the fixed effects model) 
Cochran & Cox (1992, p 2 example) This is an example of data
coding.

==Logic of ANOVA==
The calculations of ANOVA can be characterized as computing a number
of means and variances, dividing two variances and comparing the ratio 
to a handbook value to determine statistical significance. Calculating 
a treatment effect is then trivial, "the effect of any treatment is 
estimated by taking the difference between the mean of the 
observations which receive the treatment and the general mean." 
Cochran & Cox (1992, p 49) 

===Partitioning of the sum of squares===

ANOVA uses traditional standardized terminology. The definitional 
equation of sample variance is
, where the 
divisor is called the degrees of freedom (DF), the summation is called 
the sum of squares (SS), the result is called the mean square (MS) and 
the squared terms are deviations from the sample mean. ANOVA 
estimates 3 sample variances: a total variance based on all the 
observation deviations from the grand mean, an error variance based on 
all the observation deviations from their appropriate 
treatment means and a treatment variance. The treatment variance is
based on the deviations of treatment means from the grand mean, the 
result being multiplied by the number of observations in each 
treatment to account for the difference between the variance of 
observations and the variance of means.

The fundamental technique is a partitioning of the total sum of squares SS into components related to the effects used in the model. For example, the model for a simplified ANOVA with one type of treatment at different levels.

:

The number of degrees of freedom DF can be partitioned in a similar way: one of these components (that for error) specifies a chi-squared distribution which describes the associated sum of squares, while the same is true for "treatments" if there is no treatment effect.

:

See also Lack-of-fit sum of squares.

===The F-test===

The F-test is used for comparing the factors of the total deviation. For example, in one-way, or single-factor ANOVA, statistical significance is tested for by comparing the F test statistic

:

:
where MS is mean square, = number of treatments and 
 = total number of cases

to the F-distribution with , degrees of freedom. Using the F-distribution is a natural candidate because the test statistic is the ratio of two scaled sums of squares each of which follows a scaled chi-squared distribution.

The expected value of F is (where n is the treatment sample size)
which is 1 for no treatment effect. As values of F increase above 1, the evidence is increasingly inconsistent with the null hypothesis. Two apparent experimental methods of increasing F are increasing the sample size and reducing the error variance by tight experimental controls.

There are two methods of concluding the ANOVA hypothesis test, both of which produce the same result:
* The textbook method is to compare the observed value of F with the critical value of F determined from tables. The critical value of F is a function of the degrees of freedom of the numerator and the denominator and the significance level (α). If F ≥ FCritical, the null hypothesis is rejected.

* The computer method calculates the probability (p-value) of a value of F greater than or equal to the observed value. The null hypothesis is rejected if this probability is less than or equal to the significance level (α). The two methods .
The ANOVA F-test is known to be nearly optimal in the sense of minimizing false negative errors for a fixed rate of false positive errors (i.e. maximizing power for a fixed significance level). For example, to test the hypothesis that various medical treatments have exactly the same effect, the F-test's p-values closely approximate the permutation test's p-values: The approximation is particularly close when the design is balanced. Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Section 6.7: Completely randomized design; CRD with unequal numbers of replications) Such permutation tests characterize tests with maximum power against all alternative hypotheses, as observed by Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum (2002, page 40) cites Section 5.7 (Permutation Tests), Theorem 2.3 (actually Theorem 3, page 184) of Lehmann's Testing Statistical Hypotheses (1959). The ANOVA F–test (of the null-hypothesis that all treatments have exactly the same effect) is recommended as a practical test, because of its robustness against many alternative distributions. Moore and McCabe (2003, page 763) The F-test for the comparison of variances has a mixed reputation. It 
is not recommended as a hypothesis test to determine whether two 
different samples have the same variance. It is recommended for 
ANOVA where two estimates of the variance of the same 
sample are compared. While the F-test is not generally robust against 
departures from normality, it has been found to be robust in the 
special case of ANOVA. Citations from Moore & McCabe (2003): 
"Analysis of variance uses F statistics, but these are not 
the same as the F statistic for comparing two population standard 
deviations." (page 554) "The F test and other procedures for inference 
about variances are so lacking in robustness as to be of little use in 
practice." (page 556) "ANOVA F test is relatively insensitive 
to moderate nonnormality and unequal variances, especially when the 
sample sizes are similar." (page 763) ANOVA assumes homoscedasticity, 
but it is robust. The statistical test for homoscedasticity (the 
F-test) is not robust. Moore & McCabe recommend a rule of thumb. 

===Extended logic===
ANOVA consists of separable parts; partitioning sources of variance 
and hypothesis testing can be used individually. ANOVA is used to 
support other statistical tools. Regression is first used to fit more 
complex models to data, then ANOVA is used to compare models with the 
objective of selecting simple(r) models that adequately describe the 
data. "Such models could be fit without any reference to ANOVA, but 
ANOVA tools could then be used to make some sense of the fitted models, 
and to test hypotheses about batches of coefficients." Gelman (2008) 
"e think of the analysis of variance as a way of understanding and structuring 
multilevel models—not as an alternative to regression but as a tool 
for summarizing complex high-dimensional inferences ..." 

==ANOVA for a single factor==

The simplest experiment suitable for ANOVA analysis is the completely 
randomized experiment with a single factor. More complex experiments 
with a single factor involve constraints on randomization and include 
completely randomized blocks and Latin squares (and variants: 
Graeco-Latin squares, etc.). The more complex experiments share many 
of the complexities of multiple factors. A relatively complete 
discussion of the analysis (models, data summaries, ANOVA table) of 
the completely randomized experiment is 
available.

==ANOVA for multiple factors==

ANOVA generalizes to the study of the effects of multiple factors. 
When the experiment includes observations at all combinations of 
levels of each factor, it is termed factorial. 
Factorial experiments 
are more efficient than a series of single factor experiments and the 
efficiency grows as the number of factors increases. Montgomery 
(2001, Section 5-2: Introduction to factorial designs; The advantages 
of factorials) Consequently, factorial designs are heavily used.

The use of ANOVA to study the effects of multiple factors has a complication. In a 3-way ANOVA with factors x, y and z, the ANOVA model includes terms for the main effects (x, y, z) and terms for interactions (xy, xz, yz, xyz). 
All terms require hypothesis tests. The proliferation of interaction terms increases the risk that some hypothesis test will produce a false positive by chance. Fortunately, experience says that high order interactions are rare. Belle (2008, Section 8.4: High-order interactions occur rarely) 
The ability to detect interactions is a major advantage of multiple 
factor ANOVA. Testing one factor at a time hides interactions, but 
produces apparently inconsistent experimental results. 

Caution is advised when encountering interactions; Test 
interaction terms first and expand the analysis beyond ANOVA if 
interactions are found. Texts vary in their recommendations regarding 
the continuation of the ANOVA procedure after encountering an 
interaction. Interactions complicate the interpretation of 
experimental data. Neither the calculations of significance nor the 
estimated treatment effects can be taken at face value. "A 
significant interaction will often mask the significance of main effects." Montgomery (2001, Section 5-1: Introduction to factorial designs; Basic definitions and principles) Graphical methods are recommended
to enhance understanding. Regression is often useful. A lengthy discussion of interactions is available in Cox (1958). Cox (1958, 
Chapter 6: Basic ideas about factorial experiments) Some interactions can be removed (by transformations) while others cannot.

A variety of techniques are used with multiple factor ANOVA to reduce expense. One technique used in factorial designs is to minimize replication (possibly no replication with support of analytical trickery) and to combine groups when effects are found to be statistically (or practically) insignificant. An experiment with many insignificant factors may collapse into one with a few factors supported by many replications. Montgomery (2001, Section 5-3.7: Introduction to factorial designs; The two-factor factorial design; One observation per cell) 

==Worked numeric examples==
Several fully worked numerical examples are available. A 
simple case uses one-way (a single factor) analysis. A more complex case uses two-way (two-factor) analysis.

==Associated analysis==
Some analysis is required in support of the design of the experiment while other analysis is performed after changes in the factors are formally found to produce statistically significant changes in the responses. Because experimentation is iterative, the results of one experiment alter plans for following experiments.

===Preparatory analysis===

====The number of experimental units====

In the design of an experiment, the number of experimental units is planned to satisfy the goals of the experiment. Experimentation is often sequential.

Early experiments are often designed to provide mean-unbiased estimates of treatment effects and of experimental error. Later experiments are often designed to test a hypothesis that a treatment effect has an important magnitude; in this case, the number of experimental units is chosen so that the experiment is within budget and has adequate power, among other goals.

Reporting sample size analysis is generally required in psychology. "Provide information on sample size and the process that led to sample size decisions." Wilkinson (1999, p 596) The analysis, which is written in the experimental protocol before the experiment is conducted, is examined in grant applications and administrative review boards.

Besides the power analysis, there are less formal methods for selecting the number of experimental units. These include graphical methods based on limiting
the probability of false negative errors, graphical methods based on an expected variation increase (above the residuals) and methods based on achieving a desired confident interval. Montgomery (2001, Section 3-7: Determining sample size) 

====Power analysis====
Power analysis is often applied in the context of ANOVA in order to assess the probability of successfully rejecting the null hypothesis if we assume a certain ANOVA design, effect size in the population, sample size and significance level. Power analysis can assist in study design by determining what sample size would be required in order to have a reasonable chance of rejecting the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true. Howell (2002, Chapter 8: Power) Howell (2002, Section 11.12: Power (in ANOVA)) Howell (2002, Section 13.7: Power analysis for factorial experiments) Moore and McCabe (2003, pp 778–780) 

====Effect size====

Several standardized measures of effect have been proposed for ANOVA to summarize the strength of the association between a predictor(s) and the dependent variable (e.g., &eta;2, &omega;2, or &fnof;2) or the overall standardized difference (&Psi;) of the complete model. Standardized effect-size estimates facilitate comparison of findings across studies and disciplines. However, while standardized effect sizes are commonly used in much of the professional literature, a non-standardized measure of effect size that has immediately "meaningful" units may be preferable for reporting purposes. Wilkinson (1999, p 599) 

===Followup analysis===
It is always appropriate to carefully consider outliers. They have a disproportionate impact on statistical conclusions and are often the result of errors.

====Model confirmation====
It is prudent to verify that the assumptions of ANOVA have been met. Residuals are examined or analyzed to confirm homoscedasticity and gross normality. Montgomery (2001, Section 3-4: Model adequacy checking) Residuals should have the appearance of (zero mean normal distribution) noise when plotted as a function of anything including time and 
modeled data values. Trends hint at interactions among factors or among observations. One rule of thumb: "If the largest standard deviation is less than twice the smallest standard deviation, we can use methods based on the assumption of equal standard deviations and our results 
will still be approximately correct." Moore and McCabe (2003, p 755, Qualifications to this rule appear in a footnote.) 

====Follow-up tests====
A statistically significant effect in ANOVA is often followed up with one or more different follow-up tests. This can be done in order to assess which groups are different from which other groups or to test various other focused hypotheses. Follow-up tests are often distinguished in terms of whether they are planned (a priori) or post hoc. Planned tests are determined before looking at the data and post hoc tests are performed after looking at the data.

Often one of the "treatments" is none, so the treatment group can act as a control. Dunnett's test (a modification of the t-test) tests whether each of the other treatment groups has the same 
mean as the control. Montgomery (2001, Section 3-5.8: Experiments with a single factor: The analysis of 
variance; Practical interpretation of results; Comparing means with a control) 

Post hoc tests such as Tukey's range test most commonly compare every group mean with every other group mean and typically incorporate some method of controlling for Type I errors. Comparisons, which are most commonly planned, can be either simple or compound. Simple comparisons compare one group mean with one other group mean. Compound comparisons typically compare two sets of groups means where one set has two or more groups (e.g., compare average group means of group A, B and C with group D). Comparisons can also look at tests of trend, such as linear and quadratic relationships, when the independent variable involves ordered levels.

Following ANOVA with pair-wise multiple-comparison tests has been criticized on several grounds. Hinkelmann and Kempthorne (2008, Volume 1, Section 7.5: 
Comparison of Treatments; Multiple Comparison Procedures) There are many such tests (10 in one table) and recommendations regarding their use are vague or conflicting. Howell (2002, Chapter 12: Multiple comparisons among treatment means) Montgomery (2001, Section 3-5: Practical interpretation of results) 

==Study designs and ANOVAs==
There are several types of ANOVA. Many statisticians base ANOVA on the design of the experiment, Cochran & Cox (1957, p 9,
"he general rule that the way in which the experiment is conducted determines not only whether inferences can be made, but also the calculations required to make them.") especially on the protocol that specifies the random assignment of treatments to subjects; the protocol's description of the assignment mechanism should include a specification of the structure of the treatments and of any blocking. It is also common to apply ANOVA to observational data using an appropriate statistical model.

Some popular designs use the following types of ANOVA:
*One-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among two or more independent groups (means),e.g. different levels of urea application in a crop. Typically, however, the one-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among at least three groups, since the two-group case can be covered by a t-test. When there are only two means to compare, the t-test and the ANOVA F-test are equivalent; the relation between ANOVA and t is given by F = t2.
*Factorial ANOVA is used when the experimenter wants to study the interaction effects among the treatments.
*Repeated measures ANOVA is used when the same subjects are used for each treatment (e.g., in a longitudinal study).
*Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is used when there is more than one response variable.

==ANOVA cautions==
Balanced experiments (those with an equal sample size for each treatment) are relatively easy to interpret; Unbalanced 
experiments offer more complexity. For single factor (one way) ANOVA, the adjustment for unbalanced data is easy, but the unbalanced analysis lacks both robustness and power. Montgomery (2001, Section 3-3.4: Unbalanced data) For more complex designs the lack of balance leads to further complications. "The orthogonality property of main effects and interactions present in balanced data does not carry over to the unbalanced case. This means that the usual analysis of variance techniques do not apply. 
Consequently, the analysis of unbalanced factorials is much more difficult than that for balanced designs." Montgomery (2001, Section 14-2: Unbalanced data in factorial design) In the general case, "The analysis of variance can also be applied to unbalanced data, but then the sums of squares, mean squares, and F-ratios will depend on the order in which the sources of variation 
are considered." The simplest techniques for handling unbalanced data restore balance by either throwing out data or by synthesizing missing data. More complex techniques use regression.

ANOVA is (in part) a significance test. The American Psychological Association holds the view that simply reporting significance is insufficient and that reporting confidence bounds is preferred. 

While ANOVA is conservative (in maintaining a significance level) against multiple comparisons in one dimension, it is not conservative against comparisons in multiple dimensions. Wilkinson (1999, p 600) 

==Generalizations==
ANOVA is considered to be a special case of linear regression Gelman (2005, p.1) (with qualification in the later text) Montgomery (2001, Section 3.9: The Regression Approach to the Analysis of Variance) which in turn is a special case of the general linear model. Howell (2002, p 604) All consider the observations to be the sum of a model (fit) and a residual (error) to be minimized.

The Kruskal&ndash;Wallis test and the Friedman test are nonparametric tests, which do not rely on an assumption of normality. Howell (2002, Chapter 18: Resampling and nonparametric approaches to data) Montgomery (2001, Section 3-10: Nonparametric methods in the analysis of variance) 

==History==
While the analysis of variance reached fruition in the 20th century,
antecedents extend centuries into the past according to Stigler. 
Stigler (1986) These include hypothesis testing, the partitioning of sums of 
squares, experimental techniques and the additive model. Laplace was
performing hypothesis testing in the 1770s. Stigler (1986, p 134) 
The development of least-squares methods by Laplace and Gauss circa 
1800 provided an improved method of combining observations (over the 
existing practices of astronomy and geodesy). It also initiated much 
study of the contributions to sums of squares. Laplace soon knew how 
to estimate a variance from a residual (rather than a total) sum of 
squares. Stigler (1986, p 153) By 1827 Laplace was using least 
squares methods to address ANOVA problems regarding measurements of 
atmospheric tides. Stigler (1986, pp 154–155) 
Before 1800 astronomers had isolated observational errors resulting 
from reaction times (the "personal equation") and had developed 
methods of reducing the errors. Stigler (1986, pp 240–242) The 
experimental methods used in the study of the personal equation were 
later accepted by the emerging field of psychology Stigler (1986, 
Chapter 7 - Psychophysics as a Counterpoint) which developed strong 
(full factorial) experimental methods to which randomization and 
blinding were soon added. Stigler (1986, p 253) An eloquent 
non-mathematical explanation of the additive effects model was
available in 1885. Stigler (1986, pp 314–315) 

Sir Ronald Fisher introduced the term "variance" and proposed a formal analysis of variance in a 1918 article The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance. The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance. Ronald A. Fisher. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 1918. (volume 52, pages 399–433) His first application of the analysis of variance was published in 1921. On the "Probable Error" of a Coefficient of Correlation Deduced from a Small Sample. Ronald A. Fisher. Metron, 1: 3-32 (1921) Analysis of variance became widely known after being included in Fisher's 1925 book Statistical Methods for Research Workers.

Randomization models were developed by several researchers. The first was 
published in Polish by Neyman in 1923. 
Scheffé (1959, p 291, "Randomization models were first formulated by 
Neyman (1923) for the completely randomized design, by Neyman (1935) 
for randomized blocks, by Welch (1937) and Pitman (1937) for the Latin 
square under a certain null hypothesis, and by Kempthorne (1952, 1955) 
and Wilk (1955) for many other designs.") 

One of the attributes of ANOVA which ensured its early popularity was 
computational elegance. The structure of the additive model allows 
solution for the additive coefficients by simple algebra rather than 
by matrix calculations. In the era of mechanical calculators this 
simplicity was critical. The determination of statistical 
significance also required access to tables of the F function which 
were supplied by early statistics texts.

==See also==

*AMOVA
*Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)
*ANORVA
*ANOVA on ranks
*ANOVA-simultaneous component analysis
*Mixed-design analysis of variance
*Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)
*One-way analysis of variance
*Repeated measures ANOVA
*Two-way analysis of variance

==Footnotes==

==Notes==

==References==
* 
* Pre-publication chapters are available on-line.
* 
* 
* Cohen, Jacob (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavior sciences (2nd ed.). Routledge ISBN 978-0-8058-0283-2
* 
*Cox, David R. (1958). Planning of experiments. Reprinted as ISBN 978-0-471-57429-3
*
* Freedman, David A.(2005). Statistical Models: Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-67105-7
* 
*
*
* 
*
* Lehmann, E.L. (1959) Testing Statistical Hypotheses. John Wiley & Sons.
* 
* Moore, David S. & McCabe, George P. (2003). Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (4e). W H Freeman & Co. ISBN 0-7167-9657-0
* Rosenbaum, Paul R. (2002). Observational Studies (2nd ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-98967-9
* 
*
* 

==Further reading==
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
*Cox, David R. & Reid, Nancy M. (2000). The theory of design of experiments. (Chapman & Hall/CRC). ISBN 978-1-58488-195-7
* 
* Freedman, David A.; Pisani, Robert; Purves, Roger (2007) Statistics, 4th edition. W.W. Norton & Company ISBN 978-0-393-92972-0
* 
* 
* Tabachnick, Barbara G. & Fidell, Linda S. (2007). Using Multivariate Statistics (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson International Edition. ISBN 978-0-205-45938-4
* 

==External links==

* SOCR ANOVA Activity and interactive applet.
* Examples of all ANOVA and ANCOVA models with up to three treatment factors, including randomized block, split plot, repeated measures, and Latin squares, and their analysis in R
* NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods, section 7.4.3: "Are the means equal?"

 



[[Alkane]]

Chemical structure of methane, the simplest alkane

In organic chemistry, an alkane, or paraffin (a still-used historical name that also has other meanings), is a saturated hydrocarbon. Alkanes consist only of hydrogen and carbon atoms and all bonds are single bonds. Acyclic alkanes have the general chemical formula n2n+2. Alkanes belong to a homologous series of organic compounds in which the members differ by a molecular mass of 14.03u (mass of a methanediyl group, —CH2—, one carbon atom of mass 12.01u, and two hydrogen atoms of mass 1.01u each). There are two main commercial sources: crude oil and natural gas.

Each carbon atom has 4 bonds (either C-H or C-C bonds), and each hydrogen atom is joined to a carbon atom (H-C bonds). A series of linked carbon atoms is known as the carbon skeleton or carbon backbone. The number of carbon atoms is used to define the size of the alkane (e.g., C2-alkane).

An alkyl group, generally abbreviated with the symbol R, is a functional group or side-chain that, like an alkane, consists solely of single-bonded carbon and hydrogen atoms, for example a methyl or ethyl group.

The simplest possible alkane (the parent molecule) is methane, CH4. There is no limit to the number of carbon atoms that can be linked together, the only limitation being that the molecule is acyclic, is saturated, and is a hydrocarbon. Saturated oils and waxes are examples of larger alkanes where the number of carbons in the carbon backbone is greater than 10.

Alkanes are not very reactive and have little biological activity. All alkanes are colourless and odourless. Alkanes can be viewed as a molecular tree upon which can be hung the more biologically active/reactive portions (functional groups) of the molecule.

==Structure classification==

Saturated hydrocarbons can be:
* linear (general formula ) wherein the carbon atoms are joined in a snake-like structure
* branched (general formula , n > 3) wherein the carbon backbone splits off in one or more directions
* cyclic (general formula , n > 2) wherein the carbon backbone is linked so as to form a loop.

According to the definition by IUPAC, the former two are alkanes, whereas the third group is called cycloalkanes. Saturated hydrocarbons can also combine any of the linear, cyclic (e.g., polycyclic) and branching structures, and they are still alkanes (no general formula) as long as they are acyclic (i.e., having no loops).They also have single covalent bonds between their carbons.

==Isomerism==
 Different C4-alkanes and -cycloalkanes (left to right): n-butane and isobutane are the two C4H10 isomers; cyclobutane and methylcyclopropane are the two C4H8 isomers. Bicyclobutane is the only C4H6 compound and has no isomer; tetrahedrane (not shown) is the only C4H4 compound and has also no isomer.

Alkanes with more than three carbon atoms can be arranged in various different ways, forming structural isomers. The simplest isomer of an alkane is the one in which the carbon atoms are arranged in a single chain with no branches. This isomer is sometimes called the n-isomer (n for "normal", although it is not necessarily the most common). However the chain of carbon atoms may also be branched at one or more points. The number of possible isomers increases rapidly with the number of carbon atoms. For example: On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences 
* C1: methane only
* C2: ethane only
* C3: propane only
* C4: 2 isomers: n-butane and isobutane
* C5: 3 isomers: pentane, isopentane, and neopentane
* C6: 5 isomers: hexane, 2-methylpentane, 3-methylpentane, 2,2-dimethylbutane, and 2,3-dimethylbutane
* C12: 355 isomers 
* C32: 27,711,253,769 isomers
* C60: 22,158,734,535,770,411,074,184 isomers, many of which are not stable.

Branched alkanes can be chiral. For example 3-methylhexane and its higher homologues are chiral due to their stereogenic center at carbon atom number 3. In addition to these isomers, the chain of carbon atoms may form one or more loops. Such compounds are called cycloalkanes.

==Nomenclature==

The IUPAC nomenclature (systematic way of naming compounds) for alkanes is based on identifying hydrocarbon chains. Unbranched, saturated hydrocarbon chains are named systematically with a Greek numerical prefix denoting the number of carbons and the suffix "-ane". 

In 1866, August Wilhelm von Hofmann suggested systematizing nomenclature by using the whole sequence of vowels a, e, i, o and u to create suffixes -ane, -ene, -ine (or -yne), -one, -une, for the hydrocarbons CnH2n+2, CnH2n, CnH2n-2, CnH2n-4, CnH2n-6. Alkane Nomenclature Now, the first three name hydrocarbons with single, double and triple bonds; Thus, the ending "-diene" is applied in some cases where von Hofmann had "-ine" "-one" represents a ketone; "-ol" represents an alcohol or OH group; "-oxy-" means an ether and refers to oxygen between two carbons, so that methoxy-methane is the IUPAC name for dimethyl ether.

It is difficult or impossible to find compounds with more than one IUPAC name. This is because shorter chains attached to longer chains are prefixes and the convention includes brackets. Numbers in the name, referring to which carbon a group is attached to, should be as low as possible, so that 1- is implied and usually omitted from names of organic compounds with only one side-group. Symmetric compounds will have two ways of arriving at the same name.

===Linear alkanes===
Straight-chain alkanes are sometimes indicated by the prefix n- (for normal) where a non-linear isomer exists. Although this is not strictly necessary, the usage is still common in cases where there is an important difference in properties between the straight-chain and branched-chain isomers, e.g., n-hexane or 2- or 3-methylpentane.

The members of the series (in terms of number of carbon atoms) are named as follows:
:methane, CH4 - one carbon and four hydrogen
:ethane, C2H6 - two carbon and six hydrogen
:propane, C3H8 - three carbon and 8 hydrogen
:butane, C4H10 - four carbon and 10 hydrogen
:pentane, C5H12 - five carbon and 12 hydrogen
:hexane, C6H14 - six carbon and 14 hydrogen

The first four names were derived from methanol, ether, propionic acid and butyric acid, respectively. Alkanes with five or more carbon atoms are named by adding the suffix -ane to the appropriate numerical multiplier prefix with elision of any terminal vowel (-a or -o) from the basic numerical term. Hence, pentane, C5H12; hexane, C6H14; heptane, C7H16; octane, C8H18; etc. The prefix is generally Greek, however alkanes with a carbon atom count ending in nine, for example nonane, use the Latin prefix non-. For a more complete list, see List of alkanes.

===Branched alkanes===
Ball-and-stick model of isopentane (common name) or 2-methylbutane (IUPAC systematic name)
Simple branched alkanes often have a common name using a prefix to distinguish them from linear alkanes, for example n-pentane, isopentane, and neopentane.

IUPAC naming conventions can be used to produce a systematic name.

The key steps in the naming of more complicated branched alkanes are as follows: 
* Identify the longest continuous chain of carbon atoms
* Name this longest root chain using standard naming rules
* Name each side chain by changing the suffix of the name of the alkane from "-ane" to "-yl"
* Number the root chain so that sum of the numbers assigned to each side group will be as low as possible
* Number and name the side chains before the name of the root chain
* If there are multiple side chains of the same type, use prefixes such as "di-" and "tri-" to indicate it as such, and number each one.
* Add side chain names in alphabetical (disregarding "di-" etc. prefixes) order in front of the name of the root chain

 Comparison of nomenclatures for three isomers of C5H12 
 Common name n-pentane isopentane neopentane 
 IUPAC name pentane 2-methylbutane 2,2-dimethylpropane 
 Structure 120px 90px 70px 

===Cyclic alkanes===

So-called cyclic alkanes are, in the technical sense, not alkanes, but cycloalkanes. They are hydrocarbons just like alkanes, but contain one or more rings.

Simple cycloalkanes have a prefix "cyclo-" to distinguish them from alkanes. Cycloalkanes are named as per their acyclic counterparts with respect to the number of carbon atoms, e.g., cyclopentane (C5H10) is a cycloalkane with 5 carbon atoms just like pentane (C5H12), but they are joined up in a five-membered ring. In a similar manner, propane and cyclopropane, butane and cyclobutane, etc.

Substituted cycloalkanes are named similar to substituted alkanes — the cycloalkane ring is stated, and the substituents are according to their position on the ring, with the numbering decided by Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules. 

===Trivial names===
The trivial (non-systematic) name for alkanes is paraffins. Together, alkanes are known as the paraffin series. Trivial names for compounds are usually historical artifacts. They were coined before the development of systematic names, and have been retained due to familiar usage in industry. Cycloalkanes are also called naphthenes.

It is almost certain that the term paraffin stems from the petrochemical industry. Branched-chain alkanes are called isoparaffins. The use of the term "paraffin" is a general term and often does not distinguish between pure compounds and mixtures of isomers, i.e., compounds with the same chemical formula, e.g., pentane and isopentane.

;Examples
The following trivial names are retained in the IUPAC system:
* isobutane for 2-methylpropane
* isopentane for 2-methylbutane
* neopentane for 2,2-dimethylpropane.

==Physical properties==

All alkanes are colourless and odourless. 

===Table of alkanes===

 Alkane Formula Boiling point Melting point Density (at 20 °C) 
 Methane CH4 -162 -182 gas 
 Ethane C2H6 -89 -183 gas 
 Propane C3H8 -42 -188 gas 
 Butane C4H10 0 -138 gas 
 Pentane C5H12 36 -130 0.626 (liquid) 
 Hexane C6H14 69 -95 0.659 (liquid) 
 Heptane C7H16 98 -91 0.684 (liquid) 
 Octane C8H18 126 -57 0.703 (liquid) 
 Nonane C9H20 151 -54 0.718 (liquid) 
 Decane C10H22 174 -30 0.730 (liquid) 
 Undecane C11H24 196 -26 0.740 (liquid) 
 Dodecane C12H26 216 -10 0.749 (liquid) 
 Hexadecane C16H34 287 18 0.773 (liquid) 
 Icosane C20H42 343 37 solid 
 Triacontane C30H62 450 66 solid 
 Tetracontane C40H82 525 82 solid 
 Pentacontane C50H102 575 91 solid 
 Hexacontane C60H122 625 100 solid 

===Boiling point===
Melting (blue) and boiling (orange) points of the first 16 n-alkanes in °C.

Alkanes experience inter-molecular van der Waals forces. Stronger inter-molecular van der Waals forces give rise to greater boiling points of alkanes. 

There are two determinants for the strength of the van der Waals forces:
* the number of electrons surrounding the molecule, which increases with the alkane's molecular weight
* the surface area of the molecule

Under standard conditions, from CH4 to C4H10 alkanes are gaseous; from C5H12 to C17H36 they are liquids; and after C18H38 they are solids. As the boiling point of alkanes is primarily determined by weight, it should not be a surprise that the boiling point has almost a linear relationship with the size (molecular weight) of the molecule. As a rule of thumb, the boiling point rises 20–30 °C for each carbon added to the chain; this rule applies to other homologous series. 

A straight-chain alkane will have a boiling point higher than a branched-chain alkane due to the greater surface area in contact, thus the greater van der Waals forces, between adjacent molecules. For example, compare isobutane (2-methylpropane) and n-butane (butane), which boil at −12 and 0 °C, and 2,2-dimethylbutane and 2,3-dimethylbutane which boil at 50 and 58 °C, respectively. For the latter case, two molecules 2,3-dimethylbutane can "lock" into each other better than the cross-shaped 2,2-dimethylbutane, hence the greater van der Waals forces.

On the other hand, cycloalkanes tend to have higher boiling points than their linear counterparts due to the locked conformations of the molecules, which give a plane of intermolecular contact.

===Melting point===
The melting points of the alkanes follow a similar trend to boiling points for the same reason as outlined above. That is, (all other things being equal) the larger the molecule the higher the melting point. There is one significant difference between boiling points and melting points. Solids have more rigid and fixed structure than liquids. This rigid structure requires energy to break down. Thus the better put together solid structures will require more energy to break apart. For alkanes, this can be seen from the graph above (i.e., the blue line). The odd-numbered alkanes have a lower trend in melting points than even numbered alkanes. This is because even numbered alkanes pack well in the solid phase, forming a well-organized structure, which requires more energy to break apart. The odd-number alkanes pack less well and so the "looser" organized solid packing structure requires less energy to break apart. 

The melting points of branched-chain alkanes can be either higher or lower than those of the corresponding straight-chain alkanes, again depending on the ability of the alkane in question to pack well in the solid phase: This is particularly true for isoalkanes (2-methyl isomers), which often have melting points higher than those of the linear analogues.

===Conductivity and solubility===
Alkanes do not conduct electricity, nor are they substantially polarized by an electric field. For this reason they do not form hydrogen bonds and are insoluble in polar solvents such as water. Since the hydrogen bonds between individual water molecules are aligned away from an alkane molecule, the coexistence of an alkane and water leads to an increase in molecular order (a reduction in entropy). As there is no significant bonding between water molecules and alkane molecules, the second law of thermodynamics suggests that this reduction in entropy should be minimized by minimizing the contact between alkane and water: Alkanes are said to be hydrophobic in that they repel water.

Their solubility in nonpolar solvents is relatively good, a property that is called lipophilicity. Different alkanes are, for example, miscible in all proportions among themselves.

The density of the alkanes usually increases with increasing number of carbon atoms, but remains less than that of water. Hence, alkanes form the upper layer in an alkane-water mixture.

===Molecular geometry===
sp3-hybridization in methane.
The molecular structure of the alkanes directly affects their physical and chemical characteristics. It is derived from the electron configuration of carbon, which has four valence electrons. The carbon atoms in alkanes are always sp3 hybridized, that is to say that the valence electrons are said to be in four equivalent orbitals derived from the combination of the 2s orbital and the three 2p orbitals. These orbitals, which have identical energies, are arranged spatially in the form of a tetrahedron, the angle of cos−1(−⅓) ≈ 109.47° between them.

===Bond lengths and bond angles===
An alkane molecule has only C – H and C – C single bonds. The former result from the overlap of a sp³-orbital of carbon with the 1s-orbital of a hydrogen; the latter by the overlap of two sp³-orbitals on different carbon atoms. The bond lengths amount to 1.09×10−10 m for a C – H bond and 1.54×10−10 m for a C – C bond.
The tetrahedral structure of methane.

The spatial arrangement of the bonds is similar to that of the four sp³-orbitals—they are tetrahedrally arranged, with an angle of 109.47° between them. Structural formulae that represent the bonds as being at right angles to one another, while both common and useful, do not correspond with the reality.

===Conformation===

The structural formula and the bond angles are not usually sufficient to completely describe the geometry of a molecule. There is a further degree of freedom for each carbon – carbon bond: the torsion angle between the atoms or groups bound to the atoms at each end of the bond. The spatial arrangement described by the torsion angles of the molecule is known as its conformation.
Newman projections of the two conformations of ethane: eclipsed on the left, staggered on the right.
Ball-and-stick models of the two rotamers of ethane

Ethane forms the simplest case for studying the conformation of alkanes, as there is only one C – C bond. If one looks down the axis of the C – C bond, one will see the so-called Newman projection. The hydrogen atoms on both the front and rear carbon atoms have an angle of 120° between them, resulting from the projection of the base of the tetrahedron onto a flat plane. However, the torsion angle between a given hydrogen atom attached to the front carbon and a given hydrogen atom attached to the rear carbon can vary freely between 0° and 360°. This is a consequence of the free rotation about a carbon – carbon single bond. Despite this apparent freedom, only two limiting conformations are important: eclipsed conformation and staggered conformation.

The two conformations, also known as rotamers, differ in energy: The staggered conformation is 12.6 kJ/mol lower in energy (more stable) than the eclipsed conformation (the least stable).

This difference in energy between the two conformations, known as the torsion energy, is low compared to the thermal energy of an ethane molecule at ambient temperature. There is constant rotation about the C-C bond. The time taken for an ethane molecule to pass from one staggered conformation to the next, equivalent to the rotation of one CH3-group by 120° relative to the other, is of the order of 10−11 seconds.

The case of higher alkanes is more complex but based on similar principles, with the antiperiplanar conformation always being the most favored around each carbon-carbon bond. For this reason, alkanes are usually shown in a zigzag arrangement in diagrams or in models. The actual structure will always differ somewhat from these idealized forms, as the differences in energy between the conformations are small compared to the thermal energy of the molecules: Alkane molecules have no fixed structural form, whatever the models may suggest.

===Spectroscopic properties===
Virtually all organic compounds contain carbon – carbon and carbon – hydrogen bonds, and so show some of the features of alkanes in their spectra. Alkanes are notable for having no other groups, and therefore for the absence of other characteristic spectroscopic features of different functional group like -OH,-CHO,-COOH etc.

====Infrared spectroscopy====
The carbon–hydrogen stretching mode gives a strong absorption between 2850 and 2960 cm−1, while the carbon–carbon stretching mode absorbs between 800 and 1300 cm−1. The carbon–hydrogen bending modes depend on the nature of the group: methyl groups show bands at 1450 cm−1 and 1375 cm−1, while methylene groups show bands at 1465 cm−1 and 1450 cm−1. Carbon chains with more than four carbon atoms show a weak absorption at around 725 cm−1.

====NMR spectroscopy====
The proton resonances of alkanes are usually found at δH = 0.5 – 1.5. The carbon-13 resonances depend on the number of hydrogen atoms attached to the carbon: δC = 8 – 30 (primary, methyl, -CH3), 15 – 55 (secondary, methylene, -CH2-), 20 – 60 (tertiary, methyne, C-H) and quaternary. The carbon-13 resonance of quaternary carbon atoms is characteristically weak, due to the lack of Nuclear Overhauser effect and the long relaxation time, and can be missed in weak samples, or samples that have not been run for a sufficiently long time.

====Mass spectrometry====
Alkanes have a high ionization energy, and the molecular ion is usually weak. The fragmentation pattern can be difficult to interpret, but, in the case of branched chain alkanes, the carbon chain is preferentially cleaved at tertiary or quaternary carbons due to the relative stability of the resulting free radicals. The fragment resulting from the loss of a single methyl group (M−15) is often absent, and other fragment are often spaced by intervals of fourteen mass units, corresponding to sequential loss of CH2-groups.

==Chemical properties==

Alkanes are only weakly reactive with ionic and other polar substances. The acid dissociation constant (pKa) values of all alkanes are above 60, hence they are practically inert to acids and bases (see: carbon acids). This inertness is the source of the term paraffins (with the meaning here of "lacking affinity"). In crude oil the alkane molecules have remained chemically unchanged for millions of years.

However redox reactions of alkanes, in particular with oxygen and the halogens, are possible as the carbon atoms are in a strongly reduced condition; in the case of methane, the lowest possible oxidation state for carbon (−4) is reached. Reaction with oxygen (if present in sufficient quantity to satisfy the reaction stoichiometry) leads to combustion without any smoke, producing carbon dioxide and water. Free radical halogenation reactions occur with halogens, leading to the production of haloalkanes. In addition, alkanes have been shown to interact with, and bind to, certain transition metal complexes in (See: carbon-hydrogen bond activation).

Free radicals, molecules with unpaired electrons, play a large role in most reactions of alkanes, such as cracking and reformation where long-chain alkanes are converted into shorter-chain alkanes and straight-chain alkanes into branched-chain isomers.

In highly branched alkanes, the bond angle may differ significantly from the optimal value (109.5°) in order to allow the different groups sufficient space. This causes a tension in the molecule, known as steric hindrance, and can substantially increase the reactivity.

===Reactions with oxygen (combustion reaction)===
All alkanes react with oxygen in a combustion reaction, although they become increasingly difficult to ignite as the number of carbon atoms increases. The general equation for complete combustion is:
:CnH2n+2 + (1.5n+0.5)O2 → (n+1)H2O + nCO2
or CnH2n+2 + ((3n+1)/2)O2 → (n+1)H2O + nCO2

In the absence of sufficient oxygen, carbon monoxide or even soot can be formed, as shown below:

:CnH(2n+2) + (n+0.5)O2 → (n+1)H2O + nCO

:CnH(2n+2) + (0.5n+0.5)O2 → (n+1)H2O + nC

For example methane:
:2CH4 + 3O2 → 2CO + 4H2O
:CH4 + 1.5O2 → CO + 2H2O

See the alkane heat of formation table for detailed data.
The standard enthalpy change of combustion, ΔcHo, for alkanes increases by about 650 kJ/mol per CH2 group. Branched-chain alkanes have lower values of ΔcHo than straight-chain alkanes of the same number of carbon atoms, and so can be seen to be somewhat more stable.

=== Reactions with halogens ===

Alkanes react with halogens in a so-called free radical halogenation reaction. The hydrogen atoms of the alkane are progressively replaced by halogen atoms. Free-radicals are the reactive species that participate in the reaction, which usually leads to a mixture of products. The reaction is highly exothermic, and can lead to an explosion.

These reactions are an important industrial route to halogenated hydrocarbons. There are three steps:
* Initiation the halogen radicals form by homolysis. Usually, energy in the form of heat or light is required.
* Chain reaction or Propagation then takes place—the halogen radical abstracts a hydrogen from the alkane to give an alkyl radical. This reacts further.
* Chain termination where step the radicals recombine.

Experiments have shown that all halogenation produces a mixture of all possible isomers, indicating that all hydrogen atoms are susceptible to reaction. The mixture produced, however, is not a statistical mixture: Secondary and tertiary hydrogen atoms are preferentially replaced due to the greater stability of secondary and tertiary free-radicals. An example can be seen in the monobromination of propane: the Figure below, the Statistical Distribution should be 25% and 75%
Monobromination of propane

=== Cracking ===

Cracking breaks larger molecules into smaller ones. This can be done with a thermal or catalytic method. The thermal cracking process follows a homolytic mechanism with formation of free-radicals. The catalytic cracking process involves the presence of acid catalysts (usually solid acids such as silica-alumina and zeolites), which promote a heterolytic (asymmetric) breakage of bonds yielding pairs of ions of opposite charges, usually a carbocation and the very unstable hydride anion. Carbon-localized free-radicals and cations are both highly unstable and undergo processes of chain rearrangement, C-C scission in position beta (i.e., cracking) and intra- and intermolecular hydrogen transfer or hydride transfer. In both types of processes, the corresponding reactive intermediates (radicals, ions) are permanently regenerated, and thus they proceed by a self-propagating chain mechanism. The chain of reactions is eventually terminated by radical or ion recombination.

=== Isomerization and reformation ===
Dragan and his colleague were the first to report about isomerization in alkanes. Asinger, Friedrich. Paraffins; Chemistry and Technology. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1967. Print. Isomerization and reformation are processes in which straight-chain alkanes are heated in the presence of a platinum catalyst. In isomerization, the alkanes become branched-chain isomers. In other words, it does not lose any carbons or hydrogens, keeping the same molecular weight. In reformation, the alkanes become cycloalkanes or aromatic hydrocarbons, giving off hydrogen as a by-product. Both of these processes raise the octane number of the substance. Butane is the most common alkane that is put under the process of isomerization, as it makes many branched alkanes with high octane numbers. 

===Other reactions===
Alkanes will react with steam in the presence of a nickel catalyst to give hydrogen. Alkanes can be chlorosulfonated and nitrated, although both reactions require special conditions. The fermentation of alkanes to carboxylic acids is of some technical importance. In the Reed reaction, sulfur dioxide, chlorine and light convert hydrocarbons to sulfonyl chlorides. Nucleophilic Abstraction can be used to separate an alkane from a metal. Alkyl groups can be transferred from one compound to another by transmetalation reactions.

==Occurrence==

===Occurrence of alkanes in the Universe===
Methane and ethane make up a tiny proportion of Jupiter's atmosphere
Extraction of oil, which contains many different hydrocarbons including alkanes

Alkanes form a small portion of the atmospheres of the outer gas planets such as Jupiter (0.1% methane, 0.0002% ethane), Saturn (0.2% methane, 0.0005% ethane), Uranus (1.99% methane, 0.00025% ethane) and Neptune (1.5% methane, 1.5 ppm ethane). Titan (1.6% methane), a satellite of Saturn, was examined by the Huygens probe, which indicated that Titan's atmosphere periodically rains liquid methane onto the moon's surface. Also on Titan the Cassini mission has imaged seasonal methane/ethane lakes near the polar regions of Titan. Methane and ethane have also been detected in the tail of the comet Hyakutake. Chemical analysis showed that the abundances of ethane and methane were roughly equal, which is thought to imply that its ices formed in interstellar space, away from the Sun, which would have evaporated these volatile molecules. Alkanes have also been detected in meteorites such as carbonaceous chondrites.

===Occurrence of alkanes on Earth===
Traces of methane gas (about 0.0002% or 1745 ppb) occur in the Earth's atmosphere, produced primarily by methanogenic microorganisms, such as Archaea in the gut of ruminants. 

The most important commercial sources for alkanes are natural gas and oil. Natural gas contains primarily methane and ethane, with some propane and butane: oil is a mixture of liquid alkanes and other hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons were formed when marine animals and plants (zooplankton and phytoplankton) died and sank to the bottom of ancient seas and were covered with sediments in an anoxic environment and converted over many millions of years at high temperatures and high pressure to their current form. Natural gas resulted thereby for example from the following reaction:
:C6H12O6 → 3CH4 + 3CO2

These hydrocarbon deposits, collected in porous rocks trapped beneath impermeable cap rocks, comprise commercial oil fields. They have formed over millions of years and once exhausted cannot be readily replaced. The depletion of these hydrocarbons reserves is the basis for what is known as the energy crisis.

Methane is also present in what is called biogas, produced by animals and decaying matter, which is a possible renewable energy source.

Alkanes have a low solubility in water, so the content in the oceans is negligible; however, at high pressures and low temperatures (such as at the bottom of the oceans), methane can co-crystallize with water to form a solid methane clathrate (methane hydrate). Although this cannot be commercially exploited at the present time, the amount of combustible energy of the known methane clathrate fields exceeds the energy content of all the natural gas and oil deposits put together. Methane extracted from methane clathrate is therefore a candidate for future fuels.

===Biological occurrence===
Acyclic alkanes occur in nature in various ways.

;Bacteria and archaea
Methanogenic archaea in the gut of this cow are responsible for some of the methane in Earth's atmosphere.
Certain types of bacteria can metabolize alkanes: they prefer even-numbered carbon chains as they are easier to degrade than odd-numbered chains.

On the other hand, certain archaea, the methanogens, produce large quantities of methane by the metabolism of carbon dioxide or other oxidized organic compounds. The energy is released by the oxidation of hydrogen:
:CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O

Methanogens are also the producers of marsh gas in wetlands, and release about two billion tonnes of methane per year—the atmospheric content of this gas is produced nearly exclusively by them. The methane output of cattle and other herbivores, which can release up to 150 liters per day, and of termites, is also due to methanogens. They also produce this simplest of all alkanes in the intestines of humans. Methanogenic archaea are, hence, at the end of the carbon cycle, with carbon being released back into the atmosphere after having been fixed by photosynthesis. It is probable that our current deposits of natural gas were formed in a similar way.

;Fungi and plants
Alkanes also play a role, if a minor role, in the biology of the three eukaryotic groups of organisms: fungi, plants and animals. Some specialized yeasts, e.g., Candida tropicale, Pichia sp., Rhodotorula sp., can use alkanes as a source of carbon and/or energy. The fungus Amorphotheca resinae prefers the longer-chain alkanes in aviation fuel, and can cause serious problems for aircraft in tropical regions. 

In plants, the solid long-chain alkanes are found in the plant cuticle and epicuticular wax of many species, but are only rarely major constituents. EA Baker (1982) Chemistry and morphology of plant epicuticular waxes. pp139-165. In "The Plant Cuticle". edited by DF Cutler, KL Alvin and CE Price. Academic Press, London. ISBN 0-12-199920-3 They protect the plant against water loss, prevent the leaching of important minerals by the rain, and protect against bacteria, fungi, and harmful insects. The carbon chains in plant alkanes are usually odd-numbered, between twenty-seven and thirty-three carbon atoms in length and are made by the plants by decarboxylation of even-numbered fatty acids. The exact composition of the layer of wax is not only species-dependent, but changes also with the season and such environmental factors as lighting conditions, temperature or humidity. 

More volatile short-chain alkanes are also produced by and found in plant tissues. The Jeffrey pine is noted for producing exceptionally high levels of n-heptane in its resin, for which reason its distillate was designated as the zero point for one octane rating. Floral scents have also long been known to contain volatile alkane components, and n-nonane is a significant component in the scent of some roses. Emission of gaseous and volatile alkanes such as ethane, pentane, and hexane by plants has also been documented at low levels, though they are not generally considered to be a major component of biogenic air pollution. 

Edible vegetable oils also typically contain small fractions of biogenic alkanes with a wide spectrum of carbon numbers, mainly 8 to 35, usually peaking in the low to upper 20s, with concentrations up to dozens of milligrams per kilogram (parts per million by weight) and sometimes over a hundred for the total alkane fraction. 

;Animals
Alkanes are found in animal products, although they are less important than unsaturated hydrocarbons. One example is the shark liver oil, which is approximately 14% pristane (2,6,10,14-tetramethylpentadecane, C19H40). They are important as pheromones, chemical messenger materials, on which insects depend for communication. In some species, e.g. the support beetle Xylotrechus colonus, pentacosane (C25H52), 3-methylpentaicosane (C26H54) and 9-methylpentaicosane (C26H54) are transferred by body contact. With others like the tsetse fly Glossina morsitans morsitans, the pheromone contains the four alkanes 2-methylheptadecane (C18H38), 17,21-dimethylheptatriacontane (C39H80), 15,19-dimethylheptatriacontane (C39H80) and 15,19,23-trimethylheptatriacontane (C40H82), and acts by smell over longer distances. Waggle-dancing honey bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane. 

===Ecological relations===
Early spider orchid (Ophrys sphegodes)
One example, in which both plant and animal alkanes play a role, is the ecological relationship between the sand bee (Andrena nigroaenea) and the early spider orchid (Ophrys sphegodes); the latter is dependent for pollination on the former. Sand bees use pheromones in order to identify a mate; in the case of A. nigroaenea, the females emit a mixture of tricosane (C23H48), pentacosane (C25H52) and heptacosane (C27H56) in the ratio 3:3:1, and males are attracted by specifically this odor. The orchid takes advantage of this mating arrangement to get the male bee to collect and disseminate its pollen; parts of its flower not only resemble the appearance of sand bees, but also produce large quantities of the three alkanes in the same ratio as female sand bees. As a result numerous males are lured to the blooms and attempt to copulate with their imaginary partner: although this endeavor is not crowned with success for the bee, it allows the orchid to transfer its pollen,
which will be dispersed after the departure of the frustrated male to different blooms.

==Production==

===Petroleum refining===
An oil refinery at Martinez, California.
As stated earlier, the most important source of alkanes is natural gas and crude oil. Alkanes are separated in an oil refinery by fractional distillation and processed into many different products.

===Fischer-Tropsch===
The Fischer-Tropsch process is a method to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons, including alkanes, from carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This method is used to produce substitutes for petroleum distillates.

===Laboratory preparation===
There is usually little need for alkanes to be synthesized in the laboratory, since they are usually commercially available. Also, alkanes are generally non-reactive chemically or biologically, and do not undergo functional group interconversions cleanly. When alkanes are produced in the laboratory, it is often a side-product of a reaction. For example, the use of n-butyllithium as a strong base gives the conjugate acid, n-butane as a side-product:

: C4H9Li + H2O → C4H10 + LiOH

However, at times it may be desirable to make a portion of a molecule into an alkane like functionality (alkyl group) using the above or similar methods. For example, an ethyl group is an alkyl group; when this is attached to a hydroxy group, it gives ethanol, which is not an alkane. To do so, the best-known methods are hydrogenation of alkenes:

:RCH=CH2 + H2 → RCH2CH3 (R = alkyl)

Alkanes or alkyl groups can also be prepared directly from alkyl halides in the Corey-House-Posner-Whitesides reaction. The Barton-McCombie deoxygenation removes hydroxyl groups from alcohols e.g.
:Barton-McCombie deoxygenation scheme

and the Clemmensen reduction Martin, E. L. Org. React. 1942, 1, 155. (Review) Buchanan, J. G. St. C.; Woodgate, P. D. Quart. Rev. 1969, 23, 522, (Review). Vedejs, E. Org. React. 1975, 22, 401, (Review). Yamamura, S.; Nishiyama, S. Comp. Org. Syn. 1991, 8, 309-313,(Review). removes carbonyl groups from aldehydes and ketones to form alkanes or alkyl-substituted compounds e.g.:
:Clemmensen Reduction

==Applications==
The applications of a certain alkane can be determined quite well according to the number of carbon atoms. The first four alkanes are used mainly for heating and cooking purposes, and in some countries for electricity generation. Methane and ethane are the main components of natural gas; they are normally stored as gases under pressure. It is, however, easier to transport them as liquids: This requires both compression and cooling of the gas.

Propane and butane can be liquefied at fairly low pressures, and are well known as liquified petroleum gas (LPG). Propane, for example, is used in the propane gas burner and as a fuel for cars, Using propane as a fuel butane in disposable cigarette lighters. The two alkanes are used as propellants in aerosol sprays.

From pentane to octane the alkanes are reasonably volatile liquids. They are used as fuels in internal combustion engines, as they vaporise easily on entry into the combustion chamber without forming droplets, which would impair the uniformity of the combustion. Branched-chain alkanes are preferred as they are much less prone to premature ignition, which causes knocking, than their straight-chain homologues. This propensity to premature ignition is measured by the octane rating of the fuel, where 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane) has an arbitrary value of 100, and heptane has a value of zero. Apart from their use as fuels, the middle alkanes are also good solvents for nonpolar substances.

Alkanes from nonane to, for instance, hexadecane (an alkane with sixteen carbon atoms) are liquids of higher viscosity, less and less suitable for use in gasoline. They form instead the major part of diesel and aviation fuel. Diesel fuels are characterized by their cetane number, cetane being an old name for hexadecane. However, the higher melting points of these alkanes can cause problems at low temperatures and in polar regions, where the fuel becomes too thick to flow correctly.

Alkanes from hexadecane upwards form the most important components of fuel oil and lubricating oil. In the latter function, they work at the same time as anti-corrosive agents, as their hydrophobic nature means that water cannot reach the metal surface. Many solid alkanes find use as paraffin wax, for example, in candles. This should not be confused however with true wax, which consists primarily of esters.

Alkanes with a chain length of approximately 35 or more carbon atoms are found in bitumen, used, for example, in road surfacing. However, the higher alkanes have little value and are usually split into lower alkanes by cracking.

Some synthetic polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene are alkanes with chains containing hundreds of thousands of carbon atoms. These materials are used in innumerable applications, and billions of kilograms of these materials are made and used each year.

==Environmental transformations==
When released in the environment, alkanes don't undergo rapid biodegradation, because they have no functional groups (like hydroxyl or carbonyl) that are needed by most organisms in order to metabolize the compound.

However, some bacteria can metabolize some alkanes (especially those linear and short), by oxidizing the terminal carbon atom. The product is an alcohol, that could be next oxidized to an aldehyde, and finally to a carboxylic acid. The resulting fatty acid could be metabolized through the fatty acid degradation pathway.

==Hazards==
Methane is explosive when mixed with air (1 – 8% CH4). Other lower alkanes can also form explosive mixtures with air. The lighter liquid alkanes are highly flammable, although this risk decreases with the length of the carbon chain. Pentane, hexane, heptane, and octane are classed as dangerous for the environment and harmful. The straight-chain isomer of hexane is a neurotoxin.

Considerations for detection /risk control:
* Methane is lighter than air (possibility of accumulation under roofs)
* Ethane is slightly heavier than air (possibility of pooling at ground levels / pits)
* Propane is heavier than air (possibility of pooling at ground levels / pits)
* Butane is heavier than air (possibility of pooling at ground levels / pits)

==See also==

* Alkene
* Alkyne
* Cycloalkane

==References==

==Further reading==
* Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry

 



[[Appellate procedure in the United States]]

In United States appellate procedure, an appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision.

The Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

The specific procedures for appealing, including even whether there is a right of appeal from a particular type of decision, can vary greatly from state to state. The right to file an appeal can also vary from state to state; for example, the New Jersey Constitution vests judicial power in a Supreme Court, a Superior Court, and other courts of limited jurisdiction, with an appellate court being part of the Superior Court. Jeffrey S. Mandel, New Jersey Appellate Practice (Gann Law Books), chapter 1:2 

The nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was prosecuted. There are many types of standard of review for appeals, such as de novo and abuse of discretion.

An appellate court is a court that hears cases on appeal from another court. Depending on the particular legal rules that apply to each circumstance, a party to a court case who is unhappy with the result might be able to challenge that result in an appellate court on specific grounds. These grounds typically could include errors of law, fact, procedure or due process.

In different jurisdictions, appellate courts are also called appeals courts, courts of appeals, superior courts, or supreme courts.

==Access to appellant status==
A party who files an appeal is called an "appellant", "plaintiff in error", "petitioner" or "pursuer", and a party on the other side is called a "appellee". A "cross-appeal" is an appeal brought by the respondent. For example, suppose at trial the judge found for the plaintiff and ordered the defendant to pay $50,000. If the defendant files an appeal arguing that he should not have to pay any money, then the plaintiff might file a cross-appeal arguing that the defendant should have to pay $200,000 instead of $50,000.

The appellant is the party who, having lost part or all their claim in a lower court decision, is appealing to a higher court to have their case reconsidered. This is usually done on the basis that the lower court judge erred in the application of law, but it may also be possible to appeal on the basis of court misconduct, or that a finding of fact was entirely unreasonable to make on the evidence.

The appellant in the new case can be either the plaintiff (or claimant), defendant, third-party intervenor, or respondent (appellee) from the lower case, depending on who was the losing party. The winning party from the lower court, however, is now the respondent. In unusual cases the appellant can be the victor in the court below, but still appeal.

An appellee is the party to an appeal in which the lower court judgment was in its favor. The appellee is required to respond to the petition, oral arguments, and legal briefs of the appellant. In general, the appellee takes the procedural posture that the lower court's decision should be affirmed.

==Ability to appeal==
An appeal "as of right" is one that is guaranteed by statute or some underlying constitutional or legal principle. The appellate court cannot refuse to listen to the appeal. An appeal "by leave" or "permission" requires the appellant to obtain leave to appeal; in such a situation either or both of the lower court and the appellate court may have the discretion to grant or refuse the appellant's demand to appeal the lower court's decision. In the Supreme Court, review in most cases is available only if the Court exercises its discretion and grants a writ of certiorari. 

In tort, equity, or other civil matters either party to a previous case may file an appeal. In criminal matters, however, the state or prosecution generally has no appeal "as of right". And due to the double jeopardy principle, the state or prosecution may never appeal a jury or bench verdict of acquittal. But in some jurisdictions, the state or prosecution may appeal "as of right" from a trial court's dismissal of an indictment in whole or in part or from a trial court's granting of a defendant's suppression motion. Likewise, in some jurisdictions, the state or prosecution may appeal an issue of law "by leave" from the trial court and/or the appellate court. The ability of the prosecution to appeal a decision in favor of a defendant varies significantly internationally. All parties must present grounds to appeal, or it will not be heard.

By convention in some law reports, the appellant is named first. This can mean that where it is the defendant who appeals, the name of the case in the law reports reverses (in some cases twice) as the appeals work their way up the court hierarchy. This is not always true, however. In the federal courts, the parties' names always stay in the same order as the lower court when an appeal is taken to the circuit courts of appeals, and are re-ordered only if the appeal reaches the Supreme Court.

==Direct or collateral: Appealing criminal convictions==
Many jurisdictions recognize two types of appeals, particularly in the criminal context. The first is the traditional "direct" appeal in which the appellant files an appeal with the next higher court of review. The second is the collateral appeal or post-conviction petition, in which the petitioner-appellant files the appeal in a court of first instance—usually the court that tried the case.

The key distinguishing factor between direct and collateral appeals is that the former occurs in state courts, and the latter in federal courts.

Relief in post-conviction is rare and is most often found in capital or violent felony cases. The typical scenario involves an incarcerated defendant locating DNA evidence demonstrating the defendant's actual innocence.

===Appellate review===
"Appellate review" is the general term for the process by which courts with appellate jurisdiction take jurisdiction of matters decided by lower courts. It is distinguished from judicial review, which refers to the court's overriding constitutional or statutory right to determine if a legislative act or administrative decision is defective for jurisdictional or other reasons (which may vary by jurisdiction).

In most jurisdictions the normal and preferred way of seeking appellate review is by filing an appeal of the final judgment. Generally, an appeal of the judgment will also allow appeal of all other orders or rulings made by the trial court in the course of the case. This is because such orders cannot be appealed "as of right". However, certain critical interlocutory court orders, such as the denial of a request for an interim injunction, or an order holding a person in contempt of court, can be appealed immediately although the case may otherwise not have been fully disposed of.

There are two distinct forms of appellate review, "direct" and "collateral". For example, a criminal defendant may be convicted in state court, and lose on "direct appeal" to higher state appellate courts, and if unsuccessful, mount a "collateral" action such as filing for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal courts. Generally speaking, "irect appeal statutes afford defendants the opportunity to challenge the merits of a judgment and allege errors of law or fact. ... review, on the other hand, provide an independent and civil inquiry into the validity of a conviction and sentence, and as such are generally limited to challenges to constitutional, jurisdictional, or other fundamental violations that occurred at trial." "Graham v. Borgen", 483 F 3d. 475 (7th Cir. 2007) (no. 04-4103) (slip op. at 7) (citation omitted).

In Anglo-American common law courts, appellate review of lower court decisions may also be obtained by filing a petition for review by prerogative writ in certain cases. There is no corresponding right to a writ in any pure or continental civil law legal systems, though some mixed systems such as Quebec recognize these prerogative writs.

====Direct Appeal====
After exhausting the first appeal as of right, defendants usually petition the highest state court to review the decision. This appeal is known as a direct appeal. The highest state court, generally known as the Supreme Court, exercises discretion over whether it will review the case. On direct appeal, a prisoner challenges the grounds of the conviction based on an error that occurred at trial or some other stage in the adjudicative process.

=====Preservation Issues=====
An appellant's claim(s) must usually be preserved at trial. This means that the defendant had to object to the error when it occurred in the trial. Because constitutional claims are of great magnitude, appellate courts might be more lenient to review the claim even if it was not preserved. For example Connecticut applies the following standard to review unpreserved claims: 1.the record is adequate to review the alleged claim of error; 2. the claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right; 3. the alleged constitutional violation clearly exists and clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial; 4. if subject to harmless error analysis, the state has failed to demonstrate harmlessness of the alleged constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt. 

====State Post Conviction Relief: Collateral Appeal====
All States have a post-conviction relief process. Similar to federal post-conviction relief, an appellant can petition the court to correct alleged fundamental errors that were not corrected on direct review. Typical claims might include ineffective assistance of counsel and actual innocence based on new evidence. These proceedings are separate from the direct appeal. As such, the conviction is considered final. An appeal from the post conviction court proceeds just as a direct appeal. That is, it goes to the intermediate appellate court, followed by the highest court. If the petition is granted the appellant could be released from incarceration, the sentence could be modified, or a new trial could be ordered. 

====Habeas Corpus====

==Notice of appeal==
A "notice of appeal" is a form or document that in many cases is required to begin an appeal. The form is completed by the appellant or by the appellant's legal representative. The nature of this form can vary greatly from country to country and from court to court within a country.

The specific rules of the legal system will dictate exactly how the appeal is officially begun. For example, the appellant might have to file the notice of appeal with the appellate court, or with the court from which the appeal is taken, or both.

Some courts have samples of a notice of appeal on the court's own web site. In New Jersey, for example, the Administrative Office of the Court has promulgated a form of notice of appeal for use by appellants, though using this exact form is not mandatory and the failure to use it is not a jurisdictional defect provided that all pertinent information is set forth in whatever form of notice of appeal is used. Jeffrey S. Mandel, New Jersey Appellate Practice (Gann Law Books) 

The deadline for beginning an appeal can often be very short: traditionally, it is measured in days, not months. This can vary from country to country, as well as within a country, depending on the specific rules in force. In the U.S. federal court system, criminal defendants must file a notice of appeal within 10 days of the entry of either the judgment or the order being appealed, or the right to appeal is forfeited. 

==See also==

* Appellate court
* Appellee
* Civil procedure
* Court of Appeals
* Courts-martial in the United States
* Criminal procedure
* Defendant
* Interlocutory appeal
* List of legal topics
* Petition for stay
* Plaintiff
* Pursuer
* Reversible error
* Supreme Court of the United States
* Writ of Certiorari
* Writ of habeas corpus
* Writ of mandamus

==Appellate procedure==

Generally speaking the appellate court examines the record of evidence presented in the trial court and the law that the lower court applied and decides whether that decision was legally sound or not. The appellate court will typically be deferential to the lower court's findings of fact (such as whether a defendant committed a particular act), unless clearly erroneous, and so will focus on the court's application of the law to those facts (such as whether the act found by the court to have occurred fits a legal definition at issue).

If the appellate court finds no defect, it "affirms" the judgment. If the appellate court does find a legal defect in the decision "below" (i.e., in the lower court), it may "modify" the ruling to correct the defect, or it may nullify ("reverse" or "vacate") the whole decision or any part of it. It may, in addition, send the case back ("remand" or "remit") to the lower court for further proceedings to remedy the defect.

In some cases, an appellate court may review a lower court decision "de novo" (or completely), challenging even the lower court's findings of fact. This might be the proper standard of review, for example, if the lower court resolved the case by granting a pre-trial motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment which is usually based only upon written submissions to the trial court and not on any trial testimony.

Another situation is where appeal is by way of "re-hearing". Certain jurisdictions permit certain appeals to cause the trial to be heard afresh in the appellate court.

Sometimes, the appellate court finds a defect in the procedure the parties used in filing the appeal and dismisses the appeal without considering its merits, which has the same effect as affirming the judgment below. (This would happen, for example, if the appellant waited too long, under the appellate court's rules, to file the appeal.)

Generally, there is no trial in an appellate court, only consideration of the record of the evidence presented to the trial court and all the pre-trial and trial court proceedings are reviewed—unless the appeal is by way of re-hearing, new evidence will usually only be considered on appeal in "very" rare instances, for example if that material evidence was unavailable to a party for some very significant reason such as prosecutorial misconduct.

In some systems, an appellate court will only consider the written decision of the lower court, together with any written evidence that was before that court and is relevant to the appeal. In other systems, the appellate court will normally consider the record of the lower court. In those cases the record will first be certified by the lower court.

The appellant has the opportunity to present arguments for the granting of the appeal and the appellee (or respondent) can present arguments against it. Arguments of the parties to the appeal are presented through their appellate lawyers, if represented, or "pro se" if the party has not engaged legal representation. Those arguments are presented in written briefs and sometimes in oral argument to the court at a hearing. At such hearings each party is allowed a brief presentation at which the appellate judges ask questions based on their review of the record below and the submitted briefs.

In an adversarial system, appellate courts do not have the power to review lower court decisions unless a party appeals it. Therefore, if a lower court has ruled in an improper manner, or against legal precedent, that judgment will stand if not appealed – even if it might have been overturned on appeal.

The United States legal system generally recognizes two types of appeals: a trial "de novo" or an appeal on the record.

A trial de novo is usually available for review of informal proceedings conducted by some minor judicial tribunals in proceedings that do not provide all the procedural attributes of a formal judicial trial. If unchallenged, these decisions have the power to settle more minor legal disputes once and for all. If a party is dissatisfied with the finding of such a tribunal, one generally has the power to request a trial "de novo" by a court of record. In such a proceeding, all issues and evidence may be developed newly, as though never heard before, and one is not restricted to the evidence heard in the lower proceeding. Sometimes, however, the decision of the lower proceeding is itself admissible as evidence, thus helping to curb frivolous appeals.

In some cases, an application for "trial de novo" effectively erases the prior trial as if it had never taken place. The Supreme Court of Virginia has stated that '"This Court has repeatedly held that the effect of an appeal to circuit court is to "annul the judgment of the inferior tribunal as completely as if there had been no previous trial."' "Gaskill v. Commonwealth", 206 Va. 486, 490, 144 S.E.2d 293, 296 (1965) The only exception to this is that if a defendant appeals a conviction for a crime having multiple levels of offenses, where they are convicted on a lesser offense, the appeal is of the lesser offense; the conviction represents an acquittal of the more serious offenses. " trial on the same charges in the circuit court does not violate double jeopardy principles, . . . subject only to the limitation that conviction in district court for an offense lesser included in the one charged constitutes an acquittal of the greater offense,
permitting trial de novo in the circuit court only for the lesser-included offense." "Kenyon v. Commonwealth", 37 Va. App. 668, 673, 561 S.E.2d 17, 19–20 

In an appeal on the record from a decision in a judicial proceeding, both appellant and respondent are bound to base their arguments wholly on the proceedings and body of evidence as they were presented in the lower tribunal. Each seeks to prove to the higher court that the result they desired was the just result. Precedent and case law figure prominently in the arguments. In order for the appeal to succeed, the appellant must prove that the lower court committed reversible error, that is, an impermissible action by the court acted to cause a result that was unjust, and which would not have resulted had the court acted properly. Some examples of reversible error would be erroneously instructing the jury on the law applicable to the case, permitting seriously improper argument by an attorney, admitting or excluding evidence improperly, acting outside the court's jurisdiction, injecting bias into the proceeding or appearing to do so, juror misconduct, etc. The failure to formally object at the time, to what one views as improper action in the lower court, may result in the affirmance of the lower court's judgment on the grounds that one did not "preserve the issue for appeal" by objecting.

In cases where a judge rather than a jury decided issues of fact, an appellate court will apply an "abuse of discretion" standard of review. Under this standard, the appellate court gives deference to the lower court's view of the evidence, and reverses its decision only if it were a clear abuse of discretion. This is usually defined as a decision outside the bounds of reasonableness. On the other hand, the appellate court normally gives less deference to a lower court's decision on issues of law, and may reverse if it finds that the lower court applied the wrong legal standard.

In some cases, an appellant may successfully argue that the law under which the lower decision was rendered was unconstitutional or otherwise invalid, or may convince the higher court to order a new trial on the basis that evidence earlier sought was concealed or only recently discovered. In the case of new evidence, there must be a high probability that its presence or absence would have made a material difference in the trial. Another issue suitable for appeal in criminal cases is effective assistance of counsel. If a defendant has been convicted and can prove that his lawyer did not adequately handle his case and that there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different had the lawyer given competent representation, he is entitled to a new trial.

A lawyer traditionally starts an oral argument to any appellate court with the words "May it please the court."

After an appeal is heard, the "mandate" is a formal notice of a decision by a court of appeal; this notice is transmitted to the trial court and, when filed by the clerk of the trial court, constitutes the final judgment on the case, unless the appeal court has directed further proceedings in the trial court. The mandate is distinguished from the appeal court's opinion, which sets out the legal reasoning for its decision. In some jurisdictions the mandate is known as the "remittitur".

==Results==
The result of an appeal can be:
:*Affirmed: Where the reviewing court basically agrees with the result of the lower courts ruling(s). 
:*Reversed: Where the reviewing court basically disagrees with the result of the lower courts ruling(s), and overturns their decision.
:*Remanded: Where the reviewing court sends the case back to the lower court.

There can be multiple outcomes, so that the reviewing court can affirm some rulings, reverse others and remand the case all at the same time. Remand is not required where there is nothing left to do in the case. "Generally speaking, an appellate court's judgment provides 'the final directive of the appeals courts as to the matter appealed, setting out with specificity the court's determination that the action appealed from should be affirmed, reversed, remanded or modified'". State v. Randolph, 210 N.J. 330, 350 n.5 (2012), citing Mandel, New Jersey Appellate Practice (Gann Law Books), chapter 28:2 

Some reviewing courts who have discretionary review may send a case back without comment other than review improvidently granted. In other words, after looking at the case, they chose not to say anything. The result for the case of review improvidently granted is effectively the same as affirmed, but without that extra higher court stamp of approval.

==References==

*



[[Answer]]

Generally, an answer is a reply to a question or is a solution, a retaliation, or a response that is relevant to the said question.

In law, an answer was originally a solemn assertion in opposition to someone or something, and thus generally any counter-statement or defense, a reply to a question or response, or objection, or a correct solution of a problem. 

In the common law, an answer is the first pleading by a defendant, usually filed and served upon the plaintiff within a certain strict time limit after a civil complaint or criminal information or indictment has been served upon the defendant. It may have been preceded by an optional "pre-answer" motion to dismiss or demurrer; if such a motion is unsuccessful, the defendant must file an answer to the complaint or risk an adverse default judgment.

In a criminal case, there is usually an arraignment or some other kind of appearance before the defendant comes to court. The pleading in the criminal case, which is entered on the record in open court, is usually either guilty or not guilty. Generally speaking in private, civil cases there is no plea entered of guilt or innocence. There is only a judgment that grants money damages or some other kind of equitable remedy such as restitution or a permanent injunction. Criminal cases may lead to fines or other punishment, such as imprisonment.

The famous Latin Responsa Prudentium ("answers of the learned ones") were the accumulated views of many successive generations of Roman lawyers, a body of legal opinion which gradually became authoritative. 

In music an "answer" (also known as countersubject) is the technical name in counterpoint for the repetition or modification by one part or instrument of a theme proposed by another. 

== References ==

;Attribution
*

==External links==



[[Appellate court]]

An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals (American English) or appeal court (British English) or court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In most jurisdictions, the court system is divided into at least three levels: the trial court, which initially hears cases and reviews evidence and testimony to determine the facts of the case; at least one intermediate appellate court; and a supreme court (or court of last resort) which primarily reviews the decisions of the intermediate courts. A jurisdiction's supreme court is that jurisdiction's highest appellate court. Appellate courts nationwide can operate by varying rules.

The authority of appellate courts to review decisions of lower courts varies widely from one jurisdiction to another. In some places, the appellate court has limited powers of review. "Generally speaking, an appellate court's judgment provides 'the final directive of the appeals courts as to the matter appealed, setting out with specificity the court's determination that the action appealed from should be affirmed, reversed, remanded or modified'". State v. Randolph, 210 N.J. 330, 350 n.5 (2012), citing Mandel, New Jersey Appellate Practice (Gann Law Books 2012), chapter 28:2 

== United States ==

In the United States, both state and federal appellate courts are usually restricted to examining whether the lower court made the correct legal determinations, rather than hearing direct evidence and determining what the facts of the case were. Furthermore, U.S. appellate courts are usually restricted to hearing appeals based on matters that were originally brought up before the trial court. Hence, such an appellate court will not consider an appellant's argument if it is based on a theory that is raised for the first time in the appeal.

In most U.S. states, and in U.S. federal courts, parties before the court are allowed one appeal as of right. This means that a party who is unsatisfied with the outcome of a trial may bring an appeal to contest that outcome. However, appeals may be costly, and the appellate court must find an error on the part of the court below that justifies upsetting the verdict. Therefore, only a small proportion of trial court decisions result in appeals. Some appellate courts, particularly supreme courts, have the power of discretionary review, meaning that they can decide whether they will hear an appeal brought in a particular case.

===Institutional titles===
Many U.S. jurisdictions title their appellate court a court of appeal or court of appeals. The term court of appeals is not capitalized in carefully edited texts such as reference works, for example West's Encyclopedia of American Law unless referring to a specific court or courts, but many legal professionals do not comply with this most common English usage shown in major dictionaries and instead capitalize this and many other legal texts. Historically, others have titled their appellate court a court of errors (or court of errors and appeals), on the premise that it was intended to correct errors made by lower courts. Examples of such courts include the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals (which existed from 1844 to 1947), the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors (which has been renamed the Connecticut Supreme Court), the Kentucky Court of Errors (renamed the Kentucky Supreme Court), and the Mississippi High Court of Errors and Appeals (since renamed the Supreme Court of Mississippi). In some jurisdictions, courts able to hear appeals are known as an appellate division.

The phrase "court of appeals" most often refers to intermediate appellate courts. However, the New York system is different: the "New York Court of Appeals" is the highest appellate court; and the phrase "New York Supreme Court" applies to the trial court of general jurisdiction.

Depending on the system, certain courts may serve as both trial courts and appellate courts, hearing appeals of decisions made by courts with more limited jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions have specialized appellate courts, such as the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which only hears appeals raised in criminal cases, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has general jurisdiction but derives most of its caseload from patent cases, on one hand, and appeals from the Court of Federal Claims on the other.

==See also==
*Court of Criminal Appeal (disambiguation)
*Court of Criminal Appeals (disambiguation)

==References==

*Lax, Jeffrey R. "Constructing Legal Rules on Appellate Courts." American Political Science Review 101.3 (2007): 591-604. Sociological Abstracts; Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Web. 29 May 2012.



[[Arraignment]]

Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea. Acceptable pleas vary among jurisdictions, but they generally include "guilty", "not guilty", and the peremptory pleas (or pleas in bar) setting out reasons why a trial cannot proceed. Pleas of "nolo contendere" (no contest) and the "Alford plea" are allowed in some circumstances.

== By country ==
=== Australia ===
In Australia, arraignment is the first of eleven stages in a criminal trial, and involves the clerk of the court reading out the indictment.

=== United Kingdom ===
In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, arraignment is the first of eleven stages in a criminal trial, and involves the clerk of the court reading out the indictment.

In England and Wales, the police cannot legally detain anyone for more than 24 hours without charging them unless an officer with the rank of superintendent (or above) authorises detention for a further 12 hours (36 hours total), or a judge (who will be a magistrate) authorises detention by the police before charge for up to a maximum of 96 hours, but for terrorism-related offences people can be held by the police for up to 28 days before charge. If they are not released after being charged, they should be brought before a court as soon as practicable. 

=== Canada ===
In every province in Canada except British Columbia, a defendant is arraigned on the day of their trial. In British Columbia, arraignment takes places in one of the first few court appearances by the defendant or their lawyer. The defendant is asked whether he or she pleads guilty or not guilty to each charge.

=== United States ===
In federal courts of the United States, arraignment takes place in two stages. The first is called the initial arraignment and must take place within 48 hours of an individual's arrest, 72 hours if the individual was arrested on the weekend and not able to go before a judge until Monday. During this arraignment the defendant is informed of the pending legal charges and is informed of his or her right to retain counsel. The presiding judge also decides at what amount, if any, to set bail. During the second arraignment, a post-indictment arraignment or PIA, the defendant is allowed to enter a plea.

In New York, most people arrested must be released if they are not arraigned within 24 hours. 

In California, arraignments must be conducted without unnecessary delay and, in any event, within 48 hours of arrest, excluding weekends and holidays. County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44 (1991) Thus, an individual arrested without a warrant, in some cases, may be held for as long as 168 hours (7 days) without arraignment or charge. 

=== France ===
In France, the general rule is that one cannot remain in police custody for more than 24 hours from the time of the arrest. However, police custody can last another 24 hours in specific circumstances, especially if the offence is punishable by at least one year's imprisonment, or if the investigation is deemed to require the extra time, and can last up to 96 hours in certain cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking or organised crime. The police needs to have the consent of the prosecutor (in the vast majority of cases, the prosecutor will consent). 

=== Germany ===
In Germany, if one has been arrested and taken into custody by the police one must be brought before a judge as soon as possible and at the latest on the day after the arrest. 

==Form of the arraignment==
The wording of the arraignment varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions the wording of the arraignment is set by statute or court practice direction. However, it generally conforms with the following principles:
# The accused person (defendant) is addressed by name;
# The charge against the accused person is read, including the alleged date, time, and place of offense (and sometimes the names of the state's witnesses and the range of punishment for the charge(s)); and,
# The accused person is asked formally how he or she pleads.

==Video arraignment==
Video arraignment is the act of conducting the arraignment process using some form of videoconferencing technology. Use of video arraignment system allows the courts to conduct the requisite arraignment process without the need to transport the defendant to the courtroom by using an audio-visual link between the location where the offender is being held and the courtroom.

Use of the video arraignment process addresses the problems associated with having to transport offenders. The transportation of offenders requires time, puts additional demands on the public safety organizations to provide for the safety of the public, court personnel and for the security of the offender population. It also addresses the rising costs of transportation.

==Guilty and not-guilty pleas==
If the defendant pleads guilty, an evidentiary hearing usually follows. The court is not required to accept a guilty plea. During the hearing, the judge assesses the offense, the mitigating factors, and the defendant's character, and passes sentence.

If the defendant pleads not guilty, a date is set for a preliminary hearing or a trial.

In the past, a defendant who refused to plead (or "stood mute") was subject to peine forte et dure (Law French for "strong and hard punishment"). Today in common-law jurisdictions, the court enters a plea of not guilty for a defendant who refuses to enter a plea. In Queensland, Australia, this matter is covered by statute. See s601 of the Queensland Criminal Code. The rationale for this is the defendant's right to silence.

==Pre-trial release==
This is also often the stage at which arguments for or against pre-trial release and bail may be made, depending on the alleged crime and jurisdiction.

==United States Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure==
Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, "arraignment shall of an open reading the indictment to the defendant and call[] on him to plead thereto. He/she shall be given a copy of the indictment before he/she is called upon to plead." 

==See also==
*Desk appearance ticket

==References==



[[America the Beautiful]]

"America the Beautiful" is an American patriotic song. The lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates, and the music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward.

Bates originally wrote the words as a poem, Pikes Peak, first published in the Fourth of July edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist in 1895. At that time, the poem was titled America for publication.

Ward had originally written the music, Materna, for the hymn O Mother dear, Jerusalem in 1882, though it was not first published until 1892. (McKim notes that Ward mailed a friend a postcard in which he stated the hymn had been composed in 1882, however). Ward's music combined with the Bates poem was first published in 1910 and titled America the Beautiful.

The song is one of the most popular of the many American patriotic songs. 

==History==
Commemoration plaque atop Pikes Peak in July 1999.
In 1893, at the age of thirty-six, Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to teach a short summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, and they found their way into her poem, including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the "White City" with its promise of the future contained within its alabaster buildings; the wheat fields of America's heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding on July 16; and the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Zebulon's Pikes Peak.

On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original Antlers Hotel. The poem was initially published two years later in The Congregationalist, to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public's fancy. Amended versions were published in 1904 and 1913.

Several existing pieces of music were adapted to the poem. A hymn tune composed by Samuel A. Ward was generally considered the best music as early as 1910 and is still the popular tune today. Just as Bates had been inspired to write her poem, Ward too was inspired to compose his tune. The tune came to him while he was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City, after a leisurely summer day in 1882, and he immediately wrote it down. He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked fellow passenger friend Harry Martin for his shirt cuff to write the tune on. He composed the tune for the old hymn "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem", retitling the work "Materna". Ward's music combined with Bates' poem were first published together in 1910 and titled, America the Beautiful. 

Ward died in 1903, not knowing the national stature his music would attain, as the music was only first applied to the song in 1904. Bates was more fortunate, as the song's popularity was well established by the time of her death in 1929.

At various times in the more than 100 years that have elapsed since the song was written, particularly during the John F. Kennedy administration, there have been efforts to give "America the Beautiful" legal status either as a national hymn, or as a national anthem equal to, or in place of, "The Star-Spangled Banner", but so far this has not succeeded. Proponents prefer "America the Beautiful" for various reasons, saying it is easier to sing, more melodic, and more adaptable to new orchestrations while still remaining as easily recognizable as "The Star-Spangled Banner." Some prefer "America the Beautiful" over "The Star-Spangled Banner" due to the latter's war-oriented imagery. Others prefer "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the same reason. While that national dichotomy has stymied any effort at changing the tradition of the national anthem, "America the Beautiful" continues to be held in high esteem by a large number of Americans.

The melody of this song was the school song of the former University of Shanghai, which closed in 1952. Currently, it is used by Shanghai Alumni Primary School in Hong Kong and Hujiang High School in Taiwan as the melody of their school song.

At Colorado College, where Bates was teaching at the time of writing it, "America the Beautiful" is commonly sung at events such as convocations, commencement, and baccalaureate, and has become somewhat of a second anthem for the school.

When Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, this song was played as the welcome music.

This song was used as the background music of the television broadcast of the Tiangong-1 launch. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/30/china-launch-america-the-beautiful 

The song is often included in songbooks in a wide variety of religious congregations in the United States.

==Lyrics==

Original poem (1893)
:America. A Poem for July 4.

:O beautiful for spacious skies,
: For amber waves of grain,
:For purple mountain majesties
: Above the enameled plain!
:America! America!
: God shed His grace on thee,
:Till souls wax fair as earth and air
: And music-hearted sea!

:O beautiful for pilgrim feet
: Whose stern, impassioned stress
:A thoroughfare for freedom beat
: Across the wilderness!
:America! America!
:God shed His grace on thee
: Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought
:By pilgrim foot and knee!

:O beautiful for glory-tale
: Of liberating strife,
:When once or twice, for man's avail,
: Men lavished precious life!
:America! America!
: God shed His grace on thee
:Till selfish gain no longer stain,
: The banner of the free!

:O beautiful for patriot dream
: That sees beyond the years
:Thine alabaster cities gleam
: Undimmed by human tears!
:America! America!
: God shed His grace on thee
:Till nobler men keep once again
: Thy whiter jubilee!

1904 version
:O beautiful for spacious skies,
:For amber waves of grain,
:For purple mountain majesties
:Above the fruited plain!

:America! America!
:God shed His grace on thee,
:And crown thy good with brotherhood
:From sea to shining sea!

:O beautiful for pilgrim feet
:Whose stern impassioned stress
:A thoroughfare for freedom beat
:Across the wilderness.

:America! America!
:God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
:Confirm thy soul in self-control,
:Thy liberty in law.

:O beautiful for glorious tale
:Of liberating strife,
:When valiantly for man's avail
:Men lavish precious life.

:America! America!
:May God thy gold refine
:Till all success be nobleness,
:And ev'ry gain divine.

:O beautiful for patriot dream
:That sees beyond the years
:Thine alabaster cities gleam
:Undimmed by human tears.

:America! America!
:God shed His grace on thee,
:And crown thy good with brotherhood
:From sea to shining sea.

1913 version
:O beautiful for spacious skies,
:For amber waves of grain,
:For purple mountain majesties
:Above the fruited plain!
:America! America!
:God shed his grace on thee
:And crown thy good with brotherhood
:From sea to shining sea!

:O beautiful for pilgrim feet
:Whose stern impassioned stress
:A thoroughfare of freedom beat
:Across the wilderness!
:America! America!
:God mend thine every flaw,
:Confirm thy soul in self-control,
:Thy liberty in law!

:O beautiful for heroes proved
:In liberating strife.
:Who more than self their country loved
:And mercy more than life!
:America! America!
:May God thy gold refine
:Till all success be nobleness
:And every gain divine!

:O beautiful for patriot dream
:That sees beyond the years
:Thine alabaster cities gleam
:Undimmed by human tears!
:America! America!
:God shed his grace on thee
:And crown thy good with brotherhood
:From sea to shining sea!

==Popular versions==
Three different renditions of the song have entered the Hot Country Songs charts. The first was by Charlie Rich, which went to number 22 in 1976. A second, by Mickey Newbury, peaked at number 82 in 1980. Whitburn, p. 297 An all-star version of "America the Beautiful" performed by country singers Trace Adkins, Sherrié Austin, Billy Dean, Vince Gill, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Toby Keith, Brenda Lee, Lonestar, Lyle Lovett, Lila McCann, Lorrie Morgan, Jamie O'Neal, The Oak Ridge Boys, Collin Raye, Kenny Rogers, Keith Urban and Phil Vassar reached number 58 in July 2001. The song re-entered the chart following the September 11 attacks. Whitburn, p. 24 

Popularity of the song increased greatly following the September 11 attacks; at some sporting events it was sung in addition to the traditional singing of the national anthem. During the first taping of the Late Show with David Letterman following the attacks, CBS newsman Dan Rather cried briefly as he quoted the fourth verse. 

==Idioms==

"From sea to shining sea", originally used in the charters of some of the English Colonies in North America, is an American idiom meaning from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean (or vice versa). Many songs have used this term, including the American patriotic songs "America, the Beautiful" and "God Bless the USA". In addition to these, it is also featured in Schoolhouse Rock's "Elbow Room". A term similar to this is the Canadian motto (From sea to sea).

"Purple mountain majesties" refers to the shade of the Rocky Mountains, which Kate looked at while writing the poem.

==Books==
Lynn Sherr's 2001 book America the Beautiful discusses the origins of the song and the backgrounds of its authors in depth. The book points out that the poem has the same meter as that of "Auld Lang Syne"; the songs can be sung interchangeably. Additionally, Sherr points out that this was the original third verse written by Bates: 

: America! America!
: God shed His grace on thee,
: 'Til selfish gain no longer stain,
: The banner of the free.

This song is used in Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game.

==References==

==External links==

* MP3 and RealAudio recordings available at the United States Library of Congress
* 
* Words, sheet music & MIDI file at the Cyber Hymnal
* America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs named for Katharine Lee Bates' words.
* Archival collection of America the Beautiful lantern slides from the 1930s.
* Another free sheet music
* David Firestone - When Romney’s Reach Exceeds His Grasp - Mitt Romney quotes the song



[[Assistive technology]]

Hearing aid
Assistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.

== Assistive technology and adaptive technology ==

The term adaptive technology is often used as the synonym for assistive technology, however, they are different terms. Assistive technology refers to "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities", while adaptive technology covers items that are specifically designed for persons with disabilities and would seldom be used by non-disabled persons. In other words, "assistive technology is any object or system that increases or maintains the capabilities of people with disabilities," while adaptive technology is "any object or system that is specifically designed for the purpose of increasing or maintaining the capabilities of people with disabilities." Consequently, adaptive technology is a subset of assistive technology. Adaptive technology often refers specifically to electronic and information technology access. 

==Mobility impairment and wheelchairs==

A typical modern battery powered chair.
Wheelchairs are devices that can be manually propelled or electrically propelled and that include a seating system and are designed to be a substitute for the normal mobility that most people enjoy. Wheelchairs and other mobility devices allow people to perform mobility related activities of daily living which include feeding, toileting, dressing grooming and bathing. The devices comes in a number of variations where they can be propelled either by hand or by motors where the occupant uses electrical controls to manage motors and seating control actuators through a joystick or other input devices. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing or input devices for caregivers. Wheelchairs are used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, or disability. People with both sitting and walking disability often need to use a wheelchair or walker.

==Mobility impairment and walkers==

A walker or walking frame or Rollator is a tool for disabled people who need additional support to maintain balance or stability while walking. It consists of a frame that is about waist high, approximately twelve inches deep and slightly wider than the user. Walkers are also available in other sizes, such as for children, or for heavy people. Modern walkers are height-adjustable. The front two legs of the walker may or may not have wheels attached depending on the strength and abilities of the person using it. It is also common to see caster wheels or glides on the back legs of a walker with wheels on the front. C. Barrué. Personalization and Shared Autonomy in Assistive Technologies. Ph. Thesis. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. 2012 

==Personal emergency response systems==

This voter with a manual dexterity disability is making choices on a touchscreen with a head dauber.
Personal emergency response systems (PERS), or Telecare (UK term), are a particular sort of assistive technology that use electronic sensors connected to an alarm system to help caregivers manage risk and help vulnerable people stay independent at home longer. An example would be the systems being put in place for senior people such as fall detectors, thermometers (for hypothermia risk), flooding and unlit gas sensors (for people with mild dementia). Notably, these alerts can be customized to the particular person's risks. When the alert is triggered, a message is sent to a caregiver or contact center who can respond appropriately.

==Accessibility software==

In human–computer interaction, computer accessibility (also known as accessible computing) refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability or severity of impairment, examples include web accessibility guidelines. Web accessibility guidelines Another approach is for the user to present a token to the computer terminal, such as a smart card, that has configuration information to adjust the computer speed, text size, etc. to their particular needs. This is useful where users want to access public computer based terminals in Libraries, ATM, Information kiosks etc. The concept is encompassed by the CEN EN 1332-4 Identification Card Systems - Man-Machine Interface. CEN EN 1332-4 Identification Card Systems - Man-Machine Interface This development of this standard has been supported in Europe by SNAPI and has been successfully incorporated into the Lasseo specifications, but with limited success due to the lack of interest from public computer terminal suppliers.

==Assistive technology for visual impairment==

Many people with serious visual impairments live independently, using a wide range of tools and techniques. Examples of assistive technology for visually impairment include the Canadian currency tactile feature, which a system of raised dots in one corner, based on Braille cells but not standard Braille. Accessibility features - Bank Notes - Bank of Canada For general computer use access technology such as screen readers, screen magnifiers and refreshable Braille displays has been widely taken up along with standalone reading aids that integrate a scanner, optical character recognition (OCR) software, and speech software in a single machine. These function together without a separate PC. 

==Augmentative and alternative communication==

An AAC user uses number coding on an eye gaze communication board

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is an umbrella term that encompasses methods of communication for those with impairments or restrictions on the production or comprehension of spoken or written language. ASHA (2005). AAC systems are extremely diverse and depend on the capabilities of the user. They may be as basic as pictures on a board that the are used to request food, drink, or other care; or they can be advanced speech generating devices, based on speech synthesis, that are capable of storing hundreds of phrases and words. Gilliam & Marquardt, pp. 356–359. 

==Assistive technology for cognition==

Assistive technology for cognition (ATC) LoPresti, E.F., Mihailidis, A. & Kirsch, N. (2004). Assistive Technology for cognitive rehabilitation: State of the art. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 14, 5-39. is the use of technology (usually high tech) to augment and assistive cognitive processes such as attention, memory, self-regulation, navigation, emotion recognition and management, planning, and sequencing activity. Systematic reviews of the field have found that the number of ATC are growing rapidly, but have focused on memory and planning, that there is emerging evidence for efficacy, that a lot of scope exists to develop new ATC. Gillespie, A., Best, C. & O'Neill, B. (2012). Cognitive function and Assistive Technology for cognition: A systematic review. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 18, 1-19. Examples of ATC include: NeuroPage which prompts users about meetings, Wilson, et al. (1997). Evaluation of NeuroPage: A new memory aid. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 63, 113-115. Wakamaru, which provides companionship and reminds users to take medicine and calls for help if something is wrong, and telephone Reassurance systems. assistivetech.net: Telephone Reassurance. Accessed 2009-08-06. 

==Prosthesis==

A prosthesis, prosthetic, or prosthetic limb is a device that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect. Prostheses are typically used to replace parts lost by injury (traumatic) or missing from birth (congenital) or to supplement defective body parts. Inside the body, artificial heart valves are in common use with artificial hearts and lungs seeing less common use but under active technology development. Other medical devices and aids that can be considered prosthetics include hearing aids, artificial eyes, palatal obturator, gastric bands, and dentures.

Prostheses are specifically not orthoses, although given certain circumstances a prosthesis might end up performing some or all of the same functionary benefits as an orthosis. Prostheses are technically the complete finished item. For instance, a C-Leg knee alone is not a prosthesis, but only a prosthetic component. The complete prosthesis would consist of the attachment system to the residual limb — usually a "socket", and all the attachment hardware components all the way down to and including the terminal device. Keep this in mind as nomenclature is often interchanged.

The terms "prosthetic" and "orthotic" are adjectives used to describe devices such as a prosthetic knee. The terms "prosthetics" and "orthotics" are used to describe the respective allied health fields. The devices themselves are properly referred to as "prostheses" and "orthoses" in the plural and "prosthesis" and "orthosis" in the singular.

==Assistive technology in sport==

A New York City Marathon competitor uses a racing wheelchair.
Assistive technology in sport is an area of technology design that is growing. Assistive technology is the array of new devices created to enable sports enthusiasts who have disabilities to play. Assistive technology may be used in adaptive sports, where an existing sport is modified to enable players with a disability to participate; or, assistive technology may be used to invent completely new sports with athletes with disabilities exclusively in mind.

An increasing number of people with disabilities are participating in sports, leading to the development of new assistive technology. Assistive technology devices can be simple, or "low-tech", or they may use highly advanced technology, with some even using computers. Assistive technology for sports may also be simple, or advanced. Accordingly, assistive technology can be found in sports ranging from local community recreation to the elite Paralympic Games. More complex assistive technology devices have been developed over time, and as a result, sports for people with disabilities "have changed from being a clinical therapeutic tool to an increasingly competition-oriented activity". 

==Computer accessibility==

A sip-and-puff device which allows a person with substantial disability to make selections and navigate computerized interfaces by controlling inhalations and exhalations.

One of the largest problems that affect people with disabilities is discomfort with prostheses. An experiment performed in Massachusetts utilized 20 people with various sensors attached to their arms. The subjects tried different arm exercises, and the sensors recorded their movements. All of the data helped engineers develop new engineering concepts for prosthetics. 

Assistive technology may attempt to improve the ergonomics of the devices themselves such as Dvorak and other alternative keyboard layouts, which offer more ergonomic layouts of the keys. 

Assistive technology devices have been created to enable people with disabilities to use modern touch screen mobile computers such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The Pererro is a plug and play adapter for iOS devices which uses the built in Apple VoiceOver feature in combination with a basic switch. This brings touch screen technology to those who were previously unable to use it.

==Home automation ==
The form of home automation called assistive domotics focuses on making it possible for elderly and disabled people to live independently. Home automation is becoming a viable option for the elderly and disabled who would prefer to stay in their own homes rather than move to a healthcare facility. This field uses much of the same technology and equipment as home automation for security, entertainment, and energy conservation but tailors it towards elderly and disabled users.

==See also==
* Accessibility
* Augmentative and alternative communication
* Braille technology
* Design for All (in ICT)
* Durable medical equipment
* Matching Person & Technology Model
* OATS: Open Source Assistive Technology Software
* Occupational Therapy
* Transgenerational design
* Universal access to education

==References==
;Notes

;Sources
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 



[[Abacus]]

A Chinese abacus
Calculating-Table by Gregor Reisch: Margarita Philosophica, 1508. The woodcut shows Arithmetica instructing an algorist and an abacist (inaccurately represented as Boethius and Pythagoras). There was keen competition between the two from the introduction of the Algebra into Europe in the 12th century until its triumph in the 16th. 

The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool that was in use centuries before the adoption of the written modern numeral system and is still widely used by merchants, traders and clerks in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone, or metal. The user of an abacus is called an abacist. Gove, Philip Babcock (1976) 

==Etymology==
The use of the word abacus dates before 1387 AD, when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sandboard abacus. The Latin word came from Greek ἄβαξ abax "board strewn with sand or dust used for drawing geometric figures or calculating" Ptolemaeus Gramm., De differentia vocabulorum (= Περὶ διαφορᾶς λέξεων) (e codd. Ottobon. gr. 43 + Vat. gr. 197)
Page 392, line 26

 καὶ διαφέρει· ἄβαξ μὲν γὰρ λέγεται ἐφ' οὗ
παρατιθέασι τὰ πράγματα· ἀβάκιον δὲ ἐφ' οὗ ψηφίζουσιν. (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the Greek word, ἄβακoς abakos). Greek ἄβαξ itself is probably a borrowing of a Northwest Semitic, perhaps Phoenician, word akin to Hebrew ʾābāq (אבק), "dust" (since dust strewn on wooden boards to draw figures in). Huehnergard, John (2011) The preferred plural of abacus is a subject of disagreement, with both abacuses Brown, Lesley (1993) and abaci in use.

==History==

===Mesopotamian===
The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system. Ifrah, Georges (2001); p. 11 

Some scholars point to a character from the Babylonian cuneiform which may have been derived from a representation of the abacus. Crump, Thomas (1992); p. 188 It is the belief of Old Babylonian Melville, Duncan J. (2001) scholars such as Carruccio that Old Babylonians "may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations". Carruccio, Ettore (2006); p. 14 

===Egyptian===
The use of the abacus in Ancient Egypt is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who writes that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument have not been discovered, Smith, David Eugene (1958); pp. 157–160 casting some doubt over the extent to which this instrument was used.

===Persian===
During the Achaemenid Persian Empire, around 600 BC the Persians first began to use the abacus. Carr, Karen (2012) Under Parthian and Sassanian Iranian empires, scholars concentrated on exchanging knowledge and inventions by the countries around them – India, China, and the Roman Empire, when it is thought to be expanded over the other countries.

===Greek===
The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC. Ifrah, Georges (2001); p. 15 The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek abacus saw use in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome and, until the French Revolution, the Western Christian world.

A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD (the Salamis Tablet), dates back to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble 149 cm long, 75 cm wide, and 4.5 cm thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the center of the tablet is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line.

===Roman===

Copy of a Roman abacus
The normal method of calculation in ancient Rome, as in Greece, was by moving counters on a smooth table. Originally pebbles (calculi) were used. Later, and in medieval Europe, jetons were manufactured. Marked lines indicated units, fives, tens etc. as in the Roman numeral system. This system of 'counter casting' continued into the late Roman empire and in medieval Europe, and persisted in limited use into the nineteenth century. Pullan, J. M. (1968); p. 18 Due to Pope Sylvester II's reintroduction of the abacus with very useful modifications, it became widely used in Europe once again during the 11th century Brown, Nancy Marie (2010) Brown, Nancy Marie (2011) This abacus used beads on wires; unlike the traditional Roman counting boards; which meant the abacus could be used that much faster. Huff, Toby E. (1993); p. 50 

Writing in the 1st century BC, Horace refers to the wax abacus, a board covered with a thin layer of black wax on which columns and figures were inscribed using a stylus. Ifrah, Georges (2001); p. 18 

One example of archaeological evidence of the Roman abacus, shown here in reconstruction, dates to the 1st century AD. It has eight long grooves containing up to five beads in each and eight shorter grooves having either one or no beads in each. The groove marked I indicates units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives –five units, five tens etc., essentially in a bi-quinary coded decimal system, obviously related to the Roman numerals. The short grooves on the right may have been used for marking Roman "ounces" (i.e. fractions).

===Chinese===

Suanpan (the number represented in the picture is 6,302,715,408)
The earliest known written documentation of the Chinese abacus dates to the 2nd century BC. Ifrah, Georges (2001); p. 17 

The Chinese abacus, known as the suànpán (算盤, lit. "Counting tray"), is typically 20 cm tall and comes in various widths depending on the operator. It usually has more than seven rods. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom for both decimal and hexadecimal computation. The beads are usually rounded and made of a hardwood. The beads are counted by moving them up or down towards the beam. If you move them toward the beam, you count their value. If you move away, you don't count their value. Fernandes, Luis (2003) The suanpan can be reset to the starting position instantly by a quick jerk along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the center. Githens, Perry (1948) 

Suanpans can be used for functions other than counting. Unlike the simple counting board used in elementary schools, very efficient suanpan techniques have been developed to do multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root and cube root operations at high speed. There are currently schools teaching students how to use it.

In the famous long scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145 AD) during the Song Dynasty (960–1297 AD), a suanpan is clearly seen lying beside an account book and doctor's prescriptions on the counter of an apothecary's (Feibao).

The similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one could have inspired the other, as there is some evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China. However, no direct connection can be demonstrated, and the similarity of the abaci may be coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman model (like most modern Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the standard suanpan has 5 plus 2. (Incidentally, this allows use with a hexadecimal numeral system.) Instead of running on wires as in the Chinese and Japanese models, the beads of Roman model run in grooves, presumably making arithmetic calculations much slower.

Another possible source of the suanpan is Chinese counting rods, which operated with a decimal system but lacked the concept of zero as a place holder. The zero was probably introduced to the Chinese in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians.

===Indian===
First century sources, such as the Abhidharmakosa describe the knowledge and use of abacus in India. Stearns, Peter N.; Langer, William Leonard (2001); p. 44 Around the 5th century, Indian clerks were already finding new ways of recording the contents of the Abacus. Körner, Thomas William (1996); p. 232 Hindu texts used the term shunya (zero) to indicate the empty column on the abacus. Mollin, Richard Anthony (1998); p. 3 

===Japanese===

Japanese soroban
In Japanese, the abacus is called soroban (, lit. "Counting tray"), imported from China around 1600. Fernandes, Luis (2013) The 1/4 abacus, which is suited to decimal calculation, appeared circa 1930, and became widespread as the Japanese abandoned hexadecimal weight calculation which was still common in China. The abacus is still manufactured in Japan today even with the proliferation, practicality, and affordability of pocket electronic calculators. The use of the soroban is still taught in Japanese primary schools as part of mathematics, primarily as an aid to faster mental calculation. Using visual imagery of a soroban, one can arrive at the answer in the same time as, or even faster than, is possible with a physical instrument. Murray, Geoffrey (1982) 

===Korean===
The Chinese abacus migrated from China to Korea around 1400 AD. thocp.net (2002) Koreans call it jupan (주판), supan (수판) or jusan (주산). 100.daum.net (2013) 

===Native American===
Representation of an Inca quipu
A yupana as used by the Incas.
Some sources mention the use of an abacus called a nepohualtzintzin in ancient Mayan culture. This Mesoamerican abacus used a 5-digit base-20 system. inaoep.mx (2004) 
The word Nepōhualtzintzin comes from the Nahuatl and it is formed by the roots; Ne - personal -; pōhual or pōhualli - the account -; and tzintzin - small similar elements. And its complete meaning was taken as: counting with small similar elements by somebody. Its use was taught in the Calmecac to the temalpouhqueh , who were students dedicated to take the accounts of skies, from childhood. Unfortunately the Nepōhualtzintzin and its teaching were among the victims of the conquering destruction, when a diabolic origin was attributed to them after observing the tremendous properties of representation, precision and speed of calculations.

This arithmetic tool was based on the vigesimal system (base 20). tux.org (2013) For the Aztec the count by 20s was completely natural. The amount of 4, 5, 13, 20 and other cyclees meant cycles. The Nepōhualtzintzin was divided in two main parts separated by a bar or intermediate cord. In the left part there were four beads, which in the first row have unitary values (1, 2, 3, and 4), and in the right side there are three beads with values of 5, 10, and 15 respectively. In order to know the value of the respective beads of the upper rows, it is enough to multiply by 20 (by each row), the value of the corresponding account in the first row.

Altogether, there were 13 rows with 7 beads in each one, which made up 91 beads in each Nepōhualtzintzin. This was a basic number to understand, 7 times 13, a close relation conceived between natural phenomena, the underworld and the cycles of the heavens. One Nepōhualtzintzin (91) represented the number of days that a season of the year lasts, two Nepōhualtzitzin (182) is the number of days of the corn's cycle, from its sowing to its harvest, three Nepōhualtzintzin (273) is the number of days of a baby's gestation, and four Nepōhualtzintzin (364) completed a cycle and approximate a year (1 days short). The Nepōhualtzintzin amounted to the rank from 10 to the 18 in floating point, which calculated stellar as well as infinitesimal amounts with absolute precision, meant that no round off was allowed, when translated into modern computer arithmetic.

The rediscovery of the Nepōhualtzintzin was due to the Mexican engineer David Esparza Hidalgo, Hidalgo, David Esparza (1977) who in his wanderings throughout Mexico found diverse engravings and paintings of this instrument and reconstructed several of them made in gold, jade, encrustations of shell, etc. There have also been found very old Nepōhualtzintzin attributed to the Olmeca culture, and even some bracelets of Mayan origin, as well as a diversity of forms and materials in other cultures.

George I. Sanchez, "Arithmetic in Maya", Austin-Texas, 1961 found another base 5, base 4 abacus in the Yucatán that also computed calendar data. This was a finger abacus, on one hand 0 1,2, 3, and 4 were used; and on the other hand used 0, 1, 2 and 3 were used. Note the use of zero at the beginning and end of the two cycles. Sanchez worked with Sylvanus Morley, a noted Mayanist.

The quipu of the Incas was a system of knotted cords used to record numerical data, like advanced tally sticks – but not used to perform calculations. Calculations were carried out using a yupana (Quechua for "counting tool"; see figure) which was still in use after the conquest of Peru. The working principle of a yupana is unknown, but in 2001 an explanation of the mathematical basis of these instruments was proposed by Italian mathematician Nicolino De Pasquale. By comparing the form of several yupanas, researchers found that calculations were based using the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and powers of 10, 20 and 40 as place values for the different fields in the instrument. Using the Fibonacci sequence would keep the number of grains within any one field at minimum. Aimi, Antonio; De Pasquale, Nicolino (2005) 

===Russian===
Russian abacus
The Russian abacus, the schoty (счёты), usually has a single slanted deck, with ten beads on each wire (except one wire, usually positioned near the user, with four beads for quarter-ruble fractions). Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916. The Russian abacus is often used vertically, with wires from left to right in the manner of a book. The wires are usually bowed to bulge upward in the center, to keep the beads pinned to either of the two sides. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. During manipulation, beads are moved to the left. For easy viewing, the middle 2 beads on each wire (the 5th and 6th bead) usually are of a different colour from the other eight beads. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different color.

As a simple, cheap and reliable device, the Russian abacus was in use in all shops and markets throughout the former Soviet Union, and the usage of it was taught in most schools until the 1990s. Bud, Robert; Warner, Deborah Jean (1998) Hudgins, Sharon (2004); p. 219 Even the 1874 invention of mechanical calculator, Odhner arithmometer, had not replaced them in Russia and likewise the mass production of Felix arithmometers since 1924 did not significantly reduce their use in the Soviet Union. Leushina, A. M. (1991) Russian abacus began to lose popularity only after the mass production of microcalculators had started in the Soviet Union in 1974. Today it is regarded as an archaism and replaced by the handheld calculator.

The Russian abacus was brought to France around 1820 by the mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who served in Napoleon's army and had been a prisoner of war in Russia. Trogemann, Georg; Ernst, Wolfgang (2001) The abacus had fallen out of use in western Europe in the 16th century with the rise of decimal notation and algorismic methods. To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new. Poncelet used it, not for any applied purpose, but as a teaching and demonstration aid. Flegg, Graham (1983); p. 72 

==School abacus==
Early 19th century abacus used in Danish elementary school.
A twenty bead rekenrek
Around the world, abaci have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic.

In Western countries, a bead frame similar to the Russian abacus but with straight wires and a vertical frame has been common (see image). It is still often seen as a plastic or wooden toy.

This type of abacus uses a row of 10 beads to represent arithmetical columns; thus the top row represents units, the second, tens, the third, hundreds, and so on. Most of these abaci consist of 10 rows, thus count up to 10,000,000,000.

The red-and-white abacus is used in contemporary primary schools for a wide range of number-related lessons. The twenty bead version, referred to by its Dutch name rekenrek, is often used, sometimes on a string of beads, sometimes on a rigid framework. 

==Renaissance abaci gallery==

File:Gregor Reisch, Margarita Philosophica, 1508 (1230x1615).png
File:Rechentisch.png
File:Rechnung auff der Linihen und Federn.JPG
File:Köbel Böschenteyn 1514.jpg
File:Rechnung auff der linihen 1525 Adam Ries.PNG
File:1543 Robert Recorde.PNG
File:Peter Apian 1544.PNG
File:Adam riesen.jpg
File:Rekenaar 1553.jpg

==Uses by the blind==
An adapted abacus, invented by Tim Cranmer, called a Cranmer abacus is still commonly used by individuals who are blind. A piece of soft fabric or rubber is placed behind the beads so that they do not move inadvertently. This keeps the beads in place while the users feel or manipulate them. They use an abacus to perform the mathematical functions multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root and cubic root. Terlau, Terrie; Gissoni, Fred (2006) 

Although blind students have benefited from talking calculators, the abacus is still very often taught to these students in early grades, both in public schools and state schools for the blind. The abacus teaches mathematical skills that can never be replaced with talking calculators and is an important learning tool for blind students. Blind students also complete mathematical assignments using a braille-writer and Nemeth code (a type of braille code for mathematics) but large multiplication and long division problems can be long and difficult. The abacus gives blind and visually impaired students a tool to compute mathematical problems that equals the speed and mathematical knowledge required by their sighted peers using pencil and paper. Many blind people find this number machine a very useful tool throughout life. 

==Binary abacus==
Two binary abaci constructed by Dr. Robert C. Good, Jr., made from two Chinese abaci
The binary abacus is used to explain how computers manipulate numbers. Good Jr., Robert C. (1985) The abacus shows how numbers, letters, and signs can be stored in a binary system on a computer, or via ASCII. The device consists of a series of beads on parallel wires arranged in three separate rows. The beads represent a switch on the computer in either an 'on' or 'off' position.

==See also==
* Abacus logic
* Chisanbop
* Mental abacus
* Napier's bones
* Sand table
* Slide rule
* Soroban
* Suanpan

==Footnotes==

==References==

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==Further reading==

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==External links==

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===Tutorials===

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* Min Multimedia

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===Abacus curiosities===
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* Abacus in Various Number Systems at cut-the-knot
* Java applet of Chinese, Japanese and Russian abaci
* An atomic-scale abacus
* Examples of Abaci

 



[[Acid]]

Zinc, a typical metal, reacting with hydrochloric acid, a typical acid

An acid (from the Latin acidus/acēre meaning sour Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: acid ) is a chemical substance whose aqueous solutions are characterized by a sour taste, the ability to turn blue litmus red, and the ability to react with bases and certain metals (like calcium) to form salts. Aqueous solutions of acids have a pH of less than 7. A lower pH means a higher acidity, and thus a higher concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution. Chemicals or substances having the property of an acid are said to be acidic.

Common examples of acids include hydrochloric acid (a solution of hydrogen chloride which is found in gastric acid in the stomach and activates digestive enzymes), acetic acid (vinegar is a dilute solution of this liquid), sulfuric acid (used in car batteries), and tartaric acid (a solid used in baking). As these examples show, acids can be solutions or pure substances, and can be derived from solids, liquids, or gases. Strong acids and some concentrated weak acids are corrosive, but there are exceptions such as carboranes and boric acid.

There are three common definitions for acids: the Arrhenius definition, the Brønsted-Lowry definition, and the Lewis definition. The Arrhenius definition defines acids as substances which increase the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+), or more accurately, hydronium ions (H3O+), when dissolved in water. The Brønsted-Lowry definition is an expansion: an acid is a substance which can act as a proton donor. By this definition, any compound which can easily be deprotonated can be considered an acid. Examples include alcohols and amines which contain O-H or N-H fragments. A Lewis acid is a substance that can accept a pair of electrons to form a covalent bond. Examples of Lewis acids include all metal cations, and electron-deficient molecules such as boron trifluoride and aluminium trichloride.

==Definitions and concepts==

Modern definitions are concerned with the fundamental chemical reactions common to all acids.

Most acids encountered in everyday life are aqueous solutions, or can be dissolved in water, so the Arrhenius and Brønsted-Lowry definitions are the most relevant.

The Brønsted-Lowry definition is the most widely used definition; unless otherwise specified, acid-base reactions are assumed to involve the transfer of a proton (H+) from an acid to a base.

Hydronium ions are acids according to all three definitions. Interestingly, although alcohols and amines can be Brønsted-Lowry acids, they can also function as Lewis bases due to the lone pairs of electrons on their oxygen and nitrogen atoms.

===Arrhenius acids===
Svante Arrhenius

The Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius attributed the properties of acidity to hydrogen ions (H+) or protons in 1884. An Arrhenius acid is a substance that, when added to water, increases the concentration of H+ ions in the water. Note that chemists often write H+(aq) and refer to the hydrogen ion when describing acid-base reactions but the free hydrogen nucleus, a proton, does not exist alone in water, it exists as the hydronium ion, H3O+. Thus, an Arrhenius acid can also be described as a substance that increases the concentration of hydronium ions when added to water. This definition stems from the equilibrium dissociation of water into hydronium and hydroxide (OH−) ions: Ebbing, D.D., & Gammon, S. D. (2005). General chemistry (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-51177-6 
: H2O(l) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + OH−(aq)

In pure water the majority of molecules are H2O, but the molecules are constantly dissociating and re-associating, and at any time a small number of the molecules (always near 1 in 107) are hydronium and an equal number are hydroxide. Because the numbers are equal, pure water is neutral (not acidic or basic).

An Arrhenius base, on the other hand, is a substance which increases the concentration of hydroxide ions when dissolved in water, hence decreasing the concentration of hydronium.

The constant association and disassociation of H2O molecules forms an equilibrium in which any increase in the concentration of hydronium is accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of hydroxide, thus an Arrhenius acid could also be said to be one that decreases hydroxide concentration, with an Arrhenius base increasing it.

The reason that pHs of acids are less than 7 is that the concentration of hydronium ions is greater than 10−7 moles per liter. Since pH is defined as the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydronium ions, acids thus have pHs of less than 7.

===Brønsted-Lowry acids===

Acetic acid, a weak acid, donates a proton (hydrogen ion, highlighted in green) to water in an equilibrium reaction to give the acetate ion and the hydronium ion. Red: oxygen, black: carbon, white: hydrogen.

While the Arrhenius concept is useful for describing many reactions, it is also quite limited in its scope. In 1923 chemists Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry independently recognized that acid-base reactions involve the transfer of a proton. A Brønsted-Lowry acid (or simply Brønsted acid) is a species that donates a proton to a Brønsted-Lowry base. Brønsted-Lowry acid-base theory has several advantages over Arrhenius theory. Consider the following reactions of acetic acid (CH3COOH), the organic acid that gives vinegar its characteristic taste:

: + + 
: + + 

Both theories easily describe the first reaction: CH3COOH acts as an Arrhenius acid because it acts as a source of H3O+ when dissolved in water, and it acts as a Brønsted acid by donating a proton to water. In the second example CH3COOH undergoes the same transformation, in this case donating a proton to ammonia (NH3), but cannot be described using the Arrhenius definition of an acid because the reaction does not produce hydronium.

Brønsted-Lowry theory can also be used to describe molecular compounds, whereas Arrhenius acids must be ionic compounds. Hydrogen chloride (HCl) and ammonia combine under several different conditions to form ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. In aqueous solution HCl behaves as hydrochloric acid and exists as hydronium and chloride ions. The following reactions illustrate the limitations of Arrhenius's definition:
# H3O+(aq) + Cl−(aq) + NH3 → Cl−(aq) + NH4+(aq) + H2O
# HCl(benzene) + NH3(benzene) → NH4Cl(s)
# HCl(g) + NH3(g) → NH4Cl(s)

As with the acetic acid reactions, both definitions work for the first example, where water is the solvent and hydronium ion is formed by the HCl solute. The next two reactions do not involve the formation of ions but are still proton transfer reactions. In the second reaction hydrogen chloride and ammonia (dissolved in benzene) react to form solid ammonium chloride in a benzene solvent and in the third gaseous HCl and NH3 combine to form the solid.

===Lewis acids===
A third concept was proposed in 1923 by Gilbert N. Lewis which includes reactions with acid-base characteristics that do not involve a proton transfer. A Lewis acid is a species that accepts a pair of electrons from another species; in other words, it is an electron pair acceptor. Brønsted acid-base reactions are proton transfer reactions while Lewis acid-base reactions are electron pair transfers. All Brønsted acids are also Lewis acids, but not all Lewis acids are Brønsted acids. Contrast the following reactions which could be described in terms of acid-base chemistry.
:374px
In the first reaction a fluoride ion, F−, gives up an electron pair to boron trifluoride to form the product tetrafluoroborate. Fluoride "loses" a pair of valence electrons because the electrons shared in the B—F bond are located in the region of space between the two atomic nuclei and are therefore more distant from the fluoride nucleus than they are in the lone fluoride ion. BF3 is a Lewis acid because it accepts the electron pair from fluoride. This reaction cannot be described in terms of Brønsted theory because there is no proton transfer. The second reaction can be described using either theory. A proton is transferred from an unspecified Brønsted acid to ammonia, a Brønsted base; alternatively, ammonia acts as a Lewis base and transfers a lone pair of electrons to form a bond with a hydrogen ion. The species that gains the electron pair is the Lewis acid; for example, the oxygen atom in H3O+ gains a pair of electrons when one of the H—O bonds is broken and the electrons shared in the bond become localized on oxygen. Depending on the context, a Lewis acid may also be described as an oxidizer or an electrophile.

==Dissociation and equilibrium==
Reactions of acids are often generalized in the form HA H+ + A−, where HA represents the acid and A− is the conjugate base. Acid-base conjugate pairs differ by one proton, and can be interconverted by the addition or removal of a proton (protonation and deprotonation, respectively). Note that the acid can be the charged species and the conjugate base can be neutral in which case the generalized reaction scheme could be written as HA+ H+ + A. In solution there exists an equilibrium between the acid and its conjugate base. The equilibrium constant K is an expression of the equilibrium concentrations of the molecules or the ions in solution. Brackets indicate concentration, such that means the concentration of H2O. The acid dissociation constant Ka is generally used in the context of acid-base reactions. The numerical value of Ka is equal to the product of the concentrations of the products divided by the concentration of the reactants, where the reactant is the acid (HA) and the products are the conjugate base and H+.
:
The stronger of two acids will have a higher Ka than the weaker acid; the ratio of hydrogen ions to acid will be higher for the stronger acid as the stronger acid has a greater tendency to lose its proton. Because the range of possible values for Ka spans many orders of magnitude, a more manageable constant, pKa is more frequently used, where pKa = -log10 Ka. Stronger acids have a smaller pKa than weaker acids. Experimentally determined pKa at 25 °C in aqueous solution are often quoted in textbooks and reference material.

==Nomenclature==
In the classical naming system, acids are named according to their anions. That ionic suffix is dropped and replaced with a new suffix (and sometimes prefix), according to the table below.
For example, HCl has chloride as its anion, so the -ide suffix makes it take the form hydrochloric acid. In the IUPAC naming system, "aqueous" is simply added to the name of the ionic compound. Thus, for hydrogen chloride, the IUPAC name would be aqueous hydrogen chloride. The prefix "hydro-" is added only if the acid is made up of just hydrogen and one other element.

Classical naming system:

Anion prefix Anion suffix Acid prefix Acid suffix Example 
 per ate per ic acid perchloric acid (HClO4) 
 ate ic acid chloric acid (HClO3) 
 ite ous acid chlorous acid (HClO2) 
 hypo ite hypo ous acid hypochlorous acid (HClO) 
 ide hydro ic acid hydrochloric acid (HCl) 

==Acid strength==

The strength of an acid refers to its ability or tendency to lose a proton. A strong acid is one that completely dissociates in water; in other words, one mole of a strong acid HA dissolves in water yielding one mole of H+ and one mole of the conjugate base, A−, and none of the protonated acid HA. In contrast, a weak acid only partially dissociates and at equilibrium both the acid and the conjugate base are in solution. Examples of strong acids are hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydroiodic acid (HI), hydrobromic acid (HBr), perchloric acid (HClO4), nitric acid (HNO3) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). In water each of these essentially ionizes 100%. The stronger an acid is, the more easily it loses a proton, H+. Two key factors that contribute to the ease of deprotonation are the polarity of the H—A bond and the size of atom A, which determines the strength of the H—A bond. Acid strengths are also often discussed in terms of the stability of the conjugate base.

Stronger acids have a larger Ka and a more negative pKa than weaker acids.

Sulfonic acids, which are organic oxyacids, are a class of strong acids. A common example is toluenesulfonic acid (tosylic acid). Unlike sulfuric acid itself, sulfonic acids can be solids. In fact, polystyrene functionalized into polystyrene sulfonate is a solid strongly acidic plastic that is filterable.

Superacids are acids stronger than 100% sulfuric acid. Examples of superacids are fluoroantimonic acid, magic acid and perchloric acid. Superacids can permanently protonate water to give ionic, crystalline hydronium "salts". They can also quantitatively stabilize carbocations.

While Ka measures the strength of an acid compound, the strength of an aqueous acid solution is measured by pH, which is an indication of the concentration of hydronium in the solution. The pH of a simple solution of an acid compound in water is determined by the dilution of the compound and the compound's Ka.

==Chemical characteristics==

===Monoprotic acids===
Monoprotic acids are those acids that are able to donate one proton per molecule during the process of dissociation (sometimes called ionization) as shown below (symbolized by HA):
:HA(aq) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + A−(aq) Ka

Common examples of monoprotic acids in mineral acids include hydrochloric acid (HCl) and nitric acid (HNO3). On the other hand, for organic acids the term mainly indicates the presence of one carboxylic acid group and sometimes these acids are known as monocarboxylic acid. Examples in organic acids include formic acid (HCOOH), acetic acid (CH3COOH) and benzoic acid (C6H5COOH).

===Polyprotic acids===
Polyprotic acids, also known as polybasic acids, are able to donate more than one proton per acid molecule, in contrast to monoprotic acids that only donate one proton per molecule. Specific types of polyprotic acids have more specific names, such as diprotic acid (two potential protons to donate) and triprotic acid (three potential protons to donate).

A diprotic acid (here symbolized by H2A) can undergo one or two dissociations depending on the pH. Each dissociation has its own dissociation constant, Ka1 and Ka2.
:H2A(aq) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + HA−(aq) Ka1
:HA−(aq) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + A2−(aq) Ka2

The first dissociation constant is typically greater than the second; i.e., Ka1 > Ka2. For example, sulfuric acid (H2SO4) can donate one proton to form the bisulfate anion (HSO4−), for which Ka1 is very large; then it can donate a second proton to form the sulfate anion (SO42-), wherein the Ka2 is intermediate strength. The large Ka1 for the first dissociation makes sulfuric a strong acid. In a similar manner, the weak unstable carbonic acid (H2CO3) can lose one proton to form bicarbonate anion (HCO3−) and lose a second to form carbonate anion (CO32-). Both Ka values are small, but Ka1 > Ka2 .

A triprotic acid (H3A) can undergo one, two, or three dissociations and has three dissociation constants, where Ka1 > Ka2 > Ka3.
:H3A(aq) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + H2A−(aq) Ka1
:H2A−(aq) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + HA2−(aq) Ka2
:HA2−(aq) + H2O(l) H3O+(aq) + A3−(aq) Ka3

An inorganic example of a triprotic acid is orthophosphoric acid (H3PO4), usually just called phosphoric acid. All three protons can be successively lost to yield H2PO4−, then HPO42-, and finally PO43-, the orthophosphate ion, usually just called phosphate. An organic example of a triprotic acid is citric acid, which can successively lose three protons to finally form the citrate ion. Even though the positions of the protons on the original molecule may be equivalent, the successive Ka values will differ since it is energetically less favorable to lose a proton if the conjugate base is more negatively charged.

Although the subsequent loss of each hydrogen ion is less favorable, all of the conjugate bases are present in solution. The fractional concentration, α (alpha), for each species can be calculated. For example, a generic diprotic acid will generate 3 species in solution: H2A, HA-, and A2-. The fractional concentrations can be calculated as below when given either the pH (which can be converted to the ) or the concentrations of the acid with all its conjugate bases:
:
:
:

A plot of these fractional concentrations against pH, for given K1 and K2, is known as a Bjerrum plot. A pattern is observed in the above equations and can be expanded to the general n -protic acid that has been deprotonated i -times:
:

where K0 = 1 and the other K-terms are the dissociation constants for the acid.

===Neutralization===
Hydrochloric acid (in beaker) reacting with ammonia fumes to produce ammonium chloride (white smoke).
Neutralization is the reaction between an acid and a base, producing a salt and neutralized base; for example, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide form sodium chloride and water:
:HCl(aq) + NaOH(aq) → H2O(l) + NaCl(aq)

Neutralization is the basis of titration, where a pH indicator shows equivalence point when the equivalent number of moles of a base have been added to an acid. It is often wrongly assumed that neutralization should result in a solution with pH 7.0, which is only the case with similar acid and base strengths during a reaction.

Neutralization with a base weaker than the acid results in a weakly acidic salt. An example is the weakly acidic ammonium chloride, which is produced from the strong acid hydrogen chloride and the weak base ammonia. Conversely, neutralizing a weak acid with a strong base gives a weakly basic salt, e.g. sodium fluoride from hydrogen fluoride and sodium hydroxide.

===Weak acid–weak base equilibrium===

In order for a protonated acid to lose a proton, the pH of the system must rise above the pKa of the acid. The decreased concentration of H+ in that basic solution shifts the equilibrium towards the conjugate base form (the deprotonated form of the acid). In lower-pH (more acidic) solutions, there is a high enough H+ concentration in the solution to cause the acid to remain in its protonated form.

Solutions of weak acids and salts of their conjugate bases form buffer solutions.

==Applications of acids==
There are numerous uses for acids. Acids are often used to remove rust and other corrosion from metals in a process known as pickling. They may be used as an electrolyte in a wet cell battery, such as sulfuric acid in a car battery.

Strong acids, sulfuric acid in particular, are widely used in mineral processing. For example, phosphate minerals react with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid for the production of phosphate fertilizers, and zinc is produced by dissolving zinc oxide into sulfuric acid, purifying the solution and electrowinning.

In the chemical industry, acids react in neutralization reactions to produce salts. For example, nitric acid reacts with ammonia to produce ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer. Additionally, carboxylic acids can be esterified with alcohols, to produce esters.

Acids are used as additives to drinks and foods, as they alter their taste and serve as preservatives. Phosphoric acid, for example, is a component of cola drinks. Acetic acid is used in day-to-day life as vinegar. Carbonic acid is an important part of some cola drinks and soda. Citric acid is used as a preservative in sauces and pickles.

Tartaric acid is an important component of some commonly used foods like unripened mangoes and tamarind. Natural fruits and vegetables also contain acids. Citric acid is present in oranges, lemon and other citrus fruits. Oxalic acid is present in tomatoes, spinach, and especially in carambola and rhubarb; rhubarb leaves and unripe carambolas are toxic because of high concentrations of oxalic acid.

Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is an essential vitamin for the human body and is present in such foods as amla, lemon, citrus fruits, and guava.

Certain acids are used as drugs. Acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) is used as a pain killer and for bringing down fevers.

Acids play important roles in the human body. The hydrochloric acid present in the stomach aids in digestion by breaking down large and complex food molecules. Amino acids are required for synthesis of proteins required for growth and repair of body tissues. Fatty acids are also required for growth and repair of body tissues. Nucleic acids are important for the manufacturing of DNA and RNA and transmitting of traits to offspring through genes. Carbonic acid is important for maintenance of pH equilibrium in the body.

===Acid catalysis===

Acids are used as catalysts in industrial and organic chemistry; for example, sulfuric acid is used in very large quantities in the alkylation process to produce gasoline. Strong acids, such as sulfuric, phosphoric and hydrochloric acids also effect dehydration and condensation reactions. In biochemistry, many enzymes employ acid catalysis. 

==Biological occurrence==
Basic structure of an amino acid.Many biologically important molecules are acids. Nucleic acids, which contain acidic phosphate groups, include DNA and RNA. Nucleic acids contain the genetic code that determines many of an organism's characteristics, and is passed from parents to offspring. DNA contains the chemical blueprint for the synthesis of proteins which are made up of amino acid subunits. Cell membranes contain fatty acid esters such as phospholipids.

An α-amino acid has a central carbon (the α or alpha carbon) which is covalently bonded to a carboxyl group (thus they are carboxylic acids), an amino group, a hydrogen atom and a variable group. The variable group, also called the R group or side chain, determines the identity and many of the properties of a specific amino acid. In glycine, the simplest amino acid, the R group is a hydrogen atom, but in all other amino acids it is contains one or more carbon atoms bonded to hydrogens, and may contain other elements such as sulfur, oxygen or nitrogen. With the exception of glycine, naturally occurring amino acids are chiral and almost invariably occur in the (chemistry)#By configuration: D- and L-|L-configuration]. Peptidoglycan, found in some bacterial cell walls contains some D-amino acids. At physiological pH, typically around 7, free amino acids exist in a charged form, where the acidic carboxyl group (-COOH) loses a proton (-COO−) and the basic amine group (-NH2) gains a proton (-NH3+). The entire molecule has a net neutral charge and is a zwitterion, with the exception of amino acids with basic or acidic side chains. Aspartic acid, for example, possesses one protonated amine and two deprotonated carboxyl groups, for a net charge of −1 at physiological pH.

Fatty acids and fatty acid derivatives are another group of carboxylic acids that play a significant role in biology. These contain long hydrocarbon chains and a carboxylic acid group on one end. The cell membrane of nearly all organisms is primarily made up of a phospholipid bilayer, a micelle of hydrophobic fatty acid esters with polar, hydrophilic phosphate "head" groups. Membranes contain additional components, some of which can participate in acid-base reactions.

In humans and many other animals, hydrochloric acid is a part of the gastric acid secreted within the stomach to help hydrolyze proteins and polysaccharides, as well as converting the inactive pro-enzyme, pepsinogen into the enzyme, pepsin. Some organisms produce acids for defense; for example, ants produce formic acid.

Acid-base equilibrium plays a critical role in regulating mammalian breathing. Oxygen gas (O2) drives cellular respiration, the process by which animals release the chemical potential energy stored in food, producing carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct. Oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged in the lungs, and the body responds to changing energy demands by adjusting the rate of ventilation. For example, during periods of exertion the body rapidly breaks down stored carbohydrates and fat, releasing CO2 into the blood stream. In aqueous solutions such as blood CO2 exists in equilibrium with carbonic acid and bicarbonate ion.
: CO2 + H2O H2CO3 H+ + HCO3−
It is the decrease in pH that signals the brain to breathe faster and deeper, expelling the excess CO2 and resupplying the cells with O2.

Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is a carboxylic acid. Cell membranes are generally impermeable to charged or large, polar molecules because of the lipophilic fatty acyl chains comprising their interior. Many biologically important molecules, including a number of pharmaceutical agents, are organic weak acids which can cross the membrane in their protonated, uncharged form but not in their charged form (i.e. as the conjugate base). For this reason the activity of many drugs can be enhanced or inhibited by the use of antacids or acidic foods. The charged form, however, is often more soluble in blood and cytosol, both aqueous environments. When the extracellular environment is more acidic than the neutral pH within the cell, certain acids will exist in their neutral form and will be membrane soluble, allowing them to cross the phospholipid bilayer. Acids that lose a proton at the intracellular pH will exist in their soluble, charged form and are thus able to diffuse through the cytosol to their target. Ibuprofen, aspirin and penicillin are examples of drugs that are weak acids.

==Common acids==

===Mineral acids (inorganic acids)===
* Hydrogen halides and their solutions: hydrofluoric acid (HF), hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydrobromic acid (HBr), hydroiodic acid (HI)
* Halogen oxoacids: hypochlorous acid (HClO), chlorous acid (HClO2), chloric acid (HClO3), perchloric acid (HClO4), and corresponding compounds for bromine and iodine
* Sulfuric acid (H2SO4)
* Fluorosulfuric acid (HSO3F)
* Nitric acid (HNO3)
* Phosphoric acid (H3PO4)
* Fluoroantimonic acid (HSbF6)
* Fluoroboric acid (HBF4)
* Hexafluorophosphoric acid (HPF6)
* Chromic acid (H2CrO4)
* Boric acid (H3BO3)

===Sulfonic acids===
* Methanesulfonic acid (or mesylic acid, CH3SO3H)
* Ethanesulfonic acid (or esylic acid, CH3CH2SO3H)
* Benzenesulfonic acid (or besylic acid, C6H5SO3H)
* p-Toluenesulfonic acid (or tosylic acid, CH3C6H4SO3H)
* Trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (or triflic acid, CF3SO3H)
* Polystyrene sulfonic acid (sulfonated polystyrene, n)

===Carboxylic acids===
* Acetic acid (CH3COOH)
* Citric acid (C6H8O7)
* Formic acid (HCOOH)
* Gluconic acid HOCH2-(CHOH)4-COOH
* Lactic acid (CH3-CHOH-COOH)
* Oxalic acid (HOOC-COOH)
* Tartaric acid (HOOC-CHOH-CHOH-COOH)

===Halogenated carboxylic acids===
Halogenation at alpha position increases acid strength, so that the following acids are all stronger than acetic acid.
* Fluoroacetic acid
* Trifluoroacetic acid
* Chloroacetic acid
* Dichloroacetic acid
* Trichloroacetic acid

===Vinylogous carboxylic acids===
Normal carboxylic acids are the direct union of a carbonyl group and a hydroxy group. In vinylogous carboxylic acids, a carbon-carbon double bond separates the carbonyl and hydroxyl groups.

* Ascorbic acid

===Nucleic acids===
* Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
* Ribonucleic acid (RNA)

==References==

* Listing of strengths of common acids and bases
* IUPAC Gold Book - acid
* Zumdahl, Chemistry, 4th Edition.
* Ebbing, D.D., & Gammon, S. D. (2005). General chemistry (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-51177-6
* Pavia, D.L., Lampman, G.M., & Kriz, G.S. (2004). Organic chemistry volume 1: Organic chemistry 351. Mason, OH: Cenage Learning. ISBN 0-7593-4727-1

==External links==
* Science Aid: Acids and Bases Information for High School students
* Curtipot: Acid-Base equilibria diagrams, pH calculation and titration curves simulation and analysis – freeware
* A summary of the Properties of Acids for the beginning chemistry student
* The UN ECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution
* Chem 106 – Acidity Concepts

 


[[Asphalt]]

Natural asphalt/bitumen from the Dead Sea
refined asphalt/bitumen
The University of Queensland pitch drop experiment, demonstrating the viscosity of asphalt/bitumen

Asphalt ( or ), Merriam-Webster: Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: also known as bitumen (), Dictionary Reference: bitumen The Free Dictionary: bitumen is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product; it is a substance classed as a pitch. Until the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) 

The primary use (70%) of asphalt/bitumen is in road construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. Its other main uses are for bituminous waterproofing products, including production of roofing felt and for sealing flat roofs. Anja Sörensen and Bodo Wichert "Asphalt and Bitumen" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2009. 

The terms asphalt and bitumen are often used interchangeably to mean both natural and manufactured forms of the substance. In American English, asphalt (or asphalt cement) is the carefully refined residue from the distillation process of selected crude oils. Outside the United States, the product is often called bitumen. Geological terminology often prefers the term bitumen. Common usage often refers to various forms of asphalt/bitumen as "tar", such as at the La Brea Tar Pits. Another term, mostly archaic, refers to asphalt/bitumen as "pitch".

Naturally occurring asphalt/bitumen is sometimes specified by the term "crude bitumen". Its viscosity is similar to that of cold molasses 
 while the material obtained from the fractional distillation of crude oil at 525 C is sometimes referred to as "refined bitumen".

==Composition==

The components of asphalt are classified into four classes of compounds: 
*saturates, saturated hydrocarbons, the %saturates correlates with softening point of the material
*Naphthene aromatics, consisting of partially hydrogenated polycyclic aromatic compounds.
*Polar aromatics, consisting of high molecular weight phenols and carboxylic acids
*Asphaltenes, consisting of high molecular weight phenols and heterocyclic compounds
The naphthene aromatics and polar aromatics are typically the majority components. Additionally, most natural bitumens contain organosulfur compounds, resulting in an overall sulfur content of up to 4%. Nickel and vanadium are found in the <10 ppm level, as is typical of some petroleum. 

The substance is soluble in carbon disulfide. It is commonly modelled as a colloid, with asphaltenes as the dispersed phase and maltenes as the continuous phase. and "it is almost impossible to separate and identify all the different molecules of asphalt, because the number of molecules with different chemical structure is extremely large". Muhammad Abdul Quddus (1992), p.99, in ch.5 pdf 

Asphalt/bitumen can sometimes be confused with "coal tar", which is a visually similar black, thermoplastic material produced by the destructive distillation of coal. During the early and mid-20th century when town gas was produced, coal tar was a readily available byproduct and extensively used as the binder for road aggregates. The addition of tar to macadam roads led to the word tarmac, which is now used in common parlance to refer to road-making materials. However, since the 1970s, when natural gas succeeded town gas, asphalt/bitumen has completely overtaken the use of coal tar in these applications. Other examples of this confusion include the asphalt/bitumen of the La Brea Tar Pits and the Canadian oil sands. Pitch is another term mistakenly used at times to refer to asphalt/bitumen, as in Pitch Lake.

==Occurrence==
Bituminous outcrop of the Puy de la Poix, Clermont-Ferrand, France

The great majority of asphalt used commercially is obtained from petroleum. Nonetheless, large amounts of asphalt occur in concentrated form in nature. Naturally occurring deposits of asphalt/bitumen are formed from the remains of ancient, microscopic algae (diatoms) and other once-living things. These remains were deposited in the mud on the bottom of the ocean or lake where the organisms lived. Under the heat (above 50 °C) and pressure of burial deep in the earth, the remains were transformed into materials such as asphalt/bitumen, kerogen, or petroleum. Deposits at the La Brea Tar Pits are an example.

Natural deposits of asphalt/bitumen include lakes such as the Pitch Lake in Trinidad and Tobago and Lake Bermudez in Venezuela. Natural seeps of asphalt/bitumen occur in the La Brea Tar Pits and in the Dead Sea.

Asphalt/bitumen also occurs as impregnated sandstones known as bituminous rock and the similar "tar sands" such as in Athabasca, Canada and Utah, USA. The Athabasca tar sands are located in the McMurray Formation, Alberta. This Formation is of early Cretaceous age, and is composed of numerous lenses of oil-bearing sand with up to 20% oil. J. Bunger, K. Thomas and S. Dorrence. 1979. Compound types and properties of Utah and Athabasca tar sand bitumens. Fuel 58(3), 183–195. Isotopic studies attribute the oil deposits to be about 110 Ma old. D. Selby and R. Creaser. 2005. Direct radiometric dating of hydrocarbon deposits using rhenium-osmium isotopes. Science 308, 1293–1295. Heavy oil or bitumen deposits also occur in the Uinta Basin in Utah, USA. The Tar Sand Triangle deposit, for example, is roughly 6% bitumen. 

Asphalt/bitumen occurs in hydrothermal veins. An example of this is within the Uinta Basin of Utah, USA, where there is a swarm of laterally and vertically extensive veins composed of a solid hydrocarbon termed Gilsonite. These veins formed by the polymerisation and solidification of hydrocarbons that were mobilized from the deeper oil shales of the Green River Formation during burial and diagenesis. 

Asphalt/bitumen is similar to the organic matter in carbonaceous meteorites. Hayatsu et al., Meteoritics, Vol. 18, p.310 However, detailed studies have shown these materials to be distinct. Kim & Yang, Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences, vol. 15, no. 1, p.163-174 

==History==

===Ancient times===
The use of asphalt/bitumen for waterproofing and as an adhesive dates at least to the fifth millennium B.C. in the early Indus community of Mehrgarh, where it was used to line the baskets in which they gathered crops. McIntosh, Jane. The Ancient Indus Valley. p. 57 

In the ancient Middle East, the Sumerians used natural asphalt/bitumen deposits for mortar between bricks and stones, to cement parts of carvings, such as eyes, into place, for ship caulking, and for waterproofing. The Greek historian Herodotus said hot asphalt/bitumen was used as mortar in the walls of Babylon. Herodotus, Book I, 179 

In some versions of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, the name of the substance used to bind the bricks of the Tower of Babel is translated as bitumen (see Gen 11:3), while other translations use the word pitch. A one-kilometre tunnel beneath the river Euphrates at Babylon in the time of Queen Semiramis (ca. 800 B.C.) was reportedly constructed of burnt bricks covered with asphalt/bitumen as a waterproofing agent. 

Asphalt/bitumen was used by ancient Egyptians to embalm mummies. The Persian word for asphalt is moom, which is related to the English word mummy. The Egyptians' primary source of asphalt/bitumen was the Dead Sea, which the Romans knew as Palus Asphaltites (Asphalt Lake).

Approximately 40 AD, Dioscorides described the Dead Sea material as Judaicum bitumen, and noted other places in the region where it could be found: 
"The Judaicum Bitumen is better than others; that is reckoned the best, which doth shine like purple, being of a strong scent & weightie, but the black and fowle is naught for it is adulterated with Pitch mixed with it. It growes in Phoenice also, and in Sidon, & in Babylon, & in Zacynthum. It is found also moyst swimming upon wells in the country of the Agrigentines of Sicilie, which they use for lamps instead of oyle, and which they call falsely Sicilian oyle, for it is a kinde of moyst Bitumen." translated by Goodyer (1655) [http://www.therenaissanceman.org/images/DIOSCORIDES-Intro_Book_1.doc or (Greek/Latin) compiled by Sprengel (1829) p. 100 (p. 145 in PDF) 
The Sidon bitumen is thought to refer to asphalt/bitumen found at Hasbeya. Pliny refers also to asphalt/bitumen being found in Epirus. It was a valuable strategic resource; the object of the first known battle for a hydrocarbon deposit, between the Seleucids and the Nabateans in 312 B.C. 

In the ancient Far East, natural asphalt/bitumen was slowly boiled to get rid of the higher fractions, leaving a material of higher molecular weight which is thermoplastic and when layered on objects, became quite hard upon cooling. This was used to cover objects that needed waterproofing, such as scabbards and other items. Statuettes of household deities were also cast with this type of material in Japan, and probably also in China.

In North America, archaeological recovery has indicated asphalt/bitumen was sometimes used to adhere stone projectile points to wooden shafts. 

===Early use in Europe===
100 years after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Pierre Belon described in his work Observations in 1553 that pissasphalto, a mixture of pitch and bitumen, was used in Dubrovnik for tarring of ships from where it was exported to a market place in Venice where it could be bought by anyone. Africa and the Discovery of America, Volume 1, page 183, Leo Wiener, BoD – Books on Demand, 1920 reprinted in 2012, ISBN 9783864034329 
An 1838 edition of Mechanics Magazine cites an early use of asphalt in France. A pamphlet dated 1621, by "a certain Monsieur d'Eyrinys, states that he had discovered the existence (of asphaltum) in large quantities in the vicinity of Neufchatel", and that he proposed to use it in a variety of ways – "principally in the construction of air-proof granaries, and in protecting, by means of the arches, the water-courses in the city of Paris from the intrusion of dirt and filth", which at that time made the water unusable. "He expatiates also on the excellence of this material for forming level and durable terraces" in palaces, "the notion of forming such terraces in the streets not one likely to cross the brain of a Parisian of that generation". But it was generally neglected in France until the revolution of 1830. Then, in the 1830s, there was a surge of interest, and asphalt became widely used "for pavements, flat roofs, and the lining of cisterns, and in England, some use of it had been made of it for similar purposes". Its rise in Europe was "a sudden phenomenon", after natural deposits were found "in France at Osbann (BasRhin), the Parc (l'Ain) and the Puy-de-la-Poix (Puy-de-Dome)", although it could also be made artificially. . Note: different sections of Miles' online work were written in different years, as evidenced at the top of each page (not including the heading page of each section). This particular section appears to have been written in 2000 One of the earliest uses in France was the laying of about 24,000 square yards of Seyssel asphalt at the Place de la Concorde in 1835. 

===Photography and art===
Asphalt/bitumen was used in early photographic technology. In 1826 or 1827, it was used by French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce to make the oldest surviving photograph from nature. The asphalt/bitumen was thinly coated onto a pewter plate which was then exposed in a camera. Exposure to light hardened the asphalt/bitumen and made it insoluble, so that when it was subsequently rinsed with a solvent only the sufficiently light-struck areas remained. Many hours of exposure in the camera were required, making asphalt/bitumen impractical for ordinary photography, but from the 1850s to the 1920s it was in common use as a photoresist in the production of printing plates for various photomechanical printing processes. Niépce Museum history pages. Retrieved 27 October 2012. The First Photograph (Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin). Retrieved 27 October 2012. 

Asphalt/bitumen was the nemesis of many artists during the 19th century. Although widely used for a time, it ultimately proved unstable for use in oil painting, especially when mixed with the most common dilutents, such as linseed oil, varnish and turpentine. Unless thoroughly diluted, asphalt/bitumen never fully solidifies and will in time corrupt the other pigments with which it comes into contact. The use of asphalt/bitumen as a glaze to set in shadow or mixed with other colours to render a darker tone resulted in the eventual deterioration of a good many paintings, those of Delacroix being just one notable example. Perhaps the most famous example of the destructiveness of asphalt/bitumen is Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa (1818–1819), where his use of asphalt/bitumen caused the brilliant colors to degenerate into dark greens and blacks and the paint and canvas to buckle.

===Early use in the United Kingdom===
Among the earlier uses of asphalt/bitumen in the United Kingdom was for etching. William Salmon's Polygraphice (1673) provides a recipe for varnish used in etching, consisting of three ounces of virgin wax, two ounces of mastic, and one ounce of asphaltum. By the fifth edition in 1685, he had included more asphaltum recipes from other sources. Text at Internet Archive 

The first British patent for the use of asphalt/bitumen was Cassell's patent asphalte or bitumen' in 1834. Then on 25 November 1837, Richard Tappin Claridge patented the use of Seyssel asphalt (patent #7849), for use in asphalte pavement, Writer is replying to note or query from previous publication, cited as 9th S. xi. 30 having seen it employed in France and Belgium when visiting with Frederick Walter Simms, who worked with him on the introduction of asphalt to Britain. Dr T. Lamb Phipson claims that his father, Samuel Ryland Phipson, a friend of Claridge, was also "instrumental in introducing the asphalte pavement (in 1836)". Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) Indeed, mastic pavements had been previously employed at Vauxhall by a competitor of Claridge, but without success. 

In 1838, Claridge obtained patents in Scotland on 27 March, and Ireland on 23 April, and in 1851 extensions were sought for all three patents, by the trustees of a company previously formed by Claridge. This was Claridge's Patent Asphalte Company, formed in 1838 for the purpose of introducing to Britain "Asphalte in its natural state from the mine at Pyrimont Seysell in France", Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org). Alternative viewing at: http://books.google.com/books?id=sQ5AAAAAYAAJ&pg and "laid one of the first asphalt pavements in Whitehall". Miles, Lewis (2000), pp.10.06.1–2 Trials were made of the pavement in 1838 on the footway in Whitehall, the stable at Knightsbridge Barracks, Comments on asphalt patents of R.T. Claridge, Esq (1904), p.18 "and subsequently on the space at the bottom of the steps leading from Waterloo Place to St. James Park". "The formation in 1838 of Claridge's Patent Asphalte Company (with a distinguished list of aristocratic patrons, and Marc and Isambard Brunel as, respectively, a trustee and consulting engineer), gave an enormous impetus to the development of a British asphalt industry". "By the end of 1838, at least two other companies, Robinson's and the Bastenne company, were in production", Miles, Lewis (2000), p.10.06.2 with asphalt being laid as paving at Brighton, Herne Bay, Canterbury, Kensington, the Strand, and a large floor area in Bunhill-row, while meantime Claridge's Whitehall paving "continue(d) in good order". 

Indeed in 1838, there was a flurry of entrepreneurial activity over asphalt/bitumen, which had uses beyond paving. For example, asphalt could also used for flooring, damp proofing in buildings, and for waterproofing of various types of pools and baths, with these latter themselves proliferating in the 19th century. (Enter "asphalt" into the search field for list of pages discussing the subject) On the London stockmarket, there were various claims as to the exclusivity of asphalt quality from France, Germany and England. And numerous patents were granted in France, with similar numbers of patent applications being denied in England due to their similarity to each other. In England, "Claridge's was the type most used in the 1840s and 50s" 

In 1914, Claridge's Company entered into a joint venture to produce tar-bound macadam, with materials manufactured through a subsidiary company called Clarmac Roads Ltd. Two products resulted, namely Clarmac, and Clarphalte, with the former being manufactured by Clarmac Roads and the latter by Claridge's Patent Asphalte Co., although Clarmac was more widely used. However, the First World War impacted financially on the Clarmac Company, which entered into liquidation in 1915. Clarmac financial difficults due to WW1 Debentures deposited The Law Reports: Chancery Division, (1921) Vol. 1 p.545. Retrieved 17 June 2010. The failure of Clarmac Roads Ltd had a flow-on effect to Claridge's Company, which was itself compulsorily wound up, Claridge's Patent Asphalte Co. compulsorily wound up Funds invested in new company The Law Times Reports (1921) Vol.125, p.256. Retrieved 15 June 2010. ceasing operations in 1917, having invested a substantial amount of funds into the new venture, both at the outset, and in a subsequent attempt to save the Clarmac Company. 

=== Early use in the United States ===
The first use of asphalt/bitumen in the New World was by indigenous peoples. On the west coast, as early as the 13th century, the Tongva, Luiseño and Chumash peoples collected the naturally occurring asphalt/bitumen that seeped to the surface above underlying petroleum deposits. All three used the substance as an adhesive. It is found on many different artifacts of tools and ceremonial items. For example, it was used on rattles to adhere gourds or turtle shells to rattle handles. It was also used in decorations. Small round shell beads were often set in asphaltum to provide decorations. It was used as a sealant on baskets to make them watertight for carrying water. Asphaltum was used also to seal the planks on ocean-going canoes.

Roads in the US have been paved with materials that include asphalt/bitumen since at least 1870, when a street in front of the Newark, NJ City Hall was paved. In many cases, these early pavings were made from naturally occurring "bituminous rock", such as at Ritchie Mines in Macfarlan in Ritchie County, West Virginia from 1852 to 1873. In 1876, asphalt-based paving was used to pave Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, in time for the celebration of the national centennial. Asphalt/bitumen was also used for flooring, paving and waterproofing of baths and swimming pools during the early 20th century, following similar trends in Europe. 

==Modern use==

The road surface is removed and a new bitumen layer is added

=== Rolled asphalt concrete ===

The largest use of asphalt/bitumen is for making asphalt concrete for road surfaces and accounts for approximately 85% of the asphalt consumed in the United States. Asphalt concrete pavement material is commonly composed of 5% asphalt/bitumen cement and 95% aggregates (stone, sand, and gravel). Due to its highly viscous nature, asphalt/bitumen cement must be heated so it can be mixed with the aggregates at the asphalt mixing plant. There are about 4,000 asphalt concrete mixing plants in the U.S., and a similar number in Europe. 

Asphalt concrete road surface is the most widely recycled material in the U.S., both by gross tonnage and by percentage. According to an industry survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administration and the National Asphalt Pavement Association and released in 2011, more than 99% of the asphalt removed each year from road surfaces during widening and resurfacing projects is reused as part of new pavements, roadbeds, shoulders and embankments. 

Roofing shingles account for most of the remaining asphalt/bitumen consumption. Other uses include cattle sprays, fence-post treatments, and waterproofing for fabrics.

Asphalt concrete paving is widely used in airports around the world. Due to the sturdiness and ability to be repaired quickly, it is widely used for runways dedicated to aircraft landing and taking off.

=== Mastic asphalt ===
Mastic asphalt is a type of asphalt which differs from dense graded asphalt (asphalt concrete) in that it has a higher asphalt/bitumen (binder) content, usually around 7–10% of the whole aggregate mix, as opposed to rolled asphalt concrete, which has only around 5% added asphalt/bitumen. This thermoplastic substance is widely used in the building industry for waterproofing flat roofs and tanking underground. Mastic asphalt is heated to a temperature of 210 °C and is spread in layers to form an impervious barrier about 20 mm thick.

=== Asphalt emulsion ===
A number of technologies allow asphalt/bitumen to be mixed at much lower temperatures. These involve mixing with petroleum solvents to form "cutbacks" with reduced melting point, or mixtures with water to turn the asphalt/bitumen into an emulsion. Asphalt emulsions contain up to 70% asphalt/bitumen and typically less than 1.5% chemical additives. There are two main types of emulsions with different affinity for aggregates, cationic and anionic. Asphalt emulsions are used in a wide variety of applications. Chipseal involves spraying the road surface with asphalt emulsion followed by a layer of crushed rock, gravel or crushed slag. Slurry seal involves the creation of a mixture of asphalt emulsion and fine crushed aggregate that is spread on the surface of a road. Cold-mixed asphalt can also be made from asphalt emulsion to create pavements similar to hot-mixed asphalt, several inches in depth and asphalt emulsions are also blended into recycled hot-mix asphalt to create low-cost pavements.

===Other uses===
Asphalt/bitumen is used to make Japan black, a lacquer known especially for its use on iron and steel. Asphalt/bitumen also is used in paint and marker inks by some graffiti supply companies (primarily Molotow) to increase the weather resistance and permanence of the paint and/or ink, and to make the color much darker. Asphalt/bitumen is also used to seal some alkaline batteries during the manufacturing process.

==Production==
About 40,000,000 tons were produced in 1984. It is obtained as the "heavy" (i.e., difficult to distill) fraction. Material with a boiling point greater than around 500 °C is considered asphalt. Vacuum distillation separates it from the other components in crude oil (such as naphtha, gasoline and diesel). The resulting material is typically further treated to extract small but valuable amounts of lubricants and to adjust the properties of the material to suit applications. In a de-asphalting unit, the crude asphalt is treated with either propane or butane in a supercritical phase to extract the lighter molecules, which are then separated. Further processing is possible by "blowing" the product: namely reacting it with oxygen. This step makes the product harder and more viscous. 

Asphalt/bitumen is typically stored and transported at temperatures around 150 °C. Sometimes diesel oil or kerosene are mixed in before shipping to retain liquidity; upon delivery, these lighter materials are separated out of the mixture. This mixture is often called "bitumen feedstock", or BFS. Some dump trucks route the hot engine exhaust through pipes in the dump body to keep the material warm. The backs of tippers carrying asphalt/bitumen, as well as some handling equipment, are also commonly sprayed with a releasing agent before filling to aid release. Diesel oil is no longer used as a release agent due to environmental concerns.

===From oil sands===
Naturally occurring crude asphalt/bitumen impregnated in sedimentary rock is the prime feed stock for petroleum production from "Oil sands", currently under development in Alberta, Canada. Canada has most of the world's supply of natural asphalt/bitumen, covering 140,000 square kilometres (an area larger than England), giving it the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world. The Athabasca oil sands is the largest asphalt/bitumen deposit in Canada and the only one accessible to surface mining, although recent technological breakthroughs have resulted in deeper deposits becoming producible by in situ methods. Because of oil price increases since 2003, upgrading bitumen to synthetic crude oil has become highly profitable. As of 2006, Canadian crude asphalt/bitumen production averaged about 1.1 Moilbbl per day and was projected to rise to 4.4 Moilbbl per day by 2020. The total amount of crude asphalt/bitumen in Alberta which could be extracted is estimated to be about 310 Goilbbl, which at a rate of 4400000 oilbbl/d would last about 200 years.

===Alternatives and bioasphalt ===

Although uncompetitive economically, asphalt/bitumen can be made from nonpetroleum-based renewable resources such as sugar, molasses and rice, corn and potato starches. Asphalt/bitumen can also be made from waste material by fractional distillation of used motor oils, which is sometimes disposed by burning or dumping into landfills; use of these results in premature cracking in colder climates, resulting in roads that need to be repaved more frequently. Nonpetroleum-based asphalt/bitumen binders can be made light-colored. Lighter-colored roads absorb less heat from solar radiation, and have less surface heat than darker surfaces, reducing their contribution to the urban heat island effect. Heat Island Effect. From the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

==Etymology==
The word asphalt is derived from the late Middle English, in turn from French asphalte, based on Late Latin asphalton, asphaltum, which is the latinisation of the Greek ἄσφαλτος (ásphaltos, ásphalton), a word meaning "asphalt/bitumen/pitch", ἄσφαλτος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus which perhaps derives from ἀ-, "without" and σφάλλω (sfallō), "make fall". σφάλλω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Note that in French, the term asphalte is used for naturally occurring bitumen-soaked limestone deposits, and for specialised manufactured products with fewer voids or greater bitumen content than the "asphaltic concrete" used to pave roads. It is a significant fact that the first use of asphalt by the ancients was in the nature of a cement for securing or joining together various objects, and it thus seems likely that the name itself was expressive of this application. Specifically Herodotus mentioned that bitumen was brought to Babylon to build its gigantic fortification wall. Herodotus, The Histories, 1.179.4, on Perseus From the Greek, the word passed into late Latin, and thence into French (asphalte) and English ("asphaltum" and "asphalt").

The expression "bitumen" originated in the Sanskrit, where we find the words jatu, meaning "pitch," and jatu-krit, meaning "pitch creating", "pitch producing" (referring to coniferous or resinous trees). The Latin equivalent is claimed by some to be originally gwitu-men (pertaining to pitch), and by others, pixtumens (exuding or bubbling pitch), which was subsequently shortened to bitumen, thence passing via French into English. From the same root is derived the Anglo Saxon word cwidu (mastix), the German word Kitt (cement or mastic) and the old Norse word kvada. Abraham, Herbert (1938), p.1 

Neither of the terms asphalt or bitumen should be confused with tar or coal tars.

=== Modern usage ===
In British English, the word 'asphalt' is used to refer to a mixture of mineral aggregate and asphalt/bitumen (also called tarmac in common parlance). The earlier word 'asphaltum' is now archaic and not commonly used. In American English, 'asphalt' is equivalent to the British 'bitumen'. However, 'asphalt' is also commonly used as a shortened form of 'asphalt concrete' (therefore equivalent to the British 'asphalt' or 'tarmac'). In Australian English, bitumen is often used as the generic term for road surfaces. In Canadian English, the word bitumen is used to refer to the vast Canadian deposits of extremely heavy crude oil, 
 while asphalt is used for the oil refinery product used to pave roads and manufacture roof shingles and various waterproofing products. Diluted bitumen (diluted with naphtha to make it flow in pipelines) is known as dilbit in the Canadian petroleum industry, while bitumen "upgraded" to synthetic crude oil is known as syncrude and syncrude blended with bitumen as synbit. 
 
Bitumen is still the preferred geological term for naturally occurring deposits of the solid or semi-solid form of petroleum. Bituminous rock is a form of sandstone impregnated with bitumen. The tar sands of Alberta, Canada are a similar material.

==See also==

*Asphalt plant
*Blacktop
*Tarmac
*International Grooving & Grinding Association
* Bioasphalt
* Asphaltene
* Bitumen-based fuel
* Bituminous coal
* Bituminous rocks
* Oil sands
* Pitch (resin)
* Tar
* Sealcoat
* Stamped asphalt

==Notes==

==References==

==Sources==
* Barth, Edwin J., Asphalt: Science and Technology Gordon and Breach (1962). ISBN 0-677-00040-5.
* 
*

==External links==

*
*Pavement Interactive – Asphalt
*Asphalt Magazine
*CSU Sacramento, The World Famous Asphalt Museum!
*National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health – Asphalt Fumes
*

 



[[American National Standards Institute]]

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI, ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. RFC 4949 The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international standards so that American products can be used worldwide. For example, standards ensure that people who own cameras can find the film they need for that camera anywhere around the globe.

ANSI accredits standards that are developed by representatives of other standards organizations, government agencies, consumer groups, companies, and others. These standards ensure that the characteristics and performance of products are consistent, that people use the same definitions and terms, and that products are tested the same way. ANSI also accredits organizations that carry out product or personnel certification in accordance with requirements defined in international standards. ANSI 2009 Annual Report 

The organization's headquarters are in Washington, DC. ANSI's operations office is located in New York City. The ANSI annual operating budget is funded by the sale of publications, membership dues and fees, accreditation services, fee-based programs, and international standards programs.

== History ==
ANSI was originally formed in 1918, when five engineering societies and three government agencies founded the American Engineering Standards Committee (AESC). In 1928, the AESC became the American Standards Association (ASA). In 1966, the ASA was reorganized and became the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI). The present name was adopted in 1969.

Prior to 1918, these five founding engineering societies:
*American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, now IEEE)
*American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
*American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
*American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME, now American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers)
*American Society for Testing and Materials (now ASTM International)
had been members of the United Engineering Society (UES).
At the behest of the AIEE, they invited the U.S. government Departments of War, Navy (combined in 1947 to become the Department of Defense or DOD) and Commerce ANSI history- Retrieved 2011-09-27 to join in founding a national standards organization.

According to Paul G. Agnew, the first permanent secretary and head of staff in 1919, AESC started as an ambitious program and little else. Staff for the first year consisted of one executive, Clifford B. LePage, who was on loan from a founding member, ASME. An annual budget of $7,500 was provided by the founding bodies.

In 1931, the organization (renamed ASA in 1928) became affiliated with the U.S. National Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which had been formed in 1904 to develop electrical and electronics standards. Welcome to IEC - International Electrotechnical Commission 

==Members==
ANSI's membership comprises government agencies, organizations, corporations, academic and international bodies, and individuals. In total, the Institute represents the interests of more than 125,000 companies and 3.5 million professionals. ANSI membership page, www.ansi.org/membership 

==Process==
Though ANSI itself does not develop standards, the Institute oversees the development and use of standards by accrediting the procedures of standards developing organizations. ANSI accreditation signifies that the procedures used by standards developing organizations meet the Institute's requirements for openness, balance, consensus, and due process.

ANSI also designates specific standards as American National Standards, or ANS, when the Institute determines that the standards were developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the requirements of various stakeholders. Value of the ANS Designation brochure 

Voluntary consensus standards quicken the market acceptance of products while making clear how to improve the safety of those products for the protection of consumers. There are approximately 9,500 American National Standards that carry the ANSI designation.

The American National Standards process involves:
*consensus by a group that is open to representatives from all interested parties
*broad-based public review and comment on draft standards
*consideration of and response to comments
*incorporation of submitted changes that meet the same consensus requirements into a draft standard
*availability of an appeal by any participant alleging that these principles were not respected during the standards-development process.

==International activities==
In addition to facilitating the formation of standards in the U.S., ANSI promotes the use of U.S. standards internationally, advocates U.S. policy and technical positions in international and regional standards organizations, and encourages the adoption of international standards as national standards where appropriate.

The Institute is the official U.S. representative to the two major international standards organizations, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), as a founding member, ISO founding member- Retrieved 2011-09-27 and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), via the U.S. National Committee (USNC). ANSI participates in almost the entire technical program of both the ISO and the IEC, and administers many key committees and subgroups. In many instances, U.S. standards are taken forward to ISO and IEC, through ANSI or the USNC, where they are adopted in whole or in part as international standards.

===Standards panels Overview. Ansi.org. Retrieved on 2013-08-12. ===
The Institute administers nine standards panels:
*ANSI Homeland Defense and Security Standardization Collaborative (HDSSC)
*ANSI Nanotechnology Standards Panel (ANSI-NSP)
*ID Theft Prevention and ID Management Standards Panel (IDSP)
*ANSI Energy Efficiency Standardization Coordination Collaborative (EESCC)
*Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC)
*Electric Vehicles Standards Panel (EVSP)
*ANSI-NAM Network on Chemical Regulation
*ANSI Biofuels Standards Coordination Panel
*Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP)

Each of the panels works to identify, coordinate, and harmonize voluntary standards relevant to these areas.

In 2009, ANSI and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) formed the Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC). NESCC is a joint initiative to identify and respond to the current need for standards in the nuclear industry.

===American national standards===
*The ASA (as for American Standards Association) photographic exposure system, originally defined in ASA Z38.2.1 (since 1943) and ASA PH2.5 (since 1954), together with the DIN system (DIN 4512 since 1934), became the basis for the ISO system (since 1974), currently used worldwide (ISO 6, ISO 2240, ISO 5800, ISO 12232).
*A standard for the set of values used to represent characters in digital computers. The ANSI code standard extended the previously created ASCII seven bit code standard (ASA X3.4-1963), with additional codes for European alphabets (see also Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code or EBCDIC). In Microsoft Windows, the phrase "ANSI" refers to the Windows ANSI code pages (even though they are not ANSI standards). Microsoft Glossary Most of these are fixed width, though some characters for ideographic languages are variable width. Since these characters are based on a draft of the ISO-8859 series, some of Microsoft's symbols are visually very similar to the ISO symbols, leading many to falsely assume that they are identical.
*The first computer programming language standard was "American Standard Fortran" (informally known as "FORTRAN 66"), approved in March 1966 and published as ASA X3.9-1966.
*The programming language COBOL had ANSI standards in 1968, 1974, and 1985. The COBOL 2002 standard was issued by ISO.
*The original standard implementation of the programming language C was standardized as ANSI X3.159-1989, becoming the well-known ANSI C.
*A popular Unified Thread Standard for nuts and bolts is ANSI/ASME B1.1 which was defined in 1935, 1949, 1989, and 2003.
*The ANSI-NSF International standards used for commercial kitchens, such as restaurants, cafeterias, delis, etc.
*The ANSI/APSP (Association of Pool & Spa Professionals) standards used for pools, spas, hot tubs, barriers, and suction entrapment avoidance.
*The ANSI/HI (Hydraulic Institute) standards used for pumps.
*The ANSI for eye protection is Z87.1, which gives a specific impact resistance rating to the eyewear. This standard is commonly used for shop glasses, shooting glasses, and many other examples of protective eyewear.
*The ANSI paper sizes (ANSI/ASME Y14.1).

===Other initiatives===
*In 2008 ANSI, in partnership [http://www.citationtechnologies.com/alliances/ansi ] with Citation Technologies, created the first dynamic, online web library for ISO 14000 standards. ANSI ISO 14000 Press Release 
*On June 23, 2009 ANSI announced a product and services agreement with Citation Technologies to deliver all ISO Standards on a web-based platform. Through the ANSI-Citation partnership, 17,765 International Standards developed by more than 3,000 ISO technical bodies will be made available on the citation platform, arming subscribers with powerful search tools and collaboration, notification, and change-management functionality. ANSI Press Release 07.23.09 
*ANSI, in partnership with Citation Technologies, AAMI, ASTM, and DIN, created a single, centralized database for medical device standards on September 9, 2009. Medical Device Standards Database Press Release 09/09/09 
*In early 2009, ANSI launched a new Certificate Accreditation Program (ANSI-CAP) to provide neutral, third-party attestation that a given certificate program meets the American National Standard ASTM E2659-09.
*In 2009, ANSI began accepting applications for certification bodies seeking accreditation according to requirements defined under the Toy Safety Certification Program (TSCP) as the official third-party accreditor of TSCP’s product certification bodies.
*In 2006, ANSI launched www.StandardsPortal.org, an online resource for facilitating more open and efficient trade between international markets in the areas of standards, conformity assessment, and technical regulations. The site currently features content for China, India, and Korea, with additional countries and regions planned for future content.
*ANSI design standards have also been incorporated into building codes encompassing several specific building sub-sets, such as the ANSI/SPRI ES-1, which pertains to "Wind Design Standard for Edge Systems Used With Low Slope Roofing Systems", for example. The ANSI/SPRI ES-1 Standard Explained 

==See also==
*ANSI C
*ANSI ASC X9
*ANSI ASC X12
*National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
*Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM)
*Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST)
*Accredited Crane Operator Certification
*Open standards
*ISO (Other major standards-setting body)

==References==

==External links==
*
*ANSI eStandardsStore
* ANSI Overview
*ANSI Historical Overview
**Historical Overview Brochure
*ANSI iPackages Portals & WebStore - ISO14000 online portals
*Documents of Interest:
**ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards
**ANSI Critical Issue Paper: Current Attempts to Change Established Definition of “Open” Standards



[[Argument (disambiguation)]]

In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion. 

Argument may also refer to: 

==Mathematics and computer science==
*Argument (complex analysis), a function which returns the polar angle of a complex number
*Parameter (computer programming), a piece of data provided as input to a subroutine
*Argument principle, a theorem in complex analysis about meromorphic functions inside and on a closed contour
*An argument of a function, also known as an independent variable

==Language and rhetoric==
*Argument (literature), a brief summary, often in prose, of a poem or section of a poem or other work
*Argument (linguistics), a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause
*Oral argument, in US law, a spoken presentation to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevail
*Closing argument, in law, the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments in a court case

==Music==
*Musical argument, a concept in the theory of musical form

==Other uses==
*Argument (ship), an Australian sloop wrecked in 1809
*The Argument, the sixth studio album from the post-hardcore band Fugazi
*The Argument Sketch, a sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus
*A disagreement between two or more parties or the discussion of the disagreement



[[Apollo 11]]

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Armstrong spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, Aldrin slightly less, and together they collected 47.5 lb of lunar material for return to Earth. A third member of the mission, Michael Collins, piloted the command spacecraft alone in lunar orbit until Armstrong and Aldrin returned to it just under a day later for the trip back to Earth.

Launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16, Apollo 11 was the fifth manned mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a Command Module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that landed back on Earth; a Service Module (SM), which supported the Command Module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a Lunar Module (LM) for landing on the Moon. After being sent toward the Moon by the Saturn V's upper stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered into lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the Lunar Module and landed in the Sea of Tranquility. They stayed a total of about 21½ hours on the lunar surface. After lifting off in the upper part of the Lunar Module and rejoining Collins in the Command Module, they returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.

Broadcast on live TV to a world-wide audience, Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled a national goal proposed in 1961 by the late US President John F. Kennedy in a speech before the United States Congress, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." 

==Framework==

===Crew===

Each crewman of Apollo 11 had made a spaceflight before this mission, making it only the second all-veteran crew (the other being Apollo 10) in human spaceflight history. 

Collins was originally slated to be the Command Module Pilot (CMP) on Apollo 8 but was removed when he required surgery on his back and was replaced by Jim Lovell, his backup for that flight. After Collins was medically cleared, he took what would have been Lovell's spot on Apollo 11; as a veteran of Apollo 8, Lovell was transferred to Apollo 11's backup crew, but promoted to backup commander.

===Backup crew===

In early 1969, Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective August 1969 and announced that he would retire as an astronaut on that date. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch (at which point Anders would be unavailable if needed) and would later join Lovell's crew and ultimately be assigned as the original Apollo 13 CMP. 

===Support crew===
Duke, Lovell, and Haise at the Apollo 11 CAPCOM
*Charlie Duke, Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM)
*Ronald Evans (CAPCOM)
*Owen K. Garriott (CAPCOM)
*Don L. Lind (CAPCOM)
*Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
*Bruce McCandless II (CAPCOM)
*Harrison Schmitt (CAPCOM)
*Bill Pogue
*Jack Swigert

===Flight directors===
*Cliff Charlesworth (Green Team), launch and EVA
*Gene Kranz (White Team), lunar landing
*Glynn Lunney (Black Team), lunar ascent

===Call signs===
Apollo 11 spacecraft. SM: Service Module (no call sign); CM: Command Module, Columbia; LM: Lunar Module, Eagle (pre-production appearance)

After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to Manned Spacecraft Center director George M. Low to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. During early mission planning, the names Snowcone and Haystack were used and put in the news release, but the crew later decided to change them.

The Command Module was named Columbia after the Columbiad, the giant cannon shell "spacecraft" fired by a giant cannon (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. The Lunar Module was named Eagle for the national bird of the United States, the bald eagle, which is featured prominently on the mission insignia.

===Insignia===

The Apollo 11 mission insignia was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". He chose an eagle as the symbol, put an olive branch in its beak, and drew a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. NASA officials said the talons of the eagle looked too "warlike" and after some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the claws. The crew decided the Roman numeral XI would not be understood in some nations and went with "Apollo 11"; they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing". 

All colors are natural, with blue and gold borders around the patch. When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released a few years later, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side. The design was retained for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar which was unveiled in 1979, ten years after the Apollo 11 mission.

===Mementos===

Neil Armstrong's PPK (Personal Preference Kit) carried a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 airplane's left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing, along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Deke Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on Apollo 1 and given to Slayton after the mission but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton and Armstrong took it on Apollo 11. 

==Mission highlights==

===Launch and flight to lunar orbit===

In addition to throngs of people crowding highways and beaches near the launch site, millions watched the event on television, with NASA Chief of Public Information Jack King providing commentary. President Richard M. Nixon viewed the proceedings from the Oval Office of the White House.

A Saturn V launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A, part of the Launch Complex 39 site at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969 at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 a.m. EDT local time). It entered orbit twelve minutes later. After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later the command/service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the Lunar Module still nestled in the Lunar Module Adaptor. After the Lunar Module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the third stage booster flew on a trajectory past the Moon and into heliocentric orbit. 

On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) about 12 mi southwest of the crater Sabine D (0.67408N, 23.47297E). The landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers along with the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft and unlikely to present major landing or extra-vehicular activity (EVA) challenges. 

===Lunar descent===
The Eagle in lunar orbit after separating from Columbia

On July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged.

As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface four seconds early and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point.

Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6000 ft above the surface of the Moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected "1202" and "1201" program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. Chapter 11.4. 

===Landing===
Landing site of Apollo 11 at Sea of Tranquility
When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300 m diameter crater (later determined to be "West crater," named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). Armstrong took semi-automatic control and, with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed at 20:17:40 UTC on July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left. 

Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than other missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to be the result of greater propellant 'slosh' than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this. 

Throughout the descent Aldrin had called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting the LM. A few moments before the landing, a light informed Aldrin that at least one of the 67 in probes hanging from Eagles footpads had touched the surface, and he said "Contact light!" Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong said "Shutdown." Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA - out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged "Out of detent. Auto" and Aldrin continued "Mode control - both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm - off. 413 is in."

Charles Duke, acting as CAPCOM during the landing phase, acknowledged their landing by saying "We copy you down, Eagle."

Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post landing checklist with "Engine arm is off," before responding to Duke with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan-- Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot." 

Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin broadcast that:

Landing on the Moon, July 20, 1969

 He then took communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. As such, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, the Rev. Dean Woodruff. Aldrin described communion on the Moon and the involvement of his church and pastor in the October 1970 edition of Guideposts magazine and in his book Return to Earth. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20. 

The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period, since they had been awake since early morning. However, they elected to forgo the sleep period and begin the preparations for the EVA early, thinking that they would be unable to sleep.

===Lunar surface operations===

A mounted slowscan TV camera shows Armstrong as he climbs down the ladder to surface

The astronauts planned placement of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package (EASEP) and the U.S. flag by studying their landing site through Eagles twin triangular windows, which gave them a 60° field of view. Preparation required longer than the two hours scheduled. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his Portable Life Support System (PLSS). According to veteran Moon-walker John Young, a redesign of the LM to incorporate a smaller hatch had not been followed by a redesign of the PLSS backpack, so some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress. 

Aldrin bootprint; part of an experiment to test the properties of the lunar regolith

At 02:39 UTC on Monday July 21, 1969, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 02:51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface. The Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) folded against Eagles side and activate the TV camera, and at 02:56:15 UTC he set his left foot on the surface. The first landing used slow-scan television incompatible with commercial TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor, significantly reducing the quality of the picture. The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia. October 2000 website version, part 10 of 12: "The Television Broadcasts." Original version available from CSIRO Parkes Observatory (PDF). Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth. Although copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were accidentally destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.

After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder," Armstrong stepped off Eagles footpad and uttered his famous line, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" Includes the "a" article as intended. News story on reanalysis which suggests the line was said correctly (with the "a" article). News story on later reanalysis which suggests the line was said incorrectly. six and a half hours after landing. Aldrin joined him, describing the view as "Magnificent desolation." 

Armstrong claims to have said "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" when he first set foot on the lunar surface. The "a" is not clear in NASA recordings, but the audio and video links back to Earth were somewhat intermittent, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. More recent digital analysis of the tape by NASA revealed the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static. 

About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM. 

In addition to fulfilling President Kennedy's mandate to land a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s, Apollo 11 was an engineering test of the Apollo system; therefore, Armstrong snapped photos of the LM so engineers would be able to judge its post-landing condition. He removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod 68 ft from the LM. The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA.

Aldrin poses on the Moon, allowing Armstrong to photograph both of them using the visor's reflection

Armstrong said that moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around." Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backwards, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagles shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, though the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow. 

The astronauts planted a specially designed U.S. flag on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Some time later, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House." Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief, to respect the lunar landing as Kennedy's legacy. This was related by Frank Borman during the 2008 documentary , part 2. 

William Safire prepared a speech called In Event of Moon Disaster for President Nixon to read on television if the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. Scanned copy of the "In Event of Moon Disaster" memo. According to the plans, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LEM, and a clergyman would have commended their souls to "the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. Presidential telephone calls to the astronauts' wives were also planned. The speech originated in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's First World War poem, "The Soldier." 

The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat. As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust which soiled the outer part of their suits, the integrated thermal meteoroid garment.

They deployed the EASEP, which included a passive seismograph and a Lunar Ranging Retroreflector (LRRR). Then Armstrong walked 196 ft from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West Crater while Aldrin collected two core tubes. He used the geological hammer to pound in the tubes - the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes.

Map showing landing site and photos taken
Three new minerals were discovered in the rock samples collected by the astronauts: armalcolite, tranquillityite, and pyroxferroite. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins.

During this period Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong that his metabolic rates were high and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. However, as metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension. In a 2010 interview, Armstrong, who had walked a maximum of 196 ft from the LM, explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon. 

===Lunar ascent and return===
Aldrin next to the Passive Seismic Experiment Package with Eagle in the background

Aldrin entered Eagle first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing more than 22 kg of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor. Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his suit pocket sleeve, and Aldrin tossed the bag down; Armstrong then jumped to the ladder's third rung and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, one Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. They then pressurized the LM, and settled down to sleep. 

While moving within the cabin, Aldrin accidentally broke the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for lift off from the Moon. There was concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. Fortunately a felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch. Had this not worked, the Lunar Module circuitry could have been reconfigured to allow firing the ascent engine. 

After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at 17:54 UTC, they lifted off in Eagles ascent stage, carrying 21.5 kilograms of lunar samples with them, to rejoin CMP Michael Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit. During the launch Aldrin looked up in time to see the exhaust from the ascent module's engine knock over the American flag they had planted. 

The plaque left on the ladder of Eagle

After more than 2½ hours on the lunar surface, they had left behind scientific instruments that included a retroreflector array used for the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment and a Passive Seismic Experiment Package used to measure moonquakes. They also left an American flag, an Apollo 1 mission patch, and a plaque (mounted on the LM Descent Stage ladder) bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read:

They also left behind a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace and a silicon message disk. The disk carries the goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world. The disc also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and present top management. (In his 1989 book, Men from Earth, Aldrin says that the items included Soviet medals commemorating Cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin.) Also, according to Deke Slayton's book Moonshot, Armstrong carried with him a special diamond-studded astronaut pin from Slayton.

Eagles ascent stage approaching Columbia

Film taken from the LM Ascent Stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Buzz Aldrin witnessed it topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over." Subsequent Apollo missions usually planted the American flags at least from the LM to prevent its being blown over by the ascent engine exhaust.

After rendezvous with Columbia, Eagles ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit on July 21, 1969 at 23:41 UTC. Just before the Apollo 12 flight, it was noted that Eagle was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagles orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface. The location is uncertain because the Eagle ascent stage was not tracked after it was jettisoned, and the lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make the orbit of the spacecraft unpredictable after a short time. NASA estimated that the orbit had decayed within months and would have impacted on the Moon.

On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented,
:"... The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly ... We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of a people ... All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, 'Thank you very much.'"

Aldrin added,
:"This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown ... Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. 'When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?'"
Armstrong concluded,
:"The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11." 

On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg later was thanked by Armstrong. 

===Splashdown and quarantine===
Columbia floats on the ocean as Navy divers assist in retrieving the astronauts 
The astronauts in their Biological Isolation Garments aboard the USS Hornet

On July 24, the astronauts returned home aboard the Command Module Columbia just before dawn local time (16:51 UTC ) at , in the Pacific Ocean 2660 km east of Wake Island, 380 km south of Johnston Atoll, and 24 km from the recovery ship, USS Hornet. 

At 16:44 UTC the drogue parachutes had been deployed and seven minutes later the Command Module struck the water forcefully. During splashdown, the Command Module landed upside down but was righted within 10 minutes by flotation bags triggered by the astronauts. "Everything's okay. Our checklist is complete. Awaiting swimmers," was Armstrong's last official transmission from the Columbia. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to the Command Module to prevent it from drifting. Additional divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and position rafts for astronaut extraction. Though the chance of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, it was considered a possibility and NASA took great precautions at the recovery site. Divers provided the astronauts with Biological Isolation Garments (BIGs) which were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board the Hornet. Additionally astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and the Command Module wiped with Betadine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The raft containing decontamination materials was then intentionally sunk. 

A second Sea King helicopter hoisted the astronauts aboard one by one, where a NASA flight surgeon gave each a brief physical check during the 0.5 nmi trip back to the Hornet.

The crew of Apollo 11 in quarantine after returning to Earth, visited by Richard Nixon

After touchdown on the Hornet, the astronauts exited the helicopter, leaving the flight surgeon and three crewmen. The helicopter was then lowered into hangar bay #2 where the astronauts walked the 30 ft to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) where they would begin their 21 days of quarantine. This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life and the quarantine process dropped. 

President Richard Nixon was aboard Hornet to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth. He told the astronauts, "As a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before." After Nixon departed, the Hornet was brought alongside the five-ton Command Module where it was placed aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. The Hornet sailed for Pearl Harbor where the Command Module and MQF were airlifted to the Johnson Space Center. 

In accordance with the recently passed Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, the astronauts were placed in quarantine for fear that the Moon might contain undiscovered pathogens and that the astronauts might have been exposed to them during their Moon walks. However, after almost three weeks in confinement (first in their trailer and later in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health. On August 10, 1969, the astronauts exited quarantine.

===Celebration===
Parade in New York
On August 13, they rode in parades in their honor in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On the same evening in Los Angeles there was an official State Dinner to celebrate the flight, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, the Chief Justice of the United States, and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This celebration was the beginning of a 45-day "Giant Leap" tour that brought the astronauts to 25 foreign countries and included visits with prominent leaders such as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Many nations honored the first manned Moon landing with special features in magazines or by issuing Apollo 11 commemorative postage stamps or coins. 

On September 16, 1969, the three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill. They presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate, that had been carried to the surface of the Moon with them.

==Moon race==
Artist's impression of Luna 15

The Soviet Union was secretly attempting to compete with the US in landing a man on the Moon but had been hampered by repeated failures in development of a launcher comparable to the Saturn V. Meanwhile, they tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of unmanned probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, they launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the surface. The Jodrell Bank Observatory radio telescope in England was later discovered to have recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and this was published in July 2009 on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. 

==Spacecraft location==

The Command Module is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. It is in the central Milestones of Flight exhibition hall in front of the Jefferson Drive entrance, sharing the main hall with other pioneering flight vehicles such as the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell X-1, the North American X-15, Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7, and Gemini 4. Armstrong's and Aldrin's space suits are displayed in the museum's Apollo to the Moon exhibit. The quarantine trailer, the flotation collar, and the righting spheres are displayed at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex near Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

In 2009 the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts.

In March 2012 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the F-1 engines that launched Apollo 11 into space. The engines were found below the Atlantic Ocean's surface through the use of advanced sonar scanning. His team brought at least one of the five engines to the surface. In July 2013, it was confirmed though serial numbers (2044) that F-1 engine parts brought up from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean were from the Apollo 11 launch. 

==Additional details==

Several books indicate early mission timelines had Buzz Aldrin rather than Neil Armstrong as the first man on the Moon. 

==40th anniversary events==
Mike Simons, director of the National Electronics Museum, assembles an Apollo TV camera for display at the Newseum

On July 15, 2009, Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by Life photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch. 

From July 16–24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred. 
In addition, it is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments. 

On July 20, 2009, the crew of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House. "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin," Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey." 

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up a Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon. 

A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing:

It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today ... The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date ... nothing since Apollo has come close the excitement that was generated by those astronauts - Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them. 

On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. The bill was sponsored by Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. 

In July 2010, air to ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronised and released for the first time. 

==Gallery==

File:Apollo 11 Liftoff Spectators - GPN-2000-001852.jpg|Spectators camp out to watch the launch
File:Engineers Working apollo 11.png|Launch Control Center before liftoff
File:Guenter Wendt and the Apollo 11 Crew.jpg|Astronauts after a Countdown Demonstration Test
File:Ap11-KSC-69PC-241HR.jpg|Roll out of Saturn V on launch pad
File:Apollo 11 Earth.jpg|The Earth seen from Apollo 11 looking back
File:A11v 1092338.ogg|Neil Armstrong describes the Moon's surface before setting foot on it
File:President Nixon telephones the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon.ogg|President Nixon speaks to Armstrong and Aldrin from the Oval Office
File:Land on the Moon 7 21 1969-repair.jpg|The Washington Post on Monday, July 21, 1969: "'The Eagle Has Landed'—Two Men Walk on the Moon"
File:NASA Armstrong 1969 scout.png|Neil Armstrong's certification: "I certify that this World Scout Badge was carried to the surface of the Moon on man's first lunar landing, Apollo XI, July 20, 1969."
File:First Man on Moon 1969 Issue-10c.jpg|First Man on the Moon Commemorative Issue of 1969 
File:Apollo 11 - Crew at the White House.jpg|Apollo 11 crew at the White House in 2004

==See also==

*Apollo 11 flight, artist concept (an illustrated timeline)
*Apollo 11 in popular culture
*Apollo 11 missing tapes
*Apollo Guidance Computer
*Google Moon
*List of man-made objects on the Moon
*List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999
*Moon landing conspiracy theories
*Wernher von Braun
*The First landing of the Moon

==Notes==

==References==

==Further reading==
*
*
*
*

For young readers
*
*
*

==External links==

*"Apollo 11 transcripts" at Spacelog
*"Magnificent Desolation: The Apollo 11 Moonwalk Pictures" by Apollo Lunar Surface Journal contributor Joseph O'Dea. Complete gallery of Apollo 11 EVA pictures.
*"Apollo 11" Detailed mission information by Dr. David R. Williams, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
*"Apollo 11" Photographer Blaise Thirard's presentation of Apollo 11 photographs
* Original reports from The Times (London)
* NASA website honoring the mission
*"The untold story: how one small silicon disc delivered a giant message to the Moon" at collectSPACE.com
*"Apollo Anniversary: Moon Landing 'Inspired World'" National Geographic News, July 16, 2004 - 35th anniversary of Apollo 11; Steven Dick, NASA's chief historian: "... a thousand years from now, that step may be considered the crowning achievement of the 20th century."
*"Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing" by Craig Nelson, Popular Mechanics, July 13, 2009
*"Coverage of the Flight of Apollo 11 - (1969)" provided by Todd Kosovich for RadioTapes.com. Radio station recordings (airchecks) covering the flight of Apollo 11.
*"Space Missions" at Buzz Aldrin's official website
*"Apollo 11 & 12 Recovery" written by Bob Fish for the USS Hornet Museum

NASA reports
*"Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Mission" (PDF) - NASA press kit, Release No: 69-83K, July 6, 1969
* - 200+ pages
*
* - 230 pages
* - Timeline of the mission, from "One Giant Leap for Mandkind," 2004.
*NASA Technical Reports Server

Multimedia
* - Life magazine Special Edition, August 11, 1969
* - slideshow by Life magazine
* - Remastered videos of the original landing.
* - Transcripts and audio clips of important parts of the mission
* - Hundreds of high-resolution images of the mission, including assembled panoramas.
* - Several maps showing routes of moonwalks
*Google Moon - with lunar landing sites tagged
*Apollo Lunar Surface VR Panoramas at moonpans.com
*Apollo Image Archive at Arizona State University
*Apollo launch and mission videos at ApolloTV.net
*Real-time audiovisual recreation of the Apollo 11 mission to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
*Real-time audiovisual recreation of the lunar module landing with audio feeds from the crew of Apollo 11 and Ground Control
*
*
*



[[Apollo 8]]

Apollo 8, the second human spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth's Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, the first to directly see the far side of the Moon, and then the first to witness Earthrise. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the Saturn V rocket and that rocket's first manned launch, was also the first human spaceflight launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Originally planned as a second Lunar Module/Command Module test in an elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969, the mission profile was changed in August 1968 to a more ambitious Command Module-only lunar orbital flight to be flown in December, because the Lunar Module was not yet ready to make its first flight. This meant Borman's crew was scheduled to fly two to three months sooner than originally planned, leaving them a shorter time for training and preparation, thus placing more demands than usual on their time and discipline.

Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew was named Time Magazine's "Men of the Year" for 1968 upon their return.

==Crew==

This crew was unique among pre-shuttle era missions in that the commander was not the most experienced member of the crew. This was also the first case of the rarity of an astronaut who had flown as commander subsequently flying as a non-commander, as Lovell had previously commanded Gemini XII.

===Backup crew===

On a lunar mission, the Command Module Pilot (CMP) was assigned the role of navigator, while the Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) was assigned the role of flight engineer, responsible for monitoring all spacecraft systems, even if the flight didn't include a Lunar Module. Baker 1981 

Lovell was originally the CMP on the back-up crew, with Michael Collins as the prime crew's CMP. However, Collins was replaced in July 1968, after suffering a cervical disc herniation that required surgery to repair. Collins 2001, pp. 288–294 

Edwin Aldrin was originally the backup LMP. When Lovell was rotated to the prime crew, no one with experience on CSM-103 (the specific spacecraft used for the mission) was available, so Aldrin was moved to CMP and Fred Haise brought in as backup LMP. Neil Armstrong went on to command Apollo 11, where Aldrin was returned to the LMP position and Collins was assigned as CMP.

===Mission control===
The Earth-based mission control teams for Apollo 8 consisted of astronauts assigned to the support crew, as well as non-astronaut flight directors and their staffs. The support crew members were not trained to fly the mission, but were able to stand in for astronauts in meetings and be involved in the minutiae of mission planning, while the prime and backup crews trained. They also served as CAPCOMs during the mission. For Apollo 8, these crew members included astronauts John S. Bull, Vance D. Brand, Gerald P. Carr, and Ken Mattingly. The mission control teams on Earth rotated in three shifts, each led by a flight director. The directors for Apollo 8 included Clifford E. Charlesworth (Green team), Glynn Lunney (Black team), and Milton Windler (Maroon team). Chapter 9.5. 

===Mission insignia===
The triangular shape of the insignia symbolizes the shape of the Apollo Command Module (CM). It shows a red figure-8 looping around the Earth and Moon representing the mission number as well as the circumlunar nature of the mission. On the red number 8 are the names of the three astronauts. Lattimer 1985 

The initial design of the insignia was developed by Jim Lovell. Lovell reportedly sketched the initial design while riding in the backseat of a T-38 flight from California to Houston, shortly after learning of the re-designation of the flight to become a lunar-orbital mission. The graphic design of the insignia was done by Houston artist and animator William Bradley. 

==Planning==

Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 had been "A" missions, unmanned tests of the Saturn V launch vehicle using an unmanned Block I production model of the Apollo Command and Service Module in Earth orbit. Apollo 7, scheduled for October 1968, would be a manned Earth-orbit flight of the CSM, completing the objectives for Mission "C."

Apollo CSM diagram
Further missions depended on the readiness of the Lunar Module. Apollo 8 was planned as the "D" mission, to test the LM in a low Earth orbit in December 1968 by James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart, while Borman's crew would fly the "E" mission, a more rigorous LM test in an elliptical medium Earth orbit as Apollo 9, in early 1969.

But production of the LM fell behind schedule, and when Apollo 8's LM arrived at Cape Canaveral in June 1968, significant defects were discovered, leading Grumman, the lead contractor for the LM, to predict that the first mission-ready LM would not be ready until at least February 1969. This would mean delaying the "D" and subsequent missions, endangering the program's goal of a lunar landing before the end of 1969. 

George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, proposed a solution in August to keep the program on track despite the LM delay. Since the Command/Service Module (CSM) would be ready three months before the Lunar Module, a CSM-only mission could be flown in December 1968. Instead of just repeating the "C" mission flight of Apollo 7, this CSM could be sent all the way to the Moon, with the possibility of entering a lunar orbit. The new mission would also allow NASA to test lunar landing procedures that would otherwise have to wait until Apollo 10, the scheduled "F" mission. This also meant that the medium Earth orbit "E" mission could be dispensed with. The net result was that only the "D" mission had to be delayed.

The first stage of AS-503 being erected in the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) on February 1, 1968
Almost every senior manager at NASA agreed with this new mission, citing both confidence in the hardware and personnel, and the potential for a significant morale boost provided by a circumlunar flight. The only person who needed some convincing was James E. Webb, the NASA administrator. With the rest of his agency in support of the new mission, Webb eventually approved the mission change. The mission was officially changed from a "D" mission to a "C-Prime" lunar-orbit mission, but was still referred to in press releases as an Earth-orbit mission at Webb's direction. No public announcement was made about the change in mission until November 12, three weeks after Apollo 7's successful Earth-orbit mission and less than 40 days before launch. 

With the change in mission for Apollo 8, Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton decided to swap the crews of the D and E missions. This swap also meant a swap of spacecraft, requiring Borman's crew to use CSM-103, while McDivitt's crew would use CSM-104. 

On September 9, the crew entered the simulators to begin their preparation for the flight. By the time the mission flew, the crew had spent seven hours training for every actual hour of flight. Although all crew members were trained in all aspects of the mission, it was necessary to specialize. Borman, as commander, was given training on controlling the spacecraft during the re-entry. Lovell was trained on navigating the spacecraft in case communication was lost with the Earth. Anders was placed in charge of checking that the spacecraft was in working order. 

Added pressure on the Apollo program to make its 1969 landing goal was provided by the Soviet Union's flight of some living creatures, including Russian tortoises, in a cislunar loop around the Moon on Zond 5 and return to Earth on September 21. Chaikin 1994, p. 76 There was speculation within NASA and the press that they might be preparing to launch cosmonauts on a similar circumlunar mission before the end of 1968. 

The Apollo 8 crew, now living in the crew quarters at Kennedy Space Center, received a visit from Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the night before the launch. They talked about how, before his 1927 flight, Lindbergh had used a piece of string to measure the distance from New York City to Paris on a globe and from that calculated the fuel needed for the flight. The total was a tenth of the amount that the Saturn V would burn every second. Zimmerman 1998 The next day, the Lindberghs watched the launch of Apollo 8 from a nearby dune. 

==Saturn V==

The Apollo 8 Saturn V being rolled out to Pad 39A
The Saturn V rocket used by Apollo 8 was designated SA-503, or the "03rd" model of the Saturn V ("5") Rocket to be used in the Saturn-Apollo ("SA") program. When it was erected in the Vertical Assembly Building on December 20, 1967, it was thought that the rocket would be used for an unmanned Earth-orbit test flight carrying a boilerplate Command/Service Module. Apollo 6 had suffered several major problems during its April 1968 flight, including severe pogo oscillation during its first stage, two second stage engine failures, and a third stage that failed to reignite in orbit. Without assurances that these problems had been rectified, NASA administrators could not justify risking a manned mission until additional unmanned test flights proved that the Saturn V was ready. Bilstein 1996, pp. 360–370 

Teams from the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) went to work on the problems. Of primary concern was the pogo oscillation, which would not only hamper engine performance, but could exert significant g-forces on a crew. A task force of contractors, NASA agency representatives, and MSFC researchers concluded that the engines vibrated at a frequency similar to the frequency at which the spacecraft itself vibrated, causing a resonance effect that induced oscillations in the rocket. A system using helium gas to absorb some of these vibrations was installed. 

Of equal importance was the failure of three engines during flight. Researchers quickly determined that a leaking hydrogen fuel line ruptured when exposed to vacuum, causing a loss of fuel pressure in engine two. When an automatic shutoff attempted to close the liquid hydrogen valve and shut down engine two, it accidentally shut down engine three's liquid oxygen due to a miswired connection. As a result, engine three failed within one second of engine two's shutdown. Further investigation revealed the same problem for the third-stage engine—a faulty igniter line. The team modified the igniter lines and fuel conduits, hoping to avoid similar problems on future launches. 

The teams tested their solutions in August 1968 at the Marshall Space Flight Center. A Saturn stage IC was equipped with shock absorbing devices to demonstrate the team's solution to the problem of pogo oscillation, while a Saturn Stage II was retrofitted with modified fuel lines to demonstrate their resistance to leaks and ruptures in vacuum conditions. Once NASA administrators were convinced that the problems were solved, they gave their approval for a manned mission using SA-503. 

The Apollo 8 spacecraft was placed on top of the rocket on September 21 and the rocket made the slow 3-mile (5 km) journey to the launch pad on October 9. Testing continued all through December until the day before launch, including various levels of readiness testing from December 5 through 11. Final testing of modifications to address the problems of pogo oscillation, ruptured fuel lines, and bad igniter lines took place on December 18, a mere three days before the scheduled launch. 

==Mission==

===Parameter summary===
 Dec 21, 1968, 12:51 (UTC): Launch—15:47 (2h56m): Translunar injectionDec 24, 09:59
(2d21h08m): Lunar orbit insertion (10 orbits)Dec 25, 06:10 (3d17h19m): Transearth injectionDec 27, 15:37 (6d02h46m): Reentry—15:51 (6d03h00m): Splashdown. 

As the first manned spacecraft to orbit more than one celestial body, Apollo 8's profile had two different sets of orbital parameters, separated by a translunar injection maneuver.

Apollo lunar missions would begin with a nominal 100 nmi circular Earth parking orbit. Apollo 8 was launched into an initial orbit with an apogee of 99.99 nmi and a perigee of 99.57 nmi, with an inclination of 32.51° to the Equator, and an orbital period of 88.19 minutes. Propellant venting increased the apogee by 6.4 nmi over the 2 hours, 44 minutes and 30 seconds spent in the parking orbit. 

This was followed by a Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) burn of the S-IVB third stage for 318 seconds, accelerating the 63531 lb spacecraft from an orbital velocity of 25567 ft/s to the injection velocity of 35505 ft/s, which set a record for the highest speed, relative to Earth, that humans had ever traveled. This speed was slightly less than the Earth's escape velocity of 36747 ft/s, but put Apollo 8 into an elongated elliptical Earth orbit, to a point where the Moon's gravity would capture it. Woods 2008, pp. 108–109 

The standard lunar orbit for Apollo missions was planned as a nominal 60 nmi circular orbit above the Moon's surface. Initial lunar orbit insertion was an ellipse with a perilune of 60.0 nmi and an apolune of 168.5 nmi, at an inclination of 12° from the lunar equator. This was then circularized at 60.7 nmi by 59.7 nmi, with an orbital period of 128.7 minutes. The effect of lunar mass concentrations ("masscons") on the orbit was found to be greater than initially predicted; over the course of the twenty-hour mission, the orbit was perturbated to 63.6 nmi by 58.6 nmi. 

Apollo 8 achieved a maximum distance from Earth of . 

===Launch and trans-lunar injection===
Apollo 8 during launch, with a double exposure of the Moon, which was not visible at the time
Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 21, 1968, using the Saturn V's three stages, S-IC, S-II, and S-IVB, to achieve Earth orbit. The launch phase experienced only three minor problems: The engines of the first stage, S-IC, underperformed by 0.75%, causing the engines to burn for 2.45 seconds longer than planned, and toward the end of the second stage burn, S-II, the rocket underwent pogo oscillations. Frank Borman estimated the oscillations were approximately 12 hertz and ±0.25 g-force (±2.5 m/s2). 

All three rocket stages fired during launch; the S-IC and S-II detached during launch. The S-IC impacted the Ocean at and the S-II second stage at . The third stage of the rocket, S-IVB, assisted in driving the craft into Earth orbit but remained attached to later perform the TLI burn that would put the spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon.

Once in Earth orbit, both the Apollo 8 crew and Mission Control spent the next 2 hours and 38 minutes checking that the spacecraft was in proper working order and ready for TLI. The proper operation of third stage of the rocket, S-IVB, was crucial: in the last unmanned test, the S-IVB had failed to re-ignite for TLI. 

During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as Capsule Communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI." This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the Moon. Over the next 12 minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the S-IVB. The engine ignited on time and performed the TLI burn perfectly.

After the S-IVB had performed its required tasks, it was jettisoned. The crew then rotated the spacecraft to take some photographs of the spent stage and then practiced flying in formation with it. As the crew rotated the spacecraft, they had their first views of the Earth as they moved away from it. This marked the first time humans could view the whole Earth at once. Borman became worried that the S-IVB was staying too close to the Command/Service Module and suggested to Mission Control that the crew perform a separation maneuver. Mission Control first suggested pointing the spacecraft towards Earth and using the Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters on the Service Module (SM) to add 3 ft/s away from the Earth, but Borman did not want to lose sight of the S-IVB. After discussion, the crew and Mission Control decided to burn in this direction, but at 9 ft/s instead. These discussions put the crew an hour behind their flight plan. 

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° from the plane of the ecliptic, and an orbital period of 340.80 days. 

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15000 mi from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy. Sec.2, Ch.3. 

After the insertion into trans-Lunar orbit, the Saturn IVB third stage became a satellites in heliocentric orbit|derelict object where it would continue to orbit the Sun for many years. , it remains in orbit. 
 

===Lunar trajectory===
The first image ever taken by humans of the whole Earth, probably photographed by William Anders; TIMETAG 003:42:55. South is up with South America in the middle

Jim Lovell's main job as Command Module Pilot was as navigator. Although Mission Control performed all the actual navigation calculations, it was necessary to have a crew member serving as navigator so that the crew could successfully return to Earth in case of communication loss with Mission Control. Lovell navigated by star sightings using a sextant built into the spacecraft, measuring the angle between a star and the Earth's (or the Moon's) horizon. This task proved to be difficult, as a large cloud of debris around the spacecraft formed by the venting S-IVB made it hard to distinguish the stars.

By seven hours into the mission, the crew was about one hour and 40 minutes behind flight plan due to the issues of moving away from the S-IVB and Lovell's obscured star sightings. The crew now placed the spacecraft into Passive Thermal Control (PTC), also known as "barbecue" roll. PTC involved the spacecraft rotating about once per hour along its long axis to ensure even heat distribution across the surface of the spacecraft. In direct sunlight, the spacecraft could be heated to over 200 C while the parts in shadow would be -100 C. These temperatures could cause the heat shield to crack or propellant lines to burst. As it was impossible to get a perfect roll, the spacecraft actually swept out a cone as it rotated. The crew had to make minor adjustments every half-hour as the cone pattern got larger and larger. 

The first mid-course correction came 11 hours into the flight. Testing on the ground had shown that the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine had a small chance of exploding when burned for long periods unless its combustion chamber was "coated" first. Burning the engine for a short period would accomplish coating. This first correction burn was only 2.4 seconds and added about 20.4 ft/s velocity prograde (in the direction of travel). This change was less than the planned 24.8 ft/s due to a bubble of helium in the oxidizer lines causing lower than expected fuel pressure. The crew had to use the small RCS thrusters to make up the shortfall. Two later planned mid-course corrections were canceled as the Apollo 8 trajectory was found to be perfect. 

11 hours into the flight, the crew had been awake for over 16 hours. Before launch, NASA had decided that at least one crew member should be awake at all times to deal with any issues that might arise. Borman started the first sleep shift, but between the constant radio chatter and mechanical noises, he found sleep difficult. 

Apollo 8 S-IVB rocket stage, shortly after separation

About an hour after starting his sleep shift, Borman requested clearance to take a Seconal sleeping pill. However, the pill had little effect. Borman eventually fell asleep but then awoke feeling ill. He vomited twice and had a bout of diarrhea that left the spacecraft full of small globules of vomit and feces that the crew cleaned up to the best of their ability. Borman initially decided that he did not want everyone to know about his medical problems, but Lovell and Anders wanted to inform Mission Control. The crew decided to use the Data Storage Equipment (DSE), which could tape voice recordings and telemetry and dump them to Mission Control at high speed. After recording a description of Borman's illness they requested that Mission Control check the recording, stating that they "would like an evaluation of the voice comments." 

The Apollo 8 crew and Mission Control medical personnel held a conference using an unoccupied second floor control room (there were two identical control rooms in Houston on the second and third floor, only one of which was used during a mission). The conference participants decided that there was little to worry about and that Borman's illness was either a 24-hour flu, as Borman thought, or a reaction to the sleeping pill. Collins 2001, p. 306 Researchers now believe that he was suffering from space adaptation syndrome, which affects about a third of astronauts during their first day in space as their vestibular system adapts to weightlessness. Space adaptation syndrome had not been an issue on previous spacecraft (Mercury and Gemini), as those astronauts were unable to move freely in the comparatively smaller cabins of those spacecraft. The increased cabin space in the Apollo Command Module afforded astronauts greater freedom of movement, contributing to symptoms of space sickness for Borman and, later, astronaut Russell Schweickart during Apollo 9. 

In-flight footage of the crew taken while they were in orbit around the Moon; Frank Borman is in the center

The cruise phase was a relatively uneventful part of the flight, except for the crew checking that the spacecraft was in working order and that they were on course. During this time, NASA scheduled a television broadcast at 31 hours after launch. The Apollo 8 crew used a 2 kg camera that broadcast in black-and-white only, using a Vidicon tube. The camera had two lenses, a very wide-angle (160°) lens, and a telephoto (9°) lens. 

During this first broadcast, the crew gave a tour of the spacecraft and attempted to show how the Earth appeared from space. However, difficulties aiming the narrow-angle lens without the aid of a monitor to show what it was looking at made showing the Earth impossible. Additionally, the Earth image became saturated by any bright source without proper filters. In the end, all the crew could show the people watching back on Earth was a bright blob. After broadcasting for 17 minutes, the rotation of the spacecraft took the high-gain antenna out of view of the receiving stations on Earth and they ended the transmission with Lovell wishing his mother a happy birthday. 

By this time, the crew had completely abandoned the planned sleep shifts. Lovell went to sleep 32½ hours into the flight—3½ hours before he had planned to. A short while later, Anders also went to sleep after taking a sleeping pill. 

The crew was unable to see the Moon for much of the outward cruise. Two factors made the Moon almost impossible to see from inside the spacecraft: three of the five windows fogging up due to out-gassed oils from the silicone sealant, and the attitude required for the PTC. It was not until the crew had gone behind the Moon that they would be able to see it for the first time. 

The Apollo 8 made a second television broadcast at 55 hours into the flight. This time, the crew rigged up filters meant for the still cameras so they could acquire images of the Earth through the telephoto lens. Although difficult to aim, as they had to maneuver the entire spacecraft, the crew was able to broadcast back to Earth the first television pictures of the Earth. The crew spent the transmission describing the Earth and what was visible and the colors they could see. The transmission lasted 23 minutes. 

===Lunar sphere of influence===
At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. In other words, the effect of the Moon's gravitational force on Apollo 8 became stronger than that of the Earth. At the time it happened, Apollo 8 was 38759 mi from the Moon and had a speed of 3990 ft/s relative to the Moon. This historic moment was of little interest to the crew since they were still calculating their trajectory with respect to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. They would continue to do so until they performed their last mid-course correction, switching to a reference frame based on ideal orientation for the second engine burn they would make in lunar orbit. It was only 13 hours until they would be in lunar orbit. Lovell & Kluger 1994 

The last major event before Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) was a second mid-course correction. It was in retrograde (against direction of travel) and slowed the spacecraft down by 2.0 ft/s, effectively lowering the closest distance that the spacecraft would pass the moon. At exactly 61 hours after launch, about 24200 mi from the Moon, the crew burned the RCS for 11 seconds. They would now pass 71.7 mi from the lunar surface. 

At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a "go/no go" decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find." At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth. 

With 10 minutes before the LOI-1, the crew began one last check of the spacecraft systems and made sure that every switch was in the correct place. At that time, they finally got their first glimpses of the Moon. They had been flying over the unlit side, and it was Lovell who saw the first shafts of sunlight obliquely illuminating the lunar surface. The LOI burn was only two minutes away, so the crew had little time to appreciate the view. 

===Lunar orbit===
The SPS ignited at 69 hours, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds after launch and burned for 4 minutes and 13 seconds, placing the Apollo 8 spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. The crew described the burn as being the longest four minutes of their lives. If the burn had not lasted exactly the correct amount of time, the spacecraft could have ended up in a highly elliptical lunar orbit or even flung off into space. If it lasted too long they could have struck the Moon. After making sure the spacecraft was working, they finally had a chance to look at the Moon, which they would orbit for the next 20 hours. 

On Earth, Mission Control continued to wait. If the crew had not burned the engine or the burn had not lasted the planned length of time, the crew would appear early from behind the Moon. However, this time came and went without Apollo 8 reappearing. Exactly at the calculated moment, the signal was received from the spacecraft, indicating it was in a 193.3 by orbit about the Moon. 

After reporting on the status of the spacecraft, Lovell gave the first description of what the lunar surface looked like:

A portion of the lunar far side as seen from Apollo 8

Lovell continued to describe the terrain they were passing over. One of the crew's major tasks was reconnaissance of planned future landing sites on the Moon, especially one in Mare Tranquillitatis that would be the Apollo 11 landing site. The launch time of Apollo 8 had been chosen to give the best lighting conditions for examining the site. A film camera had been set up in one of the spacecraft windows to record a frame every second of the Moon below. Bill Anders spent much of the next 20 hours taking as many photographs as possible of targets of interest. By the end of the mission the crew had taken 700 photographs of the Moon and 150 of the Earth. 

Throughout the hour that the spacecraft was in contact with Earth, Borman kept asking how the data for the SPS looked. He wanted to make sure that the engine was working and could be used to return early to the Earth if necessary. He also asked that they receive a "go/no go" decision before they passed behind the Moon on each orbit. 

As they reappeared for their second pass in front of the Moon, the crew set up the equipment to broadcast a view of the lunar surface. Anders described the craters that they were passing over. At the end of this second orbit they performed the 11-second LOI-2 burn of the SPS to circularize the orbit to 70.0 by. 

Through the next two orbits, the crew continued to keep check of the spacecraft and to observe and photograph the Moon. During the third pass, Borman read a small prayer for his church. He had been scheduled to participate in a service at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church near Seabrook, Texas, but due to the Apollo 8 flight was unable. A fellow parishioner and engineer at Mission Control, Rod Rose, suggested that Borman read the prayer which could be recorded and then replayed during the service. 

In the foreword to the Millennial Edition of his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke says that crew told him "they had been tempted to radio back the discovery of a large black monolith," but discretion prevailed. Clarke 2000, p. xvi 

====Earthrise====

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed "Earthrise" for the first time in human history (NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 took the very first picture of an Earthrise from the vicinity of the Moon, on August 23, 1966). Poole 2008 Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century. Due to the synchronous rotation of the Moon about the Earth, Earthrise is not generally visible from the lunar surface. Earthrise is generally only visible when orbiting the Moon, other than at selected places near the Moon's limb, where libration carries the Earth slightly above and below the lunar horizon.

Anders continued to take photographs while Lovell assumed control of the spacecraft so Borman could rest. Despite the difficulty resting in the cramped and noisy spacecraft, Borman was able to sleep for two orbits, awakening periodically to ask questions about their status. Borman awoke fully, however, when he started to hear his fellow crew members make mistakes. They were beginning to not understand questions and would have to ask for the answers to be repeated. Borman realized that everyone was extremely tired having not had a good night's sleep in over three days. Taking command, he ordered Anders and Lovell to get some sleep and that the rest of the flight plan regarding observing the Moon be scrubbed. At first Anders protested saying that he was fine, but Borman would not be swayed. At last Anders agreed as long as Borman would set up the camera to continue to take automatic shots of the Moon. Borman also remembered that there was a second television broadcast planned, and with so many people expected to be watching he wanted the crew to be alert. For the next two orbits Anders and Lovell slept while Borman sat at the helm. On subsequent Apollo missions, crews would avoid this situation by sleeping on the same schedule.
The Apollo 8 Genesis reading.

As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." De Groot 2006, p. 229 Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read a section from the Biblical creation story from the Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth." Ch.20-9. 

The only task left for the crew at this point was to perform the Trans-Earth Injection (TEI), which was scheduled for 2½ hours after the end of the television transmission. The TEI was the most critical burn of the flight, as any failure of the SPS to ignite would strand the crew in lunar orbit, with little hope of escape. As with the previous burn, the crew had to perform the maneuver above the far side of the Moon, out of contact with Earth.

The burn occurred exactly on time. The spacecraft telemetry was reacquired as it re-emerged from behind the Moon at 89 hours, 28 minutes, and 39 seconds, the exact time calculated. When voice contact was regained, Lovell announced, "Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus," to which Ken Mattingly, the current CAPCOM, replied, "That's affirmative, you are the best ones to know." The spacecraft began its journey back to Earth on December 25, Christmas Day.

===Unplanned manual re-alignment===
Later, Lovell used some otherwise idle time to do some navigational sightings, maneuvering the module to view various stars by using the computer keyboard. However, he accidentally erased some of the computer's memory, which caused the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to think the module was in the same relative position it had been in before lift-off and fire the thrusters to "correct" the module's attitude. 

Once the crew realized why the computer had changed the module's attitude, they realized they would have to re-enter data that would tell the computer its real position. It took Lovell ten minutes to figure out the right numbers, using the thrusters to get the stars Rigel and Sirius aligned, and another 15 minutes to enter the corrected data into the computer. 

16 months later, Lovell would once again have to perform a similar manual re-alignment, under more critical conditions, during the Apollo 13 mission, after that module's IMU had to be turned off to conserve energy. In his 1994 book, Moon|Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13], Lovell wrote, "My training &#91;on Apollo 8&#93; came in handy!" In that book he dismissed the incident as a "planned experiment," requested by the ground crew. In subsequent interviews Lovell has acknowledged that the incident was an accident, caused by his mistake. 

===Cruise back to Earth and re-entry===
Reentry, December 27, 1968

The cruise back to Earth was mostly a time for the crew to relax and monitor the spacecraft. As long as the trajectory specialists had calculated everything correctly, the spacecraft would re-enter two-and-half days after TEI and splashdown in the Pacific.

On Christmas afternoon, the crew made their fifth television broadcast. 

 This time they gave a tour of the spacecraft, showing how an astronaut lived in space. When they finished broadcasting they found a small present from Deke Slayton in the food locker: a real turkey dinner with stuffing, in the same kind of pack that the troops in Vietnam received. Wilford 1973, p. 68 Another Slayton surprise was a gift of three miniature bottles of brandy, that Borman ordered the crew to leave alone until after they landed. They remained unopened, even years after the flight. Schefter 1999, p. 275 There were also small presents to the crew from their wives. The next day, at about 124 hours into the mission, the sixth and final TV transmission showed the mission's best video images of the earth, in a four-minute broadcast. 

 

Command Module on the deck of USS Yorktown
After two uneventful days the crew prepared for re-entry. The computer would control the re-entry and all the crew had to do was put the spacecraft in the correct attitude, blunt end forward. Chaikin 1998, pp. 127–128 If the computer broke down, Borman would take over. 

Once the Command Module was separated from the Service Module, the astronauts were committed to re-entry. Six minutes before they hit the top of the atmosphere, the crew saw the Moon rising above the Earth's horizon, just as had been predicted by the trajectory specialists. As they hit the thin outer atmosphere they noticed it was becoming hazy outside as glowing plasma formed around the spacecraft. The spacecraft started slowing down and the deceleration peaked at 6 g (59 m/s2). With the computer controlling the descent by changing the attitude of the spacecraft, Apollo 8 rose briefly like a skipping stone before descending to the ocean. At 30000 ft the drogue parachute stabilized the spacecraft and was followed at 10000 ft by the three main parachutes. The spacecraft splashdown position was officially reported as in the North Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii. 

When it hit the water, the parachutes dragged the spacecraft over and left it upside down, in what was termed Stable 2 position. About six minutes later the Command Module was righted into its normal apex-up splashdown orientation by the inflatable bag uprighting system. As they were buffeted by a 10 ft swell, Borman was sick, waiting for the three flotation balloons to right the spacecraft. It was 43 minutes after splashdown before the first frogman from the USS Yorktown arrived, as the spacecraft had landed before sunrise. Forty-five minutes later, the crew was safe on the deck of the aircraft carrier. 

==Historical importance==
Apollo 8 came at the end of 1968, a year that had seen much upheaval in the United States and most of the world. Even though the year saw political assassinations, political unrest in the streets of Europe and America, and the Prague Spring, Time magazine chose the crew of Apollo 8 as their Men of the Year for 1968, recognizing them as the people who most influenced events in the preceding year. They had been the first people ever to leave the gravitational influence of the Earth and orbit another celestial body. They had survived a mission that even the crew themselves had rated as only having a fifty-fifty chance of fully succeeding. The effect of Apollo 8 can be summed up by a telegram from a stranger, received by Borman after the mission, that simply stated, "Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968." Chaikin 1994, p. 134 

One of the most famous aspects of the flight was the Earthrise picture that was taken as they came around for their fourth orbit of the Moon. Poole 2008, pp. 8, 32 This was the first time that humans had taken such a picture whilst actually behind the camera, and it has been credited with a role in inspiring the first Earth Day in 1970. It was selected as the first of Life magazine's 100 Photographs That Changed the World. Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins said, "Eight's momentous historic significance was foremost"; Murray & Cox 1990, p. 333 while many space historians, such as Robert K. Poole, see Apollo 8 as the most historically significant of all the Apollo missions. 

The mission was the most widely covered by the media since the first American orbital flight, Mercury-Atlas 6 by John Glenn in 1962. There were 1200 journalists covering the mission, with the BBC coverage being broadcast in 54 countries in 15 different languages. The Soviet newspaper Pravda featured a quote from Boris Nikolaevich Petrov, Chairman of the Soviet Interkosmos program, who described the flight as an "outstanding achievement of American space sciences and technology." It is estimated that a quarter of the people alive at the time saw—either live or delayed—the Christmas Eve transmission during the ninth orbit of the Moon. Chaikin 1994, 120 The Apollo 8 broadcasts won an Emmy Award, the highest honor given by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. 

Apollo 8 commemorative stampMadalyn Murray O'Hair, an atheist, later caused controversy by bringing a lawsuit against NASA over the reading from Genesis. Chaikin 1994, p. 623 O'Hair wished the courts to ban American astronauts—who were all government employees—from public prayer in space. Though the case was rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States for lack of jurisdiction, it caused NASA to be skittish about the issue of religion throughout the rest of the Apollo program. Buzz Aldrin, on Apollo 11, self-communicated Presbyterian Communion on the surface of the Moon after landing; Chaikin 1994, pp. 204, 623 he refrained from mentioning this publicly for several years, and only obliquely referred to it at the time. 

In 1969, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp (Scott catalogue #1371) commemorating the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon. The stamp featured a detail of the famous photograph of the Earthrise over the Moon taken by Anders on Christmas Eve, and the words, "In the beginning God..." Just 18 days after the crew's return to Earth, they were featured during the 1969 Super Bowl pre-game show reciting the Pledge of Allegiance prior to the national anthem being performed by Anita Bryant. 

==Spacecraft location==
In January 1970, the spacecraft was delivered to Osaka, Japan, for display in the U.S. pavilion at Expo '70. It is now displayed at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, along with a collection of personal items from the flight donated by Lovell and the space suit worn by Frank Borman. Jim Lovell's Apollo 8 space suit is on public display in the Visitor Center at NASA's Glenn Research Center. Bill Anders's space suit is on display at the Science Museum in London, England. 

==In film==
Apollo 8's historic mission has been shown and referred to in several forms, both documentary and fiction. The various television transmissions and 16 mm footage shot by the crew of Apollo 8 was compiled and released by NASA in the 1969 documentary, Debrief: Apollo 8, which was hosted by Burgess Meredith. Debrief: Apollo 8 was released as a bonus feature for the Discovery Channel's miniseries DVD release. In addition, Spacecraft Films released, in 2003, a three-disc DVD set containing all of NASA's TV and 16 mm film footage related to the mission including all TV transmissions from space, training and launch footage, and motion pictures taken in flight. Portions of the Apollo 8 Mission can be seen in the 1989 documentary For All Mankind, which won the Grand Jury Prize Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. The Apollo 8 mission was well-covered in the 2007 British documentary In the Shadow of the Moon. 

Portions of the Apollo 8 mission are dramatized in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon episode "1968". The S-IVB stage of Apollo 8 was also portrayed as the location of an alien device in the 1970 UFO episode "Conflict." 

At the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's Apollo/Saturn V Center, the history of the U.S. space program leading up to the launch of Apollo 8 is the subject of a multi-screen multimedia presentation which also features the actual control panels used in the Firing Room for the launch.

==See also==
* List of Apollo astronauts
* Space Race
* Splashdown (spacecraft landing)

==Notes==

==References==

==Bibliography==

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==External links==

* "Apollo 8" at Encyclopedia Astronautica
* – Article about the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 8

;NASA reports
* Apollo 8 Press Kit (PDF), NASA, Release No. 68-208, December 15, 1968
* "Apollo 8 Mission Report" (PDF), NASA, MSC-PA-R-69-1, February 1969

;Multimedia
* Apollo 8: Go for TLI – 1969 NASA film at the Internet Archive
* "The Apollo 8 Christmas Eve Broadcast" – NASA audio of Christmas Genesis transmission
* Debrief: Apollo 8 – 1969 NASA film at the Internet Archive
* "APOLLO 07 and 08 16MM ONBOARD FILM (1968)" – raw footage taken from Apollos 7 and 8 at the Internet Archive
* Apollo launch and mission videos at ApolloTV.net
* "Earth Viewed by Apollo 8" at NASA



[[Astronaut]]

Astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a Manned Maneuvering Unit outside the United States Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984.

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. 

While generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
 

Starting in the 1950s up until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the sub-orbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.

==Definition==
Freedom 7, a sub-orbital human space mission
The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed an altitude of 100 km. FAI Sporting Code, Section 8, Paragraph 2.12.1 In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 mi NASA – X-15 Space Pioneers Now Honored as Astronauts are awarded astronaut wings.

, a total of 532 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km or more in altitude, of which 529 reached low Earth orbit or beyond. 
Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond Low Earth orbit, to either lunar or trans-lunar orbit or to the surface of the moon; three of the 24 did so twice: Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan. The three astronauts who have not reached low Earth orbit are spaceplane pilots Joe Walker, Mike Melvill, and Brian Binnie.

, under the U.S. definition 538 people qualify as having reached space, above 50 mi altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 mi in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62 miles). 
Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks. 
As of 2008, the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Sergei K. Krikalev, who has spent 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes, or 2.2 years, in space. 
Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days. 

==Terminology==

===English===
In English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an astronaut. TheSpaceRace.com – Glossary of Space Exploration Terminology The term derives from the Greek words ástron (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his short story "The Death's Head Meteor" in 1930. The word itself had been known earlier. For example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) of J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied (in 1784) to balloonists. An early use in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut" in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society. Ingham, John L.: Into Your Tent, Plantech (2010): page 82. 

The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950 and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year. 

NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps. The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps. 

===Russian===

By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts. The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word kosmonavt ( ), one who works in space outside the Earth's atmosphere, a space traveler, which derives from the Greek words kosmos (κόσμος), meaning "universe", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian word kosmonavt, such as the Polish kosmonauta.

The Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin was the first cosmonaut—indeed the first person—in space. Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian factory worker, was the first woman in space, as well as arguably the second civilian to make it there (see below for a further discussion of civilians in space). On March 14, 1995, Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".

===Chinese===

Official English-language texts issued by the government of the People's Republic of China use astronaut while texts in Russian use космонавт (cosmonaut). In official Chinese-language texts, "yǔ háng yuán" (, "space navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts, and "háng tiān yuán" (, "space navigating personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. The phrase "tài kōng rén" (, "spaceman") is often used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China. The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as "a hybrid of the Chinese term taikong (space) and the Greek naut (sailor)"; the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih () from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups. 

===Other terms===
With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.

While no nation other than the Russian Federation (and previously the former Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a manned spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut (French spelling: spationaute) is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word spatium for "space", the Malay term angkasawan was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program, and the Indian Space Research Organization hope to launch a spacecraft in 2018 that would carry vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word for space.

==Space travel milestones==

Yuri Gagarin, first human in space (1961)
Valentina Tereshkova, 1963 first woman in space.
Neil Armstrong, first human to walk on the Moon (1969).

The first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on April 12, 1961 aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on June 16, 1963 aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.

Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961 on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983. In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March 18, 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission. This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Going_Out.html 

The first manned mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.

In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space. On 15 October 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.

The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exception of France participating in Soyuz TM-7. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket. 
On July 23, 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37. 

Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985. In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space. In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station. 

With the larger number of seats available on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft. In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of 8 Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010). Canadian Space Agency, retrieved October 9, 2010. 
In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space. In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space. 
In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.

===Age milestones===

The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. (Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness). 
The oldest person who has flown in space is John Glenn, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95. 

===Duration and distance milestones===
The longest stay in space thus far has been 438 days, by Russian Valeri Polyakov. 
As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401056 km, when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency. 

===Civilian and non-government milestones===
Depending on the exact definition of 'civilian', the first civilian in space was either Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission) or Joseph Albert Walker on X-15 Flight 90 a month later. Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which had no female pilots whatsoever at that time. Joe Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight. The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.

The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983. In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler as a reporter for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut". Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity. 

The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on 28 April 2001.

===Self-funded travelers===

The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist. Seven others have paid to fly into space:

# Dennis Tito (American): April 28 – May 6, 2001 (ISS)
# Mark Shuttleworth (South African): April 25 – May 5, 2002 (ISS)
# Gregory Olsen (American): October 1–11, 2005 (ISS)
# Anousheh Ansari (Iranian / American): September 18–29, 2006 (ISS)
# Charles Simonyi (Hungarian / American): April 7–21, 2007 (ISS), March 26 – April 8, 2009 (ISS)
# Richard Garriott (British / American): October 12–24, 2008 (ISS)
# Guy Laliberté (Canadian): September 30, 2009 – October 11, 2009 (ISS)

==Training==
Elliot See during water egress training with NASA
 

The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959. Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection. Selection was initially limited to military pilots. The earliest astronauts for both America and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.

Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extra-vehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Astronauts-in-training may also experience short periods of weightlessness in aircraft called the "vomit comet", the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004 respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights. Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center. Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are done out of Edwards Air Force Base.

===NASA candidacy requirements===
* Be citizens of the United States. 
* Pass a strict physical examination, and have a near and distant visual acuity correctable to 20/20 (6/6). Blood pressure, while sitting, must be no greater than 140 over 90.

====Commander and Pilot====
* A bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics is required.
* At least 1,000 hours' flying time as pilot-in-command in jet aircraft. Experience as a test pilot is desirable.
* Height must be 5 ft 2 in to 6 ft 2 in (1.58 to 1.88 m).
* Distant visual acuity must be correctable to 20/20 in each eye.
* The refractive surgical procedures of the eye, PRK (Photorefractive keratectomy) and LASIK, are now allowed, providing at least 1 year has passed since the date of the procedure with no permanent adverse after effects. For those applicants under final consideration, an operative report on the surgical procedure will be requested.

====Mission Specialist====
* A bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics, as well as at least three years of related professional experience (graduate work or studies) and an advanced degree, such as a master's degree (one to three years) or a doctoral degree (three years or more).
* Applicant's height must be between 4 ft. 10.5 in. and 6 ft. 4 in.

====Mission Specialist Educator====

* Applicants must have a bachelor's degree with teaching experience, including work at the kindergarten through twelfth grade level. An advanced degree, such as a master's degree or a doctoral degree, is not required, but is strongly desired. 
Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger. 
Barbara Morgan, selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985, is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist. 
The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s. 

==Health risks of space travel==

Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury. A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare. NASA - Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity A Pilot Study of Comprehensive Ultrasound Education at the Wayne State University School of Medicine: http://www.jultrasoundmed.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/5/745 Evaluation of Shoulder Integrity in Space: First Report of Musculoskeletal US on the International Space Station: http://radiology.rsna.org/content/234/2/319.abstract 

On December 31, 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that manned spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease. 

==Insignia==
In Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation. This follows the practice established in the Soviet Union.

At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed 50 mi in altitude.

Space Mirror Memorial

==Deaths==

Eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have lost their lives during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American (including one of Indian origin), four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli.

Eleven people (all men) have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.

The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of a U.S. Air Force X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.

==See also==

==References==

==External links==

* NASA: How to become an astronaut 101
* List of International partnership organizations
* Encyclopedia Astronautica: Phantom cosmonauts
* collectSPACE: Astronaut appearances calendar
* spacefacts Spacefacts.de
* Manned astronautics: facts and figures
* Astronaut Candidate Brochure online
* Tribute to Astronaut Neil Armstrong - Video Info

 



[[A Modest Proposal]]

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as Irish policy in general.

In English writing, the phrase "a modest proposal" is now conventionally an allusion to this style of straight-faced satire.

==Details==
Swift goes to great lengths to support his argument, including a list of possible preparation styles for the children, and calculations showing the financial benefits of his suggestion. He uses methods of argument throughout his essay which lampoon the then-influential William Petty and the social engineering popular among followers of Francis Bacon. These lampoons include appealing to the authority of "a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London" and "the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa" (who had already confessed to not being from Formosa in 1706). This essay is widely held to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. Much of its shock value derives from the fact that the first portion of the essay describes the plight of starving beggars in Ireland, so that the reader is unprepared for the surprise of Swift's solution when he states, "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout." 

Readers unacquainted with its reputation as a satirical work often do not immediately realise that Swift was not seriously proposing cannibalism and infanticide, nor would readers unfamiliar with the satires of Horace and Juvenal recognise that Swift's essay follows the rules and structure of Latin satires.

The satirical element of the pamphlet is often only understood after the reader notes the allusions made by Swift to the attitudes of landlords, such as the following: "I grant this food may be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for Landlords, who as they have already devoured most of the Parents, seem to have the best Title to the Children." Swift extends the conceit to get in a few jibes at England’s mistreatment of Ireland, noting that "For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it."

In the tradition of Roman satire, Swift introduces the reforms he is actually suggesting by paralipsis:

==Population solutions==
George Wittkowsky argued that Swift’s main target in A Modest Proposal was not the conditions in Ireland, but rather the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would purportedly solve social and economic ills. Wittkowsky, Swift’s Modest Proposal, p76 Swift was especially insulted by projects that tried to fix population and labour issues with a simple cure-all solution. Wittkowsky, Swift’s Modest Proposal, p85 A memorable example of these sorts of schemes "involved the idea of running the poor through a joint-stock company". In response, Swift's Modest Proposal was "a burlesque of projects concerning the poor", Wittkowsky, Swift's Modest Proposal, p88 that were in vogue during the early 18th century.

A Modest Proposal also targets the calculating way people perceived the poor in designing their projects. The pamphlet targets reformers who "regard people as commodities". Wittkowsky, Swift's Modest Proposal, p101 In the piece, Swift adopts the "technique of a political arithmetician" Wittkowsky, Swift's Modest Proposal, p95 to show the utter ridiculousness of trying to prove any proposal with dispassionate statistics.

Critics differ about Swift's intentions in using this faux-mathematical philosophy. Edmund Wilson argues that statistically "the logic of the 'Modest proposal' can be compared with defense of crime (arrogated to Marx) in which he argues that crime takes care of the superfluous population". Wittkowsky counters that Swift's satiric use of statistical analysis is an effort to enhance his satire that "springs from a spirit of bitter mockery, not from the delight in calculations for their own sake". Wittkowsky, Swift's Modest Proposal, p98 

==Rhetoric==
Charles K. Smith argues that Swift's rhetorical style persuades the reader to detest the speaker and pity the Irish. Swift's specific strategy is twofold, using a "trap" Smith, Toward a Participatory Rhetoric, p. 135 to create sympathy for the Irish and a dislike of the narrator who, in the span of one sentence, "details vividly and with rhetorical emphasis the grinding poverty" but feels emotion solely for members of his own class. Smith, Toward a Participatory Rhetoric, p. 136 Swift's use of gripping details of poverty and his narrator's cool approach towards them create "two opposing points of view" that "alienate the reader, perhaps unconsciously, from a narrator who can view with 'melancholy' detachment a subject that Swift has directed us, rhetorically, to see in a much less detached way." 

Swift has his proposer further degrade the Irish by using language ordinarily reserved for animals. Lewis argues that the speaker uses "the vocabulary of animal husbandry" Smith, Toward a Participatory Rhetoric, p. 138 to describe the Irish. Once the children have been commodified, Swift's rhetoric can easily turn "people into animals, then meat, and from meat, logically, into tonnage worth a price per pound". 

Swift uses the proposer's serious tone to highlight the absurdity of his proposal. In making his argument, the speaker uses the conventional, text book approved order of argument from Swift's time (which was derived from the Latin rhetorician Quintilian). Smith, Toward a Participatory Rhetoric, p. 139 The contrast between the "careful control against the almost inconceivable perversion of his scheme" and "the ridiculousness of the proposal" create a situation in which the reader has "to consider just what perverted values and assumptions would allow such a diligent, thoughtful, and conventional man to propose so perverse a plan". 

==Influences==
There has been some scholarship about what other writings influenced Swift to write A Modest Proposal.

===Tertullian's Apology===
James Johnson argued that A Modest Proposal was largely influenced and inspired by Tertullian’s Apology: a satirical attack against early Roman persecution of Christianity. James William Johnson believes that Swift saw major similarities between the two situations. Johnson, Tertullian and A Modest Proposal, p563 Johnson notes Swift's obvious affinity for Tertullian and the bold stylistic and structural similarities between the works A Modest Proposal and Apology. Johnson, Tertullian and A Modest Proposal, p562 In structure, Johnson points out the same central theme, that of cannibalism and the eating of babies as well as the same final argument, that "human depravity is such that men will attempt to justify their own cruelty by accusing their victims of being lower than human." Stylistically, Swift and Tertullian share the same command of sarcasm and language. In agreement with Johnson, Donald C. Baker points out the similarity between both authors' tones and use of irony. Baker notes the uncanny way that both authors imply an ironic "justification by ownership" over the subject of sacrificing children—Tertullian while attacking pagan parents, and Swift while attacking the English mistreatment of the Irish poor. Baker, Tertullian and Swift's A Modest Proposal, p219 

===Defoe's The Generous Projector===
It has also been argued that A Modest Proposal was, at least in part, a response to the 1728 essay The Generous Projector or, A Friendly Proposal to Prevent Murder and Other Enormous Abuses, By Erecting an Hospital for Foundlings and Bastard Children by Swift's rival Daniel Defoe. 

==Economic themes==
Robert Phiddian's article "Have you eaten yet? The Reader in A Modest Proposal" focuses on two aspects of A Modest Proposal: the voice of Swift and the voice of the Proposer. Phiddian stresses that a reader of the pamphlet must learn to distinguish between the satiric voice of Jonathan Swift and the apparent economic projections of the Proposer. He reminds readers that "there is a gap between the narrator's meaning and the text's, and that a moral-political argument is being carried out by means of parody". Phiddian, Have You Eaten Yet?, p6 

While Swift's proposal is obviously not a serious economic proposal, George Wittkowsky, author of "Swift's Modest Proposal: The Biography of an Early Georgian Pamphlet", argues that to understand the piece fully, it is important to understand the economics of Swift’s time. Wittowsky argues that not enough critics have taken the time to focus directly on the mercantilism and theories of labour in 18th century England. "f one regards the Modest Proposal simply as a criticism of condition, about all one can say is that conditions were bad and that Swift's irony brilliantly underscored this fact". Phiddian, Have You Eaten Yet?, p3 

==="People are the riches of a nation"===

At the start of a new industrial age in the 18th century, it was believed that "people are the riches of the nation", and there was a general faith in an economy that paid its workers low wages because high wages meant workers would work less. Phiddian, Have You Eaten Yet?, p4 Furthermore, "in the mercantilist view no child was too young to go into industry". In those times, the "somewhat more humane attitudes of an earlier day had all but disappeared and the laborer had come to be regarded as a commodity". 

Louis A. Landa presents Swift's A Modest Proposal as a critique of the popular and unjustified maxim of mercantilism in the 18th century that "people are the riches of a nation". Landa, A Modest Proposal and Populousness, p161 Swift presents the dire state of Ireland and shows that mere population itself, in Ireland's case, did not always mean greater wealth and economy. Landa, A Modest Proposal and Populousness, p165 The uncontrolled maxim fails to take into account that a person who does not produce in an economic or political way makes a country poorer, not richer. Swift also recognises the implications of such a fact in making mercantilist philosophy a paradox: the wealth of a country is based on the poverty of the majority of its citizens. Swift however, Landa argues, is not merely criticising economic maxims but also addressing the fact that England was denying Irish citizens their natural rights and dehumanising them by viewing them as a mere commodity. 

==Modern usage==
A Modest Proposal is included in many literature programs as an example of early modern western satire. It also serves as an exceptional introduction to the concept and use of argumentative language, lending itself well to secondary and post-secondary essay courses. Outside of the realm of English studies, A Modest Proposal is a relevant piece included in many comparative and global literature and history courses, as well as those of numerous other disciplines in the arts, humanities, and even the social sciences.

The essay has been emulated many times. In his book A Modest Proposal (1984), evangelical author Frank Schaeffer emulated Swift's work in social conservative polemic against abortion and euthanasia in a future dystopia that advocated recycling of aborted embryos and fetuses, as well as some disabled infants with compound intellectual, physical and physiological difficulties. (Such Baby Doe Rules cases were then a major concern of the pro-life movement of the early 1980s, which viewed selective treatment of those infants as disability discrimination.) In his book A Modest Proposal for America (2013), statistician Howard Friedman opens with a satirical reflection of the extreme drive to fiscal stability by ultra-conservatives.

Hunter S. Thompson's and Loathing in America|Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist], which contains hundreds of private letters written by Thompson over the years, contains a letter in which he uses A Modest Proposals satire technique against the Vietnam War. Thompson writes a letter to a local Aspen newspaper informing them that, on Christmas Eve, he was going to use napalm to burn a number of dogs and hopefully any humans they find. This letter protests the burning of Vietnamese people occurring overseas.

===In popular culture===
Kurt Cobain includes the lyric "Sell the kids for food" in his 1991 song, "In Bloom". 

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre writer/creator Kim Henkel cited "A Modest Proposal" as an influence in scripting his 2012 horror film "Boneboys," directed by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks. 

==Notes==

==References==
* 
* (subscription needed)
* 
* 
* 
* 

==External links==

* A Modest Proposal (CELT)
* A Modest Proposal (Gutenberg)
* Free audiobook from LibriVox
* A Modest Proposal BBC Radio 4 In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg
* ''A modest proposal For preventing the children of poor people From being a Burthen to their Parents or the Country, And for making them Beneficial to the publick. The Third Edition, Dublin, Printed: And Reprinted at London, for Weaver Bickerton, in Devereux-Court near the Middle-Temple, 1730.



[[Alkali metal]]

The alkali metals are a group in the periodic table consisting of the chemical elements lithium (Li), sodium (Na), The symbol Na for sodium is derived from its Latin name, natrium; this is still the name for the element in some languages, such as German and Russian. In early English texts, the symbol So for the English name sodium is sometimes seen; this is wholly obsolete. potassium (K), The symbol K for potassium is derived from its Latin name, kalium; this is still the name for the element in some languages, such as German and Russian. In early English texts, the symbol Po for the English name potassium is sometimes seen; this is wholly obsolete, and presently would collide with the symbol for polonium (also Po). rubidium (Rb), caesium (Cs), and francium (Fr). . This group lies in the s-block of the periodic table as all alkali metals have their outermost electron in an s-orbital. The alkali metals provide the best example of group trends in properties in the periodic table, with elements exhibiting well-characterized homologous behaviour. 

The alkali metals have very similar properties: they are all shiny, soft, highly reactive metals at standard temperature and pressure and readily lose their outermost electron to form cations with charge +1. They can all be cut easily with a knife due to their softness, exposing a shiny surface that tarnishes rapidly in air due to oxidation. Because of their high reactivity, they must be stored under oil to prevent reaction with air, and are found naturally only in salts and never as the free element. In the modern IUPAC nomenclature, the alkali metals comprise the group 1 elements, excluding hydrogen (H), which is nominally a group 1 element but not normally considered to be an alkali metal as it rarely exhibits behaviour comparable to that of the alkali metals. All the alkali metals react with water, with the heavier alkali metals reacting more vigorously than the lighter ones. 

All the discovered alkali metals occur in nature: in order of abundance, sodium is the most abundant, followed by potassium, lithium, rubidium, caesium, and finally francium, which is very rare due to its extremely high radioactivity and thus occurs only in traces due to its presence in natural decay chains. Experiments have been conducted to attempt the synthesis of ununennium (Uue), which is likely to be the next member of the group, but they have all met with failure. However, ununennium may not be an alkali metal due to relativistic effects, which are predicted to have a large influence on the chemical properties of superheavy elements; even if it does turn out to be an alkali metal, it is predicted to have some differences in physical and chemical properties from its lighter homologues. 

Most alkali metals have many different applications. Two of the most well-known applications of the pure elements are rubidium and caesium atomic clocks, of which caesium atomic clocks are the most accurate and precise representation of time. A common application of the compounds of sodium is the sodium-vapour lamp, which emits very efficient light. Table salt, or sodium chloride, has been used since antiquity. Sodium and potassium are also essential elements, having major biological roles as electrolytes, and although the other alkali metals are not essential, they also have various effects on the body, both beneficial and harmful. 

==Characteristics==

===Chemical===
Series of alkali metals, stored in mineral oil to prevent oxidation. ("Natrium" is the German name for sodium.)
Like other groups, the known members of this family show patterns in electronic configuration, especially the outermost shells, resulting in trends in chemical behavior:

 Z Element No. of electrons/shell Electronconfiguration Noble gas notation is used for conciseness; the nearest noble gas that precedes the element in question is written first, and then the electron configuration is continued from that point forward. 
 3 lithium 2, 1 &#91;He&#93; 2s1 
 11 sodium 2, 8, 1 &#91;Ne&#93; 3s1 
 19 potassium 2, 8, 8, 1 &#91;Ar&#93; 4s1 
 37 rubidium 2, 8, 18, 8, 1 &#91;Kr&#93; 5s1 
 55 caesium 2, 8, 18, 18, 8, 1 &#91;Xe&#93; 6s1 
 87 francium 2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 8, 1 &#91;Rn&#93; 7s1 

Most of the chemistry has been observed only for the first five members of the group. The chemistry of francium is not well established due to its extreme radioactivity; thus, the presentation of its properties here is limited.

Caesium reacts explosively with water even at low temperatures
All the alkali metals are highly reactive and are never found in elemental forms in nature. Because of this, they are usually stored in mineral oil or kerosene (paraffin oil). They react aggressively with the halogens to form the alkali metal halides, which are white ionic crystalline compounds that are all soluble in water except lithium fluoride (LiF). The alkali metals also react with water to form strongly alkaline hydroxides and thus should be handled with great care. The heavier alkali metals react more vigorously than the lighter ones; for example, when dropped into water, caesium produces a larger explosion than potassium. The alkali metals have the lowest first ionisation energies in their respective periods of the periodic table because of their low effective nuclear charge and the ability to attain a noble gas configuration by losing just one electron. The second ionisation energy of all of the alkali metals is very high as it is in a full shell that is also closer to the nucleus; thus, they almost always lose a single electron, forming cations. The alkalides are an exception: they are unstable compounds which contain alkali metals in a −1 oxidation state, which is very unusual as before the discovery of the alkalides, the alkali metals were not expected to be able to form anions and were thought to be able to appear in salts only as cations. The alkalide anions have filled s-subshells, which gives them more stability and allows them to exist. All the stable alkali metals except lithium are known to be able to form alkalides, and the alkalides have much theoretical interest due to their unusual stoichiometry and low ionisation potentials. Alkalides are chemically similar to the electrides, which are salts with trapped electrons acting as anions. A particularly striking example of an alkalide is "inverse sodium hydride", H+Na−, as opposed to the usual sodium hydride, Na+H−: it is unstable in isolation, due to its high energy resulting from the displacement of two electrons from hydrogen to sodium, although several derivatives are predicted to be metastable or stable. 

The chemistry of lithium shows several differences from that of the rest of the group as the small Li+ cation polarises anions and gives its compounds a more covalent character. Lithium and magnesium have a diagonal relationship: because of this, lithium has some similarities to magnesium. For example, lithium forms a stable nitride, a property common among all the alkaline earth metals (magnesium's group) but unique among the alkali metals. In addition, among their respective groups, only lithium and magnesium form covalent organometallic compounds (e.g. LiMe and MgMe2). Lithium fluoride is the only alkali metal halide that is not soluble in water, and lithium hydroxide is the only alkali metal hydroxide that is not deliquescent. Francium is also predicted show some differences due to its high atomic weight, causing its electrons to travel at considerable fractions of the speed of light and thus making relativistic effects more prominent. In contrast to the trend of decreasing electronegativities and ionisation energies of the alkali metals, francium's electronegativity and ionisation energy are predicted to be higher than caesium's due to the relativistic stabilisation of the 7s electrons; also, its atomic radius is expected to be abnormally low. 

====Compounds and reactions====

=====Reaction with water (alkali metal hydroxides)=====

A reaction of 3 pounds (≈ 1.4 kg) of sodium with water
All the alkali metals react vigorously or explosively with cold water, producing an aqueous solution of the strongly basic alkali metal hydroxide and releasing hydrogen gas. This reaction becomes more vigorous going down the group: lithium reacts steadily with effervescence, but sodium and potassium can ignite and rubidium and caesium sink in water and generate hydrogen gas so rapidly that shock waves form in the water that may shatter glass containers. When an alkali metal is dropped into water, it produces an explosion, of which there are two separate stages. The metal reacts with the water first, breaking the hydrogen bonds in the water and producing hydrogen gas; this takes place faster for the more reactive heavier alkali metals. Second, the heat generated by the first part of the reaction often ignites the hydrogen gas, causing it to burn explosively into the surrounding air. This secondary hydrogen gas explosion produces the visible flame above the bowl of water, lake or other body of water, not the initial reaction of the metal with water (which tends to happen mostly under water). 

=====Reaction with the group 14 elements=====

Lithium and sodium react with carbon to form acetylides, Li2C2 and Na2C2, which can also be obtained by reaction of the metal with acetylene. Potassium, rubidium, and caesium react with graphite; their atoms are intercalated between the hexagonal graphite layers, forming graphite intercalation compounds of formulae MC60 (dark grey, almost black), MC48 (dark grey, almost black), MC36 (blue), MC24 (steel blue), and MC8 (bronze) (M = K, Rb, or Cs). These compounds are over 200 times more electrically conductive than pure graphite, suggesting that the valence electron of the alkali metal is transferred to the graphite layers (e.g. ). Upon heating of KC8, the elimination of potassium atoms results in the conversion in sequence to KC24, KC36, KC48 and finally KC60. KC8 is a very strong reducing agent and is pyrophoric and explodes on contact with water. NIST Ionizing Radiation Division 2001 - Technical Highlights While the large alkali metals (K, Rb, and Cs) initially form MC8, the smaller ones initially form MC6. 

When the alkali metals react with the heavier elements in the carbon group, ionic substances with cage-like structures are formed, such as the silicide M4Si4 (M = K, Rb, or Cs), which contains M+ and tetrahedral ions. The chemistry of alkali metal germanides, involving the germanide ion Ge4− and other cluster (Zintl) ions such as , , , and 6−, is largely analogous to that of the corresponding silicides. Alkali metal stannides are mostly ionic, sometimes with the stannide ion (Sn4−), S.M. Kauzlarich,(1994), Zintl Compounds, Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry, John Wiley & sons, ISBN 0-471-93620-0 and sometimes with more complex Zintl ions such as , which appears in tetrapotassium nonastannide (K4Sn9). The monatomic plumbide ion (Pb4−) is unknown, and indeed its formation is predicted to be energetically unfavourable; alkali metal plumbides have complex Zintl ions, such as . 

=====Reaction with the pnictogens (alkali metal pnictides)=====
Unit cell ball-and-stick model of lithium nitride 
Lithium, the lightest of the alkali metals, is the only alkali metal which reacts with nitrogen at standard conditions, and its nitride is the only stable alkali metal nitride. Nitrogen is an unreactive gas because breaking the strong triple bond in the dinitrogen molecule (N2) requires a lot of energy. The formation of an alkali metal nitride would consume the ionisation energy of the alkali metal (forming M+ ions), the energy required to break the triple bond in N2 and the formation of N3− ions, and all the energy released from the formation of an alkali metal nitride is from the lattice energy of the alkali metal nitride. The lattice energy is maximised with small, highly charged ions; the alkali metals do not form highly charged ions, only forming ions with a charge of +1, so only lithium, the smallest alkali metal, can release enough lattice energy to make the reaction with nitrogen exothermic, forming lithium nitride. The reactions of the other alkali metals with nitrogen would not release enough lattice energy and would thus be endothermic, so they do not form nitrides at standard conditions. (Sodium nitride (Na3N) and potassium nitride (K3N), while existing, are extremely unstable, being prone to decomposing back into their constituent elements, and cannot be produced by reacting the elements with each other at standard conditions.) . 'Elusive Binary Compound Prepared' Chemical & Engineering News 80 No. 20 (20 May 2002) 

All the alkali metals react readily with phosphorus and arsenic to form phosphides and arsenides with the formula M3Pn (where M represents an alkali metal and Pn represents a pnictogen). This is due to the greater size of the P3− and As3− ions, so that less lattice energy needs to be released for the salts to form. These are not the only phosphides and arsenides of the alkali metals: for example, potassium has nine different known phosphides, with formulae K3P, K4P3, K5P4, KP, K4P6, K3P7, K3P11, KP10.3, and KP15. H.G. Von Schnering, W. Hönle Phosphides - Solid-state Chemistry Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry Ed. R. Bruce King (1994) John Wiley & Sons ISBN 0-471-93620-0 While most metals form arsenides, only the alkali and alkaline earth metals form mostly ionic arsenides. The structure of Na3As is complex with unusually short Na–Na distances of 328–330 pm which are shorter than in sodium metal, and this indicates that even with these electropositive metals the bonding cannot be straightforwardly ionic. Other alkali metal arsenides not conforming to the formula M3As are known, such as LiAs, which has a metallic lustre and electrical conductivity indicating the presence of some metallic bonding. The antimonides are unstable and reactive as the Sb3− ion is a strong reducing agent; reaction of them with acids form the toxic and unstable gas stibine (SbH3). Bismuthides are not even wholly ionic; they are intermetallic compounds containing partially metallic and partially ionic bonds. 

=====Reaction with the chalcogens (alkali metal chalcogenides)=====

All the alkali metals react vigorously with oxygen at standard conditions. They form various types of oxides, such as simple oxides (containing the O2− ion), peroxides (containing the ion, where there is a single bond between the two oxygen atoms), superoxides (containing the ion), and many others. Lithium burns in air to form lithium oxide, but sodium reacts with oxygen to form a mixture of sodium oxide and sodium peroxide. Potassium forms a mixture of potassium peroxide and potassium superoxide, while rubidium and caesium form the superoxide exclusively. Their reactivity increases going down the group: while lithium, sodium and potassium merely burn in air, rubidium and caesium are pyrophoric (spontaneously catch fire in air). 

The smaller alkali metals tend to polarise the more complex anions (the peroxide and superoxide) due to their small size. This attracts the electrons in the more complex anions towards one of its constituent oxygen atoms, forming an oxide ion and an oxygen atom. This causes lithium to form the oxide exclusively on reaction with oxygen at room temperature. This effect becomes drastically weaker for the larger sodium and potassium, allowing them to form the less stable peroxides. Rubidium and caesium, at the bottom of the group, are so large that even the least stable superoxides can form. Because the superoxide releases the most energy when formed, the superoxide is preferentially formed for the larger alkali metals where the more complex anions are not polarised. (The oxides and peroxides for these alkali metals do exist, but do not form upon direct reaction of the metal with oxygen at standard conditions.) In addition, the small size of the Li+ and O2− ions contributes to their forming a stable ionic lattice structure. Under controlled conditions, however, all the alkali metals, with the exception of francium, are known to form their oxides, peroxides, and superoxides. The alkali metal peroxides and superoxides are powerful oxidizing agents. Sodium peroxide and potassium superoxide react with carbon dioxide to form the alkali metal carbonate and oxygen gas, which allows them to be used in submarine air purifiers; the presence of water vapour, naturally present in breath, makes the removal of carbon dioxide by potassium superoxide even more efficient. 

Rubidium and caesium can form even more complicated oxides than the superoxides. Rubidium can form Rb6O and Rb9O2 upon oxidation in air, while caesium forms an immense variety of oxides, such as the ozonide CsO3 and several brightly coloured suboxides, such as , , , (dark-green ), CsO, , as well as . The latter may be heated under vacuum to generate . 

The alkali metals can also react analogously with the heavier chalcogens (sulfur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium), and all the alkali metal chalcogenides are known (with the exception of francium's). Reaction with an excess of the chalcogen can similarly result in lower chalcogenides, with chalcogen ions containing chains of the chalcogen atoms in question. For example, sodium can react with sulfur to form the sulfide (Na2S) and various polysulfides with the formula Na2Sx (x from 2 to 6), containing the ions. Due to the basicity of the Se2− and Te2− ions, the alkali metal selenides and tellurides are alkaline in solution; when reacted directly with selenium and tellurium, alkali metal polyselenides and polytellurides are formed along with the selenides and tellurides with the and ions. The alkali metal polonides are all ionic compounds containing the Po2− ion; they are very chemically stable and can be produced by direct reaction of the elements at around 300–400 °C. . . 

=====Reaction with hydrogen and the halogens (alkali metal hydrides and halides)=====

The alkali metals are among the most electropositive elements on the periodic table and thus tend to bond ionically to the most electronegative elements on the periodic table, the halogens, forming salts known as the alkali metal halides. This includes sodium chloride, otherwise known as common salt. The reactivity becomes higher from lithium to caesium and drops from fluorine to iodine. All of the alkali metal halides have the formula MX where M is an alkali metal and X is a halogen. They are all white ionic crystalline solids. All the alkali metal halides are soluble in water except for lithium fluoride (LiF), which is insoluble in water due to its very high lattice enthalpy. The high lattice enthalpy of lithium fluoride is due to the small sizes of the Li+ and F− ions, causing the electrostatic interactions between them to be strong. The alkali metals also react similarly with hydrogen to form ionic alkali metal hydrides. 

=====Coordination complexes=====

Alkali metal cations do not usually form coordination complexes with simple Lewis bases due to their low charge of just +1 and their relatively large size; thus the Li+ ion forms most complexes and the heavier alkali metal ions form less and less. In aqueous solution, the alkali metal ions exist as octahedral hexahydrate complexes (+), with the exception of the lithium ion, which due to its small size forms tetrahedral tetrahydrate complexes (+); the alkali metals form these complexes because their ions are attracted by electrostatic forces of attraction to the polar water molecules. Because of this, anhydrous salts containing alkali metal cations are often used as desiccants. Alkali metals also readily form complexes with crown ethers (e.g. 12-crown-4 for Li+, 15-crown-5 for Na+, and 18-crown-6 for K+) and cryptands due to electrostatic attraction. 

=====Ammonia solutions=====
Unlike most metals, the alkali metals dissolve slowly in liquid ammonia, forming hydrogen gas and the alkali metal amide (MNH2, where M represents an alkali metal). The process may be speeded up by a catalyst. The amide salt is quite insoluble and readily precipitates out of solution, leaving intensely coloured ammonia solutions of the alkali metals. The colour is due to the presence of solvated electrons, which contribute to the high electrical conductivity of these solutions. At low concentrations (below 3 M), the solution is dark blue and has ten times the conductivity of aqueous sodium chloride; at higher concentrations (above 3 M), the solution is copper-coloured and has approximately the conductivity of liquid metals like mercury. In addition to the alkali metal amide salt and solvated electrons, such ammonia solutions also contain the alkali metal cation (M+), the neutral alkali metal atom (M), diatomic alkali metal molecules (M2) and alkali metal anions (M−). These are unstable and eventually become the more thermodynamically stable alkali metal amide and hydrogen gas. Solvated electrons are powerful reducing agents and are often used in chemical synthesis. 

=====Organometallic chemistry=====
Structure of the methyllithium tetramer, (CH3Li)4
Being the smallest alkali metal, lithium forms the widest variety of and most stable organometallic compounds, which are bonded covalently. Organolithium compounds are electrically non-conducting volatile solids or liquids that melt at low temperatures, and tend to form oligomers with the structure (RLi)x where R is the organic group. As the electropositive nature of lithium puts most of the charge density of the bond on the carbon atom, effectively creating a carbanion, organolithium compounds are extremely powerful bases and nucleophiles. For use as bases, butyllithiums are often used and are commercially available. An example of an organolithium compound is methyllithium ((CH3Li)x), which exists in tetrameric (x = 4) and hexameric (x = 6) forms. 

The application of organosodium compounds in chemistry is limited in part due to competition from organolithium compounds, which are commercially available and exhibit more convenient reactivity. The principal organosodium compound of commercial importance is sodium cyclopentadienide. Sodium tetraphenylborate can also be classified as an organosodium compound since in the solid state sodium is bound to the aryl groups. Organometallic compounds of the higher alkali metals are even more reactive than organosodium compounds and of limited utility. A notable reagent is Schlosser's base, a mixture of n-butyllithium and potassium tert-butoxide. This reagent reacts with propene to form the compound allylpotassium (KCH2CHCH2). cis-2-Butene and trans-2-butene equilibrate when in contact with alkali metals. Whereas isomerization is fast with lithium and sodium, it is slow with the higher alkali metals. The higher alkali metals also favor the sterically congested conformation. Several crystal structures of organopotassium compounds have been reported, establishing that they, like the sodium compounds, are polymeric. Organosodium, organopotassium, organorubidium and organocaesium compounds are all mostly ionic and are insoluble (or nearly so) in nonpolar solvents. 

===Physical===
The alkali metals are all silver-coloured except for caesium, which has a golden tint. All are soft and have low densities, melting points, and boiling points. 

The table below is a summary of the key physical and atomic properties of the alkali metals. Data marked with question marks are either uncertain or are estimations partially based on periodic trends rather than observations.

Alkali metal Standard atomic weight(u) Melting point Boiling point Density(g/cm3) Electronegativity(Pauling) First ionisation energy(kJ·mol−1) Atomic radius(pm) Flame test colour 
 Lithium 6.94(1) 453.69 K,180.54 °C,356.97 °F 1615 K,1342 °C,2448 °F 0.534 0.98 520.2 152 Red 40px 
 Sodium 22.98976928(2) 370.87 K,97.72 °C,207.9 °F 1156 K,883 °C,1621 °F 0.968 0.93 495.8 186 Strong persistent orange or yellow 40px 
 Potassium 39.0983(1) 336.53 K,63.38 °C,146.08 °F 1032 K,759 °C,1398 °F 0.89 0.82 418.8 227 Lilac or pink 40px 
 Rubidium 85.4678(3) 312.467 K,39.31 °C,102.76 °F 961 K,688 °C,1270 °F 1.532 0.82 403.0 248 Red or reddish-violet 
 Caesium 132.9054519(2) 301.59 K,28.44 °C,83.19 °F 944 K,671 °C,1240 °F 1.93 0.79 375.7 265 Blue or violet 
 Francium ? 300 K,? 27 °C,? 80 °F ? 950 K,? 677 °C,? 1250 °F ? 1.87 ? 0.7 380 ? ? 

====Periodic trends====

The alkali metals are more similar to each other than the elements in any other group are to each other. For instance, when moving down the table, all known alkali metals show increasing atomic radius, decreasing electronegativity, increasing reactivity, and decreasing melting and boiling points. In general, their densities increase when moving down the table, with the exception that potassium is less dense than sodium. 

=====Atomic and ionic radii=====

Effective nuclear charge on an atomic electron

:

 Atomic and ionic radii of the alkali metals The values are in picometres (pm). The shade of the box ranges from red to yellow as the radius increases. The atomic and ionic radii are displayed on the same scale of colour. Alkali metal Atomic radius(pm) Ionic radius(pm) 
 Lithium 152 68 
 Sodium 186 98 
 Potassium 227 133 
 Rubidium 248 148 
 Caesium 265 167 

The atomic radii of the alkali metals increase going down the group. Because of the shielding effect, when an atom has more than one electron shell, each electron feels electric repulsion from the other electrons as well as electric attraction from the nucleus. In the alkali metals, the outermost electron only feels a net charge of +1, as some of the nuclear charge (which is equal to the atomic number) is cancelled by the inner electrons; the number of inner electrons of an alkali metal is always one less than the nuclear charge. Therefore, the only factor which affects the atomic radius of the alkali metals is the number of electron shells. Since this number increases down the group, the atomic radius must also increase down the group. 

The ionic radii of the alkali metals are much smaller than their atomic radii. This is because the outermost electron of the alkali metals is in a different electron shell than the inner electrons, and thus when it is removed the resulting atom has one fewer electron shell and is smaller. Additionally, the effective nuclear charge has increased, and thus the electrons are attracted more strongly towards the nucleus and the ionic radius decreases. 

=====First ionisation energy=====

Periodic trend for ionisation energy: each period begins at a minimum for the alkali metals, and ends at a maximum for the noble gases.

:

 First ionisation energies of the alkali metals J.E. Huheey, E.A. Keiter, and R.L. Keiter in Inorganic Chemistry : Principles of Structure and Reactivity, 4th edition, HarperCollins, New York, USA, 1993. A.M. James and M.P. Lord in Macmillan's Chemical and Physical Data, Macmillan, London, UK, 1992. The shade of the box ranges from red to yellow as the ionisation energy decreases. Alkali metal Firstionisation energy(kJ/mol) 
 Lithium 520.2 
 Sodium 495.8 
 Potassium 418.8 
 Rubidium 403.0 
 Caesium 375.7 
 Francium 380 

The first ionisation energy of an element or molecule is the energy required to move the most loosely held electron from one mole of gaseous atoms of the element or molecules to form one mole of gaseous ions with electric charge +1. The factors affecting the first ionisation energy are the nuclear charge, the amount of shielding by the inner electrons and the distance from the most loosely held electron from the nucleus, which is always an outer electron in main group elements. The first two factors change the effective nuclear charge the most loosely held electron feels. Since the outermost electron of alkali metals always feels the same effective nuclear charge (+1), the only factor which affects the first ionisation energy is the distance from the outermost electron to the nucleus. Since this distance increases down the group, the outermost electron feels less attraction from the nucleus and thus the first ionisation energy decreases. (This trend is broken in francium due to the relativistic stabilization and contraction of the 7s orbital, bringing francium's valence electron closer to the nucleus than would be expected from non-relativistic calculations. This makes francium's outermost electron feel more attraction from the nucleus, increasing its first ionisation energy slightly beyond that of caesium.) 

The second ionisation energy of the alkali metals is much higher than the first as the second-most loosely held electron is part of a fully filled electron shell and is thus difficult to remove. 

=====Reactivity=====

The reactivities of the alkali metals increase going down the group. This is the result of a combination of two factors: the first ionisation energies and atomisation energies of the alkali metals. Because the first ionisation energy of the alkali metals decreases down the group, it is easier for the outermost electron to be removed from the atom and participate in chemical reactions, thus increasing reactivity down the group. The atomisation energy measures the strength of the metallic bond of an element, which falls down the group as the atoms increase in radius and thus the metallic bond must increase in length, making the delocalised electrons further away from the attraction of the nuclei of the heavier alkali metals. Adding the atomisation and first ionisation energies gives a quantity closely related to (but not equal to) the activation energy of the reaction of an alkali metal with another substance. This quantity decreases going down the group, and so does the activation energy; thus, chemical reactions can occur faster and the reactivity increases down the group. 

=====Electronegativity=====

The variation of Pauling electronegativity (y-axis) as one descends the main groups of the periodic table from the second to the sixth period

:

 Electronegativities of the alkali metals The shade of the box ranges from red to yellow as the electronegativity decreases. Alkali metal Electronegativity 
 Lithium 0.98 
 Sodium 0.93 
 Potassium 0.82 
 Rubidium 0.82 
 Caesium 0.79 
 Francium ? 0.7 

Electronegativity is a chemical property that describes the tendency of an atom or a functional group to attract electrons (or electron density) towards itself. If the bond between sodium and chlorine in sodium chloride were covalent, the pair of shared electrons would be attracted to the chlorine because the effective nuclear charge on the outer electrons is +7 in chlorine but is only +1 in sodium. The electron pair is attracted so close to the chlorine atom that they are practically transferred to the chlorine atom (an ionic bond). However, if the sodium atom was replaced by a lithium atom, the electrons will not be attracted as close to the chlorine atom as before because the lithium atom is smaller, making the electron pair more strongly attracted to the closer effective nuclear charge from lithium. Hence, the larger alkali metal atoms (further down the group) will be less electronegative as the bonding pair is less strongly attracted towards them. 

Because of the higher electronegativity of lithium, some of its compounds have a more covalent character. For example, lithium iodide (LiI) will dissolve in organic solvents, a property of most covalent compounds. Lithium fluoride (LiF) is the only alkali halide that is not soluble in water, and lithium hydroxide (LiOH) is the only alkali metal hydroxide that is not deliquescent. 

=====Melting and boiling points=====

:

 Melting and boiling points of the alkali metals The shade of the box ranges from red to yellow as the melting and boiling points decrease. The melting and boiling points are displayed on different scales of colour. Alkali metal Melting point Boiling point 
 Lithium 
 Sodium 
 Potassium 
 Rubidium 
 Caesium 
 Francium 

The melting point of a substance is the point where it changes state from solid to liquid while the boiling point of a substance (in liquid state) is the point where the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the environmental pressure surrounding the liquid Section 17.43, page 321 Section 27, p. 15 and all the liquid changes state to gas. As a metal is heated to its melting point, the metallic bonds keeping the atoms in place weaken so that the atoms can move around, and the metallic bonds eventually break completely at the metal's boiling point. Therefore, the falling melting and boiling points of the alkali metals indicate that the strength of the metallic bonds of the alkali metals decreases down the group. This is because metal atoms are held together by the electromagnetic attraction from the positive ions to the delocalised electrons. As the atoms increase in size going down the group (because their atomic radius increases), the nuclei of the ions move further away from the delocalised electrons and hence the metallic bond becomes weaker so that the metal can more easily melt and boil, thus lowering the melting and boiling points. (The increased nuclear charge is not a relevant factor due to the shielding effect.) 

=====Density=====

:

 Densities of the alkali metals The shade of the box ranges from red to yellow as the density increases. Alkali metal Density (g/cm3) 
 Lithium 0.534 
 Sodium 0.968 
 Potassium 0.89 
 Rubidium 1.532 
 Caesium 1.93 
 Francium 

The alkali metals all have the same crystal structure (body-centred cubic) and thus the only relevant factors are the number of atoms that can fit into a certain volume and the mass of one of the atoms, since density is defined as mass per unit volume. The first factor depends on the volume of the atom and thus the atomic radius, which increases going down the group; thus, the volume of an alkali metal atom increases going down the group. The mass of an alkali metal atom also increases going down the group. Thus, the trend for the densities of the alkali metals depends on their atomic weights and atomic radii; if figures for these two factors are known, the ratios between the densities of the alkali metals can then be calculated. The resultant trend is that the densities of the alkali metals increase down the table, with an exception at potassium. Due to having the lowest atomic weight of all the elements in their period and having the largest atomic radius for their periods, the alkali metals are the least dense metals in the periodic table. Lithium, sodium, and potassium are the only three metals in the periodic table that are less dense than water. 

===Nuclear===

+Primordial isotopes of the alkali metals 
 Z Alkali metal Stable Decays unstable: italicsodd-odd isotopes coloured pink 
 3 lithium 2 — bgcolor=\"pink\" 
 11 sodium 1 — 
 19 potassium 2 1 
 37 rubidium 1 1 
 55 caesium 1 — 
 87 francium — — No primordial isotopes 

All the alkali metals have odd atomic numbers; hence, their isotopes must be either odd-odd (both proton and neutron number are odd) or odd-even (proton number is odd, but neutron number is even). Odd-odd nuclei have even mass numbers, while odd-even nuclei have odd mass numbers. Odd-odd primordial nuclides are rare because most odd-odd nuclei are highly unstable with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even-even, and are therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects. 

Due to the great rarity of odd-odd nuclei, almost all the primordial isotopes of the alkali metals are odd-even (the exceptions being the light stable isotope lithium-6 and the long-lived radioisotope potassium-40). For a given odd mass number, there can be only a single beta-stable nuclide, since there is not a difference in binding energy between even-odd and odd-even comparable to that between even-even and odd-odd, leaving other nuclides of the same mass number (isobars) free to beta decay toward the lowest-mass nuclide. An effect of the instability of an odd number of either type of nucleons is that odd-numbered elements, such as the alkali metals, tend to have fewer stable isotopes than even-numbered elements. Of the 26 monoisotopic elements that have only a single stable isotope, all but one have an odd atomic number and all but one also have an even number of neutrons. Beryllium is the single exception to both rules, due to its low atomic number. 

All of the alkali metals except lithium and caesium have at least one naturally occurring radioisotope: sodium-22 and sodium-24 are trace radioisotopes produced cosmogenically, potassium-40 and rubidium-87 have very long half-lives and thus occur naturally, and all isotopes of francium are radioactive. Caesium was also thought to be radioactive in the early 20th century, although it has no naturally occurring radioisotopes. (Francium had not been discovered yet at that time.) The natural radioisotope of potassium, potassium-40, makes up about 0.012% of natural potassium, and thus natural potassium is weakly radioactive. This natural radioactivity became a basis for a mistaken claim of the discovery for element 87 (the next alkali metal after caesium) in 1925. 

Caesium-137, with a half-life of 30.17 years, is one of the two principal medium-lived fission products, along with strontium-90, which are responsible for most of the radioactivity of spent nuclear fuel after several years of cooling, up to several hundred years after use. It constitutes most of the radioactivity still left from the Chernobyl accident. 137Cs undergoes high-energy beta decay and eventually becomes stable barium-137. It is a strong emitter of gamma radiation. 137Cs has a very low rate of neutron capture and cannot be feasibly disposed of in this way, but must be allowed to decay. 137Cs has been used as a tracer in hydrologic studies, analogous to the use of tritium. http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/isotopes/cesium.asp Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Goiânia accident and the Chernobyl disaster. As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 

==Extensions==

Empirical (Na–Cs, Mg–Ra) and predicted (Fr–Uhp, Ubn–Uhh) atomic radius of the alkali and alkaline earth metals from the third to the ninth period, measured in angstroms 
Although francium is the heaviest alkali metal that has been discovered, there has been some theoretical work predicting the physical and chemical characteristics of the hypothetical heavier alkali metals. Being the first period 8 element, the undiscovered element ununennium (element 119) is predicted to be the next alkali metal after francium and behave much like their lighter congeners; however, it is also predicted to differ from the lighter alkali metals in some properties. Its chemistry is predicted to be closer to that of potassium or rubidium instead of caesium or francium. This is unusual as periodic trends, ignoring relativistic effects would predict ununennium to be even more reactive than caesium and francium. This lowered reactivity is due to the relativistic stabilisation of ununennium's valence electron, increasing ununennium's first ionisation energy and decreasing the metallic and ionic radii; this effect is already seen for francium. This assumes that ununennium will behave chemically as an alkali metal, which, although likely, may not be true due to relativistic effects. The relativistic stabilisation of the 8s orbital also increases ununennium's electron affinity far beyond that of caesium and francium; indeed, ununennium is expected to have an electron affinity higher than all the alkali metals lighter than it. Relativistic effects also cause a very large drop in the polarisability of ununennium. On the other hand, ununennium is predicted to continue the trend of melting points decreasing going down the group, being expected to have a melting point between 0 °C and 30 °C. 

Empirical (Na–Fr) and predicted (Uue) electron affinity of the alkali metals from the third to the eighth period, measured in electron volts 
The stabilisation of ununennium's valence electron and thus the contraction of the 8s orbital cause its atomic radius to be lowered to 240 pm, very close to that of rubidium (247 pm), so that the chemistry of ununennium in the +1 oxidation state should be more similar to the chemistry of rubidium than to that of francium. On the other hand, the ionic radius of the Uue+ ion is predicted to be larger than that of Rb+, because the 7p orbitals are destabilised and are thus larger than the p-orbitals of the lower shells. Ununennium may also show the +3 oxidation state, which is not seen in any other alkali metal, in addition to the +1 oxidation state that is characteristic of the other alkali metals and is also the main oxidation state of all the known alkali metals: this is because of the destabilisation and expansion of the 7p3/2 spinor, causing its outermost electrons to have a lower ionisation energy than what would otherwise be expected. Indeed, many ununennium compounds are expected to have a large covalent character, due to the involvement of the 7p3/2 electrons in the bonding. 

Empirical (Na–Fr, Mg–Ra) and predicted (Uue–Uhp, Ubn–Uhh) ionisation energy of the alkali and alkaline earth metals from the third to the ninth period, measured in electron volts 
Not as much work has been done predicting the properties of the alkali metals beyond ununennium. Although a simple extrapolation of the periodic table would put element 169, unhexennium, under ununennium, Dirac-Fock calculations predict that the next alkali metal after ununennium may actually be element 165, unhexpentium, which is predicted to have the electron configuration 5g18 6f14 7d10 8s2 8p1/22 9s1. Further calculations show that unhexpentium would follow the trend of increasing ionisation energy beyond caesium, having an ionisation energy comparable to that of sodium, and that it should also continue the trend of decreasing atomic radii beyond caesium, having an atomic radius comparable to that of potassium. However, the 7d electrons of unhexpentium may also be able to participate in chemical reactions along with the 9s electron, possibly allowing oxidation states beyond +1 and perhaps even making unhexpentium behave more like a boron group element than an alkali metal. 

The probable properties of the alkali metals beyond unhexpentium have not been explored yet as of 2012. In periods 8 and above of the periodic table, relativistic and shell-structure effects become so strong that extrapolations from lighter congeners become completely inaccurate. In addition, the relativistic and shell-structure effects (which stabilise the s-orbitals and destabilise and expand the d-, f-, and g-orbitals of higher shells) have opposite effects, causing even larger difference between relativistic and non-relativistic calculations of the properties of elements with such high atomic numbers. Due to the alkali and alkaline earth metals both being s-block elements, these predictions for the trends and properties of ununennium and unhexpentium also mostly apply to the corresponding alkaline earth metals unbinilium (Ubn) and unhexhexium (Uhh). 

==Other similar substances==

===Hydrogen===

Hydrogen gas glowing in a discharge tube

The element hydrogen, with one electron per neutral atom, is usually placed at the top of Group 1 of the periodic table for convenience, but hydrogen is not normally considered to be an alkali metal; when it is considered to be an alkali metal, it is because of its atomic properties and not its chemical properties. Under typical conditions, pure hydrogen exists as a diatomic gas consisting of two atoms per molecule (H2); however, the alkali metals only form diatomic molecules (such as dilithium, Li2) at high temperatures, when they are in the gaseous state. Chemical Bonding, Mark J. Winter, Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-855694-2 

Hydrogen, like the alkali metals, has one valence electron and reacts easily with the halogens, but the similarities end there. Its placement above lithium is primarily due to its electron configuration and not its chemical properties. It is sometimes placed above carbon due to their similar electronegativities or fluorine due to their similar chemical properties. 

The first ionisation energy of hydrogen (1312.0 kJ/mol) is much higher than that of the alkali metals. As only one additional electron is required to fill in the outermost shell of the hydrogen atom, hydrogen often behaves like a halogen, forming the negative hydride ion, and is sometimes considered to be a halogen. (The alkali metals can also form negative ions, known as alkalides, but these are little more than laboratory curiosities, being unstable.) Under extremely high pressures, such as those found at the cores of Jupiter and Saturn, hydrogen does become metallic and behaves like an alkali metal; in this phase, it is known as metallic hydrogen. 

===Ammonium===

The ammonium ion () has very similar properties to the heavier alkali metals, acting as an alkali metal intermediate between potassium and rubidium, and is often considered a close relative. For example, most alkali metal salts are soluble in water, a property which ammonium salts share. Ammonium is expected to behave stably as a metal ( ions in a sea of electrons) at very high pressures (though less than the typical pressure where transitions from insulating to metallic behaviour occur around, 100 GPa), and could possibly occur inside the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, which may have significant impacts on their interior magnetic fields. It has been estimated that the transition from a mixture of ammonia and dihydrogen molecules to metallic ammonium may occur at pressures just below 25 GPa. 

===Thallium===

Very pure thallium pieces in a glass ampoule, stored under argon gas

Thallium displays the +1 oxidation state that all the known alkali metals display, and thallium compounds with thallium in its +1 oxidation state closely resemble the corresponding potassium or silver compounds due to the similar ionic radii of the Tl+ (164 pm), K+ (152 pm) and Ag+ (129 pm) ions. It was sometimes considered an alkali metal in continental Europe (but not in England) in the years immediately following its discovery, and was placed just after caesium as the sixth alkali metal in Dmitri Mendeleev's 1869 periodic table and Julius Lothar Meyer's 1868 periodic table. (Mendeleev's 1871 periodic table and Meyer's 1870 periodic table put thallium in its current position in the boron group and leave the space below caesium blank.) However, thallium also displays the oxidation state +3, which no known alkali metal displays (although ununennium, the undiscovered seventh alkali metal, is predicted to possibly display the +3 oxidation state). The sixth alkali metal is now considered to be francium. 

==History==

===Etymology===

The alkali metals are so called because their hydroxides are all strong alkalis when dissolved in water. 

===Discovery===

====Lithium====
Petalite, the lithium mineral from which lithium was first isolated

Petalite (LiAlSi4O10) was discovered in 1800 by the Brazilian chemist José Bonifácio de Andrada in a mine on the island of Utö, Sweden. However, it was not until 1817 that Johan August Arfwedson, then working in the laboratory of the chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, detected the presence of a new element while analyzing petalite ore. This new element formed compounds similar to those of sodium and potassium, though its carbonate and hydroxide were less soluble in water and more alkaline than the other alkali metals. Berzelius gave the unknown material the name "lithion/lithina", from the Greek word λιθoς (transliterated as lithos, meaning "stone"), to reflect its discovery in a solid mineral, as opposed to potassium, which had been discovered in plant ashes, and sodium, which was known partly for its high abundance in animal blood. He named the metal inside the material "lithium". 

====Sodium====
Caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), the sodium compound from which sodium was first isolated

Sodium compounds have been known since ancient times; salt (sodium chloride) has been an important commodity in human activities, as testified by the English word salary, referring to salarium, the wafers of salt sometimes given to Roman soldiers along with their other wages. In medieval Europe a compound of sodium with the Latin name of sodanum was used as a headache remedy. Pure sodium was not isolated until 1807 by Humphry Davy through the electrolysis of caustic soda (now called sodium hydroxide), a very similar method to the one used to isolate potassium earlier that year.

====Potassium====
Caustic potash (potassium hydroxide), the potassium compound from which potassium was first isolated

While potash has been used since ancient times, it was not understood for most of its history to be a fundamentally different substance from sodium mineral salts. Georg Ernst Stahl obtained experimental evidence which led him to suggest the fundamental difference of sodium and potassium salts in 1702, and Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau was able to prove this difference in 1736. The exact chemical composition of potassium and sodium compounds, and the status as chemical element of potassium and sodium, was not known then, and thus Antoine Lavoisier did include the alkali in his list of chemical elements in 1789. Pure potassium was first isolated in 1807 in England by Sir Humphry Davy, who derived it from caustic potash (KOH, potassium hydroxide) by the use of electrolysis of the molten salt with the newly invented voltaic pile. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Later that same year, Davy reported extraction of sodium from the similar substance caustic soda (NaOH, lye) by a similar technique, demonstrating the elements, and thus the salts, to be different. 

====Rubidium====
Lepidolite, the rubidium mineral from which rubidium was first isolated

Rubidium was discovered in 1861 in Heidelberg, Germany by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff, the first people to suggest finding new elements by spectrum analysis, in the mineral lepidolite through the use of a spectroscope. Because of the bright red lines in its emission spectrum, they chose a name derived from the Latin word rubidus, meaning dark red or bright red. Rubidium's discovery succeeded that of caesium, also discovered by Bunsen and Kirchhoff through spectroscopy. 

====Caesium====
In 1860, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff discovered caesium in the mineral water from Dürkheim, Germany. Due to the bright-blue lines in its emission spectrum, they chose a name derived from the Latin word caesius, meaning sky-blue. Bunsen quotes Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae II, 26 by Nigidius Figulus: Nostris autem veteribus "caesia" dicta est, quae a Graecis glaukopis, ut Nigidius ait, "de colore caeli quasi caelia. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition Caesium was the first element to be discovered spectroscopically, only one year after the invention of the spectroscope by Bunsen and Kirchhoff. 

====Francium====

There were at least four erroneous and incomplete discoveries before Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute in Paris, France discovered francium in 1939 by purifying a sample of actinium-227, which had been reported to have a decay energy of 220 keV. However, Perey noticed decay particles with an energy level below 80 keV. Perey thought this decay activity might have been caused by a previously unidentified decay product, one that was separated during purification, but emerged again out of the pure actinium-227. Various tests eliminated the possibility of the unknown element being thorium, radium, lead, bismuth, or thallium. The new product exhibited chemical properties of an alkali metal (such as coprecipitating with caesium salts), which led Perey to believe that it was element 87, caused by the alpha decay of actinium-227. Adloff, Jean-Pierre; Kaufman, George B. (2005-09-25). Francium (Atomic Number 87), the Last Discovered Natural Element. The Chemical Educator 10 (5). Retrieved on 26 March 2007. Perey then attempted to determine the proportion of beta decay to alpha decay in actinium-227. Her first test put the alpha branching at 0.6%, a figure that she later revised to 1%. It was the last element discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis. Some synthetic elements, like technetium and plutonium, have later been found in nature. 

====Eka-francium====

The next element below francium (eka-francium) is very likely to be ununennium (Uue), element 119, although this is not completely certain due to relativistic effects. The synthesis of ununennium was first attempted in 1985 by bombarding a target of einsteinium-254 with calcium-48 ions at the superHILAC accelerator at Berkeley, California. No atoms were identified, leading to a limiting yield of 300 nb. 

: + → * → no atoms The asterisk denotes an excited state. 

It is highly unlikely that this reaction will be able to create any atoms of ununennium in the near future, given the extremely difficult task of making sufficient amounts of 254Es, which is favoured for production of ultraheavy elements because of its large mass, relatively long half-life of 270 days, and availability in significant amounts of several micrograms, to make a large enough target to increase the sensitivity of the experiment to the required level; einsteinium has not been found in nature and has only been produced in laboratories. However, given that ununennium is only the first period 8 element on the extended periodic table, it may well be discovered in the near future through other reactions; indeed, another attempt to synthesise ununennium by bombarding a berkelium target with titanium ions is under way at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany. Currently, none of the period 8 elements have been discovered yet, and it is also possible, due to drip instabilities, that only the lower period 8 elements, up to around element 128, are physically possible. No attempts at synthesis have been made for any heavier alkali metals, such as unhexpentium, due to their extremely high atomic number. 

==Occurrence==

===In the Solar System===
Estimated abundances of the chemical elements in the Solar system. Hydrogen and helium are most common, from the Big Bang. The next three elements (lithium, beryllium, and boron) are rare because they are poorly synthesized in the Big Bang and also in stars. The two general trends in the remaining stellar-produced elements are: (1) an alternation of abundance in elements as they have even or odd atomic numbers, and (2) a general decrease in abundance, as elements become heavier. Iron is especially common because it represents the minimum energy nuclide that can be made by fusion of helium in supernovae. 
The Oddo-Harkins rule holds that elements with even atomic numbers are more common that those with odd atomic numbers, with the exception of hydrogen. This rule argues that elements with odd atomic numbers have one unpaired proton and are more likely to capture another, thus increasing their atomic number. In elements with even atomic numbers, protons are paired, with each member of the pair offsetting the spin of the other, enhancing stability. All the alkali metals have odd atomic numbers and they are not as common as the elements with even atomic numbers adjacent to them (the noble gases and the alkaline earth metals) in the Solar System. The heavier alkali metals are also less abundant than the lighter ones as the alkali metals from rubidium onward can only be synthesized in supernovae and not in stellar nucleosynthesis. Lithium is also much less abundant than sodium and potassium as it is poorly synthesized in both Big Bang nucleosynthesis and in stars: the Big Bang could only produce trace quantities of lithium, beryllium and boron due to the absence of a stable nucleus with 5 or 8 nucleons, and stellar nucleosynthesis could only pass this bottleneck by the triple-alpha process, fusing three helium nuclei to form carbon, and skipping over those three elements. 

===On Earth===
Spodumene, an important lithium mineral
The Earth formed from the same cloud of matter that formed the Sun, but the planets acquired different compositions during the formation and evolution of the solar system. In turn, the natural history of the Earth caused parts of this planet to have differing concentrations of the elements. The mass of the Earth is approximately 5.98 kg. It is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements. Due to mass segregation, the core region is believed to be primarily composed of iron (88.8%), with smaller amounts of nickel (5.8%), sulfur (4.5%), and less than 1% trace elements. 

The alkali metals, due to their high reactivity, do not occur naturally in pure form in nature. They are lithophiles and therefore remain close to the Earth's surface because they combine readily with oxygen and so associate strongly with silica, forming relatively low-density minerals that do not sink down into the Earth's core. Potassium, rubidium and caesium are also incompatible elements due to their low ionic radii. 

Sodium and potassium are very abundant in earth, both being among the ten most common elements in Earth's crust; sodium makes up approximately 2.6% of the Earth's crust measured by weight, making it the sixth most abundant element overall and the most abundant alkali metal. Potassium makes up approximately 1.5% of the Earth's crust and is the seventh most abundant element. Sodium is found in many different minerals, of which the most common is ordinary salt (sodium chloride), which occurs in vast quantities dissolved in seawater. Other solid deposits include halite, amphibole, cryolite, nitratine, and zeolite. 

Lithium, due to its relatively low reactivity, can be found in seawater in large amounts; it is estimated that seawater is approximately 0.14 to 0.25 parts per million (ppm) or 25 micromolar. 

Rubidium is approximately as abundant as zinc and more abundant than copper. It occurs naturally in the minerals leucite, pollucite, carnallite, zinnwaldite, and lepidolite. Caesium is more abundant than some commonly known elements, such as antimony, cadmium, tin, and tungsten, but is much less abundant than rubidium. 

Francium-223, the only naturally occurring isotope of francium, is the product of the alpha decay of actinium-227 and can be found in trace amounts in uranium and thorium minerals. In a given sample of uranium, there is estimated to be only one francium atom for every 1018 uranium atoms. It has been calculated that there is at most 30 g of francium in the earth's crust at any time, due to its extremely short half-life of 22 minutes. 

==Production and isolation==

The production of pure alkali metals is difficult due to their extreme reactivity with commonly used substances, such as water. The alkali metals are so reactive that they cannot be displaced by other elements and must be isolated through high-energy methods such as electrolysis. 

Lithium salts have to be extracted from the water of mineral springs, brine pools, and brine deposits. The metal is produced electrolytically from a mixture of fused lithium chloride and potassium chloride. 

Potassium occurs in many minerals, such as sylvite (potassium chloride). It is occasionally produced through separating the potassium from the chlorine in potassium chloride, but is more often produced through electrolysis of potassium hydroxide, found extensively in places such as Canada, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Israel, United States, and Jordan, in a method similar to how sodium was produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It can also be produced from seawater. Sodium occurs mostly in seawater and dried seabed, but is now produced through electrolysis of sodium chloride by lowering the melting point of the substance to below 700 °C through the use of a Downs cell. Extremely pure sodium can be produced through the thermal decomposition of sodium azide. Merck Index, 9th ed., monograph 8325 

alt=A shiny gray 5-centimeter piece of matter with a rough surface.
For several years in the 1950s and 1960s, a by-product of the potassium production called Alkarb was a main source for rubidium. Alkarb contained 21% rubidium while the rest was potassium and a small fraction of caesium. Today the largest producers of caesium, for example the Tanco Mine, Manitoba, Canada, produce rubidium as by-product from pollucite. Today, a common method for separating rubidium from potassium and caesium is the fractional crystallization of a rubidium and caesium alum (Cs, Rb)Al(SO4)2·12H2O, which yields pure rubidium alum after approximately 30 different reactions. The limited applications and the lack of a mineral rich in rubidium limits the production of rubidium compounds to 2 to 4 tonnes per year. Caesium, however, is not produced from the above reaction. Instead, the mining of pollucite ore is the main method of obtaining pure caesium, extracted from the ore mainly by three methods: acid digestion, alkaline decomposition, and direct reduction. 

Francium-223, the only naturally occurring isotope of francium, is produced naturally as the product of the alpha decay of actinium-227. Francium can be found in trace amounts in uranium and thorium minerals; it has been calculated that at most there are 30 g of francium in the earth's crust at any given time. As a result of its extreme rarity in nature, most francium is synthesized in the nuclear reaction 197Au + 18O → 210Fr + 5 n, yielding francium-209, francium-210, and francium-211. The greatest quantity of francium ever assembled to date is about 300,000 neutral atoms, which were synthesized using the nuclear reaction given above. 

From their silicate ores, all the alkali metals may be obtained the same way: sulfuric acid is first used to dissolve the desired alkali metal ion and aluminium(III) ions from the ore (leaching), whereupon basic precipitation removes aluminium ions from the mixture by precipitating it as the hydroxide. The remaining insoluble alkali metal carbonate is then precipitated selectively; the salt is then dissolved in hydrochloric acid. The result is then left to evaporate and the alkali metal can then be isolated through electrolysis. 

Lithium and sodium are typically isolated through electrolysis from their liquid chlorides, with calcium chloride typically added to lower the melting point of the mixture. The heavier alkali metals, however, is more typically isolated in a different way, where a reducing agent (typically sodium for potassium and magnesium or calcium for the heaviest alkali metals) is used to reduce the alkali metal chloride. The liquid or gaseous product (the alkali metal) then undergoes fractional distillation for purification. 

==Applications==

All of the discovered alkali metals excluding francium have many applications. Lithium is often used in batteries, and lithium oxide can help process silica. Lithium can also be used to make lubricating greases, air treatment, and aluminium production. 

Pure sodium has many applications, including use in sodium-vapour lamps, which produce very efficient light compared to other types of lighting, and can help smooth the surface of other metals. Sodium compounds have many applications as well, the most well-known compound being table salt. Sodium is also used in soap as salts of fatty acids.

Potassium compounds are often used as fertilisers as potassium is an important element for plant nutrition. Other potassium ions are often used to hold anions. Potassium hydroxide is a very strong base, and is used to control the pH of various substances. 

FOCS 1, a caesium atomic clock in Switzerland
Rubidium and caesium are often used in atomic clocks. Caesium atomic clocks are extraordinarily accurate; if a clock had been made at the time of the dinosaurs, it would be off by less than four seconds (after 80 million years). For that reason, caesium atoms are used as the definition of the second. Rubidium ions are often used in purple fireworks, and caesium is often used in drilling fluids in the petroleum industry. 

Francium has no commercial applications, but because of francium's relatively simple atomic structure, among other things, it has been used in spectroscopy experiments, leading to more information regarding energy levels and the coupling constants between subatomic particles. Studies on the light emitted by laser-trapped francium-210 ions have provided accurate data on transitions between atomic energy levels, similar to those predicted by quantum theory. 

==Biological role and precautions==
Lithium carbonate

Lithium naturally only occurs in traces in biological systems and has no known biological role, but does have effects on the body when ingested. Lithium carbonate is used as a mood stabiliser in psychiatry to treat bipolar disorder (manic-depression) in daily doses of about 0.5 to 2 grams, although there are side-effects. Excessive ingestion of lithium causes drowsiness, slurred speech and vomiting, among other symptoms, and poisons the central nervous system, which is dangerous as the required dosage of lithium to treat bipolar disorder is only slightly lower than the toxic dosage. Its biochemistry, the way it is handled by the human body and studies using rats and goats suggest that it is an essential trace element, although the natural biological function of lithium in humans has yet to be identified. 

Sodium and potassium occur in all known biological systems, generally functioning as electrolytes inside and outside cells. Sodium is an essential nutrient that regulates blood volume, blood pressure, osmotic equilibrium and pH; the minimum physiological requirement for sodium is 500 milligrams per day. Sodium chloride (also known as common salt) is the principal source of sodium in the diet, and is used as seasoning and preservative, such as for pickling and jerky; most of it comes from processed foods. The DRI for sodium is 1.5 grams per day, but most people in the United States consume more than 2.3 grams per day, the minimum amount that promotes hypertension; this in turn causes 7.6 million premature deaths worldwide. 

Potassium is the major cation (positive ion) inside animal cells, while sodium is the major cation outside animal cells. The concentration differences of these charged particles causes a difference in electric potential between the inside and outside of cells, known as the membrane potential. The balance between potassium and sodium is maintained by ion pumps in the cell membrane. The cell membrane potential created by potassium and sodium ions allows the cell to generate an action potential—a "spike" of electrical discharge. The ability of cells to produce electrical discharge is critical for body functions such as neurotransmission, muscle contraction, and heart function. 

A wheel type radiotherapy device which has a long collimator to focus the radiation into a narrow beam. The caesium-137 chloride radioactive source is the blue square, and gamma rays are represented by the beam emerging from the aperture. This was the radiation source involved in the Goiânia accident, containing about 93 grams of caesium-137 chloride.
Rubidium has no known biological role, but may help stimulate metabolism, and, similarly to caesium, replace potassium in the body causing potassium deficiency. Caesium compounds are rarely encountered by most people, but most caesium compounds are mildly toxic because of chemical similarity of caesium to potassium, allowing the caesium to replace the potassium in the body, causing potassium deficiency. Exposure to large amounts of caesium compounds can cause hyperirritability and spasms, but as such amounts would not ordinarily be encountered in natural sources, caesium is not a major chemical environmental pollutant. The median lethal dose (LD50) value for caesium chloride in mice is 2.3 g per kilogram, which is comparable to the LD50 values of potassium chloride and sodium chloride. Caesium chloride has been promoted as an alternative cancer therapy, but has been linked to the deaths of over 50 patients, on whom it was used as part of a scientifically unvalidated cancer treatment. Wood, Leonie. Radioisotopes of caesium require special precautions: the improper handling of caesium-137 gamma ray sources can lead to release of this radioisotope and radiation injuries. Perhaps the best-known case is the Goiânia accident of 1987, in which an improperly-disposed-of radiation therapy system from an abandoned clinic in the city of Goiânia, Brazil, was scavenged from a junkyard, and the glowing caesium salt sold to curious, uneducated buyers. This led to four deaths and serious injuries from radiation exposure. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes distributed by the Chernobyl disaster which constitute the greatest risk to health. 

Francium has no biological role and is most likely to be toxic due to its extreme radioactivity, causing radiation poisoning, but since the greatest quantity of francium ever assembled to date is about 300,000 neutral atoms, it is unlikely that most people will ever encounter francium.

==Notes==

==References==

==Further reading==

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==External links==
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*Atomic and Physical Properties of the Group 1 Elements An in-depth look at alkali metals
*Alkali Metal Bangs Filmed reactions of five-gram samples of the alkali metals with water

 



[[Alphabet]]

An alphabet is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) which is used to write one or more languages based on the general principle that the letters represent phonemes (basic significant sounds) of the spoken language. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries (in which each character represents a syllable) and logographies (in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit).

A true alphabet has letters for the vowels of a language as well as the consonants. The first "true alphabet" in this sense is believed to be the Greek alphabet, which is a modified form of the Phoenician alphabet. In other types of alphabet either the vowels are not indicated at all, as was the case in the Phoenician alphabet (such systems are known as abjads), or else the vowels are shown by diacritics or modification of consonants, as in the devanagari used in India and Nepal (these systems are known as abugidas or alphasyllabaries).

There are dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular being the Latin alphabet (which was derived from the Greek). Many languages use modified forms of the Latin alphabet, with additional letters formed using diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille, fingerspelling, and Morse code.

Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of their letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of "numbering" ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists.

==Etymology==
The English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphabētos), from alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Encyclopædia Britannica Online – Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary Alpha and beta in turn came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and originally meant ox and house respectively.

==History==

A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia.

===Middle Eastern scripts===
The history of the alphabet started in ancient Egypt. By the 27th century BC Egyptian writing had a set of some 24 hieroglyphs which are called uniliterals, to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names. Daniels and Bright (1996), pp. 74–75 

A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script, one of the earliest (if not the very first) phonemic scripts
In the Middle Bronze Age an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script appears in Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai peninsula dated to circa the 15th century BC, apparently left by Canaanite workers. In 1999, John and Deborah Darnell discovered an even earlier version of this first alphabet at Wadi el-Hol dated to circa 1800 BC and showing evidence of having been adapted from specific forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs that could be dated to circa 2000 BC, strongly suggesting that the first alphabet had been developed circa that time. J. C. Darnell, F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Marilyn J. Lundberg, P. Kyle McCarter, and Bruce Zuckermanet, “Two early alphabetic inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hol: new evidence for the origin of the alphabet from the western desert of Egypt.” The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 59 (2005). Based on letter appearances and names, it is believed to be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs. Coulmas (1989), p. 140–141. This script had no characters representing vowels. An alphabetic cuneiform script with 30 signs including three which indicate the following vowel was invented in Ugarit before the 15th century BC. This script was not used after the destruction of Ugarit. Ugaritic Writing online 

The Proto-Sinaitic script eventually developed into the Phoenician alphabet, which is conventionally called "Proto-Canaanite" before ca. 1050 BC. The oldest text in Phoenician script is an inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram. This script is the parent script of all western alphabets. By the tenth century two other forms can be distinguished namely Canaanite and Aramaic. The Aramaic gave rise to Hebrew. "Coulmas"(1989),p.142 The South Arabian alphabet, a sister script to the Phoenician alphabet, is the script from which the Ge'ez alphabet (an abugida) is descended. Vowelless alphabets, which are not true alphabets, are called abjads, currently exemplified in scripts including Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac. The omission of vowels was not a satisfactory solution and some "weak" consonants were used to indicate the vowel quality of a syllable (matres lectionis). These had dual function since they were also used as pure consonants. "Coulmas" (1989) p.147. 

The Proto-Sinatic or Proto Canaanite script and the Ugaritic script were the first scripts with limited number of signs, in contrast to the other widely used writing systems at the time, Cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Linear B. The Phoenician script was probably the first phonemic script Daniels and Bright (1996), pp 92-96 and it contained only about two dozen distinct letters, making it a script simple enough for common traders to learn. Another advantage of Phoenician was that it could be used to write down many different languages, since it recorded words phonemically.

The script was spread by the Phoenicians, across the Mediterranean. In Greece, the script was modified to add the vowels, giving rise to the ancestor of all alphabets in the West. The indication of the vowels is the same way as the indication of the consonants, therefore it was the first true alphabet. The Greeks took letters which did not represent sounds that existed in Greek, and changed them to represent the vowels. The vowels are significant in the Greek language, and the syllabical Linear B script which was used by the Mycenaean Greeks from the 16th century BC had 87 symbols including 5 vowels. In its early years, there were many variants of the Greek alphabet, a situation which caused many different alphabets to evolve from it.

===European alphabets===
Codex Zographensis in the Glagolitic alphabet from Medieval Bulgaria
The Greek alphabet, in its Euboean form, was carried over by Greek colonists to the Italian peninsula, where it gave rise to a variety of alphabets used to write the Italic languages. One of these became the Latin alphabet, which was spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their empire. Even after the fall of the Roman state, the alphabet survived in intellectual and religious works. It eventually became used for the descendant languages of Latin (the Romance languages) and then for most of the other languages of Europe.

Some adaptations of the Latin alphabet are augmented with ligatures, such as æ in Old English and Icelandic and Ȣ in Algonquian; by borrowings from other alphabets, such as the thorn þ in Old English and Icelandic, which came from the Futhark runes; and by modifying existing letters, such as the eth ð of Old English and Icelandic, which is a modified d. Other alphabets only use a subset of the Latin alphabet, such as Hawaiian, and Italian, which uses the letters j, k, x, y and w only in foreign words.

Another notable script is Elder Futhark, which is believed to have evolved out of one of the Old Italic alphabets. Elder Futhark gave rise to a variety of alphabets known collectively as the Runic alphabets. The Runic alphabets were used for Germanic languages from AD 100 to the late Middle Ages. Its usage is mostly restricted to engravings on stone and jewelry, although inscriptions have also been found on bone and wood. These alphabets have since been replaced with the Latin alphabet, except for decorative usage for which the runes remained in use until the 20th century.

The Old Hungarian script is a contemporary writing system of the Hungarians. It was in use during the entire history of Hungary, albeit not as an official writing system. From the 19th century it once again became more and more popular.

The Glagolitic alphabet was the initial script of the liturgical language Old Church Slavonic and became, together with the Greek uncial script, the basis of the Cyrillic script. Cyrillic is one of the most widely used modern alphabetic scripts, and is notable for its use in Slavic languages and also for other languages within the former Soviet Union. Cyrillic alphabets include the Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, and Russian alphabets. The Glagolitic alphabet is believed to have been created by Saints Cyril and Methodius, while the Cyrillic alphabet was invented by the Bulgarian scholar Clement of Ohrid, who was their disciple. They feature many letters that appear to have been borrowed from or influenced by the Greek alphabet and the Hebrew alphabet.

===Asian alphabets===
Beyond the logographic Chinese writing, many phonetic scripts are in existence in Asia. The Arabic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet, and other abjads of the Middle East are developments of the Aramaic alphabet, but because these writing systems are largely consonant-based they are often not considered true alphabets.

Most alphabetic scripts of India and Eastern Asia are descended from the Brahmi script, which is often believed to be a descendant of Aramaic.

Zhuyin on a cell phone

In Korea, the Hangul alphabet was created by Sejong the Great. "上親制諺文二十八字…是謂訓民正音(His majesty created 28 characters himself... It is Hunminjeongeum (original name for Hangul))", 《세종실록 (The Annals of the Choson Dynasty : Sejong)》 25년 12월. Hangul is a unique alphabet: it is a featural alphabet, where many of the letters are designed from a sound's place of articulation (P to look like the widened mouth, L to look like the tongue pulled in, etc.); its design was planned by the government of the day; and it places individual letters in syllable clusters with equal dimensions, in the same way as Chinese characters, to allow for mixed-script writing (one syllable always takes up one type-space no matter how many letters get stacked into building that one sound-block).

Zhuyin (sometimes called Bopomofo) is a semi-syllabary used to phonetically transcribe Mandarin Chinese in the Republic of China. After the later establishment of the People's Republic of China and its adoption of Hanyu Pinyin, the use of Zhuyin today is limited, but it's still widely used in Taiwan where the Republic of China still governs. Zhuyin developed out of a form of Chinese shorthand based on Chinese characters in the early 1900s and has elements of both an alphabet and a syllabary. Like an alphabet the phonemes of syllable initials are represented by individual symbols, but like a syllabary the phonemes of the syllable finals are not; rather, each possible final (excluding the medial glide) is represented by its own symbol. For example, luan is represented as ㄌㄨㄢ (l-u-an), where the last symbol ㄢ represents the entire final -an. While Zhuyin is not used as a mainstream writing system, it is still often used in ways similar to a romanization system—that is, for aiding in pronunciation and as an input method for Chinese characters on computers and cellphones.

European alphabets, especially Latin and Cyrillic, have been adapted for many languages of Asia. Arabic is also widely used, sometimes as an abjad (as with Urdu and Persian) and sometimes as a complete alphabet (as with Kurdish and Uyghur).

==Types==
Alphabets:

 Armenian ,
 Cyrillic ,
 Georgian ,
 Greek ,
 Latin ,
 Latin and Arabic ,
 Latin and Cyrillic 

Abjads:
 Arabic ,
 Hebrew 

Abugidas:
 North Indic ,
 South Indic ,
 Ge'ez ,
 Tāna ,
 Canadian Syllabic and Latin 

Logographic+syllabic:
 Pure logographic ,
 Mixed logographic and syllabaries ,
 Featural-alphabetic syllabary + limited logographic ,
 Featural-alphabetic syllabary 

The term "alphabet" is used by linguists and paleographers in both a wide and a narrow sense. In the wider sense, an alphabet is a script that is segmental at the phoneme level—that is, it has separate glyphs for individual sounds and not for larger units such as syllables or words. In the narrower sense, some scholars distinguish "true" alphabets from two other types of segmental script, abjads and abugidas. These three differ from each other in the way they treat vowels: abjads have letters for consonants and leave most vowels unexpressed; abugidas are also consonant-based, but indicate vowels with diacritics to or a systematic graphic modification of the consonants. In alphabets in the narrow sense, on the other hand, consonants and vowels are written as independent letters. For critics of the abjad-abugida-alphabet distinction, see Reinhard G. Lehmann: "27-30-22-26. How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic", in: The idea of writing: Writing across borders / edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack, Leiden: Brill 2012, p. 11-52, esp p. 22-27 The earliest known alphabet in the wider sense is the Wadi el-Hol script, believed to be an abjad, which through its successor Phoenician is the ancestor of modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin (via the Old Italic alphabet), Cyrillic (via the Greek alphabet) and Hebrew (via Aramaic).

Examples of present-day abjads are the Arabic and Hebrew scripts; true alphabets include Latin, Cyrillic, and Korean hangul; and abugidas are used to write Tigrinya, Amharic, Hindi, and Thai. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics are also an abugida rather than a syllabary as their name would imply, since each glyph stands for a consonant which is modified by rotation to represent the following vowel. (In a true syllabary, each consonant-vowel combination would be represented by a separate glyph.)

All three types may be augmented with syllabic glyphs. Ugaritic, for example, is basically an abjad, but has syllabic letters for . (These are the only time vowels are indicated.) Cyrillic is basically a true alphabet, but has syllabic letters for (я, е, ю); Coptic has a letter for . Devanagari is typically an abugida augmented with dedicated letters for initial vowels, though some traditions use अ as a zero consonant as the graphic base for such vowels.

The boundaries between the three types of segmental scripts are not always clear-cut. For example, Sorani Kurdish is written in the Arabic script, which is normally an abjad. However, in Kurdish, writing the vowels is mandatory, and full letters are used, so the script is a true alphabet. Other languages may use a Semitic abjad with mandatory vowel diacritics, effectively making them abugidas. On the other hand, the Phagspa script of the Mongol Empire was based closely on the Tibetan abugida, but all vowel marks were written after the preceding consonant rather than as diacritic marks. Although short a was not written, as in the Indic abugidas, one could argue that the linear arrangement made this a true alphabet. Conversely, the vowel marks of the Tigrinya abugida and the Amharic abugida (ironically, the original source of the term "abugida") have been so completely assimilated into their consonants that the modifications are no longer systematic and have to be learned as a syllabary rather than as a segmental script. Even more extreme, the Pahlavi abjad eventually became logographic. (See below.)
Ge'ez Script of Ethiopia and Eritrea
Thus the primary classification of alphabets reflects how they treat vowels. For tonal languages, further classification can be based on their treatment of tone, though names do not yet exist to distinguish the various types. Some alphabets disregard tone entirely, especially when it does not carry a heavy functional load, as in Somali and many other languages of Africa and the Americas. Such scripts are to tone what abjads are to vowels. Most commonly, tones are indicated with diacritics, the way vowels are treated in abugidas. This is the case for Vietnamese (a true alphabet) and Thai (an abugida). In Thai, tone is determined primarily by the choice of consonant, with diacritics for disambiguation. In the Pollard script, an abugida, vowels are indicated by diacritics, but the placement of the diacritic relative to the consonant is modified to indicate the tone. More rarely, a script may have separate letters for tones, as is the case for Hmong and Zhuang. For most of these scripts, regardless of whether letters or diacritics are used, the most common tone is not marked, just as the most common vowel is not marked in Indic abugidas; in Zhuyin not only is one of the tones unmarked, but there is a diacritic to indicate lack of tone, like the virama of Indic.

The number of letters in an alphabet can be quite small. The Book Pahlavi script, an abjad, had only twelve letters at one point, and may have had even fewer later on. Today the Rotokas alphabet has only twelve letters. (The Hawaiian alphabet is sometimes claimed to be as small, but it actually consists of 18 letters, including the ʻokina and five long vowels. However, Hawaiian Braille has only 13 letters.) While Rotokas has a small alphabet because it has few phonemes to represent (just eleven), Book Pahlavi was small because many letters had been conflated—that is, the graphic distinctions had been lost over time, and diacritics were not developed to compensate for this as they were in Arabic, another script that lost many of its distinct letter shapes. For example, a comma-shaped letter represented g, d, y, k, or j. However, such apparent simplifications can perversely make a script more complicated. In later Pahlavi papyri, up to half of the remaining graphic distinctions of these twelve letters were lost, and the script could no longer be read as a sequence of letters at all, but instead each word had to be learned as a whole—that is, they had become logograms as in Egyptian Demotic.

The largest segmental script is probably an abugida, Devanagari. When written in Devanagari, Vedic Sanskrit has an alphabet of 53 letters, including the visarga mark for final aspiration and special letters for kš and jñ, though one of the letters is theoretical and not actually used. The Hindi alphabet must represent both Sanskrit and modern vocabulary, and so has been expanded to 58 with the khutma letters (letters with a dot added) to represent sounds from Persian and English. Thai has a total of 59 symbols, consisting of 44 consonants, 13 vowels and 2 syllabics, not including 4 diacritics for tone marks and one for vowel length.

The largest known abjad is Sindhi, with 51 letters. The largest alphabets in the narrow sense include Kabardian and Abkhaz (for Cyrillic), with 58 and 56 letters, respectively, and Slovak (for the Latin script), with 46. However, these scripts either count di- and tri-graphs as separate letters, as Spanish did with ch and ll until recently, or uses diacritics like Slovak č. The largest true alphabet where each letter is graphically independent is Georgian, with 33 letters.

Syllabaries typically contain 50 to 400 glyphs, and the glyphs of logographic systems typically number from the many hundreds into the thousands. Thus a simple count of the number of distinct symbols is an important clue to the nature of an unknown script.

==Alphabetical order==

Alphabets often come to be associated with a standard ordering of their letters, which can then be used for purposes of collation – namely for the listing of words and other items in what is called alphabetical order.

The basic ordering of the Latin alphabet (A
B
C 
D
E 
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z), which is derived from the Northwest Semitic "Abgad" order, Reinhard G. Lehmann: "27-30-22-26. How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic", in: The idea of writing: Writing across borders / edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack, Leiden: Brill 2012, p. 11-52 is well established, although languages using this alphabet have different conventions for their treatment of modified letters (such as the French é, à, and ô) and of certain combinations of letters (multigraphs). In French, these are not considered to be additional letters for the purposes of collation. However, in Icelandic, the accented letters such as á, í, and ö are considered to be distinct letters of the alphabet. In Spanish, ñ is considered a separate letter, but accented vowels such as á and é are not. The ll and ch were also considered single letters, but in 1994 the Real Academia Española changed the collating order so that ll is between lk and lm in the dictionary and ch is between cg and ci, and in 2010 the tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies changed it so they were no longer letters at all. Real Academia Española. "Spanish Pronto!: Spanish Alphabet." Spanish Pronto! 22 April 2007. January 2009 Spanish Pronto: Spanish ↔ English Medical Translators. "La “i griega” se llamará “ye”". Cuba Debate. 2010-11-05. Retrieved 12 December 2010. Cubadebate.cu 

In German, words starting with sch- (which spells the German phoneme ) are inserted between words with initial sca- and sci- (all incidentally loanwords) instead of appearing after initial sz, as though it were a single letter—in contrast to several languages such as Albanian, in which dh-, ë-, gj-, ll-, rr-, th-, xh- and zh- (all representing phonemes and considered separate single letters) would follow the letters d, e, g, l, n, r, t, x and z respectively, as well as Hungarian and Welsh. Further, German words with umlaut are collated ignoring the umlaut—contrary to Turkish which allegedly adopted the German graphemes ö and ü, and where a word like tüfek, would come after tuz, in the dictionary. An exception is the German telephone directory where umlauts are sorted like ä = ae since names as Jäger appear also with the spelling Jaeger, and are not distinguished in the spoken language.

The Danish and Norwegian alphabets end with æ—ø—å, whereas the Icelandic, Swedish and Finnish ones conventionally put å—ä—ö at the end.

It is unknown whether the earliest alphabets had a defined sequence. Some alphabets today, such as the Hanuno'o script, are learned one letter at a time, in no particular order, and are not used for collation where a definite order is required. However, a dozen Ugaritic tablets from the fourteenth century BC preserve the alphabet in two sequences. One, the ABCDE order later used in Phoenician, has continued with minor changes in Hebrew, Greek, Armenian, Gothic, Cyrillic, and Latin; the other, HMĦLQ, was used in southern Arabia and is preserved today in Ethiopic. Millard, A.R. "The Infancy of the Alphabet", World Archaeology 17, No. 3, Early Writing Systems (February 1986): 390–398. page 395. Both orders have therefore been stable for at least 3000 years.

The historical order was abandoned in Runic and Arabic, although Arabic retains the traditional abjadi order for numbering.

The Brahmic family of alphabets used in India use a unique order based on phonology: The letters are arranged according to how and where they are produced in the mouth. This organization is used in Southeast Asia, Tibet, Korean hangul, and even Japanese kana, which is not an alphabet.

==Names of letters==
The Phoenician letter names, in which each letter was associated with a word that begins with that sound, continue to be used to varying degrees in Samaritan, Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic. The names were abandoned in Latin, which instead referred to the letters by adding a vowel (usually e) before or after the consonant (the exception is zeta, which was retained from Greek). In Cyrillic originally the letters were given names based on Slavic words; this was later abandoned as well in favor of a system similar to that used in Latin.

==Orthography and pronunciation==

When an alphabet is adopted or developed to represent a given language, an orthography generally comes into being, providing rules for the spelling of words in that language. In accordance with the principle on which alphabets are based, these rules will generally map letters of the alphabet to the phonemes (significant sounds) of the spoken language. In a perfectly phonemic orthography there would be a consistent one-to-one correspondence between the letters and the phonemes, so that a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker would always know the pronunciation of a word given its spelling, and vice versa. However this ideal is not usually achieved in practice; some languages (such as Spanish and Finnish) come close to it, while others (such as English) deviate from it to a much larger degree.

The pronunciation of a language often evolves independently of its writing system, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, so the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language.

Languages may fail to achieve a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds in any of several ways:
* A language may represent a given phoneme by a combination of letters rather than just a single letter. Two-letter combinations are called digraphs and three-letter groups are called trigraphs. German uses the tetragraphs (four letters) "tsch" for the phoneme and (in a few borrowed words) "dsch" for . Kabardian also uses a tetragraph for one of its phonemes, namely "кхъу". Two letters representing one sound occur in several instances in Hungarian as well (where, for instance, cs stands for , sz for , zs for , dzs for ).
* A language may represent the same phoneme with two or more different letters or combinations of letters. An example is modern Greek which may write the phoneme in six different ways: , , , , , and (though the last is rare).
* A language may spell some words with unpronounced letters that exist for historical or other reasons. For example, the spelling of the Thai word for "beer" retains a letter for the final consonant "r" present in the English word it was borrowed from, but silences it.
* Pronunciation of individual words may change according to the presence of surrounding words in a sentence (sandhi).
* Different dialects of a language may use different phonemes for the same word.
* A language may use different sets of symbols or different rules for distinct sets of vocabulary items, such as the Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries, or the various rules in English for spelling words from Latin and Greek, or the original Germanic vocabulary.

National languages sometimes elect to address the problem of dialects by simply associating the alphabet with the national standard. However, with an international language with wide variations in its dialects, such as English, it would be impossible to represent the language in all its variations with a single phonetic alphabet.

Some national languages like Finnish, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) and Bulgarian have a very regular spelling system with a nearly one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes. Strictly speaking, these national languages lack a word corresponding to the verb "to spell" (meaning to split a word into its letters), the closest match being a verb meaning to split a word into its syllables. Similarly, the Italian verb corresponding to 'spell (out)', compitare, is unknown to many Italians because spelling is usually trivial, as Italian spelling is highly phonemic. In standard Spanish, one can tell the pronunciation of a word from its spelling, but not vice versa, as certain phonemes can be represented in more than one way, but a given letter is consistently pronounced. French, with its silent letters and its heavy use of nasal vowels and elision, may seem to lack much correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, but its rules on pronunciation, though complex, are actually consistent and predictable with a fair degree of accuracy.

At the other extreme are languages such as English, where the pronunciations of many words simply have to be memorized as they do not correspond to the spelling in a consistent way. For English, this is partly because the Great Vowel Shift occurred after the orthography was established, and because English has acquired a large number of loanwords at different times, retaining their original spelling at varying levels. Even English has general, albeit complex, rules that predict pronunciation from spelling, and these rules are successful most of the time; rules to predict spelling from the pronunciation have a higher failure rate.

Sometimes, countries have the written language undergo a spelling reform to realign the writing with the contemporary spoken language. These can range from simple spelling changes and word forms to switching the entire writing system itself, as when Turkey switched from the Arabic alphabet to a Turkish alphabet of Latin origin.

The sounds of speech of all languages of the world can be written by a rather-small universal phonetic alphabet. A standard for this is the International Phonetic Alphabet.

== See also ==

* A Is For Aardvark
* Abecedarium
* Acrophony
* Akshara
* Alphabet book
* Alphabet Effect
* Alphabet song
* Alphabetical order
* Alphabetize
* Butterfly Alphabet
* Character encoding
* Constructed script
* Cyrillic
* English alphabet
* Hangul
* ICAO spelling alphabet
* Lipogram
* List of alphabets
* Pangram
* Thai script
* Transliteration
* Unicode

== References ==

== Bibliography ==
* 
* Overview of modern and some ancient writing systems.
* 
*
* Chapter 3 traces and summarizes the invention of alphabetic writing.
* 
*McLuhan, Marshall; Logan, Robert K. (1977). Alphabet, Mother of Invention. Etcetera. Vol. 34, pp. 373–383
*
*
* 
* Powell, Barry B. 2009. Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization, Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-6256-2
* 
* Chapter 4 traces the invention of writing

== External links ==

* The Origins of abc
* "Language, Writing and Alphabet: An Interview with Christophe Rico", Damqātum 3 (2007)
* Alphabetic Writing Systems
* Michael Everson's Alphabets of Europe
* Evolution of alphabets, animation by Prof. Robert Fradkin at the University of Maryland
* How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs—Biblical Archaeology Review

* An Early Hellenic Alphabet

 



[[Atomic number]]

An explanation of the superscripts and subscripts seen in atomic number notation. Atomic number is the number of protons, and therefore also the total positive charge, in the atomic nucleus.
The Rutherford–Bohr model of the hydrogen atom (Z 1) or a hydrogen-like ion (Z > 1). In this model it is an essential feature that the photon energy (or frequency) of the electromagnetic radiation emitted (shown) when an electron jumps from one orbital to another, be proportional to the mathematical square of atomic charge (Z2). Experimental measurement by Henry Moseley of this radiation for many elements (from Z 13 to 92) showed the results as predicted by Bohr. Both the concept of atomic number and the Bohr model were thereby given scientific credence.
In chemistry and physics, the atomic number of a chemical element (also known as its proton number) is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom of that element, and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element. In an uncharged atom, the atomic number is also equal to the number of electrons.

The atomic number, Z, should not be confused with the mass number, A, which is the number of nucleons, the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom. The number of neutrons, N, is known as the neutron number of the atom; thus, A = Z + N (these quantities are always whole numbers). Since protons and neutrons have approximately the same mass (and the mass of the electrons is negligible for many purposes) and the mass defect of nucleon binding is always small compared to the nucleon mass, the atomic mass of any atom, when expressed in unified atomic mass units (making a quantity called the "relative isotopic mass,") is roughly (to within 1%) equal to the whole number A.

Atoms with the same atomic number Z but different neutron numbers N, and hence different atomic masses, are known as isotopes. A little more than three-quarters of naturally occurring elements exist as a mixture of isotopes (see monoisotopic elements), and the average isotopic mass of an isotopic mixture for an element (called the relative atomic mass) in a defined environment on Earth, determines the element's standard atomic weight. Historically, it was these atomic weights of elements (in comparison to hydrogen) that were the quantities measurable by chemists in the 19th century.

The conventional symbol Z comes from the German word meaning number/numeral/figure, which, prior to the modern synthesis of ideas from chemistry and physics, merely denoted an element's numerical place in the periodic table, whose order is approximately, but not completely, consistent with the order of the elements by atomic weights. Only after 1915, with the suggestion and evidence that this Z number was also the nuclear charge and a physical characteristic of atoms, did the word (and its English equivalent atomic number) come into common use in this context.

==History==

===The periodic table and a natural number for each element===
Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev created a periodic table of the elements that ordered them numerically by atomic weight, yet occasionally used chemical properties in contradiction to weight.
Loosely speaking, the existence or construction of a periodic table of elements creates an ordering of the elements, and so they can be numbered in order.

Dmitri Mendeleev claimed that he arranged his first periodic tables in order of atomic weight ("Atomgewicht"). The Periodic Table of Elements, American Institute of Physics However, in consideration of the elements' observed chemical properties, he changed the order slightly and placed tellurium (atomic weight 127.6) ahead of iodine (atomic weight 126.9). The Development of the Periodic Table, Chemsoc This placement is consistent with the modern practice of ordering the elements by proton number, Z, but that number was not known or suspected at the time.

A simple numbering based on periodic table position was never entirely satisfactory, however. Besides the case of iodine and tellurium, later several other pairs of elements (such as argon and potassium, cobalt and nickel) were known to have nearly identical or reversed atomic weights, thus requiring their placement in the periodic table to be determined by their chemical properties. However the gradual identification of more and more chemically similar lanthanide elements, whoise atomic number was not obvious, led to inconsistency and uncertainty in the periodic numbering of elements at least from lutetium (element 71) onwards (hafnium was not known at this time). 

Ernest Rutherford's 1911 interpretation of work in his laboratory identified the atomic nucleus, and suggested the number of charges on the nucleus of gold (79 on the periodic table) was about 100.
Niels Bohr's 1913 Bohr model of the atom required van den Broek's atomic number of nuclear charges, and Bohr believed that Moseley's work contributed greatly to the acceptance of the model.
Henry Moseley helped develop the concept of atomic number by showing experimentally (1913) that 
Van den Broek's 1911 hypothesis combined with the Bohr model nearly correctly predicted atomic X-ray emissions.

===The Rutherford-Bohr model and van den Broek===
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford gave a model of the atom in which a central core held most of the atom's mass and a positive charge which, in units of the electron's charge, was to be approximately equal to half of the atom's atomic weight, expressed in numbers of hydrogen atoms. This central charge would thus be approximately half the atomic weight (though it was almost 25% different from the atomic number of gold (Z = 79, A = 197), the single element from which Rutherford made his guess). Nevertheless, in spite of Rutherford's estimation that gold had a central charge of about 100 (but was element Z = 79 on the periodic table), a month after Rutherford's paper appeared, Antonius van den Broek first formally suggested that the central charge and number of electrons in an atom was exactly equal to its place in the periodic table (also known as element number, atomic number, and symbolized Z). This proved eventually to be the case.

=== Moseley's 1913 experiment ===
The experimental position improved dramatically after research by Henry Moseley in 1913. Ordering the Elements in the Periodic Table, Royal Chemical Society Moseley, after discussions with Bohr who was at the same lab (and who had used Van den Broek's hypothesis in his Bohr model of the atom), decided to test Van den Broek's and Bohr's hypothesis directly, by seeing if spectral lines emitted from excited atoms fitted the Bohr theory's postulation that the frequency of the spectral lines be proportional to the square of Z.

To do this, Moseley measured the wavelengths of the innermost photon transitions (K and L lines) produced by the elements from aluminum (Z = 13) to gold (Z = 79) used as a series of movable anodic targets inside an x-ray tube. Moseley's paper with illustrations The square root of the frequency of these photons (x-rays) increased from one target to the next in an arithmetic progression. This led to the conclusion (Moseley's law) that the atomic number does closely correspond (with an offset of one unit for K-lines, in Moseley's work) to the calculated electric charge of the nucleus, i.e. the element number Z. Among other things, Moseley demonstrated that the lanthanide series (from lanthanum to lutetium inclusive) must have 15 members—no fewer and no more—which was far from obvious from the chemistry at that time.

===The proton and the idea of nuclear electrons===
In 1915 the reason for nuclear charge being quantized in units of Z, which were now recognized to be the same as the element number, was not understood. An old idea called Prout's hypothesis had postulated that the elements were all made of residues (or "protyles") of the lightest element hydrogen, which in the Bohr-Rutherford model had a single electron and a nuclear charge of one. However, as early as 1907 Rutherford and Thomas Royds had shown that alpha particles, which had a charge of +2, were the nuclei of helium atoms, which had a mass four times that of hydrogen, not two times. If Prout's hypothesis were true, something had to be neutralizing some of the charge of the hydrogen nuclei present in the nuclei of heavier atoms.

In 1917 Rutherford succeeded in generating hydrogen nuclei from a nuclear reaction between alpha particles and nitrogen gas, and believed he had proven Prout's law. He called the new heavy nuclear particles protons in 1920 (alternate names being proutons and protyles). It had been immediately apparent from the work of Moseley that the nuclei of heavy atoms have more than twice as much mass as would be expected from their being made of hydrogen nuclei, and thus there was required a hypothesis for the neutralization of the extra protons presumed present in all heavy nuclei. A helium nucleus was presumed to be composed of four protons plus two "nuclear electrons" (electrons bound inside the nucleus) to cancel two of the charges. At the other end of the periodic table, a nucleus of gold with a mass 197 times that of hydrogen, was thought to contain 118 nuclear electrons in the nucleus to give it a residual charge of + 79, consistent with its atomic number.

===The discovery of the neutron makes Z the proton number===
All consideration of nuclear electrons ended with James Chadwick's discovery of the neutron in 1932. An atom of gold now was seen as containing 118 neutrons rather than 118 nuclear electrons, and its positive charge now was realized to come entirely from a content of 79 protons. After 1932, therefore, an element's atomic number Z was also realized to be identical to the proton number of its nuclei.

==The symbol of Z==
The conventional symbol Z possibly comes from the German word (atomic number). Origin of symbol Z However, prior to 1915, the word Zahl (simply number) was used for an element's assigned number in the periodic table.

==Chemical properties==
Each element has a specific set of chemical properties as a consequence of the number of electrons present in the neutral atom, which is Z (the atomic number). The configuration of these electrons follows from the principles of quantum mechanics. The number of electrons in each element's electron shells, particularly the outermost valence shell, is the primary factor in determining its chemical bonding behavior. Hence, it is the atomic number alone that determines the chemical properties of an element; and it is for this reason that an element can be defined as consisting of any mixture of atoms with a given atomic number.

==New elements==
The quest for new elements is usually described using atomic numbers. As of 2010, elements with atomic numbers 1 to 118 have been observed. Synthesis of new elements is accomplished by bombarding target atoms of heavy elements with ions, such that the sum of the atomic numbers of the target and ion elements equals the atomic number of the element being created. In general, the half-life becomes shorter as atomic number increases, though an "island of stability" may exist for undiscovered isotopes with certain numbers of protons and neutrons.

==See also==
*History of the periodic table
*Effective atomic number
*Atomic theory
*Prout's hypothesis

==References==



[[Anatomy]]

One of the large, detailed illustrations in Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica, 1543, marking the rebirth of anatomy

Anatomy is the study of the structure of animals and their parts, and is also referred to as zootomy to separate it from human anatomy. In some of its facets, anatomy is related to embryology and comparative anatomy which itself is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny. Human anatomy is one of the basic essential sciences of medicine.

The discipline of anatomy is divided into macroscopic and microscopic anatomy. Macroscopic anatomy, or gross anatomy, is the examination of an animal’s body parts using unaided eyesight. Gross anatomy also includes the branch of superficial anatomy. Microscopic anatomy involves the use of optical instruments in the study of the tissues of various structures, known as histology and also in the study of cells.

The history of anatomy is characterized by a progressive understanding of the functions of the organs and structures of the human body. Methods have also improved dramatically, advancing from the examination of animals by dissection of carcases and cadavers (corpses) to 20th century medical imaging techniques including X-ray, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging.

== Definition ==
Human compared to elephant frame
Anatomical chart by Vesalius, Epitome, 1543
Derived from the Greek anatemnō "I cut up, cut open" from ἀνά ana "up", and τέμνω temnō "I cut", O.D.E. 2nd edition 2005 anatomy is the scientific study of the structure of organisms including their systems, organs, and tissues. It includes the appearance and position of the various parts, the materials from which they are composed, their locations and their relationships with other parts. Anatomy is quite distinct from physiology and biochemistry, which deal respectively with the functions of those parts and the chemical processes involved. For example, an anatomist is concerned with the shape, size, position, structure, blood supply and innervation of an organ such as the liver, while a physiologist is interested in the production of bile and the role of the liver in nutrition and the regulation of bodily functions. 

The discipline of anatomy can be subdivided into a number of branches including gross or macroscopic anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross anatomy is the study of structures that are large enough to be seen with the naked eye, and also includes superficial anatomy or surface anatomy, the study by sight of the external body features. Microscopic anatomy is the study of structures on a microscopic scale, including histology (the study of tissues), and embryology (the study of an organism in its immature condition). 

Anatomy can be studied using both invasive and non-invasive methods with the goal of obtaining information about the structure and organization of organs and systems. Methods used include dissection, in which a body is opened and its organs studied, and endoscopy, in which a video camera-equipped instrument is inserted through a small incision in the body wall and used to explore the internal organs and other structures. Angiography using X-rays or magnetic resonance angiography are methods to visualize blood vessels. 

The term "anatomy" is commonly taken to refer to human anatomy. However, substantially the same structures and tissues are found throughout the rest of the animal kingdom and the term also includes the anatomy of other animals. The term zootomy is also sometimes used to specifically refer to animals. The structure and tissues of plants are of a dissimilar nature and they are studied in plant anatomy. 

== Animal tissues ==
A diagram of an animal cell
The kingdom Animalia, also called Metazoa, contains multicellular organisms that are heterotrophic and motile (although some have secondarily adopted a sessile lifestyle). Most animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues and these animals are also known as eumetazoans. They have an internal digestive chamber, with one or two openings; the gametes are produced in multicellular sex organs, and the zygotes include a blastula stage in their embryonic development. Metazoans do not include the sponges, which have undifferentiated cells. 

Unlike plant cells, animal cells have neither a cell wall nor chloroplasts. Vacuoles, when present, are more in number and much smaller than those in the plant cell. The body tissues are composed of numerous types of cell, including those found in muscles, nerves and skin. Each typically has a cell membrane formed of phospholipids, cytoplasm and a nucleus. All of the different cells of an animal are derived from the embryonic germ layers. Those simpler invertebrates which are formed from two germ layers of ectoderm and endoderm are called diploblastic and the more developed animals whose structures and organs are formed from three germ layers are called triploblastic. All of a triploblastic animal's tissues and organs are derived from the three germ layers of the embryo, the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm.

Animal tissues can be grouped into four basic types: connective, epithelial, muscle and nervous tissue.

===Connective tissue===
Connective tissues are fibrous and made up of cells scattered among inorganic material called the extracellular matrix. Connective tissue gives shape to organs and holds them in place. The main types are loose connective tissue, adipose tissue, fibrous connective tissue, cartilage and bone. The extracellular matrix contains proteins, the chief and most abundant of which is collagen. Collagen plays a major part in organizing and maintaining tissues. The matrix can be modified to form a skeleton to support or protect the body. An exoskeleton is a thickened, rigid cuticle which is stiffened by mineralisation, as in crustaceans or by the cross-linking of its proteins as in insects. An endoskeleton is internal and is present in all developed animals and also in many of those less developed. 

===Epithelium===
Gastric mucosa at low magnification (H&E stain)
Epithelial tissue is composed of closely packed cells, bound to each other by cell adhesion molecules, with little intercellular space. Epithelial cells can be squamous (flat), cuboidal or columnar and rest on a basal lamina, the upper layer of the basement membrane, the lower layer is the reticular lamina lying next to the connective tissue in the extracellular matrix secreted by the epithelial cells. name=Dorlands|pages=1002 There are many different types of epithelium, modified to suit a particular function. In the respiratory tract there is a type of ciliated epithelial lining; in the small intestine there are microvilli on the epithelial lining and in the large intestine there are intestinal villi. Skin consists of an outer layer of keratinised stratified squamous epithelium that covers the exterior of the vertebrate body. Keratinocytes make up to 95% of the cells in the skin. McGrath, J.A.; Eady, R.A.; Pope, F.M. (2004). Rook's Textbook of Dermatology (7th ed.). Blackwell Publishing. pp. 3.1–3.6. ISBN 978-0-632-06429-8. The epithelial cells on the external surface of the body typically secrete an extracellular matrix in the form of a cuticle. In simple animals this may just be a coat of glycoproteins. In more advanced animals, many glands are formed of epithelial cells. 

===Muscle tissue===
Cross section through skeletal muscle and a small nerve at high magnification (H&E stain)
Muscle cells (myocytes) form the active contractile tissue of the body. Muscle tissue functions to produce force and cause motion, either locomotion or movement within internal organs. Muscle is formed of contractile filaments and is separated into three types; smooth muscle, skeletal muscle and obliquely striated muscle. Smooth muscle has no striations when examined microscopically. It contracts slowly but maintains contractibility over a wide range of stretch lengths. It is found in such organs as sea anemone tentacles and the body wall of sea cucumbers. Skeletal muscle contracts rapidly but has a limited range of extension. It is found in the movement of appendages and jaws. Obliquely striated muscle is intermediate between the other two. The filaments are staggered and this is the type of muscle found in earthworms that can extend slowly or make rapid contractions. In higher animals striated muscles occur in bundles attached to bone to provide movement and are often arranged in antagonistic sets. Smooth muscle is found in the walls of the uterus, bladder, intestines, stomach, esophagus, respiratory airways, and blood vessels. Cardiac muscle is found only in the heart, allowing it to contract and pump blood round the body.

===Nervous tissue===
Nervous tissue is composed of many nerve cells known as neurons which transmit information. In some slow-moving radially symmetrical marine animals such as ctenophores and cnidarians (including sea anemones and jellyfish), the nerves form a nerve net, but in most animals they are organized longitudinally into bundles. In simple animals, receptor neurons in the body wall cause a local reaction to a stimulus. In more complex animals, specialised receptor cells such as chemoreceptors and photoreceptors are found in groups and send messages along neural networks to other parts of the organism. Neurons can be connected together in ganglia. In higher animals, specialized receptors are the basis of sense organs and there is a central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and a peripheral nervous system. The latter consists of sensory nerves that transmit information from sense organs and motor nerves that influence target organs. The peripheral nervous system is divided into the somatic nervous system which conveys sensation and controls voluntary muscle, and the autonomic nervous system which involuntarily controls smooth muscle, certain glands, and internal organs such as the stomach. 

== Vertebrate anatomy ==

The three germ layers
Mouse skull
All vertebrates have a similar basic body plan and at some point in their lives, (mostly in the embryonic stage), share the major chordate characteristics; a stiffening rod, the notochord; a dorsal hollow tube of nervous material, the neural tube; pharyngeal slits; and a tail posterior to the anus. The spinal cord is protected by the vertebral column and is above the notochord and the gastrointestinal tract is below it. Nervous tissue is derived from the ectoderm, connective tissues are derived from mesoderm, and gut is derived from the endoderm. At the posterior end is a tail which continues the spinal cord and vertebrae but not the gut. The mouth is found at the anterior end of the animal, and the anus at the base of the tail. The defining characteristic of a vertebrate is the vertebral column, formed in the development of the segmented series of vertebrae. In most vertebrates the notochord becomes the nucleus pulposus of the intervertebral discs. However, a few vertebrates, such as the sturgeon and the coelacanth retain the notochord into adulthood. Jawed vertebrates are typified by paired appendages, fins or legs, which may be secondarily lost. The limbs of vertebrates are considered to be homologous because the same underlying skeletal structure was inherited from their last common ancestor. This is one of the arguments put forward by Charles Darwin to support his theory of evolution. 

=== Fish anatomy ===

Skeleton of a butterfly fish showing the vertebral column and fin rays
Organs of a fish
The body of a fish is divided into a head, trunk and tail, although the divisions between the three are not always externally visible. The skeleton, which forms the support structure inside the fish, is either made of cartilage, in cartilaginous fish, or bone in bony fish. The main skeletal element is the vertebral column, composed of articulating vertebrae which are lightweight yet strong. The ribs attach to the spine and there are no limbs or limb girdles. The main external features of the fish, the fins, are composed of either bony or soft spines called rays, which with the exception of the caudal fins, have no direct connection with the spine. They are supported by the muscles which compose the main part of the trunk. The heart has two chambers and pumps the blood through the respiratory surfaces of the gills and on round the body in a single circulatory loop. The eyes are adapted for seeing underwater and have only local vision. There is an inner ear but no external or middle ear. Low frequency vibrations are detected by the lateral line system of sense organs that run along the length of the sides of fish, and these respond to nearby movements and to changes in water pressure. 

Sharks and rays are basal fish with numerous primitive anatomical features similar to those of ancient fish, including skeletons composed of cartilage. Their bodies tend to be dorso-ventrally flattened, they usually have five pairs of gill slits and a large mouth set on the underside of the head. The dermis is covered with separate dermal placoid scales. They have a cloaca into which the urinary and genital passages open, but not a swim bladder. Cartilaginous fish produce a small number of large, yolky eggs. Some species are ovoviviparous and the young develop internally but others are oviparous and the larvae develop externally in egg cases. 

The bony fish lineage shows more derived anatomical traits, often with major evolutionary changes from the features of ancient fish. They have a bony skeleton, are generally laterally flattened, have five pairs of gills protected by an operculum, and a mouth at or near the tip of the snout. The dermis is covered with overlapping scales. Bony fish have a swim bladder which helps them maintain a constant depth in the water column, but not a cloaca. They mostly spawn a large number of small eggs with little yolk which they broadcast into the water column. 

=== Amphibian anatomy ===

Skeleton of Surinam horned frog(Ceratophrys cornuta)
Anatomy of frog 1 Right atrium, 2 Lungs, 3 Aorta, 4 Egg mass, 5 Colon, 6 Left atrium, 7 Ventricle, 8 Stomach, 9 Liver, 10 Gallbladder, 11 Small intestine, 12 Cloaca
Amphibians are a class of animals comprising frogs, salamanders and caecilians. They are tetrapods, but the caecilians and a few species of salamander have either no limbs or their limbs are much reduced in size. Their main bones are hollow and lightweight and are fully ossified and the vertebrae interlock with each other and have articular processes. Their ribs are usually short and may be fused to the vertebrae. Their skulls are mostly broad and short, and are often incompletely ossified. Their skin contains little keratin and lacks scales, but contains many mucous glands and in some species, poison glands. The hearts of amphibians have three chambers, two atria and one ventricle. They have a urinary bladder and nitrogenous waste products are excreted primarily as urea. Amphibians breathe by means of buccal pumping, a pump action in which air is first drawn into the buccopharyngeal region through the nostrils. These are then closed and the air is forced into the lungs by contraction of the throat. They supplement this with gas exchange through the skin which needs to be kept moist. 

In frogs the pelvic girdle is robust and the hind legs are much longer and stronger than the forelimbs. The feet have four or five digits and the toes are often webbed for swimming or have suction pads for climbing. Frogs have large eyes and no tail. Salamanders resemble lizards in appearance; their short legs project sideways, the belly is close to or in contact with the ground and they have a long tail. Caecilians superficially resemble earthworms and are limbless. They burrow by means of zones of muscle contractions which move along the body and they swim by undulating their body from side to side. 

=== Reptile anatomy ===

Skeleton of a snake, drawn by Richard Lydekker, 1896
Reptiles are a class of animals comprising turtles, tuataras, lizards, snakes and crocodiles. They are tetrapods, but the snakes and a few species of lizard either have no limbs or their limbs are much reduced in size. Their bones are better ossified and their skeletons stronger than those of amphibians. The teeth are conical and mostly uniform in size. The surface cells of the epidermis are modified into horny scales which create a waterproof layer. Reptiles are unable to use their skin for respiration as do amphibians and have a more efficient respiratory system drawing air into their lungs by expanding their chest walls. The heart resembles that of the amphibian but there is a septum which more completely separates the oxygenated and deoxygenated bloodstreams. The reproductive system is designed for internal fertilisation, with a copulatory organ present in most species. The eggs are surrounded by amniotic membranes which prevents them from drying out and are laid on land, or develop internally in some species. The bladder is small as nitrogenous waste is excreted as uric acid. 

Turtles are notable for their protective shells. They have an inflexible trunk encased in a horny carapace above and a plastron below. These are formed from bony plates embedded in the dermis which are overlain by horny ones and are partially fused with the ribs and spine. The neck is long and flexible and the head and the legs can be drawn back inside the shell. Turtles are vegetarians and the typical reptile teeth have been replaced by sharp, horny plates. In aquatic species, the front legs are modified into flippers. 

Tuataras superficially resemble lizards but the lineages diverged in the Triassic Period. There is one living species, Sphenodon punctatus. The skull has two openings (fenestrae) on either side and the jaw is rigidly attached to the skull. There is one row of teeth in the lower jaw and this fits between the two rows in the upper jaw when the animal chews. The teeth are merely projections of bony material from the jaw and eventually wear down. The brain and heart are more primitive than is the case in other reptiles and the lungs have a single chamber and lack bronchi. The tuatara has a well-developed parietal eye on its forehead. 

Lizards have skulls with only one fenestra on each side, the lower bar of bone below the second fenestra having been lost. This results in the jaws being less rigidly attached which allows the mouth to open wider. Lizards are mostly quadrupeds, with the trunk held off the ground by short, sideways-facing legs, but a few species have no limbs and resemble snakes. Lizards have moveable eyelids, eardrums are present and some species have a central parietal eye. 

Snakes are closely related to lizards, having branched off from a common ancestral lineage during the Cretaceous Period, and they share many of the same features. The skeleton consists of a skull, a hyoid bone, spine and ribs though a few species retain a vestige of the pelvis and rear limbs in the form of pelvic spurs. The bar under the second fenestra has also been lost and the jaws have extreme flexibility allowing the snake to swallow its prey whole. Snakes lack moveable eyelids, the eyes being covered by transparent "spectacle" scales. They do not have eardrums but can detect ground vibrations through the bones of their skull. Their forked tongues are used as organs of taste and smell and some species have sensory pits on their heads enabling them to locate warm-blooded prey. 

Crocodilians are large, low-slung aquatic reptiles with long snouts and large numbers of teeth. The head and trunk are dorso-ventrally flattened and the tail is laterally compressed. It undulates from side to side to force the animal through the water when swimming. The tough keratinised scales provide body armour and some are fused to the skull. The nostrils, eyes and ears are elevated above the top of the flat head enabling them to remain above the surface of the water when the animal is floating. Valves seal the nostrils and ears when it is submerged. Unlike other reptiles, crocodilians have hearts with four chambers allowing complete separation of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. 

=== Bird anatomy ===

Bird parts
Part of a wing-drawn by Duerer
Birds are tetrapods but though their hind limbs are used for walking or hopping, their front limbs are wings covered with feathers and adapted for flight. Birds are endothermic, have a high metabolic rate, a light skeletal system and powerful muscles. The long bones are thin, hollow and very light. Air sac extensions from the lungs occupy the centre of some bones. The sternum is wide and usually has a keel and the caudal vertebrae are fused. There are no teeth and the narrow jaws are adapted into a horn-covered beak. The eyes are relatively large, particularly in nocturnal species such as owls. They face forwards in predators and sideways in ducks. 

The feathers are outgrowths of the epidermis and are found in localized bands from where they fan out over the skin. Large flight feathers are found on the wings and tail, contour feathers cover the bird's surface and fine down occurs on young birds and under the contour feathers of water birds. The only cutaneous gland is the single uropygial gland near the base of the tail. This produces an oily secretion that waterproofs the feathers when the bird preens. There are scales on the legs and feet and claws on the tips of the toes. 

=== Mammal anatomy ===

Skeletons of a Great Dane and a Chihuahua
Mammals are a diverse class of animals, mostly terrestrial but some are aquatic and others have evolved flapping or gliding flight. They mostly have four limbs but some aquatic mammals have no limbs or limbs modified into fins and the forelimbs of bats are modified into wings. The legs of most mammals are situated below the trunk, which is held well clear of the ground. The bones of mammals are well ossified and their teeth, which are usually differentiated, are coated in a layer of prismatic enamel. The teeth are shed once (milk teeth) during the animal's lifetime or not at all, as is the case in cetaceans. Mammals have three bones in the middle ear and a cochlea in the inner ear. They are clothed in hair and their skin contains glands which secrete sweat. Some of these glands are specialised as mammary glands, producing milk to feed the young. Mammals breathe with lungs and have a muscular diaphragm separating the thorax from the abdomen which helps them draw air into the lungs. The mammalian heart has four chambers and oxygenated and deoxygenated blood are kept entirely separate. Nitrogenous waste is excreted primarily as urea. 

Mammals are amniotes, and most are viviparous, giving birth to live young. The exception to this are the egg-laying monotremes, the platypus and the echidnas of Australia. Most other mammals have a placenta through which the developing foetus obtains nourishment, but in marsupials, the foetal stage is very short and the immature young is born and finds its way to its mother's pouch where it latches on to a nipple and completes its development. 

===Human anatomy===

Sagittal section of the head as seen by a MRI scan
In the human, the development of skilled hand movements and increased brain size is likely to have evolved simultaneously. 
Humans have the overall body plan of a mammal. Humans have a head, neck, trunk (which includes the thorax and abdomen), two arms and hands and two legs and feet.

Generally, students of certain biological sciences, paramedics, prosthetists and orthotists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, and medical students learn gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy from anatomical models, skeletons, textbooks, diagrams, photographs, lectures and tutorials, and in addition, medical students generally also learn gross anatomy through practical experience of dissection and inspection of cadavers. The study of microscopic anatomy (or histology) can be aided by practical experience examining histological preparations (or slides) under a microscope.
 

Human anatomy, physiology and biochemistry are complementary basic medical sciences, which are generally taught to medical students in their first year at medical school. Human anatomy can be taught regionally or systemically; that is, respectively, studying anatomy by bodily regions such as the head and chest, or studying by specific systems, such as the nervous or respiratory systems. The major anatomy textbook, Gray's Anatomy, has been reorganized from a systems format to a regional format, in line with modern teaching methods. A thorough working knowledge of anatomy is required by physicians, especially surgeons and doctors working in some diagnostic specialties, such as histopathology and radiology.
 

Academic human anatomists are usually employed by universities, medical schools or teaching hospitals. They are often involved in teaching anatomy, and research into certain systems, organs, tissues or cells. 

== Invertebrate anatomy ==
Daphnia a planktonic crustacean
Invertebrates constitute a vast array of living organisms ranging from the simplest unicellular eukaryotes such as Paramecium to such complex multicellular animals as the octopus, lobster and dragonfly. They constitute about 95% of the animal species. By definition, none of these creatures has a backbone. The cells of single-cell protozoans have the same basic structure as those of multicellular animals but some parts are specialised into the equivalent of tissues and organs. Locomotion is often provided by cilia or flagella or may proceed via the advance of pseudopodia, food may be gathered by phagocytosis, energy needs may be supplied by photosynthesis and the cell may be supported by an endoskeleton or an exoskeleton. Some protozoans can form multicellular colonies. 

Metazoans are multicellular organism, different groups of cells of which have separate functions. The most basic types of metazoan tissues are epithelium and connective tissue, both of which are present in nearly all invertebrates. The outer surface of the epidermis is normally formed of epithelial cells and secretes an extracellular matrix which provides support to the organism. An endoskeleton derived from the mesoderm is present in echinoderms, sponges and some cephalopods. Exoskeletons are derived from the epidermis and is composed of chitin in arthropods (insects, spiders, ticks, shrimps, crabs, lobsters). Calcium carbonate constitutes the shells of molluscs, brachiopods and some tube-building polychaete worms and silica forms the exoskeleton of the microscopic diatoms and radiolaria. Other invertebrates may have no rigid structures but the epidermis may secrete a variety of surface coatings such as the pinacoderm of sponges, the gelatinous cuticle of cnidarians (polyps, sea anemones, jellyfish) and the collagenous cuticle of annelids. The outer epithelial layer may include cells of several types including sensory cells, gland cells and stinging cells. There may also be protrusions such as microvilli, cilia, bristles, spines and tubercles. 

=== Arthropod anatomy ===

Arthropods comprise the largest phylum in the animal kingdom with over a million known invertebrate species. Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia 2007 

Insects possess segmented bodies supported by a hard-jointed outer covering, the exoskeleton, made mostly of chitin. The segments of the body are organized into three distinct parts, a head, a thorax and an abdomen. The head typically bears a pair of sensory antennae, a pair of compound eyes, one to three simple eyes (ocelli) and three sets of modified appendages that form the mouthparts. The thorax has three pairs of segmented legs, one pair each for the three segments that compose the thorax and one or two pairs of wings. The abdomen is composed of eleven segments, some of which may be fused and houses the digestive, respiratory, excretory and reproductive systems. There is considerable variations between species and many adaptations to the body parts, especially wings, legs, antennae and mouthparts. 

== Other branches of anatomy ==
* Superficial or surface anatomy is important as the study of anatomical landmarks that can be readily seen from the exterior contours of the body. It enables physicians or veterinary surgeons to gauge the position and anatomy of the associated deeper structures. Superficial is a directional term that indicates that structures are located relatively close to the surface of the body. 
* Comparative anatomy relates to the comparison of anatomical structures (both gross and microscopic) in different animals. 
* Artistic anatomy relates to anatomic studies for artistic reasons.

== History ==

=== Ancient ===
In 1600 BCE, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Ancient Egyptian medical text, described the heart, its vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder, and showed the blood vessels diverging from the heart. The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) features a "treatise on the heart", with vessels carrying all the body's fluids to or from every member of the body. 

The anatomy of the muscles and skeleton is described in the Hippocratic Corpus, an Ancient Greek medical work written by unknown authors. Aristotle described vertebrate anatomy based on animal dissection. Praxagoras identified the difference between arteries and veins. Also in the 4th century BCE, Herophilos and Erasistratus produced more accurate anatomical descriptions based on vivisection of criminals in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic dynasty. "Alexandrian Medicine". Antiqua Medicina – from Homer to Vesalius. University of Virginia. 

In the 2nd century, Galen of Pergamum, an anatomist, clinician, writer and philosopher, wrote the final and highly influential anatomy treatise of ancient times. He compiled existing knowledge and studied anatomy through dissection of animals. He was one of the first experimental physiologists through his vivisection experiments on animals. Brock, Arthur John (translator) Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Edinburgh, 1916. Introduction, page xxxiii. Galen's drawings, based mostly on dog anatomy, became effectively the only anatomical textbook for the next thousand years. His work was known to Renaissance doctors only through Islamic Golden Age medicine until it was translated from the Greek some time in the 15th century. 

=== Medieval to early modern ===
Engraving from a picture by Tintoretto of Andreas Vesalius, about 1540
Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt – Anatomy lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer, 1617
Anatomy developed little from classical times until the sixteenth century; as the historian Marie Boas writes, "Progress in anatomy before the sixteenth century is as mysteriously slow as its development after 1500 is startlingly rapid". Between 1275 and 1326, the anatomists Mondino de Luzzi, Alessandro Achillini and Antonio Benivieni at Bologna carried out the first systematic human dissections since ancient times. Mondino's Anatomy of 1316 was the first textbook in the medieval rediscovery of human anatomy. It describes the body in the order followed in Mondino's dissections, starting with the abdomen, then the thorax, then the head and limbs. It was the standard anatomy textbook for the next century. 

Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) (Latinized from Andries van Wezel), professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, is considered the founder of modern human anatomy. Originally from Brabant, Vesalius published the influential book De humani corporis fabrica ("the structure of the human body"), a large format book in seven volumes, in 1543. Vesalius, Andreas. De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. Basileae : Ex officina Joannis Oporini, 1543. The accurate and intricately detailed illustrations, often in allegorical poses against Italianate landscapes, are thought to have been made by the artist Jan van Calcar, a pupil of Titian. O'Malley, C.D. Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. 

The artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was trained in anatomy by Andrea del Verrocchio. He made use of his anatomical knowledge in his artwork, making many sketches of skeletal structures, muscles and organs of humans and other vertebrates that he dissected. 

In England, anatomy was the subject of the first public lectures given in any science; these were given by the Company of Barbers and Surgeons in the 16th century, joined in 1583 by the Lumleian lectures in surgery at the Royal College of Physicians. 

=== Late modern ===

In the United States, medical schools began to be set up towards the end of the 18th century. Classes in anatomy needed a continual stream of cadavers for dissection and these were difficult to obtain. Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York were all renowned for body snatching activity as criminals raided graveyards at night, removing newly buried corpses from their coffins. A similar problem existed in Britain where demand for bodies became so great that grave-raiding and even anatomy murder were practised to obtain cadavers. Rosner, Lisa. 2010. The Anatomy Murders. Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh's Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes. University of Pennsylvania Press Some graveyards were in consequence protected with watchtowers. The practice was halted in Britain by the Anatomy Act of 1832, while in the United States, similar legislation was enacted after the physician William S. Forbes of Jefferson Medical College was found guilty in 1882 of "complicity with resurrectionists in the despoliation of graves in Lebanon Cemetery". 

The teaching of anatomy in Britain was transformed by Sir John Struthers, Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen from 1863 to 1889. He was responsible for setting up the system of three years of "pre-clinical" academic teaching in the sciences underlying medicine, including especially anatomy. This system lasted until the reform of medical training in 1993 and 2003. As well as teaching, he collected many vertebrate skeletons for his museum of comparative anatomy, published over 70 research papers, and became famous for his public dissection of the Tay Whale. From 1822 the Royal College of Surgeons regulated the teaching of anatomy in medical schools. McLachlan, J. & Patten, D. 2006. Anatomy teaching: ghosts of the past, present and future. Medical Education, 40(3), p.243-53. Medical museums provided examples in comparative anatomy, and were often used in teaching. Reinarz, J. 2005. The age of museum medicine: The rise and fall of the medical museum at Birmingham's School of Medicine. Social History of Medicine, 18(3), p. 419-37. Ignaz Semmelweis investigated puerperal fever and he discovered how it was caused. He noticed that the frequently fatal fever occurred more often in mothers examined by medical students than by midwives. The students went from the dissecting room to the hospital ward and examined women in childbirth. Semmelweis showed that when the trainees washed their hands in chlorinated lime before each clinical examination, the incidence of puerperal fever among the mothers could be reduced dramatically. 
An electron microscope from 1973
Before the era of modern medical procedures, the main means for studying the internal structure of the body were palpation and dissection. It was the advent of microscopy that opened up an understanding of the building blocks that constituted living tissues. Technical advances in the development of achromatic lenses increased the resolving power of the microscope and around 1839, Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann identified that cells were the fundamental unit of organization of all living things. Study of small structures involved passing light through them and the microtome was invented to provide sufficiently thin slices of tissue to examine. Staining techniques using artificial dyes were established to help distinguish between different types of tissue. The fields of cytology and histology developed from here in the late 19th century. The invention of the electron microscope brought a great advance in resolution power and allowed research into the ultrastructure of cells and the organelles and other structures within them. About the same time, in the 1950s, the use of X-ray diffraction for studying the crystal structures of proteins, nucleic acids and other biological molecules gave rise to a new field of molecular anatomy. 

Short wavelength electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays can be passed through the body and are used in medical radiography to view interior structures which have different degrees of opaqueness. Nowadays, modern techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, fluoroscopy and ultrasound imaging have enabled researchers and practitioners to examine organs, living or dead, in unprecedented detail. They are used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and provide information on the internal structures and organs of the body to a degree far beyond the imagination of earlier generations. 

== See also ==
* Acland's Video Atlas of Human Anatomy
* American Association of Anatomists
* Anatomical terminology
* Anatomical terms of location
* Anatomical terms of motion
* Foundational Model of Anatomy
* List of human anatomical features
* List of human anatomical parts named after people
* Outline of human anatomy
* Human body

== Notes ==

== Bibliography ==

Main article: Bibliography of anatomy
* "Anatomy of the Human Body". 20th edition. 1918. Henry Gray

== External links ==

* 
* Anatomy, In Our Time. BBC Radio 4. Melvin Bragg with guests Ruth Richardson, Andrew Cunningham and Harold Ellis.

 

[[Affirming the consequent]]

Affirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error or fallacy of the converse, is a formal fallacy of inferring the converse from the original statement. The corresponding argument has the general form:

#If P, then Q.
#Q.
#Therefore, P.

An argument of this form is invalid, i.e., the conclusion can be false even when statements 1 and 2 are true. Since P was never asserted as the only sufficient condition for Q, other factors could account for Q (while P was false). 

To put it differently, if P implies Q, the only inference that can be made is non-Q implies non-P. (Non-P and non-Q designate the opposite propositions to P and Q.) This is known as logical contraposition. Symbolically:

The name affirming the consequent derives from the premise Q, which affirms the "then" clause of the conditional premise.

==Examples==
One way to demonstrate the invalidity of this argument form is with a counterexample with true premises but an obviously false conclusion. For example:

:If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox, then he is rich.
:Bill Gates is rich.
:Therefore, Bill Gates owns Fort Knox.

Owning Fort Knox is not the only way to be rich. Any number of other ways exist to be rich.

However, one can affirm with certainty that "if Bill Gates is not rich" (non-Q) then "Bill Gates does not own Fort Knox" (non-P). This is the contrapositive of the first statement, and it must be true if the original statement is true.

Arguments of the same form can sometimes seem superficially convincing, as in the following example:

:If I have the flu, then I have a sore throat.
:I have a sore throat.
:Therefore, I have the flu.

But having the flu is not the only cause of a sore throat since many illnesses cause sore throat, such as the common cold or strep throat.

==See also==
*Confusion of the inverse
*Denying the antecedent
*ELIZA effect
*Fallacy of the single cause
*Fallacy of the undistributed middle
*Inference to the best explanation
*Modus ponens
*Modus tollens
*Post hoc ergo propter hoc

==References==



[[Andrei Tarkovsky]]

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director.

Tarkovsky's films include Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, The Mirror, and Stalker. He directed the first five of his seven feature films in the Soviet Union; his last two films, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, were produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively. His work is characterized by spirituality and metaphysical themes, long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure, and distinctively authored use of cinematography. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest film-makers of all time. Ingmar Bergman said of Tarkovsky: Title quote of 2003 Tarkovsky Festival Program, Pacific Film Archive 

==Life==

===Childhood and early life===
Tarkovsky was born in the village of Zavrazhye in the Yuryevetsky District of the Ivanovo Industrial Oblast to poet and translator Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky, native of Kirovohrad, Ukraine; and Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova, a graduate of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. Andrei's grandfather Aleksander Tarkowski was a Polish nobleman who worked as a bank clerk.

Tarkovsky spent his childhood in Yuryevets. He was described by childhood friends as active and popular, having many friends and being typically in the center of action. In 1937, his father left the family, subsequently volunteering for the army in 1941. Tarkovsky stayed with his mother, moving with her and his sister Marina to Moscow, where she worked as a proofreader at a printing press. In 1939, Tarkovsky enrolled at the Moscow School № 554. During the war, the three evacuated to Yuryevets, living with his maternal grandmother. In 1943, the family returned to Moscow. Tarkovsky continued his studies at his old school, where the poet Andrey Voznesensky was one of his class-mates. He studied piano at a music school and attended classes at an art school. The family lived on Shshipok Street in the Zamoskvorechye District in Moscow. From November 1947 to Spring 1948 he was in the hospital with tuberculosis. Many themes of his childhood – the evacuation, his mother and her two children, the withdrawn father, the time in the hospital – feature prominently in his film The Mirror.

Following high school graduation, from 1951 to 1952, Tarkovsky studied Arabic at the Oriental Institute in Moscow, a branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Although he already spoke some Arabic and was a successful student in his first semesters, he did not finish his studies and dropped out to work as a prospector for the Academy of Science Institute for Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. He participated in a year-long research expedition to the river Kureikye near Turukhansk in the Krasnoyarsk Province. During this time in the Taiga Tarkovsky decided to study film.

===Film school student===
Upon returning from the research expedition in 1954, Tarkovsky applied at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and was admitted to the film directing program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush whom he married in April 1957. 

The early Khrushchev era offered unique opportunities for young film directors. Before 1953, annual film production was low and most films were directed by veteran directors. After 1953, more films were produced, many of them by young directors. The Khrushchev Thaw relaxed Soviet social restrictions a bit and permitted a limited influx of European and North American literature, films and music. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of the Italian neorealists, French New Wave, and of directors such as Kurosawa, Buñuel, Bergman, Bresson, Andrzej Wajda (whose film Ashes and Diamonds influenced Tarkovsky) and Mizoguchi. Tarkovsky absorbed the idea of the auteur as a necessary condition for creativity.

Tarkovsky's teacher and mentor was Mikhail Romm, who taught many film students who would later become influential film directors. In 1956, Tarkovsky directed his first student short film, The Killers, from a short story of Ernest Hemingway. The short film There Will Be No Leave Today and the screenplay Concentrate followed in 1958 and 1959.

An important influence on Tarkovsky was the film director Grigori Chukhrai, who was teaching at the V.G.I.K. Impressed by the talent of his student, Chukhrai offered Tarkovsky a position as assistant director for his film Clear Skies. Tarkovsky initially showed interest but then decided to concentrate on his studies and his own projects. 

During his third year at the V.G.I.K., Tarkovsky met Andrei Konchalovsky. They found much in common as they liked the same film directors and shared ideas on cinema and films. In 1959, they wrote the script Antarctica – Distant Country, which was later published in the Moskovskij Komsomolets. Tarkovsky submitted the script to Lenfilm, but it was rejected. They were more successful with the script The Steamroller and the Violin, which they sold to Mosfilm. This became Tarkovsky's graduation project, earning him his diploma in 1960 and winning First Prize at the New York Student Film Festival in 1961.

==Career==

===Film career in the Soviet Union===
Tarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He had inherited the film from director Eduard Abalov, who had to abort the project. The film earned Tarkovsky international acclaim and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1962. In the same year, on 30 September, his first son Arseny (called Senka in Tarkovsky's diaries) Tarkovsky was born.
Monument to Andrei Tarkovsky at entrance of Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography
In 1965, he directed the film Andrei Rublev about the life of Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter. Andrei Rublev was not immediately released after completion due to problems with Soviet authorities. Tarkovsky had to cut the film several times, resulting in several different versions of varying lengths. A version of the film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and won the FIPRESCI prize. The film was officially released in the Soviet Union in a cut version in 1971.

He divorced his wife, Irma Raush, in June 1970. In the same year, he married Larissa Kizilova (née Egorkina), who had been a production assistant for the film Andrei Rublev (they had been living together since 1965). Their son, Andrei Andreyevich Tarkovsky, was born in the same year on 7 August. 
 

In 1972, he completed Solaris, an adaptation of the novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem. He had worked on this together with screen-writer Fridrikh Gorenshtein as early as 1968. The film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival, won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury and the FIPRESCI prize, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. From 1973 to 1974, he shot the film The Mirror, a highly autobiographical and unconventionally structured film drawing on his childhood and incorporating some of his father's poems. Tarkovsky had worked on the screenplay for this film since 1967, under the consecutive titles Confession, White day and A white, white day. From the beginning the film was not well received by Soviet authorities due to its content and its perceived elitist nature. Russian authorities placed the film in the "third category," a severely limited distribution, and only allowed it to be shown in third-class cinemas and workers' clubs. Few prints were made and the film-makers received no returns. Third category films also placed the film-makers in danger of being accused of wasting public funds, which could have serious effects on their future productivity. Marshall, Herbert. Sight and Sound. Vol 45, no 2. Spring 1976. p. 93. These difficulties are presumed to have made Tarkovsky play with the idea of going abroad and producing a film outside the Soviet film industry. 

During 1975, Tarkovsky also worked on the screenplay Hoffmanniana, about the German writer and poet E. T. A. Hoffmann. In December 1976, he directed Hamlet, his only stage play, at the Lenkom Theatre in Moscow. The main role was played by Anatoly Solonitsyn, who also acted in several of Tarkovsky's films. At the end of 1978, he also wrote the screenplay Sardor together with the writer Aleksandr Misharin.

The last film Tarkovsky completed in the Soviet Union was Stalker, inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Tarkovsky had met the brothers first in 1971 and was in contact with them until his death in 1986. Initially he wanted to shoot a film based on their novel Dead Mountaineer's Hotel and he developed a raw script. Influenced by a discussion with Arkady Strugatsky he changed his plan and began to work on the script based on Roadside Picnic. Work on this film began in 1976. The production was mired in troubles; improper development of the negatives had ruined all the exterior shots. Tarkovsky's relationship with cinematographer Georgy Rerberg deteriorated to the point where he hired Alexander Knyazhinsky as a new first cinematographer. Furthermore, Tarkovsky suffered a heart attack in April 1978, resulting in further delay. The film was completed in 1979 and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

In the same year Tarkovsky also began the production of the film The First Day (Russian: Первый День Pervyj Dyen′), based on a script by his friend and long-term collaborator Andrei Konchalovsky. The film was set in 18th-century Russia during the reign of Peter the Great and starred Natalya Bondarchuk and Anatoli Papanov. To get the project approved by Goskino, Tarkovsky submitted a script that was different from the original script, omitting several scenes that were critical of the official atheism in the Soviet Union. After shooting roughly half of the film the project was stopped by Goskino after it became apparent that the film differed from the script submitted to the censors. Tarkovsky was reportedly infuriated by this interruption and destroyed most of the film. 

===Film career outside the Soviet Union===
During the summer of 1979, Tarkovsky traveled to Italy, where he shot the documentary Voyage in Time together with his long-time friend Tonino Guerra. Tarkovsky returned to Italy in 1980 for an extended trip during which he and Guerra completed the script for the film Nostalghia. During 1981 he traveled to the United Kingdom and Sweden. During his trip to Sweden he had considered defecting from the Soviet Union, but ultimately decided to return because of his wife and his son.

Tarkovsky returned to Italy in 1982 to start shooting Nostalghia. He did not return to his home country. As Mosfilm withdrew from the project, he had to complete the film with financial support provided by the Italian RAI. Tarkovsky completed the film in 1983. Nostalghia was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Tarkovsky also shared a special prize called Grand Prix du cinéma de creation with Robert Bresson. Soviet authorities prevented the film from winning the Palme d'Or, a fact that hardened Tarkovsky's resolve to never work in the Soviet Union again. In the same year, he also staged the opera Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House in London under the musical direction of Claudio Abbado.

He spent most of 1984 preparing the film The Sacrifice. At a press conference in Milan on 10 July 1984, he announced that he would never return to the Soviet Union and would remain in Europe. At that time, his son Andrei Jr. was still in the Soviet Union and not allowed to leave the country.

During 1985, he shot the film The Sacrifice in Sweden. At the end of the year he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In January 1986, he began treatment in Paris and was joined there by his son, who was finally allowed to leave the Soviet Union. The Sacrifice was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and received the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, the FIPRESCI prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. As Tarkovsky was unable to attend due to his illness, the prizes were collected by his son, Andrei Jr.
Andrei and Larisa Tarkovsky's grave, Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery in France
In Tarkovsky's last Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986|diary] entry (15 December 1986), he wrote: "But now I have no strength left – that is the problem". The diaries are sometimes also known as Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986|Martyrolog] and were published posthumously in 1989 and in English in 1991.

Tarkovsky died in Paris on 29 December 1986. His funeral ceremony was held at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. He was buried on 3 January 1987 in the Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in France. The inscription on his gravestone, which was created by the Russian sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, reads: To the man who saw the Angel.

A controversy emerged in Russia in the early 1990s when it was alleged that Tarkovsky did not die of natural causes but was assassinated by the KGB. Evidence for this hypothesis includes testimonies by former KGB agents who claim that Viktor Chebrikov gave the order to eradicate Tarkovsky to curtail what the Soviet government and the KGB saw as anti-Soviet propaganda by Tarkovsky. Other evidence includes several memoranda that surfaced after the 1991 coup and the claim by one of Tarkovsky's doctors that his cancer could not have developed from a natural cause. Komsolmoskaya Pravda, "New Tarkovsky documents surface", 15. September 1995, page 23. 

As Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa Tarkovskaya and actor Anatoli Solonitsyn all died from the very same type of lung cancer, Vladimir Sharun, sound designer in Stalker, is convinced that they were all poisoned when shooting the film near a chemical plant. 

===Filmography===

Tarkovsky is mainly known as a film director. During his career he directed only seven feature films, as well as three shorts from his time at V.G.I.K. He also wrote several screenplays. He furthermore directed the play Hamlet for the stage in Moscow, directed the opera Boris Godunov in London, and he directed a radio production of the short story Turnabout by William Faulkner. He also wrote Sculpting in Time, a book on film theory. "Sculpting In Time" Dialogue Talk. 

Tarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He then directed Andrei Rublev in 1966, Solaris in 1972, The Mirror in 1975 and Stalker in 1979. The documentary Voyage in Time was produced in Italy in 1982, as was Nostalghia in 1983. His last film The Sacrifice was produced in Sweden in 1986. Tarkovsky was personally involved in writing the screenplays for all his films, sometimes with a cowriter. Tarkovsky once said that a director who realizes somebody else's screenplay without being involved in it becomes a mere illustrator, resulting in dead and monotonous films. 

===Awards===

Numerous awards were bestowed on Tarkovsky throughout his lifetime. At the Venice Film Festival he was awarded the Golden Lion for Ivan's Childhood. At the Cannes Film Festival, he won the FIPRESCI prize four times, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury three times (more than any other director), and the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury twice. He was also nominated for the Palme d'Or two times. In 1987, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film to The Sacrifice.
Russian stamp featuring Tarkovsky
Under the influence of Glasnost and Perestroika, Tarkovsky was finally recognized in the Soviet Union in the Autumn of 1986, shortly before his death, by a retrospective of his films in Moscow. After his death, an entire issue of the film magazine Iskusstvo Kino was devoted to Tarkovsky. In their obituaries, the film committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Union of Soviet Film Makers expressed their sorrow that Tarkovsky had to spend the last years of his life in exile. 

Posthumously, he was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1990, one of the highest state honors in the Soviet Union. In 1989 the Andrei Tarkovsky Memorial Prize was established, with its first recipient being the Russian animator Yuriy Norshteyn. Since 1993, the Moscow International Film Festival awards the annual Andrei Tarkovsky Award. In 1996 the Andrei Tarkovsky Museum opened in Yuryevets, his childhood town. A minor planet, 3345 Tarkovskij, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, has also been named after him. 

Tarkovsky has been the subject of several documentaries. Most notable is the 1988 documentary Moscow Elegy, by Russian film director Alexander Sokurov. Sokurov's own work has been heavily influenced by Tarkovsky. The film consists mostly of narration over stock footage from Tarkovsky's films. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is 1988 documentary film by Michal Leszczylowski, an editor of the film The Sacrifice. Film director Chris Marker produced the television documentary One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich as an homage to Andrei Tarkovsky in 2000. 

Ingmar Bergman was quoted as saying: "Tarkovsky for me is the greatest us all, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream". Film historian Steven Dillon claims that much of subsequent film was deeply influenced by the films of Tarkovsky. 

At the entrance to the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow, Russia there is a monument that includes statues of Tarkovsky, Gennady Shpalikov and Vasily Shukshin. Panoramio – Photo of Monument to Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography famous learner – Gennady Shpalikov, Andrei Tarkovsky and Vasily Shukshin 

==Influences==
Tarkovsky became a film director during the mid and late 1950s, a period referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw, during which Soviet society opened to foreign films, literature and music, among other things. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of European, American and Japanese directors, an experience which influenced his own film making. His teacher and mentor at the film school, Mikhail Romm, allowed his students considerable freedom and emphasized the independence of the film director.

Tarkovsky was, according to Shavkat Abdusalmov, a fellow student at the film school, fascinated by Japanese films. He was amazed by how every character on the screen is exceptional and how everyday events such as a Samurai cutting bread with his sword are elevated to something special and put into the limelight. Tarkovsky has also expressed interest in the art of Haiku and its ability to create "images in such a way that they mean nothing beyond themselves." Tarkovsky, Andrei. Sculpting in Time. Trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2003. 

In 1972, Tarkovsky told film historian Leonid Kozlov his ten favorite films. The list includes: Diary of a Country Priest and Mouchette, by Robert Bresson; Winter Light, Wild Strawberries and Persona, by Ingmar Bergman; Nazarín, by Luis Buñuel; City Lights, by Charlie Chaplin; Ugetsu, by Kenji Mizoguchi; Seven Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa, and Woman in the Dunes, by Hiroshi Teshigahara. Among his favorite directors were Buñuel, Mizoguchi, Bergman, Bresson, Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean Vigo, and Carl Theodor Dreyer. 

With the exception of City Lights, the list does not contain any films of the early silent era. The reason is that Tarkovsky saw film as an art as only a relatively recent phenomenon, with the early film-making forming only a prelude. The list has also no films or directors from Tarkovsky's native Russia, although he rated Soviet directors such as Boris Barnet, Sergei Paradjanov and Alexander Dovzhenko highly.

Although strongly opposed to commercial cinema, in a famous exception Tarkovsky praised the blockbuster film The Terminator, saying its "vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art". He was critical of the "brutality and low acting skills", but nevertheless impressed by this film. 

==Cinematic style==
Tarkovsky's films are characterized by metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, and memorable images of exceptional beauty. Recurring motifs are dreams, memory, childhood, running water accompanied by fire, rain indoors, reflections, levitation, and characters re-appearing in the foreground of long panning movements of the camera. He once said, “Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.”

Tarkovsky included levitation scenes into several of his films, most notably Solaris. To him these scenes possess great power and are used for their photogenic value and magical inexplicability. 

Water, clouds, and reflections were used by him for their surreal beauty and photogenic value, as well as their symbolism, such as waves or the forms of brooks or running water. 

Bells and candles are also frequent symbols. These are symbols of film, sight and sound, and Tarkovsky's film frequently has themes of self-reflection.

Tarkovsky developed a theory of cinema that he called "sculpting in time". By this he meant that the unique characteristic of cinema as a medium was to take our experience of time and alter it. Unedited movie footage transcribes time in real time. By using long takes and few cuts in his films, he aimed to give the viewers a sense of time passing, time lost, and the relationship of one moment in time to another.

Up to, and including, his film The Mirror, Tarkovsky focused his cinematic works on exploring this theory. After The Mirror, he announced that he would focus his work on exploring the dramatic unities proposed by Aristotle: a concentrated action, happening in one place, within the span of a single day.

Several of Tarkovsky's films have color or black and white sequences. This first occurs in the otherwise monochrome Andrei Rublev, which features a color epilogue of Rublev's authentic religious icon paintings. All of his films afterwards contain monochrome, and in Stalker's case sepia sequences, while otherwise being in color. In 1966, in an interview conducted shortly after finishing Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky dismissed color film as a "commercial gimmick" and cast doubt on the idea that contemporary films meaningfully use color. He claimed that in everyday life one does not consciously notice colors most of the time, and that color should therefore be used in film mainly to emphasize certain moments, but not all the time, as this distracts the viewer. To him, films in color were like moving paintings or photographs, which are too beautiful to be a realistic depiction of life. 

===Vadim Yusov===
Tarkovsky worked in close collaboration with cinematographer Vadim Yusov from 1958 to 1972, and much of the visual style of Tarkovsky's films can be attributed to this collaboration. List of Noted Film Director And Cinematographer Collaborations: Andrei Tarkovsky Vadim Yusov, Museum of Learning. Tarkovsky would spend two days preparing for Yusov to film a single long take, and due to the preparation, usually only a single take was needed. The films of Andrei Tarkovsky: a visual fugue By Vida T. Johnson, Graham Petrie, p. 79. 

===Sven Nykvist===
In his last film, The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky worked with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who had worked closely with director Ingmar Bergman on many of Ingmar Bergman's films – multiple people who worked with Bergman worked on the production, notably lead actor Erland Josephson, who had acted for Tarkovsky in Nostalghia. Nykvist complained that Tarkovsky would frequently look through the camera and even direct actors through it. 

== Films about Tarkovsky ==
* Voyage in Time (1983): documents the travels in Italy of Andrei Tarkovsky in preparation for the making of his film Nostalghia, Tonino Guerra.
* Tarkovsky: A Poet in the Cinema (1984): directed by Donatella Baglivo
* Ebbo Demant (1988): Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit.Andrej Tarkowskijs Exil und Tod. Documentary. Germany.
* One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999): French documentary film directed by Chris Marker

==References==

==Bibliography==

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==External links==

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* Andrei Tarkovsky at Senses of Cinema
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* Website about Andrei Tarkovsky, Films, Articles, Interviews.

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[[Ambiguity]]

Sir John Tenniel's illustration of the Caterpillar for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is noted for its ambiguous central figure, whose head can be viewed as being a human male's face with a pointed nose and pointy chin or being the head end of an actual caterpillar, with the first two right "true" legs visible. "And do you see its long nose and chin? At least, they look exactly like a nose and chin, that is don't they? But they really are two of its legs. You know a Caterpillar has got quantities of legs: you can see more of them, further down." Carroll, Lewis. The Nursery "Alice". Dover Publications (1966), p 27. 
 
Ambiguity is an attribute of any concept, idea, statement or claim whose meaning, intention or interpretation cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process consisting of a finite number of steps.

The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately apparent), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity.

Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity. For example, the same piece of information may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another.

== Linguistic forms ==
Structural analysis of an ambiguous Spanish sentence: Pepe vio a Pablo enfurecidoInterpretation 1: When Pepe was angry, then he saw PabloInterpretation 2: Pepe saw that Pablo was angry.Here, the syntactic tree in figure represents interpretation 2.

The lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase pertains to its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs. "Meaning" here refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary. For instance, the word "bank" has several distinct lexical definitions, including "financial institution" and "edge of a river". Another example is as in "apothecary". One could say "I bought herbs from the apothecary". This could mean one actually spoke to the apothecary (pharmacist) or went to the apothecary (pharmacy).

The context in which an ambiguous word is used often makes it evident which of the meanings is intended. If, for instance, someone says "I buried $100 in the bank", most people would not think someone used a shovel to dig in the mud. However, some linguistic contexts do not provide sufficient information to disambiguate a used word. For example,

Lexical ambiguity can be addressed by algorithmic methods that automatically associate the appropriate meaning with a word in context, a task referred to as word sense disambiguation.

The use of multi-defined words requires the author or speaker to clarify their context, and sometimes elaborate on their specific intended meaning (in which case, a less ambiguous term should have been used). The goal of clear concise communication is that the receiver(s) have no misunderstanding about what was meant to be conveyed. An exception to this could include a politician whose "weasel words" and obfuscation are necessary to gain support from multiple constituents with mutually exclusive conflicting desires from their candidate of choice. Ambiguity is a powerful tool of political science.

More problematic are words whose senses express closely related concepts. "Good", for example, can mean "useful" or "functional" (That's a good hammer), "exemplary" (She's a good student), "pleasing" (This is good soup), "moral" (a good person versus the lesson to be learned from a story), "righteous", etc. " I have a good daughter" is not clear about which sense is intended. The various ways to apply prefixes and suffixes can also create ambiguity ("unlockable" can mean "capable of being unlocked" or "impossible to lock").

Syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can have two (or more) different meanings because of the structure of the sentence—its syntax. This is often due to a modifying expression, such as a prepositional phrase, the application of which is unclear. "He ate the cookies on the couch", for example, could mean that he ate those cookies that were on the couch (as opposed to those that were on the table), or it could mean that he was sitting on the couch when he ate the cookies. "To get in, you will need an entrance fee of $10 or your voucher and your drivers' license." This could mean that you need EITHER ten dollars OR BOTH your voucher and your license. Or it could mean that you need EITHER ten dollars OR a voucher AND you also need your license. Only rewriting the sentence, or placing appropriate punctuation can resolve a syntactic ambiguity. Critical Thinking, 10th ed., Ch 3, Moore, Brooke N. and Parker, Richard. McGraw-Hill, 2012 
For the notion of, and theoretic results about, syntactic ambiguity in artificial, formal languages (such as computer programming languages), see Ambiguous grammar.

Spoken language can contain many more types of ambiguities, where there is more than one way to compose a set of sounds into words, for example "ice cream" and "I scream". Such ambiguity is generally resolved according to the context. A mishearing of such, based on incorrectly resolved ambiguity, is called a mondegreen.

Semantic ambiguity happens when a sentence contains an ambiguous word or phrase—a word or phrase that has more than one meaning. In "We saw her duck" (example due to Richard Nordquist), the word "duck" can refer either
# to the person's bird (the noun "duck", modified by the possessive pronoun "her"), or
# to a motion she made (the verb "duck", the subject of which is the objective pronoun "her", object of the verb "saw"). 

For example, "You could do with a new automobile. How about a test drive?" The clause "You could do with" presents a statement with such wide possible interpretation as to be essentially meaningless. Lexical ambiguity is contrasted with semantic ambiguity. The former represents a choice between a finite number of known and meaningful context-dependent interpretations. The latter represents a choice between any number of possible interpretations, none of which may have a standard agreed-upon meaning. This form of ambiguity is closely related to vagueness.

Linguistic ambiguity can be a problem in law, because the interpretation of written documents and oral agreements is often of paramount importance.

==Intentional application==
Philosophers (and other users of logic) spend a lot of time and effort searching for and removing (or intentionally adding) ambiguity in arguments, because it can lead to incorrect conclusions and can be used to deliberately conceal bad arguments. For example, a politician might say "I oppose taxes which hinder economic growth", an example of a glittering generality. Some will think he opposes taxes in general, because they hinder economic growth. Others may think he opposes only those taxes that he believes will hinder economic growth. In writing, the sentence can be rewritten to reduce possible misinterpretation, either by adding a comma after "taxes" (to convey the first sense) or by changing "which" to "that" (to convey the second sense), or by rewriting it in other ways. The devious politician hopes that each constituent will interpret the statement in the most desirable way, and think the politician supports everyone's opinion. However, the opposite can also be true - An opponent can turn a positive statement into a bad one, if the speaker uses ambiguity (intentionally or not). The logical fallacies of amphiboly and equivocation rely heavily on the use of ambiguous words and phrases.

In Continental philosophy (particularly phenomenology and existentialism), there is much greater tolerance of ambiguity, as it is generally seen as an integral part of the human condition. Martin Heidegger argued that the relation between the subject and object is ambiguous, as is the relation of mind and body, and part and whole. Heidegger, Martin. "The Origin of the Work of Art". Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. NY: Harper Collins, 1971, pg. 18. In Heidegger's phenomenology, Dasein is always in a meaningful world, but there is always an underlying background for every instance of signification. Thus, although some things may be certain, they have little to do with Dasein's sense of care and existential anxiety, e.g., in the face of death. In calling his work Being and Nothingness an "essay in phenomenological ontology" Jean-Paul Sartre follows Heidegger in defining the human essence as ambiguous, or relating fundamentally to such ambiguity. Simone de Beauvoir tries to base an ethics on Heidegger's and Sartre's writings (The Ethics of Ambiguity), where she highlights the need to grapple with ambiguity: "as long as philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it...And the ethics which they have proposed to their disciples has always pursued the same goal. It has been a matter of eliminating the ambiguity by making oneself pure inwardness or pure externality, by escaping from the sensible world or being engulfed by it, by yielding to eternity or enclosing oneself in the pure moment.". de Beauvoir, Simone. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Trans. Bernard Frechtman. New York: Citadel Press, 1976 , pg. 8. Ethics cannot be based on the authoritative certainty given by mathematics and logic, or prescribed directly from the empirical findings of science. She states: "Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting". de Beauvoir, Ethics, pg. 9. Other continental philosophers suggest that concepts such as life, nature, and sex are ambiguous. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, An Introduction (Vol. 1). Trans Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. Recently, Corey Anton has argued that we cannot be certain what is separate from or unified with something else: language, he asserts, divides what is not in fact separate. Anton, Corey. Sources of Significance: Worldly Rejuvenation and Neo-Stoic Heroism. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2010, pg. 35-63. Following Ernest Becker, he argues that the desire to 'authoritatively disambiguate' the world and existence has led to numerous ideologies and historical events such as genocide. On this basis, he argues that ethics must focus on 'dialectically integrating opposites' and balancing tension, rather than seeking a priori validation or certainty. Like the existentialists and phenomenologists, he sees the ambiguity of life as the basis of creativity. 

In literature and rhetoric, ambiguity can be a useful tool. Groucho Marx's classic joke depends on a grammatical ambiguity for its humor, for example: "Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know". Songs and poetry often rely on ambiguous words for artistic effect, as in the song title "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" (where "blue" can refer to the color, or to sadness).

In narrative, ambiguity can be introduced in several ways: motive, plot, character. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the latter type of ambiguity with notable effect in his novel The Great Gatsby.

All religions debate the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of ambiguity. Christianity and Judaism employ the concept of paradox synonymously with 'ambiguity'. Ambiguity within Christianity (and other religions) is resisted by the conservatives and fundamentalists, who regard the concept as equating with 'contradiction'. Non-fundamentalist Christians and Jews endorse Rudolf Otto's description of the sacred as 'mysterium tremendum et fascinans', the awe-inspiring mystery which fascinates humans.

Metonymy involves the use of the name of a subcomponent part as an abbreviation, or jargon, for the name of the whole object (for example "wheels" to refer to a car, or "flowers" to refer to beautiful offspring, an entire plant, or a collection of blooming plants). In modern vocabulary critical semiotics, metonymy encompasses any potentially ambiguous word substitution that is based on contextual contiguity (located close together), or a function or process that an object performs, such as "sweet ride" to refer to a nice car. Metonym miscommunication is considered a primary mechanism of linguistic humour. Veale, Tony (2003): "Metaphor and Metonymy: The Cognitive Trump-Cards of Linguistic Humor" 

===Psychology and management===
In sociology and social psychology, the term "ambiguity" is used to indicate situations that involve uncertainty. An increasing amount of research is concentrating on how people react and respond to ambiguous situations. Much of this focuses on ambiguity tolerance. A number of correlations have been found between an individual's reaction and tolerance to ambiguity and a range of factors.

Apter and Desselles (2001) in Motivational Styles in Everyday life: A guide to reversal Theory. M.J. Apter (ed) (2001) APA Books for example, found a strong correlation with such attributes and factors like a greater preference for safe as opposed to risk-based sports, a preference for endurance-type activities as opposed to explosive activities, a more organized and less casual lifestyle, greater care and precision in descriptions, a lower sensitivity to emotional and unpleasant words, a less acute sense of humor, engaging a smaller variety of sexual practices than their more risk-comfortable colleagues, a lower likelihood of the use of drugs, pornography and drink, a greater likelihood of displaying obsessional behavior.

In the field of leadership, David Wilkinson (2006) Wilkinson, D.J. (2006) The Ambiguity Advantage: What great leaders are great at. New York Palgrave Macmillan. found strong correlations between an individual leader's reaction to ambiguous situations and the Modes of Leadership they use, the type of creativity, Kirton (2003) Kirton, M.J. (2003)Adaption-Innovation: In the Context of Diversity and Change. Routledge. and how they relate to others.

==Music==
In music, pieces or sections which confound expectations and may be or are interpreted simultaneously in different ways are ambiguous, such as some polytonality, polymeter, other ambiguous meters or rhythms, and ambiguous phrasing, or (Stein 2005, p. 79) any aspect of music. The music of Africa is often purposely ambiguous. To quote Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1935, p. 195), "Theorists are apt to vex themselves with vain efforts to remove uncertainty just where it has a high aesthetic value."

== Visual art ==
thumb
In visual art, certain images are visually ambiguous, such as the Necker cube, which can be interpreted in two ways. Perceptions of such objects remain stable for a time, then may flip, a phenomenon called multistable perception.
The opposite of such ambiguous images are impossible objects.

Pictures or photographs may also be ambiguous at the semantic level: the visual image is unambiguous, but the meaning and narrative may be ambiguous: is a certain facial expression one of excitement or fear, for instance?

==Constructed language==
Some languages have been created with the intention of avoiding ambiguity, especially lexical ambiguity. Lojban and Loglan are two related languages which have been created with this in mind, focusing chiefly on syntactic ambiguity as well. The languages can be both spoken and written. These languages are intended to provide a greater technical precision over big natural languages, although historically, such attempts at language improvement have been criticized. Languages composed from many diverse sources contain much ambiguity and inconsistency. The many exceptions to syntax and semantic rules are time-consuming and difficult to learn.

==Computer science==
In computer science, the SI prefixes kilo-, mega- and giga- are used ambiguously to mean either the first three powers of 1000 (1000, 10002 and 10003) or the first three powers of 1024 (1024, 10242 and 10243), respectively.

==Mathematical notation==
Mathematical notation, widely used in physics and other sciences, avoids many ambiguities compared to expression in natural language. However, for various reasons, several lexical, syntactic and semantic ambiguities remain.

===Names of functions===
The ambiguity in the style of writing a function should not be confused with a multivalued function, which can (and should) be defined in a deterministic and unambiguous way. Several special functions still do not have established notations. Usually, the conversion to another notation requires to scale the argument and/or the resulting value; sometimes, the same name of the function is used, causing confusions. Examples of such underestablished functions:
* Sinc function
* Elliptic integral of the third kind; translating elliptic integral form MAPLE to Mathematica, one should replace the second argument to its square, see ; dealing with complex values, this may cause problems.
* Exponential integral, 
* Hermite polynomial, 

===Expressions===
Ambiguous expressions often appear in physical and mathematical texts.
It is common practice to omit multiplication signs in mathematical expressions. Also, it is common to give the same name to a variable and a function, for example, . Then, if one sees , there is no way to distinguish whether it means multiplied by , or function evaluated at argument equal to . In each case of use of such notations, the reader is supposed to be able to perform the deduction and reveal the true meaning.

Creators of algorithmic languages try to avoid ambiguities. Many algorithmic languages (C++ and Fortran) require the character * as symbol of multiplication. The language Mathematica allows the user to omit the multiplication symbol, but requires square brackets to indicate the argument of a function; square brackets are not allowed for grouping of expressions. Fortran, in addition, does not allow use of the same name (identifier) for different objects, for example, function and variable; in particular, the expression f=f(x) is qualified as an error.

The order of operations may depend on the context. In most programming languages, the operations of division and multiplication have equal priority and are executed from left to right. Until the last century, many editorials assumed that multiplication is performed first, for example, is interpreted as ; in this case, the insertion of parentheses is required when translating the formulas to an algorithmic language. In addition, it is common to write an argument of a function without parenthesis, which also may lead to ambiguity.
Sometimes, one uses italics letters to denote elementary functions.
In the scientific journal style, the expression

means
product of variables
,
,
 and
, although in a slideshow, it may mean .

A comma in subscripts and superscripts sometimes is omitted; it is also ambiguous notation.
If it is written , the reader should guess from the context, does it mean a single-index object, evaluated while the subscript is equal to product of variables
, and , or it is indication to a trivalent tensor.
The writing of instead of may mean that the writer either is stretched in space (for example, to reduce the publication fees) or aims to increase number of publications without considering readers. The same may apply to any other use of ambiguous notations.

Subscripts are also used to denote the argument to a function, as in .

===Examples of potentially confusing ambiguous mathematical expressions ===
, which could be understood to mean either or . In addition, may mean , as means (see tetration).

, which by convention means , though it might be thought to mean , since means .

, which arguably should mean but would commonly be understood to mean .

===Notations in quantum optics and quantum mechanics===
It is common to define the coherent states in quantum optics with and states with fixed number of photons with . Then, there is an "unwritten rule": the state is coherent if there are more Greek characters than Latin characters in the argument, and photon state if the Latin characters dominate. The ambiguity becomes even worse, if is used for the states with certain value of the coordinate, and means the state with certain value of the momentum, which may be used in books on quantum mechanics. Such ambiguities easy lead to confusions, especially if some normalized adimensional, dimensionless variables are used. Expression may mean a state with single photon, or the coherent state with mean amplitude equal to 1, or state with momentum equal to unity, and so on. The reader is supposed to guess from the context.

===Ambiguous terms in physics and mathematics===
Some physical quantities do not yet have established notations; their value (and sometimes even dimension, as in the case of the Einstein coefficients), depends on the system of notations. Many terms are ambiguous. Each use of an ambiguous term should be preceded by the definition, suitable for a specific case. Just like Ludwig Wittgenstein states in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "... Only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning." 

A highly confusing term is gain. For example, the sentence "the gain of a system should be doubled", without context, means close to nothing.
It may mean that the ratio of the output voltage of an electric circuit to the input voltage should be doubled.
It may mean that the ratio of the output power of an electric or optical circuit to the input power should be doubled.
It may mean that the gain of the laser medium should be doubled, for example, doubling the population of the upper laser level in a quasi-two level system (assuming negligible absorption of the ground-state).

The term intensity is ambiguous when applied to light. The term can refer to any of irradiance, luminous intensity, radiant intensity, or radiance, depending on the background of the person using the term.

Also, confusions may be related with the use of atomic percent as measure of concentration of a dopant, or resolution of an imaging system, as measure of the size of the smallest detail which still can be resolved at the background of statistical noise. See also Accuracy and precision and its talk.

The Berry paradox arises as a result of systematic ambiguity in the meaning of terms such as "definable" or "nameable". Terms of this kind give rise to vicious circle fallacies. Other terms with this type of ambiguity are: satisfiable, true, false, function, property, class, relation, cardinal, and ordinal. Russell/Whitehead, Principia Mathematica 

==Mathematical interpretation of ambiguity==
thumb
In mathematics and logic, ambiguity can be considered to be an underdetermined system (of equations or logic) – for example, leaves open what the value of X is – while its opposite is a self-contradiction, also called inconsistency, paradoxicalness, or oxymoron, in an overdetermined system – such as , which has no solution – see also underdetermination.

Logical ambiguity and self-contradiction is analogous to visual ambiguity and impossible objects, such as the Necker cube and impossible cube, or many of the drawings of M. C. Escher. 

==Pedagogic use of ambiguous expressions==
Ambiguity can be used as a pedagogical trick, to force students to reproduce the deduction by themselves. Some textbooks 
 
give the same name to the function and to its Fourier transform:
:.
Rigorously speaking, such an expression requires that ;
even if function is a self-Fourier function, the expression should be written as
; however, it is assumed that
the shape of the function (and even its norm
) depend on the character used to denote its argument.
If the Greek letter is used, it is assumed to be a Fourier transform of another function,
The first function is assumed, if the expression in the argument contains more characters or , than characters , and the second function is assumed in the opposite case. Expressions like or contain symbols and in equal amounts; they are ambiguous and should be avoided in serious deduction.

==See also==

* Abbreviation
* Ambiguity tolerance
* Amphibology
* Decision problem
* Disambiguation
* Double entendre

* Essentially contested concept
* Fallacy
* Formal fallacy
* Golden hammer
* Informal fallacy

* Self reference
* Semantics
* Uncertainty
* Vagueness
* Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
* Word sense disambiguation

==References==

==External links==

* 
* 
* 
* Collection of Ambiguous or Inconsistent/Incomplete Statements
* Leaving out ambiguities when writing

 

[[Animal (disambiguation)]]

An animal is a multicellular, eukaryotic organism of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa

Animal or Animals may also refer to:

== Entertainment ==
=== Fictional characters ===
*Animal (Muppet), a drummer character in The Muppet Show band, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem
*Animal, nickname of a regular character in Takeshi's Castle, played by Brad Lesley

=== Movies ===
*Animal (1977 film), French film (L'Animal) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch
*Animal (2001 film), Argentine comedy film by Sergio Bizzio with Carlos Roffé
*The Animal, 2001 US comedy film featuring Rob Schneider
*Animals (film), a stand-up show written and performed by Ricky Gervais, filmed in 2003
*Animal (2005 film), US direct-to-video action drama film starring Ving Rhames and Terrance Howard
* The Animals (film), 2012 Filipino coming-of-age film by Gino M. Santos
*Animal, 2014 US horror film starring Keke Palmer

=== Music ===
==== Bands ====
* The Animals, a British rock band
* A.N.I.M.A.L., an Argentinian heavy metal band

==== ====
* Animal (Animosity album), 2007 release
* Animal (Kesha album), 2010 album by American pop singer Kesha
* Animal (Motor Ace album), a 2005 release
* Animal!, a 2008 album by Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
* Animals (Pink Floyd album), a 1977 concept album by Pink Floyd
* Animals (This Town Needs Guns album), a 2008 release
* The Animals (American album), 1964 album by The Animals
* The Animals (British album), 1964 album by The Animals
* Animal, 2008 album by Far East Movement
* Animal, a 1988 album by The Bar-Kays
* Animal, a 2009 album by the London-based electronic band autoKratz

==== Songs ====
* "Animal" (Conor Maynard song)
* "Animal" (Def Leppard song)
* "Animal" (Fuck Like a Beast)", by W.A.S.P.
* "Animal" (Jebediah song)
* "Animal" (Juvenile song)
* "Animal" (Kesha song)
* "Animal" (Miike Snow song)
* "Animal" (Neon Trees song)
* "Animal" (Pearl Jam song)
* "Animal" (R.E.M. song)
* "Animals" (Kevin Ayers song)
* "Animals" (Martin Garrix song)
* "Animals" (Nickelback song)
* "The Animal" (Disturbed song)
* "Animal", by Against Me! from New Wave (Against Me! album)
* "Animal", by Black Light Burns from Cruel Melody
* "Animal", by Ani DiFranco from Educated Guess
* "Animal", by Ellie Goulding from Lights (Ellie Goulding album) (Bright Lights)
* "Animal", by Karen O and the Kids from Where the Wild Things Are (soundtrack)
* "Animal", by The Kinks from To the Bone (The Kinks album)
* "Animal", by Mindless Self Indulgence from If (Mindless Self Indulgence album)
* "Animal", by Mudmen from Overrated
* "Animal", by Sunhouse from Crazy On The Weekend
* "Animals", by Muse from The 2nd Law
* "Animals", by CocoRosie from The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn
* "Animals", by Coldplay as one of the B-sides for "Clocks" (song)
* "Animals", by Dead Poetic from Vices (Dead Poetic album)
* "Animals", by The End from Elementary (album)
* "Animals", by Talking Heads from Fear of Music (album)
* "The Animal", by Steve Vai from Passion and Warfare

===Television===
* "Animals" (The Goodies), an episode of The Goodies
* "Animals", an episode of Men Behaving Badly
* "Animals", an episode of Off the Air
* "Animals", an episode of The Vicar of Dibley

=== Video games ===
*Animal (video game), a video game by Microtime

== People ==
*The Animal (nickname), a list of people nicknamed "The Animal" or "Animal"

=== Professional wrestlers ===
*George Steele (born 1937), nicknamed "The Animal"
*Road Warrior Animal (born 1960), the best-known ring persona of Joe Laurinaitis
*Animal Hamaguchi (born 1947), ring name of Japanese retired wrestler Heigo Hamaguchi 
*Dave Batista (born 1969), nicknamed "The Animal"

== Software ==
*ANIMAL, an early self-replicating computer program
*ANIMAL (image processing), an interactive software environment for image processing

== Publications ==
*Animal (journal), full title: Animal: An International Journal of Animal Bioscience, British academic journal
*Animal (book), full title Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to The World's WildLife, a 2003 non-fiction book by David Burnie and several co-authors

== Businesses ==
*Animal (clothing), a sportswear retailer and brand based in the United Kingdom
*Animal (restaurant), a restaurant based in Los Angeles, California, USA
*Animal Brewery XT Brewing Company, a UK based Micro-Brewery

== See also ==
*Animals, Animals, Animals, an American educational television series (1976-1981)
*Animalia (disambiguation), other uses of the term



[[Aardvark]]

The aardvark ( , Orycteropus afer) is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. As its name suggests, it resembles a pig with a long snout, which is used to sniff out food. It roams over most of the southern two-thirds of the continent, avoiding mainly rocky areas. A nocturnal feeder, it subsists on ants and termites, which it will dig out of their hills using its sharp claws and powerful legs. It also will utilize its digging ability to create burrows in which to live and rear its young. Even though its numbers seem to be decreasing, it receives a "least concern" rating from the IUCN.

==Naming and taxonomy==
It is sometimes colloquially called "African antbear", "anteater", or the "Cape anteater" after the Cape of Good Hope. The name comes from earlier Afrikaans (erdvark) and means "earth pig" or "ground pig" (aarde earth/ground, vark pig), because of its burrowing habits (similar origin to the name groundhog). The name Orycteropus means burrowing foot, and the name afer refers to Africa. The name of the aardvarks's order, Tubulidentata comes from the tubule style teeth. 

The aardvark is not closely related to the pig; rather, it is the sole extant representative of the obscure mammalian order Tubulidentata, in which it is usually considered to form one variable species of the genus Orycteropus, the sole surviving genus in the family Orycteropodidae. The aardvark is not closely related to the South American anteater, despite sharing some characteristics and a superficial resemblance. The similarities are based on convergent evolution. The closest living relatives of the aardvark are the elephant shrews, along with the sirenians, hyraxes, elephants, and tenrecs. With their extinct relatives, these animals form the superorder Afrotheria. Studies of the brain have shown the similarities with Condylarthra. The scientific name of the aardvark comes from Greek ορυκτερόπους (orykterópous) meaning "digging footed" and afer: from Africa.

Based on fossils, Bryan Patterson has concluded that early relatives of the aardvark appeared in Africa around the end of the Paleocene. Plesiorycteropus, from Madagascar separated itself early on, probably during the Eocene. The first known tubulidentate was probably Myorycteropus africanus from Kenyan Miocene deposits. The earliest example from the Orycteropus genus was the Orycteropus mauritanicus found in Algeria in deposits from the middle Miocene, with an equally aged version found in Kenya. Fossils from the aardvark have been dated to 5 million years, and have been located throughout Europe and the Near East. A close relative lived in Madagascar during the last ice age. 

===Subspecies===
The aardvark has seventeen poorly defined subspecies listed: 

* Orycteropus afer afer
* O. a. adametzi Grote, 1921
* O. a. aethiopicus Sundevall, 1843
* O. a. angolensis Zukowsky & Haltenorth, 1957
* O. a. erikssoni Lönnberg, 1906
* O. a. faradjius Hatt, 1932
* O. a. haussanus Matschie, 1900
* O. a. kordofanicus Rothschild, 1927
* O. a. lademanni Grote, 1911
* O. a. leptodon Hirst, 1906
* O. a. matschiei Grote, 1921
* O. a. observandus Grote, 1921
* O. a. ruvanensis Grote, 1921
* O. a. senegalensis Lesson, 1840
* O. a. somalicus Lydekker, 1908
* O. a. wardi Lydekker, 1908
* O. a. wertheri Matschie, 1898

==Description==
An aardvark skeleton and mounted specimen at the Natural History Museum of Genoa
The aardvark is vaguely pig-like in appearance. Its body is stout with a prominently arched back and is sparsely covered with coarse hairs. The limbs are of moderate length, with the rear legs being longer than the forelegs. The front feet have lost the pollex (or 'thumb'), resulting in four toes, while the rear feet have all five toes. Each toe bears a large, robust nail which is somewhat flattened and shovel-like, and appears to be intermediate between a claw and a hoof. Whereas the aardvark is considered digitigrade, it appears at time to be plantigrade. This confusion happens because when it squats it stands on its soles. 

An aardvark's weight is typically between 60 and(-). An aardvark's length is usually between 105 and(-), and can reach lengths of 2.2 m when its tail (which can be up to 70 cm) is taken into account. It is 60 cm tall at the shoulder, and has a girth of about 100 cm. It is the largest member of the proposed clade Afroinsectiphilia. The aardvark is pale yellowish-gray in color and often stained reddish-brown by soil. The aardvark's coat is thin, and the animal's primary protection is its tough skin. Its hair is short on its head and tail; however its legs tend to have longer hair. The hair on the majority of its body is grouped in clusters of 3-4 hairs. The hair surrounding its nostrils is dense to help filter particulate matter out as it digs. Its tail is very thick at the base and gradually tapers.

===Head===
The greatly elongated head is set on a short, thick neck, and the end of the snout bears a disc, which houses the nostrils. It contains a thin but complete zygomatic arch. The head of the aardvark contains many unique and different features. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Tubulidentata is their teeth. Instead of having a pulp cavity, each tooth has a cluster of thin, hexagonal, upright, parallel tubes of vasodentin (a modified form of dentine), with individual pulp canals, held together by cementum. The number of columns is dependant on the size of the tooth, with the largest having about 1,500. The teeth have no enamel coating and are worn away and regrow continuously. The aardvark is born with conventional incisors and canines at the front of the jaw, which fall out and are not replaced. Adult aardvarks have only cheek teeth at the back of the jaw, and have a dental formula of: These remaining teeth are peg-like and rootless and are of unique composition. The teeth consist of 14 upper and 12 lower jaw molars. The nasal area of the aardvark is another unique area, as it contains ten nasal conchae, more than any other placental mammal. The sides of the nostrils are thick with hair. The tip of the snout is highly mobile and is moved by modified mimetic muscles. The fleshy dividing tissue between its nostrils probably has sensory functions, but it is uncertain if it is olfactory or vibration in nature. Its nose is made up of more a turbinate bones than any other mammal, with between 9 and 11, compared to dogs with 4 to 5. With a large quantity of turbinate bones, the aardvark has more space for the moist epithelium, which is the location of the olfactory bulb. The nose contains more olfactory bulbs than any other mammal, with 9. Its keen sense of smell is not just from the quantity of bulbs in the nose but also in the development of the brain, as its olfactory lobe is very developed. The snout resembles an elongated pig snout. The mouth is small and tubular, typical of species that feed on ants and termites. The aardvark has a long, thin, snakelike, protruding tongue (as much as 30 cm long) and elaborate structures supporting a keen sense of smell. The ears, which are very effective, are disproportionately long, about 20 - long. The eyes are small for its head, and consist only of rods. 

===Digestive system===
The aardvark's stomach has a muscular pyloric area that acts as a gizzard, (it grinds the food up) to make chewing not important. Its cecum is large. Both males and females emit a strong smelling secretion from an anal gland. Its salivary glands are highly developed and almost completely ring the neck, and their output is what causes the tongue to maintain its tackiness. The female has two pairs of teats in the inguinal region. 

Genetically speaking, the aardvark is a living fossil, as its chromosomes are highly conserved, reflecting much of the early eutherian arrangement before the divergence of the major modern taxa. 

==Habitat and range==
Aardvarks live in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is suitable habitat for them to live, such as savannas, grasslands, woodlands and bushland, and available food (i.e., ants and termites). They hide in dark underground burrows to avoid the warm weather. The only major habitat that they are not present in is swamp forest, as the high water table interferes with digging. They have been documented as high as 3200 m in Ethiopia. They are known to live throughout sub-Saharan Africa all the way to South Africa with few exceptions. These exceptions are coastal areas of Namibia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. They are also not present in Madagascar. They avoid rocky terrain as it causes problems with digging. 

==Ecology and behavior==
Resting aardvark in Himeji City Zoo
Entrance to burrow
Aardvarks live for up to 23 years in captivity. 

Its keen hearing warns it of predators: lions, leopards, hyenas, and pythons. The aardvark's main predators are lions, leopards, hunting dogs and pythons. Some humans also hunt aardvarks for meat. Aardvarks can dig fast or run in zigzag fashion to elude enemies, but if all else fails, they will strike with their claws, tail and shoulders, sometimes flipping onto their backs lying motionless except to lash out with all four feet. They are capable of causing substantial damage to unprotected areas of an attacker. They will also dig to escape as they can, when pressed, dig extremely quickly. Their thick skin also protects them to some extent.

===Feeding===
The aardvark is nocturnal and is a solitary creature that feeds almost exclusively on ants and termites (formivore); the only fruit eaten by aardvarks is the aardvark cucumber. In fact, the cucumber and the aardvark have a symbiotic relationship as they eat the subterranean fruit, then defecate the seeds near their burrows, which then grow rapidly due to the loose soil and fertile nature of the area. The time spent in the intestine of the aardvark helps the fertility of the seed, and the fruit provides needed moisture for the aardvark. They avoid eating the African driver ant and red ants. Due to their stringent diet requirements, they require a large range to survive. An aardvark emerges from its burrow in the late afternoon or shortly after sunset, and forages over a considerable home range encompassing 10 to. While foraging for food, the aardvark will keep its nose to the ground and its ears pointed forward, which indicates that both smell and hearing are involved in the search for food. They zig-zag as they forage and will usually not repeat a route for 5–8 days as they appear to allow time for the termite nests to recover before feeding on it again. During a foraging period, they will stop and dig a "V" shaped trench with their forefeet and then sniff it profusely as a means to explore their location. When a concentration of ants or termites is detected, the aardvark digs into it with its powerful front legs, keeping its long ears upright to listen for predators, and takes up an astonishing number of insects with its long, sticky tongue—as many as 50,000 in one night have been recorded. Its claws enable it to dig through the extremely hard crust of a termite or ant mound quickly. It avoids inhaling the dust by sealing the nostrils. When successful, the aardvark's long (up to 30 cm) tongue licks up the insects; the termites' biting, or the ants' stinging attacks are rendered futile by the tough skin. After an aardvark visit at a termite mound, other animals will visit to pick up all the leftovers. Termite mounds alone don't provide enough food for the aardvark, so they look for termites that are on the move. When these insects move, they can form columns 10 - long and these tend to provide easy pickings with little effort exerted by the aardvark. These columns are more common in areas of livestock or other hoofed animals. The trampled grass and dung attract termites from Odontotermes, Microtermes, and Pseudacanthotermes genera. 

On a nightly basis they tend to be more active during the first portion of the night time (2000-2400); however, they don't seem to prefer bright or dark nights over the other. During adverse weather or if disturbed they will retreat to their burrow systems. They cover between 2 and per night; however, some studies have shown that they may traverse as far as 30 km in a night. 

===Vocalization===
The aardvark is a rather quiet animal. However it does make soft grunting sounds as it forages and loud grunts as it makes for its tunnel entrance. It makes a bleating sound if frightened. When it is threatened it will make for one of its burrows. If one is not close it will dig a new one rapidly. This new one will be short and require the aardvark to back out when the coast is clear. 

===Movement===
The aardvark is known to be a good swimmer and has been witnessed successfully swimming in strong currents. It can dig 1 yard of tunnel in about 5 minutes, but otherwise moves fairly slowly.

When leaving the burrow at night, they pause at the entrance for about ten minutes, sniffing and listening. After this period of watchfulness, it will bound out and within seconds it will be 10 m away. It will then pause, prick its ears, twisting its head to listen, then jump and moves off to start foraging. 

Aside from digging out ants and termites, the aardvark also excavates burrows in which to live; of which they generally fall into three categories: burrows made while foraging, refuge and resting location, and permanent homes. Temporary sites are scattered around the home range and are used as refuges, while the main burrow is also used for breeding. Main burrows can be deep and extensive, have several entrances and can be as long as 13 m. These burrows can be large enough for a man to enter. The aardvark changes the layout of its home burrow regularly, and periodically moves on and makes a new one. The old burrows are an important part of the African wildlife scene. As they are vacated, then they are inhabited by smaller animals like the African wild dog, ant-eating chat, Nycteris thebaica and warthogs. Other animals that use them are hares, mongooses, hyenas, owls, pythons, and lizards. Without these refuges many animals would die during wildfire season. Only mothers and young share burrows; however, the aardvark is known to live in small family groups or as a solitary creature. If attacked in the tunnel, it will escape by digging out of the tunnel thereby placing the fresh fill between it and its predator, or if it decides to fight it will roll onto its back, and attack with its claws. The aardvark has been known to sleep in a recently excavated ant nest, which also serves as protection from its predators. 

Aardvark mother and young

===Reproduction===
Aardvarks pair only during the breeding season; after a gestation period of seven months, one cub weighing around 1.7 - is born during May–July. When born, the young has flaccid ears and many wrinkles. When nursing, it will nurse off each teat in succession. After two weeks the folds of skin disappear and after three, the ears can be held upright. After 5–6 weeks, body hair starts growing. It is able to leave the burrow to accompany its mother after only two weeks, and is eating termites at 9 weeks and is weaned by 16 weeks. By 3 months of age the young has been weaned. At six months of age it is able to dig its own burrows, but it will often remain with the mother until the next mating season, and is sexually mature from approximately two years of age. 

==Conservation==
Aardvarks were thought to have declining numbers, however this is possibly due to the fact that they are not readily seen. There are no definitive counts because of their nocturnal and secretive habits; however their numbers seem to be stable overall. They are not considered common anywhere in Africa, but due to their large range, they maintain sufficient numbers. There may be a slight decrease in numbers in eastern, northern, and western Africa. Southern African numbers are not decreasing. It receives an official designation from the IUCN as least concern. However, they are a species in a precarious situation as they are so dependent on such specific food; therefore if a problem arises with the abundance of termites, the species as a whole would be affected drastically. 

Aardvarks handle captivity well, and the first zoo to have one was the London Zoo in 1869, from South Africa. 

==Mythology and popular culture==
In African folklore, the aardvark is much admired because of its diligent quest for food and its fearless response to soldier ants. Hausa magicians make a charm from the heart, skin, forehead, and nails of the aardvark, which they then proceed to pound together with the root of a certain tree. Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest, the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night. The charm is said to be used by burglars and those seeking to visit young girls without their parents' permission. Also, some tribes, such as the Margbetu, Ayanda, and Logo, will use their teeth to make bracelets that are regarded as good luck charms. Also their meat which has a resemblance to pork is enjoyed by many. 

The Egyptian god Set is said (by some) to have the head of an aardvark or to be part aardvark. 

The titular character of Arthur, an animated television series for children based on a book series and produced by WGBH, shown in more than 180 countries, is an aardvark. 

==Footnotes==

==References==

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==External links==

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* IUCN/SSC Afrotheria Specialist Group - Aardvark website
* Antbear/Aardvark at wackywildlifewonders.com
* Information at Animal Diversity Web: University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
* "The Biology of the Aardvark" (Orycteropus afer) diploma thesis (without pictures)
* "The Biology of the Aardvark" (Orycteropus afer) same diploma thesis (including the pictures)
* Some good photos of baby aardvarks
* 



[[Aardwolf]]

The aardwolf (Proteles cristata) is a small, insectivorous mammal, native to East Africa and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth wolf" in the Afrikaans / Dutch language. It is also called "maanhaar jackal", or civet hyena, based on the secretions (civet) from their anal glands. The aardwolf is in the same family as the hyenas. Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf does not hunt large animals, or even eat meat on a regular basis; instead it eats insects, mainly termites – one aardwolf can eat about 250,000 termites during a single night by using its long, sticky tongue to capture them. The aardwolf lives in the scrublands of eastern and southern Africa – these are open lands covered with stunted trees and shrubs. The aardwolf is nocturnal, resting in burrows during the day and emerging at night to seek food. Their diet consists mainly of termites, and insect larvae. 

==Taxonomy==
The aardwolf is the only surviving species in the mammalian subfamily Protelinae. There is disagreement as to whether there are any subspecies or if the species is monotypic. Some sources say that there are two subspecies, Proteles cristatus cristatus of Southern Africa and Proteles cristatus septentrionalis of East Africa, whereas others say it is monotypic. Recent studies have shown that the aardwolf probably broke away from the rest of the hyena family early on; however how early is still unclear as the fossil record and the genetic studies differ by 10 millions years. 

The aardwolf is generally classified with the Hyaenidae, though it was formerly placed into the family Protelidae. Early on, scientists felt that it was merely mimicking the striped hyena, which subsequently led to the creation of the Hyaenidae family. 

==Etymology==
The genus name proteles comes from two words both of Greek origin, protos and teleos which combined means "complete in front" based on the fact that they have 5 toes on their front feet and four on the rear. The species name, cristatus comes from Latin and means "provided with a comb", relating to their mane. 

==Physical characteristics==
Detail of head – taken at the Cincinnati Zoo. Note the ability to rotate the ears.
The aardwolf resembles a very thin striped hyena, but with a more slender muzzle, black vertical stripes on a coat of yellowish fur, and a long, distinct mane down the midline of the neck and back. They also have one or two diagonal stripes down the fore and hindquarters, along with several stripes on its legs. The mane is raised during confrontations in order to make the aardwolves appear larger. It is missing the throat spot that others in the family have. It's lower leg (from the knee down) is all black, and its tail ois bushy with a black tip. The aardwolf is about 55 to long, excluding its bushy tail, which is about 20 - long, and stands about 40 to tall at the shoulders. An adult aardwolf weighs approximately 7 -, sometimes reaching 15 kg. The aardwolfs in the south of the continent tend to be smaller (about 10 kg), whereas the eastern version weighs more (around 14 kg). The front feet have five toes each, unlike the four-toed hyena. The teeth and skull are similar to those of the hyena, though smaller, and its cheek teeth are specialised for eating insects. It does still have canines; however unlike the hyena, these teeth are used primarily for fighting and defense. Its ears, which are large, are very similar to the Striped Hyena. 

As the aardwolf ages, it will normally lose some of its teeth, though this has little impact on their feeding habits due to the softness of the insects that they eat. The aardwolf has two anal glands that secrete a musky fluid for marking territory and for communicating with other aardwolves.
Aardwolf skull

==Distribution and habitat==
Aardwolves live in open, dry plains and bushland, avoiding mountainous areas. Due to their specific food requirements, they are only found in regions where termites of the family Hodotermitidae occur. Termites of this family depend on dead and withered grass and are most populous in heavily grazed grasslands and savannahs, including farmland. For most of the year, aardwolves spend time in shared territories consisting of up to a dozen dens, which are occupied for six weeks at a time. 

There are two distinct populations: one in Southern Africa, and another in East and Northeast Africa. The species does not occur in the intermediary miombo forests.

An adult pair, along with their most recent offspring, will occupy a territory of 1 -. 

==Behavior==
Aardwolf at the San Antonio Zoo
Aardwolves are shy and nocturnal, sleeping in underground burrows by day. They will, on occasion during the winter, become diurnal feeders. This happens during the coldest periods as they then stay in at night to conserve heat. 

They have often been mistaken for solitary animals. In fact, they live as monogamous pairs with their young. If their territory is infringed upon, they will chase the intruder up to 400 m or to the border. If the intruder is caught, which rarely happens, a fight will occur, which is accompanied by soft clucking, hoarse barking, and a type of roar. The majority of incursions occur during mating season, when they can occur 1–2 times per week. When food is scarce the stringent territorial system may be abandoned and as many as three pairs may occupy a "single territory." 

The territory is marked by both sexes, as they both have developed anal glands from which they extrude a black substance that is smeared on rocks or grass stalks in 5 mm long streaks. They often mark near termite mounds within their territory every 20 minutes or so. If they are patrolling their territorial boundaries, the marking frequency increases drastically, to once every 50 m. At this rate, an individual may mark 60 marks per hour, and upwards of 200 per night. 

An aardwolf pair may have up to ten dens, and numerous middens, within their territory. When they deposit feces at their middens, they dig a small hole and then cover it with sand. Their dens are usually abandoned aardvark, springhare, or porcupine dens, or on occasion they are crevices in rocks. They will also dig their own dens, or enlarge dens started by springhares. They typically will only use one or two dens at a time, rotating through all of their dens every 6 months. During the summer, they may rest outside their den during the night, and sleep underground during the heat of the day.

Aardwolfs are not fast runners nor are they particularly adept at fighting off predators. Therefore, when threatened, the aardwolf will attempt to mislead its foe by doubling back on its tracks. If confronted it will raise its mane in an attempt to appear more menacing. It will also emit a foul-smelling liquid from its anal glands. 

===Feeding===
The aardwolf feeds primarily on termites and more specifically on Trinervitermes. This genus of termites has different species throughout the aardwolfs range. In East Africa, they eat Trinervitermes bettonianus, and in central Africa they eat Trinervitermes rhodesiensis, and finally in southern Africa, they eat Trinervitermes trinervoides. Their technique consists of licking them off the ground as opposed to the aardvark which will dig into the mound. They locate their food by sound and also from the scent secreted by the soldier termites. An aardwolf may consume up to 250,000 termites per night using its sticky, long tongue. They do not destroy the termite mound or consume the entire colony, thus ensuring that the termites can rebuild and provide a continuous supply of food. They will often memorize the location of such nests and return to them every few months. During certain seasonal events, such as the onset of the rainy season and the cold of mid-winter, the primary termites become scarce and so the need for other forms of sustenance becomes pronounced. During these times the southern aardwolf will seek out Hodotermes mossambicus, a type of harvester termite, a termite active in the afternoon, which explains some of their diurnal behavior in the winter. The eastern aardwolf will, during the rainy season, get variety by subsisting on termites from the Odontotermes and Macrotermes genera. They are also known to feed on other insects, larvae, eggs and, some sources say, occasionally small mammals and birds, but these constitute a very small percentage of their total diet. Unlike other hyenas, aardwolves do not scavenge or kill larger animals. Contrary to popular myths, aardwolfs do not eat carrion, and if they are seen eating while hunched over a dead carcass, it is actually eating larvae and beetles. Also, contrary to some sources, they do not like meat, unless it is finely ground or cooked for them. The adult aardwolf was formerly assumed to forage in small groups, however more recent research has shown that they are primarily solitary foragers, necessary because of the scarcity of their insect prey. Their primary source, Trinervitermes, forages in small but dense patches of 25 -. While foraging, the aardwolf will cover about 1 km per hour, which translates to 8 - per summer night and 3 - per winter night. 

===Breeding===
The breeding season varies depending on their location, but normally takes place during autumn or spring. In South Africa, breeding occurs in early July. During the breeding season, unpaired male aardwolves will search their own territory, as well as others, for a female to mate with. Dominant males will also mate opportunistically with the females of less dominant neighboring aardwolves, which can result in conflict between rival males. Dominant males will even go a step further and as the breeding season approaches, they will make increasingly greater and greater incursions onto weaker males' territories. As the female comes into oestrus, they will add pasting to their tricks inside of the other territories, sometimes doing so more in rivals' territories than their own. Females will also, when given the opportunity, mate with the dominant male, which will increase the chances of the dominat male guarding "his" cubs with her. Gestation lasts between 89 and 92 days, producing two to five cubs (most often two or three) during the rainy season (Nov–Dec), when termites are more active. They are born with their eyes open but initially are helpless, and weigh around 200 -. The first six to eight weeks are spent in the den with their parents. The male may spend up to six hours a night watching over the cubs while the mother is out looking for food. After three months, they begin supervised foraging and by four months are normally independent, though they will often share a den with their mother until the next breeding season. By the time the next set of cubs is born, the older cubs have moved on. Aardwolves generally achieve sexual maturity at one and a half to two years of age. 

==Conservation==
The aardwolf has not seen decreasing numbers and they are relatively widespread throughout eastern Africa. They are not common throughout their range, as they maintain a density of no more than 1 per square kilometer, if the food is good. Because of these factors, the IUCN has rated the aardwolf as least concern. In some areas, they are persecuted by man because of the mistaken belief that they prey on livestock; however, they are actually beneficial to the farmers because their eat termites which are detrimental. Other areas, the farmers have recognized this, but they are still killed, on occasion, for their fur. Dogs and insecticides are also common killers of the aardwolf. 

==Interaction with humans==
Aardwolfs are common sights at zoos. Frankfurt Zoo in Germany was home to the oldest recorded aardwolf in captivity at 18 years and 11 months. 

Illustration of Proteles cristatus

==Notes==

==Footnotes==

==References==
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==Further reading==
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==External links==

* Animal Diversity Web
* IUCN Hyaenidae Specialist Group Aardwolf pages on hyaenidae.org
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[[Adobe]]

Renewal of the surface coating of an adobe wall in Chamisal, New Mexico

Adobe (, , definition of adobe from Oxford Dictionaries Online. Retrieved 25 December 2010. ; Arabic: الطوب) is the Spanish word for mud brick, a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material (sticks, straw, and/or manure), usually shaped into bricks using molds and dried in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and rammed earth buildings, but cob and rammed earth are directly made into walls rather than bricks. The Romanian name for this material is chirpici.

For a deeper understanding of adobe, one might examine a cob building. Cob, a close cousin to adobe, contains proportioned amounts of soil, clay, water, manure, and straw. This is blended, but not formed like adobe. Cob is spread and piled over the home's frame and allowed to air dry for several months before habitation. Adobe, then, can be described as dried bricks of cob, stacked and mortared together with more adobe mixture to create a thick wall and/or roof.

Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Compared to wooden buildings, adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, in hot climates, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage. Short documentary about adobe preparation and 2010 Chile earthquake Livingatlaschile.com, FICh, retrieved 5 March 2014 Cases where adobe structures were widely damaged during earthquakes include the 1976 Guatemala earthquake and the 2003 Bam earthquake. 

Buildings made of sun-dried earth are common in West Asia, North Africa, West Africa, Marchand, Trevor. The Masons of Djenne. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2009 South America, southwestern North America, Spain (usually in the Mudéjar style), Eastern Europe Museum of Lithuanian life Rumsiskes Lithuania (2011) and East Anglia, particularly Norfolk, known as clay lump. http://www.eartha.org.uk . Retrieved 19-2-2011. Adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andean region of South America for several thousand years, although often substantial amounts of stone are used in the walls of Pueblo buildings. (Also, the Pueblo people built their adobe structures with handfuls or basketfuls of adobe, until the Spanish introduced them to the making of bricks.) Adobe brickmaking was used in Spain starting by the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, from the eighth century B.C. on. Its wide use can be attributed to its simplicity of design and manufacture, and the economy of creating it. 

A distinction is sometimes made between the smaller adobes, which are about the size of ordinary baked bricks, and the larger adobines, some of which may be one to two yards (1–2 m) long.

==Etymology==
Church at San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
The word adobe has existed for around 4,000 years, with relatively little change in either pronunciation or meaning. The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian (c. 2000 BC) word dbt "mud brick." As Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian, Demotic, and finally Coptic (c. 600 BC), τωωβε dj-b-t became tobe " brick." This was borrowed into Arabic as al tob, "adobe" Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009 tuba, Spanish Word Histories and Mysteries: English Words that Come from Spanish Houghton Mifflin Co. 2007 p.5 or Al-ţŭb. "Adobe Moulding" Auroville Earth Institute (الطّوب al "the" + ţŭb. "brick") " brick," which was assimilated into Old Spanish as adobe , still with the meaning "mud brick." English borrowed the word from Spanish in the early 18th century.

Adobe style in Santa Fe, New Mexico
In more modern English usage, the term "adobe" has come to include a style of architecture popular in the desert climates of North America, especially in New Mexico. (Compare with stucco).

==Composition==
An adobe brick is a composite material made of clay mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or dung. The soil composition typically contains clay and sand. Straw is useful in binding the brick together and allowing the brick to dry evenly, thereby preventing cracking due to uneven shrinkage rates through the brick. Dung offers the same advantage and is also added to repel insects. The most desirable soil texture for producing the mud of adobe is 15% clay, 10-30% silt and 55-75% fine sand. Another source quotes 15-25% clay and the remainder sand and coarser particles up to cobbles 2-10 inches with no deleterious effect. Modern adobe is stabilized with either emulsified asphalt or Portland cement up to 10% by weight.

The clay content should be a mixture of no more that half expansive clays with the remainder non-expansive illite or kaolinite. Too much expansive clay results in uneven drying through the brick and cracking while too much kaolinite will make a weak brick. Typically the soils of the Southwest United States where such construction is in use, are an adequate composition. 

==Adobe bricks==
Adobe bricks near a construction site in Milyanfan, Kyrgyzstan
Bricks are made in an open frame, 25 by being a reasonable size, but any convenient size is acceptable. The mixture is molded into a frame, and then the frame is removed after initial setting. After drying a few hours, the bricks are turned on edge to finish drying. Slow drying in shade reduces cracking.

The same mixture used to make bricks, but without straw, is used for mortar and often for plaster on interior and exterior walls. Some ancient cultures used lime-based cement for the plaster to protect against rain damage. 

The brick’s thickness is preferred partially due to its thermal characteristics, and partially due to the stability of a thicker brick versus a more standard-sized brick. Depending on the form into which the mixture is pressed, adobe can encompass nearly any shape or size, provided drying is even and the mixture includes reinforcement for larger bricks. Reinforcement can include manure, straw, cement, rebar or wooden posts. Experience has shown straw, cement, or manure added to a standard adobe mixture can all produce a stronger, more crack-resistant brick. A general testing is done on the soil content first. To do so, a sample of the soil is mixed into a clear container with some water, creating an almost completely saturated liquid. After it is sealed, the container is shaken vigorously for at least one minute. It is then allowed to sit on a flat surface for a day or so until the soil has settled into layers or remains in suspension. Heavier particles settle out first, so gravel will be on the bottom, sand above, silt above that and very fine clay and organic matter will stay in suspension for days. After the water has cleared, percentages of the various particles can be determined. Fifty to 60 percent sand and 35 to 40 percent clay will yield strong bricks. The New Mexico State University Extension Service recommends a mix of not more than 1/3 clay, not less than 1/2 sand, and never more than 1/3 silt.

==Material properties==

Adobe walls are load bearing, i.e. they carry their own weight into the foundation rather than by another structure, hence the adobe must have sufficient compressive strength. In the United States, most building codes call for a minimum compressive strength of 300 lbf/in.2 Adobe construction should be designed so as to avoid lateral structural loads that would cause bending loads. The building codes require the building sustain a 1 g lateral acceleration earthquake load. Such an acceleration will cause lateral loads on the walls, resulting in shear and bending and inducing tensile stresses. To withstand such loads, the codes typically call for a tensile modulus of rupture strength of at least 50 lbf/in.2

In addition to being an inexpensive material with a small resource cost, adobe can serve as a significant heat reservoir due to the thermal properties inherent in the massive walls typical in adobe construction. In climates typified by hot days and cool nights, the high thermal mass of adobe averages out the high and low temperatures of the day, moderating the living space temperature. The massive walls require a large and relatively long input of heat from the sun (radiation) and from the surrounding air (convection) before they warm through to the interior. After the sun sets and the temperature drops, the warm wall will then continue to transfer heat to the interior for several hours due to the time lag effect. Thus, a well-planned adobe wall of the appropriate thickness is very effective at controlling inside temperature through the wide daily fluctuations typical of desert climates, a factor which has contributed to its longevity as a building material.

Thermodynamic material properties are sparsely quoted. The thermal conductivity of adobe is quoted as having an R value of R0 = 0.41 hr*ft2*°F/(Btu*in). To determine the total R value, multiply R0, by the thickness of the adobe wall. From that, the conductivity is found to be k = 0.20 Btu/(hr*ft*°F) or 0.35 W/(m*K). The heat capacity is commonly quoted as cp = 0.20 Btu/(lbm*F) or 840 joules/(kg*K). The density is 95 lbm/ft3 or 1520 kg/m3. The thermal diffusivity is calculated to 0.0105 ft2/hr or 2.72x10−7 m2/s.

==Adobe wall construction==
When building an adobe structure, the ground should be compressed because the weight of adobe bricks is significantly greater than a frame house, and foundation settling may cause cracking in the wall. The footing is dug and compressed once again. Footing depth depends on the region and its ground frost level. The footing and stem wall are commonly 24 and 14 inches, much larger than a frame house because of the weight of the walls. Adobe bricks are laid by course. Each course is laid the whole length of the wall, overlapping at the corners on a layer of adobe mortar. Adobe walls usually never rise above two stories because they are load bearing and have low structural strength. When placing window and door openings, a lintel is placed on top of the opening to support the bricks above. Atop the last courses of brick, bond beams made of reinforced concrete or heavy wood beams are laid to provide a horizontal bearing plate for the roof beams and to redistribute lateral earthquake loads to shear walls more able to carry the forces. To protect the interior and exterior adobe wall, finishes can be applied, such as mud plaster, whitewash or stucco. These finishes protect the adobe wall from water damage, but need to be reapplied periodically, or the walls can be finished with other nontraditional plasters providing longer protection. Bricks made with stabilized adobe generally do not need protection of plasters.

==Adobe roof==
The traditional adobe roof has been constructed using a mixture of soil/clay, water, sand, and organic materials. The mixture was then formed and pressed into wood forms, producing rows of dried earth bricks that would then be laid across a support structure of wood and plastered into place with more adobe.

===Roof materials===
Depending on the materials available, a roof may be assembled using wood or metal beams to create a framework to begin layering adobe bricks. Depending on the thickness of the adobe bricks, the framework has been preformed using a steel framing and a layering of a metal fencing or wiring over the framework to allow an even load as masses of adobe are spread across the metal fencing like cob and allowed to air dry accordingly. This method was demonstrated with an adobe blend heavily impregnated with cement to allow even drying and prevent cracking.

===Traditional adobe roof===
The more traditional flat adobe roofs are functional only in dry climates that are not exposed to snow loads which would call for a steepled roof. Cement may be introduced into the adobe mixture to stabilize and strengthen the composite of mud and organic matter. The heaviest wooden beams are called Vigas which support smaller members called latias upon which brush is then laid atop which the adobe layer applied.

===Raising a traditional adobe roof===
To raise a flattened adobe roof, beams of wood or metal should be assembled and span the extent of the building. The ends of the beams should then be attached to the tops of the walls. Taking into account the material from which the beams and walls are made, choosing the attachments may prove difficult. A combination of the bricks and adobe mortar that are laid across the beams creates an even load-bearing pressure that can last for many years depending on attrition.

Once the vigas, satias and brush are laid, adobe bricks are placed. An adobe roof is often laid with bricks slightly larger in width to ensure a greater expanse is covered when placing the bricks onto the roof. Following each individual brick should be a layer of adobe mortar, recommended to be at least an inch thick to make certain there is ample strength between the brick’s edges and also to provide a relative moisture barrier during rain. 

===Attributes===
Depending on the materials, adobe roofs can be inherently fire-proof. The construction of a chimney can greatly influence the construction of the roof supports, creating an extra need for care in choosing the materials. The builders can make an adobe chimney by stacking simple adobe bricks in a similar fashion as the surrounding walls.

==Adobe around the world==
The largest structure ever made from adobe (bricks) was the Bam Citadel, which suffered serious damage (up to 80%) by an earthquake on 26 December 2003. Other large adobe structures are the Huaca del Sol in Peru, with 100 million signed bricks, the ciudellas of Chan Chan and Tambo Colorado, both in Peru (in South America).

File:RomaniaDanubeDelta MakingMaterialForCOnstructing0003jpg.JPG|Still in production today, Romania's Danube Delta
File:RomaniaDanubeDelta MakingMaterialForCOnstructing0002jpg.JPG|Mixing mud and straw in brick frames
File:RomaniaDanubeDelta MakingMaterialForCOnstructing0001jpg.JPG|Community effort
File:Milyanfan-adobe-brick-house-8039.jpg|Adobe brick house under construction in Kyrgyzstan
File: Sa'dah 02.jpg|House in Sa'dah, Yemen
File:AdobeHouseVrancea.JPG|Adobe brick house under construction in Romania
File:5640-Linxia-City-Dongguan-back-street.jpg|An adobe wall in Linxia City, Gansu, China
File:Poeh museum, night.jpg|Poeh Museum tower, the tallest adobe structure in New Mexico, USA
File:Great Mosque of Djenné 3.jpg|Great Mosque of Djenné, famous building made from banco, a type of adobe

==See also==
* Cob (building)
* Compressed earth block
* Earth structure
* Hassan Fathy
* Mudbrick
* Qalat (fortress)
* Rammed earth
* San Xavier del Bac
* Sod house
* Super Adobe
* Wattle and daub
* Cas di torto
* Monterey Colonial architecture used adobe walls

==References==

==External links==

* Building With Awareness A detailed how-to DVD video that shows adobe wall construction and their use as thermal mass walls
* Cal-Earth (The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture) has developed a patented system called Superadobe, in which bags filled with stabilized earth are layered with strands of barbed wire to form a structure strong enough to withstand earthquakes, fire and flood.
* Earth Architecture - A website whose focus is contemporary issues in earth architecture.
* Earth Architecture and Conservation in East Anglia - British organisation that focuses on the proper maintenance and conservation of earth buildings in a region of the UK that has a long history of building with mud.
* Kerpic.org - A website on earthen architecture researches stabilized with gypsum.
* Kleiwerks - International organization recognized for their unique contribution to modern earthen and natural building techniques throughout the world, their focus is on education through hands on experience. Very experienced experts are contactable and there are regular demonstrations in the area.
* Valle de Sensaciones - Artistic construction with adobe, Experimental ground and theme park for creative living close to nature
* World Monuments Fund - Adobe Missions of New Mexico - Description of a project of the World Monuments Fund for the preservation of adobe churches in New Mexico, in the United States.



[[Adventure]]

Fridtjof Nansen won international fame after reaching a record northern latitude of 86°14′ during his North Pole expedition of 1893–96. 

An adventure is an exciting or unusual experience. It may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome. Adventures may be activities with some potential for physical danger such as skydiving, mountain climbing, river rafting or participating in extreme sports. The term also broadly refers to any enterprise that is potentially fraught with physical, financial or psychological risk, such as a business venture, a love affair, or other major life undertakings.

==Motivation==
Adventurous experiences create psychological arousal, which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow), and which can be detrimental as stated by the Yerkes-Dodson law. For some people, adventure becomes a major pursuit in and of itself. According to adventurer André Malraux, in his La Condition Humaine (1933), "If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?". Similarly, Helen Keller stated that "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." 

Outdoor adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement: examples are adventure racing and adventure tourism. Adventurous activities can also lead to gains in knowledge, such as those undertaken by explorers and pioneers - the British adventurer Jason Lewis, for example, uses adventures to draw global sustainability lessons from living within finite environmental constraints on expeditions to share with schoolchildren. Adventure education intentionally uses challenging experiences for learning.

==Adventure in mythology==
Some of the oldest and most widespread stories in the world are stories of adventure such as Homer's The Odyssey. Zweig, P. (1974). The adventurer: The fate of adventure in the Western world, New York: Basic Books. Mythologist Joseph Campbell discussed his notion of the monomyth in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell proposed that the heroic mythological stories from culture to culture followed a similar underlying pattern, starting with the "call to adventure", followed by a hazardous journey, and eventual triumph. 

The knight errant was the form the "adventure seeker" character took in the late Middle Ages.

The adventure novel exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics as do many popular feature films, such as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a well-known example of a fantasized adventure story.

==See also==
*List of genres
*Tourism

==References==

==External links==

 

[[Asia]]

Asia ( or ) is the Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and comprises 30% of its land area. With approximately 4.3 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. Like most of the world, Asia has a high growth rate in the modern era. For instance, during the 20th century, Asia's population nearly quadrupled, as did the world population. . 

The boundaries of Asia are culturally determined, as there is no clear geographical separation between it and Europe, which together form one continuous landmass called Eurasia. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. "Europe" (pp. 68–9); "Asia" (pp. 90–1): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles." It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean.

Given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia – a name dating back to classical antiquity - may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems.

== Definition and boundaries ==

===Greek three-continent system===
Two-point equidistant projection of Asia and surrounding landmasses.
The racial diversity of Asia's peoples, Nordisk familjebok (1904)
The border between Asia and Europe has historically been determined by Europeans only.
The original distinction between the two was made by the ancient Greeks. They used the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, the Black Sea, the Kerch Strait, and the Sea of Azov as the border between Asia and Europe. The Nile was often used as the border between Asia and Africa (then called Libya), although some Greek geographers suggested the Red Sea would form a better boundary. Darius' canal between the Nile and the Red Sea introduced considerable variation in opinion. Under the Roman Empire, the Don River emptying into the Black Sea was the western border of Asia. It was the northernmost navigable point of the European shore. In the 15th century the Red Sea became established as the boundary between Africa and Asia, replacing the Nile. 

===Asia–Europe boundary===
The Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721. The major geographical theorist of the empire was actually a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, and was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book.

In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia. The Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. In the maps of the period, Transcaucasia was counted as Asian. The incorporation of most of that region into the Soviet Union tended to push views of the border to the south. Asian cultures had no say in this system of determining the imaginary boundaries separating them from Europe.

===Asia–Oceania boundary===
The border between Asia and the loosely-defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process." 

===Ongoing definition===
Afro-Eurasia shown in green
Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents. 

In addition to its general inherited geographical meaning, to which the entire literate world subscribes, Asia has any number of agency-specific meanings organizationally and operationally of use in more restricted fields of interest. For example, the World University Service of Canada uses the administrative divisions of the Middle East and Europe, and South and Southeast Asia—their definition of "Asia" is substantially different from the wider definition, and the same may apply to other agencies worldwide. Some differing uses of "Asia" have been promulgated by the news media reporting on current events. For example, BBC News has an Asia-Pacific section, which acquires news from anywhere in Australasia, Oceania or the Pacific side of the Americas. 

From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them. For example, Sir Barry Cunliffe, the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of the continent of Asia". Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass – or of Afro-Eurasia; geologically, Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass (except for the Suez Canal) and share a common continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and the better part of Asia sit atop the Eurasian Plate, adjoined on the south by the Arabian and Indian Plate and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the Chersky Range) on the North American Plate.

== Etymology ==
Ptolemy's Asia
Asia was originally a concept of Greek civilization. Reid, T.R. Vintage Books(1999). The place name, "Asia", in various forms in a large number of modern languages is of unknown ultimate provenience. Its etymology and language of origin are uncertain. It appears to be one of the most ancient of recorded names. A number of theories have been published. English Asia can be traced through the formation of English literature to Latin literature, where it has the same form, Asia. Whether all uses and all forms of the name derive also from the Latin of the Roman Empire is much less certain.

===Classical antiquity===
Latin Asia and Greek Ἀσία appear to be the same word. Roman authors translated Ἀσία as Asia. The Romans named a province Asia (Roman province), which roughly corresponds with modern-day central-western Turkey. There was an Asia Minor and an Asia Major located in modern-day Iraq. As the earliest evidence of the name is Greek, it is likely circumstantially that Asia came from Ἀσία, but ancient transitions, due to the lack of literary contexts, are difficult to catch in the act. The most likely vehicles were the ancient geographers and historians, such as Herodotus, who were all Greek. Roman civilization Hellenized extensively. Ancient Greek certainly evidences early and rich uses of the name. 

The first continental use of Asia is attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BC), not because he innovated it, but because his Histories are the earliest surviving prose to describe it in any detail. He defines it carefully, Book IV, Articles 37–40. mentioning the previous geographers whom he had read, but whose works are now missing. By it he means Anatolia and the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names were "given to a tract which is in reality one" (Europa, Asia, and Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus (i.e. Hesione), but that the Lydians say it was named after Asies, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at Sardis. Book IV, Article 45. In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία) or "Asie" (Ἀσίη) was the name of a "Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia." 

Herodotus' geographical puzzlement was perhaps only a form of disagreement, as, having read the earlier Greek poetry along with everyone else literate, he would have known perfectly well why places received female names. Athens, Mycenae, Thebes and many other locations in fact had them. In ancient Greek religion, places were under the care of female divinities, parallel to guardian angels. The poets detailed their doings and generations in allegoric language salted with entertaining stories, which subsequently playwrights transformed into classical Greek drama and became "Greek mythology."

For example, Hesiod mentions the daughters of Tethys and Ocean, among whom are a "holy company", "who with the Lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping." Theogony, Line 345 ff. Many of these are geographic: Doris, Rhodea, Europa, Asia. Hesiod explains: Theogony, Line 364ff. "For there are three-thousand neat-ankled daughters of Ocean who are dispersed far and wide, and in every place alike serve the earth and the deep waters." The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians (the tribe that replaced the Luvians in Lydia) in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning "Asian"); Μ95, Π717. and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος. Β461. 

===Bronze Age===
Before Greek poetry, the Aegean Sea area was in a Greek Dark Age, at the beginning of which syllabic writing was lost and alphabetic writing had not begun. Prior to then in the Bronze Age the records of the Assyrian Empire, the Hittite Empire and the various Mycenaean states of Greece mention a region undoubtedly Asia, certainly in Anatolia, including if not identical to Lydia. These records are administrative and do not include poetry.

The Mycenaean states were destroyed about 1200 BC by unknown agents although one school of thought assigns the Dorian invasion to this time. The burning of the palaces baked clay diurnal administrative records written in a Greek syllabic script called Linear B, deciphered by a number of interested parties, most notably by a young World War II cryptographer, Michael Ventris, subsequently assisted by the scholar, John Chadwick. A major cache discovered by Carl Blegen at the site of ancient Pylos included hundreds of male and female names formed by different methods.

Some of these are of women held in servitude (as study of the society implied by the content reveals). They were used in trades, such as cloth-making, and usually came with children. The epithet, lawiaiai, "captives," associated with some of them identifies their origin. Some are ethnic names. One in particular, aswiai, identifies "women of Asia." . Perhaps they were captured in Asia, but some others, Milatiai, appear to have been of Miletus, a Greek colony, which would not have been raided for slaves by Greeks. Chadwick suggests that the names record the locations where these foreign women were purchased. The name is also in the singular, Aswia, which refers both to the name of a country and to a female of it. There is a masculine form, aswios. This Aswia appears to have been a remnant of a region known to the Hittites as Assuwa, centered on Lydia, or "Roman Asia." This name, Assuwa, has been suggested as the origin for the name of the continent "Asia". Bossert, Helmut T., Asia, Istanbul, 1946. The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia, defeated by the Hittites under Tudhaliya I around 1400 BC.

Alternatively, the etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word , which means 'to go outside' or 'to ascend', referring to the direction of the sun at sunrise in the Middle East and also likely connected with the Phoenician word asa meaning east. This may be contrasted to a similar etymology proposed for Europe, as being from Akkadian erēbu(m) 'to enter' or 'set' (of the sun).

T.R. Reid supports this alternative etymology, noting that the ancient Greek name must have derived from asu, meaning 'east' in Assyrian (ereb for Europe meaning 'west'). The ideas of Occidental (form Latin Occidens 'setting') and Oriental (from Latin Oriens for 'rising') are also European invention, synonymous with Western and Eastern. Reid further emphasizes that it explains the Western point of view of placing all the peoples and cultures of Asia into a single classification, almost as if there were a need for setting the distinction between Western and Eastern civilizations on the Eurasian continent. Ogura Kazuo and Tenshin Okakura are two outspoken Japanese figures on the subject. 

==History==

The Mongol Empire, ca. 1300. The gray area is the later Timurid empire.1890 map of Asia

The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Central Asian steppes.

The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Huanghe shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.

The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharians resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of Siberia, was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra. These areas remained very sparsely populated.

Silk Road connected many civilizations across Asia [http://www.silk-road.com/artl/srtravelmain.shtml ANCIENT SILK ROAD TRAVELLERS ]]
The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus and Himalaya mountains and the Karakum and Gobi deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.

The Islamic Caliphate took over the Middle East and Central Asia during the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, Song China reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people. Ping-ti Ho. "An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China", in Études Song, Series 1, No 1, (1970). pp. 33–53. 

The Black Death, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road. 

The Russian Empire began to expand into Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing Dynasty. In the 16th century, the Islamic Mughal Empire controlled much of India.

==Geography and climate==

The Himalayan range is home to some of the planet's highest peaks.
Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 8.8% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the largest coastline, at 62800 km. Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 48 countries, two of them (Russia and Turkey) having part of their land in Europe.

Asia has extremely diverse climates and geographic features. Climates range from arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The monsoon circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia is one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere, and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for tropical cyclone activity lies northeast of the Philippines and south of Japan. The Gobi Desert is in Mongolia and the Arabian Desert stretches across much of the Middle East. The Yangtze River in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north.

===Climate change===

A survey carried out in 2010 by global risk analysis firm Maplecroft identified 16 countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Each nation's vulnerability was calculated using 42 socio, economic and environmental indicators, which identified the likely climate change impacts during the next 30 years. The Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were among the 16 countries facing extreme risk from climate change. Some shifts are already occurring. For example, in tropical parts of India with a semi-arid climate, the temperature increased by 0.4 °C between 1901 and 2003.
A 2013 study by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) aimed to find science-based, pro-poor approaches and techniques that would enable Asia's agricultural systems to cope with climate change, while benefitting poor and vulnerable farmers. The study's recommendations ranged from improving the use of climate information in local planning and strengthening weather-based agro-advisory services, to stimulating diversification of rural household incomes and providing incentives to farmers to adopt natural resource conservation measures to enhance forest cover, replenish groundwater and use renewable energy. Vulnerability to Climate Change: Adaptation Strategies and layers of Resilience, ICRISAT, Policy Brief No. 23, February 2013 

== Economy ==

Singapore has one of the busiest ports in the world and is the world's fourth largest foreign exchange trading center.
Asia has the second largest nominal GDP of all continents, after Europe, but the largest when measured in purchasing power parity. As of 2011, the largest economies in Asia are China, Japan, India, South Korea and Indonesia. http://www.aneki.com/countries2.php?t=Largest_Economies_in_Asia&table=fb126&places=2&unit=*&order=desc&dependency=independent&number=5&cntdn=n&r=-201-202-203-204-205-206-207-208-209-210-211-212-116-214-215-216-217-218-219-220&c=asia&measures=Country--GDP&units=*--$*&decimals=*--* | 5 largest economies in Asia Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of top 5 were in Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai. Around 68 percent of international firms have office in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo World's Top Office Destinations | CFO innovation ASIA 

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of the PRC Five Years of China's WTO Membership. EU and US Perspectives on China's Compliance with Transparency Commitments and the Transitional Review Mechanism, Legal Issues of Economic Integration, Kluwer Law International, Volume 33, Number 3, pp. 263–304, 2006. by Paolo Farah and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. Other recent very high growth nations in Asia include Israel, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Cyprus and the Philippines, and mineral-rich nations such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.

According to economic historian Angus Maddison in his book The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, India had the world's largest economy during 0 BCE and 1000 BCE. The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Angus Maddison http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history, Chris Patten. Financial Times. Comment & Analysis: Why Europe is getting China so wrong. Accessed 30 January 2008. until the British Empire (excluding India) overtook it in the mid-19th century. For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1986 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or APEC). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the USA as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen/US$. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim, known as the Asian tigers, which have now all received developed country status, having the highest GDP per capita in Asia. 

Mumbai is one of the most populous cities on the continent. The city is an infrastructure and tourism hub, and plays a crucial role in the Economy of India.
It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2020. By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, China will have the largest economy in the world. Several trade blocs exist, with the most developed being the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum, forests, fish, water, rice, copper and silver. Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in the China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.

According to Citigroup 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Asia has four main financial centers: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Call centers and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.

In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. Last year Asia had toppled Europe. 
Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people. 

==Tourism==
Wat Phra Kaeo in the Grand Palace is among Bangkok's major tourist attractions.
With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 international visitors. 

==Demographics==

East Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report’s analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since
1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region’s top performers in improving school enrolment and life expectancy. 
Nepal, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world’s fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago. 
 Japan and South Korea ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 11 and 12 in the world, which are in the "very high human development" category), followed by Hong Kong (21) and Singapore (27). Afghanistan (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed. 

===Languages===

Asia is home to several language families and many language isolates. Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue, more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.

=== Religions ===

Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem, a holy city for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Pilgrims in the annual Hajj at the Kaabah in Mecca.
Spring Temple Buddha in Lushan County, Henan, China is the world's tallest statue.
Many of the world's major religions have their origins in Asia. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Christians in the Old Testament, is first found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology tells about an Avatar of the God Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. In ancient Chinese mythology, Shan Hai Jing, the Chinese ruler Da Yu, had to spend 10 years to control a deluge which swept out most of ancient China and was aided by the goddess Nüwa who literally fixed the broken sky through which huge rains were pouring.

==== Abrahamic ====
The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Bahá'í Faith originated in West Asia. Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the birthplace and historical homeland of the Hebrew nation which today consists equally of those Israelites who remained in Asia/North Africa and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions, though sizable communities continue to live abroad.

Christianity is also present throughout Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia and Asian Russia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. Various Christian denominations have adherents in portions of the Middle East, as well as China and India.

Islam, which originated in Saudi Arabia, is the largest and most widely spread religion in Asia. With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and to a lesser extent Jerusalem are the holiest cities for Islam in all the world. These religious sites attract large numbers of devotees from all over the world, particularly during the Hajj and Umrah seasons. Iran is the largest Shi'a country and Pakistan has the largest Ahmadiyya population.

The Bahá'í Faith originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bahá'u'lláh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Bahá'í activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Baha'i Temple in India.

==== Indian and East Asian religions ====
The Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in Delhi, according to the Guinness World Records is the World’s Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple 
Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Cārvāka, preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism took shape.

As of 2012, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the second largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.

Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia (96%), Thailand (95%), Burma (80%-89%), Japan (36%–96%), Bhutan (75%-84%), Sri Lanka (70%), Laos (60%-67%) and Mongolia (53%-93%). Large Buddhist populations also exist in Singapore (33%-51%), Taiwan (35%–93%), South Korea (23%-50%), Malaysia (19%-21%), Nepal (9%-11%), Vietnam (10%–75%), China (20%–50%), Travel China Guide – Han Chinese, Windows on Asia – Chinese Religions North Korea (1.5%–14%), CIA The World Factbook – North Korea and small communities in India and Bangladesh. In many Chinese communities, Mahayana Buddhism is easily syncretized with Taoism, thus exact religious statistics is difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.

Jainism is found mainly in India and in oversea Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia.
Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia.
Confucianism is found predominantly in Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations.
Taoism is found mainly in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Taoism is easily syncretized with Mahayana Buddhism for many Chinese, thus exact religious statistics is difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.

==Modern conflicts==

Wounded civilians arrive at a hospital in Aleppo during the Syrian civil war, October 2012
Some of the events pivotal in the Asia territory related to the relationship with the outside world in the post-Second World War were:

* The Korean War
* The Vietnam War
* The Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation
* The Bangladesh Liberation War
* The Yom Kippur War
* The Iranian Revolution
* The Soviet war in Afghanistan
* The Iran–Iraq War
* The Killing Fields in Cambodia
* The Sri Lankan Civil War
* The Dissolution of the Soviet Union
* The 1991 Gulf War
* The India-Pakistan Wars
* The 2006 Thai coup d'état
* The Burmese Civil War
* The Arab Spring
* The Israeli–Palestinian conflict
* The Syrian Civil War
* The Sino-Indian War

==Culture==

=== Nobel prizes ===
Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and became Asia's first Nobel laureate

The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer from Santiniketan, now in West Bengal, India, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He is also the writer of the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.

Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents of their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.

Also, Mother Teresa of India and Shirin Ebadi of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma(Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Most recently, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China.

Sir C. V. Raman is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".

Amartya Sen, (born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.
Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Nobel Peace Prize laureates

Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Dae-jung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Salam (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories) Kim (South Korea), Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).

In 2006, Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of Grameen Bank, a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women in Bangladesh. Dr. Yunus received his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitute people with little or no collateral to borrow money. The borrowers typically pay back money within the specified period and the incidence of default is very low.

The Dalai Lama has received approximately eighty-four awards over his spiritual and political career. On 22 June 2006, he became one of only four people ever to be recognized with Honorary Citizenship by the Governor General of Canada. On 28 May 2005, he received the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom. Most notable was the Nobel Peace Prize, presented in Oslo, Norway on 10 December 1989.

==Political geography==

 Flag Arms Name Population Area(km²) Capital 
 20px Afghanistan 30,419,928 647,500 Kabul 
 20px Armenia 2,970,495 29,743 Yerevan 
 20px Azerbaijan 9,493,600 86,600 Baku 
 20px Bahrain 1,248,348 760 Manama 
 20px Bangladesh 150,039,000 147,570 Dhaka 
 20px Bhutan 716,896 38,394 Thimphu 
 20px Brunei 408,786 5,765 Bandar Seri Begawan 
 20px Burma (Myanmar) 54,584,650 676,578 Naypyidaw 
 20px Cambodia 14,952,665 181,035 Phnom Penh 
 20px China (PRC) 1,343,239,923 9,596,961 Beijing 
 20px Cyprus 1,099,341 9,251 Nicosia 
 20px East Timor 1,143,667 14,874 Dili 
 20px Georgia 4,570,934 69,700 Tbilisi 
 20px India 1,205,073,612 3,287,263 New Delhi 
 20px Indonesia 248,645,008 1,904,569 Jakarta 
 20px Iran 78,868,711 1,648,195 Tehran 
 20px Iraq 31,129,225 438,317 Baghdad 
 20px Israel 7,590,758 20,770 Jerusalem 
 20px Japan 127,368,088 377,915 Tokyo 
 20px Jordan 6,508,887 89,342 Amman 
 20px Kazakhstan 17,522,010 2,724,900 Astana 
 20px Kuwait 2,646,314 17,818 Kuwait City 
 20px Kyrgyzstan 5,496,737 199,951 Bishkek 
 20px Laos 6,586,266 236,800 Vientiane 
 20px Lebanon 4,140,289 10,400 Beirut 
 Malaysia 29,179,952 329,847 Kuala Lumpur 
 20px Maldives 394,451 298 Malé 
 20px Mongolia 3,179,997 1,564,116 Ulaanbaatar 
 20px Nepal 29,890,686 147,181 Kathmandu 
 20px North Korea 24,589,122 120,538 Pyongyang 
 20px Oman 3,090,150 309,500 Muscat 
 20px Pakistan 190,291,129 796,095 Islamabad 
 20px Palestine 4,279,699 6,220 Gaza/Ramallah 
 20px Philippines 300,000 Manila 
 20px Qatar 1,951,591 11,586 Doha 
 20px Russia 142,517,670 17,098,242 Moscow 
 20px Saudi Arabia 26,534,504 2,149,690 Riyadh 
 20px Singapore 5,353,494 697 Singapore 
 20px Sri Lanka 21,481,334 65,610 Colombo 
 20px South Korea 50,004,441 100,210 Seoul 
 20px Syria 22,530,746 185,180 Damascus 
 20px Taiwan (ROC) 23,261,747 36,193 Taipei 
 20px Tajikistan 7,768,385 143,100 Dushanbe 
 20px Thailand 67,091,089 513,120 Bangkok 
 20px Turkey 79,749,461 783,562 Ankara 
 20px Turkmenistan 5,054,828 488,100 Ashgabat 
 20px United Arab Emirates 5,314,317 83,600 Abu Dhabi 
 20px Uzbekistan 28,394,180 447,400 Tashkent 
 20px Vietnam 91,519,289 331,212 Hanoi 
 20px Yemen 24,771,809 527,968 Sana'a 

==See also==

References to articles:

* Subregions of Asia
Special topics:
* Asian Century
* Asian cuisine
* Asian furniture
* Asian Games
* Asian Monetary Unit
* Asian people
* Eastern world
* Far East
* East Asia
* Southeast Asia
* South Asia
* Central Asia
* Fauna of Asia
* Flags of Asia
* Middle East
** Eastern Mediterranean
** Levant
** Near East
* Pan-Asianism

Lists:
* List of cities in Asia
* List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population
* List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia

== References ==

==Bibliography==
* 
* 

== Further reading ==
* Higham, Charles. Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004.
* Kamal, Niraj. "Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril". New Delhi:Wordsmith,2002, ISBN 978-81-87412-08-3
* Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999.
* Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.

== External links ==

* 
* 
* 
* 

 


[[Aruba]]

Aruba ( ; ) is an island 33 kilometres long (20 mi); it is located about 1600 km west of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea and 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela. Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, it forms a group referred to as the ABC islands. Collectively, Aruba and the other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Netherlands Antilles or the Dutch Caribbean.

Aruba is one of the four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. The citizens of these countries all share a single nationality: Dutch. Aruba has no administrative subdivisions, but, for census purposes, is divided into eight regions. Its capital is Oranjestad.

Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. This climate has helped tourism as visitors to the island can reliably expect warm, sunny weather. It has a land area of 179 km2 and is densely populated, with a total of 102,484 inhabitants at the 2010 Census. It lies outside the hurricane belt.

== History ==

Aruba's first inhabitants are thought to have been Caquetíos Amerinds from the Arawak tribe, who migrated there from Venezuela to escape attacks by the Caribs. Fragments of the earliest known Indian settlements date back to 1000 AD. As sea currents made canoe travel to other Caribbean islands difficult, Caquetio culture remained more closely associated with that of mainland South America.

The capital Oranjestad

Europeans first learned of Aruba following the explorations for Spain by Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda in the summer of 1499. Though Vespucci boasted of discovering the island, Ojeda was likely first, learning of it from natives of nearby islands. Both described Aruba as an "island of giants", remarking on the comparatively large stature of the native Caquetíos compared to Europeans. Gold was not discovered on Aruba for another 300 years. Vespucci returned to Spain with stocks of cotton and brazilwood from the island and described houses built into the ocean. Vespucci and Ojeda's tales spurred interest in Aruba, and Spaniards soon colonized the island. 

Because it had low rainfall, Aruba was not considered profitable for the plantation system and the economics of the slave trade.

Aruba was colonized by Spain for over a century. Simas, the Cacique or chief in Aruba, welcomed the first Catholic priests in Aruba, who gave him a wooden cross as a gift. In 1508, the Spanish Crown appointed Alonso de Ojeda as its first Governor of Aruba, as part of Nueva Andalucía.

Arawaks spoke the "broken Spanish" which their ancestors had learned on Hispaniola.

Another governor appointed by Spain was Juan Martínez de Ampiés. A cédula real decreed in November 1525 gave Ampíes, factor of Española, the right to repopulate Aruba. In 1528, Ampíes was replaced by a representative of the House of Welser.

The Netherlands have covered the island with their regulations since 1629. Since 1636, Aruba has been under Dutch administration, initially governed by Peter Stuyvesant, later appointed to New Amsterdam (New York City). Stuyvesant was on a special mission in Aruba in November and December 1642. The island was included under the Dutch Dutch West India Company (W.I.C.) administration, as "New Netherland and Curaçao," from 1648 to 1664. In 1667 the Dutch administration appointed an Irishman as "Commandeur" in Aruba.

The Dutch took control 135 years after the Spanish, leaving the Arawaks to farm and graze livestock, and used the island as a source of meat for other Dutch possessions in the Caribbean.

In August 1806, General Francisco de Miranda and a group of 200 freedom fighters, traveling to liberate Venezuela from Spain, stayed in Aruba for several weeks.

In 1933, Aruba sent its first petition to the Queen seeking independent status and autonomy.

During World War II, Aruba was one of the main suppliers of refined petroleum products to the Allies. During the war, after the German occupation of the Netherlands, Aruba was made a British protectorate from 1940 to 1942, and a US protectorate from 1942 to 1945.

On 16 February 1942, a German submarine (U-156) under the command of Werner Hartenstein attacked the island's oil processing refinery, but the mission failed.

In March 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady of the United States, briefly visited American troops stationed in Aruba. In attendance were Curaçao Governor P. Kasteel, and U.S. Rear Admiral T. E. Chandler.

=== Move towards independence ===
In August 1947, Aruba presented its first Staatsreglement (constitution), for Aruba's status aparte as an autonomous state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. By 1954, the Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established, providing a framework for relations between Aruba and the rest of the Kingdom. 

In 1972, at a conference in Suriname, Betico Croes (MEP), a politician from Aruba, proposed a sui-generis Dutch Commonwealth of four states: Aruba, the Netherlands, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, each to have its own nationality. C. Yarzagaray, a parliamentary member representing the AVP political party, proposed a referendum so that the people of Aruba could choose whether they wanted total independence or Status Aparte as a full autonomous state under the Crown.

Croes worked in Aruba to inform and prepare the people of Aruba for independence. In 1976, he appointed a committee that chose the national flag and anthem, introducing them as symbols of Aruba's sovereignty and independence. He set 1981 as a target date for independence. In March 1977, the first Referendum for Self Determination was held with the support of the United Nations; 82% of the participants voted for independence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20211986 

The Island Government of Aruba assigned the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague to prepare a study for independence; it was titled Aruba en Onafhankelijkheid, achtergronden, modaliteiten en mogelijkheden; een rapport in eerste aanleg (Aruba and independence, backgrounds, modalities and opportunities; a preliminary report) (1978). At the conference in The Hague in 1981, Aruba's independence was set for the year 1991.

In March 1983, Aruba reached an official agreement within the Kingdom for its independence, to be developed in a series of steps as the Crown granted increasing autonomy. In August 1985 Aruba drafted a constitution that was unanimously approved. On 1 January 1986, after elections were held for its first parliament, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles; it officially became a country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Full independence was projected in 1996.

After his death in 1986, Croes was proclaimed Libertador di Aruba. At a convention in The Hague in 1990, at the request of Aruba's Prime Minister, the governments of Aruba, the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Antilles postponed indefinitely its transition to full independence. The article scheduling Aruba's complete independence was rescinded in 1995, although the process could be revived after another referendum.

== Geography ==
A map of Aruba

Aruba is a generally flat, riverless island in the Leeward Antilles island arc of the Lesser Antilles in the southern part of the Caribbean. It has white sandy beaches on the western and southern coasts of the island, relatively sheltered from fierce ocean currents. http://slam.canoe.ca/Travel/Activities/SunSand/2011/06/22/18320936.html This is where most tourist development has occurred. The northern and eastern coasts, lacking this protection, are considerably more battered by the sea and have been left largely untouched by humans.

The hinterland of the island features some rolling hills, the best known of which are called Hooiberg at 165 m and Mount Jamanota, the highest on the island at 188 m above sea level. Oranjestad, the capital, is located at .

To the east of Aruba are Bonaire and Curaçao, two island territories which once formed the southwest part of the Netherlands Antilles. This group of islands is sometimes called the ABC islands.

The Natural Bridge was a large, naturally formed limestone bridge on the island's north shore. It was a popular tourist destination until its collapse in 2005.

File:ArubaNaturalBabyBridge.JPG|Baby natural bridge in Aruba
File:197306 aruba naturalbridge.jpg|Natural bridge in Aruba (collapsed 2 September 2005)

=== Cities and towns ===

The island, with a population of just over 100,000 inhabitants, does not have major cities.
* Oranjestad (33,000 in 2006)
* Paradera
* San Nicolas
* Noord
* Santa Cruz
* Savaneta

===Fauna===
The island provides a habitat for the endemic Aruba Island Rattlesnake.

=== Climate ===

In the Köppen climate classification, Aruba has a Tropical semi-arid climate. Mean monthly temperature in Oranjestad varies little from 26.7 °C to 29.2 C, moderated by constant trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean, which comes from north-east. Yearly precipitation barely exceeds 470 mm in Oranjestad.

== Demographics ==

Population of Aruba 1961–2003, according to the FAO in 2005; number of inhabitants given in thousands.

The population is estimated to be 80% mixed Black/White/Caribbean Amerindian and 20% other ethnicities.

The Arawak heritage is stronger on Aruba than on most Caribbean islands. Although no full-blooded Aboriginals remain, the features of the islanders clearly indicate their genetic Arawak heritage. Most of the population is descended mostly from Arawak, and to a lesser extent Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and a few French, Portuguese, British, and African ancestors.

Recently, there has been substantial immigration to the island from neighboring American and Caribbean nations, possibly attracted by the higher paid jobs. In 2007, new immigration laws were introduced to help control the growth of the population by restricting foreign workers to a maximum of three years residency on the island.

Demographically, Aruba has felt the impact of its proximity to Venezuela. Many of Aruba's families are descended from Venezuelan immigrants. There is a seasonal increase of Venezuelans living in second homes.

=== Language ===

Language can be seen as an important part of island culture in Aruba. The official languages are Dutch and – since 2003 – Papiamento. Papiamento is the predominant language on Aruba. A creole language spoken on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, it incorporates words from other languages including Portuguese, West African languages, Dutch, and Spanish. English is known by many; its usage has grown due to tourism. Other common languages spoken based on the size of their community are Portuguese, Chinese, German, Spanish, and French.

In recent years, the government of Aruba has shown an increased interest in acknowledging the cultural and historical importance of its native language. Although spoken Papiamento is fairly similar among the several Papiamento-speaking islands, there is a big difference in written Papiamento. The orthography differs per island and even per group of people. Some are more oriented towards Portuguese and use the equivalent spelling (e.g. "y" instead of "j"), where others are more oriented towards Dutch.

The book The Buccaneers of America, first published in 1678, states through eyewitness account that the Indians on Aruba spoke "Spanish". The oldest government official statement written in Papiamento dates from 1803. Around 12.6% of the population today speaks Spanish. 

Aruba has four newspapers published in Papiamento: Diario, Bon Dia, Solo di Pueblo and Awe Mainta; and two in English: Aruba Today and The News. Amigoe is the newspaper published in Dutch. Aruba also has 18 radio stations (two AM and 16 FM) and three local television stations (Tele-Aruba, Aruba Broadcast Company and Channel 22).

=== Regions ===
For census purposes, Aruba is divided into eight regions, which have no administrative functions:

 Name Area (km²) Population 1991 Census Population 2000 Census Population 2010 Census 
 Noord / Tanki Leendert 
 Oranjestad West 
 Oranjestad Oost 
 Paradera 
 San Nicolas Noord 
 San Nicolas Zuid 
 Santa Cruz 
 Savaneta 
 Total Aruba 

== Government ==

King Willem-Alexander is the head of state of Aruba
Parliament of Aruba in Oranjestad.
As a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Aruba's politics take place within a framework of a 21-member Parliament and an eight-member Cabinet. The governor of Aruba is appointed for a six-year term by the monarch, and the prime minister and deputy prime minister are elected by the Staten (or "Parlamento") for four-year terms. The Staten is made up of 21 members elected by direct, popular vote to serve a four-year term. 

Together with the Netherlands, the countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As they share the same Dutch citizenship, these four countries still also share the Dutch passport as the Kingdom of the Netherlands passport. As Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten have small populations, the three countries had to limit immigration. To protect their population, they have the right to control the admission and expulsion of people from the Netherlands.

Aruba is designated as a member of the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) and is thus officially not a part of the European Union, though Aruba can and does receive support from the European Development Fund. 

=== Politics ===
The Aruban legal system is based on the Dutch model. Instead of juries or grand juries, in Aruba, legal jurisdiction lies with the Gerecht in Eerste Aanleg (Court of First Instance) on Aruba, the Gemeenschappelijk Hof van Justitie van Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten en van Bonaire, Sint Eustatius en Saba (Joint Court of Justice of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba) and the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden (Supreme Court of Justice of the Netherlands). Aruba.com The Korps Politie Aruba (Aruba Police Force) is the island's law enforcement agency and operates district precincts in Oranjestad, Noord, San Nicolaas, and Santa Cruz, where it is headquartered. 

Deficit spending has been a staple in Aruba's history, and modestly high inflation has been present as well. As of 2006, the government's debt had grown to 1.883 billion Aruban florins. Aruba received some development aid from the Dutch government each year through 2009, as part of a deal (signed as "Aruba's Financial Independence") in which the Netherlands gradually reduced its financial help to the island each successive year.

In 2006, the Aruban government changed several tax laws to reduce the deficit. Direct taxes have been converted to indirect taxes as proposed by the IMF. A 3% tax has been introduced on sales and services, while income taxes have been lowered and revenue taxes for business reduced by 20%. The government compensated workers with 3.1% for the effect that the B.B.O. would have on the inflation for 2007.

== Education ==
Aruba's educational system is patterned after the Dutch system of education. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/redsox/2013/09/03/usa-today-minor-league-player-of-the-year-xander-bogaerts-boston-red-sox/2760091/ 

The Government of Aruba finances the national education system. Private schools, such as the International School of Aruba (ISA), finance their own activities. The percentage of money earmarked for education is higher than the average for the Caribbean/Latin American region.

Arubans have a primary school system, followed by a segmented secondary school program which includes vocational training, basic education, college preparation and advanced placement.

The study of Spanish, English, Dutch and French is offered in secondary school and college, since a high percentage of students continue their studies in Europe.

Higher education is available through the Professional Education program (EPI), the teachers college (IPA) as well as through the University of Aruba (UA) which offers bachelors and masters programs in law, finance and economics and hospitality and tourism management. Since the choice for higher education on the island itself is limited, many students choose study in the Netherlands, or abroad in countries in North America, South America as well as the rest of Europe.

Aruba is also home to two medical schools: Aureus University School of Medicine and Xavier University School of Medicine.

== Economy ==

Aruba has one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean region. There is a low unemployment rate.

The GDP per capita for Aruba was estimated to be $21,800 in 2004; among the highest in the Caribbean and the Americas. Its main trading partners are Venezuela, the United States and the Netherlands.

A graphical breakdown of Aruba's economy by exports
The island's economy has been dominated by five main industries: tourism, gold mining, phosphate mining (The Aruba Phosphaat Maatschappij), aloe export, and petroleum refining (The Lago Oil and Transport Company and the Arend Petroleum Maatschappij Shell Co.). Before the "Status Aparte" (a separate completely autonomous country/state within the Kingdom), oil processing was the dominant industry in Aruba despite expansion of the tourism sector. Today, the influence of the oil processing business is minimal. The size of the agriculture and manufacturing sectors also remains minimal.

The inflation on Aruba in 2007 was 8.7%.

The official exchange rate of the Aruban florin is pegged to the US dollar at 1.79 florins to 1 USD. Because of this fact, and due to a large number of American tourists, many businesses operate using US dollars instead of florins, especially in the hotel and resort districts.

===Tourism===
About three quarters of the Aruban gross national product is earned through tourism or related activities. Most tourists are from the United States (predominantly from the north-east US), the Netherlands and South-America, mainly Venezuela and Colombia.

As part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, citizens of (mainland) the Netherlands can travel with relative ease to Aruba and other islands of the Dutch Antilles. No visas are needed for Dutch citizens, only a passport, and although the currency used in Aruba is different (the Netherlands has the Euro), Euros are still not widely accepted but can be easily exchanged at a local bank for Aruban Florins.

For the facilitation of the passengers whose destination is the United States, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) full pre-clearance facility in Aruba has been in effect since 1 February 2001 with the expansion in the Queen Beatrix Airport. United States and Aruba have had the agreement since 1986. It began as a USDA and Customs post. Since 2008, Aruba has been the only island to have this service for private flights.

===Military===
In 1999, the U.S. Department of Defense established a Forward Operating Location (FOL) at the airport.

There is also a small Dutch marines base by Savaneta containing approximately 200 Dutch Marines and about 100 AruMil forces.

== Culture ==

Ornate buildings in Oranjestad, Aruba.
On 18 March, Aruba celebrates its National Day. In 1976, Aruba presented its National Anthem (Aruba Dushi Tera) and Flag.

Aruba has a varied culture. According to the Bureau Burgelijke Stand en Bevolkingsregister (BBSB), as of 2005 there are ninety-two different nationalities living on the island. Dutch influence can still be seen, as in the celebration of "Sinterklaas" on 5 and 6 December and other national holidays like 30 April, when in Aruba and the rest of the Kingdom of the Netherlands the Queen's birthday or "Dia di La Reina" (Koninginnedag) is celebrated.
Iguanas on a rooftop in Aruba.

Christmas and New Year's Eve are celebrated with the typical music and songs for gaitas for Christmas and the Dande for New Year, and the "ayaca", "ponche crema," ham, and other typical foods and drinks. Millions of florins worth of fireworks are burnt at midnight on New Year's Eve. On 25 January, Betico Croes' birthday is celebrated. Dia di San Juan is celebrated on June 24.

Besides Christmas, the religious holy days of the Feast of the Ascension and Good Friday are holidays on the island.

The holiday of Carnaval is also an important one in Aruba, as it is in many Caribbean and Latin American countries, and, like Mardi Gras, that goes on for weeks. Its celebration in Aruba started, around the 1950s, influenced by the inhabitants from Venezuela and the nearby islands (Curaçao, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Barbados, St. Maarten and Anguilla) who came to work for the Oil refinery. Over the years the Carnival Celebration has changed and now starts from the beginning of January till the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday with a large parade on the last Sunday of the festivities (Sunday before Ash Wednesday).

Tourism from the United States has recently increased the visibility of American culture on the island, with such celebrations as Halloween and Thanksgiving Day in November.

== Infrastructure ==
Aruba's Queen Beatrix International Airport is located near Oranjestad. According to the Aruba Airport Authority, almost 1.7 million travelers used the airport in 2005, 61% of whom were Americans.

Aruba has two ports, Barcadera and Playa, which are located in Oranjestad. The Port of Playa services all the cruise-ship lines, including Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, NCL, Holland America Line, Disney Cruise Line and others. Nearly one million tourists enter this port per year. Aruba Ports Authority, owned and operated by the Aruban government, runs these seaports.

Arubus is a government-owned bus company. Its buses operate from 3:30 am until 12:30 am 365 days a year. Small private vans also provide transportation services in certain areas such Hotel Area, San Nicolaas, Santa Cruz and Noord.
Palm Beach. A street car service runs on rails on the Mainstreet. Street car is up and running The Morning News, 2013 Feb 27 

=== Utilities ===
Water- en Energiebedrijf (W.E.B.) Aruba NV produces potable industrial water at the world's third largest desalination plant. Aruba Hosts International Desalination Conference 2007 | Official Travel News from Aruba Average daily consumption in Aruba is about 37000 LT. 

There are two telecommunications providers: Setar, a government-based company, and Digicel, which is privately owned. Setar is the provider of services such as internet, video conferencing, GSM wireless technology and land lines. Digicel is Setar's competitor in wireless technology using the GSM platform.

== Places of interest ==
Alto Vista Chapel

== Notables ==

* Dave Benton, musician who won the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest representing Estonia
* Maurice Bishop, President of Grenada
* Xander Bogaerts, MLB player
* Emily Bolton, actress
* Bobby Farrell, musician (group Boney M.)
* Percy Irausquin, fashion designer
* Gene Kingsale, MLB (Major League Baseball) player
* Calvin Maduro, MLB player
* Padu del Caribe, Aruban musician and songwriter
* Roger Peterson, musician
* Pete Philly, Dutch hip-hop artist
* Sidney Ponson, MLB player

== See also ==

* Bibliography of Aruba
* Index of Aruba-related articles
* Military of Aruba
* Outline of Aruba
* 
* List of monuments of Aruba

== References ==

== External links ==

* Government of Aruba
* Aruba.com – Official Tourism site of Aruba
* 

* 

 



[[Articles of Confederation]]

The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Its drafting by the Continental Congress began in mid-1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. The formal ratification by all 13 states was completed in early 1781. Even when not yet ratified, the Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Native American relations. Nevertheless, the weakness of the government created by the Articles became a matter of concern for key nationalists. On March 4, 1789, general government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the U.S. Constitution. The new Constitution provided for a much stronger federal government with a chief executive (the president), courts, and taxing powers.

==Background and context==
The political push to increase cooperation among the then-loyal colonies began with the Albany Congress in 1754 and Benjamin Franklin's proposed intercolonial collaboration to help solve mutual local problems themselves; the Articles of Confederation would bear some resemblance to it. Over the next two decades, some of the basic concepts it addressed would strengthen and others would weaken, particularly the degree of deserved loyalty to the crown. With civil disobedience resulting in coercive and intolerable acts, and armed conflict resulting in dissidents being proclaimed rebels and outside the King's protection, any loyalty remaining shifted toward independence and how to achieve it. In 1775, with events outpacing communications, the Second Continental Congress began acting as the provisional government to run the American Revolutionary War and gain the colonies their collective independence.

It was an era of constitution writing—most states were busy at the task—and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution, even though other nations did not. During the war, Congress exercised an unprecedented level of political, diplomatic, military and economic authority. It adopted trade restrictions, established and maintained an army, issued fiat money, created a military code and negotiated with foreign governments. 

To transform themselves from outlaws into a legitimate nation, the colonists needed international recognition for their cause and foreign allies to support it. In early 1776, Thomas Paine argued in the closing pages of the first edition of Common Sense that the “custom of nations” demanded a formal declaration of American independence if any European power were to mediate a peace between the Americans and Great Britain. The monarchies of France and Spain in particular could not be expected to aid those they considered rebels against another legitimate monarch. Foreign courts needed to have American grievances laid before them persuasively in a “manifesto” which could also reassure them that the Americans would be reliable trading partners. Without such a declaration, Paine concluded, “he custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until, by an independence, we take rank with other nations.” 

Beyond improving their existing association, the records of the Second Continental Congress show that the need for a declaration of independence was intimately linked with the demands of international relations. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution before the Continental Congress declaring the colonies independent; at the same time he also urged Congress to resolve “to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances” and to prepare a plan of confederation for the newly independent states. Congress then created three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a Model Treaty, and the Articles of Confederation. The Declaration announced the states' entry into the international system; the model treaty was designed to establish amity and commerce with other states; and the Articles of Confederation, which established “a firm league” among the thirteen free and independent states, constituted an international agreement to set up central institutions for the conduct of vital domestic and foreign affairs. 

==Drafting==
Articles of Confederation 200th Anniversary commemorative stampFirst issued in York, Penn., 1977
On June 12, 1776, a day after appointing a committee to prepare a draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress resolved to appoint a committee of 13 to prepare a draft of a constitution for a union of the states. The committee met repeatedly, and chairman John Dickinson presented their results to the Congress on July 12, 1776. There were long debates on such issues as sovereignty, the exact powers to be given the confederate government, whether to have a judiciary, and voting procedures. The final draft of the Articles was prepared in the summer of 1777 and the Second Continental Congress approved them for ratification by the individual states on November 15, 1777, after a year of debate. 
In practice, the Articles were in use beginning in 1777; the final draft of the Articles served as the de facto system of government used by the Congress ("the United States in Congress assembled") until it became de jure by final ratification on March 1, 1781; at which point Congress became the Congress of the Confederation. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the national government. The individual articles set the rules for current and future operations of the United States government. It was made capable of making war and peace, negotiating diplomatic and commercial agreements with foreign countries, and deciding disputes between the states, including their additional and contested western territories. Article XIII stipulated that "their provisions shall be inviolably observed by every state" and "the Union shall be perpetual". John Dickinson and Benjamin Franklin's handwritten drafts of the Articles of Confederation are housed at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

==Operation==
The Articles were created by delegates from the states in the Second Continental Congress out of a need to have "a plan of confederacy for securing the freedom, sovereignty, and independence of the United States." After the war, nationalists, especially those who had been active in the Continental Army, complained that the Articles were too weak for an effective government. There was no president, no executive agencies, no judiciary and no tax base. The absence of a tax base meant that there was no way to pay off state and national debts from the war years except by requesting money from the states, which seldom arrived.

In 1788, with the approval of Congress, the Articles were replaced by the United States Constitution and the new government began operations in 1789. 

==Ratification==
Congress began to move for ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1777:

"Permit us, then, earnestly to recommend these articles to the immediate and dispassionate attention of the legislatures of the respective states. Let them be candidly reviewed under a sense of the difficulty of combining in one system the various sentiments and interests of a continent divided into so many sovereign and independent communities, under a conviction of the absolute necessity of uniting all our councils and all our strength, to maintain and defend our common liberties... 

The document could not become officially effective until it was ratified by all 13 states. The first state to ratify was Virginia on December 16, 1777; the thirteenth state to ratify was Maryland on February 2, 1781. A ceremonial confirmation of this thirteenth, final ratification took place in the Congress on March 1, 1781 at high noon. 
 

Dates of ratification are: References to a 1778 Virginia ratification are based on an error in the Journals of Congress: "The published Journals of Congress print this enabling act of the Virginia assembly under date of Dec. 15, 1778. This error has come from the MS. vol. 9 (History of Confederation), p. 123, Papers of the Continental Congress, Library of Congress." 

# State Date 
 Virginia 
 South Carolina 
 New York 
 Rhode Island 
 Connecticut 
 Georgia 
 New Hampshire 
 Pennsylvania 
 Massachusetts 
 North Carolina 
 New Jersey 
 Delaware 
 Maryland 

The ratification process dragged on for several years, stalled by the refusal of some states to rescind their claims to land in the West. Maryland was the last holdout; it refused to go along until Virginia and New York agreed to cede their claims in the Ohio River Valley. It took a little over three years for all states to ratify.

The Articles provided for a blanket acceptance of Province of Quebec (referred to as "Canada" in the Articles) into the United States if it chose to do so. It did not, and the subsequent Constitution carried no such special provision of admission.

==Article summaries==
Even though the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution were established by many of the same people, the two documents are very different. Stylistically, the Articles are more wordy, less straightforward and less quotable than the Constitution. Functionally, they lay out very different forms of government. The original five-page Articles contained a preamble, 13 articles, a conclusion, and a signatory section.
The preamble states that the signatory states "agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union" between the 13 states.
The following list contains short summaries of each of the 13 articles.
# Establishes the name of the confederation with these words: "The Stile of this confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'"
# Asserts the sovereignty of each state, except for the specific powers delegated to the confederation government, i.e. "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated."
# Not being sovereign, it does not call the United States of America a "nation" or "government," but instead says, "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."
# But to instill a national feeling, "he better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union," it establishes equal treatment and freedom of movement for the free inhabitants of each state to pass unhindered between the states, excluding "paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice." All these people are entitled to equal rights established by the state into which he travels. If a crime is committed in one state and the perpetrator flees to another state, he will be extradited to and tried in the state in which the crime was committed.
# Allocates one vote in the Congress of the Confederation (the "United States in Congress Assembled") to each state, which is entitled to a delegation of between two and seven members. Members of Congress are appointed by state legislatures. Also, individuals may not serve more than three out of any six years.
# Only the central government is allowed to conduct foreign political or commercial relations and to declare war. No state or official may accept foreign gifts or titles, and granting any title of nobility is forbidden to all. States are restrained from forming sub-national groups. No state may tax or interfere with treaty stipulations already proposed. No state may engage in war, without permission of Congress, unless invaded or that is imminent on the frontier; no state may maintain a peace-time standing army or navy, unless infested by pirates, but every State is required to keep ready, a well-regulated (meaning well trained), disciplined, and equipped militia, with sufficient public stores of a due number of field pieces, tents, a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage.
# Whenever an army is raised for common defense, colonels and military ranks below colonel will be named by the state legislatures.
# Expenditures by the United States of America will be paid by funds raised by state legislatures, and apportioned to the states based on the real property values of each.
# Defines the sole and exclusive right and power of the United States in Congress assembled to determine peace and war; to exchange ambassadors; to enter into treaties and alliances, with some provisos; to establish rules for deciding all cases of captures or prizes on land or water; to grant letters of marque and reprisal (documents authorizing privateers) in times of peace; to appoint courts for the trial of pirates and crimes committed on the high seas; to establish courts for appeals in all cases of captures, but no member of Congress may be appointed a judge; to set weights and measures (including coins), and for Congress to serve as a final court for disputes between states.
# "The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of the nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said Committee, for the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled be requisite."
# If "Canada" (as the British-held Province of Quebec was also known) accedes to this confederation, it will be admitted. 
# Reaffirms that the Confederation accepts war debt incurred by Congress before the existence of the Articles.
# Declares that the Articles are perpetual, and can only be altered by approval of Congress with ratification by all the state legislatures.

While still at war with Britain, the Founding Fathers were divided between those seeking a powerful, centralized national government (the "federalists"), and those seeking a loosely structured one (the "anti federalists"). Jealously guarding their new independence, members of the Continental Congress arrived at a compromise solution dividing sovereignty between the states and the central government, with a unicameral legislature that protected the liberty of the individual states. While calling on Congress to regulate military and monetary affairs, for example, the Articles of Confederation provided no mechanism with which to compel the States to comply with requests for either troops or revenue. At times, this left the military without adequate funding, supplies or even food. 

==The end of the Revolutionary War==
The Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended hostilities with Great Britain, languished in Congress for months because several state representatives failed to attend sessions of the national legislature to ratify it. Yet Congress had no power to enforce attendance. In September 1783, George Washington complained that Congress was paralyzed. Congress have come to no determination yet respecting the Peace Establishment nor am I able to say when they will. I have lately had a conference with a Committee on this subject, and have reiterated my former opinions, but it appears to me that there is not a sufficient representation to discuss Great National points.Letter George Washington to George Clinton, September 11, 1783. The George Washington Papers, 1741–1799 Many revolutionaries had gone to their respective home countries after the war, and local government and self-rule seemed quite satisfactory.

==Function==

===The Army===
The Articles supported the Congressional direction of the Continental Army, and allowed the states to present a unified front when dealing with the European powers. As a tool to build a centralized war-making government, they were largely a failure: Historian Bruce Chadwick wrote:

The Continental Congress, before the Articles were approved, had promised soldiers a pension of half pay for life. However Congress had no power to compel the states to fund this obligation, and as the war wound down after the victory at Yorktown the sense of urgency to support the military was no longer a factor. No progress was made in Congress during the winter of 1783–84. General Henry Knox, who would later become the first Secretary of War under the Constitution, blamed the weaknesses of the Articles for the inability of the government to fund the army. The army had long been supportive of a strong union. Puls pp. 174–176 Knox wrote:

As Congress failed to act on the petitions, Knox wrote to Gouverneur Morris, four years before the Philadelphia Convention was convened, "As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution." 

Once the war had been won, the Continental Army was largely disbanded. A very small national force was maintained to man the frontier forts and to protect against Native American attacks. Meanwhile, each of the states had an army (or militia), and 11 of them had Navies. The wartime promises of bounties and land grants to be paid for service were not being met. In 1783, George Washington defused the Newburgh conspiracy, but riots by unpaid Pennsylvania veterans forced Congress to leave Philadelphia temporarily. 

The Congress from time to time during the Revolutionary War requisitioned troops from the states. Any contributions were voluntary, and in the debates of 1788 the Federalists (who supported the proposed new Constitution) claimed that state politicians acted unilaterally, and contributed when the Continental army protected their state's interests. The Anti-Federalists claimed that state politicians understood their duty to the Union and contributed to advance its needs. Dougherty (2009) concludes that generally the States' behavior validated the Federalist analysis. This helps explain why the Articles of Confederation needed reforms. 

===Foreign policy===
Even after peace had been achieved in 1783, the weakness of the Confederation government frustrated the ability of the government to conduct foreign policy. In 1789, Thomas Jefferson, concerned over the failure to fund an American naval force to confront the Barbary pirates, wrote to James Monroe, "It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth. The states must see the rod.” Ellis 92 

Furthermore, the Jay–Gardoqui Treaty with Spain in 1789 also showed weakness in foreign policy. In this treaty — which was never ratified due to its immense unpopularity — the United States was to give up rights to use the Mississippi River for 25 years, which would have economically strangled the settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains. Finally, due to the Confederation's military weakness, it could not compel the British army to leave frontier forts which were on American soil — forts which, in 1783, the British promised to leave, but which they delayed leaving pending U.S. implementation of other provisions such as ending action against Loyalists and allowing them to seek compensation. This incomplete British implementation of the Treaty of Paris (1783) was superseded by the implementation of Jay's Treaty in 1795 under the new U.S. Constitution.

===Taxation and Commerce===
Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government's power was kept quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. 

Congress was denied any powers of taxation: it could only request money from the states. The states often failed to meet these requests in full, leaving both Congress and the Continental Army chronically short of money. As more money was printed by Congress, the continental dollars depreciated. In 1779, George Washington wrote to John Jay, who was serving as the president of the Continental Congress, "that a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions." Stahr p. 105 Mr. Jay and the Congress responded in May by requesting $45 million from the States. In an appeal to the States to comply, Jay wrote that the taxes were "the price of liberty, the peace, and the safety of yourselves and posterity." Stahr p. 107 He argued that Americans should avoid having it said "that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent" or that "her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith." Stahr pp. 107–108 The States did not respond with any of the money requested from them.

Congress had also been denied the power to regulate either foreign trade or interstate commerce and, as a result, all of the States maintained control over their own trade policies. The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the War. Some States paid off their war debts and others did not. Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.

===Accomplishments of the Confederation===
Nevertheless, the Confederation Congress did take two actions with long lasting impact. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance created territorial government, set up protocols for the admission of new states, the division of land into useful units, and set aside land in each township for public use. This system represented a sharp break from imperial colonization, as in Europe, and provided the basis for the rest of American continental expansion through the 19th Century.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 established both the general practices of land surveying in the west and northwest and the land ownership provisions used throughout the later westward expansion beyond the Mississippi River. Frontier lands were surveyed into the now-familiar squares of land called the township (36 square miles), the section (one square mile), and the quarter section (160 acres). This system was carried forward to most of the States west of the Mississippi (excluding areas of Texas and California that had already been surveyed and divided up by the Spanish Empire). Then, when the Homestead Act was enacted in 1867, the quarter section became the basic unit of land that was granted to new settler-farmers.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 noted the agreement of the original states to give up northwestern land claims, organized the Northwest Territory and thus cleared the way for the entry of five new states, and part of a sixth to the Union. To be specific, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia gave up all of their claims to land north of the Ohio River and west of the (present) western border of Pennsylvania. Over several decades a number of new states were formed from this land: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 also made great advances in the abolition of slavery. New states admitted to the union in said territory would never be slave states.

==The United States of America under the Articles==
The peace treaty left the United States independent and at peace but with an unsettled governmental structure. The Articles envisioned a permanent confederation, but granted to the Congress—the only federal institution—little power to finance itself or to ensure that its resolutions were enforced. There was no president and no national court. Although historians generally agree that the Articles were too weak to hold the fast-growing nation together, they do give credit to the settlement of the western issue, as the states voluntarily turned over their lands to national control. 

By 1783, with the end of the British blockade, the new nation was regaining its prosperity. However, trade opportunities were restricted by the mercantilism of the British and French empires. The ports of the British West Indies were closed to all staple products which were not carried in British ships. France and Spain established similar policies. Simultaneously, new manufacturers faced sharp competition from British products which were suddenly available again. Political unrest in several states and efforts by debtors to use popular government to erase their debts increased the anxiety of the political and economic elites which had led the Revolution. The apparent inability of the Congress to redeem the public obligations (debts) incurred during the war, or to become a forum for productive cooperation among the states to encourage commerce and economic development, only aggravated a gloomy situation. In 1786–87, Shays' Rebellion, an uprising of farmers in western Massachusetts against the state court system, threatened the stability of state government. 

The Continental Congress printed paper money which was so depreciated that it ceased to pass as currency, spawning the expression "not worth a continental". Congress could not levy taxes and could only make requisitions upon the States. Less than a million and a half dollars came into the treasury between 1781 and 1784, although the governors had been asked for two million in 1783 alone. 

When Adams went to London in 1785 as the first representative of the United States, he found it impossible to secure a treaty for unrestricted commerce. Demands were made for favors and there was no assurance that individual states would agree to a treaty. Adams stated it was necessary for the States to confer the power of passing navigation laws to Congress, or that the States themselves pass retaliatory acts against Great Britain. Congress had already requested and failed to get power over navigation laws. Meanwhile, each State acted individually against Great Britain to little effect. When other New England states closed their ports to British shipping, Connecticut hastened to profit by opening its ports. 

By 1787 Congress was unable to protect manufacturing and shipping. State legislatures were unable or unwilling to resist attacks upon private contracts and public credit. Land speculators expected no rise in values when the government could not defend its borders nor protect its frontier population. 

The idea of a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation grew in favor. Alexander Hamilton realized while serving as Washington's top aide that a strong central government was necessary to avoid foreign intervention and allay the frustrations due to an ineffectual Congress. Hamilton led a group of like-minded nationalists, won Washington's endorsement, and convened the Annapolis Convention in 1786 to petition Congress to call a constitutional convention to meet in Philadelphia to remedy the long-term crisis. 

==Signatures==
The Second Continental Congress approved the Articles for distribution to the states on November 15, 1777. A copy was made for each state and one was kept by the Congress. On November 28, the copies sent to the states for ratification were unsigned, and the cover letter, dated November 17, had only the signatures of Henry Laurens and Charles Thomson, who were the President and Secretary to the Congress.

The Articles, however, were unsigned, and the date was blank. Congress began the signing process by examining their copy of the Articles on June 27, 1778. They ordered a final copy prepared (the one in the National Archives), and that delegates should inform the secretary of their authority for ratification.

On July 9, 1778, the prepared copy was ready. They dated it, and began to sign. They also requested each of the remaining states to notify its delegation when ratification was completed. On that date, delegates present from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina signed the Articles to indicate that their states had ratified. New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland could not, since their states had not ratified. North Carolina and Georgia also didn't sign that day, since their delegations were absent.

After the first signing, some delegates signed at the next meeting they attended. For example, John Wentworth of New Hampshire added his name on August 8. John Penn was the first of North Carolina's delegates to arrive (on July 10), and the delegation signed the Articles on July 21, 1778.

The other states had to wait until they ratified the Articles and notified their Congressional delegation. Georgia signed on July 24, New Jersey on November 26, and Delaware on February 12, 1779. Maryland refused to ratify the Articles until every state had ceded its western land claims.

The Act of the Maryland legislature to ratify the Articles of Confederation on February 2, 1781
On February 2, 1781, the much-awaited decision was taken by the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis. As the last piece of business during the afternoon Session, "among engrossed Bills" was "signed and sealed by Governor Thomas Sim Lee in the Senate Chamber, in the presence of the members of both Houses... an Act to empower the delegates of this state in Congress to subscribe and ratify the articles of confederation" and perpetual union among the states. The Senate then adjourned "to the first Monday in August next." The decision of Maryland to ratify the Articles was reported to the Continental Congress on February 12. The confirmation signing of the Articles by the two Maryland delegates took place in Philadelphia at noon time on March 1, 1781 and was celebrated in the afternoon. With these events, the Articles were entered into force and the United States of America came into being as a sovereign federal state.

Congress had debated the Articles for over a year and a half, and the ratification process had taken nearly three and a half years. Many participants in the original debates were no longer delegates, and some of the signers had only recently arrived. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were signed by a group of men who were never present in the Congress at the same time.

===Signers===
The signers and the states they represented were:

Connecticut
* Roger Sherman
* Samuel Huntington
* Oliver Wolcott
* Titus Hosmer
* Andrew Adams

Delaware
* Thomas McKean
* John Dickinson
* Nicholas Van Dyke

Georgia
* John Walton
* Edward Telfair
* Edward Langworthy

Maryland
* John Hanson
* Daniel Carroll

Massachusetts Bay
* John Hancock
* Samuel Adams
* Elbridge Gerry
* Francis Dana
* James Lovell
* Samuel Holten

New Hampshire
* Josiah Bartlett
* John Wentworth Jr.

New Jersey
* John Witherspoon
* Nathaniel Scudder

New York
* James Duane
* Francis Lewis
* William Duer
* Gouverneur Morris

North Carolina
* John Penn
* Cornelius Harnett
* John Williams

Pennsylvania
* Robert Morris
* Daniel Roberdeau
* Jonathan Bayard Smith
* William Clingan
* Joseph Reed

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
* William Ellery
* Henry Marchant
* John Collins

South Carolina
* Henry Laurens
* William Henry Drayton
* John Mathews
* Richard Hutson
* Thomas Heyward Jr.

Virginia
* Richard Henry Lee
* John Banister
* Thomas Adams
* John Harvie
* Francis Lightfoot Lee

Roger Sherman (Connecticut) was the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States: the Continental Association, the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.

Robert Morris (Pennsylvania) signed three of the great state papers of the United States: the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.

John Dickinson (Delaware), Daniel Carroll (Maryland) and Gouverneur Morris (New York), along with Sherman and Robert Morris, were the only five people to sign both the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution (Gouverneur Morris represented Pennsylvania when signing the Constitution).

==Presidents of the Congress==
The following list is of those who led the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation as the Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled. Under the Articles, the president was the presiding officer of Congress, chaired the Committee of the States when Congress was in recess, and performed other administrative functions. He was not, however, an executive in the way the successor President of the United States is a chief executive, since all of the functions he executed were under the direct control of Congress. 

 President of Congress Office Start Office Exit 
 Samuel Huntington March 1, 1781 July 9, 1781 
 Thomas McKean July 10, 1781 November 4, 1781 
 John Hanson November 5, 1781 November 3, 1782 
 Elias Boudinot November 4, 1782 November 2, 1783 
 Thomas Mifflin November 3, 1783 October 31, 1784 
 Richard Henry Lee November 30, 1784 November 6, 1785 
 John Hancock November 23, 1785 May 29, 1786 
 Nathaniel Gorham June 6, 1786 November 5, 1786 
 Arthur St. Clair February 2, 1787 November 4, 1787 
 Cyrus Griffin January 22, 1788 November 2, 1788 

For a full list of Presidents of the Congress Assembled and Presidents under the two Continental Congresses before the Articles, see President of the Continental Congress.

==Gallery==

Image:Articles page1.jpg|Articles of Confederation, page 1
Image:Articles page2.jpg|Articles of Confederation, page 2
Image:Articles page3.jpg|Articles of Confederation, page 3
Image:Articles page4.jpg|Articles of Confederation, page 4
Image:Articles page5.jpg|Articles of Confederation, page 5

==Revision and replacement==
On January 21, 1786, the Virginia Legislature, following James Madison's recommendation, invited all the states to send delegates to Annapolis, Maryland to discuss ways to reduce interstate conflict. At what came to be known as the Annapolis Convention, the few state delegates in attendance endorsed a motion that called for all states to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to discuss ways to improve the Articles of Confederation in a "Grand Convention." Although the states' representatives to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were only authorized to amend the Articles, the representatives held secret, closed-door sessions and wrote a new constitution. The new Constitution gave much more power to the central government, but characterization of the result is disputed. The general goal of the authors was to get close to a republic as defined by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, while trying to address the many difficulties of the interstate relationships. Historian Forrest McDonald, using the ideas of James Madison from Federalist 39, describes the change this way:

In May 1786, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed that Congress revise the Articles of Confederation. Recommended changes included granting Congress power over foreign and domestic commerce, and providing means for Congress to collect money from state treasuries. Unanimous approval was necessary to make the alterations, however, and Congress failed to reach a consensus. The weakness of the Articles in establishing an effective unifying government was underscored by the threat of internal conflict both within and between the states, especially after Shays' Rebellion threatened to topple the state government of Massachusetts.

Historian Ralph Ketcham comments on the opinions of Patrick Henry, George Mason, and other antifederalists who were not so eager to give up the local autonomy won by the revolution:

Historians have given many reasons for the perceived need to replace the articles in 1787. Jillson and Wilson (1994) point to the financial weakness as well as the norms, rules and institutional structures of the Congress, and the propensity to divide along sectional lines.

Rakove (1988) identifies several factors that explain the collapse of the Confederation. The lack of compulsory direct taxation power was objectionable to those wanting a strong centralized state or expecting to benefit from such power. It could not collect customs after the war because tariffs were vetoed by Rhode Island. Rakove concludes that their failure to implement national measures "stemmed not from a heady sense of independence but rather from the enormous difficulties that all the states encountered in collecting taxes, mustering men, and gathering supplies from a war-weary populace." Rakove 1988 p. 230 The second group of factors Rakove identified derived from the substantive nature of the problems the Continental Congress confronted after 1783, especially the inability to create a strong foreign policy. Finally, the Confederation's lack of coercive power reduced the likelihood for profit to be made by political means, thus potential rulers were uninspired to seek power.

When the war ended in 1783, certain special interests had incentives to create a new "merchant state," much like the British state people had rebelled against. In particular, holders of war scrip and land speculators wanted a central government to pay off scrip at face value and to legalize western land holdings with disputed claims. Also, manufacturers wanted a high tariff as a barrier to foreign goods, but competition among states made this impossible without a central government. Hendrickson p. 154 

===Legitimacy of closing down===
Political scientist David C. Hendrickson writes that two prominent political leaders in the Confederation, John Jay of New York and Thomas Burke of North Carolina believed that "the authority of the congress rested on the prior acts of the several states, to which the states gave their voluntary consent, and until those obligations were fulfilled, neither nullification of the authority of congress, exercising its due powers, nor secession from the compact itself was consistent with the terms of their original pledges." Hendrickson p. 153–154 

According to Article XIII of the Confederation, any alteration had to be approved unanimously: 
he Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

On the other hand, Article VII of the proposed Constitution stated that it would become effective after ratification by a mere nine states, without unanimity:
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The apparent tension between these two provisions was addressed at the time, and remains a topic of scholarly discussion. In 1788, James Madison remarked (in Federalist No. 40) that the issue had become moot: "As this objection...has been in a manner waived by those who have criticised the powers of the convention, I dismiss it without further observation." Nevertheless, it is an interesting historical and legal question whether opponents of the Constitution could have plausibly attacked the Constitution on that ground. At the time, there were state legislators who argued that the Constitution was not an alteration of the Articles of Confederation, but rather would be a complete replacement so the unanimity rule did not apply. Maier, Pauline. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788, p. 62 (Simon and Schuster, 2011). Moreover, the Confederation had proven woefully inadequate and therefore was supposedly no longer binding. 

Modern scholars such as Francisco Forrest Martin agree that the Articles of Confederation had lost its binding force because many states had violated it, and thus "other states-parties did not have to comply with the Articles' unanimous consent rule". Martin, Francisco. The Constitution as Treaty: The International Legal Constructionalist Approach to the U.S. Constitution, p. 5 (Cambridge University Press, 2007). In contrast, law professor Akhil Amar suggests that there may not have really been any conflict between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution on this point; Article VI of the Confederation specifically allowed side deals among states, and the Constitution could be viewed as a side deal until all states ratified it. Amar, Akhil. America's Constitution: A Biography, p. 517 (Random House 2012). 

===Final months===
According to their terms for modification (Article XIII), the Articles would still have been in effect until 1790, the year in which the last of the 13 states, Rhode Island, ratified the new Constitution. The Congress under the Articles continued to convene with a quorum until October 1788, overseeing the adoption of the new Constitution by the states, setting elections and attending to other business. 
 
By July 1788, 11 of the 13 states had ratified the new Constitution.
On Saturday, September 13, 1788, the Confederation Congress voted the resolve to implement the new Constitution, and on Monday, September 15 published an announcement that the new Constitution had been ratified by the necessary nine states, set the first Wednesday in February 1789 for the presidential electors to meet and select a new president, and set the first Wednesday of March 1789 as the day the new government would take over and the government under the Articles of Confederation would come to an end. 

On that same September 13, it determined that New York would remain the national capital. 

==See also==
* History of the United States (1776–1789)
* Perpetual Union
* U.S. Constitution
* Vetocracy

==Notes==

==References and further reading==

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==External links==

* Text Version of the Articles of Confederation
* Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union
* Articles of Confederation and related resources, Library of Congress
* Today in History: November 15, Library of Congress
* United States Constitution Online—The Articles of Confederation
* Free Download of Articles of Confederation Audio
* The Articles of Confederation, Chapter 45 (see page 253) of Volume 4 of Conceived in Liberty by Murray Rothbard, in PDF format.
* Mobile friendly version of the Articles Of Confederation



[[Asia Minor (disambiguation)]]

Asia Minor is an alternative name for Anatolia, the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey. It may also refer to:
* Asia Minor (song) - 1961 song by Jimmy Wisner (operating under the name Kokomo)
* Asia Minor (album) - album by Jamaican-born jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece



[[Aa River]]

Aa is the name of a large number of small European rivers. Aa originated from an Indo-European word meaning water, and it can be seen in the German ach or aach or the North Germanic a or aa. 
* Aa River (France), a river in northern France
* Aa River (Meuse), a river in North Brabant, Netherlands
* Drentsche Aa, a river in Drenthe and Groningen, Netherlands
* Aabach (Greifensee), or Ustermer Aa, a river in Switzerland
* Aabach (Afte), formerly called the Große Aa, a river in Germany
* Aa (Möhne), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
* Aa (Nethe), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
* Aa (Werre), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
* Aa, a river in Antwerp, Belgium which joins the Nete River
* Engelberger Aa, a river in Obwalden and Nidwalden, Switzerland
* Große Aa, a river in Lower Saxony, Germany
* Münstersche Aa, a river in Germany, one of several Westphalian rivers called Aa
* Sarner Aa, a river in Obwalden, Switzerland, tributary of Lake Lucerne
* Mussel Aa, a river in Groningen, Netherlands
* Pekel Aa, a river in Groningen, Netherlands
* Ruiten Aa, a river in Groningen, Netherlands
* Westerwoldsche Aa, a river in Groningen, Netherlands

== Former names ==

* Gauja, a river in Latvia, formerly known as Livländische Aa
* Lielupe, a river in Latvia, formerly known as Kurländische Aa

==See also==
* AA (disambiguation)

==References==



[[Atlantic Ocean]]

The Atlantic Ocean, not including Arctic and Antarctic regions

 This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the ISS. The pass starts from just northeast of the island of Newfoundland over the North Atlantic Ocean to central Africa, over South Sudan.

The Atlantic Ocean is the world's second largest ocean, behind the Pacific Ocean. With a total area of about 106,400,000 km2, "The New Encyclopædia Britannica", Volume 2, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1974. p. 294 it covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas".

The oldest known mention of "Atlantic" is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4): Atlantis thalassa (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς θάλασσα; English: Sea of Atlas). The term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, was applied to the southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century. Before Europeans discovered other oceans, their term "ocean" was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that are now known as the Atlantic. The early Greeks believed this ocean to be a gigantic river encircling the world.

The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.

==Geography==
alt=Photo of surf breaking on rocky shore
The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe: the Strait of Gibraltar (where it connects with the Mediterranean Sea–one of its marginal seas–and, in turn, the Black Sea, both of which also touch upon Asia) and Africa.

In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean. The 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. Some authorities show it extending south to Antarctica, while others show it bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean. Limits of Oceans and Seas. International Hydrographic Organization Special Publication No. 23, 1953. 

In the southwest, the Drake Passage connects it to the Pacific Ocean. The man-made Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific. Besides those mentioned, other large bodies of water adjacent to the Atlantic are the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay, the Arctic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Celtic Sea.

Covering approximately 22% of Earth's surface, the Atlantic is second in size to the Pacific. With its adjacent seas, it occupies an area of about 106400000 km2; without them, it has an area of 82400000 km2. The land that drains into the Atlantic covers four times that of either the Pacific or Indian oceans. The volume of the Atlantic with its adjacent seas is 354,700,000 cubic kilometers (85,100,000 cu mi) and without them 323,600,000 cubic kilometres (77,640,000 cu mi).

The average depth of the Atlantic with its adjacent seas, is 3339 m; without them it is 3926 m. The greatest depth, Milwaukee Deep with 8380 m, is in the Puerto Rico Trench. The Atlantic's width varies from 1538 nmi between Brazil and Sierra Leone to over 3450 nmi in the south.

==Cultural significance==
Transatlantic travel played a major role in the expansion of Western civilization into the Americas. It is the Atlantic that separates the "Old World" from the "New World". In modern times, some idioms refer to the ocean in a humorously diminutive way as the Pond, describing both the geographical and cultural divide between North America and Europe, in particular between the English-speaking nations of both continents. Many British people refer to the United States and Canada as "across the pond", and vice versa. Example: BBC Click – Episode 4 April 2009 

The "Black Atlantic" refers to the role of this ocean in shaping black people's history, not least in diasporas. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term "The Green Atlantic" is used. The "Red Atlantic" is a relatively new term that refers to seafarers as proletarians and revolutionaries who historically resisted exploitation at sea and forged a new multicultural and polyglot Atlantic working-class.
 

==Ocean floor==
Map that uses color to show ocean depth
The principal feature of the bathymetry (bottom topography) is a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It extends from Iceland in the north to approximately 58° South latitude, reaching a maximum width of about 860 nmi. A great rift valley also extends along the ridge over most of its length. The depth of water at the apex of the ridge is less than 2700 m in most places, while the bottom of the ridge is three times as deep. Several peaks rise above the water and form islands. The South Atlantic Ocean has an additional submarine ridge, the Walvis Ridge. National Geographic Atlas of the World: Revised Sixth Edition, National Geographic Society, 1992 

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge separates the Atlantic Ocean into two large troughs with depths from 3700 -. Transverse ridges running between the continents and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge divide the ocean floor into numerous basins. Some of the larger basins are the Blake, Guiana, North American, Cape Verde, and Canaries basins in the North Atlantic. The largest South Atlantic basins are the Angola, Cape, Argentina, and Brazil basins.

The deep ocean floor is thought to be fairly flat with occasional deeps, abyssal plains, trenches, seamounts, basins, plateaus, canyons, and some guyots. Various shelves along the margins of the continents constitute about 11% of the bottom topography with few deep channels cut across the continental rise.

Ocean floor trenches and seamounts:
* Puerto Rico Trench, in the North Atlantic, is the deepest trench at 8605 m Milwaukee Deep. sea-seek.com 
* Laurentian Abyss is found off the eastern coast of Canada
* South Sandwich Trench reaches a depth of 8428 m
* Romanche Trench is located near the equator and reaches a depth of about 7454 m.

Ocean sediments are composed of:
* Terrigenous deposits with land origins, consisting of sand, mud, and rock particles formed by erosion, weathering, and volcanic activity on land washed to sea. These materials are found mostly on the continental shelves and are thickest near large river mouths or off desert coasts.
* Pelagic deposits, which contain the remains of organisms that sink to the ocean floor, include red clays and Globigerina, pteropod, and siliceous oozes. Covering most of the ocean floor and ranging in thickness from 60 - they are thickest in the convergence belts, notably at the Hamilton Ridge and in upwelling zones.
* Authigenic deposits consist of such materials as manganese nodules. They occur where sedimentation proceeds slowly or where currents sort the deposits, such as in the Hewett Curve.

==Water characteristics==
alt=Map displaying a looping line with arrows indicating that water flows eastward in the far Southern ocean, angling north east of Australia, turning sough after passing Alaska, then crossing the mid-Pacific to flow north of Australia, continuing west below Africa, then turning northwest until reaching eastern Canada, then angling east to southern Europe, then finally turning south just below Greenland and flowing down the Americas' eastern coast, and resuming its flow eastward to complete the circle
alt=Map showing 5 circles. The first is between western Australia and eastern Africa. The second is between eastern Australia and western South America. The third is between Japan and western North America. Of the two in the Atlantic, one is in hemisphere.
On average, the Atlantic is the saltiest major ocean; surface water salinity in the open ocean ranges from 33 to 37 parts per thousand (3.3 – 3.7%) by mass and varies with latitude and season. Evaporation, precipitation, river inflow and sea ice melting influence surface salinity values. Although the lowest salinity values are just north of the equator (because of heavy tropical rainfall), in general the lowest values are in the high latitudes and along coasts where large rivers enter. Maximum salinity values occur at about 25° north and south, in subtropical regions with low rainfall and high evaporation.

Surface water temperatures, which vary with latitude, current systems, and season and reflect the latitudinal distribution of solar energy, range from below -2 C. Maximum temperatures occur north of the equator, and minimum values are found in the polar regions. In the middle latitudes, the area of maximum temperature variations, values may vary by 7 –.

The Atlantic Ocean consists of four major water masses. The North and South Atlantic central waters make up the surface. The sub-Antarctic intermediate water extends to depths of 1000 m. The North Atlantic Deep Water reaches depths of as much as 4000 m. The Antarctic Bottom Water occupies ocean basins at depths greater than 4,000 metres.

Within the North Atlantic, ocean currents isolate the Sargasso Sea, a large elongated body of water, with above average salinity. The Sargasso Sea contains large amounts of seaweed and is also the spawning ground for both the European eel and the American eel.

The Coriolis effect circulates North Atlantic water in a clockwise direction, whereas South Atlantic water circulates counter-clockwise. The south tides in the Atlantic Ocean are semi-diurnal; that is, two high tides occur during each 24 lunar hours. In latitudes above 40° North some east-west oscillation occurs.

==Climate==
alt=Map of Caribbean showing seven approximately parallel westward-pointing arrows that extend from east of the Virgin Islands to Cuba. The southern arrows bend northward just east of the Dominican Republic before straightening out again.

Climate is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as winds. Because of the ocean's great capacity to store and release heat, maritime climates are more moderate and have less extreme seasonal variations than inland climates. Precipitation can be approximated from coastal weather data and air temperature from water temperatures.

The oceans are the major source of the atmospheric moisture that is obtained through evaporation. Climatic zones vary with latitude; the warmest zones stretch across the Atlantic north of the equator. The coldest zones are in high latitudes, with the coldest regions corresponding to the areas covered by sea ice. Ocean currents influence climate by transporting warm and cold waters to other regions. The winds that are cooled or warmed when blowing over these currents influence adjacent land areas.

The Gulf Stream and its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, for example, warms the atmosphere of the British Isles and north-western Europe and influences weather and climate as far south as the northern Mediterranean. The cold water currents contribute to heavy fog off the coast of eastern Canada (the Grand Banks of Newfoundland area) and Africa's north-western coast. In general, winds transport moisture and air over land areas. Hurricanes develop in the southern part of the North Atlantic Ocean. More local particular weather examples could be found in examples such as the; Azores High, Benguela Current, Nor'easter.

==History==

alt=Animation showing the continents separating from a single mass, making creating the Atlantic in the process
The Atlantic Ocean appears to be the second youngest of the five oceans. It did not exist prior to 130 million years ago, when the continents that formed from the breakup of the ancestral super continent Pangaea were drifting apart. The Atlantic has been extensively explored since the earliest settlements along its shores.

The Vikings, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards were the most famous among early explorers. After Columbus, European exploration rapidly accelerated, and many new trade routes were established.

As a result, the Atlantic became and remains the major artery between Europe and the Americas (known as transatlantic trade). Scientific explorations include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expedition, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.

===Notable crossings===
Ra II, a ship built from papyrus, was successfully sailed across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl proving that it was possible to cross the Atlantic from Africa using such boats in early epochs of history.
* Around 980 – 982, Erik the Red discovered Greenland, geographically and geologically a part of the Americas.
* In the year 1000, the Icelander Leif Ericson was the first European to set foot on North American soil, corresponding to today's Eastern coast of Canada, i. e. the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, including the area of land named "Vinland" by Ericson. The Norse discovery was documented in the 13th century Icelandic Sagas and was corroborated by recent L'Anse aux Meadows archeological evidence.
* Around 1010, Thorfinnr Karlsefni led an attempted Viking settlement in North America with 160 settlers, but was later driven off by the natives. His son Snorri Thorfinnsson was the first American born (somewhere between 1010 and 1013) to European (Icelandic) immigrant parents.
* In 1419 and 1427, Portuguese navigators reached Madeira and Azores, respectively.
* From 1415 to 1488, Portuguese navigators sailed along the Western African coast, reaching the Cape of Good Hope.
* In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in The Bahamas.
* In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil.
* In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the service of the King Francis I of France, discovered the United States of America's east coast.
* In 1534, Jacques Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
* In April 1563, Nicolas Barre and 20 other stranded Huguenots were the first to build a (crude) boat in the Americas and sail across the Atlantic. They sailed from Charlesfort, South Carolina to just off the coast of England where they were rescued by an English ship. Though they resorted to cannibalism, seven men survived the voyage, including Barre. http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/the-huguenot-settlement-in-16th-century-south-carolina http://www.jcs-group.com/oldwest/america/1562ribaut.html 
* In 1764, William Harrison (the son of John Harrison) sailed aboard HMS Tartar, with the H-4 time piece. The voyage became the basis for the invention of the global system of Longitude.
* In 1858, Cyrus West Field laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable (it quickly failed).
* In 1865, Brunel's ship the SS Great Eastern laid the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable.
* In 1870, the small City of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) became the first small Lifeboat to cross the Atlantic from Cork to Boston with two men crew, John Charles Buckley and Nikola Primorac (di Costa), only. 
* In 1896, Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo from Norway became the first people to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean.
* On 15 April 1912 the RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg with a loss of more than 1,500 lives. Jill Lawless . Associated Press. 16 October 2008 
* 1914–1918, the First Battle of the Atlantic took place.
* In 1919, the American NC-4 became the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic (though it made a couple of landings on islands and the sea along the way, and taxied several hundred miles).
* Later in 1919, a British aeroplane piloted by Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland.
* In 1921, the British were the first to cross the North Atlantic in an airship.
* In 1922, Portuguese aviators Sacadura Cabral and Gago Coutinho were the First aerial crossing of the South Atlantic on a seaplane connecting Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.
* In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in an aircraft (between New York City and Paris).
* In 1931, Bert Hinkler made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight across the South Atlantic in an aircraft.
* In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first female to make a solo flight across the Atlantic from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland to Derry, Northern Ireland. 
* 1939–1945, the Second Battle of the Atlantic. Nearly 3,700 Allied ships were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats. "Introduction" U-Boat Operations of the Second World War—Vol 1 by Wynn, Kenneth, 1998 p. 1 
* In 1952, Ann Davison was the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.
* In 1965, Robert Manry crossed the Atlantic from the U.S. to England non-stop in a 13.5 ft sailboat named "Tinkerbell". Tinkerbelle (1967; Harper & Row, New York City, N.Y.) Several others also crossed the Atlantic in very small sailboats in the 1960s, none of them non-stop, though.
* In 1969 and 1970 Thor Heyerdahl launched expeditions to cross the Atlantic in boats built from papyrus. He succeeded in crossing the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados after a two-month voyage of 6,100 km with Ra II in 1970, thus conclusively proving that boats such as the Ra could have sailed with the Canary Current across the Atlantic in prehistoric times. Ryne, Linn. Voyages into History. Retrieved 13 January 2008. 
* In 1980, Gérard d'Aboville was the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean rowing solo.
* In 1984, Amyr Klink crossed the south atlantic rowing solo from Namibia to Brazil in 100 days.
* In 1984, five Argentines sail in a 10-meter-long raft made from tree trunks named Atlantis from Canary Islands and after 52 days 3000 mi journey arrived to Venezuela in an attempt to prove travelers from Africa may have crossed the Atlantic before Christopher Columbus. 5 cross Atlantic in tiny raft. News.google.com. 12 July 1984 Retrieved on 27 October 2011. Expedicion Atlantis 
* In 1994, Guy Delage was the first man to allegedly swim across the Atlantic Ocean (with the help of a kick board, from Cape Verde to Barbados).
* In 1998, Benoît Lecomte was the first man to swim across the northern Atlantic Ocean without a kick board, stopping for only one week in the Azores.
* In 1999, after rowing for 81 days and 4767 km, Tori Murden became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reached Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.

==Ethiopic Ocean==
The Aethiopian Sea, Ethiopic Ocean or Ethiopian Ocean (Okeanos Aithiopos), is an old name for what is now called the South Atlantic Ocean, which is separated from the North Atlantic Ocean by a narrow region between Natal, Brazil and Monrovia, Liberia. The use of this term illustrates a past trend towards referring to the whole continent of Africa by the name Aethiopia. The modern nation of Ethiopia, in northeast Africa, is nowhere near the Ethiopic Ocean, which would be said to lie off the west coast of Africa. The term Ethiopian Ocean sometimes appeared until the mid-19th century, as e.g. on the map The Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope by L.S. de la Rochette, MDCCXCV", published by W. Faden in London in 1795.

==Economy==
The Atlantic has contributed significantly to the development and economy of surrounding countries. Besides major transatlantic transportation and communication routes, the Atlantic offers abundant petroleum deposits in the sedimentary rocks of the continental shelves. The Atlantic hosts the world's richest fishing resources, especially in the waters covering the shelves. The major fish are cod, haddock, hake, herring, and mackerel.

The most productive areas include the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the Nova Scotia shelf, Georges Bank off Cape Cod, the Bahama Banks, the waters around Iceland, the Irish Sea, the Dogger Bank of the North Sea, and the Falkland Banks. Eel, lobster, and whales appear in great quantities. Various international treaties attempt to reduce pollution caused by environmental threats such as oil spills, marine debris, and the incineration of toxic wastes at sea. 

==Terrain==
From October to June the surface is usually covered with sea ice in the Labrador Sea, Denmark Strait, and Baltic Sea. A clockwise warm-water gyre occupies the northern Atlantic, and a counter-clockwise warm-water gyre appears in the southern Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a rugged north-south centerline for the entire Atlantic basin, first discovered by the Challenger Expedition dominates the ocean floor. This was formed by the vulcanism that also formed the ocean floor and the islands rising from it.

The Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. These include the Norwegian Sea, Baltic Sea, North Sea, Labrador Sea, Black Sea, Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Bay of Fundy, Gulf of Maine, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea.

Islands include Newfoundland (including hundreds of surrounding islands), Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Great Britain (including numerous surrounding islands), Ireland, Rockall, Sable Island, Azores, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Madeira, Bermuda, Canary Islands, Caribbean, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Annobón Province, Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Ascension Island, Saint Helena, Trindade and Martim Vaz, Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island (Also known as Diego Alvarez), Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia Island, South Sandwich Islands, and Bouvet Island.

===Natural resources===
The Atlantic harbors petroleum and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales), sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, and precious stones.

===Natural hazards===
alt=Overhead photo of iceberg
Icebergs are common from February to August in the Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, and the northwestern Atlantic and have been spotted as far south as Bermuda and Madeira. Ships are subject to superstructure icing in the extreme north from October to May. Persistent fog can be a maritime hazard from May to September, as can hurricanes north of the equator (May to December).

The United States' southeast coast has a long history of shipwrecks due to its many shoals and reefs. The Virginia and North Carolina coasts were particularly dangerous.

The Bermuda Triangle is popularly believed to be the site of numerous aviation and shipping incidents because of unexplained and supposedly mysterious causes, but Coast Guard records do not support this belief.

Hurricanes are also a natural hazard in the Atlantic, but mainly in the northern part of the ocean, rarely tropical cyclones form in the southern parts. Hurricanes usually form between 1 June and 30 November of every year.

==Current environmental issues==
Endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales. Drift net fishing can kill dolphins, albatrosses and other seabirds (petrels, auks), hastening the fish stock decline and contributing to international disputes. Problems and Prospects for the Pelagic Driftnet. animallaw.info. Retrieved on 27 October 2011. Municipal pollution comes from the eastern United States, southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina; oil pollution in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; and industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.

In 2005, there was some concern that warm northern European currents were slowing down. Atlantic Ocean's 'Heat Engine' Chills Down by Christopher Joyce. All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 30 November 2005. 

On 7 June 2006, Florida's wildlife commission voted to take the manatee off the state's endangered species list. Some environmentalists worry that this could erode safeguards for the popular sea creature.

===Marine pollution===

Marine pollution is a generic term for the entry into the ocean of potentially hazardous chemicals or particles. The biggest culprits are rivers and with them many agriculture fertilizer chemicals as well as livestock and human waste. The excess of oxygen-depleting chemicals leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone. Sebastian A. Gerlach "Marine Pollution", Springer, Berlin (1975) 

Marine debris, which is also known as marine litter, describes human-created waste floating in a body of water. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter.

==Bordering countries and territories==

The states (territories in italics) with a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean (excluding the Black, Baltic and Mediterranean Seas) are:

===Europe===

* Azores
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===Africa===

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* Canary Islands
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* Madeira
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* (claimed by Morocco)

===South America===

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* French Guiana
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===Caribbean===

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===Central and North America===

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==Major ports and harbours==

==See also==

* Ocean Highway
* Seven Seas
* Borders of the oceans#Atlantic Ocean
* Gulf Stream shutdown
* History of the Atlantic Ocean articles
* Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean
* Atlantic hurricanes
* Territories of the United States on stamps#Explorers

==References==

==Bibliography==
* 
* Much of this article originated from the public domain site http://oceanographer.navy.mil/atlantic.html

==External links==

* 
* 
* www.cartage.org.lb
* "Map of Atlantic Coast of North America from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida" from 1639 via the World Digital Library

 



[[Arthur Schopenhauer]]

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher best known for his book, The World as Will and Representation (German: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), in which he claimed that our world is driven by a continually dissatisfied will, continually seeking satisfaction. Influenced by Eastern philosophy, he maintained that the "truth was recognized by the sages of India"; Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1, trans. E. Payne, (New York: Dover Publishing Inc., 1969), 3. consequently, his solutions to suffering were similar to those of Vedantic and Buddhist thinkers (i.e., asceticism). His faith in "transcendental ideality" Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1, trans. E. Payne, (New York: Dover Publishing Inc., 1969), 4. led him to accept atheism. 

At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four distinct aspects Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1, trans. E. Payne, (New York: Dover Publishing Inc., 1969), table of contents. of experience in the phenomenal world; consequently, he has been influential in the history of phenomenology. He has influenced many thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Addressed in: Cate, Curtis. Friedrich Nietzsche. Chapter 7. Richard Wagner, Otto Weininger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein in Mein Glaubensbekenntnis (August 1932): "I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants,Mensch kann wohl tun, was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper." Schopenhauer's clearer, actual words were: "You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing." kannst tun was du willst: aber du kannst in jedem gegebenen Augenblick deines Lebens nur ein Bestimmtes wollen und schlechterdings nichts anderes als dieses eine. On the Freedom of the Will, Ch. II. Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Jorge Luis Borges, among others.

== Life ==
Schopenhauer's birthplace house, ul. Św. Ducha (formerly Heiligegeistgasse)
Arthur Schopenhauer was born on 22 February 1788 in the city of Danzig, on Heiligegeistgasse (known in the present day as Św. Ducha 47), the son of Johanna Schopenhauer (née Trosiener) and Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, both descendants of wealthy German patrician families. At the time Danzig became part of Prussia in 1793, Heinrich removed to Hamburg, although his firm continued trading in Danzig. In 1805, Schopenhauer's father may have committed suicide. Safranski (1990) page 12. "There was in the father's life some dark and vague source of fear which later made him hurl himself to his death from the attic of his house in Hamburg." Shortly thereafter, Schopenhauer's mother Johanna moved with his sister Adele to Weimar, then the centre of German literature, to pursue her writing career. After one year, Schopenhauer left the family business in Hamburg to join her. As early as 1799, he started playing the flute. 

He became a student at the University of Göttingen in 1809. There he studied metaphysics and psychology under Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of Aenesidemus, who advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel Kant. In Berlin, from 1811 to 1812, he had attended lectures by the prominent post-Kantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Schopenhauer as a youth

In 1814, Schopenhauer began his seminal work The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung). He finished it in 1818 and published it the following year. In Dresden in 1819, Schopenhauer fathered, with a servant, an illegitimate daughter who was born and died the same year. In 1820, Schopenhauer became a lecturer at the University of Berlin. He scheduled his lectures to coincide with those of the famous philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whom Schopenhauer described as a "clumsy charlatan." Schopenhauer, Arthur. Author's preface to "On The Fourfold Root of the Principle of sufficient reason. Page 1. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason However, only five students turned up to Schopenhauer's lectures, and he dropped out of academia. A late essay, On University Philosophy, expressed his resentment towards the work conducted in academies.

While in Berlin, Schopenhauer was named as a defendant in a lawsuit initiated by a woman named Caroline Marquet. Addressed in: Russell, Bertrand (1945). 
She asked for damages, alleging that Schopenhauer had pushed her. According to Schopenhauer's court testimony, she deliberately annoyed him by raising her voice while standing right outside his door. Marquet alleged that the philosopher had assaulted and battered her after she refused to leave his doorway. Her companion testified that she saw Marquet prostrate outside his apartment. Because Marquet won the lawsuit, Schopenhauer made payments to her for the next twenty years. Safranski (1990), Chapter 19 When she died, he wrote on a copy of her death certificate, Obit anus, abit onus ("The old woman dies, the burden is lifted"). In 1819 the fortunes of his mother and sister, and himself, were threatened by the failure of the firm in Danzig in which his father had been a director and shareholder. His sister accepted a compromise compensation package of 70 per cent, but Schopenhauer angrily refused this, and eventually recovered 9400 thalers.

In 1821, he fell in love with nineteen-year old opera singer, Caroline Richter (called Medon), and had a relationship with her for several years. He discarded marriage plans, however, writing, "Marrying means to halve one's rights and double one's duties," and "Marrying means to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find an eel amongst an assembly of snakes." When he was forty-three years old, seventeen-year old Flora Weiss recorded rejecting him in her diary. "But an examination of his life reveals a yearning for marriage frustrated by a train of rejections." In the year 1831, Schopenhauer fell in love with a girl named Flora Weiss. At a boat party in Germany he made his advance by offering her a bunch of grapes. Flora’s diary records this event as follows: "I didn’t want the grapes because old Schopenhauer had touched them, so I let them slide, quite gently into the water." Apparently, she was underwhelmed." 

Schopenhauer had a notably strained relationship with his mother Johanna Schopenhauer. After his father's death, Arthur Schopenhauer endured two long years of drudgery as a merchant, in honor of his dead father. Then his mother retired to Weimar, and Arthur Schopenhauer dedicated himself wholly to studies in the gymnasium of Gotha. He left it in disgust after seeing one of the masters lampooned, and went to live with his mother. But by that time she had already opened her famous salon, and Arthur was not compatible with the vain, ceremonious ways of the salon. He was also disgusted by the ease with which Johanna Schopenhauer had forgotten his father's memory. Consequently, he attempted university life. There, he wrote his first book, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. His mother informed him that the book was incomprehensible and it was unlikely that anyone would ever buy a copy. In a fit of temper Arthur Schopenhauer told her that his work would be read long after the "rubbish" she wrote would have been totally forgotten. 

In 1831, a cholera epidemic broke out in Berlin and Schopenhauer left the city. Schopenhauer settled permanently in Frankfurt in 1833, where he remained for the next twenty-seven years, living alone except for a succession of pet poodles named Atman and Butz. The numerous notes that he made during these years, amongst others on aging, were published posthumously under the title Senilia.

Grave at Frankfurt Hauptfriedhof
Schopenhauer had a robust constitution, but in 1860 his health began to deteriorate. He died of heart failure on 21 September 1860 while sitting at home on his couch with his cat. He was 72. Schopenhauer: his life and philosophy.H Zimmern – 1932 – G. Allen & Unwin ltd 

== Thought ==

=== Philosophy of the "Will" ===

Schopenhauer in 1815, second of the critical five years of the initial composition of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
A key focus of Schopenhauer was his investigation of individual motivation. Before Schopenhauer, Hegel had popularized the concept of Zeitgeist, the idea that society consisted of a collective consciousness which moved in a distinct direction, dictating the actions of its members. Schopenhauer, a reader of both Kant and Hegel, criticized their logical optimism and the belief that individual morality could be determined by society and reason. Schopenhauer believed that humans were motivated by only their own basic desires, or ("Will to Live"), which directed all of mankind. "The reality is what Schopenhauer calls the Will, the Will to Live." Letter to Richard C. Lyon, 1 August 1949, George Santayana, The Letters of George Santayana, Scribner's, New York, 1955 

For Schopenhauer, human desire was futile, illogical, directionless, and, by extension, so was all human action in the world. He wrote "Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants". In this sense, he adhered to the Fichtean principle of idealism: "the world is for a subject". This idealism so presented, immediately commits it to an ethical attitude, unlike the purely epistemological concerns of Descartes and Berkeley. To Schopenhauer, the Will is a malignant, metaphysical existence which controls not only the actions of individual, intelligent agents, but ultimately all observable phenomena; an evil to be terminated via mankind's duties: asceticism and chastity. He is credited with one of the most famous opening lines of philosophy: "The world is my representation". Will, for Schopenhauer, is what Kant called the "thing-in-itself." But like Fichte, he rejects the Kantian claim that the thing-in-itself as an unknowable substratum of experience. Schopenhauer's argument is that the thing in-itself in Kant is an incoherent sense of object: it is the opposite to objects, and yet it is said to be an object-in-itself: "the phantom of a dream". Nietzsche was greatly influenced by this idea of Will, while developing it in a different direction.

=== Art and aesthetics ===

For Schopenhauer, human desiring, "willing," and craving cause suffering or pain. A temporary way to escape this pain is through aesthetic contemplation (a method comparable to Zapffe's "Sublimation"). Aesthetic contemplation allows one to escape this pain—albeit temporarily—because it stops one perceiving the world as mere presentation. Instead, one no longer perceives the world as an object of perception (therefore as subject to the Principle of Sufficient Grounds; time, space and causality) from which one is separated; rather one becomes one with that perception: "one can thus no longer separate the perceiver from the perception" (The World as Will and Representation, section 34). From this immersion with the world one no longer views oneself as an individual who suffers in the world due to one's individual will but, rather, becomes a "subject of cognition" to a perception that is "Pure, will-less, timeless" (section 34) where the essence, "ideas," of the world are shown. Art is the practical consequence of this brief aesthetic contemplation as it attempts to depict one's immersion with the world, thus tries to depict the essence/pure ideas of the world. Music, for Schopenhauer, was the purest form of art because it was the one that depicted the will itself without it appearing as subject to the Principle of Sufficient Grounds, therefore as an individual object. According to Daniel Albright, "Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself." Daniel Albright, Modernism and Music, 2004, page 39, footnote 34 

He deemed music to be a timeless, universal, language which is comprehended everywhere, and can imbue global enthusiasm, if in possession of a significant melody. 

=== Ethics ===
Schopenhauer's moral theory proposed that only compassion can drive moral acts. According to Schopenhauer, compassion alone is the good of the object of the acts, that is, they cannot be inspired by either the prospect of personal utility or the feeling of duty. Mankind can also be guided by egoism and malice. Egotistic acts are those guided by self-interest, desire for pleasure or happiness. Schopenhauer believed most of our deeds belong to this class. Acts of malice are different from egotistic acts. As in the case of acts of compassion, these do not target personal utility. Their aim is to cause damage to others, independently of personal gains.

==== Punishment ====
Schopenhauer in 1852
According to Schopenhauer, whenever we make a choice, "we assume as necessary that decision was preceded by something from which it ensued, and which we call the ground or reason, or more accurately the motive, of the resultant action." Choices are not made freely. Our actions are necessary and determined because "every human being, even every animal, after the motive has appeared, must carry out the action which alone is in accordance with his inborn and immutable character." On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 49. A definite action inevitably results when a particular motive influences a person's given, unchangeable character.
The State, Schopenhauer claimed, punishes criminals in order to prevent future crimes. It does so by placing "beside every possible motive for committing a wrong a more powerful motive for leaving it undone, in the inescapable punishment. Accordingly, the criminal code is as complete a register as possible of counter-motives to all criminal actions that can possibly be imagined...." Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, § 62. 

Should capital punishment be legal? "For safeguarding the lives of citizens," he asserted, "capital punishment is therefore absolutely necessary." The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVII. "The murderer," wrote Schopenhauer, "who is condemned to death according to the law must, it is true, be now used as a mere means, and with complete right. For public security, which is the principal object of the State, is disturbed by him; indeed it is abolished if the law remains unfulfilled. The murderer, his life, his person, must be the means of fulfilling the law, and thus of re-establishing public security." The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, § 62. Schopenhauer disagreed with those who would abolish capital punishment. "Those who would like to abolish it should be given the answer: 'First remove murder from the world, and then capital punishment ought to follow.' " 

People, according to Schopenhauer, cannot be improved. They can only be influenced by strong motives that overpower criminal motives. Schopenhauer declared that "real moral reform is not at all possible, but only determent from the deed...." 

He claimed that this doctrine was not original with him. Previously, it appeared in the writings of Plato, "...he who attempts to punish in accordance with reason does not retaliate on account of the past wrong (for he could not undo something which has been done) but for the sake of the future, so that neither the wrongdoer himself, nor others who see him being punished, will do wrong again." Plato, "Protagoras", 324 B. Plato wrote that punishment should "be an example to other men not to offend." Plato, "Laws", Book IX, 863. Seneca, Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Anselm Feuerbach. Schopenhauer declared that their teaching was corrupted by subsequent errors and therefore was in need of clarification. 

=== Psychology ===
Philosophers have not traditionally been impressed by the tribulations of sex, but Schopenhauer addressed it and related concepts forthrightly:

:...one ought rather to be surprised that a thing which plays throughout so important a part in human life has hitherto practically been disregarded by philosophers altogether, and lies before us as raw and untreated material. Schopenhauer, Arthur. Supplements to the Fourth Book of "The World as Will and Representation, Page 338 The World as Will and Representation/Supplements to the Fourth Book 

He gave a name to a force within man which he felt had invariably precedence over reason: the Will to Live or Will to Life (Wille zum Leben), defined as an inherent drive within human beings, and indeed all creatures, to stay alive; a force which inveigles us into reproducing.

Schopenhauer refused to conceive of love as either trifling or accidental, but rather understood it to be an immensely powerful force lying unseen within man's psyche and dramatically shaping the world:

:The ultimate aim of all love affairs ... is more important than all other aims in man's life; and therefore it is quite worthy of the profound seriousness with which everyone pursues it.

:What is decided by it is nothing less than the composition of the next generation ... Schopenhauer, Arthur. Supplements to the Fourth Book of "The World as Will and Representation. Page 340 The World as Will and Representation/Supplements to the Fourth Book 

These ideas foreshadowed the discovery of evolution, Freud's concepts of the libido and the unconscious mind, and evolutionary psychology in general. "Nearly a century before Freud... in Schopenhauer there is, for the first time, an explicit philosophy of the unconscious and of the body." Safranski pg. 345. 

=== Political and social thought ===

==== Politics ====
Bust in Frankfurt am Main
Schopenhauer's politics were, for the most part, an echo of his system of ethics (the latter being expressed in Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik, available in English as two separate books, On the Basis of Morality and On the Freedom of the Will). Ethics also occupies about one quarter of his central work, The World as Will and Representation.

In occasional political comments in his Parerga and Paralipomena and Manuscript Remains, Schopenhauer described himself as a proponent of limited government. What was essential, he thought, was that the state should "leave each man free to work out his own salvation", and so long as government was thus limited, he would "prefer to be ruled by a lion than one of fellow rats" — i.e., by a monarch, rather than a democrat. Schopenhauer shared the view of Thomas Hobbes on the necessity of the state, and of state action, to check the destructive tendencies innate to our species. He also defended the independence of the legislative, judicial and executive branches of power, and a monarch as an impartial element able to practice justice (in a practical and everyday sense, not a cosmological one). The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, Ch. 47 He declared monarchy as "that which is natural to man" for "intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity" and disparaged republicanism as "unnatural as it is unfavourable to the higher intellectual life and the arts and sciences." 

Schopenhauer, by his own admission, did not give much thought to politics, and several times he writes proudly of how little attention he had paid "to political affairs of day". In a life that spanned several revolutions in French and German government, and a few continent-shaking wars, he did indeed maintain his aloof position of "minding not the times but the eternities". He wrote many disparaging remarks about Germany and the Germans. A typical example is, "For a German it is even good to have somewhat lengthy words in his mouth, for he thinks slowly, and they give him time to reflect." The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, Ch. 12 

Schopenhauer attributed civilizational primacy to the northern "white races" due to their sensitivity and creativity (except for the ancient Egyptians and Hindus whom he saw as equal):

The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilization. Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume II, Section 92 

Despite this, he was adamantly against differing treatment of races, was fervently anti-slavery, and supported the abolitionist movement in the United States. He describes the treatment of " innocent black brothers whom force and injustice have delivered into slave-master's devilish clutches" as "belonging to the blackest pages of mankind's criminal record". Parerga and Paralipomena, "On Ethics," Sec. 5 

Schopenhauer additionally maintained a marked metaphysical and political anti-Judaism. Schopenhauer argued that Christianity constituted a revolt against the materialistic basis of Judaism, exhibiting an Indian-influenced ethics reflecting the Aryan-Vedic theme of spiritual "self-conquest." This he saw as opposed to what he held to be the ignorant drive toward earthly utopianism and superficiality of a worldly Jewish spirit:

While all other religions endeavor to explain to the people by symbols the metaphysical significance of life, the religion of the Jews is entirely immanent and furnishes nothing but a mere war-cry in the struggle with other nations. "Fragments for the history of philosophy", Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume I. 

==== Views on women ====
In Schopenhauer's 1851 essay Of Women, he expressed his opposition to what he called "Teutonico-Christian stupidity" on female affairs. Schopenhauer wrote that "Women are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of our early childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and short-sighted". He opined that women are deficient in artistic faculties and sense of justice, and expressed opposition to monogamy. He claimed that "woman is by nature meant to obey". The essay does give some compliments, however: that "women are decidedly more sober in their judgment than are" and are more sympathetic to the suffering of others.

Schopenhauer's controversial writings have influenced many, from Friedrich Nietzsche to nineteenth-century feminists. Feminism and the Limits of Equality
PA Cain – Ga. L. Rev., 1989 Schopenhauer's biological analysis of the difference between the sexes, and their separate roles in the struggle for survival and reproduction, anticipates some of the claims that were later ventured by sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists. 

After the elderly Schopenhauer sat for a sculpture portrait by Elisabet Ney, he told Richard Wagner's friend Malwida von Meysenbug, "I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man." Safranski (1990), Chapter 24. Page 348. 

==== Heredity and eugenics ====
Schopenhauer at age 58 on 16 May 1846
Schopenhauer believed that personality and intellect were inherited. He quotes Horace's saying, "From the brave and good are the brave descended" (Odes, iv, 4, 29) and Shakespeare's line from Cymbeline, "Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base" (IV, 2) to reinforce his hereditarian argument. Payne, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, p. 519 
Mechanistically, Schopenhauer believed that a person inherits his level of intellect through his mother, and personal character through one's father. On the Suffering of the World, (1970), Page 35. Penguin Books-Great Ideas 
This belief in heritability of traits informed Schopenhauer's view of love – placing it at the highest level of importance. For Schopenhauer the "final aim of all love intrigues, be they comic or tragic, is really of more importance than all other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is nothing less than the composition of the next generation.... It is not the weal or woe of any one individual, but that of the human race to come, which is here at stake." This view of the importance for the species of whom we choose to love was reflected in his views on eugenics or good breeding. Here Schopenhauer wrote:

With our knowledge of the complete unalterability both of character and of mental faculties, we are led to the view that a real and thorough improvement of the human race might be reached not so much from outside as from within, not so much by theory and instruction as rather by the path of generation. Plato had something of the kind in mind when, in the fifth book of his Republic, he explained his plan for increasing and improving his warrior caste. If we could castrate all scoundrels and stick all stupid geese in a convent, and give men of noble character a whole harem, and procure men, and indeed thorough men, for all girls of intellect and understanding, then a generation would soon arise which would produce a better age than that of Pericles. 

In another context, Schopenhauer reiterated his antidemocratic-eugenic thesis: "If you want Utopian plans, I would say: the only solution to the problem is the despotism of the wise and noble members of a genuine aristocracy, a genuine nobility, achieved by mating the most magnanimous men with the cleverest and most gifted women. This proposal constitutes my Utopia and my Platonic Republic". Essays and Aphorisms, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Middlesex: London, 1970, p. 154 Analysts (e.g., Keith Ansell-Pearson) have suggested that Schopenhauer's advocacy of anti-egalitarianism and eugenics influenced the neo-aristocratic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who initially considered Schopenhauer his mentor. Nietzsche and modern German thought
 from homelinux.org. K Ansell-Pearson – 1991 – Psychology Press 

==== Animal welfare ====
As a consequence of his monistic philosophy, Schopenhauer was very concerned about the welfare of animals. Christina Gerhardt, "Thinking With: Animals in Schopenhauer, Horkheimer and Adorno." Critical Theory and Animals. Ed. John Sanbonmatsu. Lanham: Rowland, 2011. 137–157. For him, all individual animals, including humans, are essentially the same, being phenomenal manifestations of the one underlying Will. The word "will" designated, for him, force, power, impulse, energy, and desire; it is the closest word we have that can signify both the real essence of all external things and also our own direct, inner experience. Since everything is basically Will, then humans and animals are fundamentally the same and can recognize themselves in each other. "Unlike the intellect, it Will does not depend on the perfection of the organism, but is essentially the same in all animals as that which is known to us so intimately. Accordingly, the animal has all the emotions of humans, such as joy, grief, fear, anger, love, hatred, strong desire, envy, and so on. The great difference between human and animal rests solely on the intellect's degrees of perfection." On the Will in Nature, "Physiology and Pathology." For this reason, he claimed that a good person would have sympathy for animals, who are our fellow sufferers.

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to living creatures cannot be a good man. On the basis of morality, § 19 
Nothing leads more definitely to a recognition of the identity of the essential nature in animal and human phenomena than a study of zoology and anatomy. 

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. 

In 1841, he praised the establishment, in London, of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and also the Animals' Friends Society in Philadelphia. Schopenhauer even went so far as to protest against the use of the pronoun "it" in reference to animals because it led to the treatment of them as though they were inanimate things. "...in English all animals are of the neuter gender and so are represented by the pronoun 'it,' just as if they were inanimate things. The effect of this artifice is quite revolting, especially in the case of primates, such as dogs, monkeys, and the like...." On the basis of morality, § 19. To reinforce his points, Schopenhauer referred to anecdotal reports of the look in the eyes of a monkey who had been shot "I recall having read of an Englishman who, while hunting in India, had shot a monkey; he could not forget the look which the dying animal gave him, and since then had never again fired at monkeys." On the basis of morality, § 19. and also the grief of a baby elephant whose mother had been killed by a hunter. "William Harris describes how he shot his first elephant, a female. The next morning he went to look for the dead animal; all the other elephants had fled from the neighborhood except a young one, who had spent the night with its dead mother. Forgetting all fear, he came toward the sportsmen with the clearest and liveliest evidence of inconsolable grief, and put his tiny trunk round them in order to appeal to them for help. Harris says he was then filled with real remorse for what he had done, and felt as if he had committed a murder." On the basis of morality, § 19. 

He was very attached to his succession of pet poodles. Schopenhauer criticized Spinoza's "His contempt for animals, who, as mere things for our use, are declared by him to be without rights,...in conjunction with Pantheism, is at the same time absurd and abominable." The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, Chapter 50. belief that animals are to be used as a mere means for the satisfaction of humans. Spinoza, Ethics, Pt. IV, Prop. XXXVII, Note I.: "Still I do not deny that beasts feel: what I deny is, that we may not consult our own advantage and use them as we please, treating them in a way which best suits us; for their nature is not like ours...." This is the exact opposite of Schopenhauer's doctrine. Also, ibid., Appendix, 26, "whatsoever there be in nature beside man, a regard for our advantage does not call on us to preserve, but to preserve or destroy according to its various capacities, and to adapt to our use as best we may." "Such are the matters which I engage to prove in Prop. xviii of this Part, whereby it is plain that the law against the slaughtering of animals is founded rather on vain superstition and womanish pity than on sound reason. The rational quest of what is useful to us further teaches us the necessity of associating ourselves with our fellow-men, but not with beasts, or things, whose nature is different from our own; we have the same rights in respect to them as they have in respect to us. Nay, as everyone's right is defined by his virtue, or power, men have far greater rights over beasts than beasts have over men. Still I affirm that beasts feel. But I also affirm that we may consult our own advantage and use them as we please, treating them in the way which best suits us; for their nature is not like ours, and their emotions are naturally different from human emotions." Ethics, Part 4, Prop. 37, Note 1. 

==== Views on homosexuality and pederasty ====
Schopenhauer was also one of the first philosophers since the days of Greek philosophy to address the subject of male homosexuality. In the third, expanded edition of The World as Will and Representation (1859), Schopenhauer added an appendix to his chapter on the "Metaphysics of Sexual Love". He also wrote that homosexuality did have the benefit of preventing ill-begotten children. Concerning this, he stated, "... the vice we are considering appears to work directly against the aims and ends of nature, and that in a matter that is all important and of the greatest concern to her, it must in fact serve these very aims, although only indirectly, as a means for preventing greater evils." . He wrote that only those who were too old or too young to reproduce strong, healthy children would resort to pederasty (Schopenhauer considered pederasty to be in itself a vice)."The World as Will and Representation: Volume Two". Dover Shrewdly anticipating the interpretive distortion, on the part of the popular mind, of his attempted scientific explanation of pederasty as personal advocacy (when he had otherwise described the act, in terms of spiritual ethics, as an "objectionable aberration"), Schopenhauer sarcastically concludes the appendix with the statement that "by expounding these paradoxical ideas, I wanted to grant to the professors of philosophy a small favour, for they are very disconcerted by the ever-increasing publicization of my philosophy which they so carefully concealed. I have done so by giving them the opportunity of slandering me by saying that I defend and commend pederasty." 

=== Intellectual interests and affinities ===
Schopenhauer learned from Christian philosophy. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, trans. E. Payne, (New York: Dover Publishing Inc., 1966), 639. "the Veda says; Finditur nodus cordis, dissolvuntur omnes dubitationes, ejusque opera evanescunt. In agreement with this view, the fifteenth sermon of Meister Eckhart will be found well worth reading." Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, trans. E. Payne, (New York: Dover Publishing Inc., 1966), 635. "Even the conclusion of Seneca's last letter is in keeping with this... which certainly seems to indicate an influence of Christianity." The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, Ch. 48 (Dover page 616), "The ascetic tendency is certainly unmistakable in genuine and original Christianity, as it was developed in the writings of the Church Fathers from the kernel of the New Testament" 

==== Indology ====
Schopenhauer read the Latin translation of the Upanishads which had been translated by French writer Anquetil du Perron from the Persian translation of Prince Dara Shikoh entitled Sirre-Akbar ("The Great Secret"). He was so impressed by their philosophy that he called them "the production of the highest human wisdom," and considered them to contain superhuman conceptions. The Upanishads was a great source of inspiration to Schopenhauer, and writing about them he said:

It is the most satisfying and elevating reading (with the exception of the original text) which is possible in the world; it has been the solace of my life and will be the solace of my death. 

It is well known that the book Oupnekhat (Upanishad) always lay open on his table, and he invariably studied it before sleeping at night. He called the opening up of Sanskrit literature "the greatest gift of our century", and predicted that the philosophy and knowledge of the Upanishads would become the cherished faith of the West. 

Schopenhauer was first introduced to the 1802 Latin Upanishad translation through Friedrich Majer. They met during the winter of 1813–1814 in Weimar at the home of Schopenhauer\s mother according to the biographer Sanfranski. Majer was a follower of Herder, and an early Indologist. Schopenhauer did not begin a serious study of the Indic texts, however, until the summer of 1814. Sansfranski maintains that between 1815 and 1817, Schopenhauer had another important cross-pollination with Indian Thought in Dresden. This was through his neighbor of two years, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Krause was then a minor and rather unorthodox philosopher who attempted to mix his own ideas with that of ancient Indian wisdom. Krause had also mastered Sanskrit, unlike Schopenhauer, and the two developed a professional relationship. It was from Krause that Schopenhauer learned meditation and received the closest thing to expert advice concerning Indian thought. Christopher McCoy, 3–4 

Most noticeable, in the case of Schopenhauer’s work, was the significance of the Chandogya Upanishad, whose Mahavakya, Tat Tvam Asi is mentioned throughout The World as Will and Representation. Christopher McCoy, 54–56 

==== Buddhism ====
Schopenhauer noted a correspondence between his doctrines and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Abelson, Peter (April 1993).
Schopenhauer and Buddhism. Philosophy East and West
Volume 43, Number 2, pp. 255–278. University of Hawaii Press. Retrieved on: 12 April 2008. Similarities centered on the principles that life involves suffering, that suffering is caused by desire (taṇhā), and that the extinction of desire leads to liberation. Thus three of the four "truths of the Buddha" correspond to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will. Janaway, Christopher, Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p. 28 f. In Buddhism, however, while greed and lust are always unskillful, desire is ethically variable – it can be skillful, unskillful, or neutral. David Burton, "Buddhism, Knowledge and Liberation: A Philosophical Study." Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004, page 22. 

For Schopenhauer, Will had ontological primacy over the intellect; in other words, desire is understood to be prior to thought. Schopenhauer felt this was similar to notions of puruṣārtha or goals of life in Vedānta Hinduism.

In Schopenhauer's philosophy, denial of the will is attained by either:
* personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to loss of the will to live; or
* knowledge of the essential nature of life in the world through observation of the suffering of other people.

However, Buddhist nirvāṇa is not equivalent to the condition that Schopenhauer described as denial of the will. Nirvāṇa is not the extinguishing of the person as some Western scholars have thought, but only the "extinguishing" (the literal meaning of nirvana) of the flames of greed, hatred, and delusion that assail a person's character. John J. Holder, Early Buddhist Discourses. Hackett Publishing Company, 2006, page xx. Occult historian Joscelyn Godwin (1945– ) stated, "It was Buddhism that inspired the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and, through him, attracted Richard Wagner. Godwin, J: Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival, page 38. Adventures Unlimited Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-932813-35-0 This Orientalism reflected the struggle of the German Romantics, in the words of Leon Poliakov, to free themselves from Judeo-Christian fetters". Arktos, p. 38. In contradistinction to Godwin's claim that Buddhism inspired Schopenhauer, the philosopher himself made the following statement in his discussion of religions: 
"Schopenhauer is often said to be the first, or indeed the only, modern Western philosopher of any note to attempt any integration of his work with Eastern ways of thinking. That he was the first is surely true, but the claim that he was influenced by Indian thought needs some qualification. There is a remarkable correspondence, at least in broad terms, between some of the central Schopenhauerian doctrines and Buddhism: notably in the views that empirical existence is suffering, that suffering originates in desires, and that salvation can be attained by the extinction of desires. These three 'truths of the Buddha' are mirrored closely in the essential structure of the doctrine of the will (On this, see Dorothea W. Dauer, Schopenhauer as Transmitter of Buddhist Ideas. Note also the discussion by Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, pp. 14–15, 316–21). Janaway, Christopher, Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p. 28 f.
 

If I wished to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I should have to concede to Buddhism pre-eminence over the others. In any case, it must be a pleasure to me to see my doctrine in such close agreement with a religion that the majority of men on earth hold as their own, for this numbers far more followers than any other. And this agreement must be yet the more pleasing to me, inasmuch as in my philosophizing I have certainly not been under its influence added. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there was to be found in Europe only a very few accounts of Buddhism. The World as Will and Representation’’, Vol. 2, Ch. 17 

Buddhist philosopher Nishitani Keiji, however, sought to distance Buddhism from Schopenhauer. Artistic detachment in Japan and the West: psychic distance in comparative aesthetics. S Odin – 2001 – Univ of Hawaii Press 
While Schopenhauer's philosophy may sound rather mystical in such a summary, his methodology was resolutely empirical, rather than speculative or transcendental:

Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions. Parerga & Paralipomena, vol. I, p. 106., trans. E.F.J. Payne. 

Also note:

This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration. World as Will and Representation, vol. I, p. 273, trans. E.F.J. Payne. 

The argument that Buddhism affected Schopenhauer’s philosophy more than any other Dharmic faith loses more credence when viewed in light of the fact that Schopenhauer did not begin a serious study of Buddhism until after the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818. Christopher McCoy, 3 Scholars have started to revise earlier views about Schopenhauer's discovery of Buddhism. Proof of early interest and influence, however, appears in Schopenhauer's 1815/16 notes (transcribed and translated by Urs App) about Buddhism. They are included in a recent case study that traces Schopenhauer's interest in Buddhism and documents its influence. 
App, Urs Arthur Schopenhauer and China. Sino-Platonic Papers Nr. 200 (April 2010) (PDF, 8.7 Mb PDF, 164 p.; Schopenhauer's early notes on Buddhism reproduced in Appendix). This study provides an overview of the actual discovery of Buddhism by Schopenhauer. 

== Influences ==
Schopenhauer said he was influenced by the Upanishads, Immanuel Kant and Plato. References to Eastern philosophy and religion appear frequently in Schopenhauer's writing. As noted above, he appreciated the teachings of the Buddha and even called himself a "Buddhist". Abelsen, Peter (1993). "Schopenhauer and Buddhism." Philosophy East & West, 44:2 p. 255. Retrieved on: 18 August 2007. He said Schopenhauer and Buddhism. P Abelsen, H Amsterdam, A Schopenhauer – Philosophy East & West, 1993 that his philosophy could not have been conceived before these teachings were available.

Concerning the Upanishads and Vedas, he writes in The World as Will and Representation:
If the reader has also received the benefit of the Vedas, the access to which by means of the Upanishads is in my eyes the greatest privilege which this still young century (1818) may claim before all previous centuries, if then the reader, I say, has received his initiation in primeval Indian wisdom, and received it with an open heart, he will be prepared in the very best way for hearing what I have to tell him. It will not sound to him strange, as to many others, much less disagreeable; for I might, if it did not sound conceited, contend that every one of the detached statements which constitute the Upanishads, may be deduced as a necessary result from the fundamental thoughts which I have to enunciate, though those deductions themselves are by no means to be found there. The World as Will and Representation Preface to the first edition, p. xiii 

Among Schopenhauer's other influences were: Shakespeare, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Matthias Claudius, George Berkeley, David Hume, and René Descartes. Schopenhauer and the Cartesian Tradition. T Humphrey – Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1981 – muse.jhu.edu 

== Critique of Kant and Hegel ==

=== Critique of the Kantian philosophy ===

Schopenhauer accepted Kant's double-aspect of the universe – the phenomenal (world of experience) and the noumenal (the true world, independent of experience). Some commentators suggest that Schopenhauer claimed that the noumenon, or thing-in-itself, was the basis for Schopenhauer's concept of the will. Other commentators suggest that Schopenhauer considered will to be only a subset of the "thing-in-itself" class, namely that which we can most directly experience. Bryan Magee, Misunderstanding Schopenhauer, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, 1990, ISBN 978-0-85457-148-2 

Schopenhauer's identification of the Kantian noumenon (i.e., the actually existing entity) with what he termed "will" deserves some explanation. The noumenon was what Kant called the Ding an Sich (the Thing in Itself), the reality that is the foundation of our sensory and mental representations of an external world. In Kantian terms, those sensory and mental representations are mere phenomena. Schopenhauer departed from Kant in his description of the relationship between the phenomenon and the noumenon. According to Kant, things-in-themselves ground the phenomenal representations in our minds; Schopenhauer, on the other hand, believed phenomena and noumena to be two different sides of the same coin. Noumena do not cause phenomena, but rather phenomena are simply the way by which our minds perceive the noumena, according to the principle of sufficient reason. This is explained more fully in Schopenhauer's doctoral thesis, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Schopenhauer's second major departure from Kant's epistemology concerns the body. Kant's philosophy was formulated as a response to the radical philosophical skepticism of David Hume, who claimed that causality could not be observed empirically. Schopenhauer begins by arguing that Kant's demarcation between external objects, knowable only as phenomena, and the Thing in Itself of noumenon, contains a significant omission. There is, in fact, one physical object we know more intimately than we know any object of sense perception: our own body.

We know our human bodies have boundaries and occupy space, the same way other objects known only through our named senses do. Though we seldom think of our body as a physical object, we know even before reflection that it shares some of an object's properties. We understand that a watermelon cannot successfully occupy the same space as an oncoming truck; we know that if we tried to repeat the experiment with our own body, we would obtain similar results – we know this even if we do not understand the physics involved.

We know that our consciousness inhabits a physical body, similar to other physical objects only known as phenomena. Yet our consciousness is not commensurate with our body. Most of us possess the power of voluntary motion. We usually are not aware of the breathing of our lungs or the beating of our heart unless somehow our attention is called to them. Our ability to control either is limited. Our kidneys command our attention on their schedule rather than one we choose. Few of us have any idea what our liver is doing right now, though this organ is as needful as lungs, heart, or kidneys. The conscious mind is the servant, not the master, of these and other organs; these organs have an agenda which the conscious mind did not choose, and over which it has limited power.

When Schopenhauer identifies the noumenon with the desires, needs, and impulses in us that we name "will," what he is saying is that we participate in the reality of an otherwise unachievable world outside the mind through will. We cannot prove that our mental picture of an outside world corresponds with a reality by reasoning; through will, we know – without thinking – that the world can stimulate us. We suffer fear, or desire: these states arise involuntarily; they arise prior to reflection; they arise even when the conscious mind would prefer to hold them at bay. The rational mind is, for Schopenhauer, a leaf borne along in a stream of pre-reflective and largely unconscious emotion. That stream is will, and through will, if not through logic, we can participate in the underlying reality beyond mere phenomena. It is for this reason that Schopenhauer identifies the noumenon with what we call our will.

In his criticism of Kant, Schopenhauer claimed that sensation and understanding are separate and distinct abilities. Yet, for Kant, an object is known through each of them. Kant wrote: "... here are two stems of human knowledge ... namely, sensibility and understanding, objects being given by the former and thought by the latter ." Critique of Pure Reason, A 15 Schopenhauer disagreed. He asserted that mere sense impressions, not objects, are given by sensibility. According to Schopenhauer, objects are intuitively perceived by understanding and are discursively thought by reason (Kant had claimed that (1) the understanding thinks objects through concepts and that (2) reason seeks the unconditioned or ultimate answer to "why?"). Schopenhauer said that Kant's mistake regarding perception resulted in all of the obscurity and difficult confusion that is exhibited in the Transcendental Analytic section of his critique.

Lastly, Schopenhauer departed from Kant in how he interpreted the Platonic ideas. In The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer explicitly stated:

...Kant used the word wrongly as well as illegitimately, although Plato had already taken possession of it, and used it most appropriately.

Instead Schopenhauer relied upon the Neoplatonist interpretation of the biographer Diogenes Laërtius from Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. In reference to Plato’s Ideas, Schopenhauer quotes Laërtius verbatim in an explanatory footnote.

Diogenes Laërtius (III, 12) Plato ideas in natura velut exemplaria dixit subsistere; cetera his esse similia, ad istarum similitudinem consistencia.
(Plato teaches that the Ideas exist in nature, so to speak, as patterns or prototypes, and that the remainder of things only resemble them, and exist as their copies.) McCoy, Christopher Patrick. 2009. Thou Art That: Schopenhauer's Philosophy and the Chandogya Upanishad. Master's thesis, James Madison University: 10–13. 

=== Critique of Hegel ===
Schopenhauer expressed his dislike for the philosophy of his contemporary Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel many times in his published works. The following quotations are typical:

:If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right.

:Further, if I were to say that this summus philosophus scribbled nonsense quite unlike any mortal before him, so that whoever could read his most eulogized work, the so-called Phenomenology of the Mind, without feeling as if he were in a madhouse, would qualify as an inmate for Bedlam, I should be no less right. On the Basis of Morality, pp. 15–16. 

:At first Fichte and Schelling shine as the heroes of this epoch; to be followed by the man who is quite unworthy even of them, and greatly their inferior in point of talent --- I mean the stupid and clumsy charlatan Hegel. On the Basis of Morality, p. 35. 

In his Foreword to the first edition of his work Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik, Schopenhauer suggested that he had shown Hegel to have fallen prey to the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Schopenhauer suggested that Hegel's works were filled with "castles of abstraction," and that Hegel used deliberately impressive but ultimately vacuous verbiage. He also thought that his glorification of church and state were designed for personal advantage and had little to do with the search for philosophical truth. For instance, the Right Hegelians interpreted Hegel as viewing the Prussian state of his day as perfect and the goal of all history up until then. "... the Hegelians who, in complete unsmiling seriousness, were airing the question of what the further content of world history could possibly be, now that in the Hegelian philosophy the world spirit had reached the goal, the knowledge of itself." Safranski, p. 256. 

== Criticism of Schopenhauer's Personal Life ==
The British philosopher and historian Bertrand Russell deemed Schopenhauer an insincere person, because judging by his life:

"He habitually dined well, at a good restaurant; he had many trivial love-affairs, which were sensual but not passionate; he was exceedingly quarrelsome and unusually avaricious. ... It is hard to find in his life evidences of any virtue except kindness to animals ... In all other respects he was completely selfish. It is difficult to believe that a man who was profoundly convinced of the virtue of asceticism and resignation would never have made any attempt to embody his convictions in his practice." 

Bryan Magee points out that "the answer to such shallow, but not uncommon criticism" is found in a quote from Schopenhauer:
"It is therefore just as little necessary for the saint to be a philosopher as for the philosopher to be a saint; just as it is not necessary for a perfectly beautiful person to be a great sculptor, or for a great sculptor to be himself a beautiful person. In general, it is a strange demand on a moralist that he should commend no other virtue than that which he himself possesses. To repeat abstractly, universally, and distinctly in concepts the whole inner nature of the world, and thus to deposit it as a reflected image in permanent concepts always ready for the faculty of reason, this and nothing else is philosophy." The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford University Press, pg 211 

== Influence ==
Caricature of Schopenhauer by Wilhelm Busch (1832–1908)

Schopenhauer has had a massive influence upon later thinkers, though more so in the arts (especially literature and music) and psychology than in philosophy. His popularity peaked in the early twentieth century, especially during the Modernist era, and waned somewhat thereafter. Nevertheless, a number of recent publications have reinterpreted and modernised the study of Schopenhauer. His theory is also being explored by some modern philosophers as a precursor to evolutionary theory and modern evolutionary psychology. In the book Straw Dogs, John Gray upheld Schopenhauer as one of the few philosophers who has dedicated himself to studying Eastern philosophy as well as Western philosophy. The book argues against free will, and states that humans have much more in common with animals than is commonly admitted in the West. Schopenhauer is praised for his attitude towards animals, and for having addressed the brutality of much of human life. 

Richard Wagner, writing in his autobiography, remembered his first impression that Schopenhauer left on him (when he read World as Will and Representation):
:Schopenhauer’s book was never completely out of my mind, and by the following summer I had studied it from cover to cover four times. It had a radical influence on my whole life. Kimball, Roger. Schopenhauer's world. The New Criterion, 1985 

Wagner also commented that "serious mood, which was trying to find ecstatic expression" created by Schopenhauer inspired the conception of Tristan und Isolde. See also Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde.

Friedrich Nietzsche owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading The World as Will and Representation and admitted that he was one of the few philosophers that he respected, dedicating to him his essay Schopenhauer als Erzieher Schopenhauer as Educator one of his Untimely Meditations.

Jorge Luis Borges remarked that the reason he had never attempted to write a systematic account of his world view, despite his penchant for philosophy and metaphysics in particular, was because Schopenhauer had already written it for him.

As a teenager, Ludwig Wittgenstein adopted Schopenhauer's epistemological idealism. However, after his study of the philosophy of mathematics, he rejected epistemological idealism for Gottlob Frege's conceptual realism. In later years, Wittgenstein was highly dismissive of Schopenhauer, describing him as an ultimately "shallow" thinker: "Schopenhauer has quite a crude mind... where real depth starts, his comes to an end". Culture & Value, p.24, 1933–4 Malcolm, Norman. Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford University Press, 1958, page 6 

The philosopher Gilbert Ryle read Schopenhauer's works as a student, but later largely forgot them, only to unwittingly recycle ideas from Schopenhauer in his The Concept of Mind. , Ch. 16 

== Selected bibliography ==
* On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde), 1813
* On Vision and Colors (Über das Sehn und die Farben), 1816 ISBN 978-0-85496-988-3
* The World as Will and Representation (alternatively translated in English as The World as Will and Idea; original German is Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), 1818/1819, vol 2 1844
** Vol. 1 Dover edition 1966, ISBN 978-0-486-21761-1
** Vol. 2 Dover edition 1966, ISBN 978-0-486-21762-8
** Peter Smith Publisher hardcover set 1969, ISBN 978-0-8446-2885-1
** Everyman Paperback combined abridged edition (290 p.) ISBN 978-0-460-87505-9
* The Art of Being Right (Eristische Dialektik: Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten), 1831
* On the Will in Nature (Über den Willen in der Natur), 1836 ISBN 978-0-85496-999-9
* On the Freedom of the Will (Über die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens), 1839 ISBN 978-0-631-14552-3
* On the Basis of Morality (Über die Grundlage der Moral), 1840
* Parerga und Paralipomena, 1851; English Translation by E. F. J. Payne, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1974, 2 Volumes:
** Printings:
*** 1974 Hardcover, by ISBN
**** Vol 1 and 2, ISBN 978-0-19-519813-3,
**** Vol 1, ISBN
**** Vol 2, ISBN 978-0-19-824527-8,
*** 1974/1980 Paperback, Vol 1, ISBN 978-0-19-824634-3, Vol 2, ISBN 978-0-19-824635-0,
*** 2001 Paperback, Vol 1, ISBN 978-0-19-924220-7, Vol 2, ISBN 978-0-19-924221-4
** Essays and Aphorisms, being excerpts from Volume 2 of Parerga und Paralipomena, selected and translated by R J Hollingdale, with Introduction by R J Hollingdale, Penguin Classics, 1970, Paperback 1973: ISBN 978-0-14-044227-4
* Arthur Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains, Volume II, Berg Publishers Ltd., ISBN 978-0-85496-539-7

=== Online ===
* 
* Illustrated version of the "Art of Being Right" and links to logic and sophisms used by the stratagems.
* The Art Of Controversy (Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten). (bilingual) Art of Being Right
* Studies in Pessimism – audiobook from LibriVox.
* The World as Will and Idea at Internet Archive:
** Volume I;
** Volume II;
** Volume III.
* On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason and On the will in nature. Two essays:
** Internet Archive. Translated by Mrs. Karl Hillebrand (1903).
** Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection. Reprinted by Cornell University Library Digital Collections
* Facsimile edition of Schopenhauer's manuscripts in SchopenhauerSource
* Essays of Schopenhauer

== See also ==
* Antinatalism, a position advocated by Schopenhauer that one would be better off not having been born
* God in Buddhism
* Massacre of the Innocents (Guido Reni)
* Mortal coil
* Nihilism

== References ==

=== Footnotes ===

=== Bibliography ===

* Albright, Daniel (2004) Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-01267-4
* Hannan, Barbara, The Riddle of the World: A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer's Philosophy (Oxford, OUP, 2009)
* Magee, Bryan, Confessions of a Philosopher, Random House, 1998, ISBN 978-0-375-50028-2. Chapters 20, 21
* Safranski, Rüdiger (1990) Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-79275-3; orig. German Schopenhauer und Die wilden Jahre der Philosophie, Carl Hanser Verlag (1987)
* The Living Thoughts of Schopenhauer, Thomas Mann editor, Longmans Green & Co., 1939

== Further reading ==

=== Biographies ===
* Frederick Copleston, Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher of pessimism (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1946)
* O.F.Damm, Arthur Schopenhauer – eine Biographie, (Reclam, 1912)
* Kuno Fischer, Arthur Schopenhauer (Heidelberg: Winter, 1893); revised as Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre (Heidelberg: Winter, 1898).
* Eduard Grisebach, Schopenhauer – Geschichte seines Lebens (Berlin: Hofmann, 1876).
* D.W. Hamlyn, Schopenhauer, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (1980, 1985)
* Heinrich Hasse, Schopenhauer. (Reinhardt, 1926)
* Arthur Hübscher, Arthur Schopenhauer – Ein Lebensbild (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1938).
* Thomas Mann, Schopenhauer (Bermann-Fischer, 1938)
* Rüdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer und die wilden Jahre der Philosophie – Eine Biographie, hard cover Carl Hanser Verlag, München 1987, ISBN 978-3-446-14490-3, pocket edition Fischer: ISBN 978-3-596-14299-6.
* Rüdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, trans. Ewald Osers (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989)
* Walther Schneider, Schopenhauer – Eine Biographie (Vienna: Bermann-Fischer, 1937).
* William Wallace, Life of Arthur Schopenhauer (London: Scott, 1890; repr., St. Clair Shores, Mich.: Scholarly Press, 1970)
* Helen Zimmern, Arthur Schopenhauer: His Life and His Philosophy (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1876)

=== Other books ===
* App, Urs. Arthur Schopenhauer and China. Sino-Platonic Papers Nr. 200 (April 2010) (PDF, 8.7 Mb PDF, 164 p.). Contains extensive appendixes which include transcriptions and English translations of Schopenhauer's early notes about Buddhism and Indian philosophy.
* Atwell, John. Schopenhauer on the Character of the World, The Metaphysics of Will.
* --------, Schopenhauer, The Human Character.
* Cartwright, David. Schopenhauer: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-82598-6
* Edwards, Anthony. An Evolutionary Epistemological Critique of Schopenhauer's Metaphysics. 123 Books, 2011.
* Copleston, Frederick, Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism, 1946 (reprinted London: Search Press, 1975).
* Gardiner, Patrick, 1963. Schopenhauer. Penguin Books.
* --------, Schopenhauer: A Very Short introduction.
* Janaway, Christopher, 2003. Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-825003-6
* Magee, Bryan, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford University Press (1988, reprint 1997). ISBN 978-0-19-823722-8
* Mannion, Gerard, "Schopenhauer, Religion and Morality – The Humble Path to Ethics", Ashgate Press, New Critical Thinking in Philosophy Series, 2003, 314pp.
* Trottier, Danick. L’influence de la philosophie schopenhauerienne dans la vie et l’oeuvre de Richard Wagner ; et, Qu’est-ce qui séduit, obsède, magnétise le philosophe dans l’art des sons? deux études en esthétique musicale, Université du Québec à Montréal, Département de musique, 2000.
* Zimmern, Helen, Arthur Schopenhauer, his Life and Philosophy, London, Longman, and Co., 1876.

=== Articles ===
* 
* Jiménez, Camilo, 2006, "Tagebuch eines Ehrgeizigen: Arthur Schopenhauers Studienjahre in Berlin," Avinus Magazin (in German).
* Luchte, James, 2009, "The Body of Sublime Knowledge: The Aesthetic Phenomenology of Arthur Schopenhauer," Heythrop Journal, Volume 50, Number 2, pp. 228–242.
* Mazard, Eisel, 2005, "Schopenhauer and the Empirical Critique of Idealism in the History of Ideas." On Schopenhauer's (debated) place in the history of European philosophy and his relation to his predecessors.
* Moges, Awet, 2006, "Schopenhauer's Philosophy." Galileian Library.
* Sangharakshita, 2004, "Schopenhauer and aesthetic appreciation."
* 
* Oxenford's "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy," (See p. 388)

== External links ==

* 
* Works by Schopenhauer in audio format from LibriVox
* 
* Arthur Schopenhauer an article by Mary Troxell in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2011
* Schopenhauersource: Reproductions of Schopenhauer's manuscripts
* Kant's philosophy as rectified by Schopenhauer
* Timeline of German Philosophers
* A Quick Introduction to Schopenhauer
* 
* Ross, Kelley L., 1998, "Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)." Two short essays, on Schopenhauer's life and work, and on his dim view of academia.

 



[[Angola]]

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola ( ; Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu: Repubilika ya Ngola), is a country in Southern Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean and Luanda is its capital city. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Portuguese were present in some – mostly coastal – points of the territory of what is now Angola, from the 16th to the 19th century, interacting in diverse ways with the peoples who lived there. In the 19th century, they slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. Angola as a Portuguese colony encompassing the present territory was not established before the end of the 19th century, and "effective occupation", as required by the Berlin Conference (1884) was achieved only by the 1920s after the Mbunda resistance and abduction of their King, Mwene Mbandu I Lyondthzi Kapova. See René Pélissier: Les Guerres grises: Résistance et revoltes en Angola (1845–1941), Montamets/Orgeval: Éditions Pélissier, 1977 Independence was achieved in 1975, after a protracted liberation war. After independence, Angola was the scene of an intense civil war from 1975 to 2002. Despite the civil war, areas such as Baixa de Cassanje continue a lineage of kings which have included the former King Kambamba Kulaxingo and current King Dianhenga Aspirante Mjinji Kulaxingo.

The country has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy has on average grown at a double-digit pace since the 1990s, especially since the end of the civil war. In spite of this, standards of living remain low for the majority of the population, and life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Angola are among the worst in the world. Life expectancy at birth www.cia.gov (2009) Angola is considered to be economically disparate, with the majority of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population.

Angola is a member state of the African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union and the Southern African Development Community.

==Etymology==
The name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola (Kingdom of Angola), appearing as early as Dias de Novais's 1571 charter. Heywood, Linda M. & Thornton, John K. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660, p. 82. Cambridge University Press, 2007. The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo was a kingdom in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, nominally tributary to the king of Kongo but which was seeking greater independence during the 16th century.

== History ==

=== Early migrations and political units ===
Territory comprising Kingdom of Ndongo, presente-day Angola
Khoisan hunter-gatherers are the earliest known modern human inhabitants of the area. They were largely absorbed and/or replaced by Bantu peoples during the Bantu migrations, though small numbers remain in parts of southern Angola to the present day. The Bantu came from the north, probably from somewhere near the present-day Republic of Cameroon and Sudan. The Bantu in Ancient Egypt, citing sources: Alfred M M'Imanyara 'The Restatement of Bantu Origin and Meru History' published by Longman Kenya, 1992 - Social Science - 170 pages, ISBN 9966-49-832-X The establishment of the Bantu took many centuries and gave rise to various groups who took on different ethnic characteristics.

During this time, the Bantu established a number of political units ("kingdoms", "empires") in most parts of what today is Angola. The best known of these is the Kingdom of the Kongo that had its centre in the northwest of contemporary Angola, but included important regions in the west of present day Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of Congo, and in southern Gabon. It established trade routes with other trading cities and civilizations up and down the coast of southwestern and West Africa and even with the Great Zimbabwe Mutapa Empire, but engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. 

Others include the Mbunda, whose Kingdom was established in the fifteenth century Almanac of African Peoples & Nations page 523, Social Science By Muḥammad Zuhdī Yakan, Transaction Publishers, Putgers – The State University, New Jersey, ISBN 1-56000-433-9 at the confluence of Kwilu and Kasai rivers, in the south of present day Democratic Republic of the Congo, after a misunderstanding in Kola, also known as the origin of the Lunda and the Luba Kingdoms. The Mbunda trace their origin from Sudan, Terms of trade and terms of trust: the history and contexts of pre-colonial pages 104 & 105...By Achim von Oppen, LIT Verlag Münster Publishers, 1993, ISBN 3-89473-246-6, ISBN 978-3-89473-246-2 trekking southwards through Kola where they came in contact with the Luba and Ruund Kingdoms. They reached what is now Angola in the sixteenth century, where they encountered the Khoisan, Bushmen and other groups considerably less technologically advanced than themselves, whom they easily dominated with their superior knowledge of metal-working, ceramics and agriculture. The Mbunda Kingdom in Mbundaland, southeast of the now Angola endured until late nineteenth century, one of the oldest and biggest ethnic grouping in Southern Africa. Robert Papstein, 1994, The History and Cultural Life of the Mbunda Speaking People, Lusaka Cheke Cultural Writers Association, ISBN 9982-03-006-X 

=== Portuguese colonization ===

Queen Nzinga in peace negotiations with the Portuguese governor in Luanda, 1657.
An image depicting Portuguese encounter with Kongo Royal family
The geographical areas now designated as Angola entered into contact with the Portuguese in the late 15th century, concretely in 1483, when Portugal established relations with the Kongo State, which stretched from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. In this context, the Portuguese established a small trade-post at the port of Mpinda, in Soyo. The Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda", with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela, a Portuguese fort from 1587 which became a town in 1617, was another important early settlement they founded and ruled. The Portuguese would establish several settlements, forts and trading posts along the coastal strip of current-day Angola, which relied on the slave trade, commerce in raw materials, and the exchange of goods for survival.

The Atlantic slave trade provided a large number of black slaves to merchants and to slave dealers in Angola. European traders would export manufactured goods to the coast of Africa where they would be exchanged for slaves. Within the Portuguese Empire, most black African slaves were traded to Portuguese merchants who bought them to sell as cheap labour for use on Brazilian agricultural plantations. This trade would last until the first half of the 19th century. According to John Iliffe, "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into the river valleys". John Iliffe (2007) Africans: the history of a continent. Cambridge University Press. p.68. ISBN 0-521-68297-5 

The Portuguese gradually took control of the coastal strip during the 16th century by a series of treaties and wars, forming the Portuguese colony of Angola. Taking advantage of the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch occupied Luanda from 1641 to 1648, where they allied with local peoples, consolidating their colonial rule against the remaining Portuguese resistance. In 1648, a fleet under the command of Salvador de Sá retook Luanda for Portugal and initiated a conquest of the lost territories, which restored Portugal to its former possessions by 1650. Treaties regulated relations with Kongo in 1649 and Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo in 1656. The conquest of Pungo Andongo in 1671 was the last major Portuguese expansion from Luanda outwards, as attempts to invade Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 failed. Portugal also expanded its territory behind the colony of Benguela to some extent, but until the 19th century the inroads from Luanda and Benguela were very limited, and Portugal had neither the intention nor the means to carry out a large scale territorial occupation and colonization.

King Mwene Mbandu I Lyondthzi Kapova, the 21st Monarch of the Mbunda Kingdom
Portuguese troops heading for Angola during World War I.

The process resulted in few gains until the 1880s. Development of the hinterland began after the Berlin Conference in 1885 fixed the colony's borders, and British and Portuguese investment fostered mining, railways, and agriculture based on various forced-labour systems. Full Portuguese administrative control of the hinterland did not establish itself until the beginning of the 20th century, after the Mbunda resistance and abduction of their King, Mwene Mbandu I Lyondthzi Kapova, eventually dislodged the Mbunda Kingdom extending Angolan territory over Mbundaland. In 1951 the Portuguese government designated the colony as an overseas province of Portugal, called the Overseas Province of Angola.

Portugal had a minimalist presence in Angola for nearly five hundred years, and early calls for independence provoked little reaction amongst the population. More overtly political organisations first appeared in the 1950s and began to make organised demands for self-determination, especially in international forums such as the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Portuguese regime, meanwhile, refused to accede to the demands for independence, provoking an armed conflict that started in 1961 when black guerrillas attacked both white and black civilians in cross-border operations in northeastern Angola. The war came to be known as the Colonial War. In this struggle, the principal protagonists included, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)), founded in 1956, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), which appeared in 1961 and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), founded in 1966.

After many years of conflict that led to the weakening of all the insurgent parties, Angola gained its independence on 11 November 1975, after the 1974 coup d'état in Lisbon, Portugal, which overthrew the Portuguese regime headed by Marcelo Caetano.

Portugal's new revolutionary leaders began in 1974 a process of political change at home and accepted independence for its former colonies abroad. In Angola a fight for dominance broke out immediately between the three nationalist movements. The events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens, creating up to 300 000 destitute Portuguese refugees—the retornados. Dismantling the Portuguese Empire, Time Magazine (Monday, 7 July 1975)
 
The new Portuguese government tried to mediate an understanding between the three competing movements, and succeeded in agreeing, on paper, in forming a common government. But in the end none of the African parties respected the commitments made, and military force resolved the issue.

=== Independence and civil war ===
Monument on memory of Agostinho Neto and Angolan struggle for independence

After independence in November 1975, Angola faced a devastating civil war which lasted several decades and claimed millions of lives and produced many refugees. The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire by Norrie MacQueen – Mozambique since Independence: Confronting Leviathan by Margaret Hall, Tom Young – Author of Review: Stuart A. Notholt African Affairs, Vol. 97, No. 387 (Apr., 1998), pp. 276–278, JSTOR Following negotiations held in Portugal, itself under severe social and political turmoil and uncertainty due to the April 1974 revolution, Angola's three main guerrilla groups agreed to establish a transitional government in January 1975.

Within two months, however, the FNLA, MPLA and UNITA were fighting each other and the country was well on its way to being divided into zones controlled by rival armed political groups. The superpowers were quickly drawn into the conflict, which became a flash point for the Cold War. The United States, Zaire (today's Democratic Republic of the Congo) and South Africa supported the FNLA and UNITA. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported the MPLA.

In the beginning of the Civil War, most of the half million Portuguese that lived in Angola and accounted for the majority of the skilled work in the public administration, agriculture, industries and trade fled the country leaving its once prosperous and growing economy to a state of bankruptcy. 

During most of this period, 1975–1990, the MPLA organised and maintained a socialist regime. M.R. Bhagavan, Angola's Political Economy 1975–1985, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1986. 

=== Ceasefire with UNITA ===
R. Congo, D.R. Congo, Angola.png|right|thumb|150px|]

On 22 March 2002, Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, was killed in combat with government troops. A cease-fire was reached by the two factions shortly afterwards. UNITA gave up its armed wing and assumed the role of major opposition party, although in the knowledge that in the present regime a legitimate democratic election was impossible. Although the political situation of the country began to stabilize, regular democratic processes were not established before the Elections in Angola in 2008 and 2012 and the adoption of a new Constitution of Angola in 2010, all of which strengthened the prevailing Dominant-party system. MPLA head officials continue e.g. to be given senior positions in top level companies or other fields, although a few outstanding UNITA figures are given some shares in the economic as well as in the military share. In 2006 a former UNITA general, Nduma, was appointed head of the general staff of the armed forces. 

Among Angola's major problems are a serious humanitarian crisis (a result of the prolonged war), the abundance of minefields, the continuation of the political, and to a much lesser degree, military activities in favour of the independence of the northern exclave of Cabinda, carried out in the context of the protracted Cabinda Conflict by the Frente para a Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda, but most of all, the dilapidation of the country's rich mineral resources by the regime. While most of the internally displaced have now settled around the capital, in the so-called "Musseques", the general situation for Angolans remains desperate. Lari (2004), Human Rights Watch (2005) 

== Geography ==
Coatinha beach in Benguela, Angola
Miradouro da Lua, which can be translated as Watchpoint of the Moon, situated at the coast 40 kilometers south of Luanda, Angola
Topographic map of Angola.

At 481321 sqmi, CIA – The World Factbook – Country Comparison :: Area Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country (after Niger). It is comparable in size to Mali, or five times the area of the United Kingdom. It lies mostly between latitudes 4° and 18°S, and longitudes 12° and 24°E.

Angola is bordered by Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west. The exclave of Cabinda also borders the Republic of the Congo to the north. Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.

== Climate ==

Promenade on Luanda Bay
Angola's average temperature on the coast is 60 F in the winter and 70 F in the summer. It has two seasons; dry season (May to October) and hot rainy season (November to April).

== Politics ==

José Eduardo dos Santos meets with Vladimir Putin
Angola's motto is Virtus Unita Fortior, a Latin phrase meaning "Virtue is stronger when united". The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents and the Council of Ministers. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the Presidency.

Governors of the 18 provinces are appointed by the president. The Constitutional Law of 1992 establishes the broad outlines of government structure and delineates the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law but is weak and fragmented, and courts operate in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court serves as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review has not been constituted until 2010, despite statutory authorization.

After the end of the Civil War the regime came under pressure from within as well as from the international environment, to become more democratic and less authoritarian. Its reaction was to operate a number of changes without substantially changing its character. See Didier Péclard (ed.), L'Angola dans la paix: Autoritarisme et reconversions, special issue of Politique africains (Paris), 110, 2008. 

Angola is classified as 'not free' by Freedom House in the Freedom in the World 2013 report. The report noted that the August 2012 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won more than 70% of the vote, suffered from serious flaws, including outdated and inaccurate voter rolls. Voter turnout dropped from 80% in 2008 to 60%. 

Angola scored poorly on the 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It was ranked 44 from 48 sub-Saharan African countries, scoring particularly badly in the areas of Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development. The Ibrahim Index uses a number of different variables to compile its list which reflects the state of governance in Africa. 

The new constitution, adopted in 2010, further sharpened the authoritarian character of the regime. In the future, there will be no presidential elections: the president and the vice-president of the political party which comes out strongest in the parliamentary elections become automatically president and vice-president of Angola. In this manner, José Eduardo dos Santos is now finally in a legal situation. As he had obtained a relative, but not the absolute majority of votes in the 1992 presidential election, a second round—opposing him to Jonas Savimbi—was constitutionally necessary to make his election effective, but he preferred never to hold this second round. Through a variety of mechanisms, the state president controls all the other organs of the state, so that the principle of the division of power is not maintained. As a consequence, Angola has no longer a presidential system, in the sense of the systems existing e.g. in the USA or in France. In terms of the classifications used in constitutional law, its regime is considered one of several authoritarian regimes in Africa. See Jorge Miranda, A Constituição de Angola de 2010, published in the academic journal O Direito (Lisbon), vol. 142, 2010 – 1 (June). 

=== Military ===
Angolan Air Force Ilyushin Il-76TD Karpezo-1

The Angolan Armed Forces (AAF) is headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defense. There are three divisions—the Army (Exército), Navy (Marinha de Guerra, MGA), and National Air Force (Força Aérea Nacional, FAN). Total manpower is about 110,000. Its equipment includes Russian-manufactured fighters, bombers, and transport planes. There are also Brazilian-made EMB-312 Tucano for training role, Czech-made L-39 for training and bombing role, Czech Zlin for training role and a variety of western made aircraft such as C-212\Aviocar, Sud Aviation Alouette III, etc. A small number of AAF personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).

=== Police ===
The National Police departments are Public Order, Criminal Investigation, Traffic and Transport, Investigation and Inspection of Economic Activities, Taxation and Frontier Supervision, Riot Police and the Rapid Intervention Police. The National Police are in the process of standing up an air wing, which will provide helicopter support for operations. The National Police are developing their criminal investigation and forensic capabilities. The force has an estimated 6,000 patrol officers, 2,500 taxation and frontier supervision officers, 182 criminal investigators and 100 financial crimes detectives and around 90 economic activity inspectors.

The National Police have implemented a modernization and development plan to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the total force. In addition to administrative reorganization, modernization projects include procurement of new vehicles, aircraft and equipment, construction of new police stations and forensic laboratories, restructured training programs and the replacement of AKM rifles with 9 mm Uzis for officers in urban areas.

== Administrative divisions ==
Map of Angola with the provinces numbered

Angola is divided into eighteen provinces (províncias) and 163 municipalities. The municipalities are further divided into 475 communes (townships). The provinces are:

#Bengo
#Benguela
#Bié
#Cabinda
#Cuando Cubango
#Cuanza Norte
#Cuanza Sul
#Cunene
#Huambo

#Huila
#Luanda
#Lunda Norte
#Lunda Sul
#Malanje
#Moxico
#Namibe
#Uíge
#Zaire

=== Exclave of Cabinda ===

Flag of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC)
With an area of approximately 7283 km2, the Northern Angolan province of Cabinda is unusual in being separated from the rest of the country by a strip, some 60 km wide, of the Democratic Republic of Congo along the lower Congo river. Cabinda borders the Congo Republic to the north and north-northeast and the DRC to the east and south. The town of Cabinda is the chief population center.

According to a 1995 census, Cabinda had an estimated population of 600,000, approximately 400,000 of whom live in neighboring countries. Population estimates are, however, highly unreliable. Consisting largely of tropical forest, Cabinda produces hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, crude rubber and palm oil. The product for which it is best known, however, is its oil, which has given it the nickname, "the Kuwait of Africa". Cabinda's petroleum production from its considerable offshore reserves now accounts for more than half of Angola's output. Most of the oil along its coast was discovered under Portuguese rule by the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) from 1968 onwards.

Ever since Portugal handed over sovereignty of its former overseas province of Angola to the local independence groups (MPLA, UNITA, and FNLA), the territory of Cabinda has been a focus of separatist guerrilla actions opposing the Government of Angola (which has employed its military forces, the FAA—Forças Armadas Angolanas) and Cabindan separatists. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda-Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC) announced a virtual Federal Republic of Cabinda under the Presidency of N'Zita Henriques Tiago. One of the characteristics of the Cabindan independence movement is its constant fragmentation, into smaller and smaller factions.

== Economy ==

Offshore platform on move to final destination to the oilfields off the Angola coast
A booming economy due to oil revenues and stable politics, Angola has seen an increase in its international trading sector
Angola Export Treemap from MIT Harvard Economic Observatory as of 2012
TAAG Angolan Airlines is Angola national airline
Angola's financial system is maintained by the National Bank of Angola and managed by Governor Jose de Lima Massano. 
Angola has a rich subsoil heritage, from diamonds, oil, gold, copper, and a rich wildlife (dramatically impoverished during the civil war), forest, and fossils. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture have dramatically dropped because of the Angolan Civil War, but have begun to recover after 2002. The transformation industry that had come into existence in the late colonial period collapsed at independence, because of the exodus of most of the ethnic Portuguese population, but has begun to reemerge (with updated technologies), partly because of the influx of new Portuguese entrepreneurs. Similar developments can be verified in the service sector.

Overall, Angola's economy has undergone a period of transformation in recent years, moving from the disarray caused by a quarter century of civil war to being the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world, with an average GDP growth of 20 percent between 2005 and 2007. Angola Financial Sector Profile: MFW4A – Making Finance Work for Africa. MFW4A. Retrieved on 9 August 2013. In the period 2001–2010, Angola had the world's highest annual average GDP growth, at 11.1 percent. In 2004, China's Eximbank approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola. The loan is being used to rebuild Angola's infrastructure, and has also limited the influence of the International Monetary Fund in the country. China is Angola's biggest trade partner and export destination as well as the fourth-largest importer. Bilateral trade reached $27.67 billion in 2011, up 11.5 percent year-on-year. China's imports, mainly crude oil and diamonds, increased 9.1 percent to $24.89 billion while China's exports, including mechanical and electrical products, machinery parts and construction materials, surged 38.8 percent. The overabundance of oil led to a local unleaded gasoline "pricetag" of £0.37 per gallon. Luanda, capital of Angola, retains title of world's most expensive for expats. Telegraph. Retrieved on 9 August 2013. 

The Economist reported in 2008 that diamonds and oil make up 60 percent of Angola's economy, almost all of the country's revenue and are its dominant exports. The Economist. 30 August 2008 edition. U.S. Edition. Page 46. Article on Angola, "marches toward riches and democracy?". Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed 1.4 Moilbbl/d in late 2005 and was expected to grow to 2 Moilbbl/d by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate which is owned by the Angolan government. In December 2006, Angola was admitted as a member of OPEC. However, operations in diamond mines include partnerships between state-run Endiama and mining companies such as ALROSA which continue operations in Angola. http://www.angolancentenary.com/press6.pdf The economy grew 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006 and 17.6% in 2007. However, due to the global recession the economy contracted an estimated −0.3% in 2009. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ao.html retrieved 24 October 2010 The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in large-scale increases in agriculture production.

Although the country's economy has developed significantly since achieving political stability in 2002, mainly thanks to the fast-rising earnings of the oil sector, Angola faces huge social and economic problems. These are in part a result of the almost continual state of conflict from 1961 onwards, although the highest level of destruction and socio-economic damage took place after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. However, high poverty rates and blatant social inequality are chiefly the outcome of a combination of a persistent political authoritarianism, of "neo-patrimonial" practices at all levels of the political, administrative, military, and economic apparatuses, and of a pervasive corruption. Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International rates Angola one of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world. The main beneficiary of this situation is a social segment constituted since 1975, but mainly during the last decades, around the political, administrative, economic, and military power holders, which has accumulated (and continues accumulating) enormous wealth. This process is well analyzed by authors like Christine Messiant, Tony Hodges and others. For an eloquent illustrating, see now the Angolan magazine Infra-Estruturas África 7/2010. "Secondary beneficiaries" are the middle strata which are about to become social classes. However, overall almost half the population has to be considered as poor, but in this respect there are dramatic differences between the countryside and the cities (where by now slightly more than 50% of the people live).

An inquiry carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatística has it that in the rural areas roughly 58% must be classified as "poor", according to UN norms, but in the urban areas only 19%, while the overall rate is 37%. See Angola Exame of 12/11/2010, online http://www.exameangola.com/pt/?det=16943&id=2000&mid=. In the cities, a majority of families, well beyond those officially classified as poor, have to adopt a variety of survival strategies. See Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues, O Trabalho Dignifica o Homem: Estratégias de Sobrevivência em Luanda, Lisbon: Colibri: 2006. At the same time, in urban areas social inequality is most evident, and assumes extreme forms in the capital, Luanda. As an excellent illustration see Luanda: A vida na cidade dos extremos, in: Visão, 11 November 2010. In the Human Development Index Angola constantly ranks in the bottom group. The HDI 2010 lists Angola in the 146th position among 169 countries—one position below that of Haiti. See Human Development Index and its components. 

According to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, oil production from Angola has increased so significantly that Angola now is China's biggest supplier of oil. Growing oil revenues have also created opportunities for corruption: according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, 32 billion US dollars disappeared from government accounts from 2007 to 2010. 

Before independence in 1975, Angola was a breadbasket of southern Africa and a major exporter of bananas, coffee and sisal, but three decades of civil war (1975–2002) destroyed the fertile countryside, leaving it littered with landmines and driving millions into the cities. The country now depends on expensive food imports, mainly from South Africa and Portugal, while more than 90 percent of farming is done at family and subsistence level. Thousands of Angolan small-scale farmers are trapped in poverty. Louise Redvers, POVERTY-ANGOLA: Inter Press Service News Agency – NGOs Sceptical of Govt's Rural Development Plans retrieved 6 June 2009 

The enormous differences between the regions pose a serious structural problem in the Angolan economy. This is best illustrated by the fact that about one third of the economic activities is concentrated in Luanda and the neighbouring Bengo province, while several areas of the interior are characterized by stagnation and even regression. See Manuel Alves da Rocha, Desigualdades e assimetrias regionais em Angola: Os factores da competitividade territorial, Luanda: Centro de Estudos e Investigação Científica da Universidade Católica de Angola, 2010. 

One of the economic consequences of the social and regional disparities is a sharp increase in Angolan private investments abroad. The small fringe of Angolan society where most of the accumulation takes place seeks to spread its assets, for reasons of security and profit. For the time being, the biggest share of these investments is concentrated in Portugal where the Angolan presence (including that of the family of the state president) in banks as well as in the domains of energy, telecommunications, and mass media has become notable, as has the acquisition of vineyards and orchards as well as of touristic enterprises. See "A força do kwanza", Visão (Lisbon), 993, 15 May 2012, pp. 50–54 

=== Transport ===

Quatro de Fevereiro Luanda Airport arrivals
Transport in Angola consists of:
* Three separate railway systems totalling 2,761 km (1,715 mi)
* 76626 km of highway of which 19156 km is paved
* 1,295 navigable inland waterways
* Eight major sea ports
* 243 airports, of which 32 are paved.

Travel on highways outside of towns and cities in Angola (and in some cases within) is often not best advised for those without four-by-four vehicles. While a reasonable road infrastructure has existed within Angola, time and the war have taken their toll on the road surfaces, leaving many severely potholed, littered with broken asphalt. In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road. The Angolan government has contracted the restoration of many of the country's roads. The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union, and is comparable to many European main routes. Progress to complete the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made in the right directions.

== Demographics ==

People strolling by Luanda's bay promenade

Angola's population is estimated to be 18,056,072 (2012). It is composed of Ovimbundu (language Umbundu) 37%, Ambundu (language Kimbundu) 25%, Bakongo 13%, and 32% other ethnic groups (including the Chokwe, the Ovambo, the Mbunda, with the latter having been replaced by Ganguela, a generic term for peoples east of the Central Highlands, José Redinha, Etnias e culturas de Angola, Luanda: Instituto de Investigalção Científica de Angola, 1975 which has a slightly derogatory meaning when applied by the western ethnic groups, Alvin W. Urquhart, Patterns of Settlement and Subsistence in Southwestern Angola, National Academies Press, 1963, p 10 and the Xindonga) as well as about 2% mestiços (mixed European and African), 1.4% Chinese and 1% European. See ethnic map and CIA – The World Factbook – Angola The Ambundu and Ovimbundu nations combined form a majority of the population, at 62%. As no reliable census data exist at this stage (2011), all these numbers are rough estimates only, subject to adjustments and updates. The population is forecast to grow to over 47 million people to 2060, nearly tripling the estimated 16 to 18 million in 2011. Forecast provided by International Futures and hosted by Google's Public Data Explorer The last official census was taken in 1970, and showed the total population as being 5.6 million. "ANGOLA – The National Archives" The first post-independence census is to be held in 2014.

It is estimated that Angola was host to 12,100 refugees and 2,900 asylum seekers by the end of 2007. 11,400 of those refugees were originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who arrived in the 1970s. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. "World Refugee Survey 2008". Available Online at: http://www.refugees.org/countryreports.aspx?id=2117. pp.37 As of 2008 there were an estimated 400,000 Democratic Republic of the Congo migrant workers, World Refugee Survey 2008 – Angola, UNHCR. NB: This figure is highly doubtful, as it makes no clear distinction between migrant workers, refugees, and immigrants. at least 30,000 Portuguese, Angola, U.S. Department of State. NB: Estimations in 2011 put that number at 100,000, and add about 150,000 to 200,000 other Europeans and Latin Americans. and about 259,000 Chinese living in Angola. 

Since 2003, more than 400,000 Congolese migrants have been expelled from Angola. "Calls for Angola to Investigate Abuse of Congolese Migrants". Inter Press Service. 21 May 2012 Prior to independence in 1975, Angola had a community of approximately 350,000 Portuguese; See the carefully researched article by Gerald Bender & Stanley Yoder, Whites in Angola on the Eve of Independence. The Poitics of Numbers, in: Africa Today, 21 (4), 1974, pp. 23–27. Flight from Angola, The Economist , 16 August 1975 puts the number at 500,000, but this is an estimate lacking appropriate sources. currently, there are about 200,000 who are registered with the consulates, and increasing due to the debt crisis in Portugal. The Chinese population stands at 258,920, mostly composed of temporary migrants. "Chinese 'gangsters' repatriated from Angola", Telegraph 

The total fertility rate of Angola is 5.54 children born per woman (2012 estimates), the 11th highest in the world. CIA – The World Factbook 

=== Languages ===

Angola is a member of CPLP – Community of Portuguese speaking nations
The languages in Angola are those originally spoken by the different ethnic groups and Portuguese, introduced during the Portuguese colonial era. The indigenous languages with the largest usage are Umbundu, Kimbundu, and Kikongo, in that order. Portuguese is the official language of the country.

Mastery of the official language is probably more extended in Angola than it is elsewhere in Africa, and this certainly applies to its use in everyday life. Moreover, and above all, the proportion of native (or near native) speakers of the language of the former colonizer, turned official after independence, is no doubt considerably higher than in any other African country.

There are three intertwined historical reasons for this situation.
#In the Portuguese "bridgeheads" Luanda and Benguela, which existed on the coast of what today is Angola since the 15th and 16th century, respectively, Portuguese was spoken not only by the Portuguese and their mestiço descendents, but—especially in and around Luanda—by a significant number of Africans, although these always remained native speakers of their local African language.
#Since the Portuguese conquest of the present territory of Angola, and especially since its "effective occupation" in the mid-1920s, schooling in Portuguese was slowly developed by the colonial state as well as by Catholic and Protestant missions. The rhythm of this expansion was considerably accelerated during the late colonial period, 1961–1974, so that by the end of the colonial period children all over the territory (with relatively few exceptions) had at least some access to the Portuguese language. An illustration is Franz-Wilhelm Heimer, '’Educação e sociedade nas áreas rurais de Angola: Resultados de um inquérito’’, vol. 2, ‘’Análise do universo agrícola’’ (survey report), Serviços de Planeamento e Integração Económica de Angola, Luanda, 1974 
#In the same late colonial period, the legal discrimination of the black population was abolished, and the state apparatus in fields like health, education, social work, and rural development was enlarged. This entailed a significant increase in jobs for Africans, under the condition that they spoke Portuguese.

As a consequence of all this, the African “lower middle class” which at that stage formed in Luanda and other cities began to often prevent their children from learning the local African language, in order to guarantee that they learned Portuguese as their native language. At the same time, the white and “mestiço” population, where some knowledge of African languages could previously often been found, neglected this aspect more and more, to the point of frequently ignoring it totally.
After independence, these tendencies continued, and were even strengthened, under the rule of the MPLA which has its main social roots exactly in those social segments where the mastery of Portuguese as well as the proportion of native Portuguese speakers was highest. This became a political side issue, as FNLA and UNITA, given their regional constituencies, came out in favour of a greater attention to the African languages, and as the FNLA favoured French over Portuguese.

The dynamics of the language situation, as described above, were additionally fostered by the massive migrations triggered by the Civil War. Ovimbundu, the most populous ethnic group and the most affected by the war, appeared in great numbers in urban areas outside their areas, especially in Luanda and surroundings. At the same time, a majority of the Bakongo who had fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 1960s, or of their children and grandchildren, returned to Angola, but mostly did not settle in their original "habitat", but in the cities—and again above all in Luanda. As a consequence, more than half the population is now living in the cities which, from the linguistic point of view, have become highly heterogeneous. This means, of course, that Portuguese as the overall language of communication is by now of paramount importance, and that the role of the African languages is steadily decreasing among the urban population—a trend which is beginning to spread into rural areas as well.

The exact numbers of those fluent in Portuguese or who speak Portuguese as a first language are unknown, although a census is expected to be carried out in July–August 2013. Quite a number of voices demand the recognition of "Angolan Portuguese" as a specific variant, comparable to those spoken in Portugal or in Brazil. However, while there exists a certain number of idiomatic particularities in everyday Portuguese, as spoken by Angolans, it remains to be seen whether or not the Angolan government comes to the conclusion that these particularities constitute a configuration that justifies the claim to be a new language variant.

=== Religion ===

Ethnic groups of Angola 1970 (With areas where the so-called "Ganguela" groups are dominant, marked green)
There are about 1000 mostly Christian religious communities in Angola. See Fátima Viegas, Panorama das Religiões em Angola Independente (1975–2008), Ministério da Cultura/Instituto Nacional para os Assuntos Religiosos, Luanda 2008 While reliable statistics are nonexistent, estimates have it that more than half of the population are Catholics, while about a quarter adhere to the Protestant churches introduced during the colonial period: the Congregationalists mainly among the Ovimbundu of the Central Highlands and the coastal region to its West, the Methodists concentrating on the Kimbundu speaking strip from Luanda to Malanje, the Baptists almost exclusively among the Bakongo of the Northwest (now massively present in Luanda as well) and dispersed Adventists, Reformed and Lutherans. Benedict Schubert: Der Krieg und die Kirchen: Angola 1961–1991. Exodus, Luzern/Switzerland, 1997; Lawrence W. Henderson, The Church in Angola: A river of many currents, Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1989 In Luanda and region there subsists a nucleus of the "syncretic" Tocoists and in the northwest a sprinkling of Kimbanguism can be found, spreading from the Congo/Zaire. Since independence, hundreds of Pentecostal and similar communities have sprung up in the cities, where by now about 50% of the population is living; several of these communities/churches are of Brazilian origin.

The U.S. Department of State estimates the Muslim population at 80,000–90,000, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2008/108352.htm while the Islamic Community of Angola puts the figure closer to 500,000. O Pais, Surgimento do Islão em Angola, 2 September 2011, Pg 18 Muslims consist largely of migrants from West Africa and the Middle East (especially Lebanon), although some are local converts. Oyebade, Adebayo O. Culture And Customs of Angola, 2006. Pages 45–46. The Angolan government does not legally recognize any Muslim organizations and often shuts down mosques or prevents their construction. 

In a study assessing nations' levels of religious regulation and persecution with scores ranging from 0 to 10 where 0 represented low levels of regulation or persecution, Angola was scored 0.8 on Government Regulation of Religion, 4.0 on Social Regulation of Religion, 0 on Government Favoritism of Religion and 0 on Religious Persecution. Angola: Religious Freedom Profile at the Association of Religion Data Archives Brian J Grim and Roger Finke. "International Religion Indexes: Government Regulation, Government Favoritism, and Social Regulation of Religion". Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. 2 (2006) Article 1: www.religjournal.com. 

Foreign missionaries were very active prior to independence in 1975, although since the beginning of the anti-colonial fight in 1961 the Portuguese colonial authorities expelled a series of Protestant missionaries and closed mission stations based on the belief that the missionaries were inciting pro-independence sentiments. Missionaries have been able to return to the country since the early 1990s, although security conditions due to the civil war have prevented them until 2002 from restoring many of their former inland mission stations. 

The Catholic Church and some major Protestant denominations mostly keep to themselves in contrast to the "New Churches" which actively proselytize. Catholics, as well as some major Protestant denominations, provide help for the poor in the form of crop seeds, farm animals, medical care and education. 

=== Largest cities ===

== Culture ==
Yombe-sculpture, 19th century

In Angola, there is a Culture Ministry that is managed by Culture Minister Rosa Maria Martins da Cruz e Silva. Angola Press – Leisure & Culture – Country needs modern, dynamic culture – minister. Portalangop.co.ao (28 June 2013). Retrieved on 9 August 2013. Ministério da Cultura – República de Angola. Mincultura.gv.ao. Retrieved on 9 August 2013. Portugal has been present in Angola for 400 years, occupied the territory in the 19th and early 20th century, and ruled over it for about 50 years. As a consequence, both countries share cultural aspects: language (Portuguese) and main religion (Roman Catholic Christianity). The substrate of Angolan culture is African, mostly Bantu, while Portuguese culture has been imported. The diverse ethnic communities – the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Mbunda and other peoples – maintain to varying degrees their own cultural traits, traditions and languages, but in the cities, where slightly more than half of the population now lives, a mixed culture has been emerging since colonial times – in Luanda since its foundation in the 16th century. In this urban culture, the Portuguese heritage has become more and more dominant. An African influence is evident in music and dance, and is moulding the way in which Portuguese is spoken, but is almost disappearing from the vocabulary. This process is well reflected in contemporary Angolan literature, especially in the works of Pepetela and Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares.

Leila Lopes, Miss Angola 2011, was crowned Miss Universe 2011 in Brazil on 12 September 2011 making her the first Angolan to win the pageant.

== Health ==

Epidemics of cholera, malaria, rabies and African hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg hemorrhagic fever, are common diseases in several parts of the country. Many regions in this country have high incidence rates of tuberculosis and high HIV prevalence rates. Dengue, filariasis, leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are other diseases carried by insects that also occur in the region. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and one of the world's lowest life expectancies. A 2007 survey concluded that low and deficient niacin status was common in Angola. Demographic and Health Surveys is currently conducting several surveys in Angola on malaria, domestic violence and more. Angola Surveys, 

== Education ==
Lyceum Salvador Correia in Luanda

Although by law education in Angola is compulsory and free for eight years, the government reports that a percentage of students are not attending due to a lack of school buildings and teachers. "Botswana". 2005 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor (2006). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Students are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books and supplies. 

In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 percent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 percent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural and urban areas. In 1995, 71.2 percent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), nearly half of all schools were reportedly looted and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding. 

The Ministry of Education hired 20,000 new teachers in 2005 and continued to implement teacher trainings. Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained, and overworked (sometimes teaching two or three shifts a day). Some teachers may reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their students. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health prevent children from regularly attending school. Although budgetary allocations for education were increased in 2004, the education system in Angola continues to be extremely under-funded. 

According to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the adult literacy rate in 2011 was 70.4%. 82.9% of males and 54.2% of women are literate as of 2001. Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Angolan students continued to be admitted every year at high schools, polytechnical institutes, and universities in Portugal, Brazil and Cuba through bilateral agreements; in general, these students belong to the elites.

== Sports ==
Angola is the top basketball team of FIBA Africa, and a regular competitor at the Summer Olympic Games and the FIBA World Cup. The Angola national football team qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, as this was their first appearance on the World Cup finals stage. They were eliminated after one defeat and two draws in the group stage. They won 3 COSAFA Cup and finished runner up in 2011 African Nations Championship. Angola has participated in the World Women's Handball Championship for several years. The country has also appeared in the Summer Olympics for seven years and both compete and have hosted the FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup. Angola is also often believed to have historic roots in the martial art "Capoeira Angola" and "Batuque" which were practiced by enslaved African Angolans transported as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Capoeira – Ponciano Almeida – Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 9 August 2013. 

==See also==

*Outline of Angola
*Index of Angola-related articles

== References ==

*Much of the material in this article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website. The information given there is however, corrected and updated on the basis of the other sources indicated.

== External links ==

* 
*
*
*Angola from UCB Libraries GovPubs.
*Angola profile from the BBC News.
*
*Key Development Forecasts for Angola from International Futures.
*National Language Mbunda
*The Mbunda Kingdom Research and Advisory Council
*StudentPulse 2010 article on challenges facing Angola
*Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2012 – Angola Country Report
*Markus Weimer, " The Peace Dividend: Analysis of a Decade of Angolan Indicators, 2002–2012".

|

 



[[Demographics of Angola]]

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Angola, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Demographics of Angola, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.
Ethnically, three main groups have to be distinguished, each speaking a Bantu language: the Ovimbundu who represent 37% of the population, the (Ambundu) with 25%, and the Bakongo 13%. Other numerically important groups include the closely interrelated Chokwe and Lunda, the Ganguela and Nhaneca-Humbe, in both cases classification terms which stand for a variety of small groups, the Ovambo, the Herero, the Xindonga and scattered residual groups of Khoisan. In addition, mixed race (European and African) people amount to about 2%, with a small (1%) population of whites, mainly ethnically Portuguese. As a former overseas territory of Portugal until 1975, Angola possesses a Portuguese population of over 200,000, a number that has been growing from 2000 onwards, because of Angola's growing demand for qualified human resources. It should be recalled that in 1974, white Angolans made up a population of 330 thousand to 350 thousand people in an overall population of 6,3 million Angolans at that time. The only reliable source on these numbers is Gerald Bender & Stanley Yoder, Whites in Angola on the Eve of Independence: The Politics of Numbers, Africa Today, 21 (4) 1974, pp. 23 - 37. Today, many Angolans who are not ethnic Portuguese can claim Portuguese nationality under Portuguese law. Estimates on the overall population are given in O País www.economist.com Country Studies Portugueses em Angola quadruplicaram, Jornal de Notícias (March 10, 2009) Besides the Portuguese, significant numbers of people from other European and from diverse Latin American countries (especially Brazil) can be found. From the 2000s many Chinese have settled and started up small businesses, while at least as many have come as workforce for large (construction or other) enterprises. Observers claim that the Chinese community in Angola might include as many as 300,000 persons at the end of 2010, but nothing near to reliable statistics are at this stage available on this point. Chinese karaoke fans sing Angola's praises In 1974/75, over 25,000 Cuban soldiers arrived in Angola to help the MPLA forces during the decolonisation conflict. Once this was over, a massive development cooperation in the field of health and education brought in numerous civil personnel from Cuba. However, only a very small percentage of all these people has remained in Angola, either for personal reasons (intermarriage) or as professionals (e.g. medical doctors).

The largest religious denomination is Roman Catholicism, to which adheres about half the population. Roughly 26% are followers of traditional forms of Protestantism (Congregationals, Methodists, Baptista, Lutherans, Reformed), but over the last decades there has in addition been a growth of Pentecostal communities and African Initiated Churches. In 2006, one out of 221 people were Jehovah's Witnesses. Blacks from Mali, Nigeria and Senegal are mostly Sunnite Muslims, but do not make up more than 1 - 2% of the population. By now few Angolans retain African traditional religions following different ethnic faiths.

==Population==
According to the 2010 revison of the World Population Prospects the total population was 19 082 000 in 2010, compared to only 4 148 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 46.6%, 50.9% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 2.5% was 65 years or older
. Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision 
Population pyramid for Angola

 Total population (x 1000) Population aged 0–14 (%) Population aged 15–64 (%) Population aged 65+ (%) 
 1950 4 148 41.2 55.7 3.1 
 1955 4 542 42.4 54.9 2.7 
 1960 4 963 43.7 53.6 2.7 
 1965 5 431 45.3 52.0 2.7 
 1970 5 926 46.0 51.3 2.7 
 1975 6 637 46.2 51.1 2.7 
 1980 7 638 46.5 50.8 2.7 
 1985 9 066 47.0 50.4 2.7 
 1990 10 335 47.5 49.9 2.6 
 1995 12 105 47.6 49.8 2.5 
 2000 13 926 47.7 49.9 2.5 
 2005 16 489 47.6 49.9 2.5 
 2010 19 082 46.6 50.9 2.5 

==Vital statistics==
Registration of vital events is in Angola not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.
 

 Period Live births per year Deaths per year Natural change per year CBR* CDR* NC* TFR* IMR* 
 1950-1955 235 000 156 000 79 000 54.0 35.9 18.1 7.00 230 
 1955-1960 259 000 159 000 99 000 54.4 33.5 20.9 7.20 215 
 1960-1965 282 000 162 000 121 000 54.3 31.1 23.2 7.40 200 
 1965-1970 302 000 163 000 139 000 53.2 28.7 24.5 7.40 186 
 1970-1975 325 000 166 000 160 000 51.8 26.4 25.5 7.20 173 
 1975-1980 374 000 176 000 197 000 52.4 24.7 27.7 7.20 161 
 1980-1985 441 000 202 000 239 000 52.8 24.2 28.6 7.20 157 
 1985-1990 512 000 228 000 284 000 52.8 23.5 29.3 7.20 153 
 1990-1995 584 000 259 000 325 000 52.1 23.1 29.0 7.10 150 
 1995-2000 664 000 274 000 390 000 51.0 21.1 29.9 6.92 138 
 2000-2005 746 000 268 000 478 000 49.0 17.6 31.4 6.63 116 
 2005-2010 774 000 272 000 502 000 43.5 15.3 28.2 5.79 104 
 * CBR = crude birth rate (per 1000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1000); NC = natural change (per 1000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) 

==CIA World Factbook demographic statistics==
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated. It should be underlined that many of these statistics are not fully reliable and/or outdated. Updated and reliable data are expected from the population census scheduled for 2014. 

===Population===
*18,056,072 (July 2012 est.)

====Population growth====
The population is growing by 2.184% annually. There are 44.51 births and 24.81 deaths per 1,000 citizens. The net migration rate is 2.14 migrants per 1,000 citizens. The fertility rate of Angola is 5.97 children born per woman as of 2011. The infant mortality rate is 184.44 deaths for every 1,000 live births with 196.55 deaths for males and 171.72 deaths for females for every 1,000 live births. Life expectancy at birth is 37.63 years; 36.73 years for males and 38.57 years for females.

===Sex ratio===
*At birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
*Under 15 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
*15–64 years: 1.03 male(s)/female
*65 years and older: .79 male(s)/female
*Total population: 1.02 male(s)/female (2011 est.)

===Health===

According to the CIA World Factbook, 2% of adults (aged 15–49) are living with HIV/AIDS (as of 2009). https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2155rank.html The risk of contracting disease is very high. There are food and waterborne diseases, bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases, malaria, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness); respiratory disease: meningococcal meningitis, and schistosomiasis, a water contact disease, as of 2005.

===Ethnic groups===
Ethnic groups of Angola 1970
37% of Angolans are Ovimbundu, 25% are Ambundu, 13% are Bakongo, 2% are mestiço, 1-2% are white Africans, and people from other ethnicities make up 22% of Angola's population.

===Religions===

Angola is a majority Christian country. Reliable statistics don't exist, but well over 80% belong in principle to a Christian church or community, although many of them don't practice their religion and are in fact non believers. More than half of the Christians (whether practising or not) are Roman Catholic, the remaining ones comprising members of traditional Protestant churches as well as of new, often Pentecostal communities. Only 1 - 2% are Muslims - generally immmigrants from other African countries. Traditional indigenous religions are practized by a very small minority, generally in peripheral rural societies; however, some traditional beliefs are held by a substantial number of Christians.

===Education===

Literacy is quite low, with 67.4% of the population over the age of 15 able to read and write in Portuguese. 82.9% of males and 54.2% of women are literate as of 2001.

===Languages===

Portuguese is the official language of Angola, but Bantu and other African languages are also widely spoken. In fact, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu, Tuchokwe, Nganguela, and Ukanyama have the official status of "national languages". The mastery of Portuguese is widespread; in the cities the overwhelming majority are either fluent in Portuguese or have at least a reasonable working knowledge of this language; an increasing minority are native Portuguese speakers and have a poor, if any, knowledge of an African language.

==References==

*
* 2003

==External links==
* Population cartogram of Angola 

Angola

[[Politics of Angola]]

Since the adoption of a new constitution, early in 2010, the politics of Angola takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Angola is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the President, the government and parliament.

Angola changed from a one-party Marxist-Leninist system ruled by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in place since independence in 1975, to a multiparty democracy based on a new constitution adopted in 1992. That same year, first parliamentary and presidential elections were held. In the former, the MPLA won an absolute majority. In the latter, President José Eduardo dos Santos won the first round election with more than 49% of the vote to Jonas Savimbi's 40%. A runoff election would have been necessary, but never took place. The renewal of civil war immediately after the elections, which were considered as fraudulent by UNITA, and the collapse of the Lusaka Protocol, created a split situation. On the one hand, the new democratic institutions worked, notably the National Assembly, with the active participation of UNITA's and the FNLA's elected MPs - while José Eduardo dos Santos continued to exercise his functions without democratic legitimation. An the other hand, the armed forces of the MPLA (now the official armed forces of the Angolan state) and of UNITA fought each other until the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in action, in 2002. From 1998 to 2002, there existed even a Government of National Unity and Reconciliation which included ministers from both FNLA and UNITA. 

From 2002 to 2010, the system as defined by the constitution of 1992 functioned in a relatively normal way. The executive branch of the government was composed of the President, the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers, composed of all ministers and vice ministers, met regularly to discuss policy issues. Governors of the 18 provinces were appointed by and served at the pleasure of the president. The Constitutional Law of 1992 established the broad outlines of government structure and the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system was based on Portuguese and customary law but was weak and fragmented. Courts operated in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court served as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review was never constituted despite statutory authorization. In practice, power was more and more concentrated in the hands of the President who, supported by an ever increasing staff, largely controlled parliament, government, and the judiciary. http://www.bertensmann-transformation-index.de/bti/laendergutachten/laendergutachten/oestliches-und-suedliches-afrika/angola 

The 26-year long civil war has ravaged the country's political and social institutions. The UN estimates of 1.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), while generally the accepted figure for war-affected people is 4 million. Daily conditions of life throughout the country and specifically Luanda (population approximately 4 million) mirror the collapse of administrative infrastructure as well as many social institutions. The ongoing grave economic situation largely prevents any government support for social institutions. Hospitals are without medicines or basic equipment, schools are without books, and public employees often lack the basic supplies for their day-to-day work.

The 2010 constitution grants the President almost absolute power. Elections for the National assembly are to take place every five years, and the President is automatically the leader of the winning party or coalition. It is for the President to appoint (and dismiss) all of the following:
* The members of the government (state ministers, ministers, state secretaries and vice-ministers);
* The members of the Constitutional Court;
* The members of the Supreme Court;
* The members of the Court of Auditors;
* The members of the Military Supreme Court;
* The Governor and Vice-Governors of the Nacional Angolan Bank;
* The General-Attorney, the Vice-General-Attorneys and their deputies (as well as the military homologous);
* The Governors of the provinces;
* The members of the Republic Council;
* The members of the National Security Council;
* The members of the Superior Magistrates Councils;
* The General Chief of the Armed Forces and his deputy;
* All other command posts in the military;
* The Police General Commander, and the 2nd in command;
* All other command posts in the police;
* The chiefs and directors of the intelligence and security organs.
The President is also provided a variety of powers, like defining the policy of the country. Even though it's not up to him/her to make laws (only to promulgate them and make edicts), the President is the leader of the winning party.
The only "relevant" post that is not directly appointed by the President is the Vice-President, which is the second in the winning party. http://www.angolaembassy.org.il/documents/AngolaConstitution05.02.2010.pdf 

==Executive branch==

»

==Legislative branch==
The National Assembly (Assembleia Nacional) has 223 members, elected for a four year term, 130 members by proportional representation, 90 members in provincial districts, and 3 members to represent Angolans abroad. The next general elections, due for 1997, have been rescheduled for 5 September 2008. The ruling party MPLA won 82% (191 seats in the National Assembly) and the main opposition party won only 10% (16 seats). The elections however have been described as only partly free but certainly not fair. http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/8/2/year-2008/dokument_id-15323/index.html A White Book on the elections in 2008 lists up all irregularities surrounding the Parliamentary elections of 2008. http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/8/2/year-2009/dokument_id-17396/index.html 

==Political parties and elections==

Parliamentary elections were held in September 2008. These elections were the first since 1992. Presidential elections are planned for 2009.

==Judicial branch==
Supreme Court (or "Tribunal da Relacao") judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president.

==Administrative divisions==
Angola has eighteen provinces (provincias, singular - provincia); Bengo, Benguela, Bie, Cabinda, Cuando Cubango, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, Cunene, Huambo, Huila, Luanda, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Malanje, Moxico, Namibe, Uige, Zaire

==Political pressure groups and leaders==
Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda or FLEC Henriques TIAGO; Antonio Bento BEMBE
* note: FLEC is waging a small-scale, highly factionalized, armed struggle for the independence of Cabinda Province

== International organization participation ==
African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, AfDB, CEEAC, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, FAO, Group of 77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, International Criminal Court (signatory), ICFTU, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, International Development Association, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, International Labour Organization, International Monetary Fund, International Maritime Organization, Interpol, IOC, International Organization for Migration, ISO (correspondent), ITU, Non-Aligned Council (temporary), UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, World Customs Organization, World Federation of Trade Unions, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO

== References ==

== External links ==
*The Chr. Michelsen Institute The largest centre for development research in Scandinavia. In particular, see their collaborative Angola Programme.

== Further reading ==
*ANGOLA LIVRO BRANCO SOBRE AS ELEIÇÕES DE 2008. http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/8/2/year-2009/dokument_id-17396/index.html
*Bösl, Anton (2008). Angola's Parliamentary Elections in 2008. A Country on its Way to One-Party-Democracy, KAS Auslandsinformationen 10/2008. http://www.kas.de/wf/de/33.15186/
* Amundsen, I. (2011) Angola Party Politics: Into the African Trend. Angola Brief vol. 1 no. 9 

 

[[Economy of Angola]]

The Economy of Angola is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, Birgitte Refslund Sørensen and Marc Vincent. Caught Between Borders: Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced, 2001. Page 17. with the Economist asserting that for 2001 to 2010, Angolas' Annual average GDP growth was 11.1 percent. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/01/daily_chart Retrieved on January 6, 2011 It is still recovering from the Angolan Civil War that plagued Angola from independence in 1975 until 2002. Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. Since 2002, when the 27-year civil war ended, the country has worked to repair and improve ravaged infrastructure and weakened political and social institutions. High international oil prices and rising oil production have contributed to the very strong economic growth since 1998, Google Public Data. Retrieved 2013-8-14. but corruption and public-sector mismanagement remain, particularly in the oil sector, which accounts for over 50 percent of GDP, over 90 percent of export revenue, and over 80 percent of government revenue.

==History==
Portugal's explorers and settlers founded trading posts and forts along the coast of Africa beginning in the 15th century, and reached the Angolan coast in the 16th century. Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda", and the region developed as a slave trade market with the help of local Imbangala and Mbundu peoples who were notable slave hunters. Trade was mostly with the Portuguese colony of Brazil; Brazilian ships were the most numerous in the ports of Luanda and Benguela. By this time, Angola, a Portuguese colony, was in fact like a colony of Brazil, paradoxically another Portuguese colony. A strong Brazilian influence was also exercised by the Jesuits in religion and education. War gradually gave way to the philosophy of trade. The great trade routes and the agreements that made them possible were the driving force for activities between the different areas; warlike states become states ready to produce and to sell. In the Planalto (the high plains), the most important states were those of Bié and Bailundo, the latter being noted for its production of foodstuffs and rubber. The colonial power, Portugal, becoming ever richer and more powerful, would not tolerate the growth of these neighbouring states and subjugated them one by one, so that by the beginning of this century the Portuguese had complete control over the entire area. During the period of the Iberian Union (1580–1640), Portugal lost influence and power and made new enemies. The Dutch, a major enemy of Castile, invaded many Portuguese overseas possessions, including Luanda. The Dutch ruled Luanda from 1640 to 1648 as Fort Aardenburgh. They were seeking black slaves for use in sugarcane plantations of Northeastern Brazil (Pernambuco, Olinda, Recife) which they had also seized from Portugal. John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, conquered the Portuguese possessions of Saint George del Mina, Saint Thomas, and Luanda, Angola, on the west coast of Africa. After the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Portugal would reestablish its authority over the lost territories of the Portuguese Empire.

The Portuguese started to develop townships, trading posts, logging camps and small processing factories. From 1764 onwards, there was a gradual change from a slave-based society to one based on production for domestic consumption and export. Meanwhile, with the independence of Brazil in 1822, the slave trade was abolished in 1836, and in 1844 Angola's ports were opened to foreign shipping. By 1850, Luanda was one of the greatest and most developed Portuguese cities in the vast Portuguese Empire outside Mainland Portugal, full of trading companies, exporting (together with Benguela) palm and peanut oil, wax, copal, timber, ivory, cotton, coffee, and cocoa, among many other products. Maize, tobacco, dried meat and cassava flour also began to be produced locally. The Angolan bourgeoisie was born. From the 1920s to the 1960s, strong economic growth, abundant natural resources and development of infrastructure, led to the arrival of even more Portuguese settlers.

The Portuguese discovered petroleum in Angola in 1955. Production began in the Cuanza basin in the 1950s, in the Congo basin in the 1960s, and in the exclave of Cabinda in 1968. The Portuguese government granted operating rights for Block Zero to the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco, in 1955. Oil production surpassed the exportation of coffee as Angola's largest export in 1973.

 Angolan oil production rates 
 Year thousand barrels per day thousand cubic metres per day 
 1974 
 1991 
 1995 Tvedten, Inge. Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction, 1997. Page 82. 
 2001 
 2006 OECD, International Energy Agency. Angola: towards an energy strategy, 2006. Page 19. 

A leftist military-led coup d'état, started on April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, overthrew the Marcelo Caetano government in Portugal, and promised to hand over power to an independent Angolan government. Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, met with António de Spínola, the transitional President of Portugal, on September 15, 1974 on Sal island in Cape Verde, crafting a plan to empower Holden Roberto of the National Liberation Front of Angola, Jonas Savimbi of UNITA, and Daniel Chipenda of the MPLA's eastern faction at the expense of MPLA leader Agostinho Neto while retaining the façade of national unity. Mobutu and Spínola wanted to present Chipenda as the MPLA head, Mobutu particularly preferring Chipenda over Neto because Chipenda supported autonomy for Cabinda. The Angolan exclave has immense petroleum reserves estimated at around 300 million tons (~300 kg) which Zaire, and thus the Mobutu government, depended on for economic survival. Erik P. Hoffmann and Frederic J. Fleron. The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1980. Page 524. After independence thousands of white Portuguese left, most of them to Portugal and many travelling overland to South Africa. There was an immediate crisis because the indigenous African population lacked the skills and knowledge needed to run the country and maintain its well-developed infrastructure.

The Angolan government created Sonangol, a state-run oil company, in 1976. Two years later Sonangol received the rights to oil exploration and production in all of Angola. Angola Energy Information Administration After independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola was ravaged by a horrific civil war between 1975 and 2002.

===1990s===
United Nations Angola Verification Mission III and MONUA spent USD1.5 billion overseeing implementation of the Lusaka Protocol, a 1994 peace accord that ultimately failed to end the civil war. The protocol prohibited UNITA from buying foreign arms, a provision the United Nations largely did not enforce, so both sides continued to build up their stockpile. UNITA purchased weapons in 1996 and 1997 from private sources in Albania and Bulgaria, and from Zaire, South Africa, Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Togo, and Burkina Faso. In October 1997 the UN imposed travel sanctions on UNITA leaders, but the UN waited until July 1998 to limit UNITA's exportation of diamonds and freeze UNITA bank accounts. While the U.S. government gave USD250 million to UNITA between 1986 to 1991, UNITA made USD1.72 billion between 1994 and 1999 exporting diamonds, primarily through Zaire to Europe. At the same time the Angolan government received large amounts of weapons from the governments of Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, the China, and South Africa. While no arms shipment to the government violated the protocol, no country informed the U.N. Register on Conventional Weapons as required. Vines, Alex. Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, 1999. Human Rights Watch. 

Despite the increase in civil warfare in late 1998, the economy grew by an estimated 4% in 1999. The government introduced new currency denominations in 1999, including a 1 and 5 kwanza note.

===2000s===
An economic reform effort was launched in 1998. "Angola." U.S. Department of State Website. Retrieved 2013-8-14. Angola ranked 160 out of 174 nations in the United Nations Human Development Index of 2000. In April 2000 Angola started an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Staff-Monitored Program (SMP). The program formally lapsed in June 2001, but the IMF remains engaged. In this context the Government of Angola has succeeded in unifying exchange rates and has raised fuel, electricity, and water rates. The Commercial Code, telecommunications law, and Foreign Investment Code are being modernized. A privatization effort, prepared with World Bank assistance, has begun with the BCI bank. Nevertheless, a legacy of fiscal mismanagement and corruption persists. The civil war internally displaced 3.8 million people, 32% of the population, by 2001. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in large-scale increases in agriculture production.

Angola produced over 3 million carats of diamonds per year in 2003, Africa: Mining - Diamond Mining Mbendi with its production expected to grow to 10 million carats per year by 2007. In 2004 China's Eximbank approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola to rebuild infrastructure. China grants additional USD 2 billion loan National Private Investment Agency The economy grew 18% in 2005 and growth was expected to reach 26% in 2006 and stay above 10% for the rest of the decade.

The construction industry is another sector taking advantage of the growing economy, with various housing projects stimulated by the government that created various initiatives for this. Examples are the program Angola Investe and the projects Casa Feliz or Meña. However, not all public construction projects are functional; a case in point is Kilamba Kiaxi where a whole new satellite town of Luanda, consisting in the main of housing facilities for several hundreds of thousands of people, remains practically uninhabited, because of prices that are out of reach even for the middle class.

ChevronTexaco started pumping 50 koilbbl/d from Block 14 in January 2000, but production has decreased to 57 koilbbl/d in 2007 due to the poor quality of the oil. Angola joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on January 1, 2007. 

Cabinda Gulf Oil Company found Malange-1, an oil reservoir in Block 14, on August 9, 2007. Chevron's Block 14 Offshore Angola Finds Success Again RigZone 

==Overview==

National GDP per capita ranges from wealthier states in the north and south to poorer states in the east. These figures from the 2002 World Bank are converted to US dollars.
Despite its abundant natural resources, output per capita is among the world's lowest. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for 85% of the population. Oil production and the supporting activities are vital to the economy, contributing about 45% to GDP and 90% of exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed 1.4 Moilbbl/d in late-2005 and which is expected to grow to 2 Moilbbl/d by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate which is owned by the Angolan government. With revenues booming from oil exports, the government has started to implement ambitious development programs in building roads and other basic infrastructure for the nation.

In the last decade of the colonial period, Angola was a major African food exporter but now imports almost all its food. Because of severe wartime conditions, including extensive planting of landmines throughout the countryside, agricultural activities have been brought to a near standstill. Some efforts to recover have gone forward, however, notably in fisheries. Coffee production, though a fraction of its pre-1975 level, is sufficient for domestic needs and some exports. In sharp contrast to a bleak picture of devastation and bare subsistence is expanding oil production, now almost half of GDP and 90% of exports, at 800 koilbbl/d. Diamonds provided much of the revenue for Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebellion through illicit trade. Other rich resources await development: gold, forest products, fisheries, iron ore, coffee, and fruits.

This is a chart of trend of nominal gross domestic product of Angola at market prices using International Monetary Fund data; Report for Selected Countries and Subjects, April 2006. International Monetary Fund figures are in millions of units.

 Year Gross Domestic Product (*$1,000,000) US Dollar Exchange Per Capita Income (as % of USA) 
 1980 6.33 
 1985 4.46 
 1990 4.42 
 1995 5,066 14 Angolan Kwanza 1.58 
 2000 9,135 91,666 Angolan Kwanza 1.96 
 2005 28,860 2,515,452 Angolan Kwanza 4.73 

==Foreign trade==

Exports in 2004 reached US$10,530,764,911. The vast majority of Angola's exports, 92% in 2004, are petroleum products. US$785 million worth of diamonds, 7.5% of exports, were sold abroad that year. 99.4% of Angola's exports are oil, diamonds Afrol News Nearly all of Angola's oil goes to the United States, 526 koilbbl/d in 2006, making it the eighth largest supplier of oil to the United States, and to the People's Republic of China, 477 koilbbl/d in 2006. In the first quarter of 2008, Angola became the main exporter of oil to China. Angola Overtakes Saudi Arabia as Biggest Oil Supplier to China Bloomberg The rest of its petroleum exports go to Europe and Latin America. U.S. companies account for more than half the investment in Angola, with Chevron-Texaco leading the way. The U.S. exports industrial goods and services, primarily oilfield equipment, mining equipment, chemicals, aircraft, and food, to Angola, while principally importing petroleum. Trade between Angola and South Africa exceeded USD 300 million in 2007. Angola-South Africa trade worth over US$ 300 million per year MacauHub From the 2000s many Chinese have settled and started up businesses. Chinese karaoke fans sing Angola's praises 

==Resources==

===Petroleum===
Angolan exports in 2009
Angola produces and exports more petroleum than any other nation in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing Nigeria in the 2000s. In January 2007 Angola became a member of OPEC. By 2010 production is expected to double the 2006 output level with development of deep-water offshore oil fields. Oil sales generated USD 1.71 billion in tax revenue in 2004 and now makes up 80% of the government's budget, a 5% increase from 2003, and 45% of GDP. OECD (2006). Page 30. 

Chevron Corporation produces and receives 400 koilbbl/d, 27% of Angolan oil. Total S.A., Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil, Eni, Petrobras, and BP also operate in the country. 

Block Zero provides the majority of Angola's crude oil production OECD (2006). Page 132. with 370 koilbbl/d produced annually. The largest fields in Block Zero are Takula (Area A), Numbi (Area A), and Kokongo (Area B). Chevron operates in Block Zero with a 39.2% share. SONANGOL, the state oil company, Total, and Eni own the rest of the block. Chevron also operates Angola's first producing deepwater section, Block 14, with 57 koilbbl/d. 

The United Nations has criticized the Angolan government for using torture, rape, summary executions, arbitrary detention, and disappearances, actions which Angolan government has justified on the need to maintain oil output. Omeje, Kenneth C. High Stakes And Stakeholders: Oil Conflict And Security in Nigeria, 2006. Page 157. 

Angola is the third-largest trading partner of the United States in Sub-Saharan Africa, largely because of its petroleum exports. United States Congress. Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations for 1998: Hearings, 1997. Page 269. The U.S. imports 7% of its oil from Angola, about three times as much as it imported from Kuwait just prior to the Gulf War in 1991. The U.S. Government has invested USD $4 billion in Angola's petroleum sector. Vines, Alex. Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, 1999. Human Rights Watch. Page 189. 

===Diamonds===

Angola is the third largest producer of diamonds in Africa and has only explored 40% of the diamond-rich territory within the country, but has had difficulty in attracting foreign investment because of corruption, human rights violations, and diamond smuggling. Angola: U.S. Must Strengthen Ties to Protect Strategic Energy and Security Interests Council on Foreign Relations via AllAfrica Production rose by 30% in 2006 and Endiama, the national diamond company of Angola, expects production to increase by 8% in 2007 to 10 million carats annually. The government is trying to attract foreign companies to the provinces of Bié, Malanje and Uíge. Angola wants foreign investors for diamond sector, July 26, 2007. Reuters 

The Angolan government loses $375 million annually from diamond smuggling. In 2003 the government began Operation Brilliant, an anti-smuggling investigation that arrested and deported 250,000 smugglers between 2003 and 2006. Rafael Marques, a journalist and human rights activist, described the diamond industry in his 2006 Angola's Deadly Diamonds report as plagued by "murders, beatings, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations." Marques called on foreign countries to boycott Angola's "conflict diamonds". Angola to double diamond production in 2006 Afrol News 

===Iron===

Under Portuguese rule, Angola began mining iron in 1957, producing 1.2 million tons in 1967 and 6.2 million tons by 1971. In the early 1970s, 70% of Portuguese Angola's iron exports went to Western Europe and Japan. After independence in 1975, the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002) destroyed most of the territory's mining infrastructure. The redevelopment of the Angolan mining industry started in the late 2000s.

==Further reading==
*McCormick, Shawn H. The Angolan Economy: Prospects for Growth in a Postwar Environment, 1994.
*OECD, International Energy Agency. Angola: Towards an Energy Strategy, 2006.
*Making Finance Work for Africa (MFW4A): Angola Financial Sector Profile, 

==References==

==External links==
*
*MBendi overview of Angola
*Angola latest trade data on ITC Trade Map
* Exports to Angola Datasheet

Angola
 
Angola
Angola


[[Transport in Angola]]

Transport in Angola comprises:

== Railways ==

There are three separate railway lines in Angola:
* Luanda Railway (CFL) (northern)
* Benguela Railway (CFB) (central)
* Moçâmedes Railway (CFM) (southern)

Reconstruction of these three lines began in 2005 and is expected to be completed by the end of the year 2012. The Benguela Railway already connects to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

== Highways ==
Luanda taxi called "Candongueiro" after heavy rainfalls, 2008
* total: 52,429 km
:country comparison to the world: 79
* paved: 5,349 km
* unpaved: 46,080 km (2001)

Travel on highways outside of towns and cities in Angola (and in some cases within) is often not best advised for those without four-by-four vehicles. Whilst a reasonable road infrastructure has existed within Angola, time and the war have taken their toll on the road surfaces, leaving many severely potholed, littered with broken asphalt. In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road.
Overland road Luanda - Uíge recently rehabilitated by Chinese construction company 
The Angolan government has contracted the restoration of many of the country's roads, though. Many companies are coming into the country from China and surrounding nations to help improve road surfaces. The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union, and is comparable to many European main routes. Progress to complete the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made in the right directions.

== Waterways ==
* 1,300 km navigable (2008)
:country comparison to the world: 36

== Pipelines ==
* gas, 2 km; crude oil 87 km (2008)

In April 2012, the Zambian Development Agency (ZDA) and an Angolan company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to build a multi-product pipeline from Lobito to Lusaka, Zambia, to deliver various refined products to Zambia. 

Angola plans to build an oil refinery in Lobito in the coming years.

== Ports and harbors ==
Ship loading minerals at Namibe harbour, Angola
The government plans to build a deep-water port at Barra do Dande, north of Luanda, in Bengo province near Caxito. Article in Angop web portal reporting on the presentation of the general director of the Instituto Marítimo e Portuário de Angola, Victor Carvalho 

== Merchant marine ==
* total: 6
:country comparison to the world: 128
* by type: cargo 1, passenger/cargo 2, petroleum tanker 2, roll on/roll off 1
* foreign owned: 1 (Spain)
* registered in other countries: 6 (Bahamas) (2008)

== Airports ==
Sonair Boeing 737 at Lubango airport, 2009
* 211 (2008)

=== Airports - with paved runways ===
* total: 30
* over 3,047 m: 5
* 2,438 to 3,047 m: 8
* 1,524 to 2,437 m: 12
* 914 to 1,523 m: 4
* under 914 m: 1 (2008)

=== Airports - with unpaved runways ===
* total: 181 (2008)
* over 3,047 m: 2
* 2,438 to 3,047 m: 5
* 1,524 to 2,437 m: 32
* 914 to 1,523 m: 100
* under 914 m: 42 (2008)

=== National Airlines ===
* TAAG Angola Airlines
* Sonair

=== History ===
Angola had an estimated total of 43 airports as of 2004, of which 31 had paved runways as of 2005. There is an international airport at Luanda. International and domestic services are maintained by TAAG Angola Airlines, Aeroflot, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, Air Namibia, Cubana, Ethiopian Airlines, Emirates, Delta Air Lines, Royal Air Maroc, Iberia, Hainan Airlines, Kenya Airways, South African Airways, TAP Air Portugal and several regional carriers. In 2003, domestic and international carriers carried 198,000 passengers. There are airstrips for domestic transport at Benguela, Cabinda, Huambo, Namibe, and Catumbela.

== References ==
This article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2003.
 

 

[[Angolan Armed Forces]]

The Angolan Armed Forces (Portuguese: Forças Armadas Angolanas) are the military in Angola that succeeded the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) following the abortive Bicesse Accord with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in 1991. As part of the peace agreement, troops from both armies were to be demilitarized and then integrated. Integration was never completed as UNITA went back to war in 1992. Later, consequences for UNITA members in Luanda were harsh with FAPLA veterans persecuting their erstwhile opponents in certain areas and reports of vigilantism.

The FAA is headed by Chief of Staff Geraldo Nunda since 2010, who reports to the Minister of Defense, currently Cândido Pereira Van-Dúnem.

There are three components, the Army (Forças Armadas), Navy (Marinha de Guerra) and Air Force Força Aérea Nacional Angolana. Reported total manpower in 2013 was about 107,000. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2013, 493. 

== Angolan Army ==
On August 1, 1974 a few months after a military coup d'état had overthrown the Lisbon regime and proclaimed its intention of granting independence to Angola, the MPLA announced the formation of FAPLA, which replaced the EPLA. By 1976 FAPLA had been transformed from lightly armed guerrilla units into a national army capable of sustained field operations. Library of Congress Country Studies 

In 1990-91, the Army had ten military regions and an estimated 73+ 'brigades', each with a mean strength of 1,000 and comprising inf, tank, APC, artillery, and AA units as required. IISS Military Balance 1990 or 1991 The Library of Congress said in 1990 that 'he regular army's 91,500 troops were organized into more than seventy brigades ranging from 750 to 1,200 men each and deployed throughout the ten military regions. Most regions were commanded by lieutenant colonels, with majors as deputy commanders, but some regions were commanded by majors. Each region consisted of one to four provinces, with one or more infantry brigades assigned to it. The brigades were generally dispersed in battalion or smaller unit formations to protect strategic terrain, urban centers, settlements, and critical infrastructure such as bridges and factories. Counterintelligence agents were assigned to all field units to thwart UNITA infiltration. The army's diverse combat capabilities were indicated by its many regular and motorised infantry brigades with organic or attached armor, artillery, and air defense units; two militia infantry brigades; four antiaircraft artillery brigades; ten tank battalions; and six artillery battalions. These forces were concentrated most heavily in places of strategic importance and recurring conflict: the oil-producing Cabinda Province, the area around the capital, and the southern provinces where UNITA and South African forces operated.'

It was reported in 2011 that the army was by far the largest of the services with about 120,000 men and women. Global Defence.net: Angolan Armed Forces retrieved August 21, 2011 (de) The Angolan Army has around 29,000 "ghost workers" who remain enrolled in the ranks of the FAA and therefore receive a salary. Rádio Ecclesia: 18 anos das Forças Armadas Angolanas retrieved August 22, 2011 (pt) 

In 2013, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that the FAA had six divisions, the 1st, 5th, and 6th with two or three infantry brigades, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th with five to six infantry brigades. The 4th Division included a tank regiment. A separate tank brigade and special forces brigade were also reported. IISS 2013, 493. 

As of 2011, the IISS reported the ground forces had 42 armoured/infantry regiments ('detachments/groups - strength varies') and 16 infantry 'brigades'. IISS Military Balance 2011, 410. These probably comprised infantry, tanks, APC, artillery, and AA units as required. Major equipment included over 140 main battle tanks, 600 reconnaissance vehicles, over 320 armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, 298 howitzers. 

It was reported on May 3, 2007, that the Special Forces Brigade of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) located at Cabo Ledo region, northern Bengo Province, would host a 29th anniversary celebration for the entire armed forces. The brigade was reportedly formed on 5 May 1978 and under the command at the time of Colonel Paulo Falcao. Army Special Forces Celebrate Years, May 3, 2007. 

===Army Equipment===
The Army operates a large amount of Russian, Soviet and ex-Warsaw pact hardware. A large amount of its equipment was acquired in the 1980s and 1990s most likely because of hostilities with neighbouring countries and its civil war which lasted from November 1975 until 2002.

====Infantry Weapons====
Many of Angola's weapons are of Portuguese colonial and Warsaw Pact origin. Jane's Information Group lists the following as in service:
* Rifles in service with Army include the AK-47, AKM, FN FAL, G3 Assault Rifle and the SKS semi-automatic carbine.
* Pistols include the Makarov pistol, Stechkin automatic pistol and the Tokarev TT pistol.
* Submachine guns include the Škorpion vz. 61, Star Z-45, Uzi and the FBP submachine gun.
* Machine guns include the RP-46, RPD machine gun, Vz. 52 machine gun and the DShK Heavy machine gun.
* Grenade launchers include the AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher. 
* Mortars include the 120-PM-43 mortar (500 in service) and the 82-PM-41 (250 in service). 
* Anti-Tank weapons include the RPG-7, 9K111 Fagot (650 ordered in 1987), SIPRI Arms Transfers Database 9K11 Malyutka, B-10 recoilless rifle and the B-11 recoilless rifle. Jones, Richard D. Jane's Infantry Weapons 2009/2010. Jane's Information Group; 35 edition (January 27, 2009). ISBN 978-0-7106-2869-5. 

====Main Battle Tanks====
* Between 116 and 267 T-55AM-2 Medium tanks. 281 T-55's were ordered between 1975 and 1999. 267 T-55AM-2's were delivered from Bulgaria and Slovakia in 1999. 
* 22 T-72M1 Main Battle Tanks. Delivered from Belarus in 1999. 
* 18 T-62 Main battle tanks. 364 were ordered in the 1980s and 1990s. 
* 12 PT-76 Amphibious Light tanks. 68 ordered in 1975 from the Soviet Union. 

====Armoured Vehicles====
* 150 BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles. 
* 62 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles. 
* 195 BRDM-2 and 120 BRDM-1 Amphibious Armoured Scout Cars. http://www.armyrecognition.com/angola_angolan_army_land_forces_uk/angola_angolan_army_land_ground_forces_military_equipment_armoured_vehicle_pictures_information_desc.html 
* 62 BTR-60 and 50 OT-62 TOPAS armored personnel carriers 
* 45 Casspir NG 2000B Infantry mobility vehicles http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32759:angola-orders-casspirs&catid=50:Land&Itemid=105 
* 24 EE-11 Urutu armored personnel carriers 

====Artillery====
* 12 2S1 Gvozdika 122 mm Self-propelled guns (Acquired in 2000 from the Czech Republic).
* 4 2S3 Akatsiya 152 mm Self-propelled guns (Acquired in 1999 from the Bulgaria).
* 12 2S7 Pion 203 mm Self-propelled guns (Acquired in 2000 from the Czech Republic). 
* Unknown amounts of M1942 ZiS-3 Anti-tank field guns
* ~280 D-30 122 mm Howitzers (28 from Kazakhstan in 1998, 12 from Belarus, 240 from the Soviet Union in the 1980s) 
* 4 D-20 Howitzers. 
* Unknown amounts of D-84 Field Guns.
* 48 M-46 130 mm field guns 
* 75 BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers
* 40 RM-70 multiple rocket launchers

====Anti-Aircraft weaponry====
* 20 ZSU-23-4 Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
* 40 ZSU-57-2 "Shilka" Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns 
* Unknown amounts of ZU-23-2, 57 mm AZP S-60, M-1939, ZPU-4 and M-55 anti-aircraft guns. 
* 40 SA-2 Guideline high-altitude air defense systems.
* 12 SA-3 Goa
* 25 SA-6
* Unknown amounts of SA-7 Grail
* 15 SA-8
* 20 SA-9 Gaskin
* 10 SA-13
* Unknown amounts of SA-14 Gremlin and SA-16 Gimlet.

====Other Vehicles====
* Ural-4320 trucks

== Angolan Air Force ==
The Angolan Air Force's personnel total about 8,000; its equipment includes six Russian-manufactured Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft and transport planes. IISS Military Balance 2013, 494 In 2002 one was lost during the civil war with UNITA forces. globaldefence.net: Angolan Armed Forces retrieved August 22, 2011 (de) 

In 1991, the Air Force/Air Defense Forces had 8,000 personnel and 90 combat capable aircraft, including 22 fighters, 59 fighter ground attack aircraft and 16 attack helicopters.

== Angolan Navy (Marinha de Guerra) ==

The Navy numbers about 2,500 and operates seven small patrol craft and barges.

The Angolan Navy (MGA) has been neglected and ignored as a military arm mainly due to the guerrilla struggle against the Portuguese and the nature of the civil war. From the early 1990s to the present the Angolan Navy has shrunk from around 4,200 personnel to around 1,000, resulting in the loss of skills and expertise needed to maintain equipment. In order to protect Angola’s 1 600 km long coastline, the Angolan Navy is undergoing modernisation but is still lacking in many ways. Portugal has been providing training through its Technical Military Cooperation (CTM) programme. The Navy is requesting procurement of a frigate, three corvettes, three offshore patrol vessel and additional fast patrol boats.

Most of the craft detailed are from the 1980s or earlier, but the navy acquired new boats from Spain and France in the 1990s. Germany will deliver Fast Attack Craft for border protection from 2011.

* Fast missile craft
** OSA-II with four SS-N-2 Styx missiles - 6
* Fast torpedo craft
** Shershen class torpedo boat with four 533mm heavyweight torpedo tubes 4 or 5
* Inland-water and coastal patrol boats
** Argos 4
** Poluchat-I 2
** Zhuk - 1 or 2
** Jupiter 1 or 2
** Bellatrix 4 or 5
** Mandume Class patrol craft - 4 Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World- Angola, Eric Wertheim, 15th Ed., p5 
** Patrulheiro Class patrol boat - 3 
* Mine warfare craft
** Yevgenya class minesweeper MH1 2
* Amphibious vessels
** Polnocny class landing ship 3
** Alfange - 1
** Landing craft tank (LCT 1)
** T-4 4 or 5
** LDM-400 - 9 or 10
* Coastal defense equipment
** SS-C1 Sepal radar system

The navy also has several aircraft for maritime patrol:

 Aircraft Origin Type Versions In service \"World Military Aircraft Inventory\", Aerospace Source Book 2007, Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 15, 2007. Notes 
 Fokker F27 Netherlands Medium transport 1 
 EMB 111 Brazil Maritime patrol 2 
 Boeing 707 USA Maritime patrol 1 
 

== Foreign deployments ==
The FAPLA's main counterinsurgency effort was directed against UNITA in the southeast, and its conventional capabilities were demonstrated principally in the undeclared South African Border War. The FAPLA first performed its external assistance mission with the dispatch of 1,000 to 1,500 troops to São Tomé and Príncipe in 1977 to bolster the socialist regime of President Manuel Pinto da Costa. During the next several years, Angolan forces conducted joint exercises with their counterparts and exchanged technical operational visits. The Angolan expeditionary force was reduced to about 500 in early 1985.

The Angolan Armed Forces were controversially involved in training the armed forces of fellow Lusophone states Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. In the case of the latter, the 2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état was cited by the coup leaders as due to Angola's involvement in trying to "reform" the military in connivance with the civilian leadership.

A small number of FAA personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). A presence during the unrest in Côte d'Ivoire, 2010&ndash;2011, were not officially confirmed. However, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing Jeune Afrique, said that among President Gbagbo's guards were 92 personnel of President Dos Santos's Presidential Guard Unit. Gbagbos letzte Trumpfkarte: als Märtyrer sterben, 7 April 2011 Angola is basically interested in the participation of the FAA operations of the African Union and has formed special units for this purpose.

==References==

==Further reading==
*
*Human Rights Watch, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, October 1999
*Utz Ebertz and Marie Müller, Legacy of a resource-fueled war: The role of generals in Angola’s
mining sector, BICC Focus, June 2013
*Area Handbook for Angola, August 1967, Angola, A Country Study (1979 and 1991)
*Rocky Williams, "National defence reform and the African Union." SIPRI Yearbook 2004: 231-249.
*Weigert, Stephen L. Angola: a modern military history, 1961-2002. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
*Martin Rupiya et al., 'Angola', in Evolutions and Revolutions

==External links==
*Official site of the Angolan Ministry of National Defence
*World Navies
*Brinkman, Inge "Language, Names, and War: The Case of Angola", African Studies Review

Angola

[[Foreign relations of Angola]]

The foreign relations of Angola are based on Angola's strong support of U.S. foreign policy as the Angolan economy is dependent on U.S. foreign aid.

From 1975 to 1989, Angola was aligned with the Eastern bloc, in particular the Soviet Union, Libya, and Cuba. Since then, it has focused on improving relationships with Western countries, cultivating links with other Portuguese-speaking countries, and asserting its own national interests in Central Africa through military and diplomatic intervention. In 1993, it established formal diplomatic relations with the United States. It has entered the Southern African Development Community as a vehicle for improving ties with its largely Anglophone neighbors to the south. Zimbabwe and Namibia joined Angola in its military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Angolan troops remain in support of the Joseph Kabila government. It also has intervened in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) to support the existing government in that country.

Since 1998, Angola has successfully worked with the United Nations Security Council to impose and carry out sanctions on UNITA. More recently, it has extended those efforts to controls on conflict diamonds, the primary source of revenue for UNITA. At the same time, Angola has promoted the revival of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) as a forum for cultural exchange and expanding ties with Portugal (its former ruler) and Brazil (which shares many cultural affinities with Angola) in particular.

==Sub-Saharan Africa==

===Cape Verde===

Cape Verde signed a friendship accord with Angola in December 1975, shortly after Angola gained its independence. Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau served as stop-over points for Cuban troops on their way to Angola to fight UNITA rebels and South African troops. Prime Minister Pedro Pires sent FARP soldiers to Angola where they served as the personal bodyguards of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos. 

===Democratic Republic of the Congo===
Many thousands of Angolans fled the country after the civil war. More than 20,000 people were forced to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2009, an action the DR Congo said was in retaliation for regular expulsion of Congolese diamond miners who were in Angola illegally. Angola sent a delegation to DR Congo's capital Kinshasa and succeeded in stopping government-forced expulsions which had become a "tit-for-tat" immigration dispute. "Congo and Angola have agreed to suspend expulsions from both sides of the border," said Lambert Mende, DR Congo information minister, in October 2009. "We never challenged the expulsions themselves; we challenged the way they were being conducted — all the beating of people and looting their goods, even sometimes their clothes," Mende said. 

===Namibia===

Namibia borders Angola to the south. In 1999 Namibia signed a mutual defense pact with its northern neighbor Angola. 
This affected the Angolan Civil War that had been ongoing since Angola's independence in 1975. Namibia's ruling party SWAPO sought to support the ruling party MPLA in Angola against the rebel movement UNITA, whose stronghold is in southern Angola, bordering to Namibia. The defence pact allowed Angolan troops to use Namibian territory when attacking Jonas Savimbi's UNITA.

===Nigeria===

Angolan-Nigerian relations are primarily based on their roles as oil exporting nations. Both are members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the African Union and other multilateral organizations.

===South Africa===

Angola-South Africa relations are quite strong as the ruling parties in both nations, the African National Congress in South Africa and the MPLA in Angola, fought together during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. They fought against UNITA rebels, based in Angola, and the apartheid-era government in South Africa who supported them. Nelson Mandela mediated between the MPLA and UNITA factions during the last years of Angola's civil war.

===Zimbabwe===

Angola-Zimbabwe relations have remained cordial since the birth of both states, Angola in 1975 and Zimbabwe in 1979, during the Cold War. While Angola's foreign policy shifted to a pro-U.S. stance based on substantial economic ties, under the rule of President Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe's ties with the West soured in the late 1990s.

===Guinea-Bissau===
Following a request by the government of Guinea-Bissau, Angola sent there a contingent of about 300 troops meant to help putting an end to the political-military unrest in that country, and to reorganize the local military forces. In fact, these troops were perceived as a kinf of Pretorian Guard for the ruling party, PAIGC. In the beginning of April 2012, when a new military Coup d'état was under preparation, the Angolan regime decided to withdraw its military mission from Guinea-Bissau.

==Europe==

===Bulgaria===
* Date started: 1975-11-20
* Since 1976, Bulgaria has an embassy in Luanda. Bulgarian embassy in Luanda 
* Angola is represented in Bulgaria through its embassy in Athens (Greece). Angolan embassy in Athens (also accredited to Bulgaria) 

===Denmark===

* Denmark is represented in Angola through its embassy in Lusaka (Zambia).
* Angola is represented in Denmark, through its embassy in Stockholm, (Sweden). Angolan embassy in Sweden 

===France===

Relations between the two countries have not always been cordial due to the former French government's policy of supporting militant separatists in Angola's Cabinda province and the international Angolagate scandal embarrassed both governments by exposing corruption and illicit arms deals. Following French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit in 2008, relations have improved.

===Portugal===

Angola-Portugal relations have significantly improved since the Angolan government abandoned communism and nominally embraced democracy in 1991, embracing a pro-U.S. and to a lesser degree pro-Europe foreign policy. Portugal ruled Angola for 400 years, colonizing the territory from 1483 until independence in 1975. Angola's war for independence did not end in a military victory for either side, but was suspended as a result of a coup in Portugal that replaced the Caetano regime.

===Russia===

Russia has an embassy in Luanda. Angola has an embassy in Moscow and an honorary consulate in Saint Petersburg. Angola and the precursor to Russia, the Soviet Union, established relations upon Angola's independence.

===Serbia===
* Serbia is represented in Angola through its embassy in Luanda (Angola), with ambassador Danilo Milić.
* Angola is represented in Serbia, through its embassy in Belgrade, (Serbia), with ambassador Toko Diakenga Serao.

The Defence Minister of Serbia, Dragan Šutanovac, stated in a 2011 meeting in Luanda that Serbia would negotiate with the Angolan military authorities for the construction of a new military hospital in Angola. Serbia Negotiates Building of New Military Hospital 

==Latin America==

===Argentina===
* Date started: 1977-09-02
* Angola has an embassy in Buenos Aires.
* Argentina has an embassy in Luanda.
* Argentine reggae musician Fidel Nadal is descended from Angolan slaves.
* Argentine Ministry of Foreign Relations: list of bilateral treaties with Angola (in Spanish only)

===Brazil===

Commercial and economic ties dominate the relations of each country. Parts of both countries were part of the Portuguese Empire from the early 16th century until Brazil's independence in 1822. As of November 2007, "trade between the two countries is booming as never before" ANGOLA-BRAZIL: Portuguese - the Common Language of Trade by Mario de Queiroz, ipsnews.net, 13 November 2007 

===Cuba===

During Angola's civil war Cuban forces fought to install a Marxist-Leninist MPLA-PT government, against Western-backed UNITA and FLNA guerrillas and the South-African army. Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976 ISBN 978-0-8078-5464-8 

===Mexico===

Relations between Angola and Mexico, have become of increasing priority due to the cultural similarities between the two nations. Angola has an embassy in Mexico City, and Mexico has a non-resident embassy based in Pretoria, South Africa which is accredited to Angola.

Embassy of Angola in Washington, D.C.

==United States==

From the mid-1980s through at least 1992, the United States was the primary source of military and other support for the UNITA rebel movement, which was led from its creation through 2002 by Jonas Savimbi. The U.S. refused to recognize Angola diplomatically during this period.

Relations between the United States of America and the Republic of Angola (formerly the People's Republic of Angola) have warmed since Angola's ideological renunciation of Marxism before the 1992 elections.

==Asia==

===Israel===

Angola-Israel relations, primarily based on trade and pro-United States foreign policies, are excellent. In March 2006, the trade volume between the two countries amounted to $400 million. The Israeli ambassador to Angola is Avraham Benjamin. In 2005, President José Eduardo dos Santos visited Israel.
* Angola/Israel business volume amounted at USD 400 million Angola Press, 22 March 2006
* Israeli Ambassador Highlights Relations With Angola Angola Press

===Japan===

As of 2007, economic relations played "a fundamental role in the bilateral relations between the two governments". Japan has donated towards demining following the civil war. Angola: Japan grants USD one million to boost demining activity 

===Pakistan===

===People's Republic of China===

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Angola in June 2006, offering a US$9 billion loan for infrastructure improvements in return for petroleum. The PRC has invested heavily in Angola since the end of the civil war in 2002. João Manuel Bernardo, the current ambassador of Angola to China, visited the PRC in November 2007. 

In February 2006, Angola surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the number one supplier of oil to China. 

===Vietnam===

Angola-Vietnam relations were established in August 1971, four years before Angola gained its independence, when future President of Angola Agostinho Neto visited Vietnam. Angola and Vietnam have steadfast partners as both transitioned from Cold War-era foreign policies of international communism to pro-Western pragmatism following the fall of the Soviet Union.

==See also==
* Georges Rebelo Chicoti
* List of diplomatic missions in Angola
* List of diplomatic missions of Angola
* Visa requirements for Angolan citizens

==References==

 
*

 

[[Albert Sidney Johnston]]

Albert Sidney Johnston (February 2, 1803 – April 6, 1862) served as a general in three different armies: the Texian (i.e., Republic of Texas) Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army. He saw extensive combat during his military career, fighting actions in the Texas War of Independence, the Mexican-American War, the Utah War, and the American Civil War.

Considered by Confederate President Jefferson Davis to be the finest (and the second-highest ranking) general officer in the Confederacy before the emergence of Robert E. Lee, he was killed early in the Civil War at the Battle of Shiloh. Johnston was the highest-ranking officer, Union or Confederate, killed during the entire war. Eicher, p. 322. Davis believed the loss of Johnston "was the turning point of our fate". Dupuy, p. 378. 

Johnston was unrelated to Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston.

==Early life and education==
Johnston was born in Washington, Kentucky, the youngest son of Dr. John and Abigail (Harris) Johnston. His father was a native of Salisbury, Connecticut. Although Albert Johnston was born in Kentucky, he lived much of his life in Texas, which he considered his home. He was first educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, where he met fellow student Jefferson Davis. Both were appointed to the United States Military Academy, Davis two years behind Johnston. Woodworth, p. 46. In 1826 Johnston graduated eighth of 41 cadets in his class from West Point with a commission as a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Infantry. Eicher, p. 322. 

Johnston was assigned to posts in New York and Missouri and served in the Black Hawk War in 1832 as chief of staff to Bvt. Brig. Gen. Henry Atkinson. 

==Marriage and family==
In 1829 he married Henrietta Preston, sister of Kentucky politician and future civil war general William Preston. They had one son, William Preston Johnston, who became a colonel in the Confederate Army. W.P. Johnston biography. The senior Johnston resigned his commission in 1834 to return to Kentucky to care for his dying wife, who succumbed two years later to tuberculosis. 

After serving as Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas from 1838 to 1840, Johnston resigned and returned to Kentucky. In 1843, he married Eliza Griffin, his late wife's first cousin. The couple moved to Texas, where they settled on a large plantation in Brazoria County. Johnston named the property China Grove. Here they raised Johnston's two children from his first marriage, and the first three children born to him and Eliza. (A sixth child was born later when they lived in Los Angeles, California).

==Texas Army==
In April 1834, Johnston took up farming in Texas. In 1836, he enlisted as a private in the Texas Army during the Texas War of Independence against the Republic of Mexico. One month later, Johnston was promoted to major and the position of aide-de-camp to General Sam Houston. He was named Adjutant General as a colonel in the Republic of Texas Army on August 5, 1836. On January 31, 1837, he became senior brigadier general in command of the Texas Army.

On February 7, 1837, he fought in a duel with Texas Brig. Gen. Felix Huston, as they challenged each other for the command of the Texas Army; Johnston refused to fire on Huston and lost the position after he was wounded in the pelvis. 

On December 22, 1838, Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas, appointed Johnston as Secretary of War. He provided for the defense of the Texas border against Mexican invasion, and in 1839 conducted a campaign against Indians in northern Texas. In February 1840, he resigned and returned to Kentucky.

==U.S. Army==
Albert S. Johnston
Johnston returned to the Texas Army during the Mexican-American War under General Zachary Taylor as a colonel of the 1st Texas Rifle Volunteers. The enlistments of his volunteers ran out just before the Battle of Monterrey. Johnston convinced a few volunteers to stay and fight as he served as the inspector general of volunteers and fought at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista. 

He remained on his plantation after the war until he was appointed by President Zachary Taylor to the U.S. Army as a major and was made a paymaster in December 1849. He served in that role for more than five years, making six tours, and traveling more than 4000 mi annually on the Indian frontier of Texas. He served on the Texas frontier at Fort Mason and elsewhere in the West. 

In 1855 President Franklin Pierce appointed him colonel of the new 2nd U.S. Cavalry (the unit that preceded the modern 5th U.S.), a new regiment, which he organized. On August 19, 1856, Gen. Persifor Smith, at the request of Kansas Territorial Governor Wilson Shannon, sent Col. Johnston with 1300 men of the 2d Cavalry Dragoons from Fort Riley, troops from Jefferson Barracks, a battalion of the 6th Infantry and Capt. Howe’s artillery company, to protect the territorial capital at Lecompton from an imminent attack by Jim Lane and his abolitionist "Army of the North." As a key figure in the Utah War, Johnston led U.S. troops who established a non-Mormon government in the formerly Mormon territory. He received a brevet promotion to brigadier general in 1857 for his service in Utah. He spent 1860 in Kentucky until December 21, when he sailed for California to take command of the Department of the Pacific.

==Civil War==
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Johnston was the commander of the U.S. Army Department of the Pacific in California. Like many regular army officers from the South, he was opposed to secession. But he resigned his commission soon after he heard of the secession of his adopted state Texas. It was accepted by the War Department on May 6, 1861, effective May 3. Johnston, p. 273. On April 28 he moved to Los Angeles, the home of his wife's brother John Griffin. Considering staying in California with his wife and five children, Johnston remained there until May. 

Soon, under suspicion by local Union officials, he evaded arrest and joined the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles as a private, leaving Warner's Ranch May 27. Johnston, pp. 268, 275-91. He participated in their trek across the southwestern deserts to Texas, crossing the Colorado River into the Confederate Territory of Arizona on July 4, 1861.

Early in the Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis decided that the Confederacy would attempt to hold as much of its territory as possible, and he distributed its military forces around its borders and coasts. Woodworth, pp. 18–19. In the summer of 1861, Davis appointed several generals to defend Confederate lines from the Mississippi River east to the Allegheny Mountains. Woodworth, pp. 17–33. 

The most sensitive, and in many ways the most crucial areas, along the Mississippi River and in western Tennessee along the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers Woodworth, pp. 20–22 were placed under the command of Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk and Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow. The latter had initially been in command in Tennessee as that State's top general. Woodworth, pp. 30–32. Their impolitic occupation of Columbus, Kentucky on September 3, 1861, two days before Johnston arrived in the Confederacy's capital of Richmond, Virginia, after his cross–country journey, drove Kentucky from its stated neutrality. Woodworth, pp. 35, 45. Long, p. 114. The majority of Kentuckians allied with the Union camp. Woodworth, pp. 39, 50. Polk and Pillow's action gave Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant an excuse to take control of the strategically located town of Paducah, Kentucky without raising the ire of most Kentuckians and the pro-Union majority in the State legislature. Woodworth, p. 39. Long, p. 115. 

===Confederate command in Western Theater===
On September 10, 1861, Johnston was assigned to command the huge area of the Confederacy west of the Allegheny Mountains, except for coastal areas. Woodworth, p. 51. Long, p. 116. He became commander of the Confederacy's western armies in the area often called the Western Department or Western Military Department. Johnston's appointment as a full general by his friend and admirer Jefferson Davis already had been confirmed by the Confederate Senate on August 31, 1861. The appointment had been backdated to rank from May 30, 1861, making him the second highest ranking general in the Confederate States Army. Only Adjutant General and Inspector General Samuel Cooper ranked ahead of him. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. p. 807. From General Command Line List. Weigley, p. 110. McPherson, p. 394. After his appointment, Johnston immediately headed for his new territory. Woodworth, p. 52. He was permitted to call on governors of Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi for new troops, although this authority was largely stifled by politics, especially with respect to Mississippi. On September 13, 1861, Johnston ordered Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer with 4,000 men to occupy Cumberland Gap in Kentucky in order to block Union troops from coming into eastern Tennessee. The Kentucky legislature had voted to side with the Union after the occupation of Columbus by Polk. By September 18, Johnston had Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner with another 4,000 men blocking the railroad route to Tennessee at Bowling Green, Kentucky. Long, p. 119. 

Johnston had fewer than 40,000 men spread throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri. Woodworth, p. 53. Of these, 10,000 were in Missouri under Missouri State Guard Maj. Gen. Sterling Price. Johnston did not quickly gain many recruits when he first requested them from the governors, but his more serious problem was lacking sufficient arms and ammunition for the troops he already had. As the Confederate government concentrated efforts on the units in the East, they gave Johnston small numbers of reinforcements and minimal amounts of arms and material. Woodworth, p. 55. Johnston maintained his defense by conducting raids and other measures to make it appear he had larger forces than he did, a strategy that worked for several months. Johnston's tactics had so annoyed and confused Union Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman that he became somewhat unnerved, overestimated Johnston's forces, and had to be relieved by Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on November 9, 1861. Woodworth, pp. 55–56 Long, p. 138. McPherson, p. 394 says Johnston had 70,000 troops to defend his territory between the Appalachians and the Ozarks by the end of 1861. 

===Battle of Mill Springs===
Eastern Tennessee was held for the Confederacy by two unimpressive brigadier generals appointed by Jefferson Davis, Felix Zollicoffer, a brave but untrained and inexperienced officer, and soon to be Maj. Gen. George B. Crittenden, a former U.S. Army officer with apparent alcohol problems. Woodworth, p. 61 While Crittenden was away in Richmond, Zollicoffer moved his forces to the north bank of the upper Cumberland River near Mill Springs (now Nancy, Kentucky), putting the river to his back and his forces into a trap. Woodworth, p. 65. Long, pp. 161–162. Zollicoffer decided it was impossible to obey orders to return to the other side of the river because of scarcity of transport and proximity of Union troops. Woodworth, p. 66. When Union Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas moved against the Confederates, Crittenden decided to attack one of the two parts of Thomas's command at Logan's Cross Roads near Mill Springs before the Union forces could unite. On January 19, 1862, the ill-prepared Confederates, after a night march in the rain, attacked the Union force with some initial success. Woodworth, pp. 66–67. As the battle progressed, Zollicoffer was killed, Crittenden was unable to lead the Confederate force (he may have been intoxicated), and the Confederates were turned back and routed by a Union bayonet charge, suffering 533 casualties from their force of 4,000. Woodworth, p. 67. Long, p. 162. The Confederate troops who escaped were assigned to other units as Crittenden faced an investigation of his conduct. Woodworth, p. 69. 

After this Confederate defeat at the Battle of Mill Springs, Davis sent Johnston a brigade and a few other scattered reinforcements. He also assigned him Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, who was supposed to attract recruits because of his victories early in the war, and act as a competent subordinate for Johnston . Woodworth, pp. 71–72. The brigade was led by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, considered incompetent. He took command at Fort Donelson as the senior general present just before Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attacked the fort. Woodworth, pp. 80, 84. Historians believe the assignment of Beauregard to the west stimulated Union commanders to attack the forts before Beauregard could make a difference in the theater. Woodworth, pp. 72, 78. Union officers heard that he was bringing 15 regiments with him, but this was an exaggeration of his forces. 

===Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Nashville===
Based on the assumption that Kentucky neutrality would act as a shield against a direct invasion from the north, Tennessee initially had sent men to Virginia and concentrated defenses in the Mississippi Valley, circumstances that no longer applied in September 1861. Woodworth, p. 54. Eicher, The Longest Night. pp. 111–113. Even before Johnston arrived in Tennessee, construction of two forts had been started to defend the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers, which provided avenues into the State from the north. Woodworth, p. 56. Both forts were located in Tennessee in order to respect Kentucky neutrality, but these were not in ideal locations. Long, p. 142 Weigley, p. 108 McPherson, p. 393. Fort Henry on the Tennessee River was in an unfavorable low–lying location, commanded by hills on the Kentucky side of the river. Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, although in a better location, had a vulnerable land side and did not have enough heavy artillery to defend against gunboats. 

Maj. Gen. Polk ignored the problems of the forts when he took command. After Johnston took command, Polk at first refused to comply with Johnston's order to send an engineer, Lt. Joseph K. Dixon, to inspect the forts. Woodworth, p. 57. After Johnston asserted his authority, Polk had to allow Dixon to proceed. Dixon recommended that the forts be maintained and strengthened, although they were not in ideal locations, because much work had been done on them and the Confederates might not have time to build new ones. Johnston accepted his recommendations. Johnston wanted Major, later Lt. Gen., Alexander P. Stewart to command the forts but President Davis appointed Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman as commander. 

To prevent Polk from dissipating his forces by allowing some men to join a partisan group, Johnston ordered him to send Brig. Gen. Gideon Pillow and 5,000 men to Fort Donelson. Woodworth, p. 58. Pillow took up a position at nearby Clarksville, Tennessee and did not move into the fort until February 7, 1862. Long, pp. 167–168. Eicher, The Longest Night, p. 171 says the garrison at Fort Donelson numbered 1,956 men before the Fort Henry garrison and the men under Floyd and Pillow joined them in early February 1862. Alerted by a Union reconnaissance on January 14, 1862, Johnston ordered Tilghman to fortify the high ground opposite Fort Henry, which Polk had failed to do despite Johnston's orders. Woodworth, p. 71. Tilghman failed to act decisively on these orders, which in any event were too late to be adequately carried out. McPherson, p. 396. A Confederate battery and the beginning of some fortifications were sited across the river at Fort Heiman but these were of little value when the Union flotilla appeared. 

Gen. Beauregard arrived at Johnston's headquarters at Bowling Green on February 4, 1862 and was given overall command of Polk's force at the western end of Johnston's line at Columbus, Kentucky. Woodworth, p. 78. After some preliminary work with Johnston, Beauregard assumed command of this force, which he named the Army of the Mississippi, on March 5, 1862 while at Jackson, Tennessee. Like the other Confederate commander, he had to withdraw to the south after the fall of the forts or be surrounded by the advancing Union forces. Long, p. 178. On February 6, 1862, Union Navy gunboats quickly reduced the defenses of ill-sited Fort Henry, inflicting 21 casualties on the small remaining Confederate force. Woodworth, pp. 78–79. Long, p. 167. Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman surrendered the 94 remaining officers and men of his approximately 3,000-man force which had not been sent to Fort Donelson before U.S. Grant's force could even take up their positions. Long, pp. 166–167 Weigley, p. 109. Johnston knew he could be trapped at Bowling Green if Fort Donelson fell, so he moved his force to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee and an increasingly important Confederate industrial center, beginning on February 11, 1862. Woodworth, p. 79. Loing, pp. 169–170. 

Johnston also reinforced Fort Donelson with 12,000 more men, including those under Floyd and Pillow, a curious decision in view of his thought that the Union gunboats alone might be able to take the fort. He did order the commanders of the fort to evacuate the troops if the fort could not be held. Woodworth, p. 80. The senior generals sent to the fort to command the enlarged garrison, Gideon J. Pillow and John B. Floyd, squandered their chance to avoid having to surrender most of the garrison McPherson, pp. 400–401. and on February 16, 1862, Brig. Gen. Simon Buckner, having been abandoned by Floyd Floyd was able to ferry his four Virginia regiments out of the fort with him but left his Mississippi regiment behind to surrender with the rest of the garrison. Pillow escaped only with his chief of staff. Woodworth, p. 83. Long, p. 171. and Pillow, surrendered Fort Donelson. Woodworth, pp. 82–84. Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped with his cavalry force of about 700 men before the surrender. Woodworth, p. 84. McPherson, pp. 401–402. This included about 200 men not in Forrest's immediate command. Weigley, p. 111 The Confederates suffered about 1,500 casualties with an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 taken prisoner. Long, p. 172. Weigley, p. 111. Union casualties were 500 killed, 2,108 wounded, 224 missing. 

Johnston, who had little choice in allowing Floyd and Pillow to take charge at Fort Donelson on the basis of seniority after he ordered them to add their forces to the garrison, took the blame and suffered calls for his removal because a full explanation to the press and public would have exposed the weakness of the Confederate position. Woodworth, pp. 84–85. His passive defensive performance while positioning himself in a forward position at Bowling Green, spreading his forces too thinly, not concentrating his forces in the face of Union advances, and appointing or relying upon inadequate or incompetent subordinates subjected him to criticism at the time and by later historians. Weigley, p. 112. McPherson, pp. 405–406. Davis defended Johnston, saying: "If Sidney Johnston is not a general, we had better give up the war, for we have no general." McPherson, p. 495. The fall of the forts exposed Nashville to imminent attack, and it fell without resistance to Union forces under Brig. Gen. Buell on February 25, 1862, two days after Johnston had to pull his forces out in order to avoid having them captured as well. Woodworth, p. 86. Long, p. 175. McPherson, p. 402. 

===Concentration at Corinth===
Johnston had various remaining military units scattered throughout his territory and retreating to the south to avoid being cut off. Woodworth, pp. 85–86. Johnston himself retreated with the force under his personal command, the Army of Central Kentucky, from the vicinity of Nashville. With Beauregard's help, McPherson, p. 406. Johnston decided to concentrate forces with those formerly under Polk and now already under Beauregard's command at the strategically located railroad crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi, which he reached by a circuitous route. Woodworth, pp. 86–88. Johnston kept the Union forces, now under the overall command of the ponderous Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, confused and hesitant to move, allowing Johnston to reach his objective undetected. Woodworth, p. 88. This delay allowed Jefferson Davis finally to send reinforcements from the garrisons of coastal cities and another highly rated but prickly general, Braxton Bragg, to help organize the western forces. Woodworth, pp. 90, 94. Bragg at least calmed the nerves of Beauregard and Polk who had become agitated by their apparent dire situation in the face of numerically superior forces before the arrival of Johnston on March 24, 1862. Woodworth, p. 95. Long, p. 188. 

Johnston's army of 17,000 men gave the Confederates a combined force of about 40,000 to 44,669 men at Corinth. McPherson,p. 406. Eicher, The Longest Night, p. 223. On March 29, 1862, Johnston officially took command of this combined force, which continued to use the Army of the Mississippi name under which it had been organized by Beauregard on March 5. Long, 190. Eicher, Civil War High Commands p. 887 and Eicher, The Longest Night p. 219 are nearly alone in referring to this army as the Army of Mississippi. Muir, p. 85, in discussing the first "Army of Mississippi" includes this army as one of three in the article with that title but states: "Historians have pointed out that the Army of Mississippi is frequently mentioned in the Official Records as the Army of the Mississippi." Contemporaries, including Johnston and Beauregard, and modern historians call this Confederate army the Army of the Mississippi. 'The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies.', Volume X, Part 1, index, pp. 96–99; 385 (Beauregard's report on the Battle of Shiloh, April 11, 1862, from Headquarters, Army of the Mississippi) and Part 2, p. 297 (Beauregard's announcement on taking command of Army of the Mississippi); p. 370 (Johnston General Orders of March 29, 1862 assuming command and announcing the army would retain the name Army of the Mississippi); pp. 405-409. Beauregard, p. 579. Boritt, p. 53. Connelly, Army of the Heartland: The Army of Tennessee, 1861-1862. p. 151. ("The Army retained Beauregard's chosen name...") Connelly, Civil War Tennessee: Battles And Leaders. p. 35. Cunningham, pp. 98, 122, 397. Engle, p. 123. Hattaway, p. 163. Hess, pp. 47, 49, 112 ("...Braxton Bragg's renamed Army of Tennessee (formerly the Army of the Mississippi)..."). Isbell, p. 102. McDonough, pp. 60, 66, 78. Kennedy, p. 48. Noe, p. 19. Williams, p. 122. 

Johnston now planned to defeat the Union forces piecemeal before the various Union units in Kentucky and Tennessee under Grant with 40,000 men at nearby Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and the now Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on his way from Nashville with 35,000 men, could unite against him. Johnston started his army in motion on April 3, 1862, intent on surprising Grant's force as soon as the next day, but they moved slowly due to their inexperience, bad roads and lack of adequate staff planning. Woodworth, pp. 96–97. Long, p. 192 Johnston's army was finally in position within a mile or two of Grant's force, and undetected, by the evening of April 5, 1862. Woodworth, p. 97. Long, pp. 193–194. Weigley, p. 113. McPherson, pp. 406–407. Johnston did not achieve total surprise as some Union pickets were alerted to the Confederate presence and provided warning to some Union units before the attack began. 

===Battle of Shiloh and death===
Monument to Johnston at Shiloh National Military Park.
Johnston launched a massive surprise attack with his concentrated forces against Grant at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. As the Confederate forces overran the Union camps, Johnston seemed to be everywhere, personally leading and rallying troops up and down the line on his horse. At about 2:30 p.m., while leading one of those charges against a Union camp near the "Peach Orchard", he was wounded, taking a bullet behind his right knee. He apparently did not think the wound was serious at the time, or even possibly did not feel it, and so he sent his personal physician to attend to some wounded captured Union soldiers instead. It is possible that Johnston's duel in 1837 had caused nerve damage or numbness to his right leg and that he did not feel the wound to his leg as a result. The bullet had in fact clipped a part of his popliteal artery and his boot was filling up with blood. Within a few minutes, Johnston was observed by his staff to be nearly fainting. Among his staff was Isham G. Harris, the Governor of Tennessee, who had ceased to make any real effort to function as governor after learning that Abraham Lincoln had appointed Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee. Seeing Johnston slumping in his saddle and his face turning deathly pale, Harris asked: "General, are you wounded?" Johnston glanced down at his leg wound, then faced Harris and replied with his last words: "Yes, and I fear seriously." Harris and other staff officers removed Johnston from his horse and carried him to a small ravine near the "Hornets Nest" and desperately tried to aid the general by trying to make a tourniquet for his leg wound, but little could be done by this point since he had already lost so much blood. He soon lost consciousness and bled to death a few minutes later. Harris and the other officers wrapped General Johnston's body in a blanket so as not to damage the troops' morale with the sight of the dead general. Johnston and his wounded horse, named Fire Eater, were taken to his field headquarters on the Corinth road, where his body remained in his tent until the Confederate Army withdrew to Corinth the next day, April 7, 1862. From there, his body was taken to the home of Colonel William Inge, which had been his headquarters in Corinth. It was covered in the Confederate flag and lay in state for several hours. Sword, pp. 270-73, 443-46; Cunningham, pp. 273-76; Smith, pp. 26-34. Sword offers evidence that Johnston lived as long as an hour after receiving his fatal wound. 

It is probable that a Confederate soldier fired the fatal round. No Union soldiers were observed to have ever gotten behind Johnston during the fatal charge, while it is known that many Confederates were firing at the Union lines while Johnston charged well in advance of his soldiers. Sword, p. 444. 

Johnston was the highest-ranking casualty of the war on either side, Johnston is the only four-star (full) American general ever killed in battle. Muir, p. 84. and his death was a strong blow to the morale of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis considered him the best general in the country; this was two months before the emergence of Robert E. Lee as the pre-eminent general of the Confederacy.

==Legacy and honors==
Johnston's tomb in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas
Sculpted by Elisabet Ney

Johnston was survived by his wife Eliza and six children. His wife and five younger children, including one born after he went to war, chose to live out their days at home in Los Angeles with Eliza's brother, Dr. John Strother Griffin. Johnston's eldest son, Albert Sidney Jr. (born in Texas), had already followed him into the Confederate States Army. In 1863, after taking home leave in Los Angeles, Albert Jr. was on his way out of San Pedro harbor on a ferry. While a steamer was taking on passengers from the ferry, a wave swamped the smaller boat, causing its boilers to explode. Johnston, Jr. was killed in the accident. 

Killed in action, General Johnston received the highest praise ever given by the Confederate government; fulsome accounts were published, on December 20, 1862 and thereafter, in the Los Angeles Star of his family's hometown. Johnston Street, Hancock Street, and Griffin Avenue, each in northeast Los Angeles, are named after the general and his family, who lived in the neighborhood.

Johnston was initially buried in New Orleans. In 1866, a joint resolution of the Texas Legislature was passed to have his body moved and reinterred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. The re-interment occurred in 1867. Forty years later, the state appointed Elisabet Ney to design a monument and sculpture of him to be erected at the gravesite.

The Texas Historical Commission has erected a historical marker near the entrance of what was once Johnston's plantation. An adjacent marker was erected by the San Jacinto Chapter of the Daughters of The Republic of Texas and the Lee, Roberts, and Davis Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederate States of America.

The University of Texas at Austin has recognized Johnston with a statue on the South Mall.

==See also==

* List of American Civil War generals

==Notes==

==References==
* Beauregard, G. T. The Campaign of Shiloh. p. 579. In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. I, edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence C. Buel. New York: Century Co., 1884-1888. .
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* Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. ISBN 978-0-06-270015-5.
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* Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. ISBN 0-252-00918-5.
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* Long, E. B. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. .
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==Further reading==
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==External links==



[[Android (robot)]]

An android is a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human, especially one with a body having a flesh-like resemblance. Until recently, androids have largely remained within the domain of science fiction, frequently seen in film and television. However, advancements in robot technology have allowed the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots. Ishiguro, Hiroshi. "Android science.", Cognitive Science Society, Osaka, 2005. Retrieved on 3 October 2013. 

==Etymology==
The word was coined from the Greek root ἀνδρ- 'man' and the suffix -oid 'having the form or likeness of'. Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Revision, December 2008 

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest use (as "Androides") to Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia, in reference to an automaton that St. Albertus Magnus allegedly created. OED at "android" citing Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia; or, a universal dictionary of arts and sciences. 1728. The term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature human-like toy automatons. The term android was used in a more modern sense by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam in his work Tomorrow's Eve (1886). This story features an artificial humanlike robot named Hadaly. As said by the officer in the story, "In this age of Realien advancement, who knows what goes on in the mind of those responsible for these mechanical dolls." The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack Williamson's The Cometeers (1936) and the distinction between mechanical robots and fleshy androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future (1940–1944). 

Although Karel Čapek's robots in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1921) – the play that introduced the word robot to the world – were organic artificial humans, the word "robot" has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings. The term "android" can mean either one of these, while a cyborg ("cybernetic organism" or "bionic man") would be a creature that is a combination of organic and mechanical parts.

The term "droid", coined by George Lucas for the original Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Star Wars] film and now used widely within science fiction, originated as an abridgment of "android", but has been used by Lucas and others to mean any robot, including distinctly non-human form machines like R2-D2. The word "android" was used in episode What Are Little Girls Made Of? The abbreviation "andy", coined as a pejorative by writer Philip K. Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, has seen some further usage, such as within the TV series Total Recall 2070. 

Authors have used the term android in more diverse ways than robot or cyborg. In some fictional works, the difference between a robot and android is only their appearance, with androids being made to look like humans on the outside but with robot-like internal mechanics. In other stories, authors have used the word "android" to mean a wholly organic, yet artificial, creation. Other fictional depictions of androids fall somewhere in between. 

Eric G. Wilson, who defines androids as a "synthetic human being", distinguishes between three types of androids, based on their body's composition:
* the mummy type - where androids are made of "dead things" or "stiff, inanimate, natural material", such as mummies, puppets, dolls and statues
* the golem type - androids made from flexible, possibly organic material, including golems and homunculi
* the automaton type - androids which are a mix of dead and living parts, including automatons and robots 

Although human morphology is not necessarily the ideal form for working robots, the fascination in developing robots that can mimic it can be found historically in the assimilation of two concepts: simulacra (devices that exhibit likeness) and automata (devices that have independence).

==Projects==

===Japan===
DER 01, a Japanese actroid
The Intelligent Robotics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and Kokoro Co., Ltd. have demonstrated the Actroid at Expo 2005 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. In 2006, Kokoro Co. developed a new DER 2 android. The height of the human body part of DER2 is 165 cm. There are 47 mobile points. DER2 can not only change its expression but also move its hands and feet and twist its body. The "air servosystem" which Kokoro Co. developed originally is used for the actuator. As a result of having an actuator controlled precisely with air pressure via a servosystem, the movement is very fluid and there is very little noise. DER2 realized a slimmer body than that of the former version by using a smaller cylinder. Outwardly DER2 has a more beautiful proportion. Compared to the previous model, DER2 has thinner arms and a wider repertoire of expressions. Once programmed, it is able to choreograph its motions and gestures with its voice.

The Intelligent Mechatronics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Tokyo University of Science, has developed an android head called Saya, which was exhibited at Robodex 2002 in Yokohama, Japan. There are several other initiatives around the world involving humanoid research and development at this time, which will hopefully introduce a broader spectrum of realized technology in the near future. Now Saya is working at the Science University of Tokyo as a guide.

The Waseda University (Japan) and NTT Docomo's manufacturers have succeeded in creating a shape-shifting robot WD-2. It is capable of changing its face. At first, the creators decided the positions of the necessary points to express the outline, eyes, nose, and so on of a certain person. The robot expresses its face by moving all points to the decided positions, they say. The first version of the robot was first developed back in 2003. After that, a year later, they made a couple of major improvements to the design. The robot features an elastic mask made from the average head dummy. It uses a driving system with a 3DOF unit. The WD-2 robot can change its facial features by activating specific facial points on a mask, with each point possessing three degrees of freedom. This one has 17 facial points, for a total of 56 degrees of freedom. As for the materials they used, the WD-2's mask is fabricated with a highly elastic material called Septom, with bits of steel wool mixed in for added strength. Other technical features reveal a shaft driven behind the mask at the desired facial point, driven by a DC motor with a simple pulley and a slide screw. Apparently, the researchers can also modify the shape of the mask based on actual human faces. To "copy" a face, they need only a 3D scanner to determine the locations of an individual's 17 facial points. After that, they are then driven into position using a laptop and 56 motor control boards. In addition, the researchers also mention that the shifting robot can even display an individual's hair style and skin color if a photo of their face is projected onto the 3D Mask.

===Korea===
EveR-2, the first android that has the ability to sing

KITECH researched and developed EveR-1, an android interpersonal communications model capable of emulating human emotional expression via facial "musculature" and capable of rudimentary conversation, having a vocabulary of around 400 words. She is 160 cm tall and weighs 50 kg, matching the average figure of a Korean women in her twenties. EveR-1's name derives from the Biblical Eve, plus the letter r for robot. EveR-1's advanced computing processing power enables speech recognition and vocal synthesis, at the same time processing lip synchronization and visual recognition by 90-degree micro-CCD cameras with face recognition technology. An independent microchip inside her artificial brain handles gesture expression, body coordination, and emotion expression. Her whole body is made of highly advanced synthetic jelly silicon and with 60 artificial joints in her face, neck, and lower body; she is able to demonstrate realistic facial expressions and sing while simultaneously dancing. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has an ambitious plan to put a robot in every household by 2020. Several robot cities have been planned for the country: the first will be built in 2016 at a cost of 500 billion won, of which 50 billion is direct government investment. The new robot city will feature research and development centers for manufacturers and part suppliers, as well as exhibition halls and a stadium for robot competitions. The country's new Robotics Ethics Charter will establish ground rules and laws for human interaction with robots in the future, setting standards for robotics users and manufacturers, as well as guidelines on ethical standards to be programmed into robots to prevent human abuse of robots and vice versa. 

===United States===
Walt Disney and a staff of Imagineers created Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln that debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair. 

Hanson Robotics, Inc., of Texas and KAIST produced an android portrait of Albert Einstein, using Hanson's facial android technology mounted on KAIST's life-size walking bipedal robot body. This Einstein android, also called "Albert Hubo", thus represents the first full-body walking android in history (see video at Einstein Video ). Hanson Robotics, the FedEx Institute of Technology, FedEx Institute of Technology :: FedEx Institute of Technology :: University of Memphis and the University of Texas at Arlington also developed the android portrait of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick (creator of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the basis for the film Blade Runner), with full conversational capabilities that incorporated thousands of pages of the author's works. About the Philip K Dick Android In 2005, the PKD android won a first place artificial intelligence award from AAAI.

===United Kingdom===
In 2001, Steve Grand OBE, creator of the computer game Creatures, created an android, or anthropoid, he named it Lucy. The intention was that she would have to learn everything, including how to use her mechanical vocal chords to speak. Her systems were made to be similar to a human's.

==Use in fiction==

Androids are a staple of science fiction. Isaac Asimov pioneered the fictionalization of the science of robotics and artificial intelligence, notably in his 1950s series I, Robot and Foundation and Empire. One thing common to most fictional androids is that the real-life technological challenges associated with creating thoroughly human-like robots – such as the creation of strong artificial intelligence – are assumed to have been solved. Van Riper, op.cit., p. 11. Fictional androids are often depicted as mentally and physically equal or superior to humans – moving, thinking and speaking as fluidly as them. 

The tension between the nonhuman substance and the human appearance – or even human ambitions – of androids is the dramatic impetus behind most of their fictional depictions. Some android heroes seek, like Pinocchio, to become human, as in the films Bicentennial Man, Hollywood, Enthiran and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, or Data in . Others, as in the film Westworld, rebel against abuse by careless humans. Android hunter Deckard in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its film adaptation Blade Runner discovers that his targets are, in some ways, more human than he is. Android stories, therefore, are not essentially stories "about" androids; they are stories about the human condition and what it means to be human. 

One aspect of writing about the meaning of humanity is to use discrimination against androids as a mechanism for exploring racism in society, as in Blade Runner. Perhaps the clearest example of this is John Brunner's 1968 novel Into the Slave Nebula, where the blue-skinned android slaves are explicitly shown to be fully human. More recently, the androids Bishop and Annalee Call in the films Aliens and Alien Resurrection are used as vehicles for exploring how humans deal with the presence of an "Other". 

Female androids, or "gynoids", are often seen in science fiction, and can be viewed as a continuation of the long tradition of men attempting to create the stereotypical "perfect woman". Examples include the Greek myth of Pygmalion and the female robot Maria in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Some gynoids, like Pris in Blade Runner, are designed as sex-objects, with the intent of "pleasing men's violent sexual desires," Melzer, p. 204 or as submissive, servile companions, such as in The Stepford Wives. Fiction about gynoids has therefore been described as reinforcing "essentialist ideas of femininity", although others have suggested that the treatment of androids is a way of exploring racism and misogyny in society. Dinello, op. cit., p 77. 

==See also==

*Actroid
*Agalmatophilia
*Android (disambiguation)
*Android science
*Artificial intelligence
*Audio-Animatronics
*ASIMO
*Cyborg
*Cylon
*Domestic robot
*Droid (robot)
*EveR-1
*Gynoid
*HUBO
*Humanoid robot
*Justin (robot)
*MAHRU
*RealDoll
*REEM-B
*Replicant
*Robot
*Robot fetishism
*Synthoid
*Three Laws of Robotics
*TOPIO
*Transhumanism
*Uncanny valley
*The Turk
*RoboTurk
*Kryten

==Notes==

==References==
* Kerman, Judith B. (1991). Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. ISBN 0-87972-509-5.
* Perkowitz, Sidney (2004). Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids. Joseph Henry Press. ISBN 0-309-09619-7.
* Shelde, Per (1993). Androids, Humanoids, and Other Science Fiction Monsters: Science and Soul in Science Fiction Films. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-7930-1.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboTurk_%28robot%29
*Ishiguro, Hiroshi. "Android science." Cognitive Science Society. 2005.

==Further reading==
*Glaser, Horst Albert and Rossbach, Sabine: The Artificial Human, Frankfurt/M., Bern, New York 2011 "The Artificial Human"
*TechCast Article Series, Jason Rupinski and Richard Mix, "Public Attitudes to Androids: Robot Gender, Tasks, & Pricing"
*An-droid, "Similar to the Android name"
* Carpenter, J. (2009). Why send the Terminator to do R2D2s job?: Designing androids as rhetorical phenomena. Proceedings of HCI 2009: Beyond Gray Droids: Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century. Cambridge, UK. Sept. 1.
*Telotte, J.P. Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film. University of Illinois Press, 1995.

==External links==

*Humanoid Robot Video

 

 


[[Alberta]]

Alberta is a province of Canada. With a population of 3,645,257 in 2011 and an estimated population of 4,082,571 as of January 1, 2014, it is Canada's fourth-most populous province and most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces. Alberta and its neighbour, Saskatchewan, were established as provinces on September 1, 1905. 

Alberta is located in western Canada and is one of Canada's three Prairie Provinces. It is bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S. state of Montana to the south. Alberta is one of three Canadian provinces and territories to border only a single U.S. state and is also one of only two provinces that are landlocked.

Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta, is located near the geographic centre of the province and is the primary supply and service hub for Canada's crude oil and also oil sands (Athabasca Oil Sands) 
 and other northern resource industries. Approximately 290 km south of the capital is Calgary, Alberta's largest city. Calgary and Edmonton centre Alberta's two census metropolitan areas, both of which have populations exceeding one million, while the province has 16 census agglomerations. Notable tourist destinations in the province include Banff, Canmore, Drumheller, Jasper and Sylvan Lake.

The current Premier of the province is Dave Hancock.

==Etymology==
Alberta is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939), the fourth daughter of Victoria, the Queen of Canada until 1901, and Albert, Prince Consort. Princess Louise was the wife of the Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Lake Louise and Mount Alberta were also named in honour of Princess Louise. 

== Geography ==
Topographic map of Alberta

Alberta, with an area of 661848 km2, is the fourth largest province after Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. To the south, the province borders on the 49th parallel north, separating it from the U.S. state of Montana, while on the north the 60th parallel north divides it from the Northwest Territories. To the east, the 110th meridian west separates it from the province of Saskatchewan, while on the west its boundary with British Columbia follows the 120th meridian west south from the Northwest Territories at 60°N until it reaches the Continental Divide at the Rocky Mountains, and from that point follows the line of peaks marking the Continental Divide in a generally southeasterly direction until it reaches the Montana border at 49°N.

The province extends 1223 km north to south and 660 km east to west at its maximum width. Its highest point is 3747 m at the summit of Mount Columbia in the Rocky Mountains along the southwest border, while its lowest point is 152 m on the Slave River in Wood Buffalo National Park in the northeast. 

 

With the exception of the semi-arid steppe of the southeastern section, the province has adequate water resources. There are numerous rivers and lakes used for swimming, fishing and a range of water sports. There are three large lakes, Lake Claire (1436 km2) in Wood Buffalo National Park, Lesser Slave Lake (1168 km2), and Lake Athabasca (7898 km2) which lies in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. The longest river in the province is the Athabasca River which travels 1538 km from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca. 
 The largest river is the Peace River with an average flow of 2161 m3/s. The Peace River originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows through northern Alberta and into the Slave River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River.
Moraine Lake in Banff National Park
Alberta's capital city, Edmonton, is located approximately in the geographic centre of the province. It is the most northerly major city in Canada, and serves as a gateway and hub for resource development in northern Canada. The region, with its proximity to Canada's largest oil fields, has most of western Canada's oil refinery capacity. Calgary is located approximately 280 km south of Edmonton and 240 km north of Montana, surrounded by extensive ranching country. Almost 75% of the province's population lives in the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The land grant policy to the railroads served as a means to populate the province in its early years. "Alberta Land Grants" (Atlas of Alberta Railways) 

Most of the northern half of the province is boreal forest, while the Rocky Mountains along the southwestern boundary are largely forested (see Alberta Mountain forests and Alberta-British Columbia foothills forests). The southern quarter of the province is prairie, ranging from shortgrass prairie in the southeastern corner to mixed grass prairie in an arc to the west and north of it. The central aspen parkland region extending in a broad arc between the prairies and the forests, from Calgary, north to Edmonton, and then east to Lloydminster, contains the most fertile soil in the province and most of the population. Much of the unforested part of Alberta is given over either to grain or to dairy farming, with mixed farming more common in the north and centre, while ranching and irrigated agriculture predominate in the south. 

 

The Alberta badlands are located in southeastern Alberta, where the Red Deer River crosses the flat prairie and farmland, and features deep canyons and striking landforms. Dinosaur Provincial Park, near Brooks, Alberta, showcases the badlands terrain, desert flora, and remnants from Alberta's past when dinosaurs roamed the then lush landscape.

=== Climate ===
Winter climate at Banff Trail station in Calgary
Alberta has a dry continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. The province is open to cold arctic weather systems from the north, which often produce extremely cold conditions in winter. As the fronts between the air masses shift north and south across Alberta, the temperature can change rapidly. Arctic air masses in the winter produce extreme minimum temperatures varying from -54 C in northern Alberta to -46 C in southern Alberta. In the summer, continental air masses produce maximum temperatures from 32 C in the mountains to 40 C in southern Alberta. 

 
Prairie in Alberta
Alberta extends for over 1200 km from north to south; its climate, therefore, varies considerably. Average high temperatures in January range from 0 C in the southwest to -24 C in the far north. The climate is also influenced by the presence of the Rocky Mountains to the southwest, which disrupt the flow of the prevailing westerly winds and causes them to drop most of their moisture on the western slopes of the mountain ranges before reaching the province, casting a rain shadow over much of Alberta. The northerly location and isolation from the weather systems of the Pacific Ocean cause Alberta to have a dry climate with little moderation from the ocean. Annual precipitation ranges from 300 mm in the southeast to 450 mm in the north, except in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where total precipitation including snowfall can reach 600 mm annually. The province is the namesake of the Alberta clipper, a type of intense, fast-moving winter storm that generally forms over or near the province and pushed with great speed by the continental polar jetstream descends over the rest of Southern Canada and the northern tier of the United States. 
Satellite image of wildfires in Alberta
In the summer, the average daytime temperatures range from around 21 C in the Rocky Mountain valleys and far north, up to around 28 C in the dry prairie of the southeast. The northern and western parts of the province experience higher rainfall and lower evaporation rates caused by cooler summer temperatures. The south and east-central portions are prone to drought-like conditions sometimes persisting for several years, although even these areas can receive heavy precipitation and sometimes resulting in flooding.
Alberta is a sunny province. Annual bright sunshine totals range between 1900 up to just under 2600 hours per year. Northern Alberta gets about 18 hours of daylight in the summer. 

In southwestern Alberta, the cold winters are frequently interrupted by warm, dry chinook winds blowing from the mountains, which can propel temperatures upward from frigid conditions to well above the freezing point in a very short period. During one chinook recorded at Pincher Creek, temperatures soared from -19 to in just one hour. The region around Lethbridge has the most chinooks, averaging 30 to 35 chinook days per year. Calgary has a 56% chance of a white Christmas, while Edmonton has an 86% chance. 

Northern Alberta is mostly covered by boreal forest and has a subarctic climate. The agricultural area of southern Alberta have a semi-arid steppe climate because the annual precipitation is less than the water that evaporates or is used by plants. The southeastern corner of Alberta, part of the Palliser Triangle, experiences greater summer heat and lower rainfall than the rest of the province, and as a result suffers frequent crop yield problems and occasional severe droughts. Western Alberta is protected by the mountains and enjoys the mild temperatures brought by winter chinook winds. Central and parts of northwestern Alberta in the Peace River region are largely aspen parkland, a biome transitional between prairie to the south and boreal forest to the north.

After Southern Ontario, The Prairies and Central Alberta is the most likely region in Canada to experience tornadoes. Thunderstorms, some of them severe, are frequent in the summer, especially in central and southern Alberta. The region surrounding the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor is notable for having the highest frequency of hail in Canada, which is caused by orographic lifting from the nearby Rocky Mountains, enhancing the updraft/downdraft cycle necessary for the formation of hail.

+Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for selected cities in Alberta 
 City July (°C) July (°F) January (°C) January (°F) 
 Medicine Hat 28/12 82/54 
 Brooks 27/11 80/52 
 Lethbridge 26/10 79/50 
 Fort McMurray 24/11 75/52 
 Wetaskiwin 24/11 75/52 
 Edmonton 23/12 73/54 
 Cold Lake 23/11 73/52 
 Camrose 23/11 73/52 
 Fort Saskatchewan 23/11 73/52 
 Lloydminster 23/11 73/52 
 Red Deer 23/11 73/52 
 Grande Prairie 23/10 73/50 
 Leduc 23/10 73/50 
 Calgary 23/9 73/48 
 Spruce Grove 22/12 72/54 
 St. Albert 22/11 72/52 
 Lacombe 22/9 72/48 

=== Ecology ===

==== Flora ====

Hoodoos in Dinosaur Provincial Park
In central and northern Alberta the arrival of spring is marked by the early flowering of the prairie crocus anemone; this member of the buttercup family has been recorded flowering as early as March though April is the usual month for the general population. Prairie Crocus Information Alberta Plant Watch. Author Annora Brown. Published: no date given. Retrieved 28 August 2013. Other prairie flora known to flower early are the golden bean and wild rose. Members of the sunflower family blossom on the prairie in the summer months between July and September. The southern and east central parts of Alberta are covered by short prairie grass, which dries up as summer lengthens, to be replaced by hardy perennials such as the prairie coneflower, fleabane, and sage. Both yellow and white sweet clover can be found throughout the southern and central areas of the province.

The trees in the parkland region of the province grow in clumps and belts on the hillsides. These are largely deciduous, typically aspen, poplar, and willow. Many species of willow and other shrubs grow in virtually any terrain. On the north side of the North Saskatchewan River evergreen forests prevail for thousands of square kilometres. Aspen poplar, balsam poplar (or cottonwood), and paper birch are the primary large deciduous species. Conifers include Jack pine, Rocky Mountain pine, Lodgepole pine, both white and black spruce, and the deciduous conifer tamarack.

==== Fauna ====
The bighorn sheep is Alberta's provincial animal
The four climatic regions (alpine, boreal forest, parkland, and prairie) of Alberta are home to many different species of animals. The south and central prairie was the land of the bison, commonly known as buffalo, its grasses providing pasture and breeding ground for millions of buffalo. The buffalo population was decimated during early settlement, but since then buffalo have made a comeback, living on farms and in parks all over Alberta.

Alberta is home to many large carnivores. Among them are the grizzly and black bears, which are found in the mountains and wooded regions. Smaller carnivores of the canine and feline families include coyotes, wolves, fox, lynx, bobcat and mountain lion (cougar).

Herbivorous animals are found throughout the province. Moose, mule deer, elk, and white-tail deer are found in the wooded regions, and pronghorn can be found in the prairies of southern Alberta. Bighorn sheep and mountain goats live in the Rocky Mountains. Rabbits, porcupines, skunks, squirrels and many species of rodents and reptiles live in every corner of the province. Alberta is home to only one variety of venomous snake, the prairie rattlesnake.

Water birds in EdmontonCentral and northern Alberta and the region farther north is the nesting ground of many migratory birds. Vast numbers of ducks, geese, swans and pelicans arrive in Alberta every spring and nest on or near one of the hundreds of small lakes that dot northern Alberta. Eagles, hawks, owls and crows are plentiful, and a huge variety of smaller seed and insect-eating birds can be found. Alberta, like other temperate regions, is home to mosquitoes, flies, wasps, and bees. Rivers and lakes are populated with pike, walleye, whitefish, rainbow, speckled, brown trout, and sturgeon. Bull Trout, native to the province, is the Alberta's provincial fish. Turtles are found in some water bodies in the southern part of the province. Frogs and salamanders are a few of the amphibians that make their homes in Alberta.

Alberta is the only province in Canada—as well as one of the few places in the world—that is free of Norwegian rats. Since the early 1950s, the Government of Alberta has operated a rat-control program, which has been so successful that only isolated instances of wild rat sightings are reported, usually of rats arriving in the province aboard trucks or by rail. In 2006, Alberta Agriculture reported zero findings of wild rats; the only rat interceptions have been domesticated rats that have been seized from their owners. It is illegal for individual Albertans to own or keep Norwegian rats of any description; the animals can only be kept in the province by zoos, universities and colleges, and recognized research institutions. In 2009, several rats were
found and captured, in small pockets in southern Alberta, putting Alberta's rat-free status in jeopardy. A colony of rats were subsequently found in a landfill near Medicine Hat in 2012, and again in 2014. 

=== Paleontology ===
Pachyrhinosaurus skull; large quantities of this genus are preserved in the Wapiti Formation
Alberta has one of the greatest diversities and abundances of Late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils in the world. Taxa are represented by complete fossil skeletons, isolated material, microvertebrate remains, and even mass graves. At least 38 dinosaur type specimens were collected in the province. The Foremost Formation, Oldman Formation and Dinosaur Park Formations collectively comprise the Judith River Group and are the most thoroughly studied dinosaur-bearing strata in Alberta. 

Dinosaur-bearing strata are distributed widely throughout Alberta. The Dinosaur Provincial Park area contains outcrops of the Dinosaur Park Formation and Oldman Formation. In the central and southern regions of Alberta are intermittent Scollard Formation outcrops. In the Drumheller Valley and Edmonton regions there are exposed Horseshoe Canyon facies. Other formations have been recorded as well, like the Milk River and Foremost Formations. However, these latter two have a lower diversity of documented dinosaurs, primarily due to their lower total fossil quantity and neglect from collectors who are hindered by the isolation and scarcity of exposed outcrops. Their dinosaur fossils are primarily teeth recovered from microvertebrate fossil sites. Additional geologic formations that have produced only few fossils are the Belly River Group and St. Mary River Formations of the southwest and the northwestern Wapiti Formation. The Wapiti Formations contains two Pachyrhinosaurus bone beds that break its general trend of low productivity, however. The Bearpaw Formation represents strata deposited during a marine transgression. Dinosaurs are known from this Formation, but represent specimens washed out to sea or reworked from older sediments. Ryan, M. J., and Russell, A. P., 2001. Dinosaurs of Alberta (exclusive of Aves): In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life, edited by Tanke, D. H., and Carpenter, K., Indiana University Press, pp. 279–297. 

== History ==
Alexander C. Rutherford, Alberta's first premier

View from the Trans-Canada Highway, August 2003. The Bow River cascades below as mountains from Banff National Park shadow overhead

Paleo-Indians arrived in Alberta at least 10,000 years ago, toward the end of the last ice age. They are thought to have migrated from Siberia to Alaska on a land bridge across the Bering Strait, and then may have moved down the east side of the Rocky Mountains through Alberta to settle the Americas. Others may have migrated down the coast of British Columbia and then moved inland. Over time they differentiated into various First Nations peoples, including the Plains Indian tribes of southern Alberta such as those of the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Plains Cree, who generally lived by hunting buffalo (American bison), and the more northerly tribes such as the Woodland Cree and Chipewyan who hunted, trapped, and fished for a living. 

After the British arrival in Canada, approximately half of the province of Alberta, south of the Athabasca River drainage, became part of Rupert's Land which consisted of all land drained by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. This area was granted by Charles II of England to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1670, and rival fur trading companies were not allowed to trade in it. After the arrival of French Canadians in the west around 1731, they settled near fur trading posts, establishing communities such as Lac La Biche and Bonnyville. Fort La Jonquière was established near what is now Calgary in 1752.

The Athabasca River and the rivers north of it were not in HBC territory because they drained into the Arctic Ocean instead of Hudson Bay, and they were prime habitat for fur-bearing animals. The first explorer of the Athabasca region was Peter Pond, who learned of the Methye Portage, which allowed travel from southern rivers into the rivers north of Rupert's Land. Fur traders formed the North West Company (NWC) of Montreal to compete with the HBC in 1779. The NWC occupied the northern part of Alberta territory. Peter Pond built Fort Athabasca on Lac la Biche in 1778. Roderick Mackenzie built Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca ten years later in 1788. His cousin, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, followed the North Saskatchewan River to its northernmost point near Edmonton, then setting northward on foot, trekked to the Athabasca River, which he followed to Lake Athabasca. It was there he discovered the mighty outflow river which bears his name—the Mackenzie River—which he followed to its outlet in the Arctic Ocean. Returning to Lake Athabasca, he followed the Peace River upstream, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean, and so he became the first European to cross the North American continent north of Mexico. 

The extreme southernmost portion of Alberta was part of the French (and Spanish) territory of Louisiana, sold to the United States in 1803; in 1818, the portion of Louisiana north of the Forty-Ninth Parallel was ceded to Great Britain.

Fur trade expanded in the north, but bloody battles occurred between the rival HBC and NWC, and in 1821 the British government forced them to merge to stop the hostilities. The amalgamated Hudson's Bay Company dominated trade in Alberta until 1870, when the newly formed Canadian Government purchased Rupert's Land. Northern Alberta was included in the North-Western Territory until 1870, when it and Rupert's land became Canada's Northwest Territories.

The District of Alberta was created as part of the North-West Territories in 1882. As settlement increased, local representatives to the North-West Legislative Assembly were added. After a long campaign for autonomy, in 1905 the District of Alberta was enlarged and given provincial status, with the election of Alexander Cameron Rutherford as the first premier.

On June 21, 2013, during the 2013 Alberta floods Alberta experienced heavy rainfall that triggered catastrophic flooding throughout much of the southern half of the province along the Bow, Elbow, Highwood and Oldman rivers and tributaries. A dozen municipalities in Southern Alberta declared local states of emergency on June 21 as water levels rose and numerous communities were placed under evacuation orders. 

== Demographics ==

Alberta's population has grown steadily for over a century.

In the 2011 census, Alberta had a population of 3,645,257 living in 1,390,275 of its 1,505,007 total dwellings, a 10.8% change from its 2006 population of 3,290,350. With a land area of 640081.87 km2, it had a population density of in 2011. In 2013, Statistics Canada estimated the province's population to be 4,025,073. 

Alberta has experienced a relatively high rate of growth in recent years, mainly because of its burgeoning economy. Between 2003 and 2004, the province had high birthrates (on par with some larger provinces such as British Columbia), relatively high immigration, and a high rate of interprovincial migration when compared to other provinces. As of the 2011 Census, seven of the eight fastest-growing census agglomerations in Canada were in Alberta.

Approximately 81% of the population live in urban areas and only about 19% live in rural areas. The Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is the most urbanized area in the province and is one of the most densely populated areas of Canada. Many of Alberta's cities and towns have also experienced very high rates of growth in recent history. Over the past century, Alberta's population rose from 73,022 in 1901 to 2,974,807 in 2001 and 3,290,350 according to the 2006 census. 
English is the most common mother tongue of Albertans. 

The 2006 census found that English, with 2,576,670 native speakers, was the most common mother tongue of Albertans, representing 79.99% of the province's population. The next most common mother tongues were various Chinese languages with 97,275 native speakers (3.02%), followed by German with 84,505 native speakers (2.62%) and French with 61,225 (1.90%). 

Other mother tongues (in decreasing order) include: Punjabi, with 36,320 native speakers (1.13%); Tagalog, with 29,740 (0.92%); Ukrainian, with 29,455 (0.91%); Spanish, with 29,125 (0.90%); Polish, with 21,990 (0.68%); Arabic, with 20,495 (0.64%); Dutch, with 19,980 (0.62%); and Vietnamese, with 19,350 (0.60%). The most common aboriginal language is Cree 17,215 (0.53%). Other common mother tongues include Italian with 13,095 speakers (0.41%); Urdu with 11,275 (0.35%); and Korean with 10,845 (0.33%); then Hindi 8,985 (0.28%); Persian 7,700 (0.24%); Portuguese 7,205 (0.22%); and Hungarian 6,770 (0.21%).(Figures shown are for the number of single language responses and the percentage of total single-language responses.) 

Alberta has considerable ethnic diversity. In line with the rest of Canada, many immigrants originated from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but large numbers also came from other parts of Europe, notably Germany, France, Ukraine and Scandinavia. 
 According to Statistics Canada, Alberta is home to the second highest proportion (two percent) of Francophones in western Canada (after Manitoba). Despite this, relatively few Albertans claim French as their mother tongue. Many of Alberta's French-speaking residents live in the central and northwestern regions of the province.

As reported in the 2001 census, the Chinese represented nearly four percent of Alberta's population, and East Indians represented more than two percent. Both Edmonton and Calgary have historic Chinatowns, and Calgary has Canada's third largest Chinese community. The Chinese presence began with workers employed in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. Aboriginal Albertans make up approximately three percent of the population.

In the 2006 Canadian census, the most commonly reported ethnic origins among Albertans were: 885,825 English (27.2%); 679,705 German (20.9%); 667,405 Canadian (20.5%); 661,265 Scottish (20.3%); 539,160 Irish (16.6%); 388,210 French (11.9%); 332,180 Ukrainian (10.2%); 172,910 Dutch (5.3%); 170,935 Polish (5.2%); 169,355 North American Indian (5.2%); 144,585 Norwegian (4.4%); and 137,600 Chinese (4.2%). (Each person could choose as many ethnicities as were applicable.) 

Amongst those of British origins, the Scots have had a particularly strong influence on place-names, with the names of many cities and towns including Calgary, Airdrie, Canmore, and Banff having Scottish origins.

Alberta has a large number of different religions, of which Catholicism is the most common.

Alberta is the third most diverse province in terms of visible minorities after British Columbia and Ontario with 13.9% of the population consisting of visible minorities. Nearly one-fourth of the populations of Calgary and Edmonton belong to a visible minority group. 

Aboriginal Identity Peoples make up 5.8% of the population, about half of whom consist of North American Indians and the other half are Metis. There are also small number of Inuit people in Alberta. The number of Aboriginal Identity Peoples have been increasing at a rate greater than the population of Alberta. 

As of the Canada 2001 Census the largest religious group was Roman Catholic, representing 25.7% of the population. Alberta had the second highest percentage of non-religious residents in Canada (after British Columbia) at 23.1% of the population. Of the remainder, 13.5% of the population identified themselves as belonging to the United Church of Canada, while 5.9% were Anglican. Lutherans made up 4.8% of the population while Baptists comprised 2.5%.

The remainder belonged to a wide variety of different religious affiliations, none of which constituted more than 2% of the population. The LDS Church of Alberta reside primarily in the extreme south of the province and made up 1.7% of the population. Alberta has a population of Hutterites, a communal Anabaptist sect similar to the Mennonites (Hutterites represented 0.4% of the population while Mennonites were 0.8%), and has a significant population of Seventh-day Adventists at 0.3%. Alberta is home to several Byzantine Rite Churches as part of the legacy of Eastern European immigration, including the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Edmonton, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada's Western Diocese which is based in Edmonton.
 

Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus live in Alberta. Muslims constituted 1.7% of the population, Sikhs 0.8% and Hindus 0.5%. Many of these are recent immigrants, but others have roots that go back to the first settlers of the prairies. Canada's oldest mosque, the Al-Rashid Mosque, is located in Edmonton, whereas Calgary is home to Canada's largest mosque, the Baitun Nur mosque. Jews constituted 0.4% of Alberta's population. Most of Alberta's 13,000 Jews live in Calgary (7,500) and Edmonton (5,000). AM Yisrael—The Jewish Communities of Canada 

=== Municipalities ===

;Largest metro areas and municipalities by population as of 2006

 Census metropolitan areas: 2011 2006 2001 1996 
 Calgary CMA 1,214,839 1,079,310 951,395 821,628 
 Edmonton CMA 1,159,869 1,034,945 937,845 862,597 
 Urban municipalities (10 largest): 2011 2006 2001 1996 
 Calgary 1,096,833 988,193 878,866 768,082 
 Edmonton 812,201 730,372 666,104 616,306 
 Red Deer 90,564 82,772 67,707 60,080 
 Lethbridge 83,517 78,713 68,712 64,938 
 St. Albert (included in Edmonton CMA) 61,466 57,719 53,081 46,888 
 Medicine Hat 60,005 56,997 51,249 46,783 
 Grande Prairie 55,032 47,076 36,983 31,353 
 Airdrie (included in Calgary CMA) 42,564 28,927 20,382 15,946 
 Spruce Grove (included in Edmonton CMA) 26,171 19,496 15,983 14,271 
 Okotoks 24,511 17,145 11,689 8,528 
 Specialized/rural municipalities (5 largest): 2011 2006 2001 1996 
 Strathcona County (included in Edmonton CMA) 92,490 82,511 71,986 64,176 
 Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo 65,565 51,496 42,581 35,213 
 Rocky View County (included in Calgary CMA) 36,461 34,171 29,925 23,326 
 Parkland County (included in Edmonton CMA) 30,568 29,265 27,252 24,769 
 Municipal District of Foothills No. 31 21,258 19,736 16,764 13,714 

== Economy ==

Alberta's economy is one of the strongest in Canada, supported by the burgeoning petroleum industry and to a lesser extent, agriculture and technology. The per capita GDP in 2007 was by far the highest of any province in Canada at C$74,825. This was 61% higher than the national average of C$46,441 and more than twice that of some of the Atlantic provinces. In 2006 the deviation from the national average was the largest for any province in Canadian history. According to the 2006 census, the median annual family income after taxes was $70,986 in Alberta (compared to $60,270 in Canada as a whole).

The Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is the most urbanized region in the province and one of the densest in Canada. The region covers a distance of roughly 400 kilometres north to south. In 2001, the population of the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor was 2.15 million (72% of Alberta's population). It is also one of the fastest growing regions in the country. A 2003 study by TD Bank Financial Group found the corridor to be the only Canadian urban centre to amass a U.S. level of wealth while maintaining a Canadian style quality of life, offering universal health care benefits. The study found that GDP per capita in the corridor was 10% above average U.S. metropolitan areas and 40% above other Canadian cities at that time.

The Fraser Institute states that Alberta also has very high levels of economic freedom and rates Alberta as the freest economy in Canada, and the second freest economy amongst U.S. states and Canadian provinces. The government of Alberta has invested its earnings wisely; as of 30 September 2013, official statistics reported nearly 500 holdings. NASDAQ Institutional Portfolio: "HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF THE PROVINCE OF ALBERTA" 

=== Industry ===
Mildred Lake mine site and plant at the Athabasca Oil Sands
Alberta is the largest producer of conventional crude oil, synthetic crude, natural gas and gas products in Canada. Alberta is the world’s second largest exporter of natural gas and the fourth largest producer. Two of the largest producers of petrochemicals in North America are located in central and north-central Alberta. In both Red Deer and Edmonton, polyethylene and vinyl manufacturers produce products that are shipped all over the world. Edmonton's oil refineries provide the raw materials for a large petrochemical industry to the east of Edmonton.

The Athabasca oil sands surrounding Fort McMurray have estimated unconventional oil reserves approximately equal to the conventional oil reserves of the rest of the world, estimated to be 1.6 trillion barrels (254 km3). Many companies employ both conventional strip mining and non-conventional in situ methods to extract the bitumen from the oil sands. As of late 2006 there were over $100 billion in oil sands projects under construction or in the planning stages in northeastern Alberta. 

Another factor determining the viability of oil extraction from the oil sands is the price of oil. The oil price increases since 2003 have made it profitable to extract this oil, which in the past would give little profit or even a loss.

With concerted effort and support from the provincial government, several high-tech industries have found their birth in Alberta, notably patents related to interactive liquid crystal display systems. Interactive display system—US Patent U.S. Patent No. 5,448,263; —SMART Technologies With a growing economy, Alberta has several financial institutions dealing with civil and private funds.

=== Agriculture and forestry ===
Grain fields in the Peace Country
The Warner elevator row, the last surviving elevator row in Alberta, currently unprotected
Agriculture has a significant position in the province's economy. The province has over three million head of cattle, and Alberta beef has a healthy worldwide market. Nearly one half of all Canadian beef is produced in Alberta. Alberta is one of the top producers of plains buffalo (bison) for the consumer market. Sheep for wool and mutton are also raised.

Wheat and canola are primary farm crops, with Alberta leading the provinces in spring wheat production; other grains are also prominent. Much of the farming is dryland farming, often with fallow seasons interspersed with cultivation. Continuous cropping (in which there is no fallow season) is gradually becoming a more common mode of production because of increased profits and a reduction of soil erosion. Across the province, the once common grain elevator is slowly being lost as rail lines are decreasing; farmers typically truck the grain to central points.

Alberta is the leading beekeeping province of Canada, with some beekeepers wintering hives indoors in specially designed barns in southern Alberta, then migrating north during the summer into the Peace River valley where the season is short but the working days are long for honeybees to produce honey from clover and fireweed. Hybrid canola also requires bee pollination, and some beekeepers service this need.

The vast northern forest reserves of softwood allow Alberta to produce large quantities of lumber, oriented strand board (OSB) and plywood, and several plants in northern Alberta supply North America and the Pacific Rim nations with bleached wood pulp and newsprint.

=== Tourism ===

Alberta has been a tourist destination from the early days of the twentieth century, with attractions including outdoor locales for skiing, hiking and camping, shopping locales such as West Edmonton Mall, Calgary Stampede, outdoor festivals, professional athletic events, international sporting competitions such as the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, as well as more eclectic attractions. There are also natural attractions like Elk Island National Park, Wood Buffalo National Park, and the Columbia Icefield.

According to Alberta Economic Development, Calgary and Edmonton both host over four million visitors annually. Banff, Jasper and the Rocky Mountains are visited by about three million people per year. Alberta tourism relies heavily on Southern Ontario tourists, as well as tourists from other parts of Canada, the United States, and many international countries.

Alberta's Rocky Mountains include well-known tourist destinations Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. The two mountain parks are connected by the scenic Icefields Parkway. Banff is located 128 km west of Calgary on Highway 1, and Jasper is located 366 km west of Edmonton on Yellowhead Highway. Five of Canada's fourteen UNESCO World heritage sites are located within the province: Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Wood Buffalo National Park, Dinosaur Provincial Park and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies
About 1.2 million people visit the of Calgary Stampede, a celebration of Canada's own Wild West and the cattle ranching industry. About 700,000 people enjoy Edmonton's K-Days (formerly Klondike Days and Capital EX). Edmonton was the gateway to the only all-Canadian route to the Yukon gold fields, and the only route which did not require gold-seekers to travel the exhausting and dangerous Chilkoot Pass.

Another tourist destination that draws more than 650,000 visitors each year is the Drumheller Valley, located northeast of Calgary. Drumheller, "Dinosaur Capital of The World", offers the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. Drumheller also had a rich mining history being one of Western Canada's largest coal producers during the war years.

Located in east-central Alberta is Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions, a popular tourist attraction operated out of Stettler, that offers train excursions into the prairie and caters to tens of thousands of visitors every year.

Alberta has numerous ski resorts most notably Sunshine Village, Lake Louise, Marmot Basin, Norquay and Nakiska.

==Government and politics==

Alberta's Legislative Building in Edmonton

Jasper Avenue is Edmonton's hub of offices and the financial centres.
The Government of Alberta is organized as a parliamentary democracy with a unicameral legislature. Its unicameral legislature—the Legislative Assembly—consists of eighty-seven members elected first past the post (FPTP) from single-member constituencies. Elected Members of the Assembly 

Locally municipal governments and school boards are elected and operate separately. Their boundaries do not necessarily coincide. Municipalities where the same body act as both local government and school board are formally referred to as "counties" in Alberta.

As Canada's head of state, Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state for the Government of Alberta. Her duties in Alberta are carried out by Lieutenant Governor Donald Ethell. Although the lieutenant governor is technically the most powerful person in Alberta, he is in reality a figurehead whose actions are restricted by custom and constitutional convention. The government is therefore headed by the premier. The current premier is Dave Hancock who was appointed as the interim leader of the governing Progressive Conservatives on March 20, 2014. Hancock was sworn in as the 15th Premier of Alberta on March 23, 2014. The Premier is a Member of the Legislative Assembly, and he draws all the members of his Cabinet from among the members of the Legislative Assembly.

The City of Edmonton is the seat of the provincial government—the capital of Alberta.

Alberta's elections tend to yield results which are much more conservative than those of other Canadian provinces. Alberta has traditionally had three political parties, the Progressive Conservatives ("Conservatives" or "Tories"), the Liberals, and the social democratic New Democrats. A fourth party, the strongly conservative Social Credit Party, was a power in Alberta for many decades, but fell from the political map after the Progressive Conservatives came to power in 1971. Since that time, no other political party has governed Alberta. Only four parties have governed Alberta: the Liberals, from 1905 to 1921; the United Farmers of Alberta, from 1921 to 1935; the Social Credit Party, from 1935 to 1971, and the currently governing Progressive Conservative Party, from 1971 to the present.

Alberta has had occasional surges in separatist sentiment. Even during the 1980s, when these feelings were at their strongest, there has never been enough interest in secession to initiate any major movements or referendums. There are several currently active groups wishing to promote the independence of Alberta in some form.

In the 2008 provincial election, held on March 3, 2008, the Progressive Conservative Party was re-elected as a majority government with 72 of 83 seats, the Alberta Liberal Party was elected as the Official Opposition with nine members, and two Alberta New Democratic Party members were elected. 

The April 23, 2012 election returned the Progressive Conservative Party to government, making leader Alison Redford Alberta's first elected female premier. In the 2012 provincial election, held on April 23, 2012, the Progressive Conservative Party was re-elected as a majority government and party leader Alison Redford retained as premier with 43.9% of the vote and 61 of 87 seats (The Legislative Assembly added 4 seats, increasing the total to 87, with the 2012 election), the Wildrose Party led by Danielle Smith was elected as the Official Opposition with 34.3% of the vote and 17 members (replacing the Liberal Party), five Liberals were elected with 9.9% of the vote and four NDP members were elected with 9.8% of the vote. Provincial General Election April 23, 2012 

=== Taxation ===
Government revenue comes mainly from royalties on non-renewable natural resources (30.4%), personal income taxes (22.3%), corporate and other taxes (19.6%), and grants from the federal government primarily for infrastructure projects (9.8%). Albertans are the lowest-taxed people in Canada, and Alberta is the only province in Canada without a provincial sales tax (but residents are still subject to the federal sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax of 5%). It is also the only Canadian province to have a flat tax for personal income taxes, which is 10% of taxable income. 

The Alberta personal income tax system maintains a progressive character by granting residents personal tax exemptions of $17,787, http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/td1ab/README.html in addition to a variety of tax deductions for persons with disabilities, students, and the aged. Alberta's municipalities and school jurisdictions have their own governments who usually work in co-operation with the provincial government.

Alberta also privatized alcohol distribution. The privatization increased outlets from 304 stores to 1,726; 1,300 jobs to 4,000 jobs; and 3,325 products to 16,495 products. Tax revenue also increased from $400 million to $700 million.

Albertan municipalities raise a significant portion of their income through levying property taxes. The value of assessed property in Alberta was approximately $727 billion in 2011. Most real property is assessed according to its market value. The exceptions to market value assessment are farmland, railways, machinery & equipment and linear property, all of which is assessed by regulated rates. Depending on the property type, property owners may appeal a property assessment to their municipal 'Local Assessment Review Board', 'Composite Assessment Review Board,' or the Alberta Municipal Government Board. 

=== Military ===
Military bases in Alberta include Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Cold Lake, CFB Edmonton, CFB Suffield and CFB Wainwright. The air force is stationed at CFB Cold Lake and has access to the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. CFB Edmonton is the headquarters for the 3rd Canadian Division. CFB Suffield hosts British troops and is the largest training facility in Canada. 

== Transportation ==

David Thompson Highway beyond Banff National Park

Alberta Highway 63 north of Fort McMurray
Alberta has over 181000 km of highways and roads, of which nearly 41000 km are paved. The main north-south corridor is Highway 2, which begins south of Cardston at the Carway border crossing and is part of the CANAMEX Corridor. Highway 4, which effectively extends Interstate 15 into Alberta and is the busiest U.S. gateway to the province, begins at the Coutts border crossing and ends at Lethbridge. Highway 3 joins Lethbridge to Fort Macleod and links Highway 4 to Highway 2. Highway 2 travels northward through Fort Macleod, Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton.

North of Edmonton, the highway continues to Athabasca, then northwesterly along the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake into High Prairie, north to Peace River, west to Fairview and finally south to Grande Prairie, where it ends at an interchange with Highway 43. The section of Highway 2 between Calgary and Edmonton has been named the Queen Elizabeth II Highway to commemorate the visit of the monarch in 2005. Highway 2 is supplemented by two more highways that run parallel to it: Highway 22, west of Highway 2, known as Cowboy Trail, and Highway 21, east of Highway 2. Highway 43 travels northwest into Grande Prairie and the Peace River Country; Highway 63 travels northeast to Fort McMurray, the location of the Athabasca oil sands.

Alberta has two main east-west corridors. The southern corridor, part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, enters the province near Medicine Hat, runs westward through Calgary, and leaves Alberta through Banff National Park. The northern corridor, also part of the Trans-Canada network and known as the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16), runs west from Lloydminster in eastern Alberta, through Edmonton and Jasper National Park into British Columbia. One of the most scenic drives is along the Icefields Parkway, which runs for 228 km between Jasper and Lake Louise, with mountain ranges and glaciers on either side of its entire length.

Another major corridor through central Alberta is Highway 11 (also known as the David Thompson Highway), which runs east from the Saskatchewan River Crossing in Banff National Park through Rocky Mountain House and Red Deer, connecting with Highway 12 20 km west of Stettler. The highway connects many of the smaller towns in central Alberta with Calgary and Edmonton, as it crosses Highway 2 just west of Red Deer.

Urban stretches of Alberta's major highways and freeways are often called trails. For example, Highway 2, the main north-south highway in the province, is called Deerfoot Trail as it passes through Calgary but becomes Calgary Trail (for southbound traffic) and Gateway Boulevard (for northbound traffic) as it enters Edmonton and then turns into St. Albert Trail as it leaves Edmonton for the City of St. Albert. Calgary, in particular, has a tradition of calling its largest urban expressways trails and naming many of them after prominent First Nations individuals and tribes, such as Crowchild Trail, Deerfoot Trail, and Stoney Trail.
Calgary Transit C-Train 
Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge have substantial public transit systems. In addition to buses, Calgary and Edmonton operate light rail transit (LRT) systems. Edmonton LRT, which is underground in the downtown core and on the surface outside the CBD, was the first of the modern generation of light rail systems to be built in North America, while the Calgary C-Train has one of the highest number of daily riders of any LRT system in North America.

Alberta is well-connected by air, with international airports in both Calgary and Edmonton. Calgary International Airport and Edmonton International Airport are the fourth and fifth busiest in Canada respectively. Calgary's airport is a hub for WestJet Airlines and a regional hub for Air Canada. Calgary's airport primarily serves the Canadian prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) for connecting flights to British Columbia, eastern Canada, 15 major US centres, nine European airports, one Asian airport and four destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean. Edmonton's airport acts as a hub for the Canadian north and has connections to all major Canadian airports as well as 10 major US airports, 3 European airports and 6 Mexican and Caribbean airports. 

There are more than 9000 km of operating mainline railway; the Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway companies operate railway freight across the province. Passenger trains include Via Rail's Canadian (Toronto-Vancouver) or Jasper-Prince Rupert trains, which use the CN mainline and pass through Jasper National Park and parallel the Yellowhead Highway during at least part of their routes. The Rocky Mountaineer operates two sections: one from Vancouver to Banff and Calgary over CP tracks, and a section that travels over CN tracks to Jasper.

== Health care ==

Alberta Children's Hospital, Calgary

Alberta provides a publicly funded health care system, Alberta Health Services, for all its citizens and residents as set out by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984. Alberta became Canada's second province (after Saskatchewan) to adopt a Tommy Douglas-style program in 1950, a precursor to the modern medicare system.

Alberta's health care budget is currently $17.1 billion during the 2013–2014 fiscal year (approximately 45% of all government spending), making it the best funded health care system per-capita in Canada. Every hour more than $1.9 million is spent on health care in the province. 

University of Alberta Hospital complex
Notable health, education, research, and resources facilities in Alberta, all of which are located within Calgary or Edmonton:

;Calgary
*Alberta Children's Hospital 
*Foothills Medical Centre
*Grace Women's Health Centre 
*Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta
*Peter Lougheed Centre
*Rockyview General Hospital
*Tom Baker Cancer Centre 
*University of Calgary Medical Centre (UCMC)

;Edmonton
*Alberta Diabetes Institute
*Cross Cancer Institute
*Edmonton Clinic
*Grey Nuns Hospital
*Lois Hole Hospital for Women
*Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute
*Misericordia Hospital
*Rexall Centre for Pharmacy and Health Research
*Royal Alexandra Hospital
*Stollery Children's Hospital
*University of Alberta Hospital

The Edmonton Clinic complex, completed in 2012, provides a similar research, education, and care environment as the Mayo Clinic in the United States. 

All public health care services funded by the Government of Alberta are delivered operationally by Alberta Health Services. AHS is the province's single health authority established on July 1, 2008, which replaced nine local health authorities. AHS also funds all ground ambulance services in the province, as well as the province-wide STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society) air ambulance service. 

== Education ==

Heritage Hall at SAIT Polytechnic
As with any Canadian province, the Alberta Legislature has (almost) exclusive authority to make laws respecting education. Since 1905 the Legislature has used this capacity to continue the model of locally elected public and separate school boards which originated prior to 1905, as well as to create and/or regulate universities, colleges, technical institutions and other educational forms and institutions (public charter schools, private schools, home schooling).

=== Elementary schools ===
There are forty-two public school jurisdictions in Alberta, and seventeen operating separate school jurisdictions. Sixteen of the operating separate school jurisdictions have a Catholic electorate, and one (St. Albert) has a Protestant electorate. In addition, one Protestant separate school district, Glen Avon, survives as a ward of the St. Paul Education Region. The City of Lloydminster straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan border, and both the public and separate school systems in that city are counted in the above numbers: both of them operate according to Saskatchewan law.

For many years the provincial government has funded the greater part of the cost of providing K–12 education. Prior to 1994 public and separate school boards in Alberta had the legislative authority to levy a local tax on property as a supplementary support for local education. In 1994 the government of the province eliminated this right for public school boards, but not for separate school boards. Since 1994 there has continued to be a tax on property in support of K–12 education; the difference is that the mill rate is now set by the provincial government, the money is collected by the local municipal authority and remitted to the provincial government. The relevant legislation requires that all the money raised by this property tax must go to the support of K–12 education provided by school boards. The provincial government pools the property tax funds from across the province and distributes them, according to a formula, to public and separate school jurisdictions and Francophone authorities.

Public and separate school boards, charter schools, and private schools all follow the Program of Studies and the curriculum approved by the provincial department of education (Alberta Education). Homeschool tutors may choose to follow the Program of Studies or develop their own Program of Studies. Public and separate schools, charter schools, and approved private schools all employ teachers who are certificated by Alberta Education, they administer Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma Examinations set by Alberta Education, and they may grant high school graduation certificates endorsed by Alberta Education.

=== Universities ===

St. Joseph’s College at the University of Alberta

The University of Alberta, established in Edmonton in 1908, is Alberta's oldest and largest university. The University of Calgary, once affiliated with the University of Alberta, gained its autonomy in 1966 and is now the second largest university in Alberta. There is also Athabasca University, which focuses on distance learning, and the University of Lethbridge, both of which are located in their title cities.

In early September 2009, Mount Royal University became Calgary's second public university, and in late September 2009, a similar move made MacEwan University Edmonton's second public university. There are 15 colleges that receive direct public funding, along with two technical institutes, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. 

There is also a large and active private sector of post-secondary institutions, mostly Christian Universities, bringing the total number of universities to twelve, plus a DeVry University in Calgary, the only location in Canada. Students may also receive government loans and grants while attending selected private institutions. There has been some controversy in recent years over the rising cost of post-secondary education for students (as opposed to taxpayers). In 2005, Premier Ralph Klein made a promise that he would freeze tuition and look into ways of reducing schooling costs. So far, no plan has been released by the Government of Alberta.

== Culture ==

The Calgary Stampede
Summer brings many festivals to the province of Alberta, especially in Edmonton. The Edmonton Fringe Festival is the world's second largest after the Edinburgh Festival. Both Calgary and Edmonton host a number of annual festivals and events including folk music festivals. The city's "heritage days" festival sees the participation of over 70 ethnic groups. Edmonton's Churchill Square is home to a large number of the festivals, including the large Taste of Edmonton & The Works Art & Design Festival throughout the summer months.

The City of Calgary is also famous for its Stampede, dubbed "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth." The Stampede is Canada's biggest rodeo festival and features various races and competitions, such as calf roping and bull riding. In line with the western tradition of rodeo are the cultural artisans that reside and create unique Alberta western heritage crafts.

The Banff Centre hosts a range of festivals and other events including the international Mountain Film Festival. These cultural events in Alberta highlight the province's cultural diversity. Most of the major cities have several performing theatre companies who entertain in venues as diverse as Edmonton's Arts Barns and the Francis Winspear Centre for Music. Both Calgary and Edmonton are home to Canadian Football League and National Hockey League teams. Soccer, rugby union and lacrosse are also played professionally in Alberta.

== Friendship partners ==

Alberta has relationships with several provinces, states, and other entities worldwide. 

* Gangwon-do, South Korea (1974) 
* Hokkaido, Japan (1980)
* Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China (1981)
* Montana, United States (1985)
* Tyumen, Russia (1992)
* Khanty–Mansi, Russia (1995)
* Yamalo-Nenets, Russia (1997)
* Jalisco, Mexico (1999)
* Alaska, United States (2002)
* Saxony, Germany (2002)
* Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine (2004)
* Lviv, Ukraine (2005)

==See also==
* Outline of Alberta
* Index of Alberta-related articles

== References ==

== Further reading ==

* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

== External links ==

* Government of Alberta website
* 
* Provincial Archives of Alberta website
* Alberta Encyclopedia
* CBC Digital Archives—Striking Oil in Alberta
* CBC Digital Archives—Electing Dynasties: Alberta Campaigns 1935 to 2001
* CBC Digital Archives—Alberta @ 100

 



[[List of anthropologists]]

==A==
*John Adair
*Giulio Angioni
*Talal Asad
*Timothy Asch

==B==
*Florence Babb
* Nigel Barley
*Fredrik Barth
*Vasily Bartold
*Keith H. Basso
*Daisy Bates
*Ruth Behar
*Ruth Benedict
*Lee Berger
*Theodore C. Bestor
*Lewis Binford
*Wilhelm Bleek
*Anton Blok
*Tom Boellstorff
* Franz Boas
*Dmitri Bondarenko
*Pere Bosch-Gimpera
*Pierre Bourdieu
*Brent Berlin
*Paul Broca
*Sir Peter Buck

==C==
*Mauro Campagnoli
*Edmund Carpenter
*Napoleon Chagnon
*Alberto Mario Cirese
*Pierre Clastres
*Carleton S. Coon
*Frank Hamilton Cushing
*Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

==D==
*Regna Darnell
*Raymond Dart
*Ella Cara Deloria
*Raymond J. DeMallie
*Ernesto de Martino
*Stanley Diamond
*Mary Douglas
*Eugene Dubois
*Katherine Dunham
*Ann Dunham
*Sam Dunn
*Émile Durkheim

==E==
*E. E. Evans-Pritchard
*Arturo Escobar

==F==
*Raymond Firth
*Raymond D. Fogelson
*Meyer Fortes
*Dian Fossey
*Michel Foucault
*James Frazer
*James Ferguson

==G==
*Geri-Ann Galanti
*Clifford Geertz
*Alfred Gell
*Ernest Gellner
*Max Gluckman
*Maurice Godelier
*Jane Goodall
*David Graeber
*Hilma Granqvist
*J. Patrick Gray
*Marcel Griaule
*Jacob Grimm
*Wilhelm Grimm

==H==
*Michael Harkin
*Michael Harner
*John P. Harrington
*Marvin Harris
*Jacquetta Hawkes
*Edgar Lee Hewett
*Arthur Maurice Hocart
*Earnest Hooton
*Robin W.G. Horton draft
*Ian Hodder
*E. Adamson Hoebel
*Aleš Hrdlička
*Patrick Hunout—no page to link to --
*Zora Neale Hurston
*Dell Hymes

==I==
*Miyako Inoue (linguistic anthropologist)

==J==
*John M. Janzen
*William Jones (philologist)

==K==
*Sergei Kan
*Jomo Kenyatta
*David Kertzer
*Anatoly Khazanov
*Richard G. Klein
*Dorinne K. Kondo
*Andrey Korotayev
*Conrad Kottak
*Grover Krantz
*Charles H. Kraft
*Alfred L. Kroeber
*Theodora Kroeber
*Lars Krutak
*Adam Kuper

==L==
*William Labov
*George Lakoff
*Harold E. Lambert
*Louise Lamphere
* Edmund Leach
*Murray Leaf
*Louis Leakey
*Mary Leakey
*Richard Leakey
*Richard Borshay Lee
*Charles Miller Leslie
*Claude Lévi-Strauss
*Robert Lowie
*Nancy Lurie

== M ==

* Alan Macfarlane
* Saba Mahmood
* Bronisław Malinowski
* Fran Mascia-Lees
* George Marcus
* John Alden Mason
* Marcel Mauss
* Phillip McArthur
* Margaret Mead
* Mervyn Meggitt
* Josef Mengele
* Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay — Asia-Pacific (Maclay Coast, Papua New-Guinea; Australia]
* Emily Martin
* Sidney Mintz
* Ashley Montagu
* James Mooney
* John H. Moore
* Lewis H. Morgan
* George Murdock

== N ==

* Laura Nader
* Raoul Naroll
* Erland Nordenskiöld
* Jeremy Narby
* Henrietta L. Moore

== O ==

* Gananath Obeyesekere
* Marvin Opler
* Morris Opler
* Sherry Ortner
* Keith F. Otterbein

== P ==

* Bruce Parry (television show host)
* Elsie Clews Parsons
* Bronislav Pilsudski
* Hortense Powdermaker
* A.H.J. Prins
* Harald E.L. Prins

== Q ==

* James Quesada

==R==
*Paul Rabinow
*Wilhelm Radloff
*Roy Rappaport
*Hans Ras
*Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
*Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
*Kathy Reichs
*Audrey Richards
*W. H. R. Rivers
*Paul Rivet
*Eric Ross
*Gayle Rubin
*Robert A. Rubinstein

==S==
*Marshall Sahlins
*Roger Sandall
*Edward Sapir
*Nancy Scheper-Hughes
*Wilhelm Schmidt
*Tobias Schneebaum
*Thayer Scudder
*Elman Service
*Afanasy Shchapov
*Cathy Small
*Jacques Soustelle
*Melford Spiro
*James Spradley
*Julian Steward
*Pradip Kumar Singh
*Herbert Spencer
*Marilyn Strathern
*William Sturtevant
*Niara Sudarkasa

==T==
*Michael Taussig
*Edward Burnett Tylor
*Colin Turnbull
*Terence Turner
*Victor Turner
*Bruce Trigger

==U==

==V==
*Verrier Elwin
*Karl Verner
*L. P. Vidyarthi

==W==
*Alyise Waterston
* Camilla Wedgwood
*Hank Wesselman
*Douglas R. White
*Leslie White
*Tim White
*Benjamin Whorf
*Unni Wikan
*Clark Wissler
*Eric Wolf
*Sol Worth

==Y==

==Z==
*R. Tom Zuidema

==Fictional anthropologists==
Michael Shanks as Daniel Jackson
*Mary Albright (Jane Curtin) in the Sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun
*Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) in the television series Bones
*Temperance Brennan in the novel series Temperance Brennan by Kathy Reichs
*Chakotay (Robert Beltran) in the television series 
*Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks, James Spader) in the television series and film Stargate SG-1
*Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) in the television series Lost

Anthropologists
 

[[Actinopterygii]]

The Actinopterygii , or ray-finned fishes, constitute a class or subclass of the bony fishes. 

The ray-finned fishes are so called because they possess lepidotrichia or "fin rays", their fins being webs of skin supported by bony or horny spines ("rays"), as opposed to the fleshy, lobed fins that characterize the class Sarcopterygii which also, however, possess lepidotrichia. These actinopterygian fin rays attach directly to the proximal or basal skeletal elements, the radials, which represent the link or connection between these fins and the internal skeleton (e.g., pelvic and pectoral girdles). 

In terms of numbers, actinopterygians are the dominant class of vertebrates, comprising nearly 99% of the over 30,000 species of fish. (Davis, Brian 2010). They are ubiquitous throughout freshwater and marine environments from the deep sea to the highest mountain streams. Extant species can range in size from Paedocypris, at 8 mm, to the massive ocean sunfish, at 2300 kg, and the long-bodied oarfish, at 11 m.

==Characteristics==

A - dorsal fin: B - fin rays: C - lateral line: D - kidney: E - swim bladder: F - Weberian apparatus: G - inner ear: H - brain: I - nostrils: L - eye: M - gills: N - heart O - stomach: P - gall bladder: Q - spleen: R - internal sex organs (ovaries or testes): S - ventral fins: T - spine: U - anal fin: V - tail (caudal fin). Possible other parts not shown: barbels, adipose fin, external genitalia (gonopodium)

Ray-finned fishes occur in many variant forms. The main features of a typical ray-finned fish are shown in the diagram at the left.

 Fin arrangements 
 Ray-finned fish are varied in size, shape and the arrangement and number of their ray-fins. See fish fin. File:Bluefin-big.jpg|Tuna are streamlined for straight line speed with a deeply forked tail File:Xiphias gladius1.jpg|The swordfish is even faster and more streamlined than the tuna File:Salmo salar GLERL 1.jpg|Salmon generate enough thrust with their powerful tail fin to jump obstacles during river migrations File:Atlantic cod.jpg|Cod have three dorsal and two anal fins, which give them great maneuverability File:Bluecat5A.jpg|Catfish File:Ancylopsetta dilecta 2.jpg|Flatfish have developed partially symmetric dorsal and pelvic fins File:Sturgeon2.jpg|Sturgeon File:Diaphus metopoclampus.jpg|Lanternfish File:Gonostoma elongatum.jpg|Elongated bristlemouth File:Anoplogaster cornuta 2.jpg|Fangtooth are indifferent swimmer who try and ambush their prey File:Melanocetus johnsonii.jpg|The first spine of the dorsal fin of anglerfish is modified like a fishing rod with a lure File:Beryx decadactylus.jpg|Alfonsino trying to get out of this gallery File:King of herrings.png|King of herrings File:Drawing of Lepidopus caudatus from The Royal Natural History (1896).jpg|Cutlassfish File:Conger conger Gervais.jpg|European conger are ray-finned fish File:Sea Horse 1 PSF S-820006.png| So are sea horses File:Betta fish white.jpg|White Siamese fighting fish File:Mirror dory.png|Mirror dory File:Lion Fish.JPG|The venomous lion fish File:Tiger fish in tank.JPG|Tiger fish 

==Fossil record==
right

The earliest known fossil actinopterygiian is Andreolepis hedei, dating back 420 million years (Late Silurian). Remains have been found in Russia, Sweden, and Estonia. Palaeobase 

==Classification==
Traditionally actinopterygians have been divided into the subclasses Chondrostei and Neopterygii. Neopterygii, in turn, have been divided into the infraclasses Holostei and Teleostei. Some morphological evidence suggests the Neopterygii is paraphyletic; however, recent work, based on taxon orders, is arranged in what has been suggested to represent the evolutionary sequence down to the level of order, based primarily on the long history of morphological studies. This classification, like any other taxonomy based on phylogenetic research, has been in a state of flux. Recent morphological and molecular data have shown several of these ordinal and higher-level groupings represent evolutionary grades rather than clades. Examples of demonstrably paraphyletic groups include the Paracanthopterygii, Scorpaeniformes, and Perciformes. Studies of the nonteleostean actinopterygians shows that polypterids (bichirs and ropefish) are the sister lineage of all other actinopterygians (Actinopteri), Acipenseriformes (sturgeons and paddlefishes) are the sister lineage of Neopterygii, and Holostei (bowfin and gars) are the sister lineage of teleosts. The Elopomorpha (eels and tarpons) appears to be the most basic teleosts. Resolution of ray-finned fish phylogeny and timing of diversification 

 Chondrostei 140pxAtlantic sturgeon Chondrostei (cartilage bone) are primarily cartilaginous fish showing some ossification. There are 52 species divided among two orders, the Acipenseriformes (sturgeons (pictured) and paddlefishes) and the Polypteriformes (reedfishes and bichirs). It is thought that the ancestors of the chondrosteans were bony fish but that this characteristic was lost in later evolutionary development, resulting in a lightening of the frame. Elderly chondrosteans show beginnings of ossification of the skeleton which suggests that this process is delayed rather than lost in these fish. This group has at times been classified with the sharks: the similarities are obvious, not only do the chondrosteans mostly lack bone, the structure of the jaw is more akin to that of sharks than other bony fish, and both lack scales (excluding the Polypteriforms). Additional shared features include spiracles and, in sturgeons, a heterocercal tail (the vertebrae extend into the larger lobe of the caudal fin). However the fossil record suggests that these fish have more in common with the Teleostei than their external appearance might suggest. Chondrostei is paraphyletic meaning that this subclass does not contain all the descendants of their common ancestor; reclassification of the Chondrostei is therefore not out of the question. 
 Neopterygii 140pxAtlantic salmon Neopterygii (new fins) appeared somewhere in the Late Permian, before the time of the dinosaurs. There are only few changes during their evolution from the earlier actinopterygians. They are a very successful group of fishes, because they can move more rapidly than their ancestors. Their scales and skeletons began to lighten during their evolution, and their jaws became more powerful and efficient. While electroreception and the ampullae of Lorenzini is present in all other groups of fish, with the exception of hagfish, Neopterygii has lost this sense, though it later re-evolved within Gymnotiformes and catfishes, who possess nonhomologous teleost ampullae. 

Skeleton of the angler fish, Lophius piscatorius. The first spine of the dorsal fin of the anglerfish is modified so it functions like a fishing rod with a lure
Skeleton of another ray-finned fish, the lingcod
Hypsospondylus fossil 

The listing below follows FishBase with notes when this differs from Nelson and ITIS. 

* Subclass Chondrostei
** Order Polypteriformes, bichirs and reedfishes In Nelson, Polypteriformes is placed in its own subclass Cladistia. 
** Order Acipenseriformes, sturgeons and paddlefishes
** Order Cheirolepidiformes(†)
** Order Guildayichthyiformes(†)
** Order Luganoiiformes(†)
** Order Palaeonisciformes(†)
** Order Perleidiformes(†)
** Order Phanerorhynchiformes(†)
** Order Pholidopleuriformes(†)
** Order Ptycholepiformes(†)
** Order Saurichthyiformes(†)
** Order Tarrasiiformes(†)
* Subclass Neopterygii
** Infraclass Holostei
*** Order Lepisosteiformes, gars
*** Order Amiiformes, bowfins
** Infraclass Teleostei
*** Superorder Osteoglossomorpha
**** Order Osteoglossiformes, bony-tongued fishes
**** Order Hiodontiformes, mooneye and goldeye
*** Superorder Elopomorpha
**** Order Elopiformes, ladyfishes and tarpon
**** Order Albuliformes, bonefishes
**** Order Notacanthiformes, halosaurs and spiny eels
**** Order Anguilliformes, true eels
**** Order Saccopharyngiformes, gulper eel
*** Superorder Clupeomorpha
**** Order Clupeiformes, herrings and anchovies
*** Superorder Ostariophysi
**** Order Gonorynchiformes, milkfishes
**** Order Cypriniformes, barbs, carp, danios, goldfishes, loaches, minnows, rasboras
**** Order Characiformes, characins, pencilfishes, hatchetfishes, piranhas, tetras, dourado / golden (genus Salminus) and pacu
**** Order Gymnotiformes, electric eels and knifefishes
**** Order Siluriformes, catfishes
*** Superorder Protacanthopterygii
**** Order Argentiniformes, barreleyes and slickheads (formerly in Osmeriformes)
**** Order Salmoniformes, salmon and trout
**** Order Esociformes pike
**** Order Osmeriformes, smelts and galaxiids
*** Superorder Stenopterygii (may belong in Protacanthopterygii)
**** Order Ateleopodiformes, jellynose fish
**** Order Stomiiformes, bristlemouths and marine hatchetfishes
*** Superorder Cyclosquamata (may belong in Protacanthopterygii)
**** Order Aulopiformes, Bombay duck and lancetfishes
*** Superorder Scopelomorpha
**** Order Myctophiformes, lanternfishes
*** Superorder Lampridiomorpha
**** Order Lampriformes, oarfish, opah and ribbonfishes
*** Superorder Polymyxiomorpha
**** Order Polymixiiformes, beardfishes
*** Superorder Paracanthopterygii
**** Order Percopsiformes, cavefishes and trout-perches
**** Order Batrachoidiformes, toadfishes
**** Order Lophiiformes, anglerfishes
**** Order Gadiformes, cods
**** Order Ophidiiformes, pearlfishes
*** Superorder Acanthopterygii
**** Order Mugiliformes, mullets
**** Order Atheriniformes, silversides and rainbowfishes
**** Order Beloniformes, flyingfishes
**** Order Cetomimiformes, whalefishes
**** Order Cyprinodontiformes, livebearers, killifishes
**** Order Stephanoberyciformes, ridgeheads
**** Order Beryciformes, fangtooths and pineconefishes
**** Order Zeiformes, dories
**** Order Gobiesociformes, clingfishes In ITIS, Gobiesociformes is placed as the suborder Gobiesocoidei of the order Perciformes. 
**** Order Gasterosteiformes, sticklebacks
**** Order Syngnathiformes, seahorses and pipefishes In Nelson and ITIS, Syngnathiformes is placed as the suborder Syngnathoidei of the order Gasterosteiformes. 
**** Order Synbranchiformes, swamp eels
**** Order Tetraodontiformes, filefishes and pufferfish
**** Order Pleuronectiformes, flatfishes
**** Order Scorpaeniformes, scorpionfishes and the sculpins
**** Order Perciformes, 40% of all fish, including anabantids, centrarchids (including bass and sunfish), cichlids, gobies, gouramis, mackerel, tuna, perches, scats, whiting, wrasses, bettas
* Incertae sedis
** Order Peltopleuriformes(†)

==Notes==

==External links==

* 
* Actinopterygii at UntamedScience.com
* Jonna, R. (2004) Actinopterygii Animal Diversity Web. Updated 29 August 2006. Accessed 2 February 2013.

 


[[Al Gore/Criticisms]]

#redirect Al Gore



[[Albert Einstein]]

Albert Einstein (; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). Zahar, Élie (2001), Poincaré's Philosophy. From Conventionalism to Phenomenology, Carus Publishing Company, Chapter 2, p.41, ISBN 0-8126-9435-X. He is best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula 1=E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"). David Bodanis, E = mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (New York: Walker, 2000). He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory.

Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the large-scale structure of the universe. "Scientific Background on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2011. The accelerating universe." (page 2) Nobelprize.org. 

He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to Germany, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He settled in the U.S., becoming an American citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that the U.S. begin similar research. This eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported defending the Allied forces, but largely denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.

Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works. His non-scientific works include: About Zionism: Speeches and Lectures by Professor Albert Einstein (1930), "Why War?" (1933, co-authored by Sigmund Freud), The World As I See It (1934), Out of My Later Years (1950), and a book on science for the general reader, The Evolution of Physics (1938, co-authored by Leopold Infeld). His great intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius. WordNet for Einstein. 

==Biography==

===Early life and education===

Einstein at the age of three in 1882
Albert Einstein in 1893 (age 14)
Einstein's matriculation certificate at the age of 17, showing his final grades from the Argovian cantonal school (aargauische Kantonsschule, on a scale of 1-6, with 6 being the best mark).

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire on 14 March 1879. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein (née Koch). In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current. 

The Einsteins were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews. Albert attended a Catholic elementary school from the age of five for three years. At the age of eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium (now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium), where he received advanced primary and secondary school education until he left Germany seven years later. Contrary to popular suggestions that he had struggled with early speech difficulties, the Albert Einstein Archives indicate he excelled at the first school that he attended. He was right-handed; there appears to be no evidence for the widespread popular belief that he was left-handed.

His father once showed him a pocket compass; Einstein realized that there must be something causing the needle to move, despite the apparent "empty space". As he grew, Einstein built models and mechanical devices for fun and began to show a talent for mathematics. When Einstein was ten years old, Max Talmud (later changed to Max Talmey), a poor Jewish medical student from Poland, was introduced to the Einstein family by his brother. During weekly visits over the next five years, he gave the boy popular books on science, mathematical texts and philosophical writings. These included Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Euclid's Elements (which Einstein called the "holy little geometry book"). M. Talmey, The Relativity Theory Simplified and the Formative Period of its Inventor. Falcon Press, 1932, pp. 161–164. Dudley Herschbach, "Einstein as a Student", Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, pp. 4–5, web: HarvardChem-Einstein-PDF 

In 1894, his father's company failed: direct current (DC) lost the War of Currents to alternating current (AC). In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and then, a few months later, to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning. At the end of December 1894, he travelled to Italy to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note. A. Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 1997, pp. 30–31. It was during his time in Italy that he wrote a short essay with the title "On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field." Albert Einstein Collected Papers, vol. 1 (1987), doc. 5. 

In 1895, at the age of sixteen, Einstein sat the entrance examinations for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH). He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the examination, Einstein Collected Papers, Vol. 1 (1987, eds. J. Stachel et al.), p. 11 but obtained exceptional grades in physics and mathematics. A. Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 1997, pp. 36–37. On the advice of the Principal of the Polytechnic, he attended the Argovian cantonal school (gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1895–96 to complete his secondary schooling. While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. (Albert's sister Maja later married Wintelers' son Paul.) In January 1896, with his father's approval, he renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service. A. Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 1997, p. 40. In September 1896, he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of 6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1-6, Collected Papers, vol. 1, docs. 21-27. and, though only seventeen, enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Zürich Polytechnic. Marie Winteler moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post.

Einstein's future wife, Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the Polytechnic that same year, the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić's friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900, Einstein was awarded the Zürich Polytechnic teaching diploma, but Marić failed the examination with a poor grade in the mathematics component, theory of functions. Albert Einstein Collected Papers, vol. 1, 1987, doc. 67. There have been claims that Marić collaborated with Einstein on his celebrated 1905 papers, Troemel-Ploetz, D., "Mileva Einstein-Marić: The Woman Who Did Einstein's Mathematics", Women's Studies Int. Forum, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 415–432, 1990. but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions. Pais, A., Einstein Lived Here, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 1–29. Holton, G., Einstein, History, and Other Passions, Harvard University Press, 1996, pp. 177–193. Stachel, J., Einstein from B to Z, Birkhäuser, 2002, pp. 26–38; 39–55. philoscience.unibe.ch Martinez, A. A., "Handling evidence in history: the case of Einstein's Wife." School Science Review, 86 (316), March 2005, pp. 49–56. PDF 

===Marriages and children===
Albert Einstein in 1904
With the discovery and publication in 1987 of an early correspondence between Einstein and Marić it became known that they had a daughter they called "Lieserl" in their letters, born in early 1902 in Novi Sad where Marić was staying with her parents. Marić returned to Switzerland without the child, whose real name and fate are unknown. Einstein probably never saw his daughter, and the contents of a letter he wrote to Marić in September 1903 suggest that she was either adopted or died of scarlet fever in infancy. J. Renn & R. Schulmann, Albert Einstein/Mileva Marić: The Love Letters, 1992, pp. 73–74, 78. A. Calaprice & T. Lipscombe, Albert Einstein: A Biography, 2005, pp. 22–23. 

Elsa Einstein with her husband.
Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, the couple's first son, Hans Albert Einstein, was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their second son, Eduard, was born in Zurich in July 1910. In 1914, Einstein moved to Berlin, while his wife remained in Zurich with their sons. They divorced on 14 February 1919, having lived apart for five years.

Einstein married Elsa Löwenthal on 2 June 1919, after having had a relationship with her since 1912. She was his first cousin maternally and his second cousin paternally. In 1933, they emigrated to the United States. In 1935, Elsa Einstein was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems and died in December 1936. 

===Patent office===
Left to right: Conrad Habicht, Maurice Solovine and Einstein, who founded the Olympia Academy

After graduating, Einstein spent almost two frustrating years searching for a teaching post. He acquired Swiss citizenship in February 1901, Fölsing 1997, p. 82. but was not conscripted for medical reasons. With the help of Marcel Grossmann's father Einstein secured a job in Bern at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, the patent office, Biography of Grossmann by Mactutor as an assistant examiner. Now the . See also their He evaluated patent applications for electromagnetic devices. In 1903, Einstein's position at the Swiss Patent Office became permanent, although he was passed over for promotion until he "fully mastered machine technology". Peter Galison, "Einstein's Clocks: The Question of Time" Critical Inquiry 26, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 355–389. 

Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time. Peter Galison, "Einstein's Clocks: The Question of Time" Critical Inquiry 26, no. 2 (Winter 2000). 

With a few friends he had met in Bern, Einstein started a small discussion group, self-mockingly named "The Olympia Academy", which met regularly to discuss science and philosophy. Their readings included the works of Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, and David Hume, which influenced his scientific and philosophical outlook.

===Academic career===
Einstein's official 1921 portrait after receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics
In 1901, his paper "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen" ("Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena") was published in the prestigious Annalen der Physik. On 30 April 1905, Einstein completed his thesis, with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, serving as pro-forma advisor. Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zürich. His dissertation was entitled "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions." This paper included Einstein's initial estimates of Avogadro constant as based on diffusion coefficients and viscosities of sugar solutions in water. That same year, which has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis (miracle year), he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to bring him to the notice of the academic world.

By 1908, he was recognized as a leading scientist, and he was appointed lecturer at the University of Bern. The following year, he quit the patent office and the lectureship to take the position of physics docent at the University of Zürich. He became a full professor at Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1911. Also in 1911, corrections of algebraic errors in his thesis brought Einstein's Avogadro constant estimate to . In 1914, he returned to Germany after being appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (1914–1932) Kant, Horst. "Albert Einstein and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin". in Renn, Jürgen. "Albert Einstein – Chief Engineer of the Universe: One Hundred Authors for Einstein." Ed. Renn, Jürgen. Wiley-VCH. 2005. pp. 166–169. ISBN 3-527-40574-7 and a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin, with a special clause in his contract that freed him from most teaching obligations. He became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1916, Einstein was appointed president of the German Physical Society (1916–1918). , Timeline, p. xix
 Heilbron, 2000, p. 84. 

During 1911, he had calculated that, based on his new theory of general relativity, light from another star would be bent by the Sun's gravity. That prediction was claimed confirmed by observations made by a British expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. International media reports of this made Einstein world famous. On 7 November 1919, the leading British newspaper The Times printed a banner headline that read: "Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown". 

In 1921, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, as relativity was considered still somewhat controversial. He also received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1925. 

===Travels abroad, 1921-1922===
Einstein in New York, 1921, his first visit to the United States
Einstein visited New York City for the first time on 2 April 1921, where he received an official welcome by Mayor John Francis Hylan, followed by three weeks of lectures and receptions. He went on to deliver several lectures at Columbia University and Princeton University, and in Washington he accompanied representatives of the National Academy of Science on a visit to the White House. On his return to Europe he was the guest of the British statesman and philosopher Viscount Haldane in London, where he met several renowned scientific, intellectual and political figures, and delivered a lecture at King's College. Hoffman and Dukas (1972), pp. 145–148; Fölsing (1997), pp. 499–508. 

He also published an essay, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.," in July 1921, in which he tried briefly to describe some characteristics of Americans, much as Alexis de Tocqueville did, who published his own impressions in Democracy in America (1835). "As Einstein Sees American", Einstein's World, a 1931 reprint with minor changes, of his 1921 essay. For some of his observations, Einstein was clearly surprised: "What strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life . . . The American is friendly, self-confident, optimistic, and without envy." 

In 1922, his travels took him to Asia and later to Palestine, as part of a six-month excursion and speaking tour. He visited Singapore, Ceylon and Japan, where he gave a series of lectures to thousands of Japanese. His first lecture in Tokyo lasted four hours, after which he met the emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace, where thousands came to watch. Einstein later gave his impressions of the Japanese in a letter to his sons: "Of all the people I have met, I like the Japanese most, as they are modest, intelligent, considerate, and have a feel for art." Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster (2007) 

On his return voyage, he also visited Palestine for 12 days in what would become his only visit to that region. "He was greeted with great British pomp, as if he were a head of state rather than a theoretical physicist", writes Isaacson. This included a cannon salute upon his arrival at the residence of the British high commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel. During one reception given to him, the building was "stormed by throngs who wanted to hear him". In Einstein's talk to the audience, he expressed his happiness over the event:

===Travel to U.S., 1930-1931===

In December 1930, Einstein visited America for the second time, originally intended as a two-month working visit as a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. After the national attention he received during his first trip to the U.S., he and his arrangers aimed to protect his privacy. Although swamped with telegrams and invitations to receive awards or speak publicly, he declined them all. 

Charlie Chaplin and Einstein at the Hollywood premier of City Lights, January 1931
After arriving in New York City, Einstein was taken to various places and events, including Chinatown, a lunch with the editors of the New York Times, and a performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was cheered by the audience on his arrival. During the days following, he was given the keys to the city by Mayor Jimmy Walker and met the president of Columbia University, who described Einstein as "the ruling monarch of the mind." Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor at New York's Riverside Church, gave Einstein a tour of the church and showed him a full-size statue the church made of Einstein, standing at the entrance. Also during his stay in New York, he joined a crowd of 15,000 people at Madison Square Garden during a Hanukkah celebration. 

Einstein next traveled to California where he met Caltech president and Nobel laureate, Robert A. Millikan. His friendship with Millikan was "awkward", as Millikan "had a penchant for patriotic militarism," where Einstein was a pronounced pacifist. During an address to Caltech's students, Einstein noted that science was often inclined to do more harm than good. 

This aversion to war also led Einstein to befriend author Upton Sinclair and film star Charlie Chaplin, both noted for their pacifism. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal Studios, gave Einstein a tour of his studio and introduced him to Chaplin. They had an instant rapport, with Chaplin inviting Einstein and his wife, Elsa, to his home for dinner. Chaplin recalled Einstein as being amiable, calm, but with energy driven by an underlying emotionality. Chaplin, Charles. Charles Chaplin: My Autobiography, Simon and Schuster, N.Y. (1964) 

Chaplin also remembers Elsa telling him about the time Einstein conceived his theory of relativity. During breakfast one morning, he seemed lost in thought and ignored his food. She asked him if something was bothering him. He sat down at his piano and started playing. He continued playing and writing notes for half an hour, then went upstairs to his study, where he remained for two weeks, with Elsa bringing up his food. At the end of the two weeks he came downstairs with two sheets of paper bearing his theory. 

Chaplin's film, City Lights, was to premier a few days later in Hollywood, and Chaplin invited Einstein and Elsa to join him as his special guest. Considered by Isaacson as "one of the most memorable scenes in the new era of celebrity," he describes the event with "Einstein and Chaplin arriving together, dressed in black tie, with Elsa beaming." They were applauded as they entered the theater. Chaplin visited Einstein during a later trip to Berlin, and recalled his "modest little flat" and the piano at which he had begun writing his theory. Chaplin speculated that it was "possibly used as kindling wood by the Nazis." 

===Emigration to U.S. in 1933===
Cartoon of Einstein, who has shed his "Pacifism" wings, standing next to a pillar labeled "World Peace." He is rolling up his sleeves and holding a sword labeled "Preparedness" (by Charles R. Macauley, circa 1933).
In February 1933 while on a visit to the United States, Einstein knew he could not to return to Germany with the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Fölsing (1997), p. 659. Isaacson (2007), p. 404. In a letter that month, he wrote, "Because of Hitler, I don't dare step on German soil." 

While at American universities in early 1933, he undertook his third two-month visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He and his wife Elsa returned to Belgium by ship in March, and during the trip they learned that their cottage was raided by the Nazis and his personal sailboat confiscated. Upon landing in Antwerp on 28 March, he immediately went to the German consulate and turned in his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship. A few years later, the Nazis sold his boat and turned his cottage into an Aryan youth camp. , PBS 

====Refugee status====
In April 1933, he also discovered that the new German government had passed laws barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities. Historian Gerald Holton describes how, with "virtually no audible protest being raised by their colleagues," thousands of Jewish scientists were suddenly forced to give up their university positions and their names were removed from the rolls of institutions where they were employed. Holton, Gerald. "The migration of physicists to the United States", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1984 pp. 18-24 

A month later, Einstein's works were among those targeted by Nazi book burnings, with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proclaiming, "Jewish intellectualism is dead." Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster (2007) pp. 407–410 Einstein also learned that his name was on a list of assassination targets, with a "$5,000 bounty on his head." One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged". In a subsequent letter to physicist and friend, Max Born, who had already emigrated from Germany to England, Einstein wrote, "... I must confess that the degree of their brutality and cowardice came as something of a surprise." After moving to the U.S., he described the book burnings as a "spontaneous emotional outburst" by those who "shun popular enlightenment," and "more than anything else in the world, fear the influence of men of intellectual independence." Einstein, Albert, Ideas and Opinions, New York: Random House, 1954 ISBN 0-517-00393-7 

Einstein was now without a permanent home, unsure where he would live and work, and equally worried about the fate of countless other scientists still in Germany. He rented a house in Belgium where he lived for a few months. In late July 1933, he went to England for about six weeks at the personal invitation of British Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, who became friends with Einstein in the preceding years. Locker-Lampson took Einstein to meet Winston Churchill at his home, and later, Austen Chamberlain and former Prime Minister Lloyd George. Einstein asked them to help bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. Churchill responded immediately, notes British historian Martin Gilbert, and sent his friend, physicist Frederick Lindemann to Germany to seek out Jewish scientists and place them in British universities. Gilbert, Martin. Churchill and the Jews, Henry Holt and Company, N.Y. (2007) pp. 101, 176 Churchill later declared that as a result of Germany having driven the Jews out, they lowered their "technical standards," and had put allied technology ahead of theirs. 

Einstein also contacted leaders of other nations, including Turkey's Prime Minister, İsmet İnönü, who he wrote in September 1933 requesting placement of unemployed German-Jewish scientists. A Turkish newspaper headline in 2006, entitled "A Request From the Great Genius to the Young Republic," by historian Murat Bardakçı, was commemorating Turkey's 83rd anniversary as a Republic. As a result of Einstein's letter, Jewish invitees in 1933 numbered 30, later grew to over 190 scientists, and eventually totaled over "1,000 saved individuals." Reisman, Arnold. "What a Freshly Discovered Einstein Letter Says About Turkey Today", History News Network,, George Masons University, Nov. 20, 2006 One writer credits Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with welcoming them to their universities while other countries, including the U.S., were still hesitating. "Albert Einstein letter to İsmet İnönü, Premier of Turkey in 1933", Istanbullite.com, Nov. 8, 2010 

Locker-Lampson submitted a bill to parliament to extend British citizenship to Einstein, with Einstein then making a number of public appearances to explain the crisis brewing in Europe. At one such event at the Royal Albert Hall, he was "wildly cheered" by a packed audience. "3 October 1933 – Albert Einstein speaks at the Hall", Royalalberthall.com, Oct. 9, 2013 Upon introducing the bill to Parliament, Locker-Lampson told its members that Germany was "destroying its culture and threatening the safety of its greatest thinkers," writes Isaacson. Locker-Lampson stated that "She has turned out her most glorious citizen. . . . How proud this country must be to have offered him shelter at Oxford." The bill failed to become law, however, and Einstein then decided to accept an earlier offer he received from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study to be a resident scholar. 

====Resident scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study====
Portrait taken in 1935 in Princeton
In October 1933 he returned to the U.S. and took up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study (in Princeton, New Jersey). Fölsing (1997), pp. 649, 678. The institute had become a refuge for scientists fleeing Nazi Germany. At the time most American universities including Harvard, Princeton and Yale, had minimal Jewish faculty and students as a result of their Jewish quota, which lasted until the late 1940s, after WWII had ended. 

He was still undecided on his future (he had offers from European universities, including Oxford), but in 1935 he arrived at the decision to remain permanently in the United States and apply for citizenship. Fölsing (1997), pp. 686–687. 

His affiliation with the Institute for Advanced Study would last until his death in 1955. 
He was one of the four first selected (two of the others being John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel) at the new Institute, where he soon developed a close friendship with Gödel. The two would take long walks together discussing their work. His last assistant was Bruria Kaufman, who later became a physicist. During this period, Einstein tried to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics, both unsuccessfully.

Other scientists also fled to America. Among them were Nobel laureates and professors of theoretical physics. With so many other Jewish scientists now forced by circumstances to live in America, often working side by side, Einstein wrote to a friend, "For me the most beautiful thing is to be in contact with a few fine Jews—a few millennia of a civilized past do mean something after all." In another letter he writes, "In my whole life I have never felt so Jewish as now." 

====World War II and the Manhattan Project====
In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist Leó Szilárd attempted to alert Washington of ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon." Gosling, F.G. The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb, U.S. Department of Energy, History Division (January 1999) p. vii On July 12, 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner visited Einstein Page 198–200 in and they explained the possibility of atomic bombs, to which pacifist Einstein replied: Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht ("I had not thought of that at all"). Page 199 in Einstein was persuaded to lend his prestige by writing a letter with Szilárd to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility. The letter also recommended that the U.S. government pay attention to and become directly involved in uranium research and associated chain reaction research.

The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II". Diehl, Sarah J.; Moltz, James Clay. Nuclear Weapons and Nonproliferation: a Reference Handbook, ABC-CLIO (2008) p. 218 In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family Pages 15–16 in and the Belgian queen mother to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office. President Roosevelt could not take the risk of allowing Hitler to possess atomic bombs first. As a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the U.S. entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. It became the only country to successfully develop an atomic bomb during World War II.

For Einstein, "war was a disease ... he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt he went against his pacifist principles. In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them ..." Einstein: The Life and Times by Ronald Clark. page 752 

====US citizenship====
Einstein accepting U.S. citizenship certificate from judge Phillip Forman
Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career at the Institute for Advanced Study (in Princeton, New Jersey), he expressed his appreciation of the "meritocracy" in American culture when compared to Europe. According to Isaacson, he recognized the "right of individuals to say and think what they pleased", without social barriers, and as a result, the individual was "encouraged" to be more creative, a trait he valued from his own early education. Einstein wrote: 

Einstein worked in 1943 and 1944 as a $25-per-day consultant to the Research and Development Division of the U.S. Navy's Division of Ordnance. He wrote to Stephen Brunauer, the research chemist who recruited him, that he hoped to avoid visits to Washington, D.C., "knowing that I would be very much molested by snobbish people". Robin Higham, "Academic Intelligence", Military Affairs, vol. 50, no. 3 (July 1986), 148-155, quote 153 

===Personal life===
====Supporter of civil rights====
Einstein actively supported racial tolerance and joined National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Princeton, where he campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease," Jerome, Fred, and Taylor, Rodger. Einstein on Race and Racism Rutgers University Press, (2006) seeing it as "handed down from one generation to the next." Calaprice, Alice (2005) The new quotable Einstein. pp.148–149 Princeton University Press, 2005. See also Odyssey in Climate Modeling, Global Warming, and Advising Five Presidents As part of his involvement, he corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on his behalf during his trial in 1951. When Einstein offered to be a character witness for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case. 

Einstein giving lecture at Lincoln University, 1946
Einstein in 1947
Einstein witnessed prejudice first hand after seeing famed black opera singer, Marian Anderson, perform at Princeton's concert hall in 1937. When he learned that an inn at Princeton turned her away because of her race, he invited her to stay at his home, which she did. Two years later, in 1939, when she was barred from singing at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., she instead gave a free concert at the Lincoln Memorial in front of 75,000 people, after which she again stayed with Einstein. She was a guest in his home until shortly before he died in 1955, when she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. About that visit, she later wrote, "I knew this was really good-bye." 

Princeton at that time was segregated, writes historian Rodger Taylor, noting that no high schools there admitted blacks. Black singer-activist Paul Robeson, who was born in Princeton, developed a friendship with Einstein. They had in common a mutual concern about racism and fascism in Europe, and worked together on the American Crusade to End Lynching. Their friendship, which lasted 20 years, had been slated to be the subject of a film, starring Danny Glover as Robeson and Ben Kingsley as Einstein. After a visit with Einstein at his home, Robeson said, "For me, there is something inspiring about the leading part played by Dr. Einstein in this blast for freedom." Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson Speaks, Citadel (2002) p. 333 

In 1946 Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he was awarded an honorary degree. Lincoln was the first university to grant college degrees to blacks, including Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. To its students, Einstein gave a speech about racism in America, adding, “I do not intend to be quiet about it.” “Albert Einstein, Civil Rights activist”, Harvard Gazette, April 12, 2007 A resident of Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student, and black physicist Sylvester James Gates states that Einstein had been one of his early science heroes, later finding out about Einstein's support for civil rights. 

====Assisting Zionist causes====
Einstein was a figurehead leader in helping establish Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which opened in 1925, and was among its first Board of Governors. Earlier, in 1921, he was asked by the president of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, to help raise funds for the planned university. He also submitted various suggestions as to its initial programs.

Among those, he advised first creating an Institute of Agriculture in order to settle the undeveloped land. That should be followed, he suggested, by a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology, to fight the various ongoing epidemics such as Malaria, which he called an "evil" that was undermining a third of the country's development. Establishing an Oriental Studies Institute, to include language courses given in both Hebrew and Arabic, for scientific exploration of the country and its historical monuments, was also important. Rowe, David E. and Schulmann, Robert, editors. Einstein on Politics, Princeton University Press (2007) In a published essay in August 1921, he wrote:

After the death of Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, in November 1952, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a mostly ceremonial post. The offer was presented by Israel's ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer "embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons". Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was "deeply moved", and "at once saddened and ashamed" that he could not accept it:

All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official function. I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship with the Jewish people became my strongest human tie once I achieved complete clarity about our precarious position among the nations of the world. 

====Love of music====

Einstein developed an appreciation of music at an early age. His mother played the piano reasonably well and wanted her son to learn the violin, not only to instill in him a love of music but also to help him assimilate German culture. According to conductor Leon Botstein, Einstein is said to have begun playing when he was five, but did not enjoy it at that age. 

When he turned thirteen he discovered the violin sonatas of Mozart. "Einstein fell in love" with Mozart's music, notes Botstein, and learned to play music more willingly. According to Einstein, he taught himself to play without "ever practicing systematically", adding that "Love is a better teacher than a sense of duty." Botstein, Leon; Galison, Peter; Holton, Gerald James; Schweber, Silvan S. Einstein for the 21st century: His Legacy in Science, Art, and Modern Culture, Princeton Univ. Press (2008) pp. 161–164 At age seventeen, he was heard by a school examiner in Aarau as he played Beethoven's violin sonatas, the examiner stating afterward that his playing was "remarkable and revealing of 'great insight.'" What struck the examiner, writes Botstein, was that Einstein "displayed a deep love of the music, a quality that was and remains in short supply. Music possessed an unusual meaning for this student." 

Botstein notes that music assumed a pivotal and permanent role in Einstein's life from that period on. Although the idea of becoming a professional himself was not on his mind at any time, among those with whom Einstein played chamber music were a few professionals, and he performed for private audiences and friends. Chamber music also became a regular part of his social life while living in Bern, Zürich, and Berlin, where he played with Max Planck and his son, among others. In 1931, while engaged in research at the California Institute of Technology, he visited the Zoellner family conservatory in Los Angeles and played some of Beethoven and Mozart's works with members of the Zoellner Quartet, recently retired from two decades of acclaimed touring all across the United States; Einstein later presented the family patriarch with an autographed photograph as a memento. Cariaga, Daniel, "Not Taking It with You: A Tale of Two Estates," Los Angeles Times, 22 December 1985. Retrieved April 2012. Auction listing by RR Auction, auction closed 13 October 2010. Near the end of his life, when the young Juilliard Quartet visited him in Princeton, he played his violin with them; although they slowed the tempo to accommodate his lesser technical abilities, Botstein notes the quartet was "impressed by Einstein's level of coordination and intonation." 

====Political and religious views====

Albert Einstein with his wife Elsa Einstein and Zionist leaders, including future President of Israel Chaim Weizmann, his wife Vera Weizmann, Menahem Ussishkin, and Ben-Zion Mossinson on arrival in New York City in 1921.

Einstein's political view was in favor of socialism and critical of capitalism, which he detailed in his essays such as "Why Socialism?". Einstein offered and was called on to give judgments and opinions on matters often unrelated to theoretical physics or mathematics. 

Einstein's views about religious belief have been collected from interviews and original writings.

He called himself an agnostic, while disassociating himself from the label atheist. Isaacson, Walter (2008). Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, pp. 390. He said he believed in the "pantheistic" God of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief he criticized. Einstein, Albert "Gelegentliches", Soncino Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1929, p. 9 "This firm belief, a belief bound up with a deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as "pantheistic" (Spinoza)." Hoffmann, Banesh (1972). Albert Einstein Creator and Rebel. New York: New American Library, p. 95. "It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly." 

===Death===
On 17 April 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Dr. Rudolph Nissen in 1948. He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it. 

Einstein refused surgery, saying: "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly." He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.

During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, removed Einstein's brain for preservation without the permission of his family, in the hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent. Einstein's remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. 

In his lecture at Einstein's memorial, nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of him as a person: "He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness ... There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn." Stern, Fritz. Essay, "Einstein's Germany", E = Einstein: His Life, His Thought, and His Influence on Our Culture, Sterling Publishing (2006) pp. 97–118 

==Scientific career==
The photoelectric effect. Incoming photons on the left strike a metal plate (bottom), and eject electrons, depicted as flying off to the right.
Throughout his life, Einstein published hundreds of books and articles. In addition to the work he did by himself he also collaborated with other scientists on additional projects including the Bose–Einstein statistics, the Einstein refrigerator and others. "Einstein archive at the Instituut-Lorentz". Instituut-Lorentz. 2005. Retrieved on 21 November 2005. 

===1905 – Annus Mirabilis papers===

The Annus Mirabilis papers are four articles pertaining to the photoelectric effect (which gave rise to quantum theory), Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and E = mc2 that Albert Einstein published in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal in 1905. These four works contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. The four papers are:

 Title (translated) Area of focus Received Published Significance 
 On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light Photoelectric effect 18 March 9 June Resolved an unsolved puzzle by suggesting that energy is exchanged only in discrete amounts (quanta). This idea was pivotal to the early development of quantum theory. 
 On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat Brownian motion 11 May 18 July Explained empirical evidence for the atomic theory, supporting the application of statistical physics. 
 On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies Special relativity 30 June 26 September Reconciled Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light, resulting from analysis based on empirical evidence that the speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer. Discredited the concept of a \"luminiferous ether.\" 
 Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? Matter–energy equivalence 27 September 21 November Equivalence of matter and energy, 1=E = mc2 (and by implication, the ability of gravity to \"bend\" light), the existence of \"rest energy\", and the basis of nuclear energy. 

===Thermodynamic fluctuations and statistical physics===

Albert Einstein's first paper submitted in 1900 to Annalen der Physik was on capillary attraction. It was published in 1901 with the title "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen", which translates as "Conclusions from the capillarity phenomena". Two papers he published in 1902–1903 (thermodynamics) attempted to interpret atomic phenomena from a statistical point of view. These papers were the foundation for the 1905 paper on Brownian motion, which showed that Brownian movement can be construed as firm evidence that molecules exist. His research in 1903 and 1904 was mainly concerned with the effect of finite atomic size on diffusion phenomena. 

===General principles===
He articulated the principle of relativity. This was understood by Hermann Minkowski to be a generalization of rotational invariance from space to space-time. Other principles postulated by Einstein and later vindicated are the principle of equivalence and the principle of adiabatic invariance of the quantum number.

===Theory of relativity and E = mc²===

Einstein's "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper" ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") was received on 30 June 1905 and published 26 September of that same year. It reconciles Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics, by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. This later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity.

Consequences of this include the time-space frame of a moving body appearing to slow down and contract (in the direction of motion) when measured in the frame of the observer. This paper also argued that the idea of a luminiferous aether—one of the leading theoretical entities in physics at the time—was superfluous. 

In his paper on mass–energy equivalence, Einstein produced E = mc2 from his special relativity equations. Einstein's 1905 work on relativity remained controversial for many years, but was accepted by leading physicists, starting with Max Planck. For a discussion of the reception of relativity theory around the world, and the different controversies it encountered, see the articles in Thomas F. Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Relativity (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1987), ISBN 90-277-2498-9. 

===Photons and energy quanta===

In a 1905 paper, Einstein postulated that light itself consists of localized particles (quanta). Einstein's light quanta were nearly universally rejected by all physicists, including Max Planck and Niels Bohr. This idea only became universally accepted in 1919, with Robert Millikan's detailed experiments on the photoelectric effect, and with the measurement of Compton scattering.

Einstein concluded that each wave of frequency f is associated with a collection of photons with energy hf each, where h is Planck's constant. He does not say much more, because he is not sure how the particles are related to the wave. But he does suggest that this idea would explain certain experimental results, notably the photoelectric effect. . 

===Quantized atomic vibrations===

In 1907, Einstein proposed a model of matter where each atom in a lattice structure is an independent harmonic oscillator. In the Einstein model, each atom oscillates independently—a series of equally spaced quantized states for each oscillator. Einstein was aware that getting the frequency of the actual oscillations would be different, but he nevertheless proposed this theory because it was a particularly clear demonstration that quantum mechanics could solve the specific heat problem in classical mechanics. Peter Debye refined this model. Celebrating Einstein "Solid Cold". U.S. DOE., Office of Scientific and Technical Information, 2011. 

===Adiabatic principle and action-angle variables===

Throughout the 1910s, quantum mechanics expanded in scope to cover many different systems. After Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus and proposed that electrons orbit like planets, Niels Bohr was able to show that the same quantum mechanical postulates introduced by Planck and developed by Einstein would explain the discrete motion of electrons in atoms, and the periodic table of the elements.

Einstein contributed to these developments by linking them with the 1898 arguments Wilhelm Wien had made. Wien had shown that the hypothesis of adiabatic invariance of a thermal equilibrium state allows all the blackbody curves at different temperature to be derived from one another by a simple shifting process. Einstein noted in 1911 that the same adiabatic principle shows that the quantity which is quantized in any mechanical motion must be an adiabatic invariant. Arnold Sommerfeld identified this adiabatic invariant as the action variable of classical mechanics.

===Wave–particle duality===
Einstein during his visit to the United States

Although the patent office promoted Einstein to Technical Examiner Second Class in 1906, he had not given up on academia. In 1908, he became a Privatdozent at the University of Bern. 
In "über die Entwicklung unserer Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung" ("The Development of our Views on the Composition and Essence of Radiation"), on the quantization of light, and in an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein showed that Max Planck's energy quanta must have well-defined momenta and act in some respects as independent, point-like particles. This paper introduced the photon concept (although the name photon was introduced later by Gilbert N. Lewis in 1926) and inspired the notion of wave–particle duality in quantum mechanics. Einstein saw this wave-particle duality in radiation as concrete evidence for his conviction that physics needed a new, unified foundation.

===Theory of critical opalescence===

Einstein returned to the problem of thermodynamic fluctuations, giving a treatment of the density variations in a fluid at its critical point. Ordinarily the density fluctuations are controlled by the second derivative of the free energy with respect to the density. At the critical point, this derivative is zero, leading to large fluctuations. The effect of density fluctuations is that light of all wavelengths is scattered, making the fluid look milky white. Einstein relates this to Rayleigh scattering, which is what happens when the fluctuation size is much smaller than the wavelength, and which explains why the sky is blue. Levenson, Thomas. "Einstein's Big Idea". Public Broadcasting Service. 2005. Retrieved on 25 February 2006. Einstein quantitatively derived critical opalescence from a treatment of density fluctuations, and demonstrated how both the effect and Rayleigh scattering originate from the atomistic constitution of matter.

===Zero-point energy===

Einstein's physical intuition led him to note that Planck's oscillator energies had an incorrect zero point. He modified Planck's hypothesis by stating that the lowest energy state of an oscillator is equal to hf, to half the energy spacing between levels. This argument, which was made in 1913 in collaboration with Otto Stern, was based on the thermodynamics of a diatomic molecule which can split apart into two free atoms.

===General relativity and the equivalence principle===

Eddington's photograph of a solar eclipse.
General relativity (GR) is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses. General relativity has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics. It provides the foundation for the current understanding of black holes, regions of space where gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can escape.

As Albert Einstein later said, the reason for the development of general relativity was that the preference of inertial motions within special relativity was unsatisfactory, while a theory which from the outset prefers no state of motion (even accelerated ones) should appear more satisfactory. Albert Einstein, Nobel lecture in 1921 Consequently, in 1908 he published an article on acceleration under special relativity. In that article, he argued that free fall is really inertial motion, and that for a freefalling observer the rules of special relativity must apply. This argument is called the Equivalence principle. In the same article, Einstein also predicted the phenomenon of gravitational time dilation. In 1911, Einstein published another article expanding on the 1907 article, in which additional effects such as the deflection of light by massive bodies were predicted.

===Hole argument and Entwurf theory===

While developing general relativity, Einstein became confused about the gauge invariance in the theory. He formulated an argument that led him to conclude that a general relativistic field theory is impossible. He gave up looking for fully generally covariant tensor equations, and searched for equations that would be invariant under general linear transformations only.

In June 1913, the Entwurf ("draft") theory was the result of these investigations. As its name suggests, it was a sketch of a theory, with the equations of motion supplemented by additional gauge fixing conditions. Simultaneously less elegant and more difficult than general relativity, after more than two years of intensive work Einstein abandoned the theory in November 1915 after realizing that the hole argument was mistaken. van Dongen, Jeroen (2010) Einstein's Unification Cambridge University Press, p.23. 

===Cosmology===

In 1917, Einstein applied the General theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole. He apprehended that his equations predicted the universe to be either contracting or expanding. He wanted the universe to be eternal and unchanging, but this type of universe is not consistent with relativity. To fix this, Einstein modified the general theory by introducing a new notion, the cosmological constant, which he called ''Lambda''. On 135th Birthday, Einstein still full of surprises, Discover Magazine Blog, Retrieved 14 March 2014 The purpose of Lambda was to rectify the effects of gravity and allow the whole system to stay balanced. With a positive cosmological constant, the universe could be an eternal static sphere. However, in 1929, Edwin Hubble confirmed that the universe is expanding, Einstein exclaimed after his Mount Wilson visit with Hubble: "If there is no quasi-static world, then away with the cosmological term!" Quote Reference for Cosmo-Constant, Google Books Archive From static to expanding model of universe-Quote Reference on Cosmo-Constant, SPS, May 2012 and Einstein supposedly discarded the cosmological constant.

Einstein believed a spherical static universe is philosophically preferred, because it would obey Mach's principle. He had shown that general relativity incorporates Mach's principle to a certain extent in frame dragging by gravitomagnetic fields, but he knew that Mach's idea would not work if space goes on forever. In a closed universe, he believed that Mach's principle would hold. Mach's principle has generated much controversy over the years.

In many of Einstein biographies, writers claim that he called the creation of Lambda his "biggest blunder". Recently, astrophysicist Mario Livio showed that Einstein possibly never said that. 'Brilliant BLunders' by Mario Livio, The New York TImes, Retireved 9 June 2013 Instead of discarding Lambda, Einstein was continually experimenting with it. Einstein's lost Theory uncovered: Physicist explored the idea of a steady-state Universe in 1931., Nature, Retrieved 24 February 2014 

In late 2013, Irish physicist Cormac O'Raifeartaigh, happened to discover a handwritten manuscript by Einstein which was since then overlooked by other scientists. The research paper was titled ''"Zum kosmologischen Problem"'' ("About the Cosmological Problem"). arXiv Archive of Einsteins Paper 1 arXiv Archive of Einsteins Paper 1 And Einstein proposed a revision of his model, still with a cosmological constant, but now the constant was responsible for the creation of new matter as the universe expanded. Thus, the average density of the system never changed. He stated in the paper, ''"In what follows, I would like to draw attention to a solution to equation (1) that can account for Hubbel's facts, and in which the density is constant over time." And: "If one considers a physically bounded volume, particles of matter will be continually leaving it. For the density to remain constant, new particles of matter must be continually formed in the volume from space."''

This is consistent with the now-obsolete Steady State model of cosmology, proposed later in 1949, and with today's modern understanding of dark energy. Einstein's lost theory describes a Universe without a Big Bang, Retrieved 7 March 2014 

===Modern quantum theory===

Newspaper headline on May 4, 1935
Einstein was displeased with quantum theory and mechanics (the very theory he helped create), despite its acceptance by other physicists, stating that God "is not playing at dice." , Extract of page 499 Einstein continued to maintain his disbelief in the theory, and attempted unsuccessfully to disprove it until he died at the age of 76. Video: The Elegant Universe: Part 1 | Watch NOVA Online | PBS Video. Video.pbs.org. Retrieved on 11 May 2012. In 1917, at the height of his work on relativity, Einstein published an article in Physikalische Zeitschrift that proposed the possibility of stimulated emission, the physical process that makes possible the maser and the laser. 
This article showed that the statistics of absorption and emission of light would only be consistent with Planck's distribution law if the emission of light into a mode with n photons would be enhanced statistically compared to the emission of light into an empty mode. This paper was enormously influential in the later development of quantum mechanics, because it was the first paper to show that the statistics of atomic transitions had simple laws.
Einstein discovered Louis de Broglie's work, and supported his ideas, which were received skeptically at first. In another major paper from this era, Einstein gave a wave equation for de Broglie waves, which Einstein suggested was the Hamilton–Jacobi equation of mechanics. This paper would inspire Schrödinger's work of 1926.

===Bose–Einstein statistics===

In 1924, Einstein received a description of a statistical model from Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, based on a counting method that assumed that light could be understood as a gas of indistinguishable particles. Einstein noted that Bose's statistics applied to some atoms as well as to the proposed light particles, and submitted his translation of Bose's paper to the Zeitschrift für Physik. Einstein also published his own articles describing the model and its implications, among them the Bose–Einstein condensate phenomenon that some particulates should appear at very low temperatures. It was not until 1995 that the first such condensate was produced experimentally by Eric Allin Cornell and Carl Wieman using ultra-cooling equipment built at the NIST–JILA laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Bose–Einstein statistics are now used to describe the behaviors of any assembly of bosons. Einstein's sketches for this project may be seen in the Einstein Archive in the library of the Leiden University. 

===Energy momentum pseudotensor===

General relativity includes a dynamical spacetime, so it is difficult to see how to identify the conserved energy and momentum. Noether's theorem allows these quantities to be determined from a Lagrangian with translation invariance, but general covariance makes translation invariance into something of a gauge symmetry. The energy and momentum derived within general relativity by Noether's presecriptions do not make a real tensor for this reason.

Einstein argued that this is true for fundamental reasons, because the gravitational field could be made to vanish by a choice of coordinates. He maintained that the non-covariant energy momentum pseudotensor was in fact the best description of the energy momentum distribution in a gravitational field. This approach has been echoed by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, and others, and has become standard.

The use of non-covariant objects like pseudotensors was heavily criticized in 1917 by Erwin Schrödinger and others.

===Unified field theory===

Following his research on general relativity, Einstein entered into a series of attempts to generalize his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism as another aspect of a single entity. In 1950, he described his "unified field theory" in a Scientific American article entitled "On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation". Although he continued to be lauded for his work, Einstein became increasingly isolated in his research, and his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
In his pursuit of a unification of the fundamental forces, Einstein ignored some mainstream developments in physics, most notably the strong and weak nuclear forces, which were not well understood until many years after his death. Mainstream physics, in turn, largely ignored Einstein's approaches to unification. Einstein's dream of unifying other laws of physics with gravity motivates modern quests for a theory of everything and in particular string theory, where geometrical fields emerge in a unified quantum-mechanical setting.

===Wormholes===

Einstein collaborated with others to produce a model of a wormhole. His motivation was to model elementary particles with charge as a solution of gravitational field equations, in line with the program outlined in the paper "Do Gravitational Fields play an Important Role in the Constitution of the Elementary Particles?". These solutions cut and pasted Schwarzschild black holes to make a bridge between two patches.

If one end of a wormhole was positively charged, the other end would be negatively charged. These properties led Einstein to believe that pairs of particles and antiparticles could be described in this way.

===Einstein–Cartan theory===

Einstein at his office, University of Berlin, 1920In order to incorporate spinning point particles into general relativity, the affine connection needed to be generalized to include an antisymmetric part, called the torsion. This modification was made by Einstein and Cartan in the 1920s.

===Equations of motion===

The theory of general relativity has a fundamental law—the Einstein equations which describe how space curves, the geodesic equation which describes how particles move may be derived from the Einstein equations.

Since the equations of general relativity are non-linear, a lump of energy made out of pure gravitational fields, like a black hole, would move on a trajectory which is determined by the Einstein equations themselves, not by a new law. So Einstein proposed that the path of a singular solution, like a black hole, would be determined to be a geodesic from general relativity itself.

This was established by Einstein, Infeld, and Hoffmann for pointlike objects without angular momentum, and by Roy Kerr for spinning objects.

===Other investigations===

Einstein conducted other investigations that were unsuccessful and abandoned. These pertain to force, superconductivity, gravitational waves, and other research.

===Collaboration with other scientists===
The 1927 Solvay Conference in Brussels, a gathering of the world's top physicists. Einstein in the center.
In addition to longtime collaborators Leopold Infeld, Nathan Rosen, Peter Bergmann and others, Einstein also had some one-shot collaborations with various scientists.

====Einstein–de Haas experiment====

Einstein and De Haas demonstrated that magnetization is due to the motion of electrons, nowadays known to be the spin. In order to show this, they reversed the magnetization in an iron bar suspended on a torsion pendulum. They confirmed that this leads the bar to rotate, because the electron's angular momentum changes as the magnetization changes. This experiment needed to be sensitive, because the angular momentum associated with electrons is small, but it definitively established that electron motion of some kind is responsible for magnetization.

====Schrödinger gas model====
Einstein suggested to Erwin Schrödinger that he might be able to reproduce the statistics of a Bose–Einstein gas by considering a box. Then to each possible quantum motion of a particle in a box associate an independent harmonic oscillator. Quantizing these oscillators, each level will have an integer occupation number, which will be the number of particles in it.

This formulation is a form of second quantization, but it predates modern quantum mechanics. Erwin Schrödinger applied this to derive the thermodynamic properties of a semiclassical ideal gas. Schrödinger urged Einstein to add his name as co-author, although Einstein declined the invitation. 

====Einstein refrigerator====

In 1926, Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd co-invented (and in 1930, patented) the Einstein refrigerator. This absorption refrigerator was then revolutionary for having no moving parts and using only heat as an input. Goettling, Gary. Einstein's refrigerator Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. 1998. Retrieved on 21 November 2005. Leó Szilárd, a Hungarian physicist who later worked on the Manhattan Project, is credited with the discovery of the chain reaction On 11 November 1930, was awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for the refrigerator. Their invention was not immediately put into commercial production, as the most promising of their patents were quickly bought up by the Swedish company Electrolux to protect its refrigeration technology from competition. In September 2008 it was reported that Malcolm McCulloch of Oxford University was heading a three-year project to develop more robust appliances that could be used in locales lacking electricity, and that his team had completed a prototype Einstein refrigerator. He was quoted as saying that improving the design and changing the types of gases used might allow the design's efficiency to be quadrupled. 

===Bohr versus Einstein===

Einstein and Niels Bohr, 1925 The Bohr–Einstein debates were a series of public disputes about quantum mechanics between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr who were two of its founders. Their debates are remembered because of their importance to the philosophy of science. From Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949), publ. Cambridge University Press, 1949. Niels Bohr's report of conversations with Einstein. . A reprint of this book was published by Edition Erbrich in 1982, ISBN 3-88682-005-X 

===Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox===

In 1935, Einstein returned to the question of quantum mechanics. He considered how a measurement on one of two entangled particles would affect the other. He noted, along with his collaborators, that by performing different measurements on the distant particle, either of position or momentum, different properties of the entangled partner could be discovered without disturbing it in any way.

He then used a hypothesis of local realism to conclude that the other particle had these properties already determined. The principle he proposed is that if it is possible to determine what the answer to a position or momentum measurement would be, without in any way disturbing the particle, then the particle actually has values of position or momentum.

This principle distilled the essence of Einstein's objection to quantum mechanics. As a physical principle, it was shown to be incorrect when the Aspect experiment of 1982 confirmed Bell's theorem, which had been promulgated in 1964.

==Non-scientific legacy==
While traveling, Einstein wrote daily to his wife Elsa and adopted stepdaughters Margot and Ilse. The letters were included in the papers bequeathed to The Hebrew University. Margot Einstein permitted the personal letters to be made available to the public, but requested that it not be done until twenty years after her death (she died in 1986 ). Barbara Wolff, of The Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives, told the BBC that there are about 3,500 pages of private correspondence written between 1912 and 1955. 

Corbis, successor to The Roger Richman Agency, licenses the use of his name and associated imagery, as agent for the university. 

==In popular culture==

In the period before World War II, the New York Times published a vignette in their "The Talk of the Town" feature saying that Einstein was so well known in America that he would be stopped on the street by people wanting him to explain "that theory". He finally figured out a way to handle the incessant inquiries. He told his inquirers "Pardon me, sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein." The New Yorker April 1939 pg 69 

Einstein has been the subject of or inspiration for many novels, films, plays, and works of music. He is a favorite model for depictions of mad scientists and absent-minded professors; his expressive face and distinctive hairstyle have been widely copied and exaggerated. Time magazine's Frederic Golden wrote that Einstein was "a cartoonist's dream come true". 

==Awards and honors==

Einstein received numerous awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize in Physics.

==Publications==
: The following publications by Albert Einstein are referenced in this article. A more complete list of his publications may be found at List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein.

* 
* This annus mirabilis paper on the photoelectric effect was received by Annalen der Physik 18 March.
* . This PhD thesis was completed 30 April and submitted 20 July.
* . This annus mirabilis paper on Brownian motion was received 11 May.
* . This annus mirabilis paper on special relativity was received 30 June.
* . This annus mirabilis paper on mass-energy equivalence was received 27 September.
* 
* 
* 
* 
* . First of a series of papers on this topic.
* . On Baer's law and meanders in the courses of rivers.
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* . The chasing a light beam thought experiment is described on pages 48–51.
* Collected Papers: Further information about the volumes published so far can be found on the webpages of the Einstein Papers Project and on the Princeton University Press Einstein Page

==See also==

* Albert Einstein's brain
* Einstein notation
* The Einstein Theory of Relativity (educational film about the theory of relativity)
* Heinrich Burkhardt
* Historical Museum of Bern (Einstein museum)
* History of gravitational theory
* Introduction to special relativity
* List of coupled cousins
* List of German inventors and discoverers
* Jewish Nobel laureates
* List of peace activists
* Relativity priority dispute
* Sticky bead argument

==Notes==

==References==

==Further reading==

* Brian, Denis (1996). Einstein: A Life. New York: John Wiley.
* Clark, Ronald (1971). Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: Avon Books.
* Fölsing, Albrecht (1997): Albert Einstein: A Biography. New York: Penguin Viking. (Translated and abridged from the German by Ewald Osers.) ISBN 978-0-670-85545-2
* 
* Hoffmann, Banesh, with the collaboration of Helen Dukas (1972): Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Ltd. ISBN 978-0-670-11181-7
* Isaacson, Walter (2007): Einstein: His Life and Universe. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York. ISBN 978-0-7432-6473-0
* Moring, Gary (2004): The complete idiot's guide to understanding Einstein ( 1st ed. 2000). Indianapolis IN: Alpha books (Macmillan USA). ISBN 0-02-863180-3
* Pais, Abraham (1982): Subtle is the Lord: The science and the life of Albert Einstein. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-853907-0. The definitive biography to date.
* Pais, Abraham (1994): Einstein Lived Here. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280672-6
* Parker, Barry (2000): Einstein's Brainchild: Relativity Made Relatively Easy!. Prometheus Books. Illustrated by Lori Scoffield-Beer. A review of Einstein's career and accomplishments, written for the lay public. ISBN 978-1-59102-522-1
* Schweber, Sylvan S. (2008): Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02828-9.
* Oppenheimer, J.R. (1971): "On Albert Einstein", p. 8–12 in Science and synthesis: an international colloquium organized by Unesco on the tenth anniversary of the death of Albert Einstein and Teilhard de Chardin, Springer-Verlag, 1971, 208 pp. (Lecture delivered at the UNESCO House in Paris on 13 December 1965.) Also published in The New York Review of Books, 17 March 1966, On Albert Einstein by Robert Oppenheimer

==External links==

*
* 
* 
* Works by Albert Einstein (public domain in Canada)
* Einstein's Personal Correspondence: Religion, Politics, The Holocaust, and Philosophy Shapell Manuscript Foundation
* FBI file on Albert Einstein
* Einstein and his love of music, Physics World
* Albert Einstein on NobelPrize.org
* Albert Einstein, videos on History.com
* – free study course that explores the changing roles of physics and physicists during the 20th century
* Albert Einstein Archives Online (80,000+ Documents) (MSNBC, 19 March 2012)
* Einstein's declaration of intention for American citizenship on the World Digital Library
* Albert Einstein Collection at Brandeis University

 



[[Afghanistan]]

Afghanistan (Pashto/Dari: , Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in Central Asia and South Asia. It has a population of around 30 million inhabiting an area of approximately 652,000 km2, making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.

Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from as far back as the Middle Paleolithic. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3,000 to 2,000 BC. Sitting at an important geostrategic location that connects the Middle East culture with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the land has been home to various peoples through the ages and witnessed many military campaigns, notably by Alexander the Great, Arab Muslims, Genghis Khan, and in modern-era Western forces. The land also served as a source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Mughals, Durranis and others have risen to form major empires. 

The political history of the modern state of Afghanistan begins in 1709 with the rise of the Pashtuns - historically known as "Afghans" - when the Hotaki dynasty was established in Kandahar followed by the rise of the Durrani Empire in 1747. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in the "Great Game" between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the 1919 Anglo-Afghan War, King Amanullah began a European style modernization of the country but was stopped by ultra-conservatives. During the Cold War, after the withdrawal of the British from neighboring India in 1947, the United States and the Soviet Union began spreading influences in Afghanistan, which led in 1979 to a bloody war between the American-backed mujahideen forces and the Soviet-backed Afghan government in which over a million Afghans lost their lives. This was followed by a 1990s civil war, the rise and fall of the extremist Taliban government, and the 2001–present war. In December 2001, the United Nations Security Council authorized the creation of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help maintain security in Afghanistan and assist the Karzai administration. 

Three decades of war made Afghanistan one of the world's most dangerous countries. While the international community is rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan, terrorist groups such as the Haqqani Network and Hezbi Islami are actively involved in a nationwide Taliban-led insurgency, which includes hundreds of assassinations and suicide attacks. According to the United Nations, the insurgents were responsible for 80% of civilian casualties in 2011 and 2012. Afghan civilian casualties haunt U.N. 

==Etymology==

The name Afghānistān (, ) Cowan, William and Jaromira Rakušan. Source Book for Linguistics. 3rd ed. John Benjamins, 1998. means "Land of the Afghans", which originates from the ethnonym "Afghan". Historically, the name "Afghan" mainly designated the Pashtun people, the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan. This name is mentioned in the form of Abgan in the third century CE by the Sassanians and as Avagana (Afghana) in the 6th century CE by Indian astronomer Varahamihira. A people called the Afghans are mentioned several times in a 10th-century geography book, Hudud al-'alam, particularly where a reference is made to a village: "Saul, a pleasant village on a mountain. In it live Afghans." 
The name "Afghaunistan" appearing on an 1847 lithograph by James Rattray.

Al-Biruni referred to them in the 11th century as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of the Indus River, which would be the Sulaiman Mountains. Ibn Battuta, a famous Moroccan scholar visiting the region in 1333, writes: "We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principle mountain is called Kuh Sulayman." One prominent 16th-century Persian scholar explains extensively about the Afghans. For example, he writes:

It is widely acknowledged that the terms "Pashtun" and Afghan are synonyms, something that is even mentioned in the 17th-century poetry of Khushal Khan Khattak: For example, he states: "Pull out your sword and slay any one, that says Pashtun and Afghan are not one! Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans!" Extract from "Passion of the Afghan" by Khushal Khan Khattak; translated by C. Biddulph in Afghan Poetry Of The 17th Century: Selections from the Poems of Khushal Khan Khattak, London, 1890. 

The last part of the name, -stān is a Persian suffix for "place". The name "Afghanistan" is described by the 16th century Mughal Emperor Babur in his memoirs as well as by the later Persian scholar Firishta and Babur's descendants, referring to the traditional ethnic Pashtun territories between the Hindu Kush mountains and the Indus River. In the early 19th century, Afghan politicians decided to adopt the name Afghanistan for the entire Afghan Empire after its English translation had already appeared in various treaties with Qajarid Persia and British India. E. Huntington, "The Anglo-Russian Agreement as to Tibet, Afghanistan, and Persia", Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 39, No. 11 (1907). In 1857, in his review of J.W. Kaye's The Afghan War, Friedrich Engels describes "Afghanistan" as:

The Afghan kingdom was sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Kabul, as mentioned by the British statesman and historian Mountstuart Elphinstone. Elphinstone, M., "Account of the Kingdom of Cabul and its Dependencies in Persia and India", 1815; published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown. Afghanistan was officially recognized as a sovereign state by the international community after the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919 was signed. M. Ali, "Afghanistan: The War of Independence, 1919", 1960. Afghanistan's Constitution of 1923 under King Amanullah Khan (English translation). 

==Geography==

Topography
A landlocked mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest, Afghanistan is described as being located within Central Asia or South Asia. It is part of the US coined Greater Middle East Muslim world, which lies between latitudes 29° N and 39° N, and longitudes 60° E and 75° E. The country's highest point is Noshaq, at 7492 m above sea level. It has a continental climate with very harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast (around Nuristan) and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January is below -15 C, and hot summers in the low-lying areas of the Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin in the east, and the Turkestan plains along the Amu River in the north, where temperatures average over 35 C in July.
Landscapes of Afghanistan, from left to right: 1. Band-e Amir National Park; 2. Salang Pass in Parwan Province; 3. Korangal Valley in Kunar Province; and 4. Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province
Despite having numerous rivers and reservoirs, large parts of the country are dry. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world. Aside from the usual rain falls, Afghanistan receives snow during winter in the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, and the melting snow in the spring season enters the rivers, lakes, and streams. However, two-thirds of the country's water flows into neighboring countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan. The state needs more than to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly managed. 

The northeastern Hindu Kush mountain range, in and around the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, is in a geologically active area where earthquakes may occur almost every year. They can be deadly and destructive sometimes, causing landslides in some parts or avalanche during winter. The last strong earthquakes were in 1998, which killed about 6,000 people in Badakhshan near Tajikistan. This was followed by the 2002 Hindu Kush earthquakes in which over 150 people of various regional countries were killed and over 1,000 injured. The 2010 earthquake left 11 Afghans dead, over 70 injured and more than 2,000 houses destroyed.

The country's natural resources include: coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, rare earth elements, chromite, gold, zinc, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, marble, precious and semi-precious stones, natural gas, and petroleum among other things. In 2010, US and Afghan government officials estimated that untapped mineral deposits located in 2007 by the US Geological Survey are worth between $900 bn and $3 trillion. 

At 652230 km2, Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country, slightly bigger than France and smaller than Burma, about the size of Texas in the United States. It borders Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far east.

==History==

Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. Nancy H. Dupree (1973): An Historical Guide To Afghanistan, Chapter 3 Sites in Perspective. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. 

The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. It has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire and the Islamic Empire.

Many kingdoms have also risen to power in what is now Afghanistan, such as the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Hephthalites, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Kartids, Timurids, Mughals, and finally the Hotaki and Durrani dynasties that marked the political origins of the modern state.

===Pre-Islamic period===

Bilingual (Greek and Aramaic) edict by Emperor Ashoka from the 3rd century BCE was discovered in the southern city of Kandahar.
Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found in Afghanistan. Library of Congress Country Studies on Afghanistan, Pre-Islamic Period, by Craig Baxter (1997). Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. 
One of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Buddhism was widespread in the region before the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
After 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further south to India, west to what is now Iran, and towards Europe via the area north of the Caspian. Bryant, Edwin F. (2001) The quest for the origins of Vedic culture: the Indo-Aryan migration debate Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-513777-4. The region as a whole was called Ariana. Afghanistan: ancient Ariana (1950), Information Bureau, p3. M. Witzel, "The Vīdẽvdaδ list obviously was composed or redacted by someone who regarded Afghanistan and the lands surrounding it as the home of all Indo-Iranians (airiia), that is of all (eastern) Iranians, with Airiianem Vaẽjah as their center." page 48, "The Home Of The Aryans", Festschrift J. Narten = Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, Beihefte NF 19, Dettelbach: J.H. Röll 2000, 283–338. Also published online, at Harvard University (LINK) 

The ancient religion of Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BCE, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Library of Congress Country Studies on Afghanistan, Achaemenid Rule, ca. 550-331 B.C. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenid Persians overthrew the Medes and incorporated what is now Afghanistan (Arachosia, Aria and Bactria) within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. Nancy H. Dupree, An Historical Guide to Kabul 

Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived to the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the area as one of their eastern most territories until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Indian Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans brought Buddhism from India and controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until about 185 BCE when they were overthrown. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest of the region by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from the Greco-Bactrians and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The Indo-Greeks were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.

During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region, but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in modern Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish in what is now Afghanistan. The Kushans were defeated by the Sassanid Persians in the 3rd century CE. Although various rulers calling themselves Kushanshas (generally known as the Indo-Sassanids) continued to rule at least parts of the region, they were probably more or less subject to the Sassanids. Dani, A. H. and B. A. Litvinsky. "The Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom". In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. Litvinsky, B.A., ed., 1996. UNESCO Publishing, pp. 103–118. ISBN 978-92-3-103211-0. 

The late Kushans were followed by the Kidarite Huns Zeimal, E. V. "The Kidarite Kingdom in Central Asia". In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. Litvinsky, B.A., ed., 1996, UNESCO Publishing, pp. 119–133. ISBN 978-92-3-103211-0. who, in turn, were replaced by the short-lived but powerful Hephthalites, as rulers. Litvinsky, B. A. "The Hephthalite Empire". In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. Litvinsky, B.A., ed., 1996, UNESCO Publishing, pp. 135–162. ISBN 978-92-3-103211-0. The Hephthalites were defeated by Khosrau I in 557 CE. However, in the 6th century CE, the successors to the Kushans and Hepthalites established a small dynasty in Kabulistan called Kabul Shahi.

===Islamization and Mongol invasion===

Built during the Ghurids era, the Friday Mosque of Herat or Masjid Jami is one of the oldest mosques in Afghanistan.
Between the 4th and 19th centuries the northwestern area of modern Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name as Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh ) are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. 
Arab Muslims brought the message of Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 AD and began spreading eastward, some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. The people of what is now Afghanistan were multi-religious, which included Buddhists, Zoroastrians, worshippers of the sun, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and others. The Zunbil and Kabul Shahi were defeated in 870 AD by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence into south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power.

What is now Afghanistan became one of the main centers in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. By the 11th century Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni had finally Islamized all of the remaining non-Muslim areas, with the exception of the Kafiristan region. The Ghaznavids were replaced by the Ghurids who expanded and advanced the already powerful empire. In 1219 AD, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khorasanian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. 

The destruction caused by the Mongols depopulated major cities and forced many of the locals to revert to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khilji dynasty controlled the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush, until the invasion of Timur who established the Timurid dynasty in 1370. During the Ghaznavid, Ghurid, and Timurid eras, the region of what is now Afghanistan produced many fine Islamic architectural monuments as well as numerous scientific and literary works.

Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, arrived from Fergana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty, and from there he began to seize control of the central and eastern territories of Afghanistan. He remained in Kabulistan until 1526 when he and his army invaded Delhi in India to replace the Afghan Lodi dynasty with the Mughal Empire. From the 16th century to the early 18th century, the region of nowadays Afghanistan was contested between three kingdoms: the Khanate of Bukhara in the north, the Iranian Safavid dynasty in the west, and the remaining area to the east was ruled by the Mughal Empire. With the Uzbeks decisively defeated by the Safavids, the area was later on only contested between them and the Mughals, in which the powerful Safavids kept clear domination in most of the territory.

===Hotaki dynasty and Durrani Empire===

Mir Wais Hotak, considered as Grandfather of the Nation
Mir Wais Hotak, seen as Afghanistan's George Washington, successfully rebelled against the declining Persian Safavids in 1709. He overthrew and killed the Iranian Georgian governor over the region, Gurgin Khan, and made the Afghan region independent from Persia. By 1713, Mir Wais had decisively defeated two larger Persian armies, one was led by Khusraw Khán (nephew of Gurgin) and the other by Rustam Khán. The armies were sent by Sultan Husayn, the Shah in Isfahan, to re-take control of their eastern most territories, in the Kandahar region. Mir Wais died of a natural cause in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who became a suspect of treason and then killed by Mir Wais' son Mahmud. Knowing that the Safavids were heavily declining, ridden by civil strife, foreign interests and attacks by their arch enemy the Ottomans, Mahmud led his Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan, captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself briefly king of Persia. The Persians rejected the Afghan invaders from the very start, and after the massacre of thousands of religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family, the Hotaki dynasty was ousted and banished from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan. 
Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire and viewed as Father of the Nation.
In 1738, the Iranian military genius Nader Shah and his Afsharid forces captured and destroyed Kandahar, the last Hotaki stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotaki at which point the incarcerated 16-year-old Ahmad Shah Durrani was freed and made the commander of Nader Shah's four thousand Abdali Afghans, joining him in his invasion of India. After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, the Afghans chose Ahmad Shah Durrani as their head of state. Regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan, At their brief peak, Durrani and his Afghan army conquered present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Delhi in India. He defeated the Indian Maratha Empire, one of his biggest victories was the 1761 Battle of Panipat.

In October 1772, Ahmad Shah Durrani died of a natural cause and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah, who transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776. After Timur Shah's death in 1793, the Durrani throne passed down to his son Zaman Shah followed by Mahmud Shah, Shuja Shah and others.

The Afghan Empire was under threat in the early 19th century by the Persians in the west and the British-backed Sikhs in the east. Fateh Khan, leader of the Barakzai tribe, had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. After his death, they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1826. The Punjab region was lost to Ranjit Singh, who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in 1834 captured the city of Peshawar. In 1837, during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass, Akbar Khan and the Afghan army killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during the Great Game was initiated. 

===Western influence===

British and allied forces at Kandahar after the 1880 Battle of Kandahar, during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The large defensive wall around the city was removed in the early 1930s by the order of King Nadir.
Following the 1842 defeat of the British-Indian forces and victory of the Afghans, the British established diplomatic relations with the Afghan government but withdrew all forces from the country. They returned during the Second Anglo-Afghan War in the late 1870s for about two-year military operations, which was to assist Abdur Rahman Khan defeat Ayub Khan. The United Kingdom began to exercise a great deal of influence after this and even controlled the state's foreign policy. In 1893, Mortimer Durand made Amir Abdur Rahman Khan sign a controversial agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line. This was a standard divide and rule policy of the British and would lead to strained relations, especially with the later new state of Pakistan.
Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, who reigned from 1933 to 1973.
King Amanullah sitting next to German President Paul von Hindenburg in February 1928.
After the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community and, following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey, introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923. 

Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in November 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernisation but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a Hazara school student. 

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports and other vital infrastructure. In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan.

===Marxist revolution and Soviet war===

Outside the Arg Presidential Palace in Kabul, a day after the April 1978 Marxist revolution in which President Daoud Khan was assassinated along with his entire family.
In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents of the communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahideen against government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA government. Meanwhile, increasing friction between the competing factions of the PDPA — the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham — resulted in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet members and the arrest of Parchami military officers under the pretext of a Parchami coup. By mid-1979, the United States had started a covert program to assist the mujahideen. 

In September 1979, Khalqist President Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated in a coup within the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. Distrusted by the Soviets, Amin was assassinated by Soviet special forces in December 1979. A Soviet-organized government, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions, filled the vacuum. Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal in more substantial numbers, although the Soviet government did not expect to do most of the fighting in Afghanistan. As a result, however, the Soviets were now directly involved in what had been a domestic war in Afghanistan. 

At the time some believed the Soviets were attempting to expand their borders southward in order to gain a foothold in the Middle East. The Soviet's movement south seemed to position them for further expansion toward Pakistan in the East, and Iran to the West. American politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, feared the Soviets were positioning themselves for a takeover of Middle Eastern oil. Others believed that the Soviet Union was afraid Iran's Islamic Revolution and Afghanistan's Islamization would spread to the millions of Muslims in the USSR. The PDPA prohibited usury, made statements on women's rights by declaring equality of the sexes and introducing women to political life. 

US President Ronald Reagan with a group of mujahideen representatives at the White House in 1983.
After the invasion, President Jimmy Carter announced what became known as the Carter Doctrine: that the US would not allow any other outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf. He terminated the Soviet Wheat Deal in January 1980, which was intended to establish trade with USSR and lessen Cold War tensions. The grain exports had been beneficial to people employed in agriculture, and the Carter embargo marked the beginning of hardship for American farmers. That same year, Carter also made two of the most unpopular decisions of his entire Presidency: prohibiting American athletes from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, and reinstating registration for the draft for young males. Following the Soviet invasion, the United States supported diplomatic efforts to achieve a Soviet withdrawal. In addition, generous US contributions to the refugee program in Pakistan played a major part in efforts to assist Afghan refugees.

The Reagan administration increased arming and funding of the mujahideen as part of the Reagan Doctrine, thanks in large part to the efforts of Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos. Early reports estimated $6–20 billion but more recent reports suggest that up to $40 billion were provided by the United States and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. This was in the forms of cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles.

The 10-year Soviet war resulted in the deaths of over 1 million Afghans, mostly civilians. UNICEF, Land-mines: A deadly inheritance About 6million fled to Pakistan and Iran, and from there tens of thousands began emigrating to the European Union, United States, Australia and other parts of the world. Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties, the Soviets withdrew in 1989 but continued to support Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah until 1992. 

===Foreign interference and war===

After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement (the Peshawar Accords). The accords created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a transitional period to be followed by general elections. According to Human Rights Watch:

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan. Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal concludes in Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival:

A section of Kabul during the civil war in 1993.
In addition, Saudi Arabia and Iran – as competitors for regional hegemony – supported Afghan militias hostile towards each other. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran was backing the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari to "maximize Wahdat's military power and influence". GUTMAN, Roy (2008): How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan, Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, 1st ed., Washington D.C. Saudi Arabia supported the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction. A publication by the George Washington University suggests "outside forces saw instability in Afghanistan as an opportunity to press their own security and political agendas". Conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war.

Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project. Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little security from murder, rape and extortion. An estimated 25,000 people died during the most intense period of bombardment by Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and the Junbish-i Milli forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum, who had created an alliance with Hekmatyar in 1994. Half a million people fled Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch writes:

Southern and eastern Afghanistan was under the control of local commanders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and others. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a political-religious force. Matinuddin, Kamal, The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994–1997, Oxford University Press, (1999), pp. 25–26 When the Taliban took control of the city in 1994, they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders. In 1994, the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan.

In late 1994, most of the militia factions (Hezb-i Islami, Junbish-i Milli and Hezb-i Wahdat) which had been fighting in the battle for control of Kabul were defeated militarily by forces of the Islamic State's Minister of Defense Ahmad Shah Massoud. Bombardment of the capital came to a halt. Amnesty International. "Document – Afghanistan: further information on fear for safety and new concern: Deliberate and arbitrary killings: Civilians in Kabul." 16 November 1995 Accessed at: Amnesty.org The Islamic State government took steps to restore law and order. Courts started to work again. Massoud tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process but they refused as they did not believe in a democratic system. 

===Taliban Emirate and the United Front===

Map of the situation in Afghanistan in late 1996; Massoud (red), Dostum (green) and Taliban (yellow) territories.
The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud. Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report: "This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city." 

The Taliban's early victories in 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses which led analysts to believe the Taliban movement had run its course. But Pakistan provided increased support to the Taliban. Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests. 
On 26 September 1996, as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin, 2005), 14. The Taliban seized Kabul on 27 September 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam issuing edicts especially targeting women. According to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), "no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment." 

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on 27 September 1996, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum, two former enemies, created the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban that were preparing offensives against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and those under the control of Dostum. The United Front included beside the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, Hazara factions under the command of leaders such as Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq or Haji Abdul Qadir. The Taliban defeated Dostum's Junbish forces militarily by seizing Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. Dostum subsequently went into exile.

According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians. UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001 and that "hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself." The Taliban especially targeted people of Shia religious or Hazara ethnic background. Upon taking Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998, 4,000–6,000 civilians were killed by the Taliban and many more reported tortured. The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. Bin Laden's so-called 055 Brigade was responsible for mass-killings of Afghan civilians. The report by the UN quotes "eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people". 

Taliban religious police beating an Afghan woman for removing her burqa in public.
President Pervez Musharraf – then as Chief of Army Staff – was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and bin Laden against the forces of Massoud. According to Pakistani Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid, "between 1994 and 1999, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan" on the side of the Taliban. In 2001 alone, there were believed to be 28,000 Pakistani nationals, many either from the Frontier Corps or army, fighting inside Afghanistan. An estimated 8,000 Pakistani militants were recruited in madrassas filling the ranks of the estimated 25,000 regular Taliban force. A 1998 document by the US State Department confirms that "20–40% of Taliban soldiers are Pakistani." The document further stated that the parents of those Pakistani nationals "know nothing regarding their child's military involvement with the Taliban until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan." 

From 1996 to 2001 the al-Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within Afghanistan. Bin Laden sent Arab recruits to join the fight against the United Front. 3,000 fighters of the regular Taliban army were Arab and Central Asian militants. In total, of roughly 45,000 Pakistani, Taliban and al-Qaeda soldiers fighting against the forces of Massoud in mid-2001, only 14,000 were Afghans. 
Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir interviewing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in November 2001.

Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only leader of the United Front in Afghanistan. In the areas under his control Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women's Rights Declaration. Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001. As a consequence many civilians fled to the area of Ahmad Shah Massoud. In total, estimates range up to one million people fleeing the Taliban. National Geographic concluded in its documentary "Inside the Taliban": "The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud." 

In early 2001 Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban and al-Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan and bin Laden the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. On this visit to Europe he also warned that his intelligence had gathered information about a large-scale attack on US soil being imminent. Defense Intelligence Agency (2001) report gwu.edu 

On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers inside Afghanistan and two days later about 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 attacks in the United States. The US government identified Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the Al-Qaeda organization based in and allied to the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the perpetrators of the attacks. From 1990 until this date over 400,000 Afghan civilians had already died in the wars in Afghanistan. "Life under Taliban cuts two ways". CSM. 20 September 2001 The Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to US authorities and to disband al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. Bin Laden later claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people. In October 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched as a new phase of the war in Afghanistan in which teams of American and British special forces worked with ground forces of the United Front (Northern Alliance) to remove the Taliban from power and dispel Al-Qaeda. At the same time the US-led forces were bombing Taliban and al-Qaida targets everywhere inside Afghanistan with cruise missiles. These actions led to the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north followed by all the other cities, as the Taliban and al-Qaida fled over the porous Durand Line border into Pakistan. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people. – (UNSCR 1386) 

===Recent history (2002–present)===

Recent history (2003–2008), including US President's jet
While the Taliban began regrouping inside Pakistan, more coalition troops entered the escalating US-led war. Meanwhile, the rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan kicked off in 2002. The Afghan nation was able to build democratic structures over the years, and some progress was made in key areas such as governance, economy, health, education, transport, and agriculture. NATO is training the Afghan armed forces as well its national police. ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. The country became the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004. By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in many parts of the country complete with their own version of mediation court. After US President Barack Obama announced the deployment of another 30,000 soldiers in 2010 for a period of two years, Der Spiegel published images of the US soldiers who killed unarmed Afghan civilians. 

At the 2010 International Conference on Afghanistan in London, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intends to reach out to the Taliban leadership (including Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). Supported by NATO, Karzai called on the group's leadership to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks. These steps have resulted in an intensification of bombings, assassinations and ambushes. Some Afghan groups (including the former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah) believe that Karzai plans to appease the insurgents' senior leadership at the cost of the democratic constitution, the democratic process and progress in the field of human rights especially women's rights. Dr. Abdullah stated:

Recent history (2008–2011), including US military, US President, former US Secretary of State
Over five million Afghan refugees were repatriated in the last decade, including many who were forcefully deported from NATO countries. This large return of Afghans may have helped the nation's economy but the country still remains one of the poorest in the world due to the decades of war, lack of foreign investment, ongoing government corruption and the Taliban insurgency. According to a report by the United Nations, the Taliban and other militants were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in 2009, 75% in 2010, 80% in 2011, 80% in 2012. In 2011, a record 3,021 civilians were killed in the ongoing insurgency, the fifth successive annual rise. 

After the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many prominent Afghan figures began being assassinated, including Mohammed Daud Daud, Ahmed Wali Karzai, Jan Mohammad Khan, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, Burhanuddin Rabbani and others. Also in the same year, the Afghanistan–Pakistan border skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistani-based Haqqani Network took place across Afghanistan. This led to the United States warning Pakistan of a possible military action against the Haqqanis in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The United States blamed Pakistan's government, mainly Pakistan Army and its ISI spy network as the masterminds behind all of this. US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, told Radio Pakistan that "The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago, that was the work of the Haqqani Network. There is evidence linking the Haqqani Network to the Pakistan government. This is something that must stop." Other top US officials such as Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta made similar statements. On 16 October 2011, "Operation Knife Edge" was launched by NATO and Afghan forces against the Haqqani Network in south-eastern Afghanistan. Afghan Defense Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, explained that the operation will "help eliminate the insurgents before they struck in areas along the troubled frontier". 

In anticipation of the 2014 NATO withdrawal and a subsequent expected push to regain power by the Taliban, the anti-Taliban United Front (Northern Alliance) groups have started to regroup under the umbrella of the National Coalition of Afghanistan (political arm) and the National Front of Afghanistan (military arm). 

==Governance==

National Assembly of Afghanistan in 2006.

Afghanistan is an Islamic republic consisting of three branches, executive, legislative and judicial. The nation is currently led by Hamid Karzai as the President and leader since late 2001. The National Assembly is the legislature, a bicameral body having two chambers, the House of the People and the House of Elders.

The Supreme Court is led by Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi, a former university professor who had been a legal advisor to the president. The current court is seen as more moderate and led by more technocrats than the previous one, which was dominated by fundamentalist religious figures such as Chief Justice Faisal Ahmad Shinwari who issued several controversial rulings, including seeking to place a limit on the rights of women.

According to Transparency International's corruption perceptions index 2010 results, Afghanistan was ranked as the third most-corrupt country in the world. A January 2010 report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that bribery consumes an amount equal to 23% of the GDP of the nation. A number of government ministries are believed to be rife with corruption, and while President Karzai vowed to tackle the problem in late 2009 by stating that "individuals who are involved in corruption will have no place in the government", top government officials were stealing and misusing hundreds of millions of dollars through the Kabul Bank. Although the nation's institutions are newly formed and steps have been taken to arrest some, the United States warned that aid to Afghanistan would be reduced to very little if the corruption is not stopped. 

===Elections and parties===

People wait to receive ballots from election workers during the 2005 parliamentary election.
The 2004 Afghan presidential election was relatively peaceful, in which Hamid Karzai won in the first round with 55.4% of the votes. However, the 2009 presidential election was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread electoral fraud. The vote, along with elections for 420 provincial council seats, took place in August 2009, but remained unresolved during a lengthy period of vote counting and fraud investigation. 

Two months later, under international pressure, a second round run-off vote between Karzai and remaining challenger Abdullah was announced, but a few days later Abdullah announced that he is not participating in the 7 November run-off because his demands for changes in the electoral commission had not been met. The next day, officials of the election commission cancelled the run-off and declared Hamid Karzai as President for another 5-year term. 

In the 2005 parliamentary election, among the elected officials were former mujahideen, Islamic fundamentalists, warlords, communists, reformists, and several Taliban associates. In the same period, Afghanistan reached to the 30th nation in terms of female representation in parliament. The last parliamentary election was held in September 2010, but due to disputes and investigation of fraud, the sworn in ceremony took place in late January 2011. After the issuance of computerized ID cards for the first time, which is a $101 million project that the Afghan government plans to start in 2012, it is expected to help prevent major fraud in future elections and improve the security situation. 

===Administrative divisions===

Afghanistan is administratively divided into 34 provinces (wilayats), with each province having its own capital and a provincial administration. The provinces are further divided into about 398 smaller provincial districts, each of which normally covers a city or a number of villages. Each district is represented by a district governor.

The provincial governors are appointed by the President of Afghanistan and the district governors are selected by the provincial governors. The provincial governors are representatives of the central government in Kabul and are responsible for all administrative and formal issues within their provinces. There are also provincial councils which are elected through direct and general elections for a period of four years. The functions of provincial councils are to take part in provincial development planning and to participate in monitoring and appraisal of other provincial governance institutions.

According to article 140 of the constitution and the presidential decree on electoral law, mayors of cities should be elected through free and direct elections for a four-year term. However, due to huge election costs, mayoral and municipal elections have never been held. Instead, mayors have been appointed by the government. As for the capital city of Kabul, the mayor is appointed by the President of Afghanistan.

The following is a list of all the 34 provinces in alphabetical order:

# Badakhshan
# Badghis
# Baghlan
# Balkh
# Bamyan
# Daykundi
# Farah
# Faryab
# Ghazni
# Ghor
# Helmand
# Herat
# Jowzjan
# Kabul
# Kandahar
# Kapisa
# Khost

# Kunar
# Kunduz
# Laghman
# Logar
# Nangarhar
# Nimruz
# Nurestan
# Oruzgan
# Paktia
# Paktika
# Panjshir
# Parvan
# Samangan
# Sare Pol
# Takhar
# Wardak
# Zabul

Afghanistan is divided into 34 provinces and every province is further divided into a number of districts

===Foreign relations and military===

Soldiers of the Afghan National Army, including the ANA Commando Battalion standing in the front.
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible for managing the foreign relations of Afghanistan. The nation has been a member of the UN since 1946, and has maintained good relations with the United States and other NATO member states since the signing of the Anglo-Afghan Treaty in 1919.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was established in 2002 under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1401 to help the nation recover from decades of war and establish a normal functioning government. Today, more than 22 NATO nations deploy about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Apart from close military links, the country also enjoys strong economic relations with NATO members and their allies. It also has diplomatic relations with neighboring Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the People's Republic of China, including regional states such as India, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Russia, United Arab Emirate, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, and others.

Afghanistan–Pakistan relations have been negatively affected by issues related to the Durand Line, the 1978–present war (i.e. Mujahideen, Afghan refugees, Taliban insurgency, and border skirmishes), including water and the growing influence of India in Afghanistan. Resolving the Pakistan–Afghanistan Stalemate, United States Institute of Peace, Afghanistan and Pakistan have had largely antagonistic relations under all governments Afghan officials often allege that Pakistani and Iranian intelligence agencies are involved in terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan, by training and guiding terrorists to carry out attacks. Afghanistan has always depended on Pakistani trade routes for import and export but this has changed in the last decade with the opening of Central Asian and Iranian routes. Conversely, Pakistan depends on Afghan water and considers Afghanistan as the only trade route to Central Asian resources. 

India and Iran have actively participated in reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, with India being the largest regional donor to the country. Since 2002, India has pledged up to $2 billion in economic assistance to Afghanistan and has participated in multiple socio-economic reconstruction efforts, including power, roads, agricultural and educational projects. There are also military ties between Afghanistan and India, which is expected to increase after the October 2011 strategic pact that was signed by President Karzai and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pakistan a twin brother, talks to go on: Karzai. Pajhwok Afghan News. Sujoy Dhar. 5 October 2011. 

The Afghan Armed Forces are under the Ministry of Defense, which includes the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan Air Force (AAF). It currently has about 200,000 active soldiers and is expected to reach 260,000 in the coming years. They are trained and equipped by NATO countries, mainly by the United States Department of Defense. The ANA is divided into 7 major Corps, with the 201st Selab ("Flood") in Kabul followed by the 203rd in Gardez, 205th Atul ("Hero") in Kandahar, 207th in Herat, 209th in Mazar-i-Sharif and the 215th in Lashkar Gah. The ANA also has a commando brigade which was established in 2007. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan serves as the main educational institute for the militarymen of the country. A new $200 million Afghan Defense University (ADU) is under construction near the capital.

===Crime and law enforcement===

Afghan National Police (ANP) in Kunar Province
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) is the nation's domestic intelligence agency, which operates similar to that of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has between 15,000 to 30,000 employees. The nation also has about 126,000 national police officers, with plans to recruit more so that the total number can reach 160,000. The Afghan National Police (ANP) is under the Ministry of the Interior and serves as a single law enforcement agency all across the country. The Afghan National Civil Order Police is the main branch of the ANP, which is divided into five Brigades and each one commanded by a Brigadier General. These brigades are stationed in Kabul, Gardez, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif. Every province has an appointed provincial Chief of Police who is responsible for law enforcement in all the districts within his province.
US Army providing security in 2011 while ANP officers conduct routine vehicle stop and search activity at Freedom Circle in the heart of downtown Kabul.

The police receive most training from Western forces under the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. According to a 2009 news report, a large proportion of police officers were illiterate and accused of demanding bribes. Jack Kem, deputy to the commander of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, stated that the literacy rate in the ANP will rise to over 50% by January 2012. What began as a voluntary literacy program became mandatory for basic police training in early 2011. Approximately 17% of them tested positive for illegal drug use. In 2009, President Karzai created two anti-corruption units within the Interior Ministry. Former Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said that security officials from the US (FBI), Britain (Scotland Yard) and the European Union will train prosecutors in the unit.

The south and eastern parts of Afghanistan are the most dangerous due to militant activities and the flourishing drug trade. These particular areas are sometimes patrolled by Taliban insurgents, who often plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on roads and carry out suicide bombings. Kidnapping and robberies are also reported. Every year many Afghan police officers are killed in the line of duty in these areas. The Afghan Border Police (ABP) are responsible for protecting the nation's airports and borders, especially the disputed Durand Line border which is often used by members of criminal organizations and terrorists for their illegal activities. A report in 2011 suggested that up to 3 million people were involved in the illegal drug business in Afghanistan. Many of the attacks on government employees may be ordered by powerful mafia groups. Drugs from Afghanistan make its way to neighboring and others countries. The Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics is tasked to deal with these issues by bringing to justice major drug traffickers. Ministry of Counter Narcotics 

==Economy==

Workers processing pomegranates (anaar), which Afghanistan is famous for in Asia.
Afghan women at a textile factory in Kabul.
A potato farmer being interviewed at one of his fields in Bamyan Province. Potatoes have become the main cash crop for the province, contributing millions of dollars to its economy every year.
Afghanistan is an impoverished and least developed country, one of the world's poorest because of decades of war and lack of foreign investment. As of 2012, the nation's GDP stands at about $34.29 billion with an exchange rate of $19.91 billion, and the GDP per capita is $1,100. The country's export was $2.6 billion in 2010. Its unemployment rate is about 35% and roughly the same percentage of its citizens live below the poverty line. About 42% of the population live on less than $1 a day, according to a 2009 report. The nation has less than $1.5 billion external debt and is recovering by the assistance of the world community. 

The Afghan economy has been growing at about 10% per year in the last decade, which is due to the infusion of over $50 billion in international aid and remittances from Afghan expats. It is also due to improvements made to the transportation system and agricultural production, which is the backbone of the nation's economy. The country is known for producing some of the finest pomegranates, grapes, apricots, melons, and several other fresh and dry fruits, including nuts. Exporting Afghanistan, by P.J. Tobia. 17 November 2009. Many sources indicate that as much as 11% or more of Afghanistan's economy is derived from the cultivation and sale of opium, and Afghanistan is widely considered the world's largest producer of opium despite Afghan government and international efforts to eradicate the crop. http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf The World Factbook 

While the nations's current account deficit is largely financed with the donor money, only a small portion is provided directly to the government budget. The rest is provided to non-budgetary expenditure and donor-designated projects through the United Nations system and non-governmental organizations. The Afghan Ministry of Finance is focusing on improved revenue collection and public sector expenditure discipline. For example, government revenues increased 31% to $1.7 billion from March 2010 to March 2011.

Afghanistan, Trends in the Human Development Index 1970–2010
Da Afghanistan Bank serves as the central bank of the nation and the "Afghani" (AFN) is the national currency, with an exchange rate of about 47 Afghanis to 1 US dollar. Since 2003, over 16 new banks have opened in the country, including Afghanistan International Bank, Kabul Bank, Azizi Bank, Pashtany Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, First Micro Finance Bank, and others.

One of the main drivers for the current economic recovery is the return of over 5 million expatriates, who brought with them fresh energy, entrepreneurship and wealth-creating skills as well as much needed funds to start up businesses. For the first time since the 1970s, Afghans have involved themselves in construction, one of the largest industries in the country. Some of the major national construction projects include the $35 bn New Kabul City next to the capital, the Ghazi Amanullah Khan City near Jalalabad, and the Aino Mena in Kandahar. Similar development projects have also begun in Herat in the west, Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and in other cities. A Humane Afghan City? by Ann Marlowe in Forbes 2 September 2009. 

In addition, a number of companies and small factories began operating in different parts of the country, which not only provide revenues to the government but also create new jobs. Improvements to the business-enabling environment have resulted in more than $1.5 billion in telecom investment and created more than 100,000 jobs since 2003. The Afghan rugs are becoming popular again and this gives many carpet dealers around the country to expand their business by hiring more workers.

Afghanistan is a member of SAARC, ECO and OIC. It is hoping to join SCO soon to develop closer economic ties with neighboring and regional countries in the so-called New Silk Road trade project. Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told the media in 2011 that his nation's "goal is to achieve an Afghan economy whose growth is based on trade, private enterprise and investment". Experts believe that this will revolutionize the economy of the region. Opium production in Afghanistan soared to a record in 2007 with about 3 million people reported to be involved in the business but then declined significantly in the years following. The government started programs to help reduce cultivation of poppy, and by 2010 it was reported that 24 out of the 34 provinces were free from poppy grow.

In June 2012, India advocated for private investments in the resource rich country and creation of suitable environment therefor. 

===Mining===

Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution explains that if Afghanistan generates about $10 bn per year from its mineral deposits, its gross national product would double and provide long-term funding for Afghan security forces and other critical needs. O'Hanlon, Michael E. "Deposits Could Aid Ailing Afghanistan", The Brookings Institution, 16 June 2010. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in 2006 that northern Afghanistan has an average 2.9 billion (bn) barrel (unit) (bbl) of oil, 15.7 trillion cubic feet (15700 ft3 bn m3) of natural gas, and 562 million bbl of natural gas liquids. 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 the north. 

Other reports show that the country has huge amounts of lithium, copper, gold, coal, iron ore and other minerals. The Khanashin carbonatite in Helmand Province contains 1000000 MT of rare earth elements. In 2007, a 30-year lease was granted for the Aynak copper mine to the China Metallurgical Group for $3 billion, "China, Not U.S., Likely to Benefit from Afghanistan's Mineral Riches". Daily Finance. 14 June 2010 making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan's history. "[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/world/asia/30mine.html?pagewanted=all China Willing to Spend Big on Afghan Commerce". The New York Times. 29 December 2009 The state-run Steel Authority of India won the mining rights to develop the huge Hajigak iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan. "Indian Group Wins Rights to Mine in Afghanistan's Hajigak". Businessweek. 6 December 2011 Government officials estimate that 30% of the country's untapped mineral deposits are worth between $900 bn and $3 trillion. One official asserted that "this will become the backbone of the Afghan economy" and a Pentagon memo stated that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium". In a 2011 news story, the CSM reported, "The United States and other Western nations that have borne the brunt of the cost of the Afghan war have been conspicuously absent from the bidding process on Afghanistan's mineral deposits, leaving it mostly to regional powers." "China wins $700 million Afghan oil and gas deal. Why didn't the US bid?". CSMonitor.com. 28 December 2011 

==Transportation== 

===Air===
Ariana Afghan Airlines.
Air transport in Afghanistan is provided by the national carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines, and by private companies such as Afghan Jet International, East Horizon Airlines, Kam Air, Pamir Airways, and Safi Airways. Airlines from a number of countries also provide air services to fly in and out of the country. These include Air India, Emirates, Gulf Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Turkish Airlines and others.

Kabul International Airport is the country's main airport. As of May, 2014 the country had four international airports:Herat International Airport (in the west), Kabul International Airport (in the east), Kandahar International Airport (in the south), and Mazari Sharif Airport (in the North). There were also around a dozen domestic airports which had regularly scheduled flights to Kabul and/or Herat.

===Rail===

As of May 2014 the country had only two rail links, one is the 75km line from Kheyrabad to the Uzbekistan border and one, a 10km long line from Toraghundi to the Turkmenistan border. Both lines were used for freight only and there were no passenger services or stations in Afghanistan. 

There are various proposals for the construction of additional rail lines in the country. Maps, Railways of Afghanistan, http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/afghanistan/tag/map/ In June 2013 the presidents of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a 225 km line between Turkmenistan-Andkhvoy-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kheyrabad. The line will link at Kheyrabad with the existing line to the Uzbekistan border. Three presidents launch construction of international rail link, 06 Jun 2013 , http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infrastructure/single-view/view/three-presidents-launch-construction-of-international-rail-link.html?sword_list[]=afghan&no_cache=1 

Plans exist for a rail line from Kabul to the eastern border town of Torkham, where it will connect with Pakistan Railways. Tolo News – Construction on Kabul-Torkham Railway to Start Soon, Ministry of Mines Says, Tamim Shaheer. 18 October 2011. There are also plans to finish a rail line between Khaf, Iran and Herat which has been funded by Iran and the Asian Development Bank. Khaf-Herat railway, http://www.raillynews.com/2013/khaf-herat-railway/ 

===Road===

Long distant road journeys are made by older model company-owned Mercedes-Benz coach buses or carpool and private cars. Newer automobiles have recently become more widely available after the rebuilding of roads and highways. They are imported from the United Arab Emirates through Pakistan and Iran. As of 2012, vehicles that are older than 10 years are banned from being imported into the country. The development of the nation's road network is a major boost for the economy due to trade with neighboring countries. Postal services in Afghanistan are provided by the publicly owned Afghan Post, along with private companies such as FedEx, DHL and others.

==Communication==
Telecommunication services in the country are provided by Afghan Wireless, Etisalat, Roshan, MTN Group and Afghan Telecom. In 2006, the Afghan Ministry of Communications signed a $64.5 million agreement with ZTE for the establishment of a countrywide optical fiber cable network. As of 2011, Afghanistan has around 17 million GSM phone subscribers and over 1 million internet users. It only has about 75,000 fixed telephone lines and little over 190,000 CDMA subscribers. 3G services are provided by Etisalat and MTN Group. The Afghan government announced that it will send expressions of interest to international companies to attract funding will launch its first space satellite by October 2012. 

==Health==

Inside a regional military hospital in the Paktia Province
According to the Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the 15th least developed country in the world. The average life expectancy is estimated to be around 60 years for both sexes. The country has the ninth highest total fertility rate in the world, at 5.64 children born/woman (according to 2012 estimates). CIA – The World Factbook It has one of the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, estimated in 2010 at 460 deaths/100,000 live births, – The World Factbook and the highest infant mortality rate in the world (deaths of babies under one year), estimated in 2012 to be 119.41 deaths/1,000 live births. CIA – The World Factbook Data from 2010 suggests that one in ten children dies before they are five years old. While these statistics are tragic, the Ministry of Public Health plans to further cut the infant mortality rate to 400 for every 100,000 live births before 2020. The country currently has more than 3,000 midwives with an additional 300 to 400 being trained each year. 

A number of hospitals and clinics have been built over the last decade, with the most advanced treatments being available in Kabul. The French Medical Institute for Children and Indira Gandhi Childrens Hospital in Kabul are the leading children's hospitals in the country. Some of the other main hospitals in Kabul include the 350-bed Jamhuriat Hospital and the Jinnah Hospital, which is still under construction. There are also a number of well-equipped military-controlled hospitals in different regions of the country.

It was reported in 2006 that nearly 60% of the population lives within two hours by foot to the nearest health facility, up from 9% in 2002. Latest surveys show that 57% of Afghans say they have good or very good access to clinics or hospitals. The nation also has one of the highest incidences of people with disabilities, with an estimated one million handicapped people. About 80,000 citizens have lost limbs, mainly as a result of landmines. "Afghanistan: People living with disabilities call for integration Non-governmental charities such as Save the Children and Mahboba's Promise assist orphans in association with governmental structures. Virginia Haussegger Mahooba's Promise ABC TV 7.30 Report. 2009. ABC.net.au. Retrieved 15 July 2009. Demographic and Health Surveys is working with the Indian Institute of Health Management Research and others to conduct a survey in Afghanistan focusing on Maternal death, among other things. 

==Education==

Education in the country includes K–12 and higher education, which is supervised by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. The nation's education system was destroyed due to the decades of war, but it began reviving after the Karzai administration came to power in late 2001. More than 5,000 schools were built or renovated in the last decade, with more than 100,000 teachers being trained and recruited. More than seven million male and female students are enrolled in schools, with about 100,00 being enrolled in different universities around the country, at least 35% are female. It is planned to raise enrollments to 115,000 by 2014, see Anthony Welch and Attaullah Wahidyar. Evolution, Revolution, Reconstruction: The interrupted Development of Higher Education in Afghanistan. In M. F. Buck and M. Kabaum (eds.), 2013, Ideen und Realitaeten von Universitaeten, pp. 83—105, here pp. 97 and 100. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-62381-7. As of 2013, there are 16,000 schools across Afghanistan. Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak stated that another 8,000 schools are required to be constructed for the remaining 3 million children who are deprived of education. 

American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul.

Kabul University reopened in 2002 to both male and female students. In 2006, the American University of Afghanistan was established in Kabul, with the aim of providing a world-class, English-language, co-educational learning environment in Afghanistan. The capital of Kabul serves as the learning center of Afghanistan, with many of the best educational institutions being based there. Major universities outside of Kabul include Kandahar University in the south, Herat University in the northwest, Balkh University in the north, Nangarhar University and Khost University in the eastern zones, as well as a number of others. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan, modeled after the United States Military Academy at West Point, is a four-year military development institution dedicated to graduating officers for the Afghan Armed Forces. The $200 million Afghan Defense University is under construction near Qargha in Kabul. The United States is building six faculties of education and five provincial teacher training colleges around the country, two large secondary schools in Kabul and one school in Jalalabad. 

Literacy rate of the entire population has been very low but is now rising because more students go to schools. In 2010, the United States began establishing a number of Lincoln learning centers in Afghanistan. They are set up to serve as programming platforms offering English language classes, library facilities, programming venues, Internet connectivity, educational and other counseling services. A goal of the program is to reach at least 4,000 Afghan citizens per month per location. The military and national police are also provided with mandatory literacy courses. In addition to this, Baghch-e-Simsim (based on the American Sesame Street) was launched in late 2011 to help Afghan children learn from preschool and onward.

==Demographics==

As of 2012, the population of Afghanistan is around 31,108,077, which includes the roughly 2.7 million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan and Iran. In 1979, the population was reported to be about 15.5 million. "United Nations and Afghanistan". UN News Centre. Retrieved 29 December 2013. The only city with over a million residents is its capital, Kabul. The other largest cities in the country are, in order of population size, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, Lashkar Gah, Taloqan, Khost, Sheberghan, Ghazni, and so on. Urban areas are experiencing rapid population growth following the return of over 5 million expats. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the Afghan population is estimated to increase to 82 million by 2050. 

===Ethnic groups===

Ethnolinguistic groups of Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a multiethnic society, and its historical status as a crossroads has contributed significantly to its diverse ethnic makeup. The population of the country is divided into a wide variety of ethnolinguistic groups. Because a systematic census has not been held in the nation in decades, exact figures about the size and composition of the various ethnic groups are unvailable. An approximate distribution of the ethnic groups is shown in the chart below:

+Ethnic groups in Afghanistan 
 Ethnic group Photo 
 Pashtun Pashtun children in Khost 42% 38–50% 
 Tajik Tajik children in Khowahan district of Badakhshan 27% 26% (of this 1% are Qizilbash) 
 Hazara Hazaras in Daykundi Province 9% 10–19% 
 Uzbek Uzbek looking boy in northern Afghanistan 9% 6–8% 
 Aimaq 4% 500,000 to 800,000 
 Turkmen 3% 2.5% 
 Baloch Camera focusing on Baloch 2% 100,000 
 Others (Pashayi, Nuristani, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri, Gurjar, etc.) Young Pashai man 4% 6.9% 

The 2004–present suggested estimations in the above chart are supported by recent national opinion polls, which were aimed at knowing how a group of about 804 to 7,760 local residents in Afghanistan felt about the current war, political situation, as well as the economic and social issues affecting their daily lives. Seven of the surveys were conducted between 2004 to 2012 by the Asia Foundation and one between 2004 to 2009 by a combined effort of the broadcasting companies NBC News, BBC, and ARD. See:
* 
* 
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+National opinion polls (ethnicity) 
 Ethnic group 
 Pashtun 38–46% 40.9% 40% Not reported Not reported 42% 41% 40% 
 Tajik 37–39% 37.1% 35% \" \" 31% 31% 33% 
 Hazara 6–13% 9.2% 10% \" \" 10% 11% 11% 
 Uzbek 5–7% 9.2% 8% \" \" 9% 9% 9% 
 Aimak 0-0% 0.1% 1% \" \" 2% 1% 1% 
 Turkmen 1–2% 1.7% 3% \" \" 2% 2% 2% 
 Baloch 1–3% 0.5% 1% \" \" 1% 1% 1% 
 Others (Pashayi, Nuristani, Arab, etc.) 0–4% 1.4% 2% \" \" 3% 3% 5% 
 No opinion 0–2% 0% 0% \" \" 0% 0% 0% 

===Languages===

Pashto and Dari (Persian) are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Both are Indo-European languages from the Iranian languages sub-family. Persian has always been the prestige language and a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication. It is the native tongue of the Tajiks, Hazaras, Aimaks and Kizilbash. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns, although many Pashtuns often use Persian and some non-Pashtuns are fluent in Pashto.

Other languages, including Uzbek, Arabic, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi and Nuristani languages (Ashkunu, Kamkata-viri, Vasi-vari, Tregami and Kalasha-ala), are the native tongues of minority groups across the country and have official status in the regions where they are widely spoken. Minor languages also include Pamiri (Shughni, Munji, Ishkashimi and Wakhi), Brahui, Hindko, and Kyrgyz. A small percentage of Afghans are also fluent in Urdu, English, and other languages.

 Language 
 Dari (Persian) 50% 
 Pashto 35% 
 Uzbek and Turkmen 11% 
 30 minor languages 4% 

===Religions===

Over 99% of the Afghan population is Muslim: approximately 80–85% are from the Sunni branch, 15–19% are Shi'a, and roughly 3% are non-denominational Muslims. Chapter 1: Religious Affiliation retrieved 4 September 2013 Until the 1890s, the region around Nuristan was known as Kafiristan (land of the kafirs (unbelievers)) because of its non-Muslim inhabitants, the Nuristanis, an ethnically distinct people whose religious practices included animism, polytheism and shamanism. There are small minorities of Christians, Buddhist, Parsi, Sikhs and Hindus. There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan who had emigrated to Israel and the United States by the end of the twentieth century; only one Jew, Zablon Simintov, remained by 2005. 

==Culture==

The Afghan culture has been around for over two millennia, tracing record to at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire in 500 BCE. Barbara Robson, Juliene Lipson, Farid Younos, Mariam Mehdi. It is mostly a nomadic and tribal society, with different regions of the country having their own tradition, reflecting the multi-cultural and multi-lingual character of the nation. In the southern and eastern region the people live according to the Pashtun culture by following Pashtunwali, which is an ancient way of life that is still preserved. US Library of Congress: Afghanistan – Ethnic Groups (Pashtun) The remaining of the country is culturally Persian and Turkic. Some non-Pashtuns who live in close proximity with Pashtuns have adopted Pashtunwali in a process called Pashtunization (or Afghanization) while some Pashtuns have been Persianized. Millions of Afghans who have been living in Pakistan and Iran over the last 30 years have been influenced by the cultures of those neighboring nations.
Men wearing their traditional Afghan dress in the southern city of Kandahar.

Afghans display pride in their culture, nation, ancestry, and above all, their religion and independence. Like other highlanders, they are regarded with mingled apprehension and condescension, for their high regard for personal honor, for their tribe loyalty and for their readiness to use force to settle disputes. Heathcote, Tony (1980, 2003) "The Afghan Wars 1839–1919", Sellmount Staplehurst. As tribal warfare and internecine feuding has been one of their chief occupations since time immemorial, this individualistic trait has made it difficult for foreigners to conquer them. Tony Heathcote considers the tribal system to be the best way of organizing large groups of people in a country that is geographically difficult, and in a society that, from a materialistic point of view, has an uncomplicated lifestyle. There are an estimated 60 major Pashtun tribes, "Pashtun (people)". Encyclopædia Britannica. and the Afghan nomads are estimated at about 2–3 million. "Afghanistan: Kuchi nomads seek a better deal". IRIN Asia. 18 February 2008. 

The nation has a complex history that has survived either in its current cultures or in the form of various languages and monuments. However, many of its historic monuments have been damaged in recent wars. G.V. Brandolini. Afghanistan cultural heritage. Orizzonte terra, Bergamo. 2007. p. 64. The two famous Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban, who regarded them as idolatrous. Despite that archaeologists are still finding Buddhist relics in different parts of the country, some of them date back to the 2nd century. (bad URL - does not match page title) This indicates that Buddhism was widespread in Afghanistan. Other historical places include the cities of Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Zarang. The Minaret of Jam in the Hari River valley is a UNESCO World Heritage site. A cloak reputedly worn by Islam's Prophet Muhammad is kept inside the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar, a city founded by Alexander and the first capital of Afghanistan. The citadel of Alexander in the western city of Herat has been renovated in recent years and is a popular attraction for tourists. In the north of the country is the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, believed by many to be the location where Ali was buried. The Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture is renovating 42 historic sites in Ghazni until 2013, when the province will be declared as the capital of Islamic civilization. The National Museum of Afghanistan is located in Kabul.

Although literacy level is low, classic Persian and Pashto poetry play an important role in the Afghan culture. Poetry has always been one of the major educational pillars in the region, to the level that it has integrated itself into culture. Some notable poets include Rumi, Rabi'a Balkhi, Sanai, Jami, Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Khalilullah Khalili, and Parween Pazhwak. 

===Media and entertainment===

Farhad Darya performing at the Serena Hotel in Kabul.
The Afghan mass media began in the early 20th century, with the first newspaper published in 1906. By the 1920s, Radio Kabul was broadcasting local radio services. Afghanistan National Television was launched in 1974 but was closed in 1996 when the media was tightly controlled by the Taliban. Dartnell, M. Y. Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict. University of Toronto Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8020-8553-5. Since 2002, press restrictions were gradually relaxed and private media diversified. Freedom of expression and the press is promoted in the 2004 constitution and censorship is banned, though defaming individuals or producing material contrary to the principles of Islam is prohibited. In 2008, Reporters Without Borders listed the media environment as 156 out of 173, with the 1st being most free. 400 publications were registered, at least 15 local Afghan television channels and 60 radio stations. Afghanistan Press Report 2008, Freedom House. Foreign radio stations, such as Voice of America, BBC World Service, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) broadcast into the country.

The city of Kabul has been home to many musicians in the past, who were masters of both traditional and modern Afghan music, especially during the Nowruz (New Year) and National Independence Day celebrations. Ahmad Zahir, Nashenas, Ustad Sarahang, Sarban, Ubaidullah Jan, Farhad Darya, and Naghma are some of the notable Afghan musicians but there are many others. Most Afghans are accustomed to watching Bollywood films from India and listening to its filmi hit songs. Many of the Bollywood film stars have roots in Afghanistan, including Madhubala, Feroz Khan, Kader Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Fardeen Khan, Sohail Khan, Celina Jaitley and many others. In addition, several Bollywood films such as Dharmatma, Khuda Gawah, Escape from Taliban and Kabul Express have been shot inside Afghanistan.

===Sports===

The Afghanistan national football team (in red uniforms) before marking its first win over Nepal (in blue) during the 2011 SAFF Championship. In 2013, Afghanistan won its first international football trophy, the SAFF Championship.
The Afghanistan national football team has been competing in international football since 1941. The national team plays its home games at the Ghazi Stadium in Kabul, while football in Afghanistan is governed by the Afghanistan Football Federation. The national team has never competed or qualified for the FIFA World Cup but has recently won an international football trophy in the SAFF Championship. The country also has a national team in the sport of futsal, a 5-a-side variation of football.

Cricket, which is a newly introduced sport in Afghanistan fuelled by the success of the Afghan national cricket team is growing in popularity. Afghanistan participated in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier, 2010 ICC World Cricket League Division One, and 2010 ICC World Twenty20 where they played India and South Africa. It won the ACC Twenty20 Cup in 2007, 2009, and 2011. More recently the under-19 team played in the 2012 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is the official governing body of the sport and is headquartered in Kabul. The Ghazi Amanullah Khan International Cricket Stadium serves as the nation's main cricket stadium, followed by the Kabul National Cricket Stadium. Several other stadiums are under construction. Domestically, cricket is played between teams from different provinces.

Some of the other popular sports in Afghanistan include basketball, volleyball, taekwondo, and bodybuilding. Buzkashi is a traditional sport, mainly among the northern Afghans. It is similar to polo, played by horsemen in two teams, each trying to grab and hold a goat carcass. Afghan Hounds (a type of running dog) originated in Afghanistan and was originally used in the sport of hunting.

==See also==
* Topic overview:
** Outline of Afghanistan
** Index of Afghanistan-related articles
** Bibliography of Afghanistan
** 
* Afghanistanism
* International rankings of Afghanistan

==Notes==

a. Other terms that have been used as demonyms are Afghani. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Reference.com (Retrieved 13 November 2007). 

==References==

==Further reading==

==External links==

* Office of the President
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Research Guide to Afghanistan

 



[[Albania]]

Albania (, , or sometimes , ; ; ), officially known as the Republic of Albania (; ), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east, and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.

Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organization, and is one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003 and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009. 

The modern-day territory of Albania was at various points in history part of the Roman provinces of Dalmatia (southern Illyricum), Macedonia (particularly Epirus Nova), and Moesia Superior. The modern Republic became independent after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe following the Balkan Wars. Albania declared independence in 1912 (to be recognised in 1913), becoming a Principality, Republic, and Kingdom until being invaded by Italy in 1939, which formed Greater Albania, which in turn became a Nazi German protectorate in 1943. Zolo, D. Invoking Humanity: War, Law and Global Order, Continuum International Publishing Group, 27 Aug 2002, 224 pages. p. 180 In 1944, a socialist People's Republic was established under the leadership of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour. In 1991, the Socialist Republic was dissolved and the Republic of Albania was established.

Albania is a parliamentary democracy. As of 2011, the capital, Tirana, was home to 421,286 of the country's 2,831,741 people within the city limits, 763,634 in the metropolitan area. Tirana is also the financial capital of the country. Free-market reforms have opened the country to foreign investment, especially in the development of energy and transportation infrastructure. Reports: Poverty Decreases In Albania After Years Of Growth.Dow Jones Newswires, 201-938-5500 201-938-5500 201-938-5500.Nasdaq.com Albania plans to build three hydropower plants.People's Daily Strong GDP growth reduces poverty in Albania-study. Reuters.Forbes.com Albania has a high HDI and provides a universal health care system and free primary and secondary education. Albania is an upper-middle income economy (WB, IMF) The world bank with the service sector dominating the country's economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture.

== Etymology ==
Albania is the Medieval Latin name of the country which is called Shqipëri by its people, from Medieval Greek Ἀλβανία Albania, besides variants Albanitia or Arbanitia.

The name may be derived from the Illyrian tribe of the Albani recorded by Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer from Alexandria who drafted a map in 150 AD Madrugearu A, Gordon M. The wars of the Balkan Peninsula. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. p. 146. that shows the city of Albanopolis (located northeast of Durrës).

The name may have a continuation in the name of a medieval settlement called Albanon and Arbanon, although it is not certain this was the same place. The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992, ISBN 978-0-631-19807-9, page 279,"We cannot be certain that the Arbanon of Anna Comnena is the same as Albanopolis of the Albani, a place located on the map of Ptolemy (3.12)" In his History written in 1079–1080, the Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates was the first to refer to Albanoi as having taken part in a revolt against Constantinople in 1043 and to the Arbanitai as subjects of the Duke of Dyrrachium. Robert Elsei. The Albanian lexicon of Dion Von Kirkman. Earliest reference to the existence of the Albanian language, pp. 113–122. During the Middle Ages, the Albanians called their country Arbër or Arbën and referred to themselves as Arbëresh or Arbnesh. Pinocacozza.it Radio-Arberesh.eu 

As early as the 17th century the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria and Arbëresh. While the two terms are popularly interpreted as "Land of the Eagles" and "Children of the Eagles", they derive from the adverb shqip, which means "understanding each other". Kristo Frasheri. History of Albania (A Brief Overview). Tirana, 1964. 
Under the Ottoman Empire Albania was referred to officially as Arnavutluk and its inhabitants as Arnauts (Turkic Arnavutlar). These terms remain the same officially and in common usage in the current Republic of Turkey. Arnaut at the Free Dictionary The word is considered to be a metathesis from the word Arvanite, which was the Medieval Greek name for the Albanians. 

== History ==

===Prehistoric===
The history of Albania emerged from the prehistoric stage from the 4th century BC, with early records of Illyria in Greco-Roman historiography. The modern territory of Albania has no counterpart in antiquity, comprising parts of the Roman provinces of Dalmatia (southern Illyricum) and Macedonia (particularly Epirus Nova).

===Middle Age===

The territory remained under Roman (Byzantine) control until the Slavic migrations of the 7th century, and was occupied by Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century. After the weakening of the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian Empire in the middle and late 13th century, most of the territory of modern-day Albania became part of Serbia. Initially, as a part of the Serbian Grand Principality and in 14th century as a part of the Serbian Empire. The territorial nucleus of the Albanian state formed in the Middle Ages, as the Principality of Arbër and the Kingdom of Albania. The first records of the Albanian people as a distinct ethnicity also date to this period.

=== Ottoman Period ===

The Sanjak of Albania in 1431

At the dawn of the establishment of the Ottoman Empire in Southeast Europe, the geopolitical landscape was marked by scattered kingdoms of small principalities. The Ottomans erected their garrisons throughout southern Albania by 1415 and established formal jurisdiction over most of Albania by 1431. Along with the Bosniaks, Muslim Albanians occupied an outstanding position in the empire, and were the main pillars of Ottoman policy in the Balkans. Clayer, Nathalie. " Albania ." Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Edited by: Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Brill Online, 2012. Reference. 18 December 2012 However, on 1443 a great and longstanding revolt broke under the lead of the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, which lasted until 1468, many times defeating major Ottoman armies led by sultans Murad II and Mehmed II.
Albanian forces under Skanderbeg attacked the Ottoman camp in 1457

Köprülü Mehmed Pasha was the most effective and influential Ottoman Grand Vizier of Albanian origin. 

Enjoying this privileged position in the empire, Muslim Albanians held various administrative positions, with over two dozen Grand Viziers of Albanian origin, such as Gen. Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, who commanded the Ottoman forces during the Ottoman-Persian Wars; Gen. Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed, who led the Ottoman army during the Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664); and, later, Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt. " Arnawutluḳ." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online, 2012. Reference. 2 January 2009. 

In the 15th century, when the Ottomans were gaining a firm foothold in the region, Albanian towns were organised into four principal sanjaks. The government fostered trade by settling a sizeable Jewish colony of refugees fleeing persecution in Spain (at the end of the 15th century). Vlorë saw passing through its ports imported merchandise from Europe such as velvets, cotton goods, mohairs, carpets, spices and leather from Bursa and Istanbul. Some citizens of Vlorë even had business associates in Europe. 

Albanians could also be found throughout the empire, in Iraq, Egypt, Algeria and across the Maghreb as vital military and administrative retainers. H. T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society Between Europe and the Arab World, p. 196. This was partly due to the Devşirme system. The process of Islamization was an incremental one, commencing from the arrival of the Ottomans in the 14th century (to this day, a minority of Albanians are Catholic or Orthodox Christians, though the vast majority became Muslim). Timar holders, the bedrock of early Ottoman control in Southeast Europe, were not necessarily converts to Islam, and occasionally rebelled; the most famous of these rebels is Skanderbeg (his figure would be used later in the 19th century as a central component of Albanian national identity). The most significant impact on the Albanians was the gradual Islamisation process of a large majority of the population, although such a process became widespread only in the 17th century. Clayer, Nathalie. " Albania ." Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Edited by: Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Brill Online, 2012. 2 April 2012 

Mainly Catholics converted in the 17th century, while the Orthodox Albanians followed suit mainly in the following century. Initially confined to the main city centres of Elbasan and Shkoder, by this period the countryside was also embracing the new religion. The motives for conversion according to scholars were diverse, depending on the context. The lack of source material does not help when investigating such issues. Clayer, Nathalie. " Albania ." Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Edited by: Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Brill Online, 2012. Reference. 17 April 2012 

Albania remained under Ottoman control as part of the Rumelia province until 1912, when the first independent Albanian state was declared. The formation of an Albanian national consciousness dates to the latter 19th century .

=== Era of Nationalism and League of Prizren ===
Proposed boundaries of the Principality of Albania (1912-14)
The first organization that pushed for greater autonomy was the League of Prizren, formed on 1 June 1878, in Prizren, Kosovo. The League used military force to prevent the annexing of northern Albanian areas assigned to Montenegro and Serbia, and southern Albanian areas assigned to Greece by the Congress of Berlin. After several battles with Montenegrin troops, the league was forced to give up Ulcinj to Montenegro and then was defeated by the Ottoman army sent by the Sultan in order to prevent the league from achieving autonomy for Albania. 
The uprisings of 1910–1912, the Ottoman defeat in the Balkan Wars and the advancing Montenegrin, Serbian and Greek armies into the territories where Albanians were majority, led to the proclamation of independence by Ismail Qemali in Vlora, on 28 November 1912.

=== Independence ===
Albania's independence was recognized by the Conference of London on 29 July 1913, but the drawing of the borders of Albania ignored the demographic realities of the time. The short-lived monarchy (1914–1925) was succeeded by an even shorter-lived first Albanian Republic (1925–1928), to be replaced by another monarchy (1928–1939). Albania was occupied by Fascist Italy and then by Nazi Germany during World War II.

=== Anti Communism Uprising ===
By the end of World War II, the main military and political force of the country (the communist party) sent its army to the north of Albania to destroy the natio­nalist forces and to eliminate its rivals. They were met with open resistance in Nikaj-Mertur, Dukagjin and Kelmend. Kelmendi was led by Prek Cali. In January 15, 1945, a battle between partisans of the first Brigade and nationalist forces was fought at Tamara Bridge, resulting in the defeat of the nationalist forces . About 150 Kelmendi people were kil­led or cruelly tortured . This event was the starting point of other dramas, which took place during Enver Hoxha's dictatorship. Class struggle was strictly applied, human freedom and human rights were denied. Kelmend region was isolated both by the border and by lack of roads for another 20 years, the institution of agricultural cooperative brought about economic backwardness. Many Kelmendi people fled, some were executed trying to cross the border.

=== Communist Albania (1944–1992) ===
After the liberation of Albania from Nazi occupation, the country became a Communist state, the People's Republic of Albania (renamed "the People's Socialist Republic of Albania" in 1976), which was led by Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania.

The socialist reconstruction of Albania was launched immediately after the annulling of the monarchy and the establishment of a "People's Republic". In 1947, Albania's first railway line was completed, with the second completed eight months later. New land reform laws were passed granting the land to the workers and peasants who tilled it. Agriculture began to become cooperative, and production increased significantly, leading to Albania becoming agriculturally self-sufficient. By 1955, illiteracy was eliminated among Albania's adult population. 40 Years of Socialist Albania, Dhimiter Picani 
The Palace of Culture of Tirana, Albania whose first stone was symbolically laid by Nikita Khrushchev

During this period Albania became industrialized and saw rapid economic growth, as well as unprecedented progress in the areas of education and health. The average annual rate of increase of Albania's national income was 29% higher than the world average and 56% higher than the European average. Also during this period, because of the monopolized socialist economy, Albania was the only country in the world that did not impose any tax on its people. 

Religious freedoms were severely curtailed during the Communist period, with many forms of worship being outlawed. In August 1945, the Agrarian Reform Law meant that large swaths of property owned by religious groups (mostly Islamic waqfs) were nationalized, along with the estates of monasteries and dioceses. Many believers, with the ulema, and many priests were arrested, tortured and executed. In 1949, a new Decree on Religious Communities required that they and all their activities be sanctioned by the state alone. Library of Congress Country Studies, Albania: Hoxha's Antireligious Campaign 

In 1967 Hoxha proclaimed Albania the world's first 'atheist state'. Hundreds of mosques and dozens of Islamic libraries — containing priceless manuscripts — were destroyed. Kombësia dhe feja në Shqipëri, 1920-1944 / Roberto Moroco dela Roka ; e përktheu nga origjinali Luan Omari. Churches were not spared either, and many were converted into cultural centers for young people. The new law banned all "fascist, religious, warmongerish, antisocialist activity and propaganda." Preaching religion carried a three- to ten-year prison sentence. Nonetheless, many Albanians continued to practice in secret.

Hoxha's political successor Ramiz Alia oversaw the dismemberment of the "Hoxhaist" state during the wider collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the later 1980s.

=== Contemporary Albania ===

The People's Republic was dissolved in 1991-92 after protests beginning in 1989 and reforms made by the communist government in 1990, and the Republic of Albania was founded. The Communists retained a stronghold in parliament after popular support in the elections of 1991. However, in March 1992, amid liberalisation policies resulting in economic collapse and social unrest, a new front led by the new Democratic Party took power. The economic crisis spread in late 1996 following the failure of some Ponzi schemes operating in the country, peaking in 1997 in an armed rebellion that led to another mass emigration of Albanians, mostly to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Germany and North America. In 1999, the country was affected by the Kosovo War, when a great number of Albanians from Kosovo found refuge in Albania. Albania became a full member of NATO in 2009, and has applied to join the European Union.

== Albanian state flag ==

 1912 80x100px Albanian Declaration of Independence Declaration of independence of the Albanian Vilayet from the Ottoman Empire.Proclaimed in Vlorë on 28 November 1912. 
 1912-1914 80x100px Independent Albania Parliamentary state and assembly established in Vlorë on 28 November 1912.The government and senate were established on 4 December 1912.Leader Ismail Qemali 
 1914–1925 80x100px Principality of Albania Short-lived monarchy headed by William, Prince of Albania, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1925, 
 1925–1928 80x100px Albanian Republic Official name as enshrined in the Constitution of 1925.A protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy after the Treaties of Tirana of 1926 and 1927 
 1928–1939 80x100px Albanian Kingdom Constitutional monarchal rule between 1928 and 1939. A de facto protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy 
 1939–1943 80x100px Albanian Kingdom under Italy A protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy. Led by Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III Ruled by Italian governors after military occupation by Italy from 1939-1943. Ceased to exist as an independent country. Part of the Italian Empire 
 1943–1944 80x100px Albanian Kingdom under Germany A de jure independent country, between 1943 and 1944. Germans took control after the Armistice with Italy on 8 September 1943. 
 1944–1992 80x100px People's Socialist Republic of Albania From 1944 to 1946 it was known as the Democratic Government of Albania. From 1946 to 1976 it was known as the People's Republic of Albania. 
 since 1992 80x100px Republic of Albania In 1991 the Socialist Party of Albania took control through democratic elections. In 1992 the Democratic Party of Albania won the new elections. 

File:Gjergj Kastrioti.jpg|George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, national hero (1405–1468)
File:Ismail Qemali.jpg|Ismail Qemali, hero of Albanian independence (1912–14)
File:WilhelmPrinceAlbania.jpg|William of Albania, Prince (King) of Albania (7 March 1914 – 3 September 1914)
File:FAN NOLI.jpg|Fan Stilian Noli, Founder of the Albanian Orthodox Church and Prime Minister of Albania (16 June 1924 – 23 December 1924)
File:Kingzog.jpg|President (1925–28) and King (1928–39) Zog of Albania
File:HODŽA druhá míza.jpg|First Secretary Enver Hoxha (1944–1985)

== Government ==

The Albanian republic is a parliamentary democracy established under a constitution renewed in 1998. Elections are held every four years to a unicameral 140-seat chamber, the People's Assembly. In June 2002, a compromise candidate, Alfred Moisiu, former Army General, was elected to succeed President Rexhep Meidani. Parliamentary elections in July 2005 brought Sali Berisha, the leader of the Democratic Party, while on 20 July 2007 Bamir Topi became president. The current Albanian president Bujar Nishani was elected by Parliament in July 2012.

The Euro-Atlantic integration of Albania has been the ultimate goal of the post-communist governments. Albania's EU membership bid has been set as a priority by the European Commission.

Albania, along with Croatia, joined NATO on 1 April 2009, becoming the 27th and 28th members of the alliance. 

=== Executive branch ===
The head of state in Albania is the President of the Republic. The President is elected to a 5-year term by the Assembly of the Republic of Albania by secret ballot, requiring a 50%+1 majority of the votes of all deputies. The current President of the Republic is Bujar Nishani elected in July 2012.

The President has the power to guarantee observation of the constitution and all laws, act as commander in chief of the armed forces, exercise the duties of the Assembly of the Republic of Albania when the Assembly is not in session, and appoint the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (prime minister).

Executive power rests with the Council of Ministers (cabinet). The Chairman of the Council (prime minister) is appointed by the president; ministers are nominated by the president on the basis of the prime minister's recommendation. The People's Assembly must give final approval of the composition of the Council. The Council is responsible for carrying out both foreign and domestic policies. It directs and controls the activities of the ministries and other state organs.

 President Bujar Nishani PD 24 July 2012 
 Prime Minister Edi Rama PS 15 September 2013 

=== Legislative branch ===
The Assembly of the Republic of Albania (Kuvendi i Republikës së Shqipërisë) is the lawmaking body in Albania. There are 140 deputies in the Assembly, which are elected through a party-list proportional representation system. The President of the Assembly (or Speaker), who has two deputies, chairs the Assembly. There are 15 permanent commissions, or committees. Parliamentary elections are held at least every four years.

The Assembly has the power to decide the direction of domestic and foreign policy; approve or amend the constitution; declare war on another state; ratify or annul international treaties; elect the President of the Republic, the Supreme Court, and the Attorney General and his or her deputies; and control the activity of state radio and television, state news agency and other official information media.

=== Armed forces ===

Patrol boat Iliria of the Albanian Navy.

The Albanian Armed Forces (Forcat e Armatosura të Shqipërisë) were first formed after independence in 1912. Albania reduced the number of active troops from 65,000 in 1988 to 14,500 in 2009 and the military now consists mainly of a small fleet of aircraft and sea vessels. In the 1990s, the country scrapped enormous amounts of obsolete hardware, such as tanks and SAM systems from China.

Today it consists of: the General Staff, the Albanian Land Force, the Albanian Air Force and the Albanian Naval Force. Increasing the military budget was one of the most important conditions for NATO integration. Military spending has generally been lower than 1.5% since 1996 only to peak in 2009 at 2% and fall again to 1.5%. Since February 2008, Albania has participated officially in NATO's Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean Sea. [http://www.nato.int/issues/active_endeavour/index.html ] It was invited to join NATO on 3 April 2008, and it became a full member on 2 April 2009.

=== Administrative divisions ===

Albania is divided into 12 administrative counties (). These counties include 36 districts () and 373 municipalities (). 72 municipalities have city status (). There are overall 2980 villages/communities () in all Albania. Each district has its council which is composed of a number of municipalities. The municipalities are the first level of local governance, responsible for local needs and law enforcement. Recently, it was announced that a new administrative division reform will be introduced in 2014. 

Counties of Albania

 County Capital Districts Municipalities Cities Villages 
 1 Berat Berat BeratKuçovëSkrapar 1028 212 12218105 
 2 Dibër Peshkopi BulqizëDibërMat 71410 112 6314176 
 3 Durrës Durrës DurrësKrujë 64 42 6244 
 4 Elbasan Elbasan ElbasanGramshLibrazhdPeqin 20995 3121 177957549 
 5 Fier Fier FierLushnjëMallakastër 14148 321 11712140 
 6 Gjirokastër Gjirokastër GjirokastërPërmetTepelenë 1178 222 969877 
 7 Korçë Korçë DevollKolonjëKorçëPogradec 46147 1221 447615372 
 8 Kukës Kukës HasKukësTropojë 3147 111 308968 
 9 Lezhë Lezhë KurbinLezhëMirditë 495 312 266280 
 10 Shkodër Shkodër Malësi e MadhePukëShkodër 5815 122 5675141 
 11 Tirana Tirana KavajëTirana 816 23 66167 
 12 Vlorë Vlorë DelvinëSarandëVlorë 379 124 386299 

== Geography ==

A satellite image of Albania

Albania has a total area of 28748 km2. It lies between latitudes 39° and 43° N, and mostly between longitudes 19° and 21° E (a small area lies east of 21°). Albania's coastline length is 476 km and extends along the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The lowlands of the west face the Adriatic Sea.

The 70% of the country that is mountainous is rugged and often inaccessible from the outside. The highest mountain is Korab situated in the district of Dibër, reaching up to 2764 m. The climate on the coast is typically Mediterranean with mild, wet winters and warm, sunny, and rather dry summers.

Inland conditions vary depending on elevation, but the higher areas above 1,500 m/5,000 ft are rather cold and frequently snowy in winter; here cold conditions with snow may linger into spring. Besides the capital city of Tirana, which has 420,000 inhabitants, the principal cities are Durrës, Korçë, Elbasan, Shkodër, Gjirokastër, Vlorë and Kukës. In Albanian grammar, a word can have indefinite and definite forms, and this also applies to city names: both Tiranë and Tirana, Shkodër and Shkodra are used.

The three largest and deepest tectonic lakes of the Balkan Peninsula are partly located in Albania. Lake Shkodër in the country's northwest has a surface which can vary between 370 km2 and 530 km2, out of which one third belongs to Albania and rest to Montenegro. The Albanian shoreline of the lake is 57 km. Ohrid Lake is situated in the country's southeast and is shared between Albania and Republic of Macedonia. It has a maximal depth of 289 meters and a variety of unique flora and fauna can be found there, including "living fossils" and many endemic species. Because of its natural and historical value, Ohrid Lake is under the protection of UNESCO. There is also Butrinti Lake which is a small tectonic lake. It is located in the national park of Butrint.

=== Climate ===
The Albanian riviera, panoramic view
With its coastline facing the Adriatic and Ionian seas, its highlands backed upon the elevated Balkan landmass, and the entire country lying at a latitude subject to a variety of weather patterns during the winter and summer seasons, Albania has a high number of climatic regions relative to its landmass. The coastal lowlands have typically Mediterranean weather; the highlands have a Mediterranean continental climate. In both the lowlands and the interior, the weather varies markedly from north to south.

The lowlands have mild winters, averaging about 7 °C. Summer temperatures average 24 °C. In the southern lowlands, temperatures average about 5 C-change higher throughout the year. The difference is greater than 5 C-change during the summer and somewhat less during the winter.

Inland temperatures are affected more by differences in elevation than by latitude or any other factor. Low winter temperatures in the mountains are caused by the continental air mass that dominates the weather in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Northerly and northeasterly winds blow much of the time. Average summer temperatures are lower than in the coastal areas and much lower at higher elevations, but daily fluctuations are greater. Daytime maximum temperatures in the interior basins and river valleys are very high, but the nights are almost always cool.

Average precipitation is heavy, a result of the convergence of the prevailing airflow from the Mediterranean Sea and the continental air mass. Because they usually meet at the point where the terrain rises, the heaviest rain falls in the central uplands. Vertical currents initiated when the Mediterranean air is uplifted also cause frequent thunderstorms. Many of these storms are accompanied by high local winds and torrential downpours.

When the continental air mass is weak, Mediterranean winds drop their moisture farther inland. When there is a dominant continental air mass, cold air spills onto the lowland areas, which occurs most frequently in the winter. Because the season's lower temperatures damage olive trees and citrus fruits, groves and orchards are restricted to sheltered places with southern and western exposures, even in areas with high average winter temperatures.

Lowland rainfall averages from 1000 mm to more than 1500 mm annually, with the higher levels in the north. Nearly 95% of the rain falls in the winter.
Landscape of Albanian countryside

Rainfall in the upland mountain ranges is heavier. Adequate records are not available, and estimates vary widely, but annual averages are probably about 1800 mm and are as high as 2550 mm in some northern areas. The western Albanian Alps (valley of Boga) are among the wettest areas in Europe, receiving some 3100 mm of rain annually. The seasonal variation is not quite as great in the coastal area.

The higher inland mountains receive less precipitation than the intermediate uplands. Terrain differences cause wide local variations, but the seasonal distribution is the most consistent of any area.

In 2009, an expedition from University of Colorado discovered four small glaciers in the 'Cursed' mountains in North Albania. The glaciers are at the relatively low level of 2,000 meters – almost unique for such a southerly latitude. 

=== Flora and fauna ===
The lynx still survives in Albania. 

Although a small country, Albania is distinguished for its rich biological diversity. The variation of geomorphology, climate and terrain create favorable conditions for a number of endemic and sub-endemic species with 27 endemic and 160 subendemic vascular plants present in the country. The total number of plants is over 3250 species, approximately 30% of the entire flora species found in Europe.

Over a third of the territory of Albania – about 10000 km2;– is forested and the country is very rich in flora. About 3,000 different species of plants grow in Albania, many of which are used for medicinal purposes. Phytogeographically, Albania belongs to the Boreal Kingdom, the Mediterranean Region and the Illyrian province of the Circumboreal Region. Coastal regions and lowlands have typical Mediterranean macchia vegetation, whereas oak forests and vegetation are found on higher elevations. Vast forests of black pine, beech and fir are found on higher mountains and alpine grasslands grow at elevations above 1800 meters. http://www.cbd.int/doc/world/al/al-nbsap-01-p1-en.pdf 

Golden eagle–the national symbol of Albania. 

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature and Digital Map of European Ecological Regions by the European Environment Agency, the territory of Albania can be subdivided into three ecoregions: the Illyrian deciduous forests, Pindus Mountains mixed forests and Dinaric Alpine mixed forests. The forests are home to a wide range of mammals, including wolves, bears, wild boars and chamois. Lynx, wildcats, pine martens and polecats are rare, but survive in some parts of the country.

There are around 760 vertebrate species found so far in Albania. Among these there are over 350 bird species, 330 freshwater and marine fish and 80 mammal species. There are some 91 globally threatened species found within the country, among which the Dalmatian pelican, Pygmy cormorant, and the European sea sturgeon. Rocky coastal regions in the south provide good habitats for the endangered Mediterranean monk seal.

Some of the most significant bird species found in the country include the golden eagle – known as the national symbol of Albania – vulture species, capercaillie and numerous waterfowl. The Albanian forests still maintain significant communities of large mammals such as the brown bear, gray wolf, chamois and wild boar. The north and eastern mountains of the country are home to the last remaining Balkan Lynx – a critically endangered population of the Eurasian lynx. 

== Economy ==

Tirana the capital and economic hub of Albania.
Tirana T.I.D tower 

Albania's transition from a socialist centrally planned economy to free-market capitalism has been largely successful. There are signs of increasing investments, and power cuts are reduced to the extent that Albania is now exporting energy. In 2012, its GDP per capita (expressed in Purchasing Power Standards) stood at 30% of the EU average, while AIC (Actual Individual Consumption) was 35%. Still, Albania has shown potential for economic growth, as more and more businesses relocate there and consumer goods are becoming available from emerging market traders as part of the current massive global cost-cutting exercise. Albania, Cyprus, and Poland are the only countries in Europe that recorded economic growth in the first quarter of 2010. Business: Albania, Cyprus register economic growth SEtimes.com Strong economic growth potential puts Albania and Panama top of long term investment list,Propertywire.com International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted 2.6% growth for Albania in 2010 and 3.2% in 2011. International Monetary Fund (IMF), 9 October 2010. Albania and the IMF 

Albania and Croatia have discussed the possibility of jointly building a nuclear power plant at Lake Shkoder, close to the border with Montenegro, a plan that has gathered criticism from Montenegro due to seismicity in the area. In addition, there is some doubt whether Albania would be able to finance a project of such a scale with a total national budget of less than $5 billion. However, in February 2009 Italian company Enel announced plans to build an 800 MW coal-fired power plant in Albania, to diversify electricity sources. Enel Albanian Joint Venture Introduces Coal In Albania's Power Mix, Business Monitor Online, 24 February 2009 Nearly 100% of the electricity is generated by ageing hydroelectric power plants, which are becoming more ineffective due to increasing droughts. 

The country has some deposits of petroleum and natural gas, but only produced 6,438 barrels of oil per day in 2009 (BNK-TC). Natural gas production, estimated at about 30 million m³, is sufficient to meet consumer demands. Other natural resources include coal, bauxite, copper and iron ore.

Agriculture is the most significant sector, employing a significant proportion of the labor force and generating about 21% of GDP. Albania produces significant amounts of wheat, corn, tobacco, figs (13th largest producer in the world) Albania Country Profile, Food and Agriculture Organization and olives. Albania remains one of the poorest countries in Europe outside the former Soviet Union. 

Tourism is gaining a fair share of Albania's GDP with visitors growing every year. As of 2014 exports seem to gain momentum and have increased 300% from 2008, although their contribution to the GDP is still moderate ( the exports per capita ratio currently stands at 1100 $ )

=== Tourism ===

Porto Palermo Castle south of Himara
Ancient Amphitheater of Butrint
Seaside town of Saranda across from Corfu
An important percentage of Albania's national income comes from tourism. Tourism - as of 2013 - funds 10% of the gross domestical product, and this number is expected to increase dramatically within the next decade. Albania welcomed around 4,2 million visitors in 2012, mostly from neighbouring countries and the European Union. In 2011, Albania was listed as the top travel destination worldwide, by lonely planet. 

The bulk of the tourist industry is concentrated along the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea coast. The latter has the most beautiful and pristine beaches, and is often called the Albanian Riviera. The increase in foreign visitors is dramatic, Albania had only 500,000 visitors in 2005, while in 2012 had an estimated 4.2 million tourists. An increase of 840% in only 7 years.

Most of the international tourists going to Albania are from Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, and Italy. Foreign tourists mostly come from Eastern Europe, particularly from Poland, and the Czech Republic, but also from Western European countries such as Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Scandinavia, and others. Turizmi ne Shqiperi: Reklama per Evropen Lindore, Shqiperia.com 

== Crime and law enforcement ==
Law enforcement in Albania is primarily the responsibility of the Albanian Police. Albania also has a counter-terrorism unit called RENEA. On a list of 75 countries, Albania listed at 17th lowest crime rate ahead of many western nations such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, Sweden and France. However, homicide is still a problem in the country, especially blood feuds in rural areas of the north and domestic crime. In 2014 about 3000 Albanian families were estimated to be involved in blood feuds and this had since the fall of Communism led to the deaths of 10 000 people. 

== Science and technology ==

From 1993 human resources in sciences and technology have drastically decreased. Various surveys show that during 1991–2005, approximately 50% of the professors and research scientists of the universities and science institutions in the country have emigrated. Research for Development Highly Skilled Migration from Albania 

However in 2009 the government approved the "National Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation in Albania" covering the period 2009–2015. It aims to triple public spending on research and development (R&D) to 0.6% of GDP and augment the share of gross domestic expenditure on R&D from foreign sources, including via the European Union's Framework Programmes for Research, to the point where it covers 40% of research spending, among others.

== Transport ==

=== Highways ===
The A1 highway in Albania
Currently there are three main motorways in Albania: the dual carriageway connecting Durrës with Vlorë, the Albania–Kosovo Highway, and the Tirana–Elbasan Highway.

The Albania–Kosovo Highway links Kosovo to Albania's Adriatic coast: the Albanian side was completed in June 2009, and now it takes only two hours and a half to go from the Kosovo border to Durrës. Overall the highway will be around 250 km when it reaches Pristina. The project was the biggest and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in Albania. The cost of the highway appears to have breached €800 million, although the exact cost for the total highway has yet to be confirmed by the government.

Two additional highways will be built in Albania in the near future: Corridor VIII, which will link Albania with the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, and the north-south highway, which corresponds to the Albanian side of the Adriatic–Ionian motorway, a larger regional highway connecting Croatia with Greece along the Adriatic and Ionian coasts. When all three corridors are completed Albania will have an estimated 759 kilometers of highway linking it with all its neighboring countries: Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Greece.

=== Aviation ===
Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza

The civil air transport in Albania marked its beginnings in November 1924, when the Republic of Albania signed a governmental agreement with German air company Deutsche Luft Hansa. On the basis of a ten-year concession agreement, the Albanian Airlines Company Adria Aero Lloyd was established. In the spring of 1925, the first domestic flights from Tirana to Shkodër and Vlorë began.

In August 1927, the office of Civil Aviation of Air Traffic Ministry of Italy purchased Adria Aero Lloyd. The company, now in Italian hands, expanded its flights to other cities, such as Elbasan, Korçë, Kukës, Peshkopi and Gjirokastër, and opened up international lines to Rome, Milan, Thessaloniki, Sofia, Belgrade, and Podgorica.

The construction of a more modern airport in Laprakë started in 1934 and was completed by the end of 1935. This new airport, which was later officially named "Airport of Tirana", was constructed in conformity with optimal technological parameters of that time, with a reinforced concrete runway of 2700 m, and complemented with technical equipment and appropriate buildings.

During 1955–1957, the Rinasi Airport was constructed for military purposes. Later, its administration was shifted to the Ministry of Transport. On 25 January 1957 the State-owned Enterprise of International Air Transport (Albtransport) established its headquarters in Tirana. Aeroflot, Jat Airways, Malév, TAROM and Interflug were the air companies that started to have flights with Albania until 1960. 

During 1960–1978, several airlines ceased to operate in Albania due to the impact of the politics, resulting in a decrease of influx of flights and passengers. In 1977 Albania's government signed an agreement with Greece to open the country's first air links with non-communist Europe. As a result, Olympic Airways was the first non-communist airline to commercially fly into Albania after World War II. By 1991 Albania had air links with many major European cities, including Paris, Rome, Zürich, Vienna and Budapest, but no regular domestic air service. 

A French-Albanian joint venture Ada Air, was launched in Albania as the first private airline, in 1991. The company offered flights in a thirty-six-passenger airplane four days a week between Tirana and Bari, Italy and a charter service for domestic and international destinations. 

From 1989 to 1991, because of political changes in the Eastern European countries, Albania adhered to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), opened its air space to international flights, and had its duties of Air Traffic Control defined. As a result of these developments, conditions were created to separate the activities of air traffic control from Albtransport. Instead, the National Agency of Air Traffic (NATA) was established as an independent enterprise. In addition, during these years, governmental agreements of civil air transport were established with countries such as Bulgaria, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Russia, Austria, the UK and Macedonia.

Durrës Rail Station, the main railway station in Durrës, Albania.
The Directory General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was established on 3 February 1991, to cope with the development required by the time. Albania has one international airport, Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza, which is linked to 29 destinations by 14 airlines. It has seen a dramatic rise in passenger numbers and aircraft movements since the early 1990s. The data for 2009 is 1.3 million passengers served and an average of 44 landings and takeoffs per day.

=== Railways ===

The railways in Albania are administered by the national railway company Hekurudha Shqiptare (HSH) (which means Albanian Railways). It operates a gauge (standard gauge) rail system in Albania. All trains are hauled by Czech-built ČKD diesel-electric locomotives.

The railway system was extensively promoted by the totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha, during which time the use of private transport was effectively prohibited. Since the collapse of the former regime, there has been a considerable increase in car ownership and bus usage. Whilst some of the country's roads are still in very poor condition, there have been other developments (such as the construction of a motorway between Tirana and Durrës) which have taken much traffic away from the railways.

== Demographics ==

Albanian schoolchildren

 Population in Albania CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion Population 1971–2009 IEA pdf pages 87–89 
 Year Million 
 1971 2.2 
 1990 3.3 
 2008 3.1 
 2011 2.8 
 Source: OECD/World Bank 

Regions with a traditional presence of ethnic or linguistic groups other than Albanian.
According to the 2011 Census results, the total population of Albania is 2,821,977 with a low Fertility rate of 1.49 children born per woman. Albania: People, CIA World Factbook, 2012. Retrieved on 6 April 2012 Women, Men and shefit's in Albania 2006, Instat, Tirana, 2007 The fall of the Communist regime in 1990 Albania was accompanied with massive migration. External migration was prohibited in Communist Albania while internal one was quite limited, hence this was a new phenomenon. Between 1991 and 2004, roughly 900,000 people have migrated out of Albania, about 600,000 of them settling in Greece. "Albania: Looking Beyond Borders". Migration Policy Institute. Migration greatly affected Albania's internal population distribution. Population decreased mainly in the North and South of the country while increased in Tirana and Durrës center districts.

Issues of ethnicity are a delicate topic and subject to debate. "Although official statistics have suggested that Albania is one of the most homogenous countries in the region (with an over 97 per cent Albanian majority) minority groups (such as Greeks, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Roma and Vlachs/Aromanians) have often questioned the official data, claiming a larger share in the country’s population." The last census that contained ethnographic data (before the 2011 one) was conducted in 1989. 

Albania recognizes three national minorities, Greeks, Macedonians and Montenegrins, and two cultural minorities, Aromanians and Romani people. Other Albanian minorities are Bulgarians, Gorani, Serbs, Balkan Egyptians, Bosniaks and Jews. Regarding the Greeks, "it is difficult to know how many Greeks there are in Albania. The Greek government, it is typically claimed, says that there are around 300,000 ethnic Greeks in Albania, but most western estimates are around 200,000 mark (although EEN puts the number at a probable 100,000). The Albanian government puts the number at only 60,000." The CIA World Factbook estimates the Greek minority at 3% of the total population and the US State Department uses 1.17% for Greeks and 0.23% for other minorities. Albania, U.S. Department of State Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Background Note November 2008. Retrieved 14 May 2009 

According to the 2011 census the population of Albania declared the following ethnic affiliation: Albanians 2,312,356 (82.6% of the total), Greeks 24,243 (0.9%), Macedonians 5,512 (0.2%), Montenegrins 366 (0.01%), Aromanians 8,266 (0.30%), Romani 8,301 (0.3%), Balkan Egyptians 3,368 (0.1%), other ethnicities 2,644 (0.1%), no declared ethnicity 390,938 (14.0%), and not relevant 44,144 (1.6%). 

Macedonian and some Greek minority groups have sharply criticized Article 20 of the Census law, according to which a $1,000 fine will be imposed on anyone who will declare an ethnicity other than what is stated on his or her birth certificate. This is claimed to be an attempt to intimidate minorities into declaring Albanian ethnicity, according to them the Albanian government has stated that it will jail anyone who does not participate in the census or refuse to declare his or her ethnicity. Genc Pollo, the minister in charge has declared that: "Albanian citizens will be able to freely express their ethnic and religious affiliation and mother tongue. However, they are not forced to answer these sensitive questions". The amendments criticized do not include jailing or forced declaration of ethnicity or religion, only a fine is envisioned which can be overthrown by court. 

Greek representatives form part of the Albanian parliament and the government has invited Albanian Greeks to register, as the only way to improve their status. On the other hand, nationalists,as well as intellectuals, various organizations and, political parties in Albania have expressed their concern that the census might artificially increase the number of Greek minority, which might be then exploited by Greece to threaten Albania's territorial integrity. Large parts of Albanians, similarly fear irredentist claims on northern Epirus following Albanians changing their nationality to Greek due to monetary and other benefits. 

=== Language ===

Albanian is the official language of Albania. Its standard spoken and written form is revised and merged from the two main dialects, Gheg and Tosk; though, it is notably based more on the Tosk dialect. Shkumbin River is the rough dividing line between the two dialects. Also a dialect of Greek that preserves features now lost in standard modern Greek is spoken in areas inhabited by the Greek minority. Other languages spoken by ethnic minorities in Albania include Vlach, Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Gorani, and Roma. Macedonian is official in Pustec Municipality in East Albania.

According to the 2011 population census, 2,765,610 or 98.767% of the population declared Albanian as their mother tongue ("mother tongue is defined as the first or main language spoken at home during childhood"). 

=== Religion ===

According to 2011 census, 58.79% of Albania adheres to Islam, Christianity is practiced by 17.09% of the population, making it the second largest religion in the country and 25.32% of the total population is either irreligious or belongs to other religious groups. http://www.instat.gov.al/media/177358/njoftim_per_media_-_fjala_e_drejtorit_te_instat_ines_nurja_per_rezultatet_finale_te_census_2011.pdf Before World War II, 70% of the population were Muslims, 20% Eastern Orthodox, and 10% Roman Catholics. According to a 2010 survey, religion today plays an important role in the lives of only 39% of Albanians, and Albania is ranked among the least religious countries in the world. 

The Albanians first appear in the historical record in Byzantine sources of the late 11th century. At this point, they were already fully Christianized. Islam later emerged as the majority religion during the centuries of Ottoman rule, though a significant Christian minority remained. After independence (1912) from the Ottoman Empire, the Albanian republican, monarchic and later Communist regimes followed a systematic policy of separating religion from official functions and cultural life. Albania never had an official state religion either as a republic or as a kingdom. In the 20th century, the clergy of all faiths was weakened under the monarchy, and ultimately eradicated during the 1940s and 1950s, under the state policy of obliterating all organized religion from Albanian territories.

The Communist regime that took control of Albania after World War II persecuted and suppressed religious observance and institutions and entirely banned religion to the point where Albania was officially declared to be the world's first atheist state. Religious freedom has returned to Albania since the regime's change in 1992. Albania joined the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in 1992, following the fall of the communist government, but will not be attending the 2014 conference due a dispute regarding the fact that its parliament never ratified the country's membership. Albanian Muslim populations (mainly secular and of the Sunni branch) are found throughout the country whereas Albanian Orthodox Christians as well as Bektashis are concentrated in the south and Roman Catholics are found in the north of the country. 

The first recorded Albanian Protestant was Said Toptani, who traveled around Europe, and in 1853 returned to Tirana and preached Protestantism. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities in 1864. Mainline evangelical Protestants date back to the work of Congregational and later Methodist missionaries and the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society in the 19th century. The Evangelical Alliance, which is known as VUSh, was founded in 1892. Today VUSh has about 160 member congregations from different Protestant denominations. VUSh organizes marches in Tirana including one against blood feuds in 2010. Bibles are provided by the Interconfessional Bible Society of Albania. The first full Albanian Bible to be printed was the Filipaj translation printed in 1990.

Seventh-day Adventist Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Jehovah's Witnesses also have a number adherents in Albania. 

Albania was the only country in Europe where Jewish population experienced growth during the Holocaust. ^ Samer, Haroey (1997), "Rescue in Albania: One Hundred Percent of Jews in Albania Rescued from Holocaust", The Jews of Albania, California: Brunswick Press, archived from the original on 2008-05-10, retrieved 2012-10-21 After the mass emigration to Israel since the fall of Communist regime, only 200 Albanian Jews are left in the country today. 

File:TiranaKathedraleDerAuferstehungChristi.JPG|Resurrection of Christ Orthodox Tirana
File:Et%27hem_Bey_Mosque_%26_Clock_tower.jpg|Et'hem Bey Mosque and Tirana Clock Tower
File:Qendra Botërore Bektashiane.jpg|World Headquarters of the Bektashi Order in Tirana.
File:ALB 20070713 img 1247.jpg|St Paul Catholic Cathedral Tirana

== Culture ==

=== Music and folklore ===
Berat
A traditional male folk group from Skrapar.

Albanian folk music falls into three stylistic groups, with other important music areas around Shkodër and Tirana; the major groupings are the Ghegs of the north and southern Labs and Tosks. The northern and southern traditions are contrasted by the "rugged and heroic" tone of the north and the "relaxed" form of the south.

These disparate styles are unified by "the intensity that both performers and listeners give to their music as a medium for patriotic expression and as a vehicle carrying the narrative of oral history", as well as certain characteristics like the use of rhythms such as 3/8, 5/8 and 10/8. Arbatsky, Yuri, cited in Koco with the footnote Translated and published by Filip Fishta in Shkolla Kombëtare (The National School; No.1, May 1939), 19, and quoted from his Preface to Pjetër Dungu's Lyra Shqiptare (see note 2). The first compilation of Albanian folk music was made by Pjetër Dungu in 1940.

Albanian folk songs can be divided into major groups, the heroic epics of the north, and the sweetly melodic lullabies, love songs, wedding music, work songs and other kinds of song. The music of various festivals and holidays is also an important part of Albanian folk song, especially those that celebrate St. Lazarus Day, which inaugurates the springtime. Lullabies and vajtims are very important kinds of Albanian folk song, and are generally performed by solo women. 

=== Albanian language and literature ===
Ismail Kadare at a reading, 2007

Albanian was proved to be an Indo-European language in 1854 by the German philologist Franz Bopp. The Albanian language comprises its own branch of the Indo-European language family.

Some scholars believe that Albanian derives from Illyrian Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture By J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams Edition: illustrated Published by Taylor & Francis, 1997 ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5, ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5 ("Although there are some lexical items that appear to be shared between Romanian (and by extension Dacian) and Albanian, by far the strongest connections can be argued between Albanian and Illyrian." page 11)
Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World By Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie Contributor Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie Edition: illustrated Published by Elsevier, 2008 ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7, ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7 ("Albanian constitutes a single branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It is often held to be related to Illyrian, a poorly attested language spoken in the Western Balkans in classical times" page 22) while others claim that it derives from Daco-Thracian. (Illyrian and Daco-Thracian, however, might have been closely related languages; see Thraco-Illyrian.)

Establishing longer relations, Albanian is often compared to Balto-Slavic on the one hand and Germanic on the other, both of which share a number of isoglosses with Albanian. Moreover, Albanian has undergone a vowel shift in which stressed, long o has fallen to a, much like in the former and opposite the latter. Likewise, Albanian has taken the old relative jos and innovatively used it exclusively to qualify adjectives, much in the way Balto-Slavic has used this word to provide the definite ending of adjectives.

The cultural renaissance was first of all expressed through the development of the Albanian language in the area of church texts and publications, mainly of the Catholic region in the North, but also of the Orthodox in the South. The Protestant reforms invigorated hopes for the development of the local language and literary tradition when cleric Gjon Buzuku brought into the Albanian language the Catholic liturgy, trying to do for the Albanian language what Luther did for German.

Excerpt from Meshari by Gjon Buzuku

Meshari (The Missal) by Gjon Buzuku, published in 1555, is considered the first literary work of written Albanian. The refined level of the language and the stabilised orthography must be the result of an earlier tradition of written Albanian, a tradition that is not well understood. However, there is some fragmented evidence, pre-dating Buzuku, which indicates that Albanian was written from at least the 14th century.

The earliest evidence dates from 1332 AD with a Latin report from the French Dominican Guillelmus Adae, Archbishop of Antivari, who wrote that Albanians used Latin letters in their books although their language was quite different from Latin. Other significant examples include: a baptism formula (Unte paghesont premenit Atit et Birit et spertit senit) from 1462, written in Albanian within a Latin text by the Bishop of Durrës, Pal Engjëlli; a glossary of Albanian words of 1497 by Arnold von Harff, a German who had travelled through Albania, and a 15th-century fragment of the Bible from the Gospel of Matthew, also in Albanian, but written in Greek letters.
The National Museum of Albania features exhibits from Illyrian times to the fall of Communism in the 1990s.

Albanian writings from these centuries must not have been religious texts only, but historical chronicles too. They are mentioned by the humanist Marin Barleti, who, in his book Rrethimi i Shkodrës (The Siege of Shkodër) (1504), confirms that he leafed through such chronicles written in the language of the people (in vernacula lingua).

During the 16th to 17th centuries, the catechism E mbësuame krishterë (Christian Teachings) (1592) by Lekë Matrënga, Doktrina e krishterë (The Christian Doctrine) (1618) and Rituale romanum (1621) by Pjetër Budi, the first writer of original Albanian prose and poetry, an apology for George Castriot (1636) by Frang Bardhi, who also published a dictionary and folklore creations, the theological-philosophical treaty Cuneus Prophetarum (The Band of Prophets) (1685) by Pjetër Bogdani, the most universal personality of Albanian Middle Ages, were published in Albanian. The most famous Albanian writer is probably Ismail Kadare.

== Education ==

Before the establishment of the People's Republic, Albania's illiteracy rate was as high as 85%. Schools were scarce between World War I and World War II. When the People's Republic was established in 1945, the Party gave high priority to wiping out illiteracy. As part of a vast social campaign, anyone between the ages of 12 and 40 who could not read or write was mandated to attend classes to learn. By 1955, illiteracy was virtually eliminated among Albania's adult population. Zickel, Iwaskiw, 1994 

Today the overall literacy rate in Albania is 98.7%; the male literacy rate is 99.2% and female literacy rate is 98.3%. With large population movements in the 1990s to urban areas, the provision of education has undergone transformation as well. The University of Tirana is the oldest university in Albania, having been founded in October 1957.

== Sport ==
Qemal Stafa Stadium in Tirana
Football is the most popular sport in Albania, both at a participatory and spectator level. The sport is governed by the Football Association of Albania (, F.SH.F.), created in 1930, member of FIFA and a founding member of UEFA. Other sports played include basketball, volleyball, tennis, swimming, rugby union, and gymnastics.

* Albania national football team
* Albania national basketball team
* Albania national futsal team

== Entertainment ==

Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH) is the public radio and TV broadcaster of Albania, founded by King Zog in 1938. RTSH runs three analogue television stations as TVSH Televizioni Shqiptar, four digital thematic stations as RTSH, and three radio stations using the name Radio Tirana. In addition, 4 regional radio stations serve in the four extremities of Albania. The international service broadcasts radio programmes in Albanian and seven other languages via medium wave (AM) and short wave (SW). The international service has used the theme from the song "Keputa një gjethe dafine" as its signature tune. The international television service via satellite was launched since 1993 and aims at Albanian communities in Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and northern Greece, plus the Albanian diaspora in the rest of Europe. RTSH has a past of being heavily influenced by the ruling party in its reporting, whether that party be left or right wing.

According to the Albanian Media Authority, AMA, Albania has an estimated 257 media outlets, including 66 radio stations and 67 television stations, with three national, 62 local and more than 50 cable TV stations.
Last years Albania has organized several shows as a part of worldwide series like Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother Albania, Albanians Got Talent, The Voice of Albania, and X-Factor Albania.

== Health ==
Health care has been in a steep decline since the collapse of socialism in the country, but a process of modernization has been taking place since 2000. In the 2000s, there were 51 hospitals in the country, including a military hospital and specialist facilities. Albania has successfully eradicated diseases such as malaria.

Life expectancy is estimated at 77.59 years, ranking 51st worldwide, and outperforming a number of European Union countries, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic. CIA – The World Factbook, Life Expectancy ranks The most common causes of death are circulatory disease followed by cancerous illnesses. Demographic and Health Surveys completed a survey in April 2009, detailing various health statistics in Albania, including male circumcision, abortion and more. Albania DHS Surveys . 

The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tirana is the main medical school in the country. There are also nursing schools in other cities. Newsweek ranked Albania 57 out of 100 Best Countries in the World in 2010. 

The general improvement of health conditions in the country is reflected in the lower mortality rate, down to an estimated 6.49 deaths per 1,000 in 2000, as compared with 17.8 per 1,000 in 1938. In 2000, average life expectancy was estimated at 74 years, compared to 38 years at the end of World War II. Albania's infant mortality rate, estimated at 20 per 1,000 live births in 2000, has also declined over the years since the high rate of 151 per 1,000 live births in 1960. There were 69,802 births in 1999 and the fertility rate in 1999 was 2.5 while the maternal mortality rate was 65 per 100,000 live births in 1993. In addition, in 1997, Albania had high immunization rates for children up to one year old: tuberculosis at 94%; diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, 99%; measles, 95%; and polio, 99.5%. In 1996, the incidence of tuberculosis was 23 in 100,000 people. In 1995 there were two reported cases of AIDS and seven cases in 1996. In 2000 the number of people living with HIV/AIDS was estimated at less than 100. The leading causes of death are cardiovascular disease, trauma, cancer, and respiratory disease.

== Cuisine ==

The cuisine of Albania – as with most Mediterranean and Balkan nations – is strongly influenced by its long history. At different times, the territory which is now Albania has been claimed or occupied by Greece, Serbia, Italy and the Ottoman Turks and each group has left its mark on Albanian cuisine. The main meal of Albanians is the midday meal, which is usually accompanied by a salad of fresh vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and olives with olive oil, vinegar and salt. It also includes a main dish of vegetables and meat. Seafood specialties are also common in the coastal cities of Durrës, Sarandë and Vlorë. In high elevation localities, smoked meat and pickled preserves are common.

== See also ==

* Bibliography of Albania
* Index of Albania-related articles
* International rankings of Albania
* Outline of Albania
* 

== References ==

== Notes ==

== Further reading ==
* History of the Party of Labor of Albania. Tirana: Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, 1971. 691 p.

== External links ==

* 
* 
* Albania from UCB Libraries GovPubs
* 
* Albanian Tourism Official Portal
* 
* Guide To Albania
* 
* Key Development Forecasts for Albania from International Futures

 



[[Allah]]

Allah ( or ; , ) is the Arabic name for God (al ilāh, iliterally "the God"). "Islam and Christianity", Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001): Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also refer to God as Allāh. The word has cognates in other Semitic languages, including Alah in Aramaic, ʾĒl in Canaanite and Elohim in Hebrew. 

It is used mainly by Muslims to refer to God in Islam, but it has also been used by Arab Christians since pre-Islamic times. It is also often, albeit not exclusively, used by Bábists, Bahá'ís, Indonesian and Maltese Christians, and Mizrahi Jews. 
"Allah." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Allah Columbia Encyclopedia, Allah Christians and Sikhs in Malaysia also use and have used the word to refer to God. This has caused political and legal controversies in Peninsular Malaysia. Sikhs target of 'Allah' attack, Julia Zappei, Jan. 14, 2010, The New Zealand Herald. Accessed on line Jan. 15, 2014. Malaysia court rules non-Muslims can't use 'Allah', Oct. 14, 2013, The New Zealand Herald. Accessed on line Jan. 15, 2014. Malaysia's Islamic authorities seize Bibles as Allah row deepens, Niluksi Koswanage, Jan. 2, 2014, Reuters. Accessed on line Jan. 15, 2014. 

==Etymology==
 The Arabic components that build-up the word "Allah": 1. alif2. hamzat waṣl (همزة وصل)3. lām4. lām5. shadda (شدة) 6. dagger alif (ألف خنجرية) 7. hāʾ
The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and [[ilāh|]] "deity, god" to meaning "the deity, God" (, ho theos monos). L. Gardet, Allah, Encyclopaedia of Islam 
Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic. Columbia Encyclopaedia says: Derived from an old Semitic root referring to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim and Eloah, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other monotheists. The corresponding Aramaic form is Alah (), but its emphatic state is Alaha (). It is written as () in Biblical Aramaic and () in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply "God". The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon – Entry for Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural (but functional singular) form Elohim (), but more rarely it also uses the singular form Eloah (). In the Sikh scripture of Guru Granth Sahib, the term Allah () is used 37 times. http://www.srigranth.org 

The name was previously used by pagan Meccans as a reference to a creator deity, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia. L. Gardet, "Allah", Encyclopedia of Islam 
The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) differ among religious traditions. In pre-Islamic Arabia amongst pagan Arabs, Allah was not considered the sole divinity, having associates and companions, sons and daughters–a concept that was deleted under the process of Islamization. In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name, and all other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah. 
 
Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent. Arab Christians today use terms such as (, 'God the Father') to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage. There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Quran and the Hebrew Bible. It has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept. Nation of Islam – personification of Allah as Detroit peddler W D Fard 

There is a Unicode character for the word Allāh, = U+FDF2. Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah. 
* Arabic fonts and Mac OS X
* Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X 

==Usage==

Many inscriptions containing the name Allah have been discovered in Northern and Southern Arabia as early as the 5th century B.C., including Lihyanitic, Thamudic and South Arabian inscriptions. René Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie avant l’Islam (Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1907), Pages: 141 Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present, Tenth Edition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970), Pages: 100 F. V. Winnett, A Study of the Lihyanite and Thamudic Inscriptions (Toronto: 1937), Pages: 30 Kenneth J. Thomas, The Bible Translator: Technical Papers, Vol. 52:3, (July 2001), Pages: 301-305 

The name Allah or Alla was found in the Epic of Atrahasis engraved on several tablets dating back to around 1700 BC in Babylon, which showed that he was being worshipped as a high deity among other gods who were considered to be his brothers but taking orders from him. Stephanie Dalley (1989), Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford University Press, Pages: 3-10 

Dumuzid the Shepherd, a king of the 1st Dynasty of Uruk named on the Sumerian King List, was later over-venerated so that people started associating him with "Alla" and the Babylonian god Tammuz. Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps that Once: Sumerian Poetry in Translation (1997), Yale University Press, Part. 1, Pages: 53-61 

===Nabataeans===

The name Allah was used by Nabataeans in compound names, such as "Abd Allah" (The Servant/Slave of Allah), "Aush Allah" (The Faith of Allah), "Amat Allah" (The She-Servant of Allah), "Hab Allah" (Beloved of Allah), "Han Allah" (Allah is gracious), "Shalm Allah" (Peace of Allah), while the name "Wahab Allah" (The Gift of Allah) was found
throughout the entire region of the Nabataean kingdom. Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language (1997), Columbia University Press-New York, Page: 30 Dan Gibson, The Nabataeans: Builders of Petra (2003), Page: 209 

From Nabataean inscriptions, Allah seems to have been regarded as a "High and Main God", while other deities were considered to be mediators before Allah and of a second status, which was the same case of the worshipers at the Kaaba temple at Mecca. John F. Healey, The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (2000), Brill Publishing, Page: 83 

===Islam===

Medallion showing "Allah" in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.
According to Islamic belief, Allah is the proper name of God, Böwering, Gerhard, God and His Attributes, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007. and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith. "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, Allah "He is unique () and inherently one (), all-merciful and omnipotent." The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures." 
Allah script outside Eski Cami (The Old Mosque) in Edirne, Turkey.
In Islamic tradition, there are 99 Names of God ( lit. meaning: 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names'), each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (al-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (). 

Most Muslims use the untranslated Arabic phrase [[Insha'Allah|]] (meaning 'if God wills') after references to future events. Gary S. Gregg, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, Oxford University Press, p.30 Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of [[Basmala|]] (meaning 'in the name of God'). Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Society in Practice, University Press of Florida, p. 24 

There are certain phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims, including "Subḥān Allāh" (Holiness be to God), "al-ḥamdu lillāh" (Praise be to God), "[[Shahada|]]" (There is no deity but God) and "Allāhu akbar" (God is great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (dhikr). M. Mukarram Ahmed, Muzaffar Husain Syed, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, p. 144 In a Sufi practice known as dhikr Allah (lit. remembrance of God), the Sufi repeats and contemplates on the name Allah or other divine names while controlling his or her breath. Carl W. Ernst, Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond, Macmillan, p. 29 

Some scholars have suggested that Muḥammad used the term Allah in addressing both pagan Arabs and Jews or Christians in order to establish a common ground for the understanding of the name for God, a claim Gerhard Böwering says is doubtful. According to Böwering, in contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and jinn. Pre-Islamic pagan Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, inexorable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic notion of a powerful but provident and merciful God. Allah, Encyclopædia Britannica 

According to Francis Edwards Peters, "The Qur’ān insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (). The Qur’an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites. F.E. Peters, Islam, p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003 

===Christianity===
The Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is , or Alaha. Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" to mean "God". The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah". (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for "God".) Arab Christians for example use terms () meaning God the Father, () mean God the Son, and () meaning God the Holy Spirit. (See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of God.)

Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim , and also created their own Trinitized as early as the 8th century CE. The Muslim reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized reads: "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The Syriac, Latin and Greek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize the monotheistic aspect of Trinitian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims. Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, Brill, 1994, p. 103 

According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Ka‘bah, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, p. 156 

Some archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient Pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arabic-speaking Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm el-Jimal in Northern Jordan, which contained references to Allah as the proper name of God, and some of the graves contained names such as "Abd Allah" which means "the servant/slave of Allah". James Bellamy, ‘Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Jabal Ramm and Umm al-Jimal’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 108/3 (1988) Enno Littmann, Arabic Inscriptions (Leiden, 1949) Rick Brown, International Journal of Frontier Missions, (23:2 Summer 2006), page 80. 

The name Allah can be found countless times in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia, as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite & Aksumite kingdoms. Ignatius Ya`qub III, The Arab Himyarite Martyrs in the Syriac Documents (1966), Pages: 9-65-66-89 Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? (2007), page 8. 

A Christian leader named Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad was martyred in Najran in 523 AD, and he had worn a ring that said "Allah is my lord". Alfred Guillaume& Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, (2002 ). The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Isḥāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh with Introduction and Notes. Karachi and New York: Oxford University Press, page 18. 

In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512 AD, references to Allah can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic, which called him "Allah" and "Alaha", and the inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of Allah". Adolf Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen und die Lapidarschrift (1971), Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, Page: 6-8 Beatrice Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century according to Dated Texts (1993), Atlanta: Scholars Press, Page: 

In Pre-Islamic Gospels, the name used for God was "Allah", as evidenced by some discovered Arabic versions of the New Testament written by Arab Christians during the Pre-Islamic era in Northern and Southern Arabia. Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? (2007), page 10. Frederick Winnett V, Allah before Islam-The Moslem World (1938), Pages: 239–248 Michael Macdonald, Personal Names in the Nabataean Realm-Journal Of Semitic Studies (1999), Page: 271 

Pre-Islamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry "Ya La Ibad Allah" (O slaves of Allah) to invoke each other into battle. Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, page 418. 

"Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by some Ghassanid and Tanukhid poets in Syria and Northern Arabia. Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, Page: 452 A. Amin & A. Harun, Sharh Diwan Al-Hamasa (Cairo, 1951), Vol. 1, Pages: 478-480 Al-Marzubani, Mu'jam Ash-Shu'araa, Page: 302 

===Judaism===

As Hebrew and Arabic are closely related Semitic languages, it is commonly accepted that Allah (root, [[ilāh|]]) and the Biblical Elohim are cognate derivations of same origin, as is Eloah, a Hebrew word which is used (e.g. in the Book of Job) to mean '(the) God' and also 'god or gods' as is the case of Elohim. Elohim and Eloah ultimately derive from the root El, 'strong', possibly genericized from El (deity), as in the Ugaritic ’lhm (consonants only), meaning "children of El" (the ancient Near Eastern creator god in pre-Abrahamic tradition).

In Jewish scripture Elohim is used as a descriptive title for the God of the scriptures whose name is YHWH, as well as for pagan gods.

==As a loanword==

===English and other European languages===

The history of the name Allāh in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in the 19th century; for example, Thomas Carlyle (1840) sometimes used the term Allah but without any implication that Allah was anything different from God. However, in his biography of Muḥammad (1934), Tor Andræ always used the term Allah, though he allows that this "conception of God" seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies. William Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Routledge, 1983, p.45 

Languages which may not commonly use the term Allah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the word ojalá in the Spanish language and oxalá in the Portuguese language exist today, borrowed from Arabic (Arabic: إن شاء الله). This phrase literally means 'if God wills' (in the sense of "I hope so"). Islam in Luce López Baralt, Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present, Brill, 1992, p.25 The German poet Mahlmann used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey.

Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English. F. E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, Princeton University Press, p.12 

=== Malaysian and Indonesian language ===
The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by A.C. Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt".

Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian and Indonesian languages (both of which are standardized forms of the Malay language.) Mainstream Bible translations in the language use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim (translated in English Bibles as "God"). Example: Usage of the word "Allah" from Matthew 22:32 in Indonesian bible versions (parallel view) as old as 1733 This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century. The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society Sneddon, James M.; University of New South Wales Press; 2004 The History of Christianity in India from the Commencement of the Christian Era: Hough, James; Adamant Media Corporation; 2001 The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by A.C. Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 (revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin-edition) recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt". Ruyl also translated Matthew in 1612 to Malay language (first Bible translation to non-European language, only a year after King James Version was published Barton, John (2002–12). The Biblical World, Oxford, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-27574-3. North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies. ), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated Mark which was published in 1638. Biography of Ruyl 

The government of Malaysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling that it was unconstitutional. While Allah had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage of Allah by the Roman Catholic newspaper The Herald. The government appealed the court ruling, and the High Court suspended implementation of its verdict until the appeal was heard. In October 2013, the court ruled in favor of the government's ban. However, the use of Allah does not prohibited in the two Malaysian state of Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo as they have already use it since a long time ago. 

In early 2014, the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God. 

===In other scripts and languages===
 in other languages that use Arabic script is spelled in the same way. This includes Urdu, Persian/Dari, Uyghur among others.
* Assamese, Allah
* 
* Ālā, Ānlā; Zhēnzhǔ (semantic translation as "the true master"), Huda (Khoda, from Persian language)
* Czech, 
* Allách
* Allah
* Allāh
* Aḷḷāh
* Arā, Arrā, Arrāfu
* 
* Alla
* , also archaic or 
* Russian, Ukrainian, Allakh
* Serbian, Belarusian, Alah
* Spanish, 
* Anláw
* Punjabi (Gurmukhi): ਅੱਲਾਹ Allāh, archaic ਅਲਹੁ Alahu (in Sikh scriptures)
*Turkish: Allah

==Typography==
The word Allah written in different writing systems.
The word is always written without an [[aleph|]] to spell the vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using to spell . However, in vocalized spelling, a small diacritic is added on top of the [[shadda|]] to indicate the pronunciation.

One exception may be in the pre-Islamic Zabad inscription, 
 where it ends with an ambiguous sign that may be a lone-standing h with a lengthened start, or may be a non-standard conjoined :-
* : This reading would be spelled phonetically with for the .
* : This reading would be = 'the god' (an older form, without contraction), by older spelling practice without for .

===Unicode===
Unicode has a codepoint reserved for , = U+FDF2, in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly", The Unicode Consortium. FAQ - Middle East Scripts which is discouraged for new text. Instead, the word should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will render the desired ligature.

The calligraphic variant of the word used as the Coat of arms of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at codepoint U+262B ().

==See also==

* Islamic eschatology
* Abdullah (name)
* [[Ilah|]]
* Names of God
* [[Tawhid|]]
* [[Dhikr|]]
* Termagant
* Five Pillars of Islam
* [[Kaaba|]]
* Prophets of Islam
* El (deity)

==Notes==

==References==
* The Unicode Consortium, Unicode Standard 5.0, Addison-Wesley, 2006, ISBN 978-0-321-48091-0, About the Unicode Standard Version 5.0 Book

==External links==

* Names of Allah with Meaning on Website, Flash, and Mobile Phone Software
* Concept of God (Allah) in Islam
* The Concept of Allāh According to the Qur'an by Abdul Mannan Omar
* Allah, the Unique Name of God

; Typography
* Arabic Fonts and Mac OS X
* Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X

 



[[Algorithms (journal)]]

Algorithms is a peer-reviewed open access mathematics journal covering all aspects of algorithm studies, including theory, experiment, design, analysis, and results. 
 
Coverage also includes computer data, information systems, software engineering, artificial intelligence, automation, and control systems. 
 
The journal is published by MDPI and was established in 2008. The editor-in-chief is Kazuo Iwama (Kyoto University). Publishing formats include reviews, original research articles, and short communications.

== Abstracting and indexing ==
The journal is abstracted and indexed in:

== See also ==
* ACM Computing Reviews
* ACM Guide to Computing Literature
* Algorithmica
* List of algorithms

== References ==

== External links ==
* 



[[Azerbaijan]]

Azerbaijan ( ; ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (), is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Azerbaijan may be considered to be in Asia and/or Europe. The United Nations classification of world regions places Azerbaijan in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook CIA.gov, NationalGeographic.com, and Encyclopædia Britannica also place Georgia in Asia. Conversely, numerous sources place Azerbaijan in Europe such as the BBC NEWS.bbc.co.uk, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and Worldatlas.com. It is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.

Azerbaijan has an ancient and historic cultural heritage, including the distinction of being the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater and plays. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established in 1918, but was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920 as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991. Shortly thereafter, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, neighboring Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly and Sofulu. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic emerged in Nagorno-Karabakh after the ceasefire of 1994 and is not diplomatically recognized by any other state. As such, the region, effectively independent since the end of the war, is considered de jure a part of Azerbaijan. 

Azerbaijan is a unitary constitutional republic. It is one of the six independent Turkic states, being an active member of the Turkic Council and the TÜRKSOY community. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations. It is one of the founding members of GUAM, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. A member of the United Nations since 1992, Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly on May 9, 2006 (the term of office began on June 19, 2006). The country is also a member of the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. Azerbaijan is member of the Non-Aligned Movement, holds observer status in World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. 

The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not declare an official religion, and all major political forces in the country are secular nationalist, but the majority of people and some opposition movements adhere to Shia Islam. Azerbaijan has a high level of human development which ranks lower than most Eastern European countries but ranks higher than the Central Asian countries. It has a high economic development and literacy, Literacy rate among schoolchildren in Azerbaijan is 100% – UN report – News.Az – Published 28 October 2011. as well as a low rate of unemployment and intentional homicide. Homicide statistics, Trends (2003–2008) UNODC. Retrieved on 5 May 2012. However, corruption in Azerbaijan is widespread and the country is widely regarded as among the most corrupt in the world. Azerbaijan and the 2013 presidential election UK Parliament briefing paper, 25 October 2013 Transparency International CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX 2012 The government, which eliminated presidential term limits in a 2009 referendum, has been accused of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. 

==Etymology==
According to a modern etymology, the name of Azerbaijan derives from that of Atropates, a Persian satrap under the Achaemenid Empire, who was later reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander the Great. The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrian religion. In the Avesta, Frawardin Yasht ("Hymn to the Guardian Angels"), there is a mention of âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, which literally translates from Avestan as "we worship the Fravashi of the holy Atropatene". 

Atropates ruled over the region of Atropatene (present Iranian Azerbaijan). The name "Atropates" itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably Median, compounded name with the meaning "Protected by the (Holy) Fire" or "The Land of the (Holy) Fire". The Greek name is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo. Over the span of millennia the name evolved to Āturpātākān then to Ādharbādhagān, Ādharbāyagān, Āzarbāydjān and present-day Azerbaijan. The word is translatable as "The Treasury" and "The Treasurer" of fire or "The Land of the Fire" in Modern Persian. In dictionaries: F. Steingass: āẕar-bād-gān,āẕar-abād-gūn,āẕar, āẕur,ādar,bāygān,pāy. Dehkhoda: آذربایجان/Âzarbâyjân,آذربایگان/Âzarbâygân,آذربادگان/Âzarbâdegân,آذر/Âzar,آدر/Âdar,بایگان/Bâygân,بادگان/Bâdegân,-پای/pây-,گان-/-gân(جان-/-jân) 

==History==
Median man in Persepolis relief. More sources states that Medians possibly one of the main ancestors (either Caucasian Albanians ) of Azerbaijani people.

===Antiquity===
Petroglyphs in Gobustan dating back to 10,000 BC indicating a thriving culture. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site considered to be of "outstanding universal value"

The earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates to the late Stone Age and is related to the Guruchay culture of the Azykh Cave. The Upper Paleolithic and late Bronze Age cultures are attested in the caves of Tağılar, Damcılı, Zar, Yataq-yeri and in the necropolises of Leylatepe and Saraytepe.

Early settlements included the Scythians in the 9th century BC. Following the Scythians, Iranian Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras. The Medes forged a vast empire between 900–700 BC, which was integrated into the Achaemenids Empire around 550 BC. The area was conquered by the Achaemenids leading to the spread of Zoroastrianism. Later it became part of Alexander the Great's Empire and its successor, the Seleucid Empire. During this period, Zoroastrianism spread in the Caucasus and Atropatene. Caucasian Albanians, the original inhabitants of northeastern Azerbaijan, ruled that area from around the 4th century BC, and established an independent kingdom that came under the cultural influence of the Armenians. Encyclopedia Britannica. Azerbaijan. Chapter History 

In the 2nd century BC, between the years 189 BC and 428 AD the western half of modern Azerbaijan, including the regions of Artsakh, Utik, Syunik, Vaspurakan and Paytakaran, was conquered from Medes by the Kingdom of Greater Armenia ruled by Armenia's Artaxiad and Arsacid dynasties. Robert H. Hewsen. Ethno-history and the Armenian influence upon the Caucasian Albanians. Classical Armenian culture: Influence and creativity, Scholars press, Philadelphia, 1982, p.32. After the partition of the Kingdom of Armenia by Persia and Byzantium in 387 AD, the provinces of Artsakh and Utik, which had ethnically mixed population, passed to Caucasian Albania. Hewsen, Robert H. Armenia: a Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 102. Robert H. Hewsen. Ethno-history and the Armenian influence upon the Caucasian Albanians. Classical Armenian culture: Influence and creativity, Scholars press, Philadelphia, 1982, p.33. 

The Maiden Tower in Old Baku is a UNESCO World Heritage Site built in the 11th–12th century.

===Feudal era===
The Persian Sassanids turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state in AD 252, while King Urnayr officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. Despite numerous conquests by the Sassanids and Byzantines, Albania remained an entity in the region until the 9th century. 
The Islamic Umayyad Caliphate repulsed both the Sassanids and Byzantines from the region and turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by King Javanshir, was suppressed in 667. The power vacuum left by the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate was filled by numerous local dynasties such as the Sallarids, Sajids, Shaddadids, Rawadids and Buyids. At the beginning of the 11th century, the territory was gradually seized by waves of Turkic Oghuz tribes from Central Asia. The first of these Turkic dynasties established was the Seljuqs, which entered the area now known as Azerbaijan by 1067.
A 7th century sculpture of Caucasian Albanian king Javanshir found from Nakhchivan, National Museum of History of Azerbaijan.
The pre-Turkic population that lived on the territory of modern Azerbaijani Republic spoke several Indo-European and Caucasian languages, among them - Armenian language Hewsen, Robert H. Armenia: a Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, map Caucasian Albania. Robert H. Hewsen, “Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians,” in Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity, ed. Thomas J. Samuelian (Philadelphia: Scholars Press, 1982), p. 45 Hewsen, Robert H. Armenia: a Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 32–33, map 19 (shows the territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the Orontids' Kingdom of Armenia) Моисей Хоренский. Армянская География VII в. Перевод Патканова К.П. СПб., 1877. стр. 40,17 Hewsen, Robert H. “The Kingdom of Artsakh,” in T. Samuelian & M. Stone, eds. Medieval Armenian Culture. Chico, CA, 1983 and an Iranian language called the Old Azari language, which was gradually replaced by a Turkic language, the early precursor of the Azerbaijani language of today. To distinguish it from the Turkic Azerbaijani or Azeri language, this Iranian language, is designated as the Azari language (or Old Azari language), because the Turkic language and people are also designated as "Azari" in the Persian language. However some linguists have also designated the Tati dialects of Iranian Azerbaijan and the Republic of Azerbaijan, like those spoken by the Tats, as a remnant of Azari. Locally, the possessions of the subsequent Seljuq Empire were ruled by atabegs, who were technically vassals of the Seljuq sultans, being sometimes de facto rulers themselves. Under the Seljuq Turks, local poets such as Nizami Ganjavi and Khagani Shirvani gave rise to a blossoming of Persian literature on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan. The next ruling state of the Jalayirids was short-lived and fell under the conquests of Timur.

The local dynasty of Shirvanshahs became a vassal state of Timur's Empire, and assisted him in his war with the ruler of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh. Following Timur's death two independent and rival states emerged: Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu. The Shirvanshahs returned, maintaining a high degree of autonomy as local rulers and vassals from 861 until 1539. During their persecution by the Iranian Safavids, the last dynasty imposed Shia Islam upon the formerly Sunni population, as it was battling against the Sunni Ottoman Empire. Despite efforts of Safavids, Ottomans briefly managed present Azerbaijan twice. Also, Baku and its environs were briefly managed by Russians in 18th century.

===Modern era===
Territories of Northern and Southern Khanates (and Sultanates) in Iran in 18th–19th centuries. "In Safavi times, Azerbaijan was applied to all the muslim-ruled khanates of the eastern Caucasian as well as to the area south of the Araz River as fas as the Qezel Uzan River, the latter region being approximately the same as the modern Iranian ostans of East and West Azerbaijan." 

After the Safavids, the area was ruled by the Iranian dynasties of Afshar and Zand and briefly by the Qajars. However de facto self-ruling khanates emerged in the area, especially following the collapse of the Zand dynasty and in the early Qajar era. The brief and successful Russian campaign of 1812 was concluded with the Treaty of Gulistan, in which the shah's claims to some of the Khanates of the Caucasus were dismissed by Russia on the ground that they had been de facto independent long before their Russian occupation. 
The siege of Ganja Fortress in 1827 by the Russian forces under leadership of general Pavel Tsitsianov.
The khanates exercised control over their affairs via international trade routes between Central Asia and the West. Engaged in constant warfare, these khanates were eventually incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1813, following the two Russo-Persian Wars. The area to the North of the river Aras, among which the territory of the contemporary republic of Azerbaijan were Iranian territory until they were occupied by Russia. Under the Treaty of Turkmenchay, Persia recognized Russian sovereignty over the Erivan Khanate, the Nakhchivan Khanate and the remainder of the Lankaran Khanate.

After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, Azerbaijan, together with Armenia and Georgia became part of the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.

It was followed by March Days massacres Russia and a Divided Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, by Tadeusz Świętochowski, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 66 that took place between March 30 and April 2, 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire. When the republic dissolved in May 1918, Azerbaijan declared independence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). The ADR was the first modern parliamentary republic in the Muslim world. Schulze, Reinhard. A Modern History of the Islamic World. I.B.Tauris, 2000. ISBN 978-1-86064-822-9. Among the important accomplishments of the Parliament was the extension of suffrage to women, making Azerbaijan the first Muslim nation to grant women equal political rights with men. Another important accomplishment of ADR was the establishment of Baku State University, which was the first modern-type university founded in Muslim East. 
Map presented by delegation from Azerbaijan to Paris Peace Conference in 1919. By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack the much-needed Baku. Vladimir Lenin said that the invasion was justified as Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku's oil. Independent Azerbaijan lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik 11th Soviet Red Army invaded it, establishing the Azerbaijan SSR on April 28, 1920. Although the bulk of the newly formed Azerbaijani army was engaged in putting down an Armenian revolt that had just broken out in Karabakh, Azeris did not surrender their brief independence of 1918–20 quickly or easily. As many as 20,000 Azerbaijani soldiers died resisting what was effectively a Russian reconquest. 

On October 13, 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia signed an agreement with Turkey known as the Treaty of Kars. The previously independent Naxicivan SSR would also become an autonomous ASSR within the Azerbaijan SSR by the treaty of Kars. On the other hand, Armenia was awarded the region of Zangezur and Turkey agreed to return Gyumri (then known as Alexandropol).

During World War II, Azerbaijan played a crucial role in the strategic energy policy of Soviet Union, with most of the Soviet Union's oil on the Eastern Front being supplied by Baku. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in February 1942, the commitment of more than 500 workers and employees of the oil industry of Azerbaijan was awarded orders and medals.
Operation Edelweiss carried out by the German Wehrmacht targeted Baku because of its importance as the energy (petroleum) dynamo of the USSR. A fifth of all Azerbaijanis fought in the Second World War from 1941 to 1945. Approximately 681,000 people with over 100,000 of them women went to the front, while the total population of Azerbaijan was 3.4 million at the time. Some 250,000 people from Azerbaijan were killed on the front. More than 130 Azerbaijanis were named Heroes of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijani Major-General Azi Aslanov was twice awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union. 

===Republic era===
Soviet Red Army during Black January.
Following the politics of glasnost, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of the Azerbaijan SSR. The disturbances in Azerbaijan, in response to Moscow's indifference to already heated conflict, resulted in calls for independence and secession, which culminated in Black January in Baku. Later in 1990, the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR dropped the words "Soviet Socialist" from the title, adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Azerbaijan Republic and restored flag of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic as a state flag. On 18 October 1991, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a Declaration of Independence which was affirmed by a nationwide referendum in December 1991, when the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. 
Khojaly refugees.
The early years of independence were overshadowed by the Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Armenia. By the end of hostilities in 1994, Armenians controlled up to 14-16 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Thomas De Waal. Black Garden: Armenia And Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. New York: New York University Press, p. 286. ISBN 978-0-8147-1945-9. An estimated 30,000 people had been killed and more than a million had been displaced. A Conflict That Can Be Resolved in Time: Nagorno-Karabakh. International Herald Tribune. November 29, 2003. Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) demands for "the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan." Many Russians and Armenians left Azerbaijan during the 1990s. Southern Caucasus: Facing Integration Problems, Ethnic Russians Long For Better Life. EurasiaNet.org. August 30, 2003. According to the 1970 census, there were 510,000 ethnic Russians and 484,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan. "Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic". The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). The single most prominent example was the Khojaly Massacre. 

In 1993, democratically elected president Abulfaz Elchibey was overthrown by a military insurrection led by Colonel Surat Huseynov, which resulted in the rise to power of the former leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev. In 1994, Surat Huseynov, by that time a prime minister, attempted another military coup against Heydar Aliyev, but Huseynov was arrested and charged with treason. 1995 Azeri d'état attempt|In 1995, another coup attempt against Aliyev], by the commander of the OMON special unit, Rovshan Javadov, was averted, resulting in the killing of the latter and disbanding of Azerbaijan's OMON units. At the same time, the country was tainted by rampant corruption in the governing bureaucracy. In October 1998, Aliyev was reelected for a second term. Despite the much improved economy, particularly with the exploitations of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field and Shah Deniz gas field, Aliyev's presidency was criticized due to suspected vote fraud and corruption. 

Aliyev of the New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) was reelected to a third term as president in October 2013. He then launched a crackdown on opposition elements. In November, he put two prominent opponents on trial for inciting riots ten months earlier: Ilgar Mammadov, the chairman of the opposition Republican Alternative (REAL); and Ilgar Mammadov, the deputy chairman of the New Equality Party (Musavat). In addition the dissident Islamic theologian Taleh Bagirzada was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The opposition newspaper Azadiq was closed down. Three men were sentenced to life in prison on charges of plotting attacks in Baku in a conspiracy with Iran. 

==Geography==

Caucasus Mountains in northern Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia, straddling Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It lies between latitudes 38° and 42° N, and longitudes 44° and 51° E. The total length of Azerbaijan's land borders is 2648 km, of which 1007 kilometers are with Armenia, 756 kilometers with Iran, 480 kilometers with Georgia, 390 kilometers with Russia and 15 kilometers with Turkey. The coastline stretches for 800 km, and the length of the widest area of the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea is 456 km. The territory of Azerbaijan extends 400 km from north to south, and 500 km from west to east.

Three physical features dominate Azerbaijan: the Caspian Sea, whose shoreline forms a natural boundary to the east; the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north; and the extensive flatlands at the country's center. There are also three mountain ranges, the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, and the Talysh Mountains, together covering approximately 40 percent of the country. The highest peak of Azerbaijan is mount Bazardüzü (4,466 m), while the lowest point lies in the Caspian Sea (−28 m). Nearly half of all the mud volcanoes on Earth are concentrated in Azerbaijan, these volcanoes were also among nominees for the New7Wonders of Nature. 

The main water sources are surface waters. However, only 24 of the 8,350 rivers are greater than 100 km in length. All the rivers drain into the Caspian Sea in the east of the country. The largest lake is Sarysu (67 km²), and the longest river is Kur (1,515 km), which is transboundary. Azerbaijan's four main islands in the Caspian Sea have a combined area of over thirty square kilometers.

Since the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991, the Azerbaijani government has taken drastic measures to preserve the environment of Azerbaijan. But national protection of the environment started to truly improve after 2001 when the state budget increased due to new revenues provided by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Within four years protected areas doubled and now make up eight percent of the country's territory. Since 2001 the government has set up seven large reserves and almost doubled the sector of the budget earmarked for environmental protection. 

===Landscape===

Mount Bazarduzu, the highest peak of Azerbaijan, as seen from Mount Shahdagh
The landscape of Khinalug valley.
Azerbaijan is home to a vast variety of landscapes. Over half of Azerbaijan's land mass consists of mountain ridges, crests, yailas, and plateaus which rise up to hypsometric levels of 400–1000 meters (including the Middle and Lower lowlands), in some places (Talis, Jeyranchol-Ajinohur and Langabiz-Alat foreranges) up to 100–120 meters, and others from 0–50 meters and up (Qobustan, Absheron). The rest of Azerbaijan's terrain consist of plains and lowlands. Hypsometric marks within the Caucasus region vary from about −28 meters at the Caspian Sea shoreline up to 4,466 meters (Bazardüzü peak). 

The formation of climate in Azerbaijan is influenced particularly by cold arctic air masses of Scandinavian anticyclone, temperate of Siberian anticyclone, and Central Asian anticyclone. Azerbaijan's diverse landscape affects the ways air masses enter the country. The Greater Caucasus protects the country from direct influences of cold air masses coming from the north. That leads to the formation of subtropical climate on most foothills and plains of the country. Meanwhile, plains and foothills are characterized by high solar radiation rates.

9 out of 11 existing climate zones are present in Azerbaijan. Both the absolute minimum temperature ( -33 °C ) and the absolute maximum temperature ( 46 °C ) were observed in Julfa and Ordubad. The maximum annual precipitation falls in Lankaran (1600 to) and the minimum in Absheron (200 to). 
Lake Göygöl.
Rivers and lakes form the principal part of the water systems of Azerbaijan, they were formed over a long geological timeframe and changed significantly throughout that period. This is particularly evidenced by remnants of ancient rivers found throughout the country. The country's water systems are continually changing under the influence of natural forces and human introduced industrial activities. Artificial rivers (canals) and ponds are a part of Azerbaijan's water systems. From the water supply point, Azerbaijan is below the average in the world with approximately 100000 m3 per year of water per square kilometer. All big water reservoirs are built on Kur. The hydrography of Azerbaijan basically belongs to the Caspian Sea basin.

There are 8,350 rivers of various lengths within Azerbaijan. Only 24 rivers are over 100 kilometers long. The Kura and Aras are the most popular rivers in Azerbaijan, they run through the Kura-Aras Lowland. The rivers that directly flow into the Caspian Sea, originate mainly from the north-eastern slope of the Major Caucasus and Talysh Mountains and run along the Samur–Devechi and Lankaran lowlands.

Yanar Dag, translated as "burning mountain"), is a natural gas fire which blazes continuously on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea near Baku, which itself is known as the "land of fire." Flames jet out into the air from a thin, porous sandstone layer. It is a tourist attraction to visitors to the Baku area.

===Biodiversity===

Sturgeon is commercially farmed in Azerbaijan.
The first reports on the richness and diversity of animal life in Azerbaijan can be found in travel notes of Eastern travelers. Animal carvings on architectural monuments, ancient rocks and stones survived up to the present times. The first information on the animal kingdom of Azerbaijan was collected during the visits of naturalists to Azerbaijan in 17th century. Unlike fauna, the concept of animal kingdom covers not only the types of animals, but also the number of individual species.

There are 106 species of mammals, 97 species of fish, 363 species of birds, 10 species of amphibians and 52 species of reptiles which have been recorded and classified in Azerbaijan. The national animal of Azerbaijan is the Karabakh horse, a mountain-steppe racing and riding horse endemic to Azerbaijan. The Karabakh horse has a reputation for its good temper, speed, elegance and intelligence. It is one of the oldest breeds, with ancestry dating to the ancient world. However today the horse is an endangered species. 

Azerbaijan's flora consists of more than 4,500 species of higher plants. Due the unique climate in Azerbaijan, the flora is much richer in the number of species than the flora of the other republics of the South Caucasus. About 67 percent of the species growing in the whole Caucasus can be found in Azerbaijan.

==Politics==

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev at Security Conference 2010 in Munich.
The structural formation of Azerbaijan's political system was completed by the adoption of the new Constitution on 12 November 1995. According to the Article 23 of Constitution, the state symbols of the Azerbaijan Republic are the flag, the coat of arms and the national anthem. The state power in Azerbaijan is limited only by law for internal issues, but for international affairs is additionally limited by the provisions of international agreements.

The government of Azerbaijan is based on the separation of powers among the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The legislative power is held by the unicameral National Assembly and the Supreme National Assembly in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Parliamentary elections are held every five years, on the first Sunday of November. The Yeni Azerbaijan Party, and independents loyal to the ruling government, currently hold almost all of the Parliament's 125 seats. During the 2010 Parliamentary election, the opposition parties, Musavat and Azerbaijani Popular Front Party, failed to win a single seat. European observers found numerous irregularities in the run-up to the election and on election day. 

The executive power is held by the President, who is elected for a 5-year term by direct elections. The president is authorized to form the Cabinet, an inferior executive body, subordinated to him. The Cabinet of Azerbaijan consists primarily of the Prime Minister, his Deputies and Ministers. The president does not have the right to dissolve the National Assembly, but he has the right to veto its decisions. To override the presidential veto, the parliament must have a majority of 95 votes. The judicial power is vested in the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and the Economic Court. The President nominates the judges in these courts.

The Security Council is the deliberative body under the president, and he organizes it according to the Constitution. It was established on 10 April 1997. The administrative department is not a part of the president's office but manages the financial, technical and pecuniary activities of both the president and his office.

Although Azerbaijan has held several elections since regaining its independence and it has many of the formal institutions of democracy, it remains classified as "not free" (on border with "partly free") by Freedom House. 

Azerbaijan has been harshly criticized for bribing foreign officials and diplomats for promoting its causes abroad and legitimizing its elections at home, a practice which has been termed as 'caviar diplomacy'. DISGRACED AZERBAIJAN AND THE END OF ELECTION MONITORING AS WE KNOW IT Plush hotels and caviar diplomacy: how Azerbaijan's elite wooed MPs Europe's caviar diplomacy with Azerbaijan must end Baku Smooths Over Its Rights Record With A Thick Layer Of Caviar 

===Foreign relations===

Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov and his spouse with the President of the United States Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
The short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic succeeded in establishing diplomatic relations with six countries, sending diplomatic representatives to Germany and Finland. The process of international recognition of Azerbaijan's independence from the collapsing Soviet Union lasted roughly one year. The most recent country to recognize Azerbaijan was Bahrain, on November 6, 1996. Full diplomatic relations, including mutual exchanges of missions, were first established with Turkey, Pakistan, the United States, Iran and Israel. Azerbaijan has placed a particular emphasis on its "Special Relationship" with Turkey. 

Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries so far and holds membership in 38 international organizations. It holds observer status in the Non-Aligned Movement and World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. On 9 May 2006 Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly. The term of office began on 19 June 2006. 

Foreign policy priorities of Azerbaijan include, first of all, the restoration of its territorial integrity; elimination of the consequences of the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other regions of Azerbaijan; integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structure; contribution to international security; cooperation with international organizations; regional cooperation and bilateral relations; strengthening of defense capability; promotion of security by domestic policy means; strengthening of democracy; preservation of the ethnic and religious tolerance; scientific, educational, and cultural policy and preservation of moral values; economic and social development; enhancing internal and border security; and migration, energy, and transportation security policy. 

The Azerbaijani Government, in late 2007, stated that the long-standing dispute over the Armenian-occupied territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is almost certain to spark a new war if it remains unresolved. The Government is in the process of increasing its military budget. Furthermore, economic sanctions by Turkey to the west and by Azerbaijan itself to the east have combined to greatly erode Armenia's economy, leading to steep increases in prices for basic commodities and a great decline in the Armenian state revenues. 

Azerbaijan is an active member of international coalitions fighting international terrorism. The country is contributing to peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Azerbaijan is an active member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program. It also maintains good relations with the European Union and could potentially one day apply for membership. 

===Administrative divisions===

Azerbaijan is divided into 10 economic regions; 66 rayons (rayonlar, singular rayon) and 77 cities (şəhərlər, singular şəhər) of which 11 are under the direct authority of the republic. Moreover, Azerbaijan includes the Autonomous Republic (muxtar respublika) of Nakhchivan. The President of Azerbaijan appoints the governors of these units, while the government of Nakhchivan is elected and approved by the parliament of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

;Absheron Economic Region
* Absheron (Abşeron)
* Baku (Bakı)
* Khizi (Xızı)
* Sumqayit (Sumqayıt)
;Aran Economic Region
* Aghjabadi (Ağcabədi)
* Aghdash (Ağdaş)
* Barda (Bərdə)
* Beylagan (Beyləqan)
* Bilasuvar (Biləsuvar)
* Goychay (Göyçay)
* Hajigabul (Hacıqabul)
* Imishli (İmişli)
* Kurdamir (Kürdəmir)
* Mingachevir (Mingəçevir)
* Neftchala (Neftçala)
* Saatly (Saatlı)
* Sabirabad (Sabirabad)
* Salyan (Salyan)
* Shirvan (Şirvan)
* Ujar (Ucar)
* Yevlakh (Yevlax)
* Yevlakh (Yevlax)
* Zardab (Zərdab)
;Daghlig Shirvan
* Aghsu (Ağsu)
* Gobustan (Qobustan)
* Ismailly (İsmayıllı)
* Shamakhy (Şamaxı)

;Ganja-Gazakh
* Aghstafa (Ağstafa)
* Dashkasan (Daşkəsən)
* Gadabay (Gədəbəy)
* Ganja (Gəncə)
* Gazakh (Qazax)
* Goygol (Göygöl)
* Goranboy (Goranboy)
* Naftalan (Naftalan)
* Samukh (Samux)
* Shamkir (Şəmkir)
* Tovuz (Tovuz)
;Guba-Khachmaz
* Guba (Quba)
* Gusar (Qusar)
* Khachmaz (Xaçmaz)
* Shabran (Şabran)
* Siyazan (Siyəzən)
;Kalbajar-Lachin
* Gubadly (Qubadlı)
* Kalbajar (Kəlbəcər)
* Lachin (Laçın)
* Zangilan (Zəngilan)
;Lankaran
* Astara (Astara)
* Jalilabad (Cəlilabad)
* Lankaran (Lənkəran)
* Lankaran (Lənkəran)
* Lerik (Lerik)

* Masally (Masallı)
* Yardimly (Yardımlı)
;Nakhchivan
* Babek (Babək)
* Julfa (Culfa)
* Kangarli (Kəngərli)
* Nakhchivan (Naxçıvan)
* Ordubad (Ordubad)
* Sadarak (Sədərək)
* Shahbuz (Şahbuz)
* Sharur (Şərur)
;Shaki-Zaqatala
* Balakan (Balakən)
* Gabala (Qəbələ)
* Gakh (Qax)
* Oghuz (Oğuz)
* Shaki (Şəki)
* Shaki (Şəki)
* Zaqatala (Zaqatala)
;Yukhari Garabakh
* Aghdam (Ağdam)
* Fuzuli (Füzuli)
* Jabrayil (Cəbrayıl)
* Khankendi (Xankəndi)
* Khojaly (Xocalı)
* Khojavend (Xocavənd)
* Shusha (Şuşa)
* Shusha (Şuşa)
* Tartar (Tərtər)

 Azerbaijan is divided into 10 economic regions

Note: The cities under the direct authority of the republic in italics.

==Military==

Azerbaijani Navy fleet during the 2011 military parade in Baku.
Azerbaijani Special Forces during military parade.
The history of the modern Azerbaijan army dates back to Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918, when the National Army of the newly formed Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was created on June 26, 1918. Azerbaijan: Short History of Statehood, Embassy of Republic of Azerbaijan in Pakistan, 2005, Chapter 3. Creation of National Army in 1918 . When Azerbaijan gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were created according to the Law on the Armed Forces of October 9, 1991. Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Armed Forces, No. 210-XII, 9 October 1991 . The original date of the establishment of the short-lived National Army is celebrated as Army Day (26 June) in today's Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's Army Day (26 June) declared by Presidential Decree of May 22, 1998. 
As of 2002, Azerbaijan had 95,000 active personnel in its armed forces. There are also 17,000 paramilitary troops. C. W. Blandy Azerbaijan: Is War Over Nagornyy Karabakh a Realistic Option? Advanced Research and Assessment Group. Caucasus Series 08/17. – Defense Academy of the United Kingdom, 2008, p.12 The armed forces have three branches: the Land Forces, the Air Forces and the Navy. Additionally the armed forces embrace several military sub-groups that can be involved in state defense when needed. These are the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Border Service, which includes the Coast Guard as well. The Azerbaijan National Guard is a further paramilitary force. It operates as a semi-independent entity of the Special State Protection Service, an agency subordinate to the President. 

Azerbaijan adheres to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and has signed all major international arms and weapons treaties. Azerbaijan closely cooperates with NATO in programs such as Partnership for Peace and Individual Partnership Action Plan. Azerbaijan has deployed 151 of its Peacekeeping Forces in Iraq and another 184 in Afghanistan. 

The defense budget of Azerbaijan for 2011 was set at US$3.1 billion. In addition to that, $1.36 billion was planned to be used for the needs of the defense industry, which bring up the total military spending to $4.46 billion. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on 26 June 2011 that the defence spending reached $3.3 billion that year. He also said that Azerbaijan had fulfilled a task he set, which was that that their defense budget should exceed the entire state budget of Armenia. 

Azerbaijan's defense budget for 2013 is $3.7 billion, which is almost one billion more than the entire state budget of Armenia. Armenia's defense budget for 2013 is €450m. 

Azerbaijani defense industry manufactures small arms, artillery systems, tanks, armors and noctovision devices, aviation bombs, pilotless vehicles, various military vehicles and military planes and helicopters. 

==Economy==

Azneft Square in downtown Baku, named after historical Azneft (AzOil) trust.
After gaining independence in 1991, Azerbaijan became a member of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Islamic Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The banking system of Azerbaijan consists of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, commercial banks and non-banking credit organizations. The National (now Central) Bank was created in 1992 based on the Azerbaijan State Savings Bank, an affiliate of the former State Savings Bank of the USSR. The Central Bank serves as Azerbaijan's central bank, empowered to issue the national currency, the Azerbaijani manat, and to supervise all commercial banks. Two major commercial banks are the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan, which is run by Dr. Jahangir Hajiyev, and the UniBank.

Pushed up by spending and demand growth, the 2007 Q1 inflation rate reached 16.6%. Nominal incomes and monthly wages climbed 29% and 25% respectively against this figure, but price increases in non-oil industry encouraged inflation in the country. Azerbaijan shows some signs of the so-called "Dutch disease" because of the fast growing energy sector, which causes inflation and makes non-energy exports more expensive.

In the early years of this century the chronically high inflation was brought under control and this led to the launch of a new currency, the new Azerbaijani manat, on January 1, 2006, to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. 

In 2008, Azerbaijan was cited as one of the top 10 reformers by the World Bank's Doing Business Report. 

Azerbaijan is also ranked 57th in the Global Competitiveness Report for 2010–2011, which is above other CIS countries. 

===Energy===
 

Petroleum machinery, depicted on a 1,000-manat banknote
A pumping unit for the mechanical extraction of oil on the outskirts of Baku.
Two thirds of Azerbaijan is rich in oil and natural gas. The region of the Lesser Caucasus accounts for most of the country's gold, silver, iron, copper, titanium, chromium, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, complex ore and antimony. In September 1994, a 30-year contract was signed between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and 13 oil companies, among them Amoco, BP, ExxonMobil, Lukoil and Statoil. As Western oil companies are able to tap deepwater oilfields untouched by the Soviet exploitation, Azerbaijan is considered one of the most important spots in the world for oil exploration and development. Meanwhile the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan was established as an extra-budgetary fund to ensure the macroeconomic stability, transparency in the management of oil revenue, and the safeguarding of resources for future generations.

Azeriqaz, a sub-company of SOCAR, intends to ensure full gasification of the country by 2021. 

===Agriculture===

Azerbaijan has the largest agricultural basin in the region. About 54,9 percent of Azerbaijan is agricultural lands. At the beginning of 2007 there were 4,755,100 hectares of utilized agricultural area. In the same year the total wood resources counted 136 million m³. Azerbaijan's agricultural scientific research institutes are focused on meadows and pastures, horticulture and subtropical crops, green vegetables, viticulture and wine-making, cotton growing and medicinal plants. In some lands it is profitable to grow grain, potatoes, sugar beets, cotton and tobacco. Livestock, dairy products, and wine and spirits are also important farm products. The Caspian fishing industry is concentrated on the dwindling stocks of sturgeon and beluga. In 2002 the Azerbaijani merchant marine had 54 ships. 

Some portions of most products that were previously imported from abroad have begun to be produced locally (among them are Coca Cola by Coca Cola Bottlers LTD, beer by Baki-Kastel, parquet by Nehir and oil pipes by EUPEC Pipe Coating Azerbaijan). 

===Tourism===

Nizami Street is one of the architectural and historic areas in Baku.
Public park in Ganja city.
Tourism is an important part of the economy of Azerbaijan. The country was a well-known tourist spot in the 1980s. However, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the Nagorno-Karabakh War during the 1990s, damaged the tourist industry and the image of Azerbaijan as a tourist destination. 

It was not until the 2000s that the tourism industry began to recover, and the country has since experienced a high rate of growth in the number of tourist visits and overnight stays. Azərbaycan Qarabağın turizm imkanlarını təbliğ edir In the recent years, Azerbaijan has also becoming a popular destination for religious, spa, and health care tourism. During winter, the Shahdag Winter Complex offers skiing.

The government of Azerbaijan has set the development of Azerbaijan as an elite tourist destination a top priority. It is a national strategy to make tourism a major, if not the single largest, contributor to the Azerbaijani economy. These activities are regulated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan.

===Transportation===

The convenient location of Azerbaijan on the crossroad of major international traffic arteries, such as the Silk Road and the South-North corridor, highlights the strategic importance of transportation sector for the country’s economy. The transport sector in the country includes roads, railways, aviation, and maritime transport.

Azerbaijan is also an important economic hub in the transportation of raw materials. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) became operational in May 2006 and extends more than 1,774 kilometers through the territories of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The BTC is designed to transport up to 50 million tons of crude oil annually and carries oil from the Caspian Sea oilfields to global markets. 
 The South Caucasus Pipeline, also stretching through the territory of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, became operational at the end of 2006 and offers additional gas supplies to the European market from the Shah Deniz gas field. Shah Deniz is expected to produce up to 296 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Azerbaijan also plays a major role in the EU-sponsored Silk Road Project.

In 2002, the Azerbaijani government established the Ministry of Transport with a broad range of policy and regulatory functions. In the same year, the country became a member of the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. The highest priority being; upgrading the transport network and transforming transportation services into one of the key comparative advantages of the country, as this would be highly conducive to the development of other sectors of the economy.

In 2012, the construction of Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway expected to provide transportation between Asia and Europe through connecting the railways of China and Kazakhstan in the east with Turkey's Marmaray to the European railway system in the west. Broad gauge railways in 2010 stretched for 2918 km and electrified railways numbered 1278 km. By 2010, there were 35 airports and one heliport. 

===Science and technology===

Shamakhi Astrophysical Observatory
In the 21st century, a new oil and gas boom helped to improve the situation in the Azerbaijan's science and technology sectors, and the government launched a campaign aimed at modernization and innovation. The government estimates that profits from the information technology and communication industry will grow and become comparable with those from oil production. 

Azerbaijan has a large and steadily growing Internet sector, mostly uninfluenced by the global financial crisis; rapid growth is forecast for at least five more years. 

The country has also been making progress in developing its telecoms sector. The Ministry of Communications & Information Technologies (MCIT), as well as being an operator through its role in Aztelekom, is both a policy-maker and regulator. Public pay phones are available for local calls and require the purchase of a token from the telephone exchange or some shops and kiosks. Tokens allow a call of indefinite duration. As of 2009, there were 1,397,000 main telephone lines CIA.gov, CIA World Factbook Telephones – main lines in use, Azerbaijan 1,397,000 main lines and 1,485,000 internet users. CIA.gov, CIA World Factbook Internet users, Azerbaijan Internet users: 1,485,000. There are five GSM providers: Azercell, Bakcell, Azerfon (Nar Mobile), Aztrank, Catel mobile network operators and one CDMA.

In the 21st century a number of prominent Azerbaijani geodynamics and geotectonics scientists, inspired by the fundamental works of Elchin Khalilov and others, designed hundreds of earthquake prediction stations and earthquake-resistant buildings that now constitute the bulk of The Republican Center of Seismic Service. 

The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency launched its first satellite AzerSat 1 into orbit in 7 February 2013 from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana at orbital positions 46° East. The satellite will cover Europe and significant part of Asian countries and Africa and will have transmission for TV, radio broadcasting and the internet. The launch of its own satellite on orbit is Azerbaijan's first action in realizing prospective projects to turn itself into a country with a space industry. 

==Demographics==

 Ethnic composition (2009) The State Statistical Committee of the Azerbaijan Republic, The ethnic composition of the population according to the 2009 census. 
 Azerbaijani 91.60% 
 Lezgian 2.02% 
 Armenian 1.35% 
 Russian 1.34% 
 Talysh 1.26% 
 Other nations 2.43% 

From the total population of 9,165,000 people as of July 2011, nearly 52% was urban population, the remaining 48% was the rural population. 51% of the total population were female. The sex ratio for total population in that year was therefore 0.97 males per female. 

The 2011 population growth rate was 0.85%, compared to 1.09% worldwide. A significant factor restricting the population growth is rather a high level of migration. An estimated 3 million Azerbaijanis, many of them guest workers, live in Russia. In 2011 Azerbaijan saw migration of −1.14/1,000 persons. With 800,000 ethnic Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs, Azerbaijan has the largest internally displaced population in the region, and, as of 2006, had the highest per capita IDP population in the world. 

The Azerbaijani diaspora is found in 42 countries and in turn there are many centers for ethnic minorities inside Azerbaijan, including the German cultural society "Karelhaus", Slavic cultural center, Azerbaijani-Israeli community, Kurdish cultural center, International Talysh Association, Lezgin national center "Samur", Azerbaijani-Tatar community, Crimean Tatars society, etc. 

The ethnic composition of the population according to the 2009 population census: 91.60% Azerbaijanis, 2.02% Lezgians, 1.35% Armenians (almost all Armenians live in the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh), 1.34% Russians, 1.26% Talysh, 0.56% Avars, 0.43% Turks, 0.29% Tatars, 0.28% Tats, 0.24% Ukrainians, 0.14% Tsakhurs, 0.11% Georgians, 0.10% Jews, 0.07% Kurds, other 0.21%.

Iranian Azerbaijanis are the largest minority in Iran. The CIA World Factbook estimates Iranian Azerbaijanis as comprising nearly 16% of Iran's population. CIA – The World Factbook. CIA.gov "Iran". 

===Urbanization===

In total, Azerbaijan has 77 cities, 64 smaller -class cities, and one special legal status city. These are followed by 257 urban-type settlements and 4,620 villages. 

===Language===

The official language is Azerbaijani, which is spoken by approximately 92% of the population as a mother language, belongs to the Turkic language family. 
The large Armenian-speaking population of Nagorno-Karabakh is no longer under government control.
There are a dozen other languages spoken natively in the country. Lezgian, Talysh, Avar, Georgian, Budukh, Published in: Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages. Edited by Christopher Moseley. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. 211–280. Juhuri, Khinalug, Kryts, Rutul, Tsakhur, Tat, and Udi are all spoken by minorities. Some of these languages are very small communities, others are more vital. Clifton, John M., editor. 2002 (vol 1.), 2003 (vol. 2). Studies in languages of Azerbaijan. Baku, Azerbaijan and Saint Petersburg, Russia: Institute of International Relations, Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan and North Eurasian Group, SIL International. English and Russian play significant roles as second or third languages of education and communication.

Dome of 13th century Bibi-Heybat Mosque. The mosque was built over the tomb of a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. 

===Religion===

Around 95% of the population are Muslims. 85% of the Muslims are Shia Muslims and 15% Sunni Muslims, Administrative Department of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan – Presidential Library – Religion and the Republic of Azerbaijan has the second highest Shia population percentage after Iran. Juan Eduardo Campo,Encyclopedia of Islam, p.625 In Baku there is the Hindu Scott Cameron Levi "The Indian diaspora in Central Asia and its trade, 1550–1900", BRILL, 2002, ISBN 978-90-04-12320-5,p. 129 Fire Temple of Baku ("ateshgah" in Persian) with an "old" structure Meena Iyer, Faith & philosophy of Zoroastrianism (2009), p.323: Excerpt: "At the city of Baku in former Iranian province of Arran, today known as the republic of Azerbaijan, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, there was for a long time a very old fire-temple.." which, according to travellers, has been a place of visit for Hindu priests for more than a millennium. See the historical document in pages 238–39 in "Encyclopedia of Religions or Faiths of Man, Part 1" The place is often "misrepresented as a Zoroastrian fire-temple" due to frequent association of "fire temple" with the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. Other faiths are practised by the country's various ethnic groups. Under article 48 of its Constitution, Azerbaijan is a secular state and ensures religious freedom. Of the nation's religious minorities, Christians are mostly Russian and Georgian Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic (almost all Armenians live in the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh). 

In 2003, there were 250 Roman Catholics. Other Christian denominations as of 2002 include Lutherans, Baptists and Molokans. There are also Jewish, Bahá'í, Hare Krishna and Jehovah's Witnesses communities, as well as adherents of the Nehemiah Church, Star in the East Church and the Cathedral of Praise Church. 

File:Antique era Caucasian Albanian stone idols in Ichery sheher.JPG|Antique era paganist stone idols in Old City (Baku).
File:Ateshgah Fire Temple.jpg|Ateshgah of Baku.
File:Sinagogue of Mountain Jews in Baku.JPG|Synagogue of Mountain Jews.
File:Jotati Church.jpg|The Albanian Apostolic Church of St. Eeliseus in Nij, Azerbaijan.
File:Katedrála Krista Spasitele, Šuši.jpg|Armenian Apostolic Church of Christ the Holy Savior in Shusha.
File:Church of the Immaculate Conception, Baku.jpg|Church of the Immaculate Conception, Baku.
File:Xilaskar_Kilsəsi.JPG|Church of the Saviour, Baku.
File:Alexander Nevsky church in Ganja.JPG|Alexander Nevsky Church, Ganja.
File:Mixael Arxangel kilsəsi.JPG|Archangel Michael Church, Baku.
File:Təzəpir məscidi.JPG|Taza Pir Mosque. 
File:Friday mosque in Shamaki.jpg|Juma Mosque of Shamakhi.
File:Shah Abbas mosque in Ganja.JPG|Juma Mosque of Ganja (Shah Abbas).

===Education===

A relatively high percentage of Azerbaijanis have obtained some form of higher education, most notably in scientific and technical subjects. In the Soviet era, literacy and average education levels rose dramatically from their very low starting point, despite two changes in the standard alphabet, from Perso-Arabic script to Latin in the 1920s and from Roman to Cyrillic in the 1930s. According to Soviet data, 100 percent of males and females (ages nine to forty-nine) were literate in 1970. According to the United Nations Development Program Report 2009, the literacy rate in Azerbaijan is 99.5 percent. 

Since independence, one of the first laws that Azerbaijan's Parliament passed to disassociate itself from the Soviet Union was to adopt a modified-Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic. Other than that the Azerbaijani system has undergone little structural change. Initial alterations have included the reestablishment of religious education (banned during the Soviet period) and curriculum changes that have reemphasized the use of the Azerbaijani language and have eliminated ideological content. In addition to elementary schools, the education institutions include thousands of preschools, general secondary schools, and vocational schools, including specialized secondary schools and technical schools. Education through the eighth grade is compulsory.

==Culture==

The Azerbaijani carpet, a UNESCO Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
The culture of Azerbaijan has developed as a result of many influences. Today, Western influences, including globalized consumer culture, are strong. National traditions are well preserved in the country. Some of the main elements of the Azerbaijani culture are: music, literature, folk dances and art, cuisine, architecture, cinematography and Novruz Bayram. The latter is derived from the traditional celebration of the New Year in the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. Novruz is a family holiday. 

Azerbaijan folk consists of Azerbaijanis, the representative part of society, as well as of nations and ethnic groups, compactly living in various areas of the country. Azerbaijani national and traditional dresses are the Chokha and Papakhi. There are radio broadcasts in Russian, Armenian, Georgian, Kurdish, Lezgian and Talysh languages, which are financed from the state budget. Some local radio stations in Balakan and Khachmaz organize broadcasts in Avar and Tat. In Baku several newspapers are published in Russian, Kurdish (Dengi Kurd), Lezgian (Samur) and Talysh languages. Jewish society "Sokhnut" publishes the newspaper Aziz. 

===Music and folk dances===

Uzeyir Hajibeyov merged traditional Azerbaijani music with Western styles in early 20th century.
Music of Azerbaijan builds on folk traditions that reach back nearly a thousand years. David C. King. Azerbaijan, Marshall Cavendish, 2006, p. 94 For centuries Azerbaijani music has evolved under the badge of monody, producing rhythmically diverse melodies. Энциклопедический музыкальный словарь, 2-е изд., Москва, 1966 (Encyclopedical Music Dictionary (1966), 2nd ed., Moscow) Azerbaijani music has a branchy mode system, where chromatization of major and minor scales is of great importance. Among national musical instruments there are 14 string instruments, eight percussion instruments and six wind instruments. According to The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "in terms of ethnicity, culture and religion the Azeri are musically much closer to Iran than Turkey." 
The Azerbaijani Mugam, a UNESCO Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage of Humanity, 16th-century miniature of Nizami Ganjavi's Khosrow and Shirin tragic romance.
Mugham, meykhana and ashiq art are one of the many musical traditions of Azerbaijan. Mugham is usually a suite with poetry and instrumental interludes. When performing Mugham, the singers have to transform their emotions into singing and music. In contrast to the mugham traditions of Central Asian countries, Azeri mugham is more free-form and less rigid; it is often compared to the improvised field of jazz. UNESCO proclaimed the Azerbaijani mugham tradition a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 7 November 2003. Meykhana is a kind of traditional Azeri distinctive folk unaccompanied song, usually performed by several people improvising on a particular subject.

Ashiq combines poetry, storytelling, dance and vocal and instrumental music into a traditional performance art that stands as a symbol of Azerbaijani culture. It is a mystic troubadour or traveling bard who sings and plays the saz. This tradition has its origin in the Shamanistic beliefs of ancient Turkic peoples. "ashik,shaman" – European University Institute, Florence, Italy (retrieved10 August 2006). Ashiqs' songs are semi-improvised around common bases. Azerbaijan’s ashiq art was included in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO on September 30, 2009. 

Since the mid-1960s, Western-influenced pop music, in its various forms, that has been growing in popularity in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani pop and folk music arose with the international popularity of performers like Alim Qasimov, Rashid Behbudov, Vagif Mustafazadeh, Muslim Magomayev, Shovkat Alakbarova and Rubaba Muradova. Azerbaijan made its debut appearance at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. The country's entry gained the third place in 2009 and fifth the following year. Ell and Nikki won the first place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with the song "Running Scared", entitling Azerbaijan to host the contest in 2012, in Baku. 

There are dozens of Azerbaijani folk dances. They are performed at formal celebrations and the dancers wear national clothes like the Chokha, which is well preserved within the national dances. Most dances have a very fast rhythm. The national dance shows the characteristics of the Azerbaijani nation.

===Literature===

In the course of its long history, Azerbaijan has given the world a number of outstanding thinkers, poets, and scientists. Among the medieval authors the Persian poet and philosopher Nizami, called Ganjavi after his place of birth, Ganja, was the author of the Khamseh (“The Quintuplet”), composed of five romantic poems, including “The Treasure of Mysteries,” “Khosrow and Shīrīn,” and “Leyli and Mejnūn.” Azerbaijan. Cultural life. Encyclopædia Britannica. 

The earliest known figure in Azerbaijani literature was Hasanoghlu or Pur Hasan Asfaraini, who composed a divan consisting of Persian and Turkic ghazals. A.Caferoglu, "Adhari(azeri)",in Encyclopedia of Islam, (new edition), Vol. 1, (Leiden, 1986) In Persian ghazals he used his pen-name, while his Turkic ghazals were composed under his own name of Hasanoghlu. 

Classical literature in Azerbaijani was formed in 14th century based on the various dialect Early Middle Ages dialects of Tabriz and Shirvan. Among the poets of this period were Gazi Burhanaddin, Haqiqi (pen-name of Jahan-shah Qara Qoyunlu), and Habibi. The end of 14th century was also the period of starting literary activity of Imadaddin Nesimi, one of the greatest Turkic Hurufi mystical poets of the late 14th and early 15th centuries and one of the most prominent early Divan masters in Turkic literary history, who also composed poetry in Persian and Arabic. The Divan and Ghazal styles were further developed by poets Qasim al-Anvar, Fuzuli and Khatai (pen-name of Safavid Shah Ismail I).
Khurshidbanu Natavan was the daughter of the last ruler of the Karabakh Khanate and is considered one of the best lyrical poets of Azerbaijan.
The acclaimed Book of Dede Korkut consists of two manuscripts copied in the 16th century, Michael E. Meeker, "The Dede Korkut Ethic", International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Aug., 1992), 395–417. excerpt: The Book of Dede Korkut is an early record of oral Turkic folktales in Anatolia, and as such, one of the mythic charters of Turkish nationalist ideology. The oldest versions of the Book of Dede Korkut consist of two manuscripts copied in the 16th century. The twelve stories that are recorded in these manuscripts are believed to be derived from a cycle of stories and songs circulating among Turkic peoples living in northeastern Anatolia and northwestern Azerbaijan. According to Lewis (1974), an older substratum of these oral traditions dates to conflicts between the ancient Oghuz and their Turkish rivals in Central Asia (the Pecheneks and the Kipchaks), but this substratum has been clothed in references to the 14th-century campaigns of the Akkoyunlu Confederation of Turkic tribes against the Georgians, the Abkhaz, and the Greeks in Trebizond. Such stories and songs would have emerged no earlier than the beginning of the 13th century, and the written versions that have reached us would have been composed no later than the beginning of the 15th century. By this time, the Turkic peoples in question had been in touch with Islamic civilization for several centuries, had come to call themselves "Turcoman" rather than "Oghuz," had close associations with sedentary and urbanized societies, and were participating in Islamized regimes that included nomads, farmers, and townsmen. Some had abandoned their nomadic way of life altogether. was not written earlier than the 15th century. Cemal Kafadar(1995), "in Between Two Worlds: Construction of the Ottoman states", University of California Press, 1995. Excerpt: "It was not earlier than the fifteenth century. Based on the fact that the author is buttering up both the Akkoyunlu and Ottoman rulers, it has been suggested that the composition belongs to someone living in the undefined border region lands between the two states during the reign of Uzun Hassan (1466–78). G. Lewis on the hand dates the composition "fairly early in the 15th century at least." İlker Evrım Bınbaş,Encyclopædia Iranica, "Oguz Khan Narratives" Encyclopædia Iranica | Articles. Retrieved October 2010. "The Ketāb-e Dede Qorqut, which is a collection of twelve stories reflecting the oral traditions of the Turkmens in the 15th-century eastern Anatolia, is also called Oḡuz-nāma" It is a collection of 12 stories reflecting the oral tradition of Oghuz nomads. The 16th-century poet, Muhammed Fuzuli produced his timeless philosophical and lyrical Qazals in Arabic, Persian, and Azeri. Benefiting immensely from the fine literary traditions of his environment, and building upon the legacy of his predecessors, Fizuli was destined to become the leading literary figure of his society. His major works include The Divan of Ghazals and The Qasidas. In the same century, Azerbaijani literature further flourished with the development of Ashik () poetic genre of bards. During the same period, under the pen-name of Khatāī ( for sinner) Shah Ismail I wrote about 1400 verses in Azeri, which were later published as his Divan. A unique literary style known as qoshma ( for improvization) was introduced in this period, and developed by Shah Ismail and later by his son and successor, Shah Tahmasp I.

In the span of the 17th and 18th centuries, Fizuli's unique genres as well Ashik poetry were taken up by prominent poets and writers such as Qovsi of Tabriz, Shah Abbas Sani, Agha Mesih Shirvani, Nishat, Molla Vali Vidadi, Molla Panah Vagif, Amani, Zafar and others. Along with Turks, Turkmens and Uzbeks, Azeris also celebrate the Epic of Koroglu (from for blind man's son), a legendary folk hero. Several documented versions of Koroglu epic remain at the Institute for Manuscripts of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. 

Modern literature in Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iran it is based on the Tabrizi one. The first newspaper in Azerbaijani, Akinchi was published in 1875. In mid-19th century, it was taught in the schools of Baku, Ganja, Shaki, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Since 1845, it has also been taught in the University of Saint Petersburg in Russia.

===Folk art===

Traditional Azerbaijani clothing and musical instruments.
Azerbaijanis have a rich and distinctive culture, a major part of which is decorative and applied art. This form of art is represented by a wide range of handicrafts, such as chasing, jeweler, engraving in metal, carving in wood, stone and bone, carpet-making, lasing, pattern weaving and printing, knitting and embroidery. Each of these types of decorative art, evidence of the and endowments of the Azerbaijan nation, is very much in favor here. Many interesting facts pertaining to the development of arts and crafts in Azerbaijan were reported by numerous merchants, travelers and diplomats who had visited these places at different times.

The Azerbaijani carpet is a traditional handmade textile of various sizes, with dense texture and a pile or pile-less surface, whose patterns are characteristic of Azerbaijan’s many carpet-making regions. In November 2010 the Azerbaijani carpet was proclaimed a Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage by UNESCO. 
Handwork coppery in Lahic.
Azerbaijan has been since the ancient times known as a center of a large variety of crafts. The archeological dig on the territory of Azerbaijan testifies to the well developed agriculture, stock raising, metal working, pottery, ceramics, and carpet-weaving that date as far back as to the 2nd millennium BC. Archeological sites in Dashbulaq, Hasansu, Zayamchai, and Tovuzchai uncovered from the BTC pipeline have revealed early Iron Age artifacts. 

Azerbaijani carpets can be categorized under several large groups and a multitude of subgroups. The true scientific research of the Azerbaijani carpet is connected with the name of Latif Kerimov, a prominent scientist and artist. It was his classification that related the four large groups of carpets with the four geographical zones of Azerbaijan, Guba-Shirvan, Ganja-Kazakh, Karabakh and Tabriz. 

===Cuisine===

The traditional cuisine is famous for an abundance of vegetables and greens used seasonally in the dishes. Fresh herbs, including mint, cilantro (coriander), dill, basil, parsley, tarragon, leeks, chives, thyme, marjoram, green onion, and watercress, are very popular and often accompany main dishes on the table. Climatic diversity and fertility of the land are reflected in the national dishes, which are based on fish from the Caspian Sea, local meat (mainly mutton and beef), and an abundance of seasonal vegetables and greens. Saffron-rice plov is the flagship food in Azerbaijan and black tea is the national beverage. Azerbaijanis often use traditional armudu (pear-shaped) glass as Azerbaijan have very strong tea culture. Popular traditional dishes include bozbash (lamb soup that exists in several regional varieties with the addition of different vegetables), qutab (fried turnover with a filling of greens or minced meat) and dushbara (sort of dumplings of dough filled with ground meat and flavor).

File:Gəncə paxlavası 1.JPG|Azerbaijani pakhlava
File:Azerbaijani Yarpaq dolması 3.JPG|Yarpag dolmasi
File:Azerbaijani Badımcan dolması 1.JPG|Three sister dolma
File:Dovga e-citizen.JPG|Dovga
File:Food Gechresh Azerbaijan 03.jpg|Kebab
File:Dushbara Azerbaijani cuisine.jpg|Dushbara
File:Kükü-Gutab Azerbaijani.gif|Kuku and Qutab

===Architecture===

Azerbaijani architecture typically combines elements of East and West. Many ancient architectural treasures such as the Maiden Tower and Palace of the Shirvanshahs in the Walled City of Baku survive in modern Azerbaijan. Entries submitted on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list include the Ateshgah of Baku, Momine Khatun Mausoleum, Hirkan National Park, Binegadi National Park, Lok-Batan Mud Volcano, Baku Stage Mountain, Caspian Shore Defensive Constructions, Shusha National Reserve, Ordubad National Reserve and the Palace of Shaki Khans. 

Among other architectural treasures are Quadrangular Castle in Mardakan, Parigala in Yukhary Chardaglar, a number of bridges spanning the Aras River, and several mausoleums. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, little monumental architecture was created, but distinctive residences were built in Baku and elsewhere. Among the most recent architectural monuments, the Baku subways are noted for their lavish decor. 

The task for modern Azerbaijani architecture is diverse application of modern aesthetics, the search for an architect's own artistic style and inclusion of the existing historico-cultural environment. Major projects such as Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center, Flame Towers, Baku Crystal Hall, Baku White City and SOCAR Tower have transformed the country's skyline and promotes its contemporary identity. 

File:Kishchurchsideview.JPG|Church of Kish
File:Momina Khatun Tomb.jpg|Momine Khatun Mausoleum
File:Palace of Shirvanshahs common.JPG|Palace of the Shirvanshahs
File:Ramana castle.jpg|Ramana Tower
File:Gandzasar Monastery1.jpg|Gandzasar monastery
File:Shaki khan palace 1.jpg|Palace of Shaki Khans(Interior of Conference hall)
File:İsmailiyye palace 1.JPG|İsmailiyye palace

===Visual art===

Rock paintings in Gobustan
Azerbaijani art includes one of the oldest art objects in the world, which were discovered as Gamigaya Petroglyphs in the territory of Ordubad Rayon are dated back to the 1st to 4th centuries BC. About 1500 dislodged and carved rock paintings with images of deer, goats, bulls, dogs, snakes, birds, fantastic beings and also people, carriages and various symbols had been found out on basalt rocks. Наскальные рисунки Гямигая Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl was convinced that people from the area went to Scandinavia in about 100 AD and took their boat building skills with them, and transmuted them into the Viking boats in Northern Europe. 

Over the centuries, Azerbaijani art has gone through many stylistic changes. Azerbaijani painting is traditionally characterized by a warmth of colour and light, as exemplified in the works of Azim Azimzade and Bahruz Kangarli, and a preoccupation with religious figures and cultural motifs. Azerbaijani painting enjoyed preeminence in Caucasus for hundreds of years, from the Romanesque and Ottoman periods, and through the Soviet and Baroque periods, the latter two of which saw fruition in Azerbaijan. Other notable artists who fall within these periods include Sattar Bahlulzade, Togrul Narimanbekov, Tahir Salahov, Alakbar Rezaguliyev, Mirza Gadim Iravani, Mikayil Abdullayev and Boyukagha Mirzazade. 

File:Gemigaya 5.JPG|Gamigaya Petroglyphs
File:Nizami Xosrov & Shirin.JPG|Unknown Azerbaijani painter R. Efendi-Azerbaijani fine art, Baku, 1998, p.75 (1479) - Khosrow looks bathering Shirin (Azerbaijani miniature from Nizami Ganjavi's Khosrow and Shirin, Nizami Museum of Azerbaijani Literature)
File:Shaki khan palace interier.jpg|Usta Gambar Karabakhi - Tree of Life(Palace of Shaki Khans)
File:Portrait of sitting woman by Irevani.jpg|Mirza Gadim Iravani - Portrait of sitting woman(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan)
File:Dağ mənzərəsi – Bəhruz Kəngərli.jpg|Bahruz Kangarli - Landscape with mountains(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan)
File:Ruins of Reichstag.jpg|Azim Azimzade - Ruins of Reichstag(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan)
File:Stamps of Azerbaijan, 2011-944.jpg|Tahir Salahov - To you humanity!(National Art Museum of Azerbaijan)

===Cinematography===

The film industry in Azerbaijan dates back to 1898. In fact, Azerbaijan was among the first countries involved in cinematography. Therefore It's not surprising that this apparatus soon showed up in Baku – at the start of the 20th century, this bay town on the Caspian was producing more than 50 percent of the world's supply of oil. Just like today, the oil industry attracted foreigners eager to invest and to work. Celebrating 100 Years in Film, not 80 by Aydin Kazimzade. Azerbaijan International, Autumn 1997 In 1919, during the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, a documentary The Celebration of the Anniversary of Azerbaijani Independence was filmed on Azerbaijan's independence day, May 28, and premiered in June 1919 at several theatres in Baku. After the Soviet power was established in 1920, Nariman Narimanov, Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan, signed a decree nationalizing Azerbaijan's cinema. This also influenced the creation of Azerbaijani animation. 

In 1991, after Azerbaijan gained its independence from the Soviet Union, the first Baku International Film Festival East-West was held in Baku. In December 2000, the former President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, signed a decree proclaiming August 2 to be the professional holiday of filmmakers of Azerbaijan. Today Azerbaijani filmmakers are again dealing with issues similar to those faced by cinematographers prior to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1920. Once again, both choice of content and sponsorship of films are largely left up to the initiative of the filmmaker. 

There are three state-owned television channels: AzTV, Idman TV and Medeniyyet TV. One public channel and 6 private channels: ANS TV, Space TV, Lider TV, Azad Azerbaijan TV, Xazar TV and Region TV.

===Sports===

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov is current World Rapid Chess and two-time European Team Chess champion
Gurban Gurbanov, is one of most successful Azerbaijani footballers and coaches

Sport in Azerbaijan has ancient roots, and even now, both traditional and modern sports are still practiced. Freestyle wrestling has been traditionally regarded as Azerbaijan's national sport, in which Azerbaijan won up to fourteen medals, including four golds since joining the National Olympic Committee. Currently, the most popular sports include football and chess. 

Football is the most popular sport in Azerbaijan, and the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan with 9,122 registered players, is the largest sporting association in the country. The national football team of Azerbaijan demonstrates relatively low performance in the international arena compared to the nation football clubs. The most successful Azerbaijani football clubs are Neftchi Baku, Baku, Inter Baku, Qarabağ, Gabala and Khazar Lankaran. In 2012, Neftchi Baku became the first Azerbaijani team to advance to the group stage of a European competition, beating APOEL of Cyprus 4-2 on aggregate in the play-off round of the 2012-13 UEFA Europa League. Futsal is another popular sport in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan national futsal team reached fourth place in the 2010 UEFA Futsal Championship, while domestic club Araz Naxçivan clinched bronze medals at the 2009–10 UEFA Futsal Cup and 2013–14 UEFA Futsal Cup. 

Azerbaijan is one of the traditional powerhouses of world chess, having hosted many international chess tournaments and competitions and became European Team Chess Championship winners in 2009 and 2013. Notable chess players from country's chess schools that made a great impact on the game in world, includes Teimour Radjabov, Shahriyar Mammadyarov, Vladimir Makogonov, Vugar Gashimov and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. As of 2014, country's home of Shamkir Chess a category 22 event and one of the highest rated tournaments of all time. Backgammon also plays a major role in Azerbaijani culture. The game is very popular in Azerbaijan and is widely played among the local public. Нарды – игра, требующая сноровки и удачи There are also different variations of backgammon developed and analyzed by Azerbaijani experts. 

Azerbaijan is one of the leading volleyball countries in the world and its Azerbaijan Women's Volleyball Super League is one of strongest women leagues in world. Its women national team won the forth place at the 2005 European Championship. Over the last years, clubs like Rabita Baku and Azerrail Baku achieved great success at European cups. Azerbaijani volleyball players include likes of Valeriya Korotenko, Oksana Parkhomenko, Inessa Korkmaz, Natalya Mammadova and Alla Hasanova.

Azerbaijan has a Formula One race-track and country will be hosting its first Formula One Grand Prix in 2015. 

Other well-known Azerbaijani athletes are Namig Abdullayev, Toghrul Asgarov, Rovshan Bayramov, Sharif Sharifov, Mariya Stadnik and Farid Mansurov in wrestling, Elnur Mammadli, Elkhan Mammadov and Movlud Miraliyev in judo, Rafael Aghayev in karate, Magomedrasul Majidov in boxing, Nizami Pashayev in Olympic weightlifting, Azad Asgarov in pankration, Eduard Mammadov in kickboxing, and K-1 fighter Zabit Samedov.

Azerbaijan hosted several major sport competitions in last decade, including the 2013 F1 Powerboat World Championship, 2012 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships, 2010 European Wrestling Championships, 2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, 2014 European Taekwondo Championships. On 8 December 2012, Baku was selected to host the 2015 European Games, the first to be held in competition's history. The most important annual sporting events held in the country are Baku Cup and Tour d’Azerbaïdjan cycling race.

==See also==

* Outline of Azerbaijan
* Index of Azerbaijan-related articles

==References==

==Further reading==
* Olukbasi, Suha. Azerbaijan: A Political History (I.B. Tauris, 2011) 292 pages; $90). Focus on post-Soviet era.

==External links==

; General information
* Azerbaijan International
* Heydar Aliyev Foundation
* 
* 
* Azerbaijan at University of Colorado at Boulder
* Country profile from BBC
* Key Development Forecasts for Azerbaijan from International Futures
* 

; Major government resources
* President of Azerbaijan website
* Azerbaijan State Statistical Committee
* United Nations Office in Azerbaijan

; Major news media
* Azerbaijan Today
* Azerbaijan Press Agency
* Trend News Agency
* News.Az

; Tourism
* Azerbaijan Tourism Portal
* 

 



[[Amateur astronomy]]

Amateur astronomers watch the night sky during the Perseid meteor shower.
Amateur astronomy is a hobby whose participants enjoy watching the sky, and the abundance of objects found in it with the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research is not their main goal, many amateur astronomers make a contribution to astronomy by monitoring variable stars, tracking asteroids and discovering transient objects, such as comets and novae.

The typical amateur astronomer is one who does not depend on the field of astronomy as a primary source of income or support, and does not have a professional degree or advanced academic training in the subject. Many amateurs are beginners or hobbyists, while others have a high degree of experience in astronomy and often assist and work alongside professional astronomers.

Amateur astronomy is usually associated with viewing the night sky when most celestial objects and events are visible, but sometimes amateur astronomers also operate during the day for events such as sunspots and solar eclipses. Amateur astronomers often look at the sky using nothing more than their eyes, but common tools for amateur astronomy include portable telescopes and binoculars.

People have studied the sky throughout history in an amateur framework, without any formal method of funding. It is only within about the past century, however, that amateur astronomy has become an activity clearly distinguished from professional astronomy, and other related activities.

== Amateur astronomy objectives ==
An image of the Cat's Paw Nebula created combining the work of professional and amateur astronomers. The image is the combination of the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope of the La Silla Observatory in Chile and a 0.4-meter amateur telescope.
Collectively, amateur astronomers observe a variety of celestial objects and phenomena. Common targets of amateur astronomers include the Moon, planets, stars, comets, meteor showers, and a variety of deep sky objects such as star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae. Many amateurs like to specialise in observing particular objects, types of objects, or types of events which interest them. One branch of amateur astronomy, amateur astrophotography, involves the taking of photos of the night sky. Astrophotography has become more popular with the introduction of far easier to use equipment including, digital cameras, DSLR cameras and relatively sophisticated purpose built high quality CCD cameras.

Most amateurs work at visible wavelengths, but a small minority experiment with wavelengths outside the visible spectrum. An early pioneer of radio astronomy was Grote Reber, an amateur astronomer who constructed the first purpose built radio telescope in the late 1930s to follow up on the discovery of radio wavelength emissions from space by Karl Jansky. Non-visual amateur astronomy includes the use of infrared filters on conventional telescopes, and also the use of radio telescopes. Some amateur astronomers use home-made radio telescopes, while others use radio telescopes that were originally built for astronomy research but have since been made available for use by amateurs. The One-Mile Telescope is one such example.

== Common tools ==
Amateur astronomers use a range of instruments to study the sky, depending on a combination of their interests and resources. Methods include simply looking at the night sky with the naked eye, using binoculars, and using a variety of optical telescopes of varying power and quality, as well as additional sophisticated equipment, such as cameras, to study light from the sky in both the visual and non-visual parts of the spectrum. Commercial telescopes are available new and used, but in some places it is also common for amateur astronomers to build (or commission the building of) their own custom telescope. Some people even focus on amateur telescope making as their primary interest within the hobby of amateur astronomy.

Although specialized and experienced amateur astronomers tend to acquire more specialized and more powerful equipment over time, relatively simple equipment is often preferred for certain tasks. Binoculars, for instance, although generally of lower power than the majority of telescopes, also tend to provide a wider field of view, which is preferable for looking at some objects in the night sky.

Amateur astronomers also use star charts that, depending on experience and intentions, may range from simple planispheres through to detailed charts of very specific areas of the night sky. A range of astronomy software is available and used by amateur astronomers, including software that generates maps of the sky, software to assist with astrophotography, observation scheduling software, and software to perform various calculations pertaining to astronomical phenomena.

Amateur astronomers often like to keep records of their observations, which usually takes the form of an observing log. Observing logs typically record details about which objects were observed and when, as well as describing the details that were seen. Sketching is sometimes used within logs, and photographic records of observations have also been used in recent times.

The Internet is an essential tool of amateur astronomers. The popularity of CCD imaging among amateurs has led to large numbers of web sites being written by individuals about their images and equipment. Much of the social interaction of amateur astronomy occurs on mailing lists or discussion groups. Discussion group servers host numerous astronomy lists. A great deal of the commerce of amateur astronomy, the buying and selling of equipment, occurs online. Many amateurs use online tools to plan their nightly observing sessions using tools such as the Clear Sky Chart.

== Common techniques ==
While a number of interesting celestial objects are readily identified by the naked eye, sometimes with the aid of a star chart, many others are so faint or inconspicuous that technical means are necessary to locate them. Although many methods are used in amateur astronomy, most are variations of a few specific techniques.

=== Star hopping ===

Star hopping is a method often used by amateur astronomers with low-tech equipment such as binoculars or a manually driven telescope. It involves the use of maps (or memory) to locate known landmark stars, and "hopping" between them, often with the aid of a finderscope. Because of its simplicity, star hopping is a very common method for finding objects that are close to naked-eye stars.

More advanced methods of locating objects in the sky include telescope mounts with setting circles, which assist with pointing telescopes to positions in the sky that are known to contain objects of interest, and GOTO telescopes, which are fully automated telescopes that are capable of locating objects on demand (having first been calibrated).

=== Setting circles ===

Setting circles are angular measurement scales that can be placed on the two main rotation axes of some telescopes. Since the widespread adoption of digital setting circles, any classical engraved setting circle is now specifically identified as an "analog setting circle" (ASC). By knowing the coordinates of an object (usually given in equatorial coordinates), the telescope user can use the setting circle to align the telescope in the appropriate direction before looking through its eyepiece. A computerized setting circle is called a "digital setting circle" (DSC). Although digital setting circles can be used to display a telescope's RA and Dec coordinates, they are not simply a digital read-out of what can be seen on the telescope's analog setting circles. As with go-to telescopes, digital setting circle computers (commercial names include Argo Navis, Sky Commander, and NGC Max) contain databases of tens of thousands of celestial objects and projections of planet positions.

To find an object, such as globular cluster NGC 6712, one does not need to look up the RA and Dec coordinates in a book, and then move the telescope to those numerical readings. Rather, the object is chosen from the database and arrow markers appear in the display which indicate the direction to move the telescope. The telescope is moved until the distance value reaches zero. When both the RA and Dec axes are thus "zeroed out", the object should be in the eyepiece. The user therefore does not have to go back and forth from some other database (such as a book or laptop) to match the desired object's listed coordinates to the coordinates on the telescope. However, many DSCs, and also go-to systems, can work in conjunction with laptop sky programs.

Computerized systems provide the further advantage of computing coordinate precession. Traditional printed sources are subtitled by the 'epoch year, which refers to the positions of celestial objects at a given time to the nearest year (e.g., J2005, J2007). Most such printed sources have been updated for intervals of only about every fifty years (e.g., J1900, J1950, J2000). Computerized sources, on the other hand, are able to calculate the right ascension and declination of the "epoch of date" to the exact instant of observation.

===GoTo telescopes===

GOTO telescopes have become more popular since the 1980s as technology has improved and prices have been reduced. With these computer-driven telescopes, the user typically enters the name of the item of interest and the mechanics of the telescope point the telescope towards that item automatically. They have several notable advantages for amateur astronomers intent on research. For example, GOTO telescopes tend to be faster for locating items of interest than star hopping, allowing more time for studying of the object. GOTO also allows manufacturers to add equatorial tracking to mechanically simpler alt-azimuth telescope mounts, allowing them to produce an overall less expensive product. GOTO telescopes usually have to be calibrated using alignment stars in order to provide accurate tracking and positioning. However, several telescope manufacturers have recently developed telescope systems that are calibrated with the use of built-in GPS, decreasing the time it takes to set up a telescope at the start of an observing session.

===Remote control telescopes===
With the development of fast Internet in the last part of the 20th century along with advances in computer controlled telescope mounts and CCD cameras 'Remote Telescope' astronomy is now a viable means for amateur astronomers not aligned with major telescope facilities to partake in research and deep sky imaging. This enables anyone to control a telescope a large distance away in a dark location. The observers can image through the telescopes using CCD cameras. The digital data collected by the telescope is then transmitted and displayed to the user by means of the Internet. An example of a digital remote telescope operation for public use via the Internet is the The Bareket Observatory.

=== Imaging techniques ===

Amateur astronomers engage in many imaging techniques including film, DSLR, and CCD astrophotography. Because CCD imagers are linear, image processing may be used to subtract away the effects of light pollution, which has increased the popularity of astrophotography in urban areas. Narrowband filters may also be used to minimize light pollution. 

== Scientific research ==
Scientific research is most often not the main goal for many amateur astronomers, unlike professional astronomy. Work of scientific merit is possible, however, and many amateurs successfully contribute to the knowledge base of professional astronomers. Astronomy is sometimes promoted as one of the few remaining sciences for which amateurs can still contribute useful data. To recognize this, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific annually gives Amateur Achievement Awards for significant contributions to astronomy by amateurs.

The majority of scientific contributions by amateur astronomers are in the area of data collection. In particular, this applies where large numbers of amateur astronomers with small telescopes are more effective than the relatively small number of large telescopes that are available to professional astronomers. Several organizations, such as the American Association of Variable Star Observers, exist to help coordinate these contributions.

Amateur astronomers often contribute toward activities such as monitoring the changes in brightness of variable stars and supernovae, helping to track asteroids, and observing occultations to determine both the shape of asteroids and the shape of the terrain on the apparent edge of the Moon as seen from Earth. With more advanced equipment, but still cheap in comparison to professional setups, amateur astronomers can measure the light spectrum emitted from astronomical objects, which can yield high-quality scientific data if the measurements are performed with due care. A relatively recent role for amateur astronomers is searching for overlooked phenomena (e.g., Kreutz Sungrazers) in the vast libraries of digital images and other data captured by Earth and space based observatories, much of which is available over the Internet.

In the past and present, amateur astronomers have played a major role in discovering new comets. Recently however, funding of projects such as the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research and Near Earth Asteroid Tracking projects has meant that most comets are now discovered by automated systems, long before it is possible for amateurs to see them.

== Societies ==
There is a large number of amateur astronomical societies around the world that serve as a meeting point for those interested in amateur astronomy, whether they be people who are actively interested in observing or "armchair astronomers" who may simply be interested in the topic. Societies range widely in their goals, depending on a variety of factors such as geographic spread, local circumstances, size, and membership. For instance, a local society in the middle of a large city may have regular meetings with speakers, focusing less on observing the night sky if the membership is less able to observe due to factors such as light pollution.

It is common for local societies to hold regular meetings, which may include activities such as star parties or presentations. Societies are also a meeting point for people with particular interests, such as amateur telescope making.

== Notable amateur astronomers ==
* George Alcock, discovered several comets and novae.
* Thomas Bopp, shared the discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 with unemployed PhD physicist Alan Hale.
* Robert Burnham, Jr., author of the Celestial Handbook.
* Andrew Ainslie Common (1841–1903), built his own very large reflecting telescopes and demonstrated that photography could record astronomical features invisible to the human eye.
* Robert E. Cox (1917–1989) who conducted the "Gleanings for ATMs" column in Sky and Telescope magazine for 21 years.
* John Dobson (1915-2014), whose name is associated with the Dobsonian telescope, a simplified design for Newtonian reflecting telescopes.
* Robert Owen Evans is a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia and an amateur astronomer who holds the all-time record for visual discoveries of supernovae.
* Clinton B. Ford (1913–1992), who specialized in the observation of variable stars.
* John Ellard Gore (1845–1910), who specialized in the observation of variable stars
* Will Hay, the famous comedian and actor, who discovered a white spot on Saturn.
* Walter Scott Houston (1912–1993) who wrote the "Deep-Sky Wonders" column in Sky & Telescope magazine for almost 50 years.
* Albert G. Ingalls (1888–1958), editor of Amateur Telescope Making, Vols. 1–3 and "The Amateur Scientist". He and Russell Porter are generally credited with having initiated the amateur telescope making movement in the US.
* David H. Levy discovered or co-discovered 22 comets including Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, the most for any individual.
* Sir Patrick Moore, presenter of the BBC's long-running The Sky at Night and author of many books on astronomy.
* Leslie Peltier was a prolific discoverer of comets and well-known observer of variable stars.
* John M. Pierce (1886–1958) was one of the founders of the Springfield Telescope Makers. In the 1930s he published a series of 14 articles on telescope making in Hugo Gernsback's "Everyday Science and Mechanics" called "Hobbygraphs". He is considered one of "the big three behind the amateur telescope making movement in America". 
 
* Tim Puckett, the principal investigator of the Puckett Observatory World Supernova Search team, which has discovered over 200 supernovae since 1998.
* Russell W. Porter founded Stellafane and has been referred to as the "founder" or one of the "founders" of amateur telescope making. Albert G. Ingalls is sometime given credit as co-founder of this movement. 
* Isaac Roberts, early experimenter in astronomical photography.
* Grote Reber (1911–2002), pioneer of radio astronomy constructing the first purpose built radio telescope and conducted the first sky survey in the radio frequency.

== Prizes recognizing amateur astronomers ==
* Amateur Achievement Award of Astronomical Society of the Pacific
* Chambliss Amateur Achievement Award

== See also ==

* Astronomical object
* Observation
* Observational astronomy
* Sidewalk astronomy
* Skygazing
* Star party
* Clear Sky Chart Weather forecasts designed for amateur astronomers.

===Amateur astronomy organizations===
* American Association of Variable Star Observers
* Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers
* Astronomical League
* British Astronomical Association
* Confederation of Indian Amateur Astronomer Association (India)
* Jyotirvidya Parisanstha (Pune, India)
* Khagol vishwa (India)
* Khagol Mandal (Mumbai, India)
* NASA Night Sky Network
* Society for Popular Astronomy (UK)
* Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
* Federation of Astronomical Societies (UK)

== References ==

== Further reading ==

* 
* 

== External links ==

* Amateur Astronomy Magazine
* Instrumental Methods for Professional and Amateur Collaborations in Planetary Astronomy (arXiv:1305.3647 : 15 May 2013)



[[Aikido]]

 is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying (with) life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. 

Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical strength, as the aikidōka (aikido practitioner) "leads" the attacker's momentum using entering and turning movements. The techniques are completed with various throws or joint locks. 

Aikido derives mainly from the martial art of Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, but began to diverge from it in the late 1920s, partly due to Ueshiba's involvement with the Ōmoto-kyō religion. Ueshiba's early students' documents bear the term aiki-jūjutsu. 

Ueshiba's senior students have different approaches to aikido, depending partly on when they studied with him. Today aikido is found all over the world in a number of styles, with broad ranges of interpretation and emphasis. However, they all share techniques learned from Ueshiba and most have concern for the well-being of the attacker.

==Etymology and basic philosophy==
"Aikido" written with "ki" in its old character form 

The word "aikido" is formed of three kanji:
* – ai – joining, unifying, combining, fit
* – ki – spirit, energy, mood, morale
* – dō – way, path

The term "aiki" does not readily appear in the Japanese language outside the scope of Budo. This has led to many possible interpretations of the word.
 is mainly used in compounds to mean 'combine, unite, join together, meet', examples being (combined/united), (composition), (unite/combine/join together), (union/alliance/association), (combine/unify), and (mutual agreement). There is an idea of reciprocity, (to get to know one another), (talk/discussion/negotiation), and (meet by appointment).

 is often used to describe a feeling, as in ('I feel X', as in terms of thinking but with less cognitive reasoning), and (feeling/sensation); it is used to mean energy or force, as in (electricity) and (magnetism); it can also refer to qualities or aspects of people or things, as in (spirit/trait/temperament).

The term is also found in martial arts such as judo and kendo, and in the more peaceful arts such as Japanese calligraphy (), flower arranging () and tea ceremony ().

Therefore, from a purely linguistic point of view, aikido is 'Way of combining forces'. The term refers to the martial arts principle or tactic of blending with an attacker's movements for the purpose of controlling their actions with minimal effort. One applies by understanding the rhythm and intent of the attacker to find the optimal position and timing to apply a counter-technique.
This then is very similar to the principles expressed by Kanō Jigorō, founder of judo.

==History==
Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido.Aikido was created by Morihei Ueshiba ( , 14 December 1883 – 26 April 1969), referred to by some aikido practitioners as ("Great Teacher"). The term 'aikido' is a generic term coined in the twentieth century. Draeger, Donn F. (1974) Modern Bujutsu & Budo - The Martial Arts and Ways of Japan. New York: Weatherhill. Page 137. ISBN 0-8348-0351-8 Ueshiba envisioned aikido not only as the synthesis of his martial training, but as an expression of his personal philosophy of universal peace and reconciliation. During Ueshiba's lifetime and continuing today, aikido has evolved from the Aiki that Ueshiba studied into a wide variety of expressions by martial artists throughout the world. 

===Initial development===
Takeda Sōkaku
Ueshiba developed aikido primarily during the late 1920s through the 1930s through the synthesis of the older martial arts that he had studied. The core martial art from which aikido derives is Daitō-ryū aiki-jūjutsu, which Ueshiba studied directly with Takeda Sōkaku, the reviver of that art. Additionally, Ueshiba is known to have studied Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū with Tozawa Tokusaburō in Tokyo in 1901, Gotōha Yagyū Shingan-ryū under Nakai Masakatsu in Sakai from 1903 to 1908, and judo with Kiyoichi Takagi ( , 1894–1972) in Tanabe in 1911. 

The art of Daitō-ryū is the primary technical influence on aikido. Along with empty-handed throwing and joint-locking techniques, Ueshiba incorporated training movements with weapons, such as those for the spear (), short staff (), and perhaps the . However, aikido derives much of its technical structure from the art of swordsmanship (). 

Ueshiba moved to Hokkaidō in 1912, and began studying under Takeda Sokaku in 1915. His official association with Daitō-ryū continued until 1937. However, during the latter part of that period, Ueshiba had already begun to distance himself from Takeda and the Daitō-ryū. At that time Ueshiba was referring to his martial art as "Aiki Budō". It is unclear exactly when Ueshiba began using the name "aikido", but it became the official name of the art in 1942 when the Greater Japan Martial Virtue Society () was engaged in a government sponsored reorganization and centralization of Japanese martial arts. 

===Religious influences===
Onisaburo Deguchi
After Ueshiba left Hokkaidō in 1919, he met and was profoundly influenced by Onisaburo Deguchi, the spiritual leader of the Ōmoto-kyō religion (a neo-Shinto movement) in Ayabe. One of the primary features of Ōmoto-kyō is its emphasis on the attainment of utopia during one's life. This was a great influence on Ueshiba's martial arts philosophy of extending love and compassion especially to those who seek to harm others. Aikido demonstrates this philosophy in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution, not only is the receiver unharmed, but so is the attacker. 

In addition to the effect on his spiritual growth, the connection with Deguchi gave Ueshiba entry to elite political and military circles as a martial artist. As a result of this exposure, he was able to attract not only financial backing but also gifted students. Several of these students would found their own styles of aikido. 

===International dissemination===
Aikido was first brought to the rest of the world in 1951 by Minoru Mochizuki with a visit to France where he introduced aikido techniques to judo students. He was followed by Tadashi Abe in 1952 who came as the official Aikikai Hombu representative, remaining in France for seven years. Kenji Tomiki toured with a delegation of various martial arts through 15 continental states of the United States in 1953. Later in that year, Koichi Tohei was sent by Aikikai Hombu to Hawaii, for a full year, where he set up several dojo. This was followed up by several further visits and is considered the formal introduction of aikido to the United States. The United Kingdom followed in 1955; Italy in 1964 by Hiroshi Tada; and Germany 1965 by Katsuaki Asai. Designated "Official Delegate for Europe and Africa" by Morihei Ueshiba, Masamichi Noro arrived in France in September 1961. Seiichi Sugano was appointed to introduce aikido to Australia in 1965. Today there are aikido dojo available throughout the world.

===Proliferation of independent organizations===

The largest aikido organization is the Aikikai Foundation, which remains under the control of the Ueshiba family. However, aikido has many styles, mostly formed by Morihei Ueshiba's major students. 

The earliest independent styles to emerge were Yoseikan Aikido, begun by Minoru Mochizuki in 1931, Yoshinkan Aikido founded by Gozo Shioda in 1955, and Shodokan Aikido, founded by Kenji Tomiki in 1967. The emergence of these styles pre-dated Ueshiba's death and did not cause any major upheavals when they were formalized. Shodokan Aikido, however, was controversial, since it introduced a unique rule-based competition that some felt was contrary to the spirit of aikido. 

After Ueshiba's death in 1969, two more major styles emerged. Significant controversy arose with the departure of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo's chief instructor Koichi Tohei, in 1974. Tohei left as a result of a disagreement with the son of the founder, Kisshomaru Ueshiba, who at that time headed the Aikikai Foundation. The disagreement was over the proper role of ki development in regular aikido training. After Tohei left, he formed his own style, called Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, and the organization which governs it, the Ki Society (Ki no Kenkyūkai). 

A final major style evolved from Ueshiba's retirement in Iwama, Ibaraki, and the teaching methodology of long term student Morihiro Saito. It is unofficially referred to as the "Iwama style", and at one point a number of its followers formed a loose network of schools they called Iwama Ryu. Although Iwama style practitioners remained part of the Aikikai until Saito's death in 2002, followers of Saito subsequently split into two groups; one remaining with the Aikikai and the other forming the independent Shinshin Aikishuren Kai in 2004 around Saito's son Hitohiro Saito.

Today, the major styles of aikido are each run by a separate governing organization, have their own in Japan, and have an international breadth. 

==Training==
In aikido, as in virtually all Japanese martial arts, there are both physical and mental aspects of training. The physical training in aikido is diverse, covering both general physical fitness and conditioning, as well as specific techniques. Because a substantial portion of any aikido curriculum consists of throws, the first thing most students learn is how to safely fall or roll. The specific techniques for attack include both strikes and grabs; the techniques for defense consist of throws and pins. After basic techniques are learned, students study freestyle defense against multiple opponents, and techniques with weapons.

===Fitness===
Ukemi () is very important for safe practice
Physical training goals pursued in conjunction with aikido include controlled relaxation, flexibility, and endurance, with less emphasis on strength training. In aikido, pushing or extending movements are much more common than pulling or contracting movements. This distinction can be applied to general fitness goals for the aikido practitioner. 

In aikido, specific muscles or muscle groups are not isolated and worked to improve tone, mass, and power. Aikido-related training emphasizes the use of coordinated whole-body movement and balance similar to yoga or pilates. For example, many dojos begin each class with , which may include stretching and ukemi (break falls). 

===Roles of uke and tori===
Aikido training is based primarily on two partners practicing pre-arranged forms (kata) rather than freestyle practice. The basic pattern is for the receiver of the technique (uke) to initiate an attack against the person who applies the technique—the tori, or shite (depending on aikido style), also referred to as nage (when applying a throwing technique), who neutralises this attack with an aikido technique. 

Both halves of the technique, that of uke and that of nage, are considered essential to aikido training. Both are studying aikido principles of blending and adaptation. Nage learns to blend with and control attacking energy, while uke learns to become calm and flexible in the disadvantageous, off-balance positions in which nage places them. This "receiving" of the technique is called ukemi. Uke continuously seeks to regain balance and cover vulnerabilities (e.g., an exposed side), while nage uses position and timing to keep uke off-balance and vulnerable. In more advanced training, uke will sometimes apply to regain balance and pin or throw nage.

 refers to the act of receiving a technique. Good ukemi involves attention to the technique, the partner and the immediate environment—it is an active rather than a passive receiving of aikido. The fall itself is part of aikido, and is a way for the practitioner to receive, safely, what would otherwise be a devastating strike or throw.

===Initial attacks===
Aikido techniques are usually a defense against an attack, so students must learn to deliver various types of attacks to be able to practice aikido with a partner. Although attacks are not studied as thoroughly as in striking-based arts, sincere attacks (a strong strike or an immobilizing grab) are needed to study correct and effective application of technique. 

Many of the of aikido resemble cuts from a sword or other grasped object, which indicates its origins in techniques intended for armed combat. Other techniques, which explicitly appear to be punches (tsuki), are practiced as thrusts with a knife or sword. Kicks are generally reserved for upper-level variations; reasons cited include that falls from kicks are especially dangerous, and that kicks (high kicks in particular) were uncommon during the types of combat prevalent in feudal Japan. Some basic strikes include:
* a vertical knifehand strike to the head. In training, this is usually directed at the forehead or the crown for safety, but more dangerous versions of this attack target the bridge of the nose and the maxillary sinus.
* a diagonal knifehand strike to the side of the head or neck.
* a punch to the torso. Specific targets include the chest, abdomen, and solar plexus. Same as , and .
* a punch to the face. Same as .

Beginners in particular often practice techniques from grabs, both because they are safer and because it is easier to feel the energy and lines of force of a hold than a strike. Some grabs are historically derived from being held while trying to draw a weapon; a technique could then be used to free oneself and immobilize or strike the attacker who is grabbing the defender. The following are examples of some basic grabs:
* one hand grabs one wrist.
* both hands grab one wrist. Same as 
* both hands grab both wrists. Same as .
* a shoulder grab. "Both-shoulders-grab" is . It is sometimes combined with an overhead strike as .
* grabbing the (clothing of the) chest. Same as .

===Basic techniques===

Diagram of ikkyō, or "first technique". Yonkyō has a similar mechanism of action, although the upper hand grips the forearm rather than the elbow.
The following are a sample of the basic or widely practiced throws and pins. Many of these techniques derive from Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, but some others were invented by Morihei Ueshiba. The precise terminology for some may vary between organisations and styles, so what follows are the terms used by the Aikikai Foundation. Note that despite the names of the first five techniques listed, they are not universally taught in numeric order. 
* a control using one hand on the elbow and one hand near the wrist which leverages uke to the ground. This grip applies pressure into the ulnar nerve at the wrist.
* a pronating wristlock that torques the arm and applies painful nerve pressure. (There is an adductive wristlock or Z-lock in ura version.)
* a rotational wristlock that directs upward-spiraling tension throughout the arm, elbow and shoulder.
* a shoulder control similar to ikkyō, but with both hands gripping the forearm. The knuckles (from the palm side) are applied to the recipient's radial nerve against the periosteum of the forearm bone. 
* visually similar to ikkyō, but with an inverted grip of the wrist, medial rotation of the arm and shoulder, and downward pressure on the elbow. Common in knife and other weapon take-aways.
* The hand is folded back past the shoulder, locking the shoulder joint.
* a supinating wristlock-throw that stretches the extensor digitorum.
* a loosely used term for various types of mechanically unrelated techniques, although they generally do not use joint locks like other techniques. 
* throws in which nage moves through the space occupied by uke. The classic form superficially resembles a "clothesline" technique.
* beginning with ryōte-dori; moving forward, nage sweeps one hand low ("earth") and the other high ("heaven"), which unbalances uke so that he or she easily topples over.
* aikido's version of the hip throw. Nage drops his or her hips lower than those of uke, then flips uke over the resultant fulcrum.
* or a throw that locks the arms against each other (The kanji for "10" is a cross-shape: 十). 
* nage sweeps the arm back until it locks the shoulder joint, then uses forward pressure to throw. 

===Implementations===
Diagram showing two versions of the ikkyō technique: one moving forward (the omote version) and one moving backward (the ura version). See text for more details.

Aikido makes use of body movement (tai sabaki) to blend with uke. For example, an "entering" (irimi) technique consists of movements inward towards uke, while a technique uses a pivoting motion. 
Additionally, an technique takes place in front of uke, whereas an technique takes place to his side; a technique is applied with motion to the front of uke, and a version is applied with motion towards the rear of uke, usually by incorporating a turning or pivoting motion. Finally, most techniques can be performed while in a seated posture (seiza). Techniques where both uke and nage are standing are called tachi-waza, techniques where both start off in seiza are called suwari-waza, and techniques performed with uke standing and nage sitting are called hanmi handachi. 

Thus, from fewer than twenty basic techniques, there are thousands of possible implementations. For instance, ikkyō can be applied to an opponent moving forward with a strike (perhaps with an ura type of movement to redirect the incoming force), or to an opponent who has already struck and is now moving back to reestablish distance (perhaps an omote-waza version). Specific aikido kata are typically referred to with the formula "attack-technique(-modifier)". For instance, katate-dori ikkyō refers to any ikkyō technique executed when uke is holding one wrist. This could be further specified as katate-dori ikkyō omote, referring to any forward-moving ikkyō technique from that grab.

Atemi () are strikes (or feints) employed during an aikido technique. Some view atemi as attacks against "vital points" meant to cause damage in and of themselves. For instance, Gōzō Shioda described using atemi in a brawl to quickly down a gang's leader. Others consider atemi, especially to the face, to be methods of distraction meant to enable other techniques. A strike, whether or not it is blocked, can startle the target and break his or her concentration. The target may become unbalanced in attempting to avoid the blow, for example by jerking the head back, which may allow for an easier throw. 
Many sayings about atemi are attributed to Morihei Ueshiba, who considered them an essential element of technique. 

===Weapons===
Disarming an attacker using a technique.
Weapons training in aikido traditionally includes the short staff (jō), wooden sword (bokken), and knife (tantō). Today, some schools incorporate firearm-disarming techniques. Both weapon-taking and weapon-retention are sometimes taught, to integrate armed and unarmed aspects. Others, such as the Iwama style of Morihiro Saito, usually spend substantial time with bokken and jō, practised under the names aiki-ken, and aiki-jō, respectively.

The founder developed much of empty handed aikido from traditional sword and spear movements. Consequently, the practice of these movements both gives insight into the origin of techniques and movements, and reinforces the concepts of distance, foot movement, presence and connectedness with one's training partner(s). 

===Multiple attackers and randori===
Technique performed against two attackers. 
One feature of aikido is training to defend against multiple attackers, often called taninzudori, or taninzugake. Freestyle (randori, or jiyūwaza) practice with multiple attackers is a key part of most curricula and is required for the higher level ranks. "Randori", literally "chaos", exercises a person's ability to intuitively perform techniques in an unstructured environment. Strategic choice of techniques, based on how they reposition the student relative to other attackers, is important in randori training. For instance, an ura technique might be used to neutralise the current attacker while turning to face attackers approaching from behind. 

In Shodokan Aikido, randori differs in that it is not performed with multiple persons with defined roles of defender and attacker, but between two people, where both participants attack, defend, and counter at will. In this respect it resembles judo randori. 

===Injuries===
In applying a technique during training, it is the responsibility of nage to prevent injury to uke by employing a speed and force of application that is commensurate with their partner's proficiency in ukemi. Injuries (especially those to the joints), when they do occur in aikido, are often the result of nage misjudging the ability of uke to receive the throw or pin. Aikido and injuries: special report by Fumiaki Shishida Aiki News 1989;80 (April); partial English translation of article re-printed in Aikido Journal 

A study of injuries in the martial arts showed that while the type of injuries varied considerably from one art to the other, the differences in overall rates of injury were much less pronounced. Soft tissue injuries are one of the most common types of injuries found within aikido, and a few deaths from repetitive "shihōnage" in a Japanese-style hazing context have been reported. 

===Mental training===
Aikido training is mental as well as physical, emphasizing the ability to relax the mind and body even under the stress of dangerous situations. This is necessary to enable the practitioner to perform the bold enter-and-blend movements that underlie aikido techniques, wherein an attack is met with confidence and directness. Morihei Ueshiba once remarked that one "must be willing to receive 99% of an opponent's attack and stare death in the face" in order to execute techniques without hesitation. As a martial art concerned not only with fighting proficiency but with the betterment of daily life, this mental aspect is of key importance to aikido practitioners. 

==Criticisms==
The most common criticism of aikido is that it suffers from a lack of realism in training. The attacks initiated by uke (and which nage must defend against) have been criticized as being "weak," "sloppy," and "little more than caricatures of an attack." 
Weak attacks from uke cause a conditioned response from nage, and result in underdevelopment of the strength and conditioning needed for the safe and effective practice of both partners. To counteract this, some styles allow students to become less compliant over time but, in keeping with the core philosophies, this is after having demonstrated proficiency in being able to protect themselves and their training partners. Shodokan Aikido addresses the issue by practising in a competitive format. Such adaptations are debated between styles, with some maintaining that there is no need to adjust their methods because either the criticisms are unjustified, or that they are not training for self-defence or combat effectiveness, but spiritual, fitness or other reasons. 

Another criticism is that after the end of Ueshiba's seclusion in Iwama from 1942 to the mid-1950s, he increasingly emphasized the spiritual and philosophical aspects of aikido. As a result, strikes to vital points by nage, entering (irimi) and initiation of techniques by nage, the distinction between omote (front side) and ura (back side) techniques, and the use of weapons, were all de-emphasized or eliminated from practice. Lack of training in these areas is thought to lead to an overall loss of effectiveness by some aikido practitioners. 

Conversely, there are some who criticize aikido practitioners for not placing enough importance on the spiritual practices emphasized by Ueshiba. The premise of this criticism is that "O-Sensei's aikido was not a continuation and extension of the old and has a distinct discontinuity with past martial and philosophical concepts." That is, that aikido practitioners who focus on aikido's roots in traditional jujutsu or kenjutsu are diverging from what Ueshiba taught. Such critics urge practitioners to embrace the assertion that " transcendence to the spiritual and universal reality was the fundamentals of the paradigm that he demonstrated." 

==Ki==
This was the kanji for ki until 1946, when it was changed to .

The study of ki is a critical component of aikido, and its study defies categorization as either "physical" or "mental" training, as it encompasses both. The original kanji for ki was , and is a symbolic representation of a lid covering a pot full of rice; the "nourishing vapors" contained within are ki. 

The character for ki is used in everyday Japanese terms, such as , or . Ki is most often understood as unified physical and mental intention, however in traditional martial arts it is often discussed as "life energy". Gōzō Shioda's Yoshinkan Aikido, considered one of the "hard styles," largely follows Ueshiba's teachings from before World War II, and surmises that the secret to ki lies in timing and the application of the whole body's strength to a single point. In later years, Ueshiba's application of ki in aikido took on a softer, more gentle feel. This was his Takemusu Aiki and many of his later students teach about ki from this perspective. Koichi Tohei's Ki Society centers almost exclusively around the study of the empirical (albeit subjective) experience of ki with students ranked separately in aikido techniques and ki development. 

==Uniforms and ranking==
Hakama are folded after practice to preserve the pleats.
Aikido practitioners (commonly called aikidōka outside of Japan) generally progress by promotion through a series of "grades" (kyū), followed by a series of "degrees" (dan), pursuant to formal testing procedures. Some aikido organizations use belts to distinguish practitioners' grades, often simply white and black belts to distinguish lower and higher grades, though some use various belt colors. Testing requirements vary, so a particular rank in one organization is not comparable or interchangeable with the rank of another. Some dojos do not allow students to take the test to obtain a dan rank unless they are 16 or older.

 rank belt color type 
 kyū 65px white mudansha / yūkyūsha 
 dan 65px black yūdansha 

The uniform worn for practicing aikido (aikidōgi) is similar to the training uniform (keikogi) used in most other modern martial arts; simple trousers and a wraparound jacket, usually white. Both thick ("judo-style"), and thin ("karate-style") cotton tops are used. Aikido-specific tops are available with shorter sleeves which reach to just below the elbow.

Most aikido systems add a pair of wide pleated black or indigo trousers called a hakama (used also in kendo and iaido.) In many schools, its use is reserved for practitioners with (dan) ranks or for instructors, while others allow all practitioners to wear a hakama regardless of rank. 

==References==

==External links==

* AikiWeb Aikido Information—a site on aikido, with essays, forums, gallery, reviews, columns, wiki and other information.

 



[[Art]]

Clockwise from upper left: a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh; an African Chokwe statue; detail from the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli; and a Japanese Shisa lion.

Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities; this article focuses primarily on the visual arts, which includes the creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential—in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. "Art, n. 1". OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com. (Accessed 26 February 2012.); Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.

Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis (its representation of reality), expression, communication of emotion, or other qualities. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science". Though the definition of what constitutes art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency What Is Art? and creation. art – Britannica Online Encyclopedia 

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics. Kennick, William ed, and W. E. Kennick, Art and philosophy : readings in aesthetics New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979, pp. xi–xiii. ISBN 0-312-05391-6. 

== Creative art and fine art ==

By a broad definition of art, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. Elkins, James "Art History and Images That Are Not Art", The Art Bulletin, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Dec. 1995), with previous bibliography. "Non-Western images are not well described in terms of art, and neither are medieval paintings that were made in the absence of humanist ideas of artistic value". 553 The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft," as associated with words such as "artisan." English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.
20th-century Rwandan bottle. Artistic works may serve practical functions, in addition to their decorative value.

Few modern scholars have been more divided than Plato and Aristotle on the question concerning the importance of art, with Aristotle strongly supporting art in general and Plato generally being opposed to its relative importance. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art: Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness (drunkenness, eroticism, and dreaming) in the Phaedrus (265a–c), and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homer's great poetic art, and laughter as well. In Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. The dialogue Ion suggests that Homer's Iliad functioned in the ancient Greek world as the Bible does today in the modern Christian world: as divinely inspired literary art that can provide moral guidance, if only it can be properly interpreted. With regards to the literary art and the musical arts, Aristotle considered epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry and music to be mimetic or imitative art, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. Aristotle, Poetics I 1447a For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama. Aristotle, Poetics III Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages over animals. Aristotle, Poetics IV 

The second, and more recent, sense of the word art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993, p. 120 Fine art refers to a skill used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of more refined or finer work of art.

Within this latter sense, the word art may refer to several things: (i) a study of a creative skill, (ii) a process of using the creative skill, (iii) a product of the creative skill, or (iv) the audience's experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks (art as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and convey a message, mood, or symbolism for the perceiver to interpret (art as experience). Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. Works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. For some scholars, such as Kant, the sciences and the arts could be distinguished by taking science as representing the domain of knowledge and the arts as representing the domain of the freedom of artistic expression.

Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference. David Novitz, "The Boundaries of Art", 1992 However, even fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually, or philosophically motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; for pleasure; or to generate strong emotions. The purpose may also be seemingly nonexistent.

The nature of art has been described by philosopher Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture". Richard Wollheim, Art and its objects, p.1, 2nd edn, 1980, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-29706-0 Art has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as mimesis or representation. Art as mimesis has deep roots in the philosophy of Aristotle. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another. Jerrold Levinson, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, Oxford university Press, 2003, p5. ISBN 0-19-927945-4 Benedetto Croce and R.G. Collingwood advanced the idealist view that art expresses emotions, and that the work of art therefore essentially exists in the mind of the creator. Jerrold Levinson, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, Oxford university Press, 2003, p16. ISBN 0-19-927945-4 R.G. Collingwood's view, expressed in The Principles of Art, is considered in Wollheim, op. cit. 1980 pp 36–43 The theory of art as form has its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and was developed in the early twentieth century by Roger Fry and Clive Bell. More recently, thinkers influenced by Martin Heidegger have interpreted art as the means by which a community develops for itself a medium for self-expression and interpretation. Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art", in Poetry, Language, Thought, (Harper Perennial, 2001). See also Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Cézanne's Doubt" in The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, Galen Johnson and Michael Smith (eds), (Northwestern University Press, 1994) and John Russon, Bearing Witness to Epiphany, (State University of New York Press, 2009). George Dickie has offered an institutional theory of art that defines a work of art as any artifact upon which a qualified person or persons acting on behalf of the social institution commonly referred to as "the art world" has conferred "the status of candidate for appreciation". Kennick, William ed, and W. E. Kennick, Art and philosophy: readings in aesthetics New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979, p. 89. ISBN 0-312-05391-6 Larry Shiner has described fine art as "not an essence or a fate but something we have made. Art as we have generally understood it is a European invention barely two hundred years old.” Shiner 2003. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-226-75342-3 

==History==

Venus of Willendorf, circa 24,000–22,000 BP

Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about the cultures that produced them. The oldest art objects in the world—a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave. Radford, Tim. "World's Oldest Jewellery Found in Cave". Guardian Unlimited, 16 April 2004. Retrieved on 18 January 2008. Containers that may have been used to hold paints have been found dating as far back as 100,000 years. 

Cave painting of a horse from the Lascaux caves, circa 16,000 BP

Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in its art. Because of the size and duration of these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked. For example, this period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions.

In Byzantine and Medieval art of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of Biblical and religious truths, and used styles that showed the higher glory of a heavenly world, such as the use of gold in the background of paintings, or glass in mosaics or windows, which also presented figures in idealized, patterned (flat) forms. Nevertheless a classical realist tradition persisted in small Byzantine works, and realism steadily grew in the art of Catholic Europe.

Renaissance art had a greatly increased emphasis on the realistic depiction of the material world, and the place of humans in it, reflected in the corporeality of the human body, and development of a systematic method of graphical perspective to depict recession in a three-dimensional picture space.
The stylized signature of Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire was written in Arabic calligraphy. It reads Mahmud Khan son of Abdulhamid is forever victorious.
Mosque Stitched Panorama.jpg|thumb|The Great Mosque of Kairouan (also called the Mosque of Uqba) is one of the finest, most significant and best preserved artistic and architectural examples of early great mosques; dated in its present state from the 9th century, it is the ancestor and model of all the mosques in the western Islamic lands. [http://books.google.fr/books?id=IaM9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA104&dq=oleg+grabar+kairouan+mosque&cd=3#v=onepage&q=oleg%20grabar%20kairouan%20mosque&f=false John Stothoff Badeau and John Richard Hayes, The Genius of Arab civilization: source of Renaissance. Taylor & Francis. 1983. p. 104 The Great Mosque of Kairouan is located in the city of Kairouan in Tunisia.]]

In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture. Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. India and Tibet saw emphasis on painted sculptures and dance, while religious painting borrowed many conventions from sculpture and tended to bright contrasting colors with emphasis on outlines. China saw the flourishing of many art forms: jade carving, bronzework, pottery (including the stunning terracotta army of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction, etc. Chinese styles vary greatly from era to era and each one is traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. So, for example, Tang Dynasty paintings are monochromatic and sparse, emphasizing idealized landscapes, but Ming Dynasty paintings are busy and colorful, and focus on telling stories via setting and composition. Japan names its styles after imperial dynasties too, and also saw much interplay between the styles of calligraphy and painting. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.

Painting by Song Dynasty artist Ma Lin, circa 1250. 24,8 × 25,2 cm

The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world, such as Blake's portrayal of Newton as a divine geometer, or David's propagandistic paintings. This led to Romantic rejections of this in favor of pictures of the emotional side and individuality of humans, exemplified in the novels of Goethe. The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art, Symbolism, impressionism and fauvism among others.

The history of twentieth-century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. Japanese woodblock prints (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent development. Later, African sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse. Similarly, the west has had huge impacts on Eastern art in the 19th and 20th centuries, with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting a powerful influence on artistic styles.

Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability. Theodor W. Adorno said in 1970, "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist." Adorno, Theodor W., Aesthetic Theory, (1970 in German) Relativism was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and some argue it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.

==Forms, genres, media, and styles==

Detail of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, showing the painting technique of sfumato
The creative arts are often divided into more specific categories, each related to its technique, or medium, such as decorative arts, plastic arts, performing arts, or literature. Unlike scientific fields, art is one of the few subjects that are academically organized according to technique . An artistic medium is the substance or material the artistic work is made from, and may also refer to the technique used. For example, paint is a medium used in painting, and paper is a medium used in drawing.

An art form is the specific shape, or quality an artistic expression takes. The media used often influence the form. For example, the form of a sculpture must exist in space in three dimensions, and respond to gravity. The constraints and limitations of a particular medium are thus called its formal qualities. To give another example, the formal qualities of painting are the canvas texture, color, and brush texture. The formal qualities of video games are non-linearity, interactivity and virtual presence.
The form of a particular work of art is determined by the formal qualities of the media, and is not related to the intentions of the artist or the reactions of the audience in any way whatsoever as these properties are related to content rather than form. 

A genre is a set of conventions and styles within a particular medium. For instance, well recognized genres in film are western, horror and romantic comedy. Genres in music include death metal and trip hop. Genres in painting include still life and pastoral landscape. A particular work of art may bend or combine genres but each genre has a recognizable group of conventions, clichés and tropes. (One note: the word genre has a second older meaning within painting; genre painting was a phrase used in the 17th to 19th centuries to refer specifically to paintings of scenes of everyday life and is still used in this way.)

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849), colored woodcut print
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow (1930) by Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944).

The style of an artwork, artist, or movement is the distinctive method and form followed by the respective art. Any loose brushy, dripped or poured abstract painting is called expressionistic. Often a style is linked with a particular historical period, set of ideas, and particular artistic movement. So Jackson Pollock is called an Abstract Expressionist.

A particular style may have specific cultural meanings. For example, Roy Lichtenstein—a painter associated with the American Pop art movement of the 1960s—was not a pointillist, despite his use of dots. Lichtenstein used evenly spaced Ben-Day dots (the type used to reproduce color in comic strips) as a style to question the "high" art of painting with the "low" art of comics, thus commenting on class distinctions in culture. Pointillism, a technique in late Impressionism (1880s) developed especially by the artist Georges Seurat, employs dots to create variation in color and depth in an attempt to approximate the way people really see color. Both artists use dots, but the particular style and technique relate to the artistic movement adopted by each artist.

These are all ways of beginning to define a work of art, to narrow it down.

===Skill and craft===
Adam. Detail from Michelangelo's fresco in the Cappella Sistina (1511)

Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy and or depth. Art is an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations. Breskin, Vladimir, Triad: Method for studying the core of the semiotic parity of language and art, Signs – International Journal of Semiotics 3, pp.1–28, 2010. ISSN: 1902-8822 
There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it, which facilitates one's thought processes.
A common view is that the epithet "art", particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability, an originality in stylistic approach, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci, art, neither more nor less than his other endeavors, was a manifestation of skill. Rembrandt's work, now praised for its ephemeral virtues, was most admired by his contemporaries for its virtuosity. At the turn of the 20th century, the adroit performances of John Singer Sargent were alternately admired and viewed with skepticism for their manual fluency, yet at nearly the same time the artist who would become the era's most recognized and peripatetic iconoclast, Pablo Picasso, was completing a traditional academic training at which he excelled.

A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artist used found objects ("ready-made") and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Tracey Emin's My Bed, or Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living follow this example and also manipulate the mass media. Emin slept (and engaged in other activities) in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans. Hirst's celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts. The actual production in many conceptual and contemporary works of art is a matter of assembly of found objects. However there are many modernist and contemporary artists who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating hands-on works of art.

==Purpose of art==
A Navajo rug made circa 1880
Mozarabic Beatus miniature. Spain, late 10th century
Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of Art is "vague", but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated, and those that are motivated (Lévi-Strauss).

===Non-motivated functions of art===
The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. In this sense, Art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore beyond utility.
# Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm. Art at this level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of being human beyond utility."Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry." -Aristotle Aristotle. The Poetics, Republic. Note: Although speaking mostly of poetry here, the Ancient Greeks often speak of the arts collectively. http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-2.html 
# Experience of the mysterious. Art provides a way to experience one's self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as one appreciates art, music or poetry."The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." -Albert Einstein Einstein, Albert. The World as I See It. http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm 
# Expression of the imagination. Art provide a means to express the imagination in non-grammatic ways that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are malleable."Jupiter's eagle an example of art is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else – something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken." -Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant, Critique of Aesthetic Judgement (1790). 
# Ritualistic and symbolic functions. In many cultures, art is used in rituals, performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture."Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term 'art'." -Silva Tomaskova Silvia Tomaskova, "Places of Art: Art and Archaeology in Context": (1997) 

===Motivated functions of art===
Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) to sell a product, or simply as a form of communication.
# Communication. Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art."is a set of artefacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of communication." -Steve Mithen Steve Mithen. The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science. 1999 
# Art as entertainment. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, for the purpose of relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of Motion Pictures and Video Games.
# The Avante-Garde. Art for political change. One of the defining functions of early twentieth-century art has been to use visual images to bring about political change. Art movements that had this goal—Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others—are collectively referred to as the avante-garde arts."By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life." -André Breton (Surrealism) André Breton, Surrealist Manifesto (1924) 
# Art as a "free zone", removed from the action of the social censure. Unlike the avant-garde movements, which wanted to erase cultural differences in order to produce new universal values, contemporary art has enhanced its tolerance towards cultural differences as well as its critical and liberating functions (social inquiry, activism, subversion, deconstruction...), becoming a more open place for research and experimentation. According to Maurizio Bolognini this is not only associated with the postmodern rejection of all canons but with a process of secularization of art, which is finally considered as "a mere (albeit essential) convention, sustained and reproduced by the art system (artists, galleries, critics, collectors), providing a free zone, that is, a more open place for experimentation, removed from the constraints of the practical sphere.": see , chap. 3. 
# Art for social inquiry, subversion and/or anarchy. While similar to art for political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be simply to criticize some aspect of society.Spray-paint graffiti on a wall in Rome Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted or stencilled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they break laws (in this case vandalism).
# Art for social causes. Art can be used to raise awareness for a large variety of causes. A number of art activities were aimed at raising awareness of autism, cancer, human trafficking, and a variety of other topics, such as ocean conservation, human rights in Darfur, murdered and missing Aboriginal women, elder abuse, and pollution. Trashion, using trash to make fashion, practiced by artists such as Marina DeBris is one example of using art to raise awareness about pollution.Marina DeBris dress made of trash from the beach
# Art for psychological and healing purposes. Art is also used by art therapists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy.
# Art for propaganda, or commercialism. Art is often utilized as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or object. Roland Barthes, Mythologies 
# Art as a fitness indicator. It has been argued that the ability of the human brain by far exceeds what was needed for survival in the ancestral environment. One evolutionary psychology explanation for this is that the human brain and associated traits (such as artistic ability and creativity) are the human equivalent of the peacock's tail. The purpose of the male peacock's extravagant tail has been argued to be to attract females (see also Fisherian runaway and handicap principle). According to this theory superior execution of art was evolutionary important because it attracted mates. Dutton, Denis. 2003. 'Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology' in "The Oxford Handbook for Aesthetics". Oxford University Press. 

The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product, i.e. the movie or video game.

==Public access==
Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the interior court to create the expansive entrance cour d'honneur, later copied all over Europe.

Since ancient times, much of the finest art has represented a deliberate display of wealth or power, often achieved by using massive scale and expensive materials. Much art has been commissioned by rulers or religious establishments, with more modest versions only available to the most wealthy in society. Nevertheless, there have been many periods where art of very high quality was available, in terms of ownership, across large parts of society, above all in cheap media such as pottery, which persists in the ground, and perishable media such as textiles and wood. In many different cultures, the ceramics of indigenous peoples of the Americas are found in such a wide range of graves that they were clearly not restricted to a social elite, though other forms of art may have been. Reproductive methods such as moulds made mass-production easier, and were used to bring high-quality Ancient Roman pottery and Greek Tanagra figurines to a very wide market. Cylinder seals were both artistic and practical, and very widely used by what can be loosely called the middle class in the Ancient Near East. Once coins were widely used these also became an art form that reached the widest range of society. Another important innovation came in the 15th century in Europe, when printmaking began with small woodcuts, mostly religious, that were often very small and hand-colored, and affordable even by peasants who glued them to the walls of their homes. Printed books were initially very expensive, but fell steadily in price until by the 19th century even the poorest could afford some with printed illustrations. Popular prints of many different sorts have decorated homes and other places for centuries.

Public buildings and monuments, secular and religious, by their nature normally address the whole of society, and visitors as viewers, and display to the general public has long been an important factor in their design. Egyptian temples are typical in that the most largest and most lavish decoration was placed on the parts that could be seen by the general public, rather than the areas seen only by the priests. Many areas of royal palaces, castles and the houses of the social elite were often generally accessible, and large parts of the art collections of such people could often be seen, either by anybody, or by those able to pay a small price, or those wearing the correct clothes, regardless of who they were, as at the Palace of Versailles, where the appropriate extra accessories (silver shoe buckles and a sword) could be hired from shops outside.

Special arrangements were made to allow the public to see many royal or private collections placed in galleries, as with the Orleans Collection mostly housed in a wing of the Palais Royal in Paris, which could be visited for most of the 18th century. In Italy the art tourism of the Grand Tour became a major industry from the Renaissance onwards, and governments and cities made efforts to make their key works accessible. The British Royal Collection remains distinct, but large donations such as the Old Royal Library were made from it to the British Museum, established in 1753. The Uffizi in Florence opened entirely as a gallery in 1765, though this function had been gradually taking the building over from the original civil servants' offices for a long time before. The building now occupied by the Prado in Madrid was built before the French Revolution for the public display of parts of the royal art collection, and similar royal galleries open to the public existed in Vienna, Munich and other capitals. The opening of the Musée du Louvre during the French Revolution (in 1793) as a public museum for much of the former French royal collection certainly marked an important stage in the development of public access to art, transferring ownership to a republican state, but was a continuation of trends already well established.

Most modern public museums and art education programs for children in schools can be traced back to this impulse to have art available to everyone. Museums in the United States tend to be gifts from the very rich to the masses (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was created by John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum.) But despite all this, at least one of the important functions of art in the 21st century remains as a marker of wealth and social status.

Performance by Joseph Beuys, 1978: Everyone an artist – On the way to the libertarian form of the social organism

There have been attempts by artists to create art that can not be bought by the wealthy as a status object. One of the prime original motivators of much of the art of the late 1960s and 1970s was to create art that could not be bought and sold. It is "necessary to present something more than mere objects" said the major post war German artist Joseph Beuys. This time period saw the rise of such things as performance art, video art, and conceptual art. The idea was that if the artwork was a performance that would leave nothing behind, or was simply an idea, it could not be bought and sold. "Democratic precepts revolving around the idea that a work of art is a commodity impelled the aesthetic innovation which germinated in the mid-1960s and was reaped throughout the 1970s. Artists broadly identified under the heading of Conceptual art... substituting performance and publishing activities for engagement with both the material and materialistic concerns of painted or sculptural form... endeavored to undermine the art object qua object." Rorimer, Anne: New Art in the 60s and 70s Redefining Reality, page 35. Thames and Hudson, 2001. 

In the decades since, these ideas have been somewhat lost as the art market has learned to sell limited edition DVDs of video works, invitations to exclusive performance art pieces, and the objects left over from conceptual pieces. Many of these performances create works that are only understood by the elite who have been educated as to why an idea or video or piece of apparent garbage may be considered art. The marker of status becomes understanding the work instead of necessarily owning it, and the artwork remains an upper-class activity. "With the widespread use of DVD recording technology in the early 2000s, artists, and the gallery system that derives its profits from the sale of artworks, gained an important means of controlling the sale of video and computer artworks in limited editions to collectors." Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel: Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980, page 16. Oxford University Press, 2005. 

==Controversies==
Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, circa 1820

Art has long been controversial, that is to say disliked by some viewers, for a wide variety of reasons, though most pre-modern controversies are dimly recorded, or completely lost to a modern view. Iconoclasm is the destruction of art that is disliked for a variety of reasons, including religious ones. Aniconism is a general dislike of either all figurative images, or often just religious ones, and has been a thread in many major religions. It has been a crucial factor in the history of Islamic art, where depictions of Muhammad remain especially controversial. Much art has been disliked purely because it depicted or otherwise stood for unpopular rulers, parties or other groups. Artistic conventions have often been conservative and taken very seriously by art critics, though often much less so by a wider public. The iconographic content of art could cause controversy, as with late medieval depictions of the new motif of the Swoon of the Virgin in scenes of the Crucifixion of Jesus. The Last Judgment by Michelangelo was controversial for various reasons, including breaches of decorum through nudity and the Apollo-like pose of Christ.

The content of much formal art through history was dictated by the patron or commissioner rather than just the artist, but with the advent of Romanticism, and econonomic changes in the production of art, the artists' vision became the usual determinant of the content of his art, increasing the incidence of controversies, though often reducing their significance. Strong incentives for perceived originality and publicity also encouraged artists to court controversy. Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa (c. 1820), was in part a political commentary on a recent event. Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863), was considered scandalous not because of the nude woman, but because she is seated next to men fully dressed in the clothing of the time, rather than in robes of the antique world. John Singer Sargent's Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madam X) (1884), caused a controversy over the reddish pink used to color the woman's ear lobe, considered far too suggestive and supposedly ruining the high-society model's reputation.

The gradual abandonment of naturalism and the depiction of realistic representations of the visual appearance of subjects in the 19th and 20th centuries led to a rolling controversy lasting for over a century. In the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) used arresting cubist techniques and stark monochromatic oils, to depict the harrowing consequences of a contemporary bombing of a small, ancient Basque town. Leon Golub's Interrogation III (1981), depicts a female nude, hooded detainee strapped to a chair, her legs open to reveal her sexual organs, surrounded by two tormentors dressed in everyday clothing. Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1989) is a photograph of a crucifix, sacred to the Christian religion and representing Christ's sacrifice and final suffering, submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led to comments in the United States Senate about public funding of the arts.

==Theory==

In the nineteenth century, artists were primarily concerned with ideas of truth and beauty. The aesthetic theorist John Ruskin, who championed what he saw as the naturalism of J. M. W. Turner, saw art's role as the communication by artifice of an essential truth that could only be found in nature. "go to nature in all singleness of heart, rejecting nothing and selecting nothing, and scorning nothing, believing all things are right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth." Ruskin, John. Modern Painters, Volume I, 1843. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 

The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches to assessing the aesthetic value of art: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans. Wollheim 1980, Essay VI. pp. 231–39. 

The arrival of Modernism in the late nineteenth century lead to a radical break in the conception of the function of art, Griselda Pollock, Differencing the Canon. Routledge, London & N.Y.,1999. ISBN 0-415-06700-6 and then again in the late twentieth century with the advent of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself". Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, 1982. Greenberg originally applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract painting:
 After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Rosalind Krauss, Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock among others. Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the 20th century and early 21st century.

Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and influential through work including and possibly critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s expanded this technique of self-criticism beyond high art to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.

Duchamp once proposed that art is any activity of any kind- everything. However, the way that only certain activities are classified today as art is a social construction. Duchamp Two Statements – YouTube There is evidence that there may be an element of truth to this. is an art history book which examines the construction of the modern system of the arts i.e. Fine Art. Shiner finds evidence that the older system of the arts before our modern system (fine art) held art to be any skilled human activity i.e. Ancient Greek society did not possess the term art but techne. Techne can be understood neither as art or craft, the reason being that the distinctions of art and craft are historical products that came later on in human history. Techne included painting, sculpting and music but also; cooking, medicine, horsemanship, geometry, carpentry, prophecy and farming etc.

==Classification disputes==

The original Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, 1917, photographed by Alfred Stieglitz at the 291 after the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibit. Stieglitz used a backdrop of The Warriors by Marsden Hartley to photograph the urinal. The exhibition entry tag can be clearly seen. Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography, p. 186. 
Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art.

Classificatory disputes in the 20th century have included cubist and impressionist paintings, Duchamp's Fountain, the movies, superlative imitations of banknotes, conceptual art, and video games. Deborah Solomon, "2003: the 3rd Annual Year in Ideas: Video Game Art", New York Times, Magazine Section, 14 December 2003 

Philosopher David Novitz has argued that disagreement about the definition of art are rarely the heart of the problem. Rather, "the passionate concerns and interests that humans vest in their social life" are "so much a part of all classificatory disputes about art" (Novitz, 1996). According to Novitz, classificatory disputes are more often disputes about societal values and where society is trying to go than they are about theory proper. For example, when the Daily Mail criticized Hirst's and Emin's work by arguing "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all" they are not advancing a definition or theory about art, but questioning the value of Hirst's and Emin's work. Painter, Colin. "Contemporary Art and the Home". Berg Publishers, 2002. p. 12. ISBN 1-85973-661-0 In 1998, Arthur Danto, suggested a thought experiment showing that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than its inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood." Dutton, Denis Tribal Art in Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, edited by Michael Kelly (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Danto, Arthur. "Artifact and Art." In Art/Artifact, edited by Susan Vogel. New York, 1988. 

Anti-art is a label for art that intentionally challenges the established parameters and values of art; it is term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp just before World War I, "Glossary: Anti-art", Tate. Retrieved 23 January 2010. when he was making art from found objects. One of these, Fountain (1917), an ordinary urinal, has achieved considerable prominence and influence on art. Anti-art is a feature of work by Situationist International, Schneider, Caroline. "Asger Jorn", Artforum, 1 September 2001. Retrieved from encyclopedia.com, 24 January 2010. the lo-fi Mail art movement, and the Young British Artists, though it is a form still rejected by the Stuckists, who describe themselves as anti-anti-art. Ferguson, Euan. "In bed with Tracey, Sarah ... and Ron", The Observer, 20 April 2003. Retrieved on 2 May 2009. "Stuck on the Turner Prize", artnet, 27 October 2000. Retrieved on 2 May 2009. 

===Value judgment===
Aboriginal hollow log tombs. National Gallery, Canberra, Australia

Somewhat in relation to the above, the word art is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions as "that meal was a work of art" (the cook is an artist), or "the art of deception", (the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity.

Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive. Though perception is always colored by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly understood that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art. However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic. Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. For example, Francisco Goya's painting depicting the Spanish shootings of 3rd of May 1808 is a graphic depiction of a firing squad executing several pleading civilians. Yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution and produces fitting social and political outrage. Thus, the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define 'art'.

The assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of what is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium to strike some universal chord by the rarity of the skill of the artist or in its accurate reflection in what is termed the zeitgeist.

Art is often intended to appeal to and connect with human emotion. It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists express something so that their audience is aroused to some extent, but they do not have to do so consciously. Art may be considered an exploration of the human condition; that is, what it is to be human. 

==See also==

* Art movement
* Artist in residence
* Formal analysis
* List of artistic media
* Outline of the visual arts – guide to the subject of art presented as a tree structured list of its subtopics.

==Notes==

==Bibliography==
* Shiner, Larry. "". Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-226-75342-3
* Arthur Danto, The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art. 2003
* Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson (eds.) Art and Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2003
* Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey (eds.) Art History Aesthetics Visual Studies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0300097891
* John Whitehead. Grasping for the Wind, 2001
* Noel Carroll, Theories of Art Today, 2000
* Evelyn Hatcher, ed. Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art, 1999
* Catherine de Zegher (ed.). Inside the Visible. MIT Press, 1996
* Nina, Felshin, ed. But is it Art? 1995
* Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art, 1991
* Oscar Wilde, "Intentions".
* Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, "Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980", 2005

==Further reading==

* Shiner, Larry. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-226-75342-3
* Augros, Robert M., Stanciu, George N. The New Story of Science: mind and the universe, Lake Bluff, Ill.: Regnery Gateway, 1984. ISBN 0-89526-833-7 (this book has significant material on art and science)
* Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects: An introduction to aesthetics. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. 
* Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols. London: Pan Books, 1978. ISBN 0330253212
* Benedetto Croce. Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 2002
* Władysław Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980
* Leo Tolstoy, "What Is Art?", 1897
* Kleiner, Gardner, Mamiya and Tansey. Art Through the Ages, Twelfth Edition (2 volumes) Wadsworth, 2004. ISBN 0-534-64095-8 (vol 1) and ISBN 0-534-64091-5 (vol 2)
* Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986
* Florian Dombois, Ute Meta Bauer, Claudia Mareis and Michael Schwab, eds. Intellectual Birdhouse. Artistic Practice as Research. London: Koening Books, 2012. ISBN 9783863351182
* Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson, eds. Art and Thought. London: Blackwell, 2003. ISBN 0631227156
* Antony Briant and Griselda Pollock, eds. Digital and Other Virtualities: Renegotiating the image. London and NY: I.B.Tauris, 2010. ISBN 9781441676313
* Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher, eds. Women Artists at the Millennium. Massachusetts: October Books/The MIT Press, 2006. ISBN 026201226X

==External links==

* Art and Play from the Dictionary of the History of ideas
* In-depth directory of art
* Art and Artist Files in the Smithsonian Libraries Collection (2005) Smithsonian Digital Libraries
* Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) – online collections from UK museums, galleries, universities
* RevolutionArt – Art magazines with worldwide exhibitions, callings and competitions
* 

 



[[Agnostida]]

Agnostida is an order of arthropod which first developed near the end of the Early Cambrian period and thrived during the Middle Cambrian. They are present in the Lower Cambrian fossil record along with trilobites from the Redlichiida, Corynexochida, and Ptychopariida orders. The last agnostids went extinct in the Late Ordovician.

==Systematics==
The Agnostida are divided into two suborders — Agnostina and Eodiscina — that are then subdivided into a number of families. As a group, agnostids are isopygous, meaning that their pygidium is similar in size and shape to their cephalon. Most agnostid species were eyeless.

The systematic position of the order Agnostida within the class Trilobita remains uncertain, and there has been continuing debate whether they are trilobites or a stem group. The challenge to the status has focused on the Agnostina partly because juveniles of one genus have been found with legs greatly different from those of adult trilobites, Müller, K. J. & Walossek, D. (1987): "Morphology, ontogeny, and life habit of Agnostus pisiformis from the Upper Cambrian of Sweden". Fossils and Strata, 19, 1-124. suggesting they are not members of the lamellipedian clade, of which trilobites are a part. Instead, the limbs of agnostids closely resemble those of stem group crustaceans, although they lack the proximal endite, which defines that group. They are likely the sister taxon to the crustacean stem lineage, and, as such, part of the clade Crustaceomorpha. Bergström, J. & Hou, X.G. (2005). "Early Palaeozoic non-lamellipedian arthropods". In S. Koenemann & A. J. Ronald (eds.), Crustacea and Arthropod Relationships (Volume , pp. 75-93). Taylor and Francis Group. Other researchers have suggested, based on a cladistic analyses of dorsal exoskeletal features, that Eodiscina and Agnostida are closely united, and that the Eodiscina descended from the trilobite order Ptychopariida. Cotton, T. J. & Fortey, R.A. (2005). "Comparative morphology and relationships of the Agnostida". In S. Koenemann & R. A. Jenner (eds.), Crustacea and Arthropod Relationships (Volume , pp. 95-136). Taylor and Francis Group. 

==Ecology==
Scientists have long debated whether the agnostids lived a pelagic or a benthic lifestyle. Their lack of eyes, a morphology not well-suited for swimming, and their fossils found in association with other benthic trilobites all suggest a benthic (bottom-dwelling) mode of life. They are likely to have lived on areas of the ocean floor that received little or no light and fed on detritus that descended from upper layers of the sea to the bottom. In contrast, their wide geographic dispersion in the fossil record is uncharacteristic of benthic animals, suggesting a pelagic existence. The thoracic segment appears to form a hinge between the head and pygidium allowing for a bivalved ostracodan-type lifestyle. Furthermore, the orientation of the thoracic appendages appears ill suited for benthic living. However, recent work suggests that some agnostids were benthic predators, engaging in cannibalism and possibly manifesting pack-hunting behavior. McMenamin, M. A. S. (2010). "Cambrian cannibals: agnostid trilobite ethology and the earliest known case of arthropod cannibalism". Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 42, no. 5, p. 320. 

They are sometimes preserved within the voids of other organisms, for instance within empty hyolith conchs, within sponges, worm tubes and under the carapaces of bivalved arthropods, presumably in order to hide from predators or strong storm currents; or maybe whilst scavenging for food. In the case of the tapering worm tubes Selkirkia, trilobites are always found with their heads directed towards the opening of the tube, suggesting that they reversed in; the absence of any moulted carapaces suggests that moulting was not their primary reason for seeking shelter. 

==References==

==External links==
* Order Agnostida by Sam Gon III.
* The Virtual Fossil Museum – Trilobite Order Agnostida
* Agnostida fact sheet by Sam Gon III.
* "Earth's Early Cannibals Caught in the Act", by Larry O'Hanlon, news.discovery.com.

 



[[Abortion]]

Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo before viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is often called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced. The term abortion most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy. After viability, the relevant procedure is referred to as a "late termination of pregnancy". Modern medicine utilizes medications and surgical procedures for induced abortion.

Abortion, when induced in the developed world in accordance with local law, is among the safest procedures in medicine. Uncomplicated abortions do not cause either long term psychological or physical problems. Unsafe abortions, however, result in approximately 47,000 maternal deaths and 5 million hospital admissions per year globally. 

An estimated 44 million abortions are performed globally each year, with slightly under half of those performed unsafely. The number of abortions has stabilized in recent years, having previously spent decades declining as access to family planning education and contraceptive services increased. Forty percent of the world's women have access to legal induced abortions (within gestational limits). 

Induced abortion has a long history and has been performed by various methods, including herbal abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, physical trauma, and other traditional methods. The legality, prevalence, cultural and religious status of abortion vary substantially around the world. Its legality can depend on specific conditions, such as incest, rape, fetal defects, a high risk of disability, socioeconomic factors or the mother's health being at risk. In many parts of the world there is prominent and divisive public controversy over the moral, ethical, and legal issues of abortion. Those who are against abortion generally posit that an embryo or fetus is a human with the right to life and may equate abortion with homicide, while proponents of abortion rights emphasize a woman's right to decide about matters concerning her own body. 

==Types==

===Induced===
Approximately 205 million pregnancies occur each year worldwide. Over a third are unintended and about a fifth end in induced abortion. Most abortions result from unintended pregnancies. In the United Kingdom 1 to 2% of abortions are done due to genetic problems in the fetus. A pregnancy can be intentionally aborted in several ways. The manner selected often depends upon the gestational age of the embryo or fetus, which increases in size as the pregnancy progresses. Specific procedures may also be selected due to legality, regional availability, and doctor or patient preference.

Reasons for procuring induced abortions are typically characterized as either therapeutic or elective. An abortion is medically referred to as a therapeutic abortion when it is performed to save the life of the pregnant woman; prevent harm to the woman's physical or mental health; terminate a pregnancy where indications are that the child will have a significantly increased chance of premature morbidity or mortality or be otherwise disabled; or to selectively reduce the number of fetuses to lessen health risks associated with multiple pregnancy. An abortion is referred to as an elective or voluntary abortion when it is performed at the request of the woman for non-medical reasons. Confusion sometimes arises over the term "elective" because "elective surgery" generally refers to all scheduled surgery, whether medically necessary or not. 
"An elective surgery is a planned, non-emergency surgical procedure. It may be either medically required (e.g., cataract surgery), or optional (e.g., breast augmentation or implant) surgery.
 

===Spontaneous===

Spontaneous abortion, also known as miscarriage, is the unintentional expulsion of an embryo or fetus before the 24th week of gestation. A pregnancy that ends before 37 weeks of gestation resulting in a live-born infant is known as a "premature birth" or a "preterm birth". When a fetus dies in utero after viability, or during delivery, it is usually termed "stillborn". Premature births and stillbirths are generally not considered to be miscarriages although usage of these terms can sometimes overlap. 

Only 30% to 50% of conceptions progress past the first trimester. The vast majority of those that do not progress are lost before the woman is aware of the conception, and many pregnancies are lost before medical practitioners can detect an embryo. Between 15% and 30% of known pregnancies end in clinically apparent miscarriage, depending upon the age and health of the pregnant woman. 

The most common cause of spontaneous abortion during the first trimester is chromosomal abnormalities of the embryo or fetus, accounting for at least 50% of sampled early pregnancy losses. Other causes include vascular disease (such as lupus), diabetes, other hormonal problems, infection, and abnormalities of the uterus. Advancing maternal age and a patient history of previous spontaneous abortions are the two leading factors associated with a greater risk of spontaneous abortion. A spontaneous abortion can also be caused by accidental trauma; intentional trauma or stress to cause miscarriage is considered induced abortion or feticide. 

==Methods==

===Medical===

Medical abortions are those induced by abortifacient pharmaceuticals. Medical abortion became an alternative method of abortion with the availability of prostaglandin analogs in the 1970s and the antiprogestogen mifepristone in the 1980s. 

The most common early first-trimester medical abortion regimens use mifepristone in combination with a prostaglandin analog (misoprostol or gemeprost) up to 9 weeks gestational age, methotrexate in combination with a prostaglandin analog up to 7 weeks gestation, or a prostaglandin analog alone. Mifepristone–misoprostol combination regimens work faster and are more effective at later gestational ages than methotrexate–misoprostol combination regimens, and combination regimens are more effective than misoprostol alone. This regime is effective in the second trimester. 

In very early abortions, up to 7 weeks gestation, medical abortion using a mifepristone–misoprostol combination regimen is considered to be more effective than surgical abortion (vacuum aspiration), especially when clinical practice does not include detailed inspection of aspirated tissue. Early medical abortion regimens using mifepristone, followed 24–48 hours later by buccal or vaginal misoprostol are 98% effective up to 9 weeks gestational age. The regimen (200 mg of mifepristone, followed 24–48 hours later by 800 mcg of vaginal misoprostol) previously used by Planned Parenthood clinics in the United States from 2001 to March 2006 was 98.5% effective through 63 days gestation—with an ongoing pregnancy rate of about 0.5%, and an additional 1% of patients having uterine evacuation for various reasons, including problematic bleeding, persistent gestational sac, clinician judgment or patient request. The regimen (200 mg of mifepristone, followed 24–48 hours later by 800 mcg of buccal misoprostol) currently used by Planned Parenthood clinics in the United States since April 2006 is 98.3% effective through 59 days gestation. If medical abortion fails, surgical abortion must be used to complete the procedure. 

Early medical abortions account for the majority of abortions before 9 weeks gestation in Britain, France, Switzerland, and the Nordic countries. In the United States, the percentage of early medical abortions is far lower. 

Medical abortion regimens using mifepristone in combination with a prostaglandin analog are the most common methods used for second-trimester abortions in Canada, most of Europe, China and India, in contrast to the United States where 96% of second-trimester abortions are performed surgically by dilation and evacuation. 

===Surgical===
A vacuum aspiration abortion at eight weeks gestational age (six weeks after fertilization).1: Amniotic sac2: Embryo3: Uterine lining4: Speculum5: Vacurette6: Attached to a suction pump

Up to 15 weeks' gestation, suction-aspiration or vacuum aspiration are the most common surgical methods of induced abortion. Manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) consists of removing the fetus or embryo, placenta, and membranes by suction using a manual syringe, while electric vacuum aspiration (EVA) uses an electric pump. These techniques differ in the mechanism used to apply suction, in how early in pregnancy they can be used, and in whether cervical dilation is necessary.

MVA, also known as "mini-suction" and "menstrual extraction", can be used in very early pregnancy, and does not require cervical dilation. Dilation and curettage (D&C), the second most common method of surgical abortion, is a standard gynecological procedure performed for a variety of reasons, including examination of the uterine lining for possible malignancy, investigation of abnormal bleeding, and abortion. Curettage refers to cleaning the walls of the uterus with a curette. The World Health Organization recommends this procedure, also called sharp curettage, only when MVA is unavailable. 

From the 15th week of gestation until approximately the 26th, other techniques must be used. Dilation and evacuation (D&E) consists of opening the cervix of the uterus and emptying it using surgical instruments and suction. Premature labor and delivery can be induced with prostaglandin; this can be coupled with injecting the amniotic fluid with hypertonic solutions containing saline or urea. After the 16th week of gestation, abortions can also be induced by intact dilation and extraction (IDX) (also called intrauterine cranial decompression), which requires surgical decompression of the fetus's head before evacuation. IDX is sometimes called "partial-birth abortion," which has been federally banned in the United States.

In the third trimester of pregnancy, abortion may be performed by IDX as described above, induction of labor, or by hysterotomy. Hysterotomy abortion is a procedure similar to a caesarean section and is performed under general anesthesia. It requires a smaller incision than a caesarean section and is used during later stages of pregnancy. 

First-trimester procedures can generally be performed using local anesthesia, while second-trimester methods may require deep sedation or general anesthesia. 

===Other methods===
Historically, a number of herbs reputed to possess abortifacient properties have been used in folk medicine: tansy, pennyroyal, black cohosh, and the now-extinct silphium (see history of abortion). The use of herbs in such a manner can cause serious—even lethal—side effects, such as multiple organ failure, and is not recommended by physicians. 

Abortion is sometimes attempted by causing trauma to the abdomen. The degree of force, if severe, can cause serious internal injuries without necessarily succeeding in inducing miscarriage. In Southeast Asia, there is an ancient tradition of attempting abortion through forceful abdominal massage. One of the bas reliefs decorating the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia depicts a demon performing such an abortion upon a woman who has been sent to the underworld. 

Reported methods of unsafe, self-induced abortion include misuse of misoprostol, and insertion of non-surgical implements such as knitting needles and clothes hangers into the uterus. These methods are rarely seen in developed countries where surgical abortion is legal and available. 

==Safety==
The health risks of abortion depend on whether the procedure is performed safely or unsafely. The World Health Organization defines unsafe abortions as those performed by unskilled individuals, with hazardous equipment, or in unsanitary facilities. Legal abortions performed in the developed world are among the safest procedures in medicine. In the US, the risk of maternal death from abortion is 0.6 per 100,000 procedures, making abortion about 14 times safer than childbirth (8.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births). The risk of abortion-related mortality increases with gestational age, but remains lower than that of childbirth through at least 21 weeks' gestation. 

Vacuum aspiration in the first trimester is the safest method of surgical abortion, and can be performed in a primary care office, abortion clinic, or hospital. Complications are rare and can include uterine perforation, pelvic infection, and retained products of conception requiring a second procedure to evacuate. Preventive antibiotics (such as doxycycline or metronidazole) are typically given before elective abortion, as they are believed to substantially reduce the risk of postoperative uterine infection. Complications after second-trimester abortion are similar to those after first-trimester abortion, and depend somewhat on the method chosen.

There is little difference in terms of safety and efficacy between medical abortion using a combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol and surgical abortion (vacuum aspiration) in early first trimester abortions up to 9 weeks gestation. Medical abortion using the prostaglandin analog misoprostol alone is less effective and more painful than medical abortion using a combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol or surgical abortion. 

Some purported risks of abortion are promoted primarily by anti-abortion groups, but lack scientific support. For example, the question of a link between induced abortion and breast cancer has been investigated extensively. Major medical and scientific bodies (including the World Health Organization, the US National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) have concluded that abortion does not cause breast cancer, Position statements of major medical bodies on abortion and breast cancer include:
* World Health Organization: 
* National Cancer Institute: 
* American Cancer Society: 
* Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: 
* American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: although such a link continues to be promoted by anti-abortion groups. 

Similarly, evidence indicates that induced abortion does not cause mental-health problems. The American Psychological Association has concluded that a single abortion is not a threat to women's mental health, and that women are no more likely to have mental-health problems after a first-trimester abortion than after carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Abortions performed after the first trimester because of fetal abnormalities are not thought to cause mental-health problems. Some proposed negative psychological effects of abortion have been referred to by anti-abortion advocates as a separate condition called "post-abortion syndrome", which is not recognized by any medical or psychological organization. See, for example:
* 
* 
* 

===Unsafe abortion===
Soviet poster circa 1925, warning against midwives performing abortions. Title translation: "Abortions performed by either trained or self-taught midwives not only maim the woman, they also often lead to death."

Women seeking to terminate their pregnancies sometimes resort to unsafe methods, particularly when access to legal abortion is restricted. They may attempt to self-abort or rely on another person who does not have proper medical training or access to proper facilities. This has a tendency to lead to severe complications, such as incomplete abortion, sepsis, hemorrhage, and damage to internal organs. 

Unsafe abortions are a major cause of injury and death among women worldwide. Although data are imprecise, it is estimated that approximately 20 million unsafe abortions are performed annually, with 97% taking place in developing countries. Unsafe abortions are believed to result in millions of injuries. Estimates of deaths vary according to methodology, and have ranged from 37,000 to 70,000 in the past decade; deaths from unsafe abortion account for around 13% of all maternal deaths. The World Health Organization believes that mortality has fallen since the 1990s. To reduce the number of unsafe abortions, public health organizations have generally advocated emphasizing the legalization of abortion, training of medical personnel, and ensuring access to reproductive-health services. 

The legality of abortion is one of the main determinants of its safety. Countries with restrictive abortion laws have significantly higher rates of unsafe abortion (and similar overall abortion rates) compared to those where abortion is legal and available. For example, the 1996 legalization of abortion in South Africa had an immediate positive impact on the frequency of abortion-related complications, with abortion-related deaths dropping by more than 90%. In addition, a lack of access to effective contraception contributes to unsafe abortion. It has been estimated that the incidence of unsafe abortion could be reduced by up to 75% (from 20 million to 5 million annually) if modern family planning and maternal health services were readily available globally. 

Forty percent of the world's women are able to access therapeutic and elective abortions within gestational limits, while an additional 35 percent have access to legal abortion if they meet certain physical, mental, or socioeconomic criteria. While maternal mortality seldom results from safe abortions, unsafe abortions result in 70,000 deaths and 5 million disabilities per year. Complications of unsafe abortion account for approximately an eighth of maternal mortalities worldwide, though this varies by region. Secondary infertility caused by an unsafe abortion affects an estimated 24 million women. The rate of unsafe abortions has increased from 44% to 49% between 1995 and 2008. Health education, access to family planning, and improvements in health care during and after abortion have been proposed to address this phenomenon. 

==Incidence==
There are two commonly used methods of measuring the incidence of abortion:
* Abortion rate – number of abortions per 1000 women between 15 and 44 years of age
* Abortion percentage – number of abortions out of 100 known pregnancies (pregnancies include live births, abortions and miscarriages)

The number of abortions performed worldwide has remained stable in recent years, with 41.6 million having been performed in 2003 and 43.8 million having been performed in 2008. The abortion rate worldwide was 28 per 1000 women, though it was 24 per 1000 women for developed countries and 29 per 1000 women for developing countries. The same 2012 study indicated that in 2008, the estimated abortion percentage of known pregnancies was at 21% worldwide, with 26% in developed countries and 20% in developing countries. 

On average, the incidence of abortion is similar in countries with restrictive abortion laws and those with more liberal access to abortion. However, restrictive abortion laws are associated with increases in the percentage of abortions which are performed unsafely. The unsafe abortion rate in developing countries is partly attributable to lack of access to modern contraceptives; according to the Guttmacher Institute, providing access to contraceptives would result in about 14.5 million fewer unsafe abortions and 38,000 fewer deaths from unsafe abortion annually worldwide. 

The rate of legal, induced abortion varies extensively worldwide. According to the report of employees of Guttmacher Institute it ranged from 7 per 1000 women (Germany and Switzerland) to 30 per 1000 women (Estonia) in countries with complete statistics in 2008. The proportion of pregnancies that ended in induced abortion ranged from about 10% (Israel, the Neatherlands and Switzerland) to 30% (Estonia) in the same group, though it might be as high as 36% in Hungary and Romania, whose statistics were deemed incomplete. National Institute of Statistics, Romanian Statistical Yearbook, chapter 2, page 62, 2011 

The abortion rate may also be expressed as the average number of abortions a woman has during her reproductive years; this is referred to as total abortion rate (TAR).

===Gestational age and method===

Abortion rates also vary depending on the stage of pregnancy and the method practiced. In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 26% of abortions in the United States were known to have been obtained at less than 6 weeks' gestation, 18% at 7 weeks, 15% at 8 weeks, 18% at 9 through 10 weeks, 9.7% at 11 through 12 weeks, 6.2% at 13 through 15 weeks, 4.1% at 16 through 20 weeks and 1.4% at more than 21 weeks. 90.9% of these were classified as having been done by "curettage" (suction-aspiration, dilation and curettage, dilation and evacuation), 7.7% by "medical" means (mifepristone), 0.4% by "intrauterine instillation" (saline or prostaglandin), and 1.0% by "other" (including hysterotomy and hysterectomy). According to the CDC, due to data collection difficulties the data must be viewed as tentative and some fetal deaths reported beyond 20 weeks may be natural deaths erroneously classified as abortions if the removal of the fetus is accomplished by the same procedure as an induced abortion. 

The Guttmacher Institute estimated there were 2,200 intact dilation and extraction procedures in the US during 2000; this accounts for 0.17% of the total number of abortions performed that year. Similarly, in England and Wales in 2006, 89% of terminations occurred at or under 12 weeks, 9% between 13 to 19 weeks, and 1.5% at or over 20 weeks. 64% of those reported were by vacuum aspiration, 6% by D&E, and 30% were medical. Later abortions are more common in China, India, and other developing countries than in developed countries. Cheng L. "Surgical versus medical methods for second-trimester induced abortion: RHL commentary" (last revised: 1 November 2008). The WHO Reproductive Health Library; Geneva: World Health Organization. 

==Motivation==

===Personal===
The reasons why women have abortions are diverse and vary across the world. 
A bar chart depicting selected data from a 1998 AGI meta-study on the reasons women stated for having an abortion. Some of the most common reasons are to postpone childbearing to a more suitable time or to focus energies and resources on existing children. Others include being unable to afford a child either in terms of the direct costs of raising a child or the loss of income while she is caring for the child, lack of support from the father, inability to afford additional children, desire to provide schooling for existing children, disruption of one's own education, relationship problems with their partner, a perception of being too young to have a child, unemployment, and not being willing to raise a child conceived as a result of rape or incest, among others. 

===Societal===
Some abortions are undergone as the result of societal pressures. These might include the preference for children of a specific sex, disapproval of single or early motherhood, stigmatization of people with disabilities, insufficient economic support for families, lack of access to or rejection of contraceptive methods, or efforts toward population control (such as China's one-child policy). These factors can sometimes result in compulsory abortion or sex-selective abortion.

An American study in 2002 concluded that about half of women having abortions were using a form of contraception at the time of becoming pregnant. Inconsistent use was reported by half of those using condoms and three-quarters of those using the birth-control pill; 42% of those using condoms reported failure through slipping or breakage. The Guttmacher Institute estimated that "most abortions in the United States are obtained by minority women" because minority women "have much higher rates of unintended pregnancy." 

===Maternal and fetal health===
An additional factor is risk to maternal or fetal health, which was cited as the primary reason for abortion in over a third of cases in some countries and as a significant factor in only a single-digit percentage of abortions in other countries. 

In the U.S., the Supreme Court decisions in Roe vs Wade and Doe vs Bolton: "ruled that the state's interest in the life of the fetus became compelling only at the point of viability, defined as the point at which the fetus can survive independently of its mother. Even after the point of viability, the state cannot favor the life of the fetus over the life or health of the pregnant woman. Under the right of privacy, physicians must be free to use their "medical judgment for the preservation of the life or health of the mother." On the same day that the Court decided Roe, it also decided Doe v. Bolton, in which the Court defined health very broadly: "The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment." George J. Annas and Sherman Elias. Legal and Ethical Issues in Obstetrical Practice. Chapter 54 in Obstetrics: Normal and Problem Pregnancies, 6th edition. Eds. Steven G. Gabbe, et al. 2012 Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier. ISBN 978-1-4377-1935-2 

====Cancer====

The rate of cancer during pregnancy is 0.02–1%, and in many cases, cancer of the mother leads to consideration of abortion to protect the life of the mother, or in response to the potential damage that may occur to the fetus during treatment. This is particularly true for cervical cancer, the most common type which occurs in 1 of every 2000-13000 pregnancies, for which initiation of treatment "cannot co-exist with preservation of fetal life (unless neoadjuvant chemotherapy is chosen)." Very early stage cervical cancers (I and IIa) may be treated by radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection, radiation therapy, or both, while later stages are treated by radiotherapy. Chemotherapy may be used simultaneously. Treatment of breast cancer during pregnancy also involves fetal considerations, because lumpectomy is discouraged in favor of modified radical mastectomy unless late-term pregnancy allows follow-up radiation therapy to be administered after the birth. 

Exposure to a single chemotherapy drug is estimated to cause a 7.5–17% risk of teratogenic effects on the fetus, with higher risks for multiple drug treatments. Treatment with more than 40 Gy of radiation usually causes spontaneous abortion. Exposure to much lower doses during the first trimester, especially 8 to 15 weeks of development, can cause intellectual disability or microcephaly, and exposure at this or subsequent stages can cause reduced intrauterine growth and birth weight. Exposures above 0.005–0.025 Gy cause a dose-dependent reduction in IQ. It is possible to greatly reduce exposure to radiation with abdominal shielding, depending on how far the area to be irradiated is from the fetus. 

The process of birth itself may also put the mother at risk. "Vaginal delivery may result in dissemination of neoplastic cells into lymphovascular channels, haemorrhage, cervical laceration and implantation of malignant cells in the episiotomy site, while abdominal delivery may delay the initiation of non-surgical treatment." 

==History==
"French Periodical Pills." An example of a clandestine advertisement published in an 1845 edition of the Boston Daily Times.

Induced abortion has long history, and can be traced back to civilizations as varied as China under Shennong (c. 2700 BCE), Ancient Egypt with its Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE), and the Roman Empire in the time of Juvenal (c. 200 CE). There is evidence to suggest that pregnancies were terminated through a number of methods, including the administration of abortifacient herbs, the use of sharpened implements, the application of abdominal pressure, and other techniques.

Some medical scholars and abortion opponents have suggested that the Hippocratic Oath forbade Ancient Greek physicians from performing abortions; other scholars disagree with this interpretation, and note the medical texts of Hippocratic Corpus contain descriptions of abortive techniques. Aristotle, in his treatise on government Politics (350 BCE), condemns infanticide as a means of population control. He preferred abortion in such cases, with the restriction "[that it] must be practised on it before it has developed sensation and life; for the line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive." In Christianity, Pope Sixtus V (1585–90) is noted as the first Pope to declare that abortion is homicide regardless of the stage of pregnancy; the Catholic Church had previously been divided on whether it believed that abortion was murder, and did not begin vigorously opposing abortion until the 19th century. Islamic tradition has traditionally permitted abortion until a point in time when Muslims believe the soul enters the fetus, considered by various theologians to be at conception, 40 days after conception, 120 days after conception, or quickening. However, abortion is largely heavily restricted or forbidden in areas of high Islamic faith such as the Middle East and North Africa. 

In Europe and North America, abortion techniques advanced starting in the 17th century. However, conservatism by most physicians with regards to sexual matters prevented the wide expansion of safe abortion techniques. Other medical practitioners in addition to some physicians advertised their services, and they were not widely regulated until the 19th century, when the practice was banned in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Church groups as well as physicians were highly influential in anti-abortion movements. In the US, abortion was more dangerous than childbirth until about 1930 when incremental improvements in abortion procedures relative to childbirth made abortion safer. By 1930, medical procedures in the US had improved for both childbirth and abortion but not equally, and induced abortion in the first trimester had become safer than childbirth. In 1973, Roe vs. Wade acknowledged that abortion in the first trimester was safer than childbirth:
* 
* 
* *
* The Soviet Union (1919), Iceland (1935) and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In 1935 Nazi Germany, a law was passed permitting abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. For sources describing abortion policy in Nazi Germany, see:
* 
* 
* 
* Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, abortion was legalized in a greater number of countries. 

==Society and culture==

===Abortion debate===

Induced abortion has long been the source of considerable debate, controversy, and activism. An individual's position concerning the complex ethical, moral, philosophical, biological, and legal issues which surround abortion is often related to his or her value system. Opinions of abortion may be described as being a combination of beliefs about abortion's morality, beliefs about the proper extent of governmental authority in public policy, and beliefs about the rights and responsibilities of the woman seeking to have an abortion. Religious ethics also has an influence both on personal opinion and on the greater debate over abortion.

In both public and private debate, arguments presented in favor of or against abortion access focus on either the moral permissibility of an induced abortion, or justification of laws permitting or restricting abortion. Abortion debates, especially pertaining to abortion laws, are often spearheaded by groups advocating one of these two positions. Anti-abortion groups who favor greater legal restrictions on abortion, including complete prohibition, most often describe themselves as "pro-life" while abortion rights groups who are against such legal restrictions describe themselves as "pro-choice". Generally, the former position argues that a human fetus is a human being with a right to live, making abortion morally the same as murder. The latter position argues that a woman has certain reproductive rights, especially the choice whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.

===Abortion-rights movements===
Abortion-rights activists in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Abortion-rights movements advocate for legal access to induced abortion services. The issue of induced abortion remains divisive in public life, with recurring arguments to liberalize or to restrict access to legal abortion services. Abortion-rights supporters themselves are frequently divided as to the types of abortion services that should be available and to the circumstances, for example different periods in the pregnancy such as late term abortions, in which access may be restricted.

===Modern abortion law===

Current laws pertaining to abortion are diverse. Religious, moral, and cultural sensibilities continue to influence abortion laws throughout the world. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to security of person, and the right to reproductive health are major issues of human rights that are sometimes used as justification for the existence or absence of laws controlling abortion.

In jurisdictions where abortion is legal, certain requirements must often be met before a woman may obtain a safe, legal abortion (an abortion performed without the woman's consent is considered feticide). These requirements usually depend on the age of the fetus, often using a trimester-based system to regulate the window of legality. Some jurisdictions require a waiting period before the procedure, prescribe the distribution of information on fetal development, or require that parents be contacted if their minor daughter requests an abortion. Other jurisdictions may require that a woman obtain the consent of the fetus' father before aborting the fetus, that abortion providers inform patients of health risks of the procedure—sometimes including "risks" not supported by the medical literature—and that multiple medical authorities certify that the abortion is either medically or socially necessary. Many restrictions are waived in emergency situations. China, which has a one-child policy, has at times incorporated mandatory abortions as part of their population control strategy. 

Other jurisdictions ban abortion almost entirely. Many, but not all, of these allow legal abortions in a variety of circumstances. These circumstances vary based on jurisdiction, but may include whether the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, the fetus' development is impaired, the woman's physical or mental well-being is endangered, or socioeconomic considerations make childbirth a hardship. In countries where abortion is banned entirely, such as Nicaragua, medical authorities have recorded rises in maternal death directly and indirectly due to pregnancy as well as deaths due to doctors' fears of prosecution if they treat other gynecological emergencies. Some countries, such as Bangladesh, that nominally ban abortion, may also support clinics that perform abortions under the guise of menstrual hygiene. This is also a terminology in traditional medicine. In places where abortion is illegal or carries heavy social stigma, pregnant women may engage in medical tourism and travel to countries where they can terminate their pregnancies. Women without the means to travel can resort to providers of illegal abortions or attempt to perform an abortion by themselves. 

Emergency contraception is generally available in countries that have not restricted abortion and is also sometimes available in countries that have otherwise banned abortion, such as Chile. This has caused controversy, as some anti-abortion groups assert that certain forms of emergency contraception are not contraceptives but abortifacients (See, e.g., Abortion in the Dominican Republic.)

===Sex-selective abortion===

Sonography and amniocentesis allow parents to determine sex before childbirth. The development of this technology has led to sex-selective abortion, or the termination of a fetus based on sex. The selective termination of a female fetus is most common.

Sex-selective abortion is partially responsible for the noticeable disparities between the birth rates of male and female children in some countries. The preference for male children is reported in many areas of Asia, and abortion used to limit female births has been reported in Taiwan, South Korea, India, and China. Banister, Judith. (16 March 1999). Son Preference in Asia – Report of a Symposium. Retrieved 12 January 2006. This deviation from the standard birth rates of males and females occurs despite the fact that the country in question may have officially banned sex-selective abortion or even sex-screening. "China Bans Sex-selection Abortion." (22 March 2002). Xinhua News Agency.'.' Retrieved 12 January 2006. In China, a historical preference for a male child has been exacerbated by the one-child policy, which was enacted in 1979. 

Many countries have taken legislative steps to reduce the incidence of sex-selective abortion. At the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 over 180 states agreed to eliminate "all forms of discrimination against the girl child and the root causes of son preference", which was also condemned by a PACE resolution in 2011. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, along with other United Nations agencies, have found that measures to reduce access to abortion are much less effective at reducing sex-selective abortions than measures to reduce gender inequality. 

===Anti-abortion violence===

In a number of cases, abortion providers and these facilities have been subjected to various forms of violence, including murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, stalking, assault, arson, and bombing. Anti-abortion violence is classified by both governmental and scholarly sources as terrorism. Only a small fraction of those opposed to abortion commit violence, often rationalizing their actions as justifiable homicide or defense of others, committed in order to protect the lives of fetuses. Similar rationales are used to justify invasion of privacy and stalking of doctors, clinic workers, and patients, even by police officers. 

In the United States, four physicians who performed abortions have been murdered: David Gunn (1993), John Britton (1994), Barnett Slepian (1998), and George Tiller (2009). Also murdered, in the U.S. and Australia, have been other personnel at abortion clinics, including receptionists and security guards such as James Barrett, Shannon Lowney, Lee Ann Nichols, and Robert Sanderson. Woundings (e.g., Garson Romalis) and attempted murders have also taken place in the United States and Canada. Hundreds of bombings, arsons, acid attacks, invasions, and incidents of vandalism against abortion providers have occurred. Notable perpetrators of anti-abortion violence include Eric Robert Rudolph, Scott Roeder, Shelley Shannon, and Paul Jennings Hill, the first person to be executed in the United States for murdering an abortion provider. 

Legal protection of access to abortion has been brought into some countries where abortion is legal. These laws typically seek to protect abortion clinics from obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect patients and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment.

===Art, literature and film===
Bas-relief at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, c. 1150, depicting a demon inducing an abortion by pounding the abdomen of a pregnant woman with a pestle. 

One of the earliest known representations of abortion is in a bas relief at Angkor Wat (c. 1150). Anti-abortion activist Børre Knudsen was linked to a 1994 art theft as part of an anti-abortion drive in Norway surrounding the 1994 Winter Olympics. In 2005, a Swiss gallery removed from a Chinese art collection a piece that had the head of a fetus attached to the body of a bird. In 2008, a Yale student caused a stir when she proposed using aborted excretions and the induced abortion itself as a performance art project. 

In the 1966 film Alfie, after the title character arranges an abortion for a married woman he has impregnated, he is deeply shaken by the sight of the fetus. The Cider House Rules (novel 1985, film 1999) follows the story of Larch, an orphanage director who is a reluctant abortionist after seeing the consequences of back-alley abortions, and his orphan medical assistant Homer who is against abortion. Feminist novels such as Braided Lives (1997) by Marge Piercy emphasize the struggles women had in dealing with unsafe abortion in various circumstances prior to legalization. Physician Susan Wicklund wrote This Common Secret (2007) about how a personal traumatic abortion experience hardened her resolve to provide compassionate care to women who decide to have an abortion. As Wicklund crisscrosses the West to perform abortions at remote clinics, she tells the stories of women she has treated and the obstacles that she and her family have faced. In 2009, Irene Vilar revealed her past abuse and addiction to abortion in Impossible Motherhood, where she aborted 15 pregnancies in 17 years. According to Vilar it was the result of a dark psychological cycle of power, rebellion and societal expectations. 

Various options and realities of abortion have been dramatized in film. In Riding in Cars with Boys (2001) an underage woman carries her pregnancy to term as abortion is not an affordable option, moves in with the father and finds herself involved with drugs, has no opportunities, and questioning if she loves her child. In Juno (2007) a 16-year-old initially goes to have an abortion but decides to bear the child and allow a wealthy couple to adopt it. The films Dirty Dancing (1987) and If These Walls Could Talk (1996) explore the availability, affordability and dangers of illegal abortions. The emotional impact of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy alone is the focus of Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her (2000) and Circle of Friends (1995). In The Godfather Part II (1974) Kay informed Michael Corleone that she had obtained an abortion without his consent or knowledge. On the abortion debate, an irresponsible drug addict is used as a pawn in a power struggle between abortion rights and anti-abortion groups in Citizen Ruth (1996). The Law & Order television episode "Dignity" deals with the trial of a man who killed a late-term abortion doctor; the storyline was inspired by the assassination of abortion provider George Tiller. 

== Other animals==

Spontaneous abortion occurs in various animals. For example, in sheep, it may be caused by crowding through doors, or being chased by dogs. In cows, abortion may be caused by contagious disease, such as Brucellosis or Campylobacter, but can often be controlled by vaccination. Eating pine needles can also induce abortions in cows. In horses, a fetus may be aborted or resorbed if it has lethal white syndrome (congenital intestinal aganglionosis). Foal embryos that are homozygous for the dominant white gene (WW) are theorized to also be aborted or resorbed before birth. 
 

Viral infection can cause abortion in dogs. 
 Cats can experience spontaneous abortion for many reasons, including hormonal imbalance. A combined abortion and spaying is performed on pregnant cats, especially in Trap-Neuter-Return programs, to prevent unwanted kittens from being born. 
 
 
 
Female rodents may terminate a pregnancy when exposed to the smell of a male not responsible for the pregnancy, known as the Bruce effect.

Abortion may also be induced in animals, in the context of animal husbandry. For example, abortion may be induced in mares that have been mated improperly, or that have been purchased by owners who did not realize the mares were pregnant, or that are pregnant with twin foals. Feticide can occur in horses and zebras due to male harassment of pregnant mares or forced copulation, although the frequency in the wild has been questioned. Male gray langur monkeys may attack females following male takeover, causing miscarriage. 

==References==

===Citations===

===Notes===

==External links==

* 
* 
* 
* Abortion Policies: A Global Review, published by the United Nations

 



[[Abstract (law)]]

In law, an abstract is a brief statement that contains the most important points of a long legal document or of several related legal papers.

==Abstract of title==

The Abstract of Title, used in real estate transactions, is the more common form of abstract. An abstract of title lists all the owners of a piece of land, a house, or a building before it came into possession of the present owner. The abstract also records all deeds, wills, mortgages, and other documents that affect ownership of the property. An abstract describes a chain of transfers from owner to owner and any agreements by former owners that are binding on later owners.

==Clear title==

A clear title to property is one that clearly states any obligation in the deed to the property. It reveals no breaksin the chain of legal ownership. After the records of the property have been traced and the title has been found clear, it is sometimes guaranteed, or insured. In a few states, a different system of insuring title of real properties provides for registration of a clear title with public authorities. After this is accomplished, no abstract of title is necessary.

==Patent law==
In the context of patent law and specifically in prior art searches, searching through abstracts is a common way to find relevant prior art document to question to novelty or inventive step (or non-obviousness in United States patent law) of an invention. Under United States patent law, the abstract may be called "Abstract of the Disclosure". United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) web site, 608.01(b) Abstract of the Disclosure 

==Administrative process==
Certain government bureaucracies, such as a department of motor vehicles will issue an abstract of a completed transaction or an updated record intended to serve as a proof of compliance with some administrative requirement. This is often done in advance of the update of reporting databases and/or the issuance of official documents.

==Notes==

==See also==
*Property abstract

==References==
* World Book encyclopedia 1988

== External links ==
* , defining the requirements regarding the abstract in an international application filed under Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
* and (previously ), defining the abstract-related requirements in a European patent application



[[AOLamer]]

#redirectTroll (Internet)

[[American Revolutionary War]]

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War in the United States was the military rebellion against Great Britain of Thirteen American Colonies which joined together as the United States of America in July 1776. Originally limited to fighting in those colonies, after 1778 it also became a world war between Britain and France, Netherlands, Spain, and Mysore.

The war had its origins in the resistance of many Americans to taxes imposed by the British parliament, which they held to be unlawful. Formal acts of rebellion against British authority began in 1774 when the Patriot Suffolk Resolves effectively abolished the legal government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The tensions caused by this would lead to the outbreak of fighting between Patriot militia and British regulars at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. By the end of 1775 Patriots had seized full control in all thirteen colonies and on July 4, 1776, their Continental Congress declared independence.

The British were meanwhile mustering large forces to put down the revolt. They inflicted significant defeats on the American rebel army, now under the command of George Washington, capturing New York City in 1776 and later Philadelphia in 1777. But they were unable or unwilling to land a finishing blow against him. British strategy relied on mobilizing American Loyalist militia, of whom they made little effort to enlist until late in the war. Paul H. Smith, "The American Loyalists: Notes on Their Organization and Numerical Strength". William and Mary Quarterly (1968) 25#2 pp. 259–277 in JSTOR Poor coordination helped doom a British advance against Albany in 1777, which resulted in the capture of a British army following the Battles of Saratoga.

France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had been secretly providing supplies, ammunition and weapons to the revolutionaries starting early in 1776. The American victory at Saratoga persuaded Britain to offer full self governance to the colonies, but France entered the war in order to prevent the Americans from accepting a compromise peace. Perkins, James Breck, France In The Revolution (1911) Corwin, Edward Samuel, French Policy and the American Alliance (1916) pp. 121-148 They were followed by their ally Spain in 1779. The participation of France and Spain was decisive Greene and Pole, A Companion to the American Revolution p 357 as they contributed crucial land and sea power to the American cause and diverted British resources away from North America.

After 1778 the British shifted their attention to the southern colonies, which brought them initial success when they recaptured Georgia and South Carolina for the Crown in 1779 and 1780. In 1781 British forces attempted to subjugate Virginia, but a French naval victory just outside Chesapeake Bay led to a Franco-American siege at Yorktown and the capture of over 7,000 British soldiers. The defeat broke Britain's will to continue the war. Limited fighting continued throughout 1782, while peace negotiations began. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution ch 18 Lawrence S. Kaplan, "The Treaty of Paris, 1783: A Historiographical Challenge", International History Review, Sept 1983, Vol. 5 Issue 3, pp 431–442 A wider international peace was agreed, in which several territories were exchanged. The expensive war drove France into massive debt, which would contribute to the outbreak of the French Revolution. Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (1987) p. 161 

==Causes==

===Taxes===

Notice of Stamp Act of 1765 in Newspaper

The close of the Seven Years' War in 1763 (the French and Indian War in North America) saw Britain triumphant in driving the French from North America, but also heavily in debt. Taxes in Britain were already very high and it was thought that the American colonies should pay for the soldiers to be stationed there. Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time starting November 1. This met with strong condemnation among American spokesmen, who argued that their "Rights as Englishmen" meant that taxes could not be imposed on them without the consent of their local representatives. At the same time the colonists rejected the solution of being provided with representation in Parliament, claiming that "their local circumstances" made it impossible. "the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain." quoted from the Resolutions of the "Stamp Act Congress" October 19, 1765 "... as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved ..." quoted from the Declarations and Resolves of the First Continental Congress October 14, 1774 

Mob violence prevented the Act from being enforced, and organized boycotts of British goods were instituted. This resistance was by and large unexpected and "produced a violent and very natural irritation" amongst the British. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) p. 341 They argued that the colonial governments were entirely subordinate to parliament and that the unwritten British Constitution made no distinction between taxes and any other type of legislation. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) pp. 315-316 Parliament had for a long time passed numerous acts affecting the colonies, Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) pp. 297-298 and Parliament-imposed custom duties had been taxing them for decades without their consent. Moreover, the vast majority of the British population were taxed without being represented in Parliament. Half of the Parliamentary seats in England and Wales at that time were elected by a total of less than 12,000 men out of millions. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) p. 173 The Americans had long rejected the British system of extremely limited franchise. The argument that representation did not really matter because the typical Englishman had no voice in Parliament did not impress Americans, where a majority of free men could vote for the legislature. 

A change of government in Britain led to the repeal of the Stamp Act as inexpedient, but also the passage of the Declaratory Act, which stated, "the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain." 

In their declarations Americans had deemed internal taxes like the Stamp Act as unlawful, but not external taxes like the long-standing custom duties. So in 1767 Parliament passed the Townshend Act, which imposed duties on various British goods exported to the colonies. The Americans quickly denounced this as illegal as well, since the intent of the act was to raise revenue and not regulate trade. For their part, the British could not understand why the Americans deemed Parliamentary trade taxes lawful but not revenue taxes.

In 1768 violence broke out in Boston and 4000 British troops were sent to occupy the city. Parliament threatened to try Massachusetts residents for treason in England. Far from being intimidated, the colonists formed new associations to boycott British goods, albeit with less effectiveness than previously since the Townshend imports were so widely used. In March 1770 five colonists in Boston were killed in the "Boston Massacre", sparking outrage.

A new British ministry under Lord North came to power in 1770, causing the British to cave under pressure once again. In April 1770 all the Townshend duties were repealed except for the one on tea, which was retained to save face. The British informed colonial governors they had no intention to impose any further taxes, Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) pp. 370-371 and the colonists ended their boycotts, with some even buying the taxed tea. This short-lived truce ended in 1773 when, in an effort to rescue the East India Company from financial difficulties, the British attempted to increase tea sales by lowering prices and appointing certain merchants in America to receive and sell it. The landing of this tea was resisted in all the colonies and, when the royal governor of Massachusetts refused to send back the tea ships in Boston, Patriot mobs destroyed the tea chests.

===Crisis===
Nobody was punished for the "Boston Tea Party" and in 1774 Parliament ordered Boston harbor closed until the destroyed tea was paid for. It then passed the Massachusetts Government Act to punish the rebellious colony. The upper house of the Massachusetts legislature would be appointed by the Crown, as was already the case in other colonies such as New York and Virginia. The royal governor was able to appoint and remove at will all judges, sheriffs, and other executive officials, and restrict town meetings. Jurors would be selected by the sheriffs and British soldiers would be tried outside the colony for alleged offenses. These were collectively dubbed the "Intolerable Acts" by the Patriots.

Although these actions were not unprecedented (the Massachusetts charter had already been replaced once before in 1691), the people of the colony were outraged. Town meetings resulted in the Suffolk Resolves, a declaration not to cooperate with the royal authorities. In October 1774 an illegal "provincial congress" was established which took over the governance of Massachusetts outside of British-occupied Boston and began training militia for hostilities.

Meanwhile, in September 1774 representatives of the other colonies convened the First Continental Congress in order to respond to the crisis. The Congress rejected a "Plan of Union" to establish an American parliament that could approve or disapprove of the acts of the British parliament. Instead, they endorsed the Suffolk Resolves and demanded the repeal of all Parliamentary acts passed since 1763, not merely the tax on tea and the "Intolerable Acts". They stated that Parliament had no authority over internal matters in America, but that they would "cheerfully consent" to custom duties for the benefit of the empire. "Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed: But, from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British parliament, as are bonfide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects, in America, without their consent." quoted from the Declarations and Resolves of the First Continental Congress October 14, 1774 They also required Britain to acknowledge that unilaterally stationing troops in the colonies in a time of peace was "against the law". Although the Congress lacked any legal authority, it ordered the creation of Patriot committees who would enforce a boycott of British goods starting on December 1, 1774.

This time, however, the British would not yield. Edmund Burke introduced a motion to repeal all the Acts of Parliament the Americans objected to and waive any rights of Britain to tax for revenue, but it was defeated 210-105. Parliament voted to restrict all colonial trade to Britain, prevent them from using the Newfoundland fisheries, and to increase the size of the army and navy by 6,000. Prime Minister Lord North attempted a last-ditch compromise. In February 1775 he proposed not to impose taxes if the colonies themselves made "fixed contributions". This would safeguard the taxing rights of the colonies from future infringement while enabling them to contribute to maintenance of the empire. This proposal was nevertheless rejected by the Congress in July as an "insidious maneuver", by which time hostilities had broken out.

===Internal British politics===

During this time the British did not present a united front toward the American Patriots. The Parliament of Great Britain at this time was informally divided between conservative (Tory) and liberal (Whig) factions. The Whigs generally favored lenient treatment of the colonists short of independence while the Tories staunchly upheld the rights of Parliament. The Whigs felt that the Tory policies were pushing Americans to rebel, while the Tories thought Whig leniency (such as repealing the Stamp Act) was doing the same. Many Whigs freely associated themselves with the American Patriot cause, which Tories thought were encouraging the Americans in their resistance. The result was that, although Lord North's Tory government usually had a Parliamentary majority, a large Whig minority opposed it and constantly criticized its policies. Meanwhile, Whig commanders in America such as Sir William Howe and his brother Admiral Howe would come under the suspicion of Tories and Loyalists for not vigorously prosecuting the war effort.

==First phase, 1775–1778==

===Outbreak of the War 1775–76===

====Massachusetts====

In February 1775 Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, the British North American commander-in chief, commanded four regiments of British regulars (about 4,000 men) from his headquarters in Boston, but the countryside was in the hands of the Revolutionaries. On April 14, he received orders to disarm the rebels and arrest their leaders.

The British marching to Concord in April 1775

On the night of April 18, 1775, General Gage sent 700 men to seize munitions stored by the colonial militia at Concord, Massachusetts. Riders including Paul Revere alerted the countryside, and when British troops entered Lexington on the morning of April 19, they found 77 minutemen formed up on the village green. Shots were exchanged, killing several minutemen. The British moved on to Concord, where a detachment of three companies was engaged and routed at the North Bridge by a force of 500 minutemen. As the British retreated back to Boston, thousands of militiamen attacked them along the roads, inflicting great damage before timely British reinforcements prevented a total disaster. With the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the war had begun.

The militia converged on Boston, bottling up the British in the city. About 4,500 more British soldiers arrived by sea, and on June 17, 1775, British forces under General William Howe seized the Charlestown peninsula at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Instead of landing behind the Americans, a move that would not only have easily won the battle but also expose the rest of the rebel army to destruction, the British mounted a costly frontal attack. Adams, Charles Francis The Battle of Bunker Hill in American Historical Review (1895-1896) pp. 401-413 The Americans fell back, but British losses totaled over 1,000 men. The siege was not broken, and Gage was soon replaced by Howe as the British commander-in-chief. Higginbotham (1983), pp. 75–77 

In July 1775, newly appointed General Washington arrived outside Boston to take charge of the colonial forces and to organize the Continental Army. Realizing his army's desperate shortage of gunpowder, Washington asked for new sources. Arsenals were raided and some manufacturing was attempted; 90% of the supply (2 million pounds) was imported by the end of 1776, mostly from France. Stephenson (1925), pp. 271–281 Patriots in New Hampshire had seized powder, muskets and cannons from Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth Harbor in late 1774. * Elwin L. Page. "The King's Powder, 1774", New England Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1 (Mar., 1945), pp. 83–92 in JSTOR Some of the munitions were used in the Boston campaign.

The standoff continued throughout the fall and winter. During this time Washington was astounded by the failure of Howe to attack his shrinking, poorly armed force. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) pp. 449-450 In early March 1776, heavy cannons that the patriots had captured at Fort Ticonderoga were brought to Boston by Colonel Henry Knox, and placed on Dorchester Heights. Since the artillery now overlooked the British positions, Howe's situation was untenable, and the British fled on March 17, 1776, sailing to their naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, an event now celebrated in Massachusetts as Evacuation Day. Washington then moved most of the Continental Army to fortify New York City. 

====Quebec====

British soldiers and Provincial militiamen repulse the American assault at Sault-au-Matelot, December 1775
Three weeks after the siege of Boston began, a troop of militia volunteers led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga, a strategically important point on Lake Champlain between New York and the Province of Quebec. After that action they also raided Fort St. John's, not far from Montreal, which alarmed the population and the authorities there. In response, Quebec's governor Guy Carleton began fortifying St. John's, and opened negotiations with the Iroquois and other Native American tribes for their support. These actions, combined with lobbying by both Allen and Arnold and the fear of a British attack from the north, eventually persuaded the Congress to authorize an invasion of Quebec, with the goal of driving the British military from that province. (Quebec was then frequently referred to as Canada, as most of its territory included the former French Province of Canada.) Mark R. Anderson, The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America's War of Liberation in Canada, 1774–1776, (University Press of New England; 2013) 

Two Quebec-bound expeditions were undertaken. On September 28, 1775, Brigadier General Richard Montgomery marched north from Fort Ticonderoga with about 1,700 militiamen, besieging and capturing Fort St. Jean on November 2 and then Montreal on November 13. General Carleton escaped to Quebec City and began preparing that city for an attack. The second expedition, led by Colonel Arnold, went through the wilderness of what is now northern Maine. Logistics were difficult, with 300 men turning back, and another 200 perishing due to the harsh conditions. By the time Arnold reached Quebec City in early November, he had but 600 of his original 1,100 men. Montgomery's force joined Arnold's, and they attacked Quebec City on December 31, but were defeated by Carleton in a battle that ended with Montgomery dead, Arnold wounded, and over 400 Americans taken prisoner. Willard Sterne Randall, "Benedict Arnold at Quebec", MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History, Summer 1990, Vol. 2 Issue 4, pp 38–49 The remaining Americans held on outside Quebec City until the spring of 1776, suffering from poor camp conditions and smallpox, and then withdrew when a squadron of British ships under Captain Charles Douglas arrived to relieve the siege. Thomas A. Desjardin, Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 (2006) 

Another attempt was made by the Americans to push back towards Quebec, but they failed at Trois-Rivières on June 8, 1776. Carleton then launched his own invasion and defeated Arnold at the Battle of Valcour Island in October. Arnold fell back to Fort Ticonderoga, where the invasion had begun. While the invasion ended as a disaster for the Americans, Arnold's efforts in 1776 delayed a full-scale British counteroffensive until the Saratoga campaign of 1777.

The invasion cost the Americans their base of support in British public opinion, "So that the violent measures towards America are freely adopted and countenanced by a majority of individuals of all ranks, professions, or occupations, in this country." Watson (1960), p. 203. It gained them at best limited support in the population of Quebec, which, while somewhat supportive early in the invasion, became less so later during the occupation, when American policies against suspected Loyalists became harsher, and the army's hard currency ran out. Two small regiments of Canadiens were recruited during the operation, and they were with the army on its retreat back to Ticonderoga. Arthur S. Lefkowitz, Benedict Arnold's Army: The 1775 American Invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War (2007) Even after their retreat Patriots continued to view Quebec as a part of their cause, making specific provisions for it to join the 1777 Articles of Confederation.

====Expelling the royal officials====
In the Thirteen Colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia the British had a significant force only in Boston. The Patriots were quickly able to establish new revolutionary governments based around various extra legal committees and conventions that they had created in 1774 and early 1775. Royal officials found themselves powerless to stop the rebellion and were forced to flee. The Patriots were energetic and were backed by angry mobs while the Loyalists were too intimidated or poorly organized to be effective without the British army. The term "lynching" originated when Virginia Patriots held informal courts and arrested Loyalists (the term did not suggest execution).

The revolutionary movement was far from popular in all thirteen colonies, for example in the case of South Carolina "it can hardly be doubted that the people... had been at first by a vast majority opposed to a separation." McCrady, Edward The history of South Carolina in the revolution, 1780-1783 (1902) p. 708 Loyalists and patriots fought the Snow Campaign, with victory for the Patriots by the end of 1775. Virginia's governor Lord Dunmore attempted to rally a loyalist force but was decisively beaten in December 1775 at the Battle of Great Bridge. In February 1776 British General Clinton took 2,000 men and a naval squadron to assist loyalists mustering in North Carolina, only to call it off when he learned they had been crushed at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. In June he tried to seize Charleston, South Carolina, the leading port in the South, but the attack failed as the naval force was repulsed by the forts.

Apart from the thirteen, none of the other colonies attempted any rebellion.

====British reaction====

King George III issued a Proclamation of Rebellion in August 1775, and addressed Parliament on October 26, 1775. He denounced "authors and promoters of this desperate conspiracy" who had "labored to inflame my people in America ... and to infuse into their minds a system of opinions repugnant to the true constitution of the Colonies, and to their subordinate relation to Great Britain ..." He detailed measures taken to suppress the revolt, including "friendly offers of foreign assistance". The King's speech was endorsed by both Houses of Parliament, a motion in the House of Commons to oppose coercive measures was defeated 278-108. The British received an "Olive Branch Petition" written by the Second Continental Congress dated July 8, 1775, imploring the King to reverse the policies of his ministers. The Parliament debated on whether to accept the petition, but after a lengthy debate rejected it by 27 votes, viewing it as insincere. Parliament then voted to impose a blockade against the Thirteen Colonies. The war in America was "undoubtedly" popular in Britain and its popularity would continue to grow through 1777. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1882) pp. 70-71 

Militarily, the response to the rebellion had been feeble, greatly encouraging the American movement for independence. The peacetime British army had been deliberately kept small since the Glorious Revolution to prevent an abuse of power by the King. To muster a force the British had to launch recruiting campaigns in Britain and Ireland and hire mercenaries from the German states, both immensely time-consuming. In the end, though, the British were able to ship Sir William Howe an army of 32,000 officers and men to open a campaign in late 1776. It was the largest force the British had ever sent outside of Europe at that time.

===Campaign of 1776–77===

====New York====

 
American soldiers in the Battle of Long Island, 1776

Having withdrawn his army from Boston, General Howe now focused on capturing New York City, which then was limited to the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Howe's force arrived off of Staten Island on June 30, 1776, and his army captured it without resistance. To defend the city, General Washington spread his forces along the shores of New York's harbor, concentrated on Long Island and Manhattan. Fischer (2004), pp. 51–52,83 While British and recently hired Hessian troops were assembling, Washington had the newly issued Declaration of American Independence read to his men and the citizens of the city. Fischer (2004), p. 29 

Washington's position was extremely dangerous because he had divided his forces between Manhattan and Long Island, exposing both to defeat in detail. The British landed 22,000 men on Long Island in late August and badly defeated the rebel army in the war's largest battle, taking over 1,000 prisoners and driving them back to Brooklyn Heights. Howe then laid siege to the heights, claiming he wanted to spare his men's lives from an immediate assault, although by his own admission such an assault would have succeeded. He had to actively restrain his subordinates from landing the finishing blow. Adams, Charles Francis Battle of Long Island in American Historical Review (1895-1896) p. 657 Washington initially reinforced his exposed position, but then personally directed the withdrawal of his entire remaining army and all their supplies across the East River on the night of August 29–30 without significant loss of men and materiel. Fischer (2004), pp. 91–101 Howe had failed to conduct adequate scouting to detect the retreat. Adams, Charles Francis Battle of Long Island in American Historical Review (1895-1896) p. 662 

A peace conference took place on September 11 to explore the possibility of a negotiated solution. The British advanced Lord North's "fixed contribution" formula of the preceding year and indicated that other laws could be revised or repealed so long as the authority of Britain was acknowledged. But the Patriot side still insisted that full independence was required.

Howe then resumed the attack. On September 15, Howe landed about 12,000 men on lower Manhattan, quickly taking control of New York City. The Americans withdrew north up the island to Harlem Heights, where they skirmished the next day but held their ground. On September 21 a devastating fire broke out in the city which the rebels were widely blamed for, although no conclusive proof exists. On October 12 the British made an attempt to encircle the Americans, which failed because of Howe's decision to land on an island that was easily cut off from the mainland. John Richard Alden, The American Revolution, 1775–1783 (1954) ch 7 The Americans evacuated Manhattan, and on October 28 fought the Battle of White Plains against the pursuing British. During the battle Howe declined to attack the Washington's highly vulnerable main force, instead attacking a hill that was of no strategic significance. Fischer (2004), pp. 102–111 Barnet Schecter, The battle for New York: The city at the heart of the American Revolution (2002). 

Washington retreated, and Howe returned to Manhattan and captured Fort Washington in mid November, taking about 3,000 prisoners. Thus began the infamous "prison ships" system the British maintained in New York for the rest of the war, in which more American soldiers and sailors died of neglect and disease than died in every battle of the entire war, combined. Larry Lowenthal, Hell on the East River: British Prison Ships in the American Revolution (2009) 

Howe then detached General Clinton with 6,000 men to seize Newport, Rhode Island for the British fleet, which was accomplished without encountering any major resistance. Clinton objected to this move, believing the force would have been better employed up the Delaware river where they might have inflicted irreparable damage on the retreating Americans. Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) p. 221 

====New Jersey====

General Lord Cornwallis continued to chase Washington's army through New Jersey but Howe ordered him to halt, letting Washington escape across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania on December 7. Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) p. 223 Howe refused to order a pursuit across the river, even though the outlook of the Continental Army was bleak. "These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine, who was with the army on the retreat. Fischer (2004), pp. 138–140 The army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men fit for duty, and would be reduced to 1,400 after enlistments expired at the end of the year. Congress had abandoned Philadelphia in despair, although popular resistance to British occupation was growing in the countryside. Fischer (2004), pp. 143–205 

Emanuel Leutze's stylized depiction of Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851)

Howe proceeded to divide his forces in New Jersey into small detachments that were vulnerable to defeat in detail, with the weakest forces stationed the closest to Washington's army. Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) pp. 224–225 Washington decided to take the offensive, stealthily crossing the Delaware on the night of December 25–26, and capturing nearly 1,000 surprised and unfortified Hessians at the Battle of Trenton. Fischer (2004), pp. 206–259 Cornwallis marched to retake Trenton but was first repulsed and then outmaneuvered by Washington, who successfully attacked the British rearguard at Princeton on January 3, 1777, taking around 200 prisoners. Fischer (2004), pp. 277–343 Howe then conceded most of New Jersey to Washington, in spite of Howe's massive numerical superiority over him. Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) p. 239 Washington entered winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, having given a morale boost to the American cause. Throughout the winter New Jersey militia continued to harass British and Hessian forces near their three remaining posts along the Raritan River. Fischer (2004), pp. 345–358 

===Campaigns of 1777–78===
Mohawk leader Joseph Brant led both Native Americans and white Loyalists in battle.
"The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder.
Washington and Lafayette look over the troops at Valley Forge.

When the British began to plan operations for 1777, they had two main armies in North America: an army in Quebec (later under the command of John Burgoyne), and Howe's army in New York. In London, Lord George Germain approved a campaign for these armies to converge on Albany, New York and divide the American colonies in two. Germain's orders were vague and were not interpreted by his commanders as he expected. Howe decided to launch an attack on the rebel capital, Philadelphia, which was approved on the understanding that his army would still be available for the junction with Burgoyne's army at Albany. But Howe soon decided to go by sea via the Chesapeake, which would take months and render him wholly unavailable to directly assist Burgoyne. As a result, although Howe successfully captured Philadelphia, the northern army was lost in a disastrous surrender at Saratoga. Both Carleton and Howe resigned after the 1777 campaign.

====Upstate New York====

The first of the 1777 campaigns was an expedition from Quebec led by General John Burgoyne. The goal was to seize the Lake Champlain and Hudson River corridor, effectively isolating New England from the rest of the American colonies. Burgoyne's invasion had two components: he would lead about 8,000 men along Lake Champlain towards Albany, New York, while a second column of about 2,000 men, led by Barry St. Leger, would move down the Mohawk River Valley and link up with Burgoyne in Albany. Ketchum (1997), p. 84 

Burgoyne set off in June, and recaptured Fort Ticonderoga in early July. Thereafter, his march was slowed by the Americans who literally knocked down trees in his path, and by his army's extensive baggage train. A detachment sent out to seize supplies was decisively defeated in the Battle of Bennington by American militia in August, depriving Burgoyne of nearly 1,000 men.

Meanwhile, St. Leger—more than half of his force Native Americans led by Sayenqueraghta—had laid siege to Fort Stanwix. American militiamen and their Native American allies marched to relieve the siege but were ambushed and scattered at the Battle of Oriskany. When a second relief expedition approached, this time led by Benedict Arnold, St. Leger's Indian support abandoned him, forcing him to break off the siege and return to Quebec.

Burgoyne's army had been reduced to about 6,000 men by the loss at Bennington and the need to garrison Ticonderoga, and he was running short on supplies. Ketchum (1997), pp. 285–323 Despite these setbacks, he determined to push on towards Albany. An American army of 8,000 men, officially commanded by General Horatio Gates (but effectively being led by his subordinate Benedict Arnold), had entrenched about 10 miles (16 km) south of Saratoga, New York. Burgoyne tried to outflank the Americans but was checked at the first battle of Saratoga in September. Burgoyne's situation was desperate, but he now hoped that help from Howe's army in New York City might be on the way. It was not: Howe had instead sailed away on his expedition to capture Philadelphia. American militiamen flocked to Gates' army, swelling his force to 11,000 by the beginning of October. After being badly beaten at the second battle of Saratoga, Burgoyne surrendered on October 17.

British General Clinton in New York City attempted a diversion in favor of Burgoyne in early October, capturing two key forts but withdrawing after hearing of the surrender.

Saratoga was the turning point of the war. Revolutionary confidence and determination, suffering from Howe's successful occupation of Philadelphia, was renewed. What is more important, the victory encouraged France to make an open alliance with the Americans, after two years of semi-secret support. For the British, the war had now become much more complicated. Higginbotham (1983), pp. 188–98 

The Americans held the British prisoners taken at Saratoga until the end of the war, in direct violation of the agreed surrender terms, which specified they would be repatriated immediately.

====Pennsylvania====

Military uniforms of the American Revolution

Howe began his campaign in June by making a series of maneuvers in New Jersey, which failed to engage Washington's greatly inferior force. Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) pp. 287–289 He then loaded his troops onto transports and slowly sailed to the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay, landing 15,000 troops on August 25 at the head of the Elk River. Washington positioned his 11,000 men in a strong position along the Brandywine River, between the British and Philadelphia, but Howe outflanked and defeated him on September 11, 1777. Howe did not attempt to follow up on his victory, which could have destroyed the American army. Stedman, Charles. The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War Volume I p. 294 

The Continental Congress again abandoned Philadelphia, and on September 26, Howe finally outmaneuvered Washington and marched into the city unopposed. A part of Howe's army was then split off to reduce rebel forts blocking his communications up the Delaware River. Hoping to bring about another Trenton-like victory while the British were divided, on October 4 Washington mounted a surprise assault against the British at Germantown. Howe had failed to alert his troops there, despite being aware of the impending attack the previous day. Stedman, Charles. The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War Volume I p. 300 The British were in danger of a rout, but faulty American decisions resulted in Washington being repulsed with heavy losses.

The armies met at White Marsh in December, where after some skirmishing Howe decided to retire, ignoring the vulnerability of Washington's rear, where an attack could have cut off Washington from his baggage and provisions. Stedman, Charles. The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War Volume I p. 306 Washington and his army encamped at Valley Forge in December 1777, about 20 miles (32 km) from Philadelphia, where they stayed for the next six months. Over the winter, 2,500 men (out of 10,000) died from disease and exposure and the army was reduced to 4,000 effectives. During this time Howe's army, comfortable in Philadelphia, made no effort to exploit the weakness of the American army. Stedman, Charles. The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War Volume I p. 310 The next spring the army emerged from Valley Forge in good order, thanks in part to a training program supervised by Baron von Steuben, who introduced the most modern Prussian methods of organization and tactics. Paul Douglas Lockhart, The drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the making of the American Army (2008) 

A French colonel in the American army reported there was little enthusiasm for the Revolution but British blundering had saved it and France should intervene to prevent the British from better using their immense resources in the future. Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) pp. 390–393 Similarly, official U.S. Army histories state that the British "forfeited several chances for military victory in 1776–1777 ..." "The Winning of Independence, 1777–1783" American Military History Volume I (2005) and "if General Howe had violated military tradition by advancing in December on the Continental troops quartered Valley Forge, he might have readily overwhelmed them and possibly ended the war." "A Concluding Commentary" Supplying Washington's Army (1981) 

Howe decided to resign, claiming he had not received enough support, although he had previously expressed his astonishment at the amount of support provided (in 1777 some 41,000 troops against 8,000 Americans). Stedman, Charles The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794) pp. 381–383 General Clinton replaced Howe as British commander-in-chief on May 24, 1778. Howe's conduct became a subject of a Parliamentary inquiry in 1779, which was introduced by the Whig faction to attack the Tory government and vindicate the general, but with little success.

==Foreign intervention==

 
From 1776 France had informally been involved in the American Revolutionary War, with French admiral Latouche Tréville having provided supplies, ammunition and guns from France to the United States after Thomas Jefferson had encouraged a French alliance. Guns such as de Valliere type were used, playing an important role in such battles as the Battle of Saratoga. After learning of the American victory at Saratoga, the French became concerned that the British would reconcile their differences with the colonists and turn on France. In particular, King Louis XVI was influenced by alarmist reports suggesting that Britain was preparing to make huge concessions to the colonies and then, allied with them, strike at French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies. To thwart this, they concluded a Treaty of Alliance with the United States on February 6, 1778, committing the Americans to seek nothing less than absolute independence. Previously France had only been willing to act in conjunction with their Spanish ally but now they were willing to go to war alone if necessary. Britain responded by recalling its ambassador, although Franco-British hostilities did not actually break out until June 17, 1778.
French troops storming Redoubt #9 during the Siege of Yorktown
In 1776 the Count of Aranda met in representation of Spain with the first U.S. Commission composed by Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee. The Continental Congress had charged the commissioners to travel to Europe and forge alliances with other European powers that could help break the British naval blockade along the North American coast. Aranda invited the commission to his house in Paris, where he was acting as Spanish ambassador and he became an active supporter of the struggle of the fledgling Colonies, recommending an early and open Spanish commitment to the Colonies. However he was overruled by José Moñino, 1st Count of Floridablanca who opted for a more discreet approach. The Spanish position was later summarized by the Spanish Ambassador to the French Court, Jerónimo Grimaldi, in a letter to Arthur Lee who was in Madrid trying to persuade the Spanish government to declare an open alliance. Grimaldi told Lee that "You have considered your own situation, and not ours. The moment is not yet come for us. The war with Portugal — France being unprepared, and our treasure ships from South America not being arrived — makes it improper for us to declare immediately." Sparks, 1:408 Meanwhile, Grimaldi reassured Lee, stores of clothing and powder were deposited at New Orleans and Havana for the Americans, and further shipments of blankets were being collected at Bilbao.

Spain finally entered officially the war in June 1779, thus implementing the Treaty of Aranjuez, although the Spanish government had been providing assistance to the revolutionaries since the very beginning of the war. So too had the Dutch Republic, which was formally brought into the war at the end of 1780. Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (1987) ch 7–9 

==Second phase, 1778–1781==

===British attempt to make peace===

Following news of the surrender at Saratoga and concern over French intervention, the British decided to completely accept the original demands made by the American Patriots. Parliament repealed the remaining tax on tea and declared that no taxes would ever be imposed on colonies without their consent (except for custom duties, the revenues of which would be returned to the colonies). A Commission was formed to negotiate directly with the Continental Congress for the first time. The Commission was empowered to suspend all the other objectionable acts by Parliament passed since 1763, issue general pardons, and declare a cessation of hostilities. The Commissioners arrived in America in June 1778 and offered the Americans complete internal self-government as well as representation in the British parliament. Parliament's authority over America would be limited to managing foreign affairs, including trade, in the manner that they did prior to 1763. Moreover, they agreed that no troops would be placed in the colonies without their consent. The Congress rejected this and refused to negotiate with the commission unless they first acknowledged American independence or withdrew all troops. On October 3, 1778, the British published a proclamation offering amnesty to any colonies or individuals who accepted their proposals within forty days, implying serious consequences if they still refused. There was no positive reply.

Oil on canvas painting depicting the Wyoming Massacre, July 3, 17 78
In London King George III gave up all hope of subduing America by more armies, while Britain had a European war to fight. "It was a joke", he said, "to think of keeping Pennsylvania". There was no hope of recovering New England. But the King was still determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal". Trevelyan (1912), vol. 1, p. 4 His plan was to keep the 30,000 men garrisoned in New York, Rhode Island, Quebec, and Florida; other forces would attack the French and Spanish in the West Indies. To punish the Americans the King planned to destroy their coasting-trade, bombard their ports; sack and burn towns along the coast and turn loose the Native Americans to attack civilians in frontier settlements. These operations, the King felt, would inspire the Loyalists; would splinter the Congress; and "would keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse" and they would beg to return to his authority. Trevelyan (1912), vol. 1, p. 5 The plan meant destruction for the Loyalists and loyal Native Americans, an indefinite prolongation of a costly war, and the risk of disaster as the French and Spanish assembled an armada to invade the British Isles. The British planned to re-subjugate the rebellious colonies after dealing with the Americans' European allies.

===Northern theater after Saratoga, 1778–81===

Portrait of Sir Henry Clinton, British Commander-in Chief in North America 1778-1782

French entry into the war had changed British strategy, and Clinton abandoned Philadelphia to reinforce New York City, now vulnerable to French naval power. Washington shadowed Clinton on his withdrawal through New Jersey and attacked him at Monmouth on June 28, 1778. The battle was tactically inconclusive but Clinton successfully disengaged and continued his retreat to New York. It was the last major battle in the north. Clinton's army went to New York City in July, arriving just before a French fleet under Admiral d'Estaing arrived off the American coast. Washington's army returned to White Plains, New York, north of the city. Although both armies were back where they had been two years earlier, the nature of the war had now changed as the British had to withdraw troops from North America to counter the French elsewhere. Higginbotham (1983), pp. 175–188 

In August 1778 the Americans attempted to capture British-held Newport, Rhode Island with the assistance of France, but the effort failed when the French withdrew their support. The war in the north then bogged down into a stalemate, with neither side capable of attacking the other in any decisive manner. The British instead attempted to wear out American resolve by launching various raiding expeditions such as Tryon's raid against Connecticut in July 1779. In that year the Americans won two morale-enhancing victories by capturing posts at Stony Point and Paulus Hook, although the British quickly retook them. In October 1779 the British voluntarily abandoned Newport and Stony Point in order to consolidate their forces.

During the winter of 1779–80 the American army suffered worse hardships than they had at Valley Forge previously. "The Winning of Independence 1777–1783" American Military History Volume 1 (2005) The Congress was ineffective, the Continental currency worthless, and the supply system was fundamentally broken. Washington was finding it extremely difficult to keep his army together, even without any major fighting against the British. In 1780 actual mutinies broke out in the American camp. The Continental Army's strength dwindled to such an extent that the British decided to mount two probing attacks against New Jersey in June 1780. The New Jersey militia strongly rallied, however, and the British quickly returned to their bases.

Map of Newport with the camp of the troops of Rochambeau and the position of the squadron of Knight Ternay in 1780.

In July 1780 the American cause received a boost when a 5,500 strong French expeditionary force arrived at Newport, Rhode Island. Washington hoped to use this assistance to attack the British at New York and end the war. Events elsewhere, however, would frustrate this. Additional French reinforcements were prevented from arriving by a British blockade of French ports, and the French troops at Newport quickly found themselves blockaded as well. Moreover, the French fleet refused to visit the American coast in 1780, having suffered significant damage in actions in the West Indies.

Benedict Arnold, the American victor of Saratoga, grew increasingly disenchanted with struggle and decided to defect. In September 1780 he attempted to surrender the key American fort at West Point along the Hudson River to the British, but his plot was exposed. He escaped and continued to fight under the British army. He wrote an open letter justifying his actions by claiming he had only fought for a redress of grievances and since Britain had withdrew those grievances (see above) there was no reason to continue shedding blood, particularly in an alliance with an ancient and tyrannical enemy like France. He led the last British attack in the north, a devastating raid against New London in September 1781.

The British held Staten Island, Manhattan, and Long Island until peace was made in 1783. These areas contained about 2% of the population of the Thirteen Colonies.

===Northern and Western frontier===

George Rogers Clark's 180 mile (290 km) winter march led to the capture of General Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec

West of the Appalachian Mountains and along the border with Quebec, the American Revolutionary War was an "Indian War". Most Native Americans supported the British. Like the Iroquois Confederacy, tribes such as the Shawnee split into factions, and the Chickamauga split off from the rest of the Cherokee over differences regarding peace with the Americans. The British supplied their native allies with muskets, gunpowder and advice, while Loyalists led raids against civilian settlements, especially in New York, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. Joint Iroquois-Loyalist attacks in the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania and at Cherry Valley in New York in 1778 provoked Washington to send the Sullivan Expedition into western New York during the summer of 1779. There was little fighting as Sullivan systematically destroyed the Indians' winter food supplies, forcing them to flee permanently to British bases in Quebec and the Niagara Falls area. Colin Gordon Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country (1995) 

In the Ohio Country and the Illinois Country, the Virginia frontiersman George Rogers Clark attempted to neutralize British influence among the Ohio tribes by capturing the outposts of Kaskaskia and Cahokia and Vincennes in the summer of 1778, at which he succeeded. When General Henry Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, retook Vincennes, Clark returned in a surprise march in February 1779 and captured Hamilton. Lowell Hayes Harrison, George Rogers Clark and the War in the West (2001) 

In March 1782, Pennsylvania militiamen killed about a hundred neutral Native Americans in the Gnadenhütten massacre. In the last major encounters of the war, a force of 200 Kentucky militia was defeated at the Battle of Blue Licks in August 1782.

===Georgia and the Carolinas, 1778–81===

During the first three years of the American Revolutionary War, the primary military encounters were in the north, although some attempts to organize Loyalists were defeated, a British attempt at Charleston, South Carolina failed, and a variety of efforts to attack British forces in East Florida failed. After French entry into the war, the British turned their attention to the southern colonies, where they hoped to regain control by recruiting large numbers of Loyalists. This southern strategy also had the advantage of keeping the Royal Navy closer to the Caribbean, where the British needed to defend economically important possessions against the French and Spanish. Henry Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (2000) 
The British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1782.

On December 29, 1778, an expeditionary corps from Clinton's army in New York captured Savannah, Georgia. An attempt by French and American forces to retake Savannah failed on October 9, 1779. Clinton then besieged Charleston, capturing it and most of the southern Continental Army on May 12, 1780. With relatively few casualties, Clinton had seized the South's biggest city and seaport, providing a base for further conquest. John W. Gordon and John Keegan, South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History (2007) 

The remnants of the southern Continental Army began to withdraw to North Carolina but were pursued by Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who defeated them at the Waxhaws on May 29, 1780. With these events, organized American military activity in the region collapsed, though the war was carried on by partisans such as Francis Marion. Cornwallis took over British operations, while Horatio Gates arrived to command the American effort. On August 16, 1780, Gates was defeated at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina, setting the stage for Cornwallis to invade North Carolina. Hugh F. Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution (1996) Georgia and South Carolina were thus both restored to Britain for the time being.

Cornwallis' efforts to advance into North Carolina were frustrated. A Loyalist wing of his army was utterly defeated at the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780, which temporarily aborted his planned advance. He received reinforcements, but his light infantry under Tarleton was decisively defeated by Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781. In spite of this, Cornwallis decided to proceed, gambling that he would receive substantial Loyalist support. General Nathanael Greene, who replaced General Gates, evaded contact with Cornwallis while seeking reinforcements. By March, Greene's army had grown to the point where he felt that he could face Cornwallis directly. In the key Battle of Guilford Court House, Cornwallis drove Greene's much larger army off the battlefield, but in doing so suffered casualties amounting to one-fourth of his army. Compounding this, far fewer Loyalists were joining up than expected because the Patriots put heavy pressure on them and their families, who would become hostages. Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (2000) Cornwallis decided to retreat to coastal Wilmington, North Carolina for resupply and reinforcement, leaving the interior of the Carolinas and Georgia open to Greene. He then proceeded north into Virginia (see below).

American troops in conjunction with Patriot partisans then began the process of reclaiming territory in South Carolina and Georgia. Despite British victories at Hobkirk's Hill and at the Siege of Ninety-Six, by the middle of the year they had been forced to withdraw to the coastal lowlands region of both colonies. The final battle (Battle of Eutaw Springs) in September 1781 was indecisive but by the end of the year the British held only Savannah and Charleston.

===Virginia, 1781===

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797)

Cornwallis proceeded from Wilmington north into Virginia, on the grounds that Virginia needed to be subdued in order to hold the southern colonies. Earlier, in January 1781, a small British raiding force under Benedict Arnold had landed there, and began moving through the countryside, destroying supply depots, mills, and other economic targets. In February, General Washington dispatched General Lafayette to counter Arnold, later also sending General Anthony Wayne. Arnold was reinforced with additional troops from New York in March, and his army was joined with that of Cornwallis in May. Lafayette skirmished with Cornwallis, avoiding a large-scale battle while gathering reinforcements.

Cornwallis' Virginia campaign was strongly opposed by his superior, General Clinton, who did not believe such a large and disease-ridden area, with a hostile population, could be pacified with the limited forces available. Clinton instead favored conducting operations further north in the Chesapeake region (Maryland, Delaware, and southern Pennsylvania) where he believed there was a strong Loyalist presence. Upon his arrival at Williamsburg in June, Cornwallis received orders from Clinton to establish a fortified naval base and a request to send several thousand troops to New York to counter a possible Franco-American attack. Following these orders, he fortified Yorktown, and, shadowed by Lafayette, awaited the arrival of the Royal Navy. Michael Cecere, Great Things are Expected from the Virginians: Virginia in the American Revolution (2009) 

The northern, southern, and naval theaters of the war converged in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. The French fleet became available for operations, which could either move against Yorktown or New York. Washington still favored attacking New York, but the French decided to send the fleet to their preferred target at Yorktown. Learning of the planned movement of the French fleet in August, Washington began moving his army south to cooperate. The British fleet, not realizing that the French had sent their entire fleet to America, dispatched an inadequate force under Admiral Graves.
The French (left) and British (right) lines at the Battle of the Chesapeake
In early September, French naval forces defeated the British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, cutting off Cornwallis' escape. Cornwallis, still expecting to receive support, failed to break out while he had the chance. When Washington's army arrived outside Yorktown Cornwallis prematurely abandoned his outer position, hastening his subsequent defeat. The combined Franco-American force of 18,900 men began besieging Cornwallis in early October. For several days, the French and Americans bombarded the British defenses, and then began taking the outer redoubts. The British attempted to cobble together a relief expedition, but encountered numerous delays. Cornwallis decided his position was becoming untenable and he surrendered his entire army of over 7,000 men on October 19, 1781, the same day that the British fleet at New York sailed for his relief. Richard Ferrie, The World Turned Upside Down: George Washington and the Battle of Yorktown (1999) 

===Downfall of the North Ministry===

News of the surrender at Yorktown arrived in Britain in November 1781. King George III took the news calmly and delivered a defiant address pledging to continue the war, a majority of the House of Commons endorsed it. In the succeeding months news arrived of other reverses, however. The French and Spanish successfully took several West Indian islands and appeared to be on the verge of completely expelling the British there. Minorca also surrendered to a Franco-Spanish force on February 5, 1782 and Gibraltar seemed to be in danger of falling as well. In light of this, Parliament on February 27, 1782 voted to cease all offensive operations in America and seek peace. Threatened with votes of no confidence, on March 20 Lord North resigned and his Tory government was replaced by the Whigs. Ironically, shortly after North resigned the British won the Battle of the Saintes, putting an end to the French threat in the West Indies, and they successfully relieved Gibraltar. Had the North government held out for a few more months they would have been considerably strengthened and could have continued the war in spite of Yorktown.

The new Whig administration accepted American independence as a basis for peace. There were no further major military activities in North America, although the British still had 30,000 garrison troops occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah. Mackesy, p. 435. The war continued elsewhere, including the siege of Gibraltar and naval operations in the East and West Indies, until peace was agreed in 1783.

==Naval conflict==

Combat de la Dominique, April 17, 1780, by Auguste Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736–1804)

When the war began, the British had overwhelming naval superiority over the American colonists. The Royal Navy had over 100 ships of the line and many frigates and smaller craft, although this fleet was old and in poor condition, a situation that would be blamed on Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the first three years of the war, the Royal Navy was primarily used to transport troops for land operations and to protect commercial shipping. The American colonists had no ships of the line, and relied extensively on privateering to harass British shipping. The privateers caused worry disproportionate to their material success, although those operating out of French channel ports before and after France joined the war caused significant embarrassment to the Royal Navy and inflamed Anglo-French relations. About 55,000 American sailors served aboard the privateers during the war. The American privateers had almost 1,700 ships, and they captured 2,283 enemy ships. The Continental Congress authorized the creation of a small Continental Navy in October 1775, which was primarily used for commerce raiding. John Paul Jones became the first great American naval hero, capturing HMS Drake on April 24, 1778, the first victory for any American military vessel in British waters. Higginbotham (1983), pp. 331–46 
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley

==Britain vs. France, Spain, and Holland 1778–1783==

===Europe===

Spain entered the war as a French ally with the goal of recapturing Gibraltar and Minorca, which had been captured by an Anglo-Dutch force in 1704. Gibraltar was besieged for more than three years, but the British garrison stubbornly resisted and was resupplied twice: once after Admiral Rodney's victory over Juan de Lángara in the 1780 "Moonlight Battle", and again after Admiral Richard Howe fought Luis de Córdova y Córdova to a draw in the Battle of Cape Spartel. Further Franco-Spanish efforts to capture Gibraltar were unsuccessful. One notable success took place on February 5, 1782, when Spanish and French forces captured Minorca, which Spain retained after the war. Ambitious plans for an invasion of Great Britain in 1779 had to be abandoned.

===West Indies and Gulf Coast===

The Battle of the Saintes fought on 12 April 1782 near Guadeloupe.
Bernardo de Gálvez

There was much action in the West Indies, especially in the Lesser Antilles. Although France lost St. Lucia early in the war, its navy dominated the West Indies, capturing Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent, Montserrat, Tobago, St. Kitts and the Turks and Caicos between 1778 and 1782. Dutch possessions in the West Indies and South America were captured by Britain but later recaptured by France and restored to the Dutch Republic. At the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, a victory by Rodney's fleet over the French Admiral de Grasse frustrated the hopes of France and Spain to take Jamaica and other colonies from the British.

On the Gulf Coast, Count Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, quickly removed the British from their outposts on the lower Mississippi River in 1779 in actions at Manchac and Baton Rouge in British West Florida. Gálvez then captured Mobile in 1780 and stormed and captured the British citadel and capital of Pensacola in 1781. On May 8, 1782, Gálvez captured the British naval base at New Providence in the Bahamas; it was ceded by Spain after the Treaty of Paris and simultaneously recovered by British Loyalists in 1783. Gálvez' actions led to the Spanish acquisition of East and West Florida in the peace settlement, denied the British the opportunity of encircling the American forces from the south, and kept open a vital conduit for supplies to the American frontier. The Continental Congress cited Gálvez in 1785 for his aid during the revolution and George Washington took him to his right during the first parade of July 4. Heintze, "A Chronology of Notable Fourth of July Celebration Occurrences". 

Norteamerica, 1792, Jaillot-Elwe, Florida's borders after Bernardo Gálvez's military actions.
Central America was also subject to conflict between Britain and Spain, as Britain sought to expand its informal trading influence beyond coastal logging and fishing communities in present-day Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Expeditions against San Fernando de Omoa in 1779 and San Juan in 1780 (the latter famously led by a young Horatio Nelson) met with only temporary success before being abandoned due to disease. The Spanish colonial leaders, in turn, could not completely eliminate British influences along the Mosquito Coast. Except for the French acquisition of Tobago, sovereignty in the West Indies was returned to the status quo ante bellum in the peace of 1783.

===India===

When word reached India in 1778 that France had entered the war, the British East India Company moved quickly to capture French colonial outposts there, capturing Pondicherry after two months of siege. Riddick (2006), pp. 23–25 The capture of the French-controlled port of Mahé on India's west coast motivated Mysore's ruler, Hyder Ali (who was already upset at other British actions, and benefited from trade through the port), to open the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780. Ali, and later his son Tipu Sultan, almost drove the British from southern India but was frustrated by weak French support, and the war ended status quo ante bellum with the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore. French opposition was led in 1782 and 1783 by Admiral the Baillie de Suffren, who recaptured Trincomalee from the British and fought five celebrated, but largely inconclusive, naval engagements against British Admiral Sir Edward Hughes. Fletcher (1909), pp. 155–158 France's Indian colonies were returned after the war.

Suffren meeting with ally Hyder Ali in 1783. J.B. Morret engraving, 1789

===Fourth Anglo-Dutch War===

The Dutch Republic, nominally neutral, had been trading with the Americans, exchanging Dutch arms and munitions for American colonial wares (in contravention of the British Navigation Acts), primarily through activity based in St. Eustatius, before the French formally entered the war. Edler (1911), pp. 37–38, 42–62; The American trade via St. Eustatius was very substantial. In 1779 more than 12,000 hogsheads of tobacco and 1.5 million ounces of indigo were shipped from the Colonies to the island in exchange for naval supplies and other goods; Edler, p. 62 The British considered this trade to include contraband military supplies and had attempted to stop it, at first diplomatically by appealing to previous treaty obligations, interpretation of whose terms the two nations disagreed on, and then by searching and seizing Dutch merchant ships. The situation escalated when the British seized a Dutch merchant convoy sailing under Dutch naval escort in December 1779, prompting the Dutch to join the League of Armed Neutrality. Britain responded to this decision by declaring war on the Dutch in December 1780, sparking the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. Edler (1911), pp. 95–173 The war was a military and economic disaster for the Dutch Republic. Paralyzed by internal political divisions, it could not respond effectively to British blockades of its coast and the capture of many of its colonies. In the 1784 peace treaty between the two nations, the Dutch lost the Indian port of Negapatam and were forced to make trade concessions. Edler (1911), pp. 233–246 The Dutch Republic signed a friendship and trade agreement with the United States in 1782, becoming the second country (after France) to formally recognize the United States. Edler (1911), pp. 205–232 

==Treaty of Paris==

In London, as political support for the war plummeted after Yorktown, British Prime Minister Lord North resigned in March 1782. In April 1782, the Commons voted to end the war in America. Preliminary peace articles were signed in Paris at the end of November 1782; the formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris (for the U.S.) and the Treaties of Versailles (for the other Allies) were signed on September 3, 1783. The last British troops left New York City on November 25, 1783, and the United States Congress of the Confederation ratified the Paris treaty on January 14, 1784. Richard Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (1983) 

Britain negotiated the Paris peace treaty without consulting her Native American allies and ceded all Native American territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States. Full of resentment, Native Americans reluctantly confirmed these land cessions with the United States in a series of treaties, but the fighting would be renewed in conflicts along the frontier in the coming years, the largest being the Northwest Indian War. Benn (1993), p. 17 The British would continue to support the Indians against the new American nation especially when hostilities resumed 29 years later in the War of 1812.

The United States gained more than it expected, thanks to the award of western territory. The other Allies had mixed-to-poor results. France made some gains over its nemesis, Great Britain, but its material gains were minimal and its financial losses huge. It was already in financial trouble and its borrowing to pay for the war used up all its credit and created the financial disasters that marked the 1780s. Historians link those disasters to the coming of the French Revolution. The Dutch clearly lost on all points. The Spanish had a mixed result; they did not achieve their primary war goal (recovery of Gibraltar), but they did gain territory. However in the long run, as the case of Florida shows, the new territory was of little or no value. 

==Combatants==

===American armies and militias===

Population density in the American Colonies in 1775
When the war began, the 13 colonies lacked a professional army or navy. Each colony sponsored local militia. Militiamen were lightly armed, had little training, and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or months at a time, were reluctant to travel far from home and thus were unavailable for extended operations, and lacked the training and discipline of soldiers with more experience. If properly used, however, their numbers could help the Continental armies overwhelm smaller British forces, as at the battles of Concord, Bennington and Saratoga, and the siege of Boston. Both sides used partisan warfare but the Americans effectively suppressed Loyalist activity when British regulars were not in the area. Black (2001), p. 59. On militia see Boatner (1974), p. 707, and Weigley (1973), ch. 2. 

Seeking to coordinate military efforts, the Continental Congress established (on paper) a regular army on June 14, 1775, and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief. The development of the Continental Army was always a work in progress, and Washington used both his regulars and state militia throughout the war.

The United States Marine Corps traces its institutional roots to the Continental Marines of the war, formed at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775, a date regarded and celebrated as the birthday of the Marine Corps. At the beginning of 1776, Washington's army had 20,000 men, with two-thirds enlisted in the Continental Army and the other third in the various state militias. Crocker (2006), p. 51 At the end of the American Revolution in 1783, both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded. About 250,000 men served as regulars or as militiamen for the Revolutionary cause in the eight years of the war, but there were never more than 90,000 men under arms at one time.

Armies were small by European standards of the era, largely attributable to limitations such as lack of powder and other logistical capabilities on the American side. Boatner (1974), p. 264 says the largest force Washington commanded was "under 17,000"; Duffy (1987), p. 17, estimates Washington's maximum was "only 13,000 troops". It was also difficult for Great Britain to transport troops across the Atlantic and they depended on local supplies that the Patriots tried to cut off. By comparison, Duffy notes that Frederick the Great usually commanded from 23,000 to 50,000 in battle. Both figures pale in comparison to the armies that would be fielded in the early 19th century, where troop formations approached or exceeded 100,000 men.

===Loyalists===

Historians Greene and Pole (1999), p. 235 have estimated that approximately 40 to 45 percent of the colonists supported the rebellion, while 15 to 20 percent remained loyal to the Crown. The rest attempted to remain neutral and kept a low profile.

At least 25,000 Loyalists fought on the side of the British. Thousands served in the Royal Navy. On land, Loyalist forces fought alongside the British in most battles in North America. Many Loyalists fought in partisan units, especially in the Southern theater. Savas and Dameron (2006), p. xli 

The British military met with many difficulties in maximizing the use of Loyalist factions. British historian Jeremy Black wrote, "In the American war it was clear to both royal generals and revolutionaries that organized and significant Loyalist activity would require the presence of British forces." Black (2001), p. 12 In the South, the use of Loyalists presented the British with "major problems of strategic choice" since while it was necessary to widely disperse troops in order to defend Loyalist areas, it was also recognized that there was a need for "the maintenance of large concentrated forces able" to counter major attacks from the American forces. Black (2001), p. 13–14 In addition, the British were forced to ensure that their military actions would not "offend Loyalist opinion", eliminating such options as attempting to "live off the country", destroying property for intimidation purposes, or coercing payments from colonists ("laying them under contribution"). Black (2001), p. 14 

===British armies and auxiliaries===

Early in 1775, the British Army consisted of about 36,000 men worldwide, but wartime recruitment steadily increased this number. Great Britain had a difficult time appointing general officers, however. General Thomas Gage, in command of British forces in North America when the rebellion started, was criticized for being too lenient (perhaps influenced by his American wife). General Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst turned down an appointment as commander in chief due to an unwillingness to take sides in the conflict. Ketchum (1997), p. 76 Similarly, Admiral Augustus Keppel turned down a command, saying "I cannot draw the sword in such a cause." The Earl of Effingham publicly resigned his commission when his 22nd Regiment of foot was posted to America, and William Howe and John Burgoyne were members of parliament who opposed military solutions to the American rebellion. Howe and Henry Clinton stated that they were unwilling participants in the war and were only following orders. Ketchum (1997), p. 77 

Over the course of the war, Great Britain signed treaties with various German states, which supplied about 30,000 soldiers. Germans made up about one-third of the British troop strength in North America. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel contributed more soldiers than any other state, and German soldiers became known as "Hessians" to the Americans. Revolutionary speakers called German soldiers "foreign mercenaries", and they are scorned as such in the Declaration of Independence. By 1779, the number of British and German troops stationed in North America was over 60,000, although these were spread from Canada to Florida. Black (2001), pp. 27–29; Boatner (1974), pp. 424–26 Initially, several German principalities offered military support to Great Britain but these offers were rejected. However, as the war dragged on it became clear that Great Britain would need the extra manpower of the German states and led to Great Britain seeking support from German principalities such as Hesse-Kassel and Ansbach-Bayreuth. Morrissey (2004) pp. 20, 21 

The Secretary of State at War Lord Barrington and the Adjutant-General Edward Harvey were both strongly opposed to outright war on land. In 1766 Barrington had recommended withdrawing the army from the 13 Colonies to Canada, Nova Scotia and Florida. At the beginning of the war he urged a naval blockade, which would quickly damage the colonists' trading activities. The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (1994) p. 122–123 

===African Americans===
1780 drawing of American soldiers from the Yorktown campaign shows a black infantryman from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.
African Americans—slave and free—served on both sides during the war. The British recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and promised freedom to those who served by act of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation. Because of manpower shortages, George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776. Small all-black units were formed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; many slaves were promised freedom for serving. (Some of the men promised freedom were sent back to their masters, after the war was over, out of political convenience. George Washington received and ignored letters from the re-enslaved soldiers.) Another all-black unit came from Haiti with French forces. At least 5,000 black soldiers fought for the Revolutionary cause. Kaplan and Kaplan (1989), pp. 64–69 

Tens of thousands of slaves escaped during the war and joined British lines; others simply moved off into the chaos. For instance, in South Carolina, nearly 25,000 slaves (30% of the enslaved population) fled, migrated or died during the disruption of the war. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619–1877, New York: Hill and Wang, 1994, p. 73 This greatly disrupted plantation production during and after the war. When they withdrew their forces from Savannah and Charleston, the British also evacuated 10,000 slaves belonging to Loyalists. Kolchin, p.73 Altogether, the British evacuated nearly 20,000 blacks at the end of the war. More than 3,000 of them were freedmen and most of these were resettled in Nova Scotia; other blacks were sold in the West Indies. 

===Native Americans===
Most Native Americans east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many communities were divided over the question of how to respond to the conflict. Though a few tribes were on friendly terms with the Americans, most Native Americans opposed the United States as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Native Americans fought on the British side, with the largest group coming from the Iroquois tribes, who fielded around 1,500 men. Greene and Pole (1999), p. 393; Boatner (1974), p. 545 The powerful Iroquois Confederacy was shattered as a result of the conflict; although the Confederacy did not take sides, the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations sided with the British. Members of the Mohawk fought on both sides. Many Tuscarora and Oneida sided with the colonists. The Continental Army sent the Sullivan Expedition on raids throughout New York to cripple the Iroquois tribes that had sided with the British. Both during and after the war friction between the Mohawk leaders Joseph Louis Cook and Joseph Brant, who had sided with the Americans and the British respectively, further exacerbated the split.
A watercolor painting depicting a variety of Continental Army soldiers.
Creek and Seminole allies of Britain fought against Americans in Georgia and South Carolina. In 1778, a force of 800 Creeks destroyed American settlements along the Broad River in Georgia. Creek warriors also joined Thomas Brown's raids into South Carolina and assisted Britain during the Siege of Savannah. Many Native Americans were involved in the fighting between Britain and Spain on the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River—mostly on the British side. Thousands of Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws fought in or near major battles such as the Battle of Fort Charlotte, the Battle of Mobile, and the Siege of Pensacola. 

===Sex, race, class===
Pybus (2005) estimates that about 20,000 slaves defected to or were captured by the British, of whom about 8,000 died from disease or wounds or were recaptured by the Patriots, and 12,000 left the country at the end of the war, for freedom in Canada or slavery in the West Indies. Cassadra Pybus, "Jefferson's Faulty Math: the Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution." William and Mary Quarterly 2005 62(2): 243–264. Issn: 0043-5597 Fulltext: in History Cooperative 

Baller (2006) examines family dynamics and mobilization for the Revolution in central Massachusetts. He reports that warfare and the farming culture were sometimes incompatible. Militiamen found that living and working on the family farm had not prepared them for wartime marches and the rigors of camp life. Rugged individualism conflicted with military discipline and regimentation. A man's birth order often influenced his military recruitment, as younger sons went to war and older sons took charge of the farm. A person's family responsibilities and the prevalent patriarchy could impede mobilization. Harvesting duties and family emergencies pulled men home regardless of the sergeant's orders. Some relatives might be Loyalists, creating internal strains. On the whole, historians conclude the Revolution's effect on patriarchy and inheritance patterns favored egalitarianism. William Baller, "Farm Families and the American Revolution". Journal of Family History (2006) 31(1): 28–44. Issn: 0363-1990 Fulltext: online in EBSCO 

McDonnell (2006) shows a grave complication in Virginia's mobilization of troops was the conflicting interests of distinct social classes, which tended to undercut a unified commitment to the Patriot cause. The Assembly balanced the competing demands of elite slave owning planters, the middling yeomen (some owning a few slaves), and landless indentured servants, among other groups. The Assembly used deferments, taxes, military service substitute, and conscription to resolve the tensions. Unresolved class conflict, however, made these laws less effective. There were violent protests, many cases of evasion, and large-scale desertion, so that Virginia's contributions came at embarrassingly low levels. With the British invasion of the state in 1781, Virginia was mired in class division as its native son, George Washington, made desperate appeals for troops. Michael A. McDonnell, "Class War: Class Struggles During the American Revolution in Virginia", William and Mary Quarterly 2006 63(2): 305–344. Issn: 0043-5597 Fulltext: online at History Cooperative 

==Advantages and disadvantages of the opposing sides==
Historians continue to debate whether the odds for American victory were long or short. John E. Ferling says the odds were so long that the American victory was "Almost A Miracle." John E. Ferling, Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (2009) pp 562-77 On the other hand, Joseph Ellis says the odds favored the Americans, and asks whether there ever was any realistic chance for the British to win? He argues that this opportunity came only once, in the summer of 1776 and the British failed that test. Admiral Howe and his brother General Howe, "missed several opportunities to destroy the Continental Army....Chance, luck, and even the vagaries of the weather played crucial roles." Ellis's point is that the strategic and tactical decisions of the Howes were fatally flawed because they underestimated the challenges posed by the Patriots. Ellis concludes that once the Howe brothers failed, the opportunity for a British victory "would never come again." The U.S. Army's official textbook argues that while the British difficulties were great, they were hardly insurmountable. "The British forfeited several chances for military victory in 1776–1777, and again in 1780 they might have won had they been able to throw 10,000 fresh troops into the American war." Richard W. Stewart, ed., American Military History Volume 1 The United States Army And The Forging Of A Nation, 1775-1917" (2005) ch 4 "The Winning of Independence, 1777–1783" (2005) p 103 

===The Americans===
The Americans began the war with significant disadvantages compared to the British. They had no national government, no national army or navy, no financial system, no banks, no established credit, and no functioning government departments, such as a treasury. The Congress tried to handle administrative affairs through legislative committees, which proved inefficient. The state governments were themselves brand new and officials had no administrative experience. In peacetime the colonies relied heavily on ocean travel and shipping, but that was now shut down by the British blockade and the Americans had to rely on slow overland travel.

The Americans had a large prosperous population that depended not on imports but on local production for food and most supplies, while the British were mostly shipped in from across the ocean. The British faced a vast territory far larger than Britain or France, located at a far distance from home ports. Most of the Americans lived on farms distant from the seaports—the British could capture any port but that did not give them control over the hinterland. They were on their home ground, had a smoothly functioning, well organized system of local and state governments, newspapers and printers, and internal lines of communications. They had a long-established system of local militia, previously used to combat the French and Native Americans, with companies and an officer corps that could form the basis of local militias, and provide a training ground for the national army that the Congress set up. Pole and Greene, eds. Companion to the American Revolution ch 36–39 

Motivation was a major asset. The Patriots wanted to win; over 200,000 fought in the war; 25,000 died. The British expected the Loyalists to do much of the fighting; they did much less than expected. The British hired outsider Germans to do much of their fighting. 

At the onset of the war, the Americans had no major international allies. Battles such as the Battle of Bennington, the Battles of Saratoga and even defeats such as the Battle of Germantown Trevelyan, p. 249. proved decisive in gaining the attention and support of powerful European nations such as France and Spain, who moved from covertly supplying the Americans with weapons and supplies, to overtly supporting them militarily, moving the war to a global stage. Ketchum (1997), pp. 405–448 

Upon the creation of the Continental Army to combat the British forces and their allies in North America, the army suffered significantly from a lack of an effective training regime, and largely inexperienced officers. The inexperience of its officers was compensated for in part by its senior officers; officers such as George Washington, Horatio Gates, Charles Lee, Richard Montgomery and Francis Marion all had military experience with the British Army during the French and Indian War. The Americans solved their training dilemma during their stint in Winter Quarters at Valley Forge, where they were relentlessly drilled and trained by Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a veteran of the famed Prussian General Staff. He taught the Continental Army the essentials of military discipline, drills, tactics and strategy, and wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, which was used to train American troops up until the War of 1812. Thomas Fleming "The Magnificent Fraud", American Heritage, Feb./March 2006. When the Army emerged from Valley Forge, they proved their ability to equally match the British troops in battle when they fought a successful strategic action at the Battle of Monmouth.

===The British===
Britain entered the war with confidence; it had the world's most powerful navy, a well-trained professional army, a sound financial system that could pay the costs, a stable government, and experienced leadership. On the top leaders see Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (Yale University Press, 2013) However they were beset with major challenges. Compared to the Americans, the British had no major allies, and only had troops provided by small German states to bolster the small British Army. At the onset of the war, the British Army was less than 48,000 strong worldwide, and suffered from a lack of effective recruiting. By 1778, the army was pardoning criminals for military service and had extended the age range for service to be from 16 to 50. Although its officer and non-commissioned officer corps were relatively professional and experienced, this professionalism was diluted because wealthy individuals lacking military experience could purchase commissions and promotions. As a consequence, inexperienced officers sometimes found their way into positions of high responsibility. 

Distance was also a major problem for the British. Although the Royal Navy was the largest and most experienced in the world at the time, it sometimes took months for troops to reach North America, and orders were often out of date because the military situation on the ground had changed by the time they arrived. Black (2001), p. 39; Greene and Pole (1999), pp. 298, 306 Additionally, the British had logistical problems whenever they operated away from the coast; they were vulnerable to guerilla attacks on their supply chains whenever they went far inland. On a logistical note, the flints used in British weapons also put them at a disadvantage on the battlefield. British flints could only fire for 6 rounds before requiring re-sharpening, while American flints could fire 60 rounds before resharpening. A common expression ran among the redcoats; which was that "Yankee flint was as good as a glass of grog." Edward E. Curtis, The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution (Yale U.P. 1926) ch 1 online Although discipline was harsh in the army, the redcoats had little self-discipline; gambling, looting, promiscuity and heavy drinking were common problems, among all ranks alike. The army suffered from mediocre organisation in terms of logistics, food supplies were often bad and the sparse land of America offered little in the way of finding reliable substitutes. Curtis, The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution ch 4 

Map of campaigns in the Revolutionary War

Suppressing a rebellion in America also posed other problems. At the onset of the war, the British had around 8,000 men stationed in North America, however these were required to cover an area that stretched from northern Canada to Florida, a distance of almost 2,000 miles (3,200 km). As the colonies had not been united before the war, there was no central area of strategic importance. In European conflicts, the capture of a capital city often meant the end of the war; however in America, when the British seized key cities such as New York, Philadelphia or Boston—or Washington D.C. in the War of 1812 thirty years later—the war continued unabated. Furthermore, despite the fact that at its height, the British fielded some 56,000 men in the colonies exclusive of mercenaries and militia, Curtis, The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution ch 3 they lacked the sufficient numbers to both defeat the Americans on the battlefield and simultaneously occupy the captured areas. It was not unusual for the Americans to suffer a string of defeats, only to have the British retreat because they could not occupy the captured land. Despite strong Loyalist support, these troops were often displaced by Patriot militia when British regulars were not in the area, demonstrated at battles such as Kings Mountain. The manpower shortage became critical when France, Spain and the Netherlands entered the war, as the British were spread across several theatres worldwide, when before they were concentrated only in America. Higginbotham (1983), pp. 298, 306; Black (2001), pp. 29, 42 

The British also had to contend with several psychological factors during the conflict. The need to maintain Loyalist allegiance provided setbacks, as the British could not use the harsh methods of suppressing rebellion they had used in Ireland and Scotland. Loyalists often came from the same communities as Patriots and as a result, such methods could not be employed for fear of alienating them. Even despite these limitations, neutral colonists were often driven into the ranks of the Revolutionaries due to the conflict, such as the war in the Carolinas, marked by heavy brutality on both sides. Black (2001), pp. 14–16 (Harsh methods), pp. 35, 38 (slaves and Indians), p. 16 (neutrals into revolutionaries) As a result of the manpower shortage and Patriot control of the countryside, where the majority of the American population lived, the British often could not simultaneously defeat the Americans on the field and occupy the captured areas, evidenced by withdrawals from Philadelphia and the Carolinas after great initial success. A single American victory could often reverse the impact of a string of British successes, as shown by engagements at Trenton, Bennington, King's Mountain and even defeats such as Germantown, all of which went a long way to galvanizing Patriot support for the war, and of persuading European powers such as France and Spain to support the rebellion.

Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781

==Costs of the war==

===Casualties===
Americans & Allies

The total loss of life throughout the war is largely unknown. As was typical in the wars of the era, disease claimed far more lives than battle. Between 1775 and 1782 a smallpox epidemic swept across North America, killing 40 people in Boston alone. Historian Joseph Ellis suggests that Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated against the smallpox epidemic, including the use of biological warfare by the British, was one of his most important decisions. Ellis, p.&nbsp 

More than 25,000 American Revolutionaries died during active military service. About 8,000 of these deaths were in battle; the other 17,000 recorded deaths were from disease, including about 8,000–12,000 who died of starvation or disease brought on by deplorable conditions while prisoners of war, Edwin G. Burrows "Patriots or Terrorists?", American Heritage, Fall 2008. most in rotting British prison ships in New York. This tally of deaths from disease is undoubtedly too low, however; 2,500 Americans died while encamped at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777–78 alone. The number of Revolutionaries seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000. The total American military casualty figure was therefore as high as 50,000. American dead and wounded: Shy, pp. 249–50. The lower figure for number of wounded comes from Chambers, p. 849. 

British & Allies

About 171,000 sailors served in the Royal Navy during the war; about a quarter had been pressed into service. About 1,240 were killed in battle, while 18,500 died from disease. The greatest killer was scurvy, a disease that had been shown to be preventable by issuing lemon or lime juice to sailors but was not taken seriously. Scurvy would be eradicated in the Royal Navy in 1790s by the chairman of the Navy's Sick and Hurt Board, Gilbert Blane. About 4,000 British sailors deserted during the war. Mackesy (1964), pp. 6, 176 (British seamen) 

Approximately 1,200 Germans were killed in action and 6,354 died from illness or accident. About 16,000 of the remaining German troops returned home, but roughly 5,500 remained in the United States after the war for various reasons, many eventually becoming American citizens. No reliable statistics exist for the number of casualties among other groups, including Loyalists, British regulars, Native Americans, French and Spanish troops, and civilians.

===Financial costs===

The British spent about £80 million and ended with a national debt of £250 million, which it easily financed at about £9.5 million a year in interest. The French spent 1.3 billion livres (about £56 million). Their total national debt was £187 million, which they could not easily finance; over half the French national revenue went to debt service in the 1780s. The debt crisis became a major enabling factor of the French Revolution as the government could not raise taxes without public approval. Tombs (2007), p. 179 The United States spent $37 million at the national level plus $114 million by the states. This was mostly covered by loans from France and the Netherlands, loans from Americans, and issuance of an increasing amount of paper money (which became "not worth a continental"). The U.S. finally solved its debt and currency problems in the 1790s when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton secured legislation by which the national government assumed all of the state debts, and in addition created a national bank and a funding system based on tariffs and bond issues that paid off the foreign debts. 

==See also==
* Battles of the American Revolutionary War
* British Army during the American War of Independence
* Bibliography of the American Revolutionary War
* Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War
* First Treaty of San Ildefonso
* First League of Armed Neutrality
* Fourth Anglo-Dutch War
* George Washington in the American Revolution
* History of the United States of America
* American gentry
* Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War
* List of British Forces in the American Revolutionary War
* List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War
* List of plays and films about the American Revolution
* List of revolutions and rebellions

==Notes==

== References ==
To avoid duplication, notes for sections with a link to a "Main article" will be found in the linked article.

== Further reading ==

* Black, Jeremy. War for America: The Fight for Independence, 1775–1783. 2001. Analysis from a noted British military historian.
* Benn, Carl. Historic Fort York, 1793–1993. Toronto: Dundurn Press Ltd., 1993. ISBN 0-920474-79-9.
* Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. 1966; revised 1974. ISBN 0-8117-0578-1. Military topics, references many secondary sources.
* Chambers, John Whiteclay II, ed. in chief. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-507198-0.
* 
* Curtis, Edward E. The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution (Yale U.P. 1926) online
* Duffy, Christopher. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, 1715–1789 Routledge, 1987. ISBN 978-0-7102-1024-1.
* Edler, Friedrich. The Dutch Republic and The American Revolution. University Press of the Pacific, 1911, reprinted 2001. ISBN 0-89875-269-8.
* Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. (2004). ISBN 1-4000-4031-0.
* Fenn, Elizabeth Anne. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001. ISBN 0-8090-7820-1.
* Fischer, David Hackett. Washington's Crossing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-517034-2.
* Fletcher, Charles Robert Leslie. An Introductory History of England: The Great European War, Volume 4. E.P. Dutton, 1909. OCLC 12063427.
* Greene, Jack P. and Pole, J.R., eds. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1991; reprint 1999. ISBN 1-55786-547-7. Collection of essays focused on political and social history.
* Gilbert, Alan. Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-226-29307-3. The introduction.
* Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789. Northeastern University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-930350-44-8. Overview of military topics; online in ACLS History E-book Project.
* Morrissey, Brendan. Monmouth Courthouse 1778: The Last Great Battle in the North. Osprey Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-84176-772-7.
* Jensen, Merrill. The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution 1763–1776. (2004)
* Kaplan, Sidney and Emma Nogrady Kaplan. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst, Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. ISBN 0-87023-663-6.
* Ketchum, Richard M. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War. Henry Holt, 1997. ISBN 0-8050-4681-X.
* Mackesy, Piers. The War for America: 1775–1783. London, 1964. Reprinted University of Nebraska Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8032-8192-7. Highly regarded examination of British strategy and leadership.
* McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
* 
* Riddick, John F. The History of British India: a Chronology. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. ISBN 978-0-313-32280-8.
* Savas, Theodore P. and Dameron, J. David. A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution. New York: Savas Beatie LLC, 2006. ISBN 1-932714-12-X.
* Schama, Simon. , New York, NY: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2006
* Shy, John. A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976 (ISBN 0-19-502013-8); revised University of Michigan Press, 1990 (ISBN 0-472-06431-2). Collection of essays.
* Stephenson, Orlando W. "The Supply of Gunpowder in 1776", American Historical Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jan. 1925), pp. 271–281 in JSTOR.
* Tombs, Robert and Isabelle. That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present Random House, 2007. ISBN 978-1-4000-4024-7.
* Trevelyan, George Otto. George the Third and Charles Fox: the concluding part of The American revolution Longmans, Green, 1912.
* Watson, J. Steven. The Reign of George III, 1760–1815. 1960. Standard history of British politics.
* Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War. Indiana University Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0-253-28029-9.
* Weintraub, Stanley. Iron Tears: America's Battle for Freedom, Britain's Quagmire: 1775–1783. New York: Free Press, 2005 (a division of Simon and Schuster). ISBN 0-7432-2687-9. An account of the British politics on the conduct of the war.

== Reference literature ==

These are some of the standard works about the war in general that are not listed above; books about specific campaigns, battles, units, and individuals can be found in those articles.
* Conway, Stephen. The War of American Independence 1775–1783. Publisher: E. Arnold, 1995. ISBN 0-340-62520-1. 280 pages.
*Lowell, Edward J. The Hessians in the Revolution Williamstown, Massachusetts, Corner House Publishers, 1970, Reprint
* Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent. (1854–78), vol. 7–10.
* Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. Penguin, 1998 (paperback reprint).
* Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, and Ryerson, Richard A., eds. The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2006) 5 volume paper and online editions; 1000 entries by 150 experts, covering all topics
* Billias, George Athan. George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership (1994) scholarly studies of key generals on each side
* Hibbert, Christopher. . New York: Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-02895-X.
* Kwasny, Mark V. Washington's Partisan War, 1775–1783. Kent, Ohio: 1996. ISBN 0-87338-546-2. Militia warfare.
* Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. Oxford University Press, 1984; revised 2005. ISBN 0-19-516247-1. online edition
* Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution (1989), newly drawn maps
* Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. 2 volumes. New York: Macmillan, 1952. History of land battles in North America.
* Wood, W. J. Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775–1781. ISBN 0-306-81329-7 (2003 paperback reprint). Analysis of tactics of a dozen battles, with emphasis on American military leadership.
* Men-at-Arms series: short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions:
** Zlatich, Marko; Copeland, Peter. General Washington's Army (1): 1775–78 (1994)
** Zlatich, Marko. General Washington's Army (2): 1779–83 (1994)
** Chartrand, Rene. The French Army in the American War of Independence (1994)
** May, Robin. The British Army in North America 1775–1783 (1993)
* The Partisan in War, a treatise on light infantry tactics written by Colonel Andreas Emmerich in 1789.

==External links==

* Liberty – The American Revolution from PBS
* American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 in the News
* Important battles of the American Revolutionary War
* Google Map of the American Revolution The battles and politics of the rebellion.

===Bibliographies===
* Library of Congress Guide to the American Revolution
* Bibliographies of the War of American Independence compiled by the United States Army Center of Military History
* Political bibliography from Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

 



[[Ampere]]

The ampere (SI unit symbol: A; SI dimension symbol: I), often shortened to amp, SI supports only the use of symbols and deprecates the use of abbreviations for units. is the SI unit of electric current Base unit definitions: Ampere. Physics.nist.gov. Retrieved on 2010-09-28. (quantity symbol: , ) and is one of the seven The other six are the metre, kelvin, second, mole, candela, and kilogram SI base units. It is named after André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), French mathematician and physicist, considered the father of electrodynamics.

In practical terms, the ampere is a measure of the amount of electric charge passing a point in an electric circuit per unit time, with electrons (or one coulomb) per second constituting one ampere. 

The practical definition may lead to confusion with the definition of the coulomb (i.e., 1 ampere-second) and the ampere-hour (A·h), but amperes can be viewed as measuring a flow rate, the number of (charged) particles transiting per unit time, and coulombs simply as an amount, the total number of particles.

== Definition ==
Illustration of the definition of the ampere unit
Ampère's force law . states that there is an attractive or repulsive force between two parallel wires carrying an electric current. This force is used in the formal definition of the ampere, which states that it is "the constant current that will produce an attractive force of 2 &times; 10–7 newton per metre of length between two straight, parallel conductors of infinite length and negligible circular cross section placed one metre apart in a vacuum". . 

The SI unit of charge, the coulomb, "is the quantity of electricity carried in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere". . Conversely, a current of one ampere is one coulomb of charge going past a given point per second:
:
In general, charge Q is determined by steady current I flowing for a time t as Q = It.

== History ==
The ampere was originally defined as one tenth of the CGS system electromagnetic unit of current (now known as the abampere), the amount of current that generates a force of two dynes per centimetre of length between two wires one centimetre apart. . The size of the unit was chosen so that the units derived from it in the MKSA system would be conveniently sized.

The "international ampere" was an early realization of the ampere, defined as the current that would deposit grams of silver per second from a silver nitrate solution. Later, more accurate measurements revealed that this current is 0.99985 A.

== Realization ==
The standard ampere is most accurately realized using a watt balance, but is in practice maintained via Ohm's law from the units of electromotive force and resistance, the volt and the ohm, since the latter two can be tied to physical phenomena that are relatively easy to reproduce, the Josephson junction and the quantum Hall effect, respectively. . 

At present, techniques to establish the realization of an ampere have a relative uncertainty of approximately a few parts in 107, and involve realizations of the watt, the ohm and the volt. 

== Proposed future definition ==

Rather than a definition in terms of the force between two current-carrying wires, it has been proposed to define the ampere in terms of the rate of flow of elementary charges. Since a coulomb is approximately equal to elementary charges (such as electrons), one ampere is approximately equivalent to elementary charges moving past a boundary in one second, or the reciprocal of the value of the elementary charges in coulombs. . The proposed change would define 1 A as being the current in the direction of flow of a particular number of elementary charges per second. In 2005, the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) agreed to study the proposed change. The new definition is expected to be formally proposed at the 25th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 2014. 

== Everyday examples ==

The current drawn by typical constant-voltage energy distribution systems is usually dictated by the power (watts) consumed by the system and the operating voltage. For this reason the examples given below are grouped by voltage level.

=== Portable gadgets ===
*Hearing aid (typically 1 mW at 1.4 V): 0.7 mA

=== Motor vehicles – 12 V DC ===
A typical motor vehicle has a 12 V battery. The various accessories that are powered by the battery might include:
*Instrument panel light (typically 2 W): 166 mA.
*Headlights (typically 60 W): 5 A each.
*Starter Motor (typically 1–2 kW): 80-160 A

=== North American domestic supply – 120 V AC ===
Most United States, Canada and Mexico domestic power suppliers run at 120 V.

Household circuit breakers typically provide a maximum of 15 A or 20 A of current to a given set of outlets.
*22-inch/56-centimeter portable television (35 W): 290 mA
*Tungsten light bulb (60–100 W): 500–830 mA
*Toaster, kettle (2 kW): 16.6 A
*Immersion heater (4.6 kW): 38.3 A

=== European & Commonwealth domestic supply – 230-240 V AC ===
Most European domestic power supplies run at 230 V, and most Commonwealth domestic power supplies run at 240 V. For the same amount of power (in Watts), the current drawn by a particular European or Commonwealth appliance (in Europe or a Commonwealth country) will be less than for an equivalent North American appliance. The formula for power is given by
:
so it follows that if the voltage is doubled and the power remains the same, the current will be halved. Typical circuit breakers will provide 16 A.

The current drawn by a number of typical appliances are:
*22-inch/56-centimeter Portable Television (35 W): 145–150 mA
*Tungsten light bulb (60–100 W): 240–450 mA
*Compact Fluorescent Lamp (11–30 W): 56–112 mA
*Toaster, kettle (2 kW): 9 A
*Immersion heater (4.6 kW): 19-20 A

== See also ==
* Ammeter
* Ampacity (current-carrying capacity)
* Electric current
* Electric shock
* Hydraulic analogy
* Magnetic constant

== Notes ==

== References ==

== External links ==
* The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty
* NIST Definition of ampere and μ0



[[Algorithm]]

 Flow chart of an algorithm (Euclid's algorithm) for calculating the greatest common divisor (g.c.d.) of two numbers a and b in locations named A and B. The algorithm proceeds by successive subtractions in two loops: IF the test B ≥ A yields "yes" (or true) (more accurately the number b in location B is greater than or equal to the number a in location A) THEN, the algorithm specifies B ← B − A (meaning the number b − a replaces the old b). Similarly, IF A > B, THEN A ← A − B. The process terminates when (the contents of) B is 0, yielding the g.c.d. in A. (Algorithm derived from Scott 2009:13; symbols and drawing style from Tausworthe 1977).

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm ( ) is a step-by-step procedure for calculations. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning.

An algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list "Any classical mathematical algorithm, for example, can be described in a finite number of English words" (Rogers 1987:2). of well-defined instructions Well defined with respect to the agent that executes the algorithm: "There is a computing agent, usually human, which can react to the instructions and carry out the computations" (Rogers 1987:2). for calculating a function. "an algorithm is a procedure for computing a function (with respect to some chosen notation for integers) ... this limitation (to numerical functions) results in no loss of generality", (Rogers 1987:1). Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty), "An algorithm has zero or more inputs, i.e., quantities which are given to it initially before the algorithm begins" (Knuth 1973:5). the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite "A procedure which has all the characteristics of an algorithm except that it possibly lacks finiteness may be called a 'computational method'" (Knuth 1973:5). number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output" "An algorithm has one or more outputs, i.e. quantities which have a specified relation to the inputs" (Knuth 1973:5). and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, incorporate random input. Whether or not a process with random interior processes (not including the input) is an algorithm is debatable. Rogers opines that: "a computation is carried out in a discrete stepwise fashion, without use of continuous methods or analogue devices . . . carried forward deterministically, without resort to random methods or devices, e.g., dice" Rogers 1987:2. 

Though al-Khwārizmī's algorism referred to the rules of performing arithmetic using Hindu–Arabic numerals and the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations, a partial formalization of what would become the modern algorithm began with attempts to solve the Entscheidungsproblem (the "decision problem") posed by David Hilbert in 1928. Subsequent formalizations were framed as attempts to define "effective calculability" Kleene 1943 in Davis 1965:274 or "effective method"; Rosser 1939 in Davis 1965:225 those formalizations included the Gödel–Herbrand–Kleene recursive functions of 1930, 1934 and 1935, Alonzo Church's lambda calculus of 1936, Emil Post's "Formulation 1" of 1936, and Alan Turing's Turing machines of 1936–7 and 1939. Giving a formal definition of algorithms, corresponding to the intuitive notion, remains a challenging problem. 

== Word origin ==
'Algorithm' stems from 'Algoritmi', the Latin form of Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī a Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer.

== Informal definition ==

While there is no generally accepted formal definition of "algorithm," an informal definition could be "a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations." Stone 1973:4 which would include all computer programs, including programs that do not perform numeric calculations. For some people, a program is only an algorithm if it stops eventually. Stone simply requires that "it must terminate in a finite number of steps" (Stone 1973:7–8). For others, a program is only an algorithm if it performs a number of calculation steps.

A prototypical example of an algorithm is Euclid's algorithm to determine the maximum common divisor of two integers; an example (there are others) is described by the flow chart above and as an example in a later section.

 offer an informal meaning of the word in the following quotation:

No human being can write fast enough, or long enough, or small enough† ( †"smaller and smaller without limit ...you'd be trying to write on molecules, on atoms, on electrons") to list all members of an enumerably infinite set by writing out their names, one after another, in some notation. But humans can do something equally useful, in the case of certain enumerably infinite sets: They can give explicit instructions for determining the nth member of the set, for arbitrary finite n. Such instructions are to be given quite explicitly, in a form in which they could be followed by a computing machine, or by a human who is capable of carrying out only very elementary operations on symbols. Boolos and Jeffrey 1974,1999:19 

The term "enumerably infinite" means "countable using integers perhaps extending to infinity." Thus, Boolos and Jeffrey are saying that an algorithm implies instructions for a process that "creates" output integers from an arbitrary "input" integer or integers that, in theory, can be chosen from 0 to infinity. Thus an algorithm can be an algebraic equation such as y = m + n—two arbitrary "input variables" m and n that produce an output y. But various authors' attempts to define the notion indicate that the word implies much more than this, something on the order of (for the addition example):
:Precise instructions (in language understood by "the computer") cf Stone 1972:5 for a fast, efficient, "good" Knuth 1973:7 states: "In practice we not only want algorithms, we want good algorithms ... one criterion of goodness is the length of time taken to perform the algorithm ... other criteria are the adaptability of the algorithm to computers, its simplicity and elegance, etc." process that specifies the "moves" of "the computer" (machine or human, equipped with the necessary internally contained information and capabilities) cf Stone 1973:6 to find, decode, and then process arbitrary input integers/symbols m and n, symbols + and = ... and "effectively" Stone 1973:7–8 states that there must be, "...a procedure that a robot computer can follow in order to determine precisely how to obey the instruction." Stone adds finiteness of the process, and definiteness (having no ambiguity in the instructions) to this definition. produce, in a "reasonable" time, Knuth, loc. cit output-integer y at a specified place and in a specified format.

The concept of algorithm is also used to define the notion of decidability. That notion is central for explaining how formal systems come into being starting from a small set of axioms and rules. In logic, the time that an algorithm requires to complete cannot be measured, as it is not apparently related with our customary physical dimension. From such uncertainties, that characterize ongoing work, stems the unavailability of a definition of algorithm that suits both concrete (in some sense) and abstract usage of the term.

== Formalization ==

Algorithms are essential to the way computers process data. Many computer programs contain algorithms that detail the specific instructions a computer should perform (in a specific order) to carry out a specified task, such as calculating employees' paychecks or printing students' report cards. Thus, an algorithm can be considered to be any sequence of operations that can be simulated by a Turing-complete system. Authors who assert this thesis include Minsky (1967), Savage (1987) and Gurevich (2000):
 Minsky: "But we will also maintain, with Turing . . . that any procedure which could "naturally" be called effective, can in fact be realized by a (simple) machine. Although this may seem extreme, the arguments . . . in its favor are hard to refute". Minsky 1967:105 

 Gurevich: "...Turing's informal argument in favor of his thesis justifies a stronger thesis: every algorithm can be simulated by a Turing machine ... according to Savage , an algorithm is a computational process defined by a Turing machine". Gurevich 2000:1, 3 

Typically, when an algorithm is associated with processing information, data is read from an input source, written to an output device, and/or stored for further processing. Stored data is regarded as part of the internal state of the entity performing the algorithm. In practice, the state is stored in one or more data structures.

For some such computational process, the algorithm must be rigorously defined: specified in the way it applies in all possible circumstances that could arise. That is, any conditional steps must be systematically dealt with, case-by-case; the criteria for each case must be clear (and computable).

Because an algorithm is a precise list of precise steps, the order of computation is always critical to the functioning of the algorithm. Instructions are usually assumed to be listed explicitly, and are described as starting "from the top" and going "down to the bottom", an idea that is described more formally by flow of control.

So far, this discussion of the formalization of an algorithm has assumed the premises of imperative programming. This is the most common conception, and it attempts to describe a task in discrete, "mechanical" means. Unique to this conception of formalized algorithms is the assignment operation, setting the value of a variable. It derives from the intuition of "memory" as a scratchpad. There is an example below of such an assignment.

For some alternate conceptions of what constitutes an algorithm see functional programming and logic programming.

=== Expressing algorithms ===
Algorithms can be expressed in many kinds of notation, including natural languages, pseudocode, flowcharts, drakon-charts, programming languages or control tables (processed by interpreters). Natural language expressions of algorithms tend to be verbose and ambiguous, and are rarely used for complex or technical algorithms. Pseudocode, flowcharts, drakon-charts and control tables are structured ways to express algorithms that avoid many of the ambiguities common in natural language statements. Programming languages are primarily intended for expressing algorithms in a form that can be executed by a computer, but are often used as a way to define or document algorithms.

There is a wide variety of representations possible and one can express a given Turing machine program as a sequence of machine tables (see more at finite state machine, state transition table and control table), as flowcharts and drakon-charts (see more at state diagram), or as a form of rudimentary machine code or assembly code called "sets of quadruples" (see more at Turing machine).

Representations of algorithms can be classed into three accepted levels of Turing machine description: Sipser 2006:157 
; 1 High-level description
: "...prose to describe an algorithm, ignoring the implementation details. At this level we do not need to mention how the machine manages its tape or head."
; 2 Implementation description
: "...prose used to define the way the Turing machine uses its head and the way that it stores data on its tape. At this level we do not give details of states or transition function."
; 3 Formal description
: Most detailed, "lowest level", gives the Turing machine's "state table".

For an example of the simple algorithm "Add m+n" described in all three levels, see Algorithm examples.

== Implementation ==
Most algorithms are intended to be implemented as computer programs. However, algorithms are also implemented by other means, such as in a biological neural network (for example, the human brain implementing arithmetic or an insect looking for food), in an electrical circuit, or in a mechanical device.

== Computer algorithms ==
Flowchart examples of the canonical Böhm-Jacopini structures: the SEQUENCE (rectangles descending the page), the WHILE-DO and the IF-THEN-ELSE. The three structures are made of the primitive conditional GOTO (IF test=true THEN GOTO step xxx) (a diamond), the unconditional GOTO (rectangle), various assignment operators (rectangle), and HALT (rectangle). Nesting of these structures inside assignment-blocks result in complex diagrams (cf Tausworthe 1977:100,114).

In computer systems, an algorithm is basically an instance of logic written in software by software developers to be effective for the intended "target" computer(s) for the target machines to produce output from given input (perhaps null).

"Elegant" (compact) programs, "good" (fast) programs : The notion of "simplicity and elegance" appears informally in Knuth and precisely in Chaitin:
:Knuth: ". . .we want good algorithms in some loosely defined aesthetic sense. One criterion . . . is the length of time taken to perform the algorithm . . .. Other criteria are adaptability of the algorithm to computers, its simplicity and elegance, etc" Knuth 1973:7 

:Chaitin: " . . . a program is 'elegant,' by which I mean that it's the smallest possible program for producing the output that it does" Chaitin 2005:32 

Chaitin prefaces his definition with: "I'll show you can't prove that a program is 'elegant'"—such a proof would solve the Halting problem (ibid).

Algorithm versus function computable by an algorithm: For a given function multiple algorithms may exist. This is true, even without expanding the available instruction set available to the programmer. Rogers observes that "It is . . . important to distinguish between the notion of algorithm, i.e. procedure and the notion of function computable by algorithm, i.e. mapping yielded by procedure. The same function may have several different algorithms". Rogers 1987:1–2 

Unfortunately there may be a tradeoff between goodness (speed) and elegance (compactness)—an elegant program may take more steps to complete a computation than one less elegant. An example that uses Euclid's algorithm appears below.

Computers (and computors), models of computation: A computer (or human "computor" In his essay "Calculations by Man and Machine: Conceptual Analysis" Seig 2002:390 credits this distinction to Robin Gandy, cf Wilfred Seig, et al., 2002 Reflections on the foundations of mathematics: Essays in honor of Solomon Feferman, Association for Symbolic Logic, A. K Peters Ltd, Natick, MA. ) is a restricted type of machine, a "discrete deterministic mechanical device" cf Gandy 1980:126, Robin Gandy Church's Thesis and Principles for Mechanisms appearing on pp. 123–148 in J. Barwise et al. 1980 The Kleene Symposium, North-Holland Publishing Company. that blindly follows its instructions. A "robot": "A computer is a robot that performs any task that can be described as a sequence of instructions." cf Stone 1972:3 Melzak's and Lambek's primitive models Lambek’s "abacus" is a "countably infinite number of locations (holes, wires etc.) together with an unlimited supply of counters (pebbles, beads, etc). The locations are distinguishable, the counters are not". The holes have unlimited capacity, and standing by is an agent who understands and is able to carry out the list of instructions" (Lambek 1961:295). Lambek references Melzak who defines his Q-machine as "an indefinitely large number of locations . . . an indefinitely large supply of counters distributed among these locations, a program, and an operator whose sole purpose is to carry out the program" (Melzak 1961:283). B-B-J (loc. cit.) add the stipulation that the holes are "capable of holding any number of stones" (p. 46). Both Melzak and Lambek appear in The Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 3, September 1961. reduced this notion to four elements: (i) discrete, distinguishable locations, (ii) discrete, indistinguishable counters If no confusion results, the word "counters" can be dropped, and a location can be said to contain a single "number". (iii) an agent, and (iv) a list of instructions that are effective relative to the capability of the agent. "We say that an instruction is effective if there is a procedure that the robot can follow in order to determine precisely how to obey the instruction." (Stone 1972:6) 

Minsky describes a more congenial variation of Lambek's "abacus" model in his "Very Simple Bases for Computability". cf Minsky 1967: Chapter 11 "Computer models" and Chapter 14 "Very Simple Bases for Computability" pp. 255–281 in particular Minsky's machine proceeds sequentially through its five (or six depending on how one counts) instructions unless either a conditional IF–THEN GOTO or an unconditional GOTO changes program flow out of sequence. Besides HALT, Minsky's machine includes three assignment (replacement, substitution) cf Knuth 1973:3. operations: ZERO (e.g. the contents of location replaced by 0: L ← 0), SUCCESSOR (e.g. L ← L+1), and DECREMENT (e.g. L ← L − 1). But always preceded by IF–THEN to avoid improper subtraction. Rarely must a programmer write "code" with such a limited instruction set. But Minsky shows (as do Melzak and Lambek) that his machine is Turing complete with only four general types of instructions: conditional GOTO, unconditional GOTO, assignment/replacement/substitution, and HALT. However, a few different assignment instructions (e.g. DECREMENT, INCREMENT and ZERO/CLEAR/EMPTY for a Minsky machine) are also required for Turing-completeness; their exact specification is somewhat up to the designer. The unconditional GOTO is a convenience; it can be constructed by initializing a dedicated location to zero e.g. the instruction " Z ← 0 "; thereafter the instruction IF Z=0 THEN GOTO xxx is unconditional. 

Simulation of an algorithm: computer (computor) language: Knuth advises the reader that "the best way to learn an algorithm is to try it . . . immediately take pen and paper and work through an example". Knuth 1973:4 But what about a simulation or execution of the real thing? The programmer must translate the algorithm into a language that the simulator/computer/computor can effectively execute. Stone gives an example of this: when computing the roots of a quadratic equation the computor must know how to take a square root. If they don't then for the algorithm to be effective it must provide a set of rules for extracting a square root. Stone 1972:5. Methods for extracting roots are not trivial: see Methods of computing square roots. 

This means that the programmer must know a "language" that is effective relative to the target computing agent (computer/computor).

But what model should be used for the simulation? Van Emde Boas observes "even if we base complexity theory on abstract instead of concrete machines, arbitrariness of the choice of a model remains. It is at this point that the notion of simulation enters". When speed is being measured, the instruction set matters. For example, the subprogram in Euclid's algorithm to compute the remainder would execute much faster if the programmer had a "modulus" (division) instruction available rather than just subtraction (or worse: just Minsky's "decrement").

Structured programming, canonical structures: Per the Church-Turing thesis any algorithm can be computed by a model known to be Turing complete, and per Minsky's demonstrations Turing completeness requires only four instruction types—conditional GOTO, unconditional GOTO, assignment, HALT. Kemeny and Kurtz observe that while "undisciplined" use of unconditional GOTOs and conditional IF-THEN GOTOs can result in "spaghetti code" a programmer can write structured programs using these instructions; on the other hand "it is also possible, and not too hard, to write badly structured programs in a structured language". John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz 1985 Back to Basic: The History, Corruption, and Future of the Language, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. Reading, MA, ISBN 0-201-13433-0. Tausworthe augments the three Böhm-Jacopini canonical structures: Tausworthe 1977:101 SEQUENCE, IF-THEN-ELSE, and WHILE-DO, with two more: DO-WHILE and CASE. Tausworthe 1977:142 An additional benefit of a structured program is that it lends itself to proofs of correctness using mathematical induction. Knuth 1973 section 1.2.1, expanded by Tausworthe 1977 at pages 100ff and Chapter 9.1 

Canonical flowchart symbols cf Tausworthe 1977 : The graphical aide called a flowchart offers a way to describe and document an algorithm (and a computer program of one). Like program flow of a Minsky machine, a flowchart always starts at the top of a page and proceeds down. Its primary symbols are only 4: the directed arrow showing program flow, the rectangle (SEQUENCE, GOTO), the diamond (IF-THEN-ELSE), and the dot (OR-tie). The Böhm-Jacopini canonical structures are made of these primitive shapes. Sub-structures can "nest" in rectangles but only if a single exit occurs from the superstructure. The symbols and their use to build the canonical structures are shown in the diagram.

== Examples ==

=== Algorithm example ===
An animation of the quicksort algorithm sorting an array of randomized values. The red bars mark the pivot element; at the start of the animation, the element farthest to the right hand side is chosen as the pivot.

One of the simplest algorithms is to find the largest number in a (n unsorted) list of numbers. The solution necessarily requires looking at every number in the list, but only once at each. From this follows a simple algorithm, which can be stated in a high-level description English prose, as:

High-level description:
# If there are no numbers in the set then there is no highest number.
# Assume the first number in the set is the largest number in the set.
# For each remaining number in the set: if this number is larger than the current largest number, consider this number to be the largest number in the set.
# When there are no numbers left in the set to iterate over, consider the current largest number to be the largest number of the set.

(Quasi-)formal description:
Written in prose but much closer to the high-level language of a computer program, the following is the more formal coding of the algorithm in pseudocode or pidgin code:

 Input: A list of numbers L.
 Output: The largest number in the list L.

 largest ← null
 for each item in "L"', do
 if item > largest, then
 largest ← item
 return largest

=== Euclid’s algorithm ===

The example-diagram of Euclid's algorithm from T.L. Heath 1908 with more detail added. Euclid does not go beyond a third measuring and gives no numerical examples. Nicomachus gives the example of 49 and 21: "I subtract the less from the greater; 28 is left; then again I subtract from this the same 21 (for this is possible); 7 is left; I subtract this from 21, 14 is left; from which I again subtract 7 (for this is possible); 7 is left, but 7 cannot be subtracted from 7." Heath comments that, "The last phrase is curious, but the meaning of it is obvious enough, as also the meaning of the phrase about ending 'at one and the same number'."(Heath 1908:300).

Euclid’s algorithm appears as Proposition II in Book VII ("Elementary Number Theory") of his Elements. Heath 1908:300; Hawking’s Dover 2005 edition derives from Heath. Euclid poses the problem: "Given two numbers not prime to one another, to find their greatest common measure". He defines "A number be a multitude composed of units": a counting number, a positive integer not including 0. And to "measure" is to place a shorter measuring length s successively (q times) along longer length l until the remaining portion r is less than the shorter length s. " 'Let CD, measuring BF, leave FA less than itself.' This is a neat abbreviation for saying, measure along BA successive lengths equal to CD until a point F is reached such that the length FA remaining is less than CD; in other words, let BF be the largest exact multiple of CD contained in BA" (Heath 1908:297 In modern words, remainder r = l − q*s, q being the quotient, or remainder r is the "modulus", the integer-fractional part left over after the division. For modern treatments using division in the algorithm see Hardy and Wright 1979:180, Knuth 1973:2 (Volume 1), plus more discussion of Euclid's algorithm in Knuth 1969:293-297 (Volume 2). 

For Euclid’s method to succeed, the starting lengths must satisfy two requirements: (i) the lengths must not be 0, AND (ii) the subtraction must be “proper”, a test must guarantee that the smaller of the two numbers is subtracted from the larger (alternately, the two can be equal so their subtraction yields 0).

Euclid's original proof adds a third: the two lengths are not prime to one another. Euclid stipulated this so that he could construct a reductio ad absurdum proof that the two numbers' common measure is in fact the greatest. Euclid covers this question in his Proposition 1. While Nicomachus' algorithm is the same as Euclid's, when the numbers are prime to one another it yields the number "1" for their common measure. So to be precise the following is really Nicomachus' algorithm.

A graphical expression on Euclid's algorithm using example with 1599 and 650.

 1599 = 650*2 + 299
 650 = 299*2 + 52
 299 = 52*5 + 39
 52 = 39*1 + 13
 39 = 13*3 + 0

==== Computer language for Euclid's algorithm ====
Only a few instruction types are required to execute Euclid's algorithm—some logical tests (conditional GOTO), unconditional GOTO, assignment (replacement), and subtraction.
* A location is symbolized by upper case letter(s), e.g. S, A, etc.
* The varying quantity (number) in a location is written in lower case letter(s) and (usually) associated with the location's name. For example, location L at the start might contain the number l = 3009.

==== An inelegant program for Euclid's algorithm ====
"Inelegant" is a translation of Knuth's version of the algorithm with a subtraction-based remainder-loop replacing his use of division (or a "modulus" instruction). Derived from Knuth 1973:2–4. Depending on the two numbers "Inelegant" may compute the g.c.d. in fewer steps than "Elegant".

The following algorithm is framed as Knuth's 4-step version of Euclid's and Nichomachus', but rather than using division to find the remainder it uses successive subtractions of the shorter length s from the remaining length r until r is less than s. The high-level description, shown in boldface, is adapted from Knuth 1973:2–4:

INPUT:
 two locations L and S put the numbers l and s that represent the two lengths: 
 INPUT L, S
 R: make the remaining length r equal to the starting/initial/input length l:
 R ← L

E0: r ≥ s.
 the smaller of the two numbers is in S and the larger in R: 
 IF R > S THEN 
 the contents of L is the larger number so skip over the exchange-steps 4, 5 and 6: 
 GOTO step 6 
 ELSE 
 swap the contents of R and S.
 L ← R (this first step is redundant, but is useful for later discussion).
 R ← S
 S ← L

E1: remainder: Until the remaining length r in R is less than the shorter length s in S, repeatedly subtract the measuring number s in S from the remaining length r in R.
 IF S > R THEN 
 done measuring so 
 GOTO 10 
 ELSE 
 measure again,
 R ← R − S
 : 
 GOTO 7.

E2: the remainder 0?: EITHER (i) the last measure was exact and the remainder in R is 0 program can halt, OR (ii) the algorithm must continue: the last measure left a remainder in R less than measuring number in S.
 IF R = 0 THEN 
 done so 
 GOTO step 15 
 ELSE 
 CONTINUE TO step 11,

E3: s and r: The nut of Euclid's algorithm. Use remainder r to measure what was previously smaller number s:; L serves as a temporary location.
 L ← R
 R ← S
 S ← L
 the measuring process: 
 GOTO 7

OUTPUT:

 S contains the greatest common divisor: 
 PRINT S

DONE:
 HALT, END, STOP.

==== An elegant program for Euclid's algorithm ====
The following version of Euclid's algorithm requires only 6 core instructions to do what 13 are required to do by "Inelegant"; worse, "Inelegant" requires more types of instructions. The flowchart of "Elegant" can be found at the top of this article. In the (unstructured) Basic language the steps are numbered, and the instruction LET [] = [] is the assignment instruction symbolized by ←.

 5 REM Euclid's algorithm for greatest common divisor
 6 PRINT "Type two integers greater than 0"
 10 INPUT A,B
 20 IF B=0 THEN GOTO 80
 30 IF A > B THEN GOTO 60
 40 LET B=B-A
 50 GOTO 20
 60 LET A=A-B
 70 GOTO 20
 80 PRINT A
 90 END

How "Elegant" works: In place of an outer "Euclid loop", "Elegant" shifts back and forth between two "co-loops", an A > B loop that computes A ← A − B, and a B ≤ A loop that computes B ← B − A. This works because, when at last the minuend M is less than or equal to the subtrahend S ( Difference = Minuend − Subtrahend), the minuend can become s (the new measuring length) and the subtrahend can become the new r (the length to be measured); in other words the "sense" of the subtraction reverses.

=== Testing the Euclid algorithms ===
Does an algorithm do what its author wants it to do? A few test cases usually suffice to confirm core functionality. One source uses 3009 and 884. Knuth suggested 40902, 24140. Another interesting case is the two relatively prime numbers 14157 and 5950.

But exceptional cases must be identified and tested. Will "Inelegant" perform properly when R > S, S > R, R = S? Ditto for "Elegant": B > A, A > B, A = B? (Yes to all). What happens when one number is zero, both numbers are zero? ("Inelegant" computes forever in all cases; "Elegant" computes forever when A = 0.) What happens if negative numbers are entered? Fractional numbers? If the input numbers, i.e. the domain of the function computed by the algorithm/program, is to include only positive integers including zero, then the failures at zero indicate that the algorithm (and the program that instantiates it) is a partial function rather than a total function. A notable failure due to exceptions is the Ariane V rocket failure.

Proof of program correctness by use of mathematical induction: Knuth demonstrates the application of mathematical induction to an "extended" version of Euclid's algorithm, and he proposes "a general method applicable to proving the validity of any algorithm". Knuth 1973:13–18. He credits "the formulation of algorithm-proving in terms of asertions and induction" to R. W. Floyd, Peter Naur, C. A. R. Hoare, H. H. Goldstine and J. von Neumann. Tausworth 1977 borrows Knuth's Euclid example and extends Knuth's method in section 9.1 Formal Proofs (pages 288–298). Tausworthe proposes that a measure of the complexity of a program be the length of its correctness proof. Tausworthe 1997:294 

=== Measuring and improving the Euclid algorithms ===
Elegance (compactness) versus goodness (speed): With only 6 core instructions, "Elegant" is the clear winner compared to "Inelegant" at 13 instructions. However, "Inelegant" is faster (it arrives at HALT in fewer steps). Algorithm analysis cf Knuth 1973:7 (Vol. I), and his more-detailed analyses on pp. 1969:294-313 (Vol II). indicates why this is the case: "Elegant" does two conditional tests in every subtraction loop, whereas "Inelegant" only does one. As the algorithm (usually) requires many loop-throughs, on average much time is wasted doing a "B = 0?" test that is needed only after the remainder is computed.

Can the algorithms be improved?: Once the programmer judges a program "fit" and "effective"—that is, it computes the function intended by its author—then the question becomes, can it be improved?

The compactness of "Inelegant" can be improved by the elimination of 5 steps. But Chaitin proved that compacting an algorithm cannot be automated by a generalized algorithm; Breakdown occurs when an algorithm tries to compact itself. Success would solve the Halting problem. rather, it can only be done heuristically, i.e. by exhaustive search (examples to be found at Busy beaver), trial and error, cleverness, insight, application of inductive reasoning, etc. Observe that steps 4, 5 and 6 are repeated in steps 11, 12 and 13. Comparison with "Elegant" provides a hint that these steps together with steps 2 and 3 can be eliminated. This reduces the number of core instructions from 13 to 8, which makes it "more elegant" than "Elegant" at 9 steps.

The speed of "Elegant" can be improved by moving the B=0? test outside of the two subtraction loops. This change calls for the addition of 3 instructions (B=0?, A=0?, GOTO). Now "Elegant" computes the example-numbers faster; whether for any given A, B and R, S this is always the case would require a detailed analysis.

== Algorithmic analysis ==

It is frequently important to know how much of a particular resource (such as time or storage) is theoretically required for a given algorithm. Methods have been developed for the analysis of algorithms to obtain such quantitative answers (estimates); for example, the sorting algorithm above has a time requirement of O(n), using the big O notation with n as the length of the list. At all times the algorithm only needs to remember two values: the largest number found so far, and its current position in the input list. Therefore it is said to have a space requirement of O(1), if the space required to store the input numbers is not counted, or O(n) if it is counted.

Different algorithms may complete the same task with a different set of instructions in less or more time, space, or 'effort' than others. For example, a binary search algorithm usually outperforms a brute force sequential search when used for table lookups on sorted lists.

=== Formal versus empirical ===

The analysis and study of algorithms is a discipline of computer science, and is often practiced abstractly without the use of a specific programming language or implementation. In this sense, algorithm analysis resembles other mathematical disciplines in that it focuses on the underlying properties of the algorithm and not on the specifics of any particular implementation. Usually pseudocode is used for analysis as it is the simplest and most general representation. However, ultimately, most algorithms are usually implemented on particular hardware / software platforms and their algorithmic efficiency is eventually put to the test using real code. For the solution of a "one off" problem, the efficiency of a particular algorithm may not have significant consequences (unless n is extremely large) but for algorithms designed for fast interactive, commercial or long life scientific usage it may be critical. Scaling from small n to large n frequently exposes inefficient algorithms that are otherwise benign.

Empirical testing is useful because it may uncover unexpected interactions that affect performance. Benchmarks may be used to compare before/after potential improvements to an algorithm after program optimization.

=== Execution efficiency ===

To illustrate the potential improvements possible even in well established algorithms, a recent significant innovation, relating to FFT algorithms (used heavily in the field of image processing), can decrease processing time up to 1,000 times for applications like medical imaging. In general, speed improvements depend on special properties of the problem, which are very common in practical applications. Haitham Hassanieh, Piotr Indyk, Dina Katabi, and Eric Price, "ACM-SIAM Symposium On Discrete Algorithms (SODA), Kyoto, January 2012. See also the sFFT Web Page. Speedups of this magnitude enable computing devices that make extensive use of image processing (like digital cameras and medical equipment) to consume less power.

== Classification ==
There are various ways to classify algorithms, each with its own merits.

=== By implementation ===
One way to classify algorithms is by implementation means.

; Recursion or iteration
: A recursive algorithm is one that invokes (makes reference to) itself repeatedly until a certain condition matches, which is a method common to functional programming. Iterative algorithms use repetitive constructs like loops and sometimes additional data structures like stacks to solve the given problems. Some problems are naturally suited for one implementation or the other. For example, towers of Hanoi is well understood using recursive implementation. Every recursive version has an equivalent (but possibly more or less complex) iterative version, and vice versa.
; Logical
: An algorithm may be viewed as controlled logical deduction. This notion may be expressed as: Algorithm = logic + control. Kowalski 1979 The logic component expresses the axioms that may be used in the computation and the control component determines the way in which deduction is applied to the axioms. This is the basis for the logic programming paradigm. In pure logic programming languages the control component is fixed and algorithms are specified by supplying only the logic component. The appeal of this approach is the elegant semantics: a change in the axioms has a well-defined change in the algorithm.
; Serial, parallel or distributed
: Algorithms are usually discussed with the assumption that computers execute one instruction of an algorithm at a time. Those computers are sometimes called serial computers. An algorithm designed for such an environment is called a serial algorithm, as opposed to parallel algorithms or distributed algorithms. Parallel algorithms take advantage of computer architectures where several processors can work on a problem at the same time, whereas distributed algorithms utilize multiple machines connected with a network. Parallel or distributed algorithms divide the problem into more symmetrical or asymmetrical subproblems and collect the results back together. The resource consumption in such algorithms is not only processor cycles on each processor but also the communication overhead between the processors. Some sorting algorithms can be parallelized efficiently, but their communication overhead is expensive. Iterative algorithms are generally parallelizable. Some problems have no parallel algorithms, and are called inherently serial problems.
; Deterministic or non-deterministic
: Deterministic algorithms solve the problem with exact decision at every step of the algorithm whereas non-deterministic algorithms solve problems via guessing although typical guesses are made more accurate through the use of heuristics.
; Exact or approximate
: While many algorithms reach an exact solution, approximation algorithms seek an approximation that is close to the true solution. Approximation may use either a deterministic or a random strategy. Such algorithms have practical value for many hard problems.
; Quantum algorithm
: They run on a realistic model of quantum computation. The term is usually used for those algorithms which seem inherently quantum, or use some essential feature of quantum computation such as quantum superposition or quantum entanglement.

=== By design paradigm ===
Another way of classifying algorithms is by their design methodology or paradigm. There is a certain number of paradigms, each different from the other. Furthermore, each of these categories include many different types of algorithms. Some common paradigms are:

; Brute-force or exhaustive search
: This is the naive method of trying every possible solution to see which is best. 
; Divide and conquer
: A divide and conquer algorithm repeatedly reduces an instance of a problem to one or more smaller instances of the same problem (usually recursively) until the instances are small enough to solve easily. One such example of divide and conquer is merge sorting. Sorting can be done on each segment of data after dividing data into segments and sorting of entire data can be obtained in the conquer phase by merging the segments. A simpler variant of divide and conquer is called a decrease and conquer algorithm, that solves an identical subproblem and uses the solution of this subproblem to solve the bigger problem. Divide and conquer divides the problem into multiple subproblems and so the conquer stage is more complex than decrease and conquer algorithms. An example of decrease and conquer algorithm is the binary search algorithm.
; Search and enumeration
: Many problems (such as playing chess) can be modeled as problems on graphs. A graph exploration algorithm specifies rules for moving around a graph and is useful for such problems. This category also includes search algorithms, branch and bound enumeration and backtracking.
;Randomized algorithm
: Such algorithms make some choices randomly (or pseudo-randomly). They can be very useful in finding approximate solutions for problems where finding exact solutions can be impractical (see heuristic method below). For some of these problems, it is known that the fastest approximations must involve some randomness. For instance, the volume of a convex polytope (described using a membership oracle) can be approximated to high accuracy by a randomized polynomial time algorithm, but not by a deterministic one: see . Whether randomized algorithms with polynomial time complexity can be the fastest algorithms for some problems is an open question known as the P versus NP problem. There are two large classes of such algorithms:
# Monte Carlo algorithms return a correct answer with high-probability. E.g. RP is the subclass of these that run in polynomial time)
# Las Vegas algorithms always return the correct answer, but their running time is only probabilistically bound, e.g. ZPP.
; Reduction of complexity
: This technique involves solving a difficult problem by transforming it into a better known problem for which we have (hopefully) asymptotically optimal algorithms. The goal is to find a reducing algorithm whose complexity is not dominated by the resulting reduced algorithm's. For example, one selection algorithm for finding the median in an unsorted list involves first sorting the list (the expensive portion) and then pulling out the middle element in the sorted list (the cheap portion). This technique is also known as transform and conquer.

=== Optimization problems ===

For optimization problems there is a more specific classification of algorithms; an algorithm for such problems may fall into one or more of the general categories described above as well as into one of the following:

; Linear programming
: When searching for optimal solutions to a linear function bound to linear equality and inequality constrains, the constrains of the problem can be used directly in producing the optimal solutions. There are algorithms that can solve any problem in this category, such as the popular simplex algorithm. 
George B. Dantzig and Mukund N. Thapa. 2003. Linear Programming 2: Theory and Extensions. Springer-Verlag. Problems that can be solved with linear programming include the maximum flow problem for directed graphs. If a problem additionally requires that one or more of the unknowns must be an integer then it is classified in integer programming. A linear programming algorithm can solve such a problem if it can be proved that all restrictions for integer values are superficial, i.e. the solutions satisfy these restrictions anyway. In the general case, a specialized algorithm or an algorithm that finds approximate solutions is used, depending on the difficulty of the problem.
; Dynamic programming
: When a problem shows optimal substructures — meaning the optimal solution to a problem can be constructed from optimal solutions to subproblems — and overlapping subproblems, meaning the same subproblems are used to solve many different problem instances, a quicker approach called dynamic programming avoids recomputing solutions that have already been computed. For example, Floyd–Warshall algorithm, the shortest path to a goal from a vertex in a weighted graph can be found by using the shortest path to the goal from all adjacent vertices. Dynamic programming and memoization go together. The main difference between dynamic programming and divide and conquer is that subproblems are more or less independent in divide and conquer, whereas subproblems overlap in dynamic programming. The difference between dynamic programming and straightforward recursion is in caching or memoization of recursive calls. When subproblems are independent and there is no repetition, memoization does not help; hence dynamic programming is not a solution for all complex problems. By using memoization or maintaining a table of subproblems already solved, dynamic programming reduces the exponential nature of many problems to polynomial complexity.
; The greedy method
: A greedy algorithm is similar to a dynamic programming algorithm in that it works by examining substructures, in this case not of the problem but of a given solution. Such algorithms start with some solution, which may be given or have been constructed in some way, and improve it by making small modifications. For some problems they can find the optimal solution while for others they stop at local optima, that is at solutions that cannot be improved by the algorithm but are not optimum. The most popular use of greedy algorithms is for finding the minimal spanning tree where finding the optimal solution is possible with this method. Huffman Tree, Kruskal, Prim, Sollin are greedy algorithms that can solve this optimization problem.
;The heuristic method
:In optimization problems, heuristic algorithms can be used to find a solution close to the optimal solution in cases where finding the optimal solution is impractical. These algorithms work by getting closer and closer to the optimal solution as they progress. In principle, if run for an infinite amount of time, they will find the optimal solution. Their merit is that they can find a solution very close to the optimal solution in a relatively short time. Such algorithms include local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, and genetic algorithms. Some of them, like simulated annealing, are non-deterministic algorithms while others, like tabu search, are deterministic. When a bound on the error of the non-optimal solution is known, the algorithm is further categorized as an approximation algorithm.

=== By field of study ===

Every field of science has its own problems and needs efficient algorithms. Related problems in one field are often studied together. Some example classes are search algorithms, sorting algorithms, merge algorithms, numerical algorithms, graph algorithms, string algorithms, computational geometric algorithms, combinatorial algorithms, medical algorithms, machine learning, cryptography, data compression algorithms and parsing techniques.

Fields tend to overlap with each other, and algorithm advances in one field may improve those of other, sometimes completely unrelated, fields. For example, dynamic programming was invented for optimization of resource consumption in industry, but is now used in solving a broad range of problems in many fields.

=== By complexity ===

Algorithms can be classified by the amount of time they need to complete compared to their input size. There is a wide variety: some algorithms complete in linear time relative to input size, some do so in an exponential amount of time or even worse, and some never halt. Additionally, some problems may have multiple algorithms of differing complexity, while other problems might have no algorithms or no known efficient algorithms. There are also mappings from some problems to other problems. Owing to this, it was found to be more suitable to classify the problems themselves instead of the algorithms into equivalence classes based on the complexity of the best possible algorithms for them.

Burgin (2005, p. 24) uses a generalized definition of algorithms that relaxes the common requirement that the output of the algorithm that computes a function must be determined after a finite number of steps. He defines a super-recursive class of algorithms as "a class of algorithms in which it is possible to compute functions not computable by any Turing machine" (Burgin 2005, p. 107). This is closely related to the study of methods of hypercomputation.

=== By evaluative type ===

To maintain balance while integrating machines into society, one may classify algorithms by the types of evaluation they perform. A number of philosophers have hypothesized that societies benefit from evaluative diversity much as they benefit from diversity of gender and blood type (e.g. Dean 2012, Sober & Wilson 1998, Hertzke & McConkey 1998, and Bellah 1985). Technology could threaten those moral ecosystems like an invasive species if it skews the diversity mix. Wallach & Allen (2008) classified decision-making algorithms into three evaluative types: Bottom-up algorithms make judgments unpredictable to their programmers (e.g. evolving software). All others (top-down) were divided into deontological (which can be relied upon to implement programmed rules) vs. consequentialist (which can be relied upon to maximize a programmed measure). As examples, a standard calculator would be deontological, while machine learning for trading stocks would be consequentialist.

Santos-Lang renamed the deontological and consequentialist classes "institutional" and "negotiator" respectively to avoid the implication that all deontological and consequentialist theories of ethics can be implemented as algorithms, and split the bottom-up class into "gadfly" (algorithms which are unpredictable because of their use of randomness generators) vs. "relational" (algorithms which are unpredictable because of network effects). A mutator in evolutionary computation would be an example of a gadfly, while a class 3 or 4 cellular automaton would be an example of a relational machine. Santos-Lang noted that algorithms often have subcomponents of other types. For example, a stock trading negotiator may implement a genetic algorithm, and thus contain gadfly mutators, and mutators may in turn have institutional and relational subcomponents, all computation being relational at the level of underlying chemistry (Santos-Lang 2014).

== Continuous algorithms ==
The adjective "continuous" when applied to the word "algorithm" can mean:
* An algorithm operating on data that represents continuous quantities, even though this data is represented by discrete approximations—such algorithms are studied in numerical analysis; or
* An algorithm in the form of a differential equation that operates continuously on the data, running on an analog computer. 

== Legal issues ==
:See also: Software patents for a general overview of the patentability of software, including computer-implemented algorithms.

Algorithms, by themselves, are not usually patentable. In the United States, a claim consisting solely of simple manipulations of abstract concepts, numbers, or signals does not constitute "processes" (USPTO 2006), and hence algorithms are not patentable (as in Gottschalk v. Benson). However, practical applications of algorithms are sometimes patentable. For example, in Diamond v. Diehr, the application of a simple feedback algorithm to aid in the curing of synthetic rubber was deemed patentable. The patenting of software is highly controversial, and there are highly criticized patents involving algorithms, especially data compression algorithms, such as Unisys' LZW patent.

Additionally, some cryptographic algorithms have export restrictions (see export of cryptography).

== Etymology ==
The word "Algorithm", or "Algorism" in some other writing versions, comes from the name al-Khwārizmī, pronounced in classical Arabic as Al-Khwarithmi. Al-Khwārizmī (, c. 780-850) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer and a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, whose name means "the native of Khwarezm", a city that was part of the Greater Iran during his era and now is in modern day Uzbekistan. About 825, he wrote a treatise in the Arabic language, which was translated into Latin in the 12th century under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum. This title means "Algoritmi on the numbers of the Indians", where "Algoritmi" was the translator's Latinization of Al-Khwarizmi's name. Al-Khwarizmi was the most widely read mathematician in Europe in the late Middle Ages, primarily through his other book, the Algebra. Foremost mathematical texts in history, according to Carl B. Boyer. In late medieval Latin, algorismus, the corruption of his name, simply meant the "decimal number system" that is still the meaning of modern English algorism. In 17th-century French the word's form, but not its meaning, changed to algorithme. English adopted the French very soon afterwards, but it wasn't until the late 19th century that "Algorithm" took on the meaning that it has in modern English. Etymology of algorithm at Dictionary.Reference.com 

Alternative etymology claims origin from the terms algebra in its late medieval sense of "Arabic arithmetics" and arithmos the Greek term for number (thus literally meaning "Arabic numbers" or "Arabic calculation"). Algorithms of Al-Kharizmi's works are not meant in their modern sense but as a type of repetitive calculus (here is to mention that his fundamental work known as algebra was originally titled "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing" describing types of repetitive calculation and quadratic equations). In that sense, algorithms were known in Europe long before Al-Kharizmi. The oldest algorithm known today is the Euclidean algorithm (see also Extended Euclidean algorithm). Before the coining of the term algorithm the Greeks were calling them anthyphairesis literally meaning anti-subtraction or reciprocal subtraction (further reading here and here). Algorithms were known to the Greeks centuries before Becker O (1933). "Eudoxus-Studien I. Eine voreuklidische Proportionslehre und ihre Spuren bei Aristoteles und Euklid". Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik B 2: 311–333. Euclid. Instead of the word algebra the Greeks were using the term arithmetica (ἀριθμητική, i.e. in Diophantus' works the so-called "father of Algebra" - see also Wikipedia's articles Diophantine equation and Eudoxos).

== History: Development of the notion of "algorithm" ==

=== Origin ===
The word algorithm comes from the name of the 9th century Persian mathematician Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, whose work built upon that of the 7th-century Indian mathematician Brahmagupta. The word algorism originally referred only to the rules of performing arithmetic using Hindu–Arabic numerals but evolved via European Latin translation of Al-Khwarizmi's name into algorithm by the 18th century. The use of the word evolved to include all definite procedures for solving problems or performing tasks. 

=== Discrete and distinguishable symbols ===
Tally-marks: To keep track of their flocks, their sacks of grain and their money the ancients used tallying: accumulating stones or marks scratched on sticks, or making discrete symbols in clay. Through the Babylonian and Egyptian use of marks and symbols, eventually Roman numerals and the abacus evolved (Dilson, p. 16–41). Tally marks appear prominently in unary numeral system arithmetic used in Turing machine and Post–Turing machine computations.

=== Manipulation of symbols as "place holders" for numbers: algebra ===
The work of the ancient Greek geometers (Euclidean algorithm), the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, and the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi (from whose name the terms "algorism" and "algorithm" are derived), and Western European mathematicians culminated in Leibniz's notion of the calculus ratiocinator (ca 1680):

=== Mechanical contrivances with discrete states ===
The clock: Bolter credits the invention of the weight-driven clock as "The key invention Europe in the Middle Ages", in particular the verge escapement Bolter 1984:24 that provides us with the tick and tock of a mechanical clock. "The accurate automatic machine" Bolter 1984:26 led immediately to "mechanical automata" beginning in the 13th century and finally to "computational machines"—the difference engine and analytical engines of Charles Babbage and Countess Ada Lovelace, mid-19th century. Bolter 1984:33–34, 204–206. Lovelace is credited with the first creation of an algorithm intended for processing on a computer - Babbage's analytical engine, the first device considered a real Turing-complete computer instead of just a calculator - and is sometimes called "history's first programmer" as a result, though a full implementation of Babbage's second device would not be realized until decades after her lifetime.

Logical machines 1870—Stanley Jevons' "logical abacus" and "logical machine": The technical problem was to reduce Boolean equations when presented in a form similar to what are now known as Karnaugh maps. Jevons (1880) describes first a simple "abacus" of "slips of wood furnished with pins, contrived so that any part or class of the combinations can be picked out mechanically . . . More recently however I have reduced the system to a completely mechanical form, and have thus embodied the whole of the indirect process of inference in what may be called a Logical Machine" His machine came equipped with "certain moveable wooden rods" and "at the foot are 21 keys like those of a piano . . .". With this machine he could analyze a "syllogism or any other simple logical argument". All quotes from W. Stanley Jevons 1880 Elementary Lessons in Logic: Deductive and Inductive, Macmillan and Co., London and New York. Republished as a googlebook; cf Jevons 1880:199–201. Louis Couturat 1914 the Algebra of Logic, The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago and London. Republished as a googlebook; cf Couturat 1914:75–76 gives a few more details; interestingly he compares this to a typewriter as well as a piano. Jevons states that the account is to be found at Jan . 20, 1870 The Proceedings of the Royal Society. 

This machine he displayed in 1870 before the Fellows of the Royal Society. Jevons 1880:199–200 Another logician John Venn, however, in his 1881 Symbolic Logic, turned a jaundiced eye to this effort: "I have no high estimate myself of the interest or importance of what are sometimes called logical machines ... it does not seem to me that any contrivances at present known or likely to be discovered really deserve the name of logical machines"; see more at Algorithm characterizations. But not to be outdone he too presented "a plan somewhat analogous, I apprehend, to Prof. Jevon's abacus ... gain, corresponding to Prof. Jevons's logical machine, the following contrivance may be described. I prefer to call it merely a logical-diagram machine ... but I suppose that it could do very completely all that can be rationally expected of any logical machine". All quotes from John Venn 1881 Symbolic Logic, Macmillan and Co., London. Republished as a googlebook. cf Venn 1881:120–125. The interested reader can find a deeper explanation in those pages. 

Jacquard loom, Hollerith punch cards, telegraphy and telephony—the electromechanical relay: Bell and Newell (1971) indicate that the Jacquard loom (1801), precursor to Hollerith cards (punch cards, 1887), and "telephone switching technologies" were the roots of a tree leading to the development of the first computers. Bell and Newell diagram 1971:39, cf. Davis 2000 By the mid-19th century the telegraph, the precursor of the telephone, was in use throughout the world, its discrete and distinguishable encoding of letters as "dots and dashes" a common sound. By the late 19th century the ticker tape (ca 1870s) was in use, as was the use of Hollerith cards in the 1890 U.S. census. Then came the teleprinter (ca. 1910) with its punched-paper use of Baudot code on tape.

Telephone-switching networks of electromechanical relays (invented 1835) was behind the work of George Stibitz (1937), the inventor of the digital adding device. As he worked in Bell Laboratories, he observed the "burdensome' use of mechanical calculators with gears. "He went home one evening in 1937 intending to test his idea... When the tinkering was over, Stibitz had constructed a binary adding device". * Melina Hill, Valley News Correspondent, A Tinkerer Gets a Place in History, Valley News West Lebanon NH, Thursday March 31, 1983, page 13. 

Davis (2000) observes the particular importance of the electromechanical relay (with its two "binary states" open and closed):
: It was only with the development, beginning in the 1930s, of electromechanical calculators using electrical relays, that machines were built having the scope Babbage had envisioned." Davis 2000:14 

=== Mathematics during the 19th century up to the mid-20th century ===
Symbols and rules: In rapid succession the mathematics of George Boole (1847, 1854), Gottlob Frege (1879), and Giuseppe Peano (1888–1889) reduced arithmetic to a sequence of symbols manipulated by rules. Peano's The principles of arithmetic, presented by a new method (1888) was "the first attempt at an axiomatization of mathematics in a symbolic language". van Heijenoort 1967:81ff 

But Heijenoort gives Frege (1879) this kudos: Frege's is "perhaps the most important single work ever written in logic. ... in which we see a " 'formula language', that is a lingua characterica, a language written with special symbols, "for pure thought", that is, free from rhetorical embellishments ... constructed from specific symbols that are manipulated according to definite rules". van Heijenoort's commentary on Frege's Begriffsschrift, a formula language, modeled upon that of arithmetic, for pure thought in van Heijenoort 1967:1 The work of Frege was further simplified and amplified by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell in their Principia Mathematica (1910–1913).

The paradoxes: At the same time a number of disturbing paradoxes appeared in the literature, in particular the Burali-Forti paradox (1897), the Russell paradox (1902–03), and the Richard Paradox. Dixon 1906, cf. Kleene 1952:36–40 The resultant considerations led to Kurt Gödel's paper (1931)—he specifically cites the paradox of the liar—that completely reduces rules of recursion to numbers.

Effective calculability: In an effort to solve the Entscheidungsproblem defined precisely by Hilbert in 1928, mathematicians first set about to define what was meant by an "effective method" or "effective calculation" or "effective calculability" (i.e., a calculation that would succeed). In rapid succession the following appeared: Alonzo Church, Stephen Kleene and J.B. Rosser's λ-calculus cf. footnote in Alonzo Church 1936a in Davis 1965:90 and 1936b in Davis 1965:110 a finely honed definition of "general recursion" from the work of Gödel acting on suggestions of Jacques Herbrand (cf. Gödel's Princeton lectures of 1934) and subsequent simplifications by Kleene. Kleene 1935–6 in Davis 1965:237ff, Kleene 1943 in Davis 1965:255ff Church's proof Church 1936 in Davis 1965:88ff that the Entscheidungsproblem was unsolvable, Emil Post's definition of effective calculability as a worker mindlessly following a list of instructions to move left or right through a sequence of rooms and while there either mark or erase a paper or observe the paper and make a yes-no decision about the next instruction. cf. "Formulation I", Post 1936 in Davis 1965:289–290 Alan Turing's proof of that the Entscheidungsproblem was unsolvable by use of his "a- machine" Turing 1936–7 in Davis 1965:116ff —in effect almost identical to Post's "formulation", J. Barkley Rosser's definition of "effective method" in terms of "a machine". Rosser 1939 in Davis 1965:226 S. C. Kleene's proposal of a precursor to "Church thesis" that he called "Thesis I", Kleene 1943 in Davis 1965:273–274 and a few years later Kleene's renaming his Thesis "Church's Thesis" Kleene 1952:300, 317 and proposing "Turing's Thesis". Kleene 1952:376 

=== Emil Post (1936) and Alan Turing (1936–37, 1939) ===
Here is a remarkable coincidence of two men not knowing each other but describing a process of men-as-computers working on computations—and they yield virtually identical definitions.

Emil Post (1936) described the actions of a "computer" (human being) as follows:
:"...two concepts are involved: that of a symbol space in which the work leading from problem to answer is to be carried out, and a fixed unalterable set of directions.

His symbol space would be
:"a two way infinite sequence of spaces or boxes... The problem solver or worker is to move and work in this symbol space, being capable of being in, and operating in but one box at a time.... a box is to admit of but two possible conditions, i.e., being empty or unmarked, and having a single mark in it, say a vertical stroke.

:"One box is to be singled out and called the starting point. ...a specific problem is to be given in symbolic form by a finite number of boxes INPUT being marked with a stroke. Likewise the answer OUTPUT is to be given in symbolic form by such a configuration of marked boxes....

:"A set of directions applicable to a general problem sets up a deterministic process when applied to each specific problem. This process terminates only when it comes to the direction of type (C ) STOP". Turing 1936–7 in Davis 1965:289–290 See more at Post–Turing machine
Alan Turing's statue at Bletchley Park.
Alan Turing's work Turing 1936 in Davis 1965, Turing 1939 in Davis 1965:160 preceded that of Stibitz (1937); it is unknown whether Stibitz knew of the work of Turing. Turing's biographer believed that Turing's use of a typewriter-like model derived from a youthful interest: "Alan had dreamt of inventing typewriters as a boy; Mrs. Turing had a typewriter; and he could well have begun by asking himself what was meant by calling a typewriter 'mechanical'". Hodges, p. 96 Given the prevalence of Morse code and telegraphy, ticker tape machines, and teletypewriters we might conjecture that all were influences.

Turing—his model of computation is now called a Turing machine—begins, as did Post, with an analysis of a human computer that he whittles down to a simple set of basic motions and "states of mind". But he continues a step further and creates a machine as a model of computation of numbers. Turing 1936–7:116 

:"Computing is normally done by writing certain symbols on paper. We may suppose this paper is divided into squares like a child's arithmetic book....I assume then that the computation is carried out on one-dimensional paper, i.e., on a tape divided into squares. I shall also suppose that the number of symbols which may be printed is finite....

:"The behaviour of the computer at any moment is determined by the symbols which he is observing, and his "state of mind" at that moment. We may suppose that there is a bound B to the number of symbols or squares which the computer can observe at one moment. If he wishes to observe more, he must use successive observations. We will also suppose that the number of states of mind which need be taken into account is finite...

:"Let us imagine that the operations performed by the computer to be split up into 'simple operations' which are so elementary that it is not easy to imagine them further divided." Turing 1936–7 in Davis 1965:136 

Turing's reduction yields the following:
:"The simple operations must therefore include:
::"(a) Changes of the symbol on one of the observed squares
::"(b) Changes of one of the squares observed to another square within L squares of one of the previously observed squares.
"It may be that some of these change necessarily invoke a change of state of mind. The most general single operation must therefore be taken to be one of the following:
::"(A) A possible change (a) of symbol together with a possible change of state of mind.
::"(B) A possible change (b) of observed squares, together with a possible change of state of mind"

:"We may now construct a machine to do the work of this computer." 

A few years later, Turing expanded his analysis (thesis, definition) with this forceful expression of it:
:"A function is said to be "effectively calculable" if its values can be found by some purely mechanical process. Though it is fairly easy to get an intuitive grasp of this idea, it is nevertheless desirable to have some more definite, mathematical expressible definition . . . discusses the history of the definition pretty much as presented above with respect to Gödel, Herbrand, Kleene, Church, Turing and Post . . . We may take this statement literally, understanding by a purely mechanical process one which could be carried out by a machine. It is possible to give a mathematical description, in a certain normal form, of the structures of these machines. The development of these ideas leads to the author's definition of a computable function, and to an identification of computability † with effective calculability . . . .
::"† We shall use the expression "computable function" to mean a function calculable by a machine, and we let "effectively calculable" refer to the intuitive idea without particular identification with any one of these definitions". Turing 1939 in Davis 1965:160 

=== J. B. Rosser (1939) and S. C. Kleene (1943) ===
J. Barkley Rosser defined an 'effective method' in the following manner (italicization added):
:"'Effective method' is used here in the rather special sense of a method each step of which is precisely determined and which is certain to produce the answer in a finite number of steps. With this special meaning, three different precise definitions have been given to date. footnote #5; see discussion immediately below. The simplest of these to state (due to Post and Turing) says essentially that an effective method of solving certain sets of problems exists if one can build a machine which will then solve any problem of the set with no human intervention beyond inserting the question and (later) reading the answer. All three definitions are equivalent, so it doesn't matter which one is used. Moreover, the fact that all three are equivalent is a very strong argument for the correctness of any one." (Rosser 1939:225–6)

Rosser's footnote #5 references the work of (1) Church and Kleene and their definition of λ-definability, in particular Church's use of it in his An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory (1936); (2) Herbrand and Gödel and their use of recursion in particular Gödel's use in his famous paper On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I (1931); and (3) Post (1936) and Turing (1936–7) in their mechanism-models of computation.

Stephen C. Kleene defined as his now-famous "Thesis I" known as the Church–Turing thesis. But he did this in the following context (boldface in original):
:"12. Algorithmic theories... In setting up a complete algorithmic theory, what we do is to describe a procedure, performable for each set of values of the independent variables, which procedure necessarily terminates and in such manner that from the outcome we can read a definite answer, "yes" or "no," to the question, "is the predicate value true?"" (Kleene 1943:273)

=== History after 1950 ===
A number of efforts have been directed toward further refinement of the definition of "algorithm", and activity is on-going because of issues surrounding, in particular, foundations of mathematics (especially the Church–Turing thesis) and philosophy of mind (especially arguments around artificial intelligence). For more, see Algorithm characterizations.

== See also ==

* Abstract machine
* Algorithm engineering
* Algorithmic composition
* Algorithmic synthesis
* Algorithmic trading
* Garbage in, garbage out
* Introduction to Algorithms
* List of algorithm general topics
* List of important publications in theoretical computer science - Algorithms
* Numerical Mathematics Consortium
* Theory of computation
** Computability theory
** Computational complexity theory

== Notes ==

== References ==

* Axt, P. (1959) On a Subrecursive Hierarchy and Primitive Recursive Degrees, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 92, pp. 85–105
* Bell, C. Gordon and Newell, Allen (1971), Computer Structures: Readings and Examples, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. ISBN 0-07-004357-4.
* 
* Includes an excellent bibliography of 56 references.
* : cf. Chapter 3 Turing machines where they discuss "certain enumerable sets not effectively (mechanically) enumerable".
* 
* Campagnolo, M.L., Moore, C., and Costa, J.F. (2000) An analog characterization of the subrecursive functions. In Proc. of the 4th Conference on Real Numbers and Computers, Odense University, pp. 91–109
* Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 89ff. The first expression of "Church's Thesis". See in particular page 100 (The Undecidable) where he defines the notion of "effective calculability" in terms of "an algorithm", and he uses the word "terminates", etc.
* Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 110ff. Church shows that the Entscheidungsproblem is unsolvable in about 3 pages of text and 3 pages of footnotes.
* 
* Davis gives commentary before each article. Papers of Gödel, Alonzo Church, Turing, Rosser, Kleene, and Emil Post are included; those cited in the article are listed here by author's name.
* Davis offers concise biographies of Leibniz, Boole, Frege, Cantor, Hilbert, Gödel and Turing with von Neumann as the show-stealing villain. Very brief bios of Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Claude Shannon, Howard Aiken, etc.
* 
* 
* 
* Yuri Gurevich, Sequential Abstract State Machines Capture Sequential Algorithms, ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, Vol 1, no 1 (July 2000), pages 77–111. Includes bibliography of 33 sources.
* 
* Presented to the American Mathematical Society, September 1935. Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 237ff. Kleene's definition of "general recursion" (known now as mu-recursion) was used by Church in his 1935 paper An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory that proved the "decision problem" to be "undecidable" (i.e., a negative result).
* Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 255ff. Kleene refined his definition of "general recursion" and proceeded in his chapter "12. Algorithmic theories" to posit "Thesis I" (p. 274); he would later repeat this thesis (in Kleene 1952:300) and name it "Church's Thesis"(Kleene 1952:317) (i.e., the Church thesis).
* Excellent—accessible, readable—reference source for mathematical "foundations".
* 
* 
* Kosovsky, N. K. Elements of Mathematical Logic and its Application to the theory of Subrecursive Algorithms, LSU Publ., Leningrad, 1981
* 
* A. A. Markov (1954) Theory of algorithms. by Jacques J. Schorr-Kon and PST staff Imprint Moscow, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1954 Jerusalem, Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1961; available from the Office of Technical Services, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington Description 444 p. 28 cm. Added t.p. in Russian Translation of Works of the Mathematical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, v. 42. Original title: Teoriya algerifmov. Dartmouth College library. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Office of Technical Services, number OTS 60-51085.
* Minsky expands his "...idea of an algorithm—an effective procedure..." in chapter 5.1 Computability, Effective Procedures and Algorithms. Infinite machines.
* Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 289ff. Post defines a simple algorithmic-like process of a man writing marks or erasing marks and going from box to box and eventually halting, as he follows a list of simple instructions. This is cited by Kleene as one source of his "Thesis I", the so-called Church–Turing thesis.
* 
* Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 223ff. Herein is Rosser's famous definition of "effective method": "...a method each step of which is precisely predetermined and which is certain to produce the answer in a finite number of steps... a machine which will then solve any problem of the set with no human intervention beyond inserting the question and (later) reading the answer" (p. 225–226, The Undecidable)
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Cf. in particular the first chapter titled: Algorithms, Turing Machines, and Programs. His succinct informal definition: "...any sequence of instructions that can be obeyed by a robot, is called an algorithm" (p. 4).
* 
* . Corrections, ibid, vol. 43(1937) pp. 544–546. Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 116ff. Turing's famous paper completed as a Master's dissertation while at King's College Cambridge UK.
* Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 155ff. Turing's paper that defined "the oracle" was his PhD thesis while at Princeton USA.
* 
* United States Patent and Trademark Office (2006), 2106.02 **>Mathematical Algorithms: 2100 Patentability, Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP). Latest revision August 2006

=== Secondary references ===
* , ISBN 0-8078-4108-0 pbk.
* , ISBN 0-312-10409-X (pbk.)
* , 3rd edition 1976, ISBN 0-674-32449-8 (pbk.)
* , ISBN 0-671-49207-1. Cf. Chapter "The Spirit of Truth" for a history leading to, and a discussion of, his proof.

== Further reading ==

* 
* 
* Knuth, Donald E. (2000). Selected Papers on Analysis of Algorithms. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
* Knuth, Donald E. (2010). Selected Papers on Design of Algorithms. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
* 
* 

== External links ==

* 
* 
* 
* Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures—National Institute of Standards and Technology
* Algorithms and Data Structures by Dr Nikolai Bezroukov
; Algorithm repositories
* The Stony Brook Algorithm Repository—State University of New York at Stony Brook
* Netlib Repository—University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
* Collected Algorithms of the ACM—Association for Computing Machinery
* The Stanford GraphBase—Stanford University
* Combinatorica—University of Iowa and State University of New York at Stony Brook
* Library of Efficient Datastructures and Algorithms (LEDA)—previously from Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
* Archive of Interesting Code
* A semantic wiki to collect, categorize and relate all algorithms and data structures
; Lecture notes
* Algorithms Course Materials. Jeff Erickson. University of Illinois.
; Community
* Algorithms on Google+

 



[[Annual plant]]

Peas are an annual plant.
An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seed, within one year, and then dies. Summer annuals germinate during spring or early summer and mature by autumn of the same year. Winter annuals germinate during the autumn and mature during the spring or summer of the following calendar year. http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/files/line_drawings.htm 

One seed-to-seed life cycle for an annual can occur in as little as a month in some species, though most last several months. Oilseed rapa can go from seed-to-seed in about five weeks under a bank of fluorescent lamps. This style of growing is often used in classrooms for education. Many desert annuals are theropytes, because their seed-to-seed life cycle is only weeks and they spend most of the year as seeds to survive dry conditions.
__TOC__

==Cultivation==
In cultivation, many food plants are, or are grown as, annuals, including virtually all domesticated grains. Some perennials and biennials are grown in gardens as annuals for convenience, particularly if they are not considered cold hardy for the local climate. Carrot, celery and parsley are true biennials that are usually grown as annual crops for their edible roots, petioles and leaves, respectively. Tomato, sweet potato and bell pepper are tender perennials usually grown as annuals. Ornamental perennials commonly grown as annuals are impatiens, wax begonia, snapdragon, Pelargonium, coleus and petunia. Examples of true annuals include corn, wheat, rice, lettuce, peas, watermelon, beans, zinnia and marigold.

==Summer==
Summer annuals sprout, flower, produce seed, and die, during the warmer months of the year.

The lawn weed crabgrass is a summer annual.

==Winter==
Winter annuals germinate in autumn or winter, live through the winter, then bloom in winter or spring.

The plants grow and bloom during the cool season when most other plants are dormant or other annuals are in seed form waiting for warmer weather to germinate. Winter annuals die after flowering and setting seed. The seeds germinate in the autumn or winter when the soil temperature is cool.

Winter annuals typically grow low to the ground, where they are usually sheltered from the coldest nights by snow cover, and make use of warm periods in winter for growth when the snow melts. Some common winter annuals include henbit, deadnettle, chickweed, and winter cress.

Winter annuals are important ecologically, as they provide vegetative cover that prevents soil erosion during winter and early spring when no other cover exists and they provide fresh vegetation for animals and birds that feed on them. Although they are often considered to be weeds in gardens, this viewpoint is not always necessary, as most of them die when the soil temperature warms up again in early to late spring when other plants are still dormant and have not yet leafed out.

Even though they do not compete directly with cultivated plants, sometimes winter annuals are considered a pest in commercial agriculture, because they can be hosts for insect pests or fungal diseases (ovary smut – Microbotryum sp) which attack crops being cultivated. Ironically, the property that they prevent the soil from drying out can also be problematic for commercial agriculture.

==Molecular genetics==
In 2008, it was discovered that the inactivation of only two genes in one species of annual plant leads to the conversion into a perennial plant. Researchers deactivated the SOC1 and FUL genes in Arabidopsis thaliana, which control flowering time. This switch established phenotypes common in perennial plants, such as wood formation.

==See also==
*Biennial plant
*Perennial plant

==References==

==External links==

 

[[Anthophyta]]

The anthophytes were thought to be a clade comprising plants bearing flower-like structures. The group contained the angiosperms - the extant flowering plants - as well as the Gnetales and the extinct Bennettitales. It also includes such plants as roses, tulips, and common plants found to have flower structures.

Detailed morphological and molecular studies have shown that the group is not actually monophyletic, with proposed floral homologies of the gnetophytes and the angiosperms having evolved in parallel. This makes it easier to reconcile molecular clock data that suggests that the angiosperms diverged from the gymnosperms around . 

Some more recent studies have used the word anthophyte to describe a group which includes the angiosperms and a variety of fossils (glossopterids, Pentoxylon, Bennettitales, and Caytonia), but not the Gnetales. 

==References==



[[Atlas (disambiguation)]]

An atlas is a collection of maps.

Atlas may also refer to:

==Mythology==
* Atlas (mythology), a deity who held up the celestial sphere
* Atlas of Mauretania, a king skilled in astronomy
* Atlas, a son of Poseidon

==Businesses==
* Atlas Bank
* Atlas Consortium, a group of technology companies
* Atlas Copco, Swedish company founded in 1873
* Atlas Corporation, an investment company
* Atlas Economic Research Foundation
* Atlas Elektronik, a German naval/marine electronics and systems business
* Atlas Group, a Pakistani business group
* Atlas Press (tool company)
* Atlas Solutions, a subsidiary of Facebook for digital online advertising, formerly owned by Microsoft
* Atlas Telecom, a worldwide communications company
* Atlas Van Lines, a moving company
* Atlas-Imperial, an American diesel engine manufacturer
* Dresser Atlas, a provider of oilfield and factory automation services
* STN Atlas, a German defence company
* Tele Atlas, a Dutch mapping company
* Western Atlas, an oilfield services company

==Computing==
* Atlas (computer), an early supercomputer, built in the 1960s
* Atlas (robot), a humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics and DARPA
* ATLAS Transformation Language
* Atlas.ti, a qualitative analysis program
* Texture atlas
* Abbreviated Test Language for All Systems, a MILSPEC language for avionics equipment testing
* Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software
* UNIVAC 1101, an early American computer, built in the 1950s
* ASP.NET AJAX (formerly "Atlas"), a set of ASP.NET extensions
* Atlas, a computer used at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2006

==Entertainment==

===Music===
* Atlas (band), a New Zealand rock band
* Atlas (Real Estate album)
* Atlas (Kinky album)
* Atlas (Parkway Drive album)
* Atlas (RÜFÜS album)
* "Atlas" (Battles song), 2007 song by Battles on the album Mirrored
* "Atlas" (Coldplay song), 2013 song by Coldplay from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack
* Atlas (opera), 1991 opera by Meredith Monk
**, 1993 recording of Monk's opera

===Video games===
* The Atlas (video game)
* Atlas Games, a game publisher
* Atlas Terrain Engine, part of a game engine
* Task Force Atlas, a Polish GROM task force in the video game 
===Literature and publishing===
* Atlas (DC Comics)
* Atlas (Drawn and Quarterly), a comic book series by Dylan Horrocks
* Atlas (magazine)
* The Atlas (novel), by William T. Vollmann
* Atlas Comics (1950s), a publisher
* Atlas/Seaboard Comics, a 1970s line of comics
* Atlas Press, a UK publisher
* Agents of Atlas, a Marvel Comics mini-series
* Atlas, a photography book by Gerhard Richter
* Atlas folio, a book size
* Atlas Shrugged, a novel by Ayn Rand

===Fictional characters===
* Erik Josten, aka Atlas, a Marvel Comics supervillain
* Atlas, an Astro Boy character
* Atlas, a BioShock character
* Atlas, a Portal 2 character
* Atlas, a PS238 character
* Atlas (Teen Titans), Teen Titans character
* Atlas, an antagonist in Mega Man ZX Advent

===Sport===
* Club Atlas, a Mexican professional football club
* Club Atlético Atlas, an Argentine amateur football club
*Tony Atlas, wrestler
*Charles Atlas, wrestler

===Other entertainment===
* Atlas (film)
* Atlas Media Corp., a non-fiction entertainment company
* RTV Atlas, a broadcaster in Montenegro
* Advanced Technology Leisure Application Simulator, a hydraulic motion simulator used in theme parks
* Atlas, a BattleMech in the BattleTech universe

==Geography==
* Atlas, California
* Atlas, Illinois
*Atlas, West Virginia
* Atlas, Wisconsin
* Atlas District, an area in Washington, D.C.
* Atlas Mountains, a set of mountain ranges in Africa
* Atlas Township, Michigan
* Atlas Peak AVA, a California wine region

==Outer space==
* Atlas (crater)
* Atlas (moon), a moon of Saturn
* Atlas (rocket family)
* Atlas (star)
* Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope
* Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System

==Physics==
* ATLAS experiment, a particle detector for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN
* Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System, a linear accelerator at the Argonne National Laboratory
* Atomic-terrace low-angle shadowing, a nanofabrication technique

==Plants and animals==
* A book about flora and/or fauna of a region, such as atlases of the flora and fauna of Britain and Ireland
* Atlas bear
* Atlas beetle
* Atlas Cedar
* Atlas Pied Flycatcher, a bird
* Atlas moth
* Atlas Turtle

==Transport==

===Aviation===
* Atlas Air, an American cargo airline
* Atlas Aircraft, a 1940s aircraft manufacturer
* Atlas Aircraft Corporation, a South African military aircraft manufacturer
* Atlas Aviation, an aircraft maintenance firm
* Atlas Blue, a Moroccan low-cost airline
* Airbus A400M Atlas, a military aircraft produced 2007–present
* Armstrong Whitworth Atlas, a British military aeroplane produced 1927–1933
* Birdman Atlas, an ultralight aircraft
* La Mouette Atlas, a French hang glider design
* Atlasjet, a Turkish airline
* HMLAT-303, U.S. Marine Corps helicopter training squadron
* AeroVelo Atlas, a human-powered helicopter

===Trains===
* Atlas Car and Manufacturing Company, a locomotive manufacturer
* Atlas Model Railroad
* Atlas, an 1863–1885 South Devon Railway Dido class locomotive
* Atlas, a 1927–1962 LMS Royal Scot Class locomotive

===Ships and boats===
* , the name of several U.S. Navy ships
* , the name of several Royal Navy ships
* ST Atlas, a Swedish tugboat
* Atlas Werke, a German shipbuilder

===Automotive===
* Atlas (1951 automobile), a French mini-car
* Atlas (light trucks), a Greek motor vehicle manufacturer
* Atlas (Pittsburgh automobile), produced 1906–1907
* Atlas (Springfield automobile), produced 1907–1913
* Atlas Motor Buggy, an American highwheeler produced in 1909
* GM Atlas engine
* Nissan Atlas, a Japanese light truck
* Honda Atlas Cars Pakistan, a Pakistani car manufacturer
* Atlas, a British van by the Standard Motor Company produced 1958–1962
* Atlas Drop Forge Company, a parts subsidiary of REO Motor Car Company

==People==
* Atlas DaBone, American wrestler and football player
* Charles Atlas (1892–1972), Italian-American bodybuilder
* David Atlas (born 1924), American meteorologist who pioneered weather radar
* James Atlas (born 1949), American writer, editor and publisher
* Meir Atlas (1848–1926), Lithuanian rabbi
* Natacha Atlas (born 1964), Belgian singer
* Teddy Atlas (born 1956), American boxing trainer and commentator
* Tony Atlas (born 1954), American wrestler and bodybuilder

==Other uses==
* Atlas (anatomy), part of the spine
* Atlas (architecture)
* ATLAS (simulation) (Army Tactical Level Advanced Simulation), a Thai military system
* Atlas (topology), a set of charts
* ATLAS of Finite Groups, a group theory book
* Atlas languages
* Atlas Network, a network of European special police units
* Atlas Uranium Mill
* Atlas (storm), which hit the Midwestern United States in October 2013, named by The Weather Channel
* Agrupación de Trabajadores Latinoamericanos Sindicalistas

==See also==
* 



[[Mouthwash]]

Mouthwash, mouth rinse, oral rinse or mouth bath, is a liquid which is held in the mouth passively or swilled around the mouth by contraction of the perioral muscles and/or movement of the head, and may be gargled, where the head is tilted back and the liquid bubbled at the back of the mouth.

Usually mouthwashes are an antiseptic solution intended to reduce the microbial load in the oral cavity, although other mouthwashes might be given for other reasons such as for their analgesic, anti-inflammatory or anti-fungal action.

The most common use of mouthwash is commercial antiseptics which are used at home as part of an oral hygiene routine. Some manufacturers of mouthwash claim that antiseptic and anti-plaque mouth rinse kill the bacterial plaque which causes cavities, gingivitis, and bad breath. Anti-cavity mouth rinse uses fluoride to protect against tooth decay. It is, however, generally agreed that the use of mouthwash does not eliminate the need for both brushing and flossing. The American Dental Association asserts that regular brushing and proper flossing are enough in most cases, although they approve many mouthwashes that do not contain alcohol (in addition to regular dental check-ups). Simple Routine for Basic Oral Care Another common use of mouthwash is prior to and after oral surgery procedures such as tooth extraction.

==Use==
Common use involves rinsing the mouth with about 20ml (2/3 fl oz) of mouthwash. The wash is typically swished or gargled for about half a minute and then spit out. Most companies suggest not drinking water immediately after using mouthwash. In some brands, the expectorate is stained, so that one can see the bacteria and debris. Mouthwash should not be used immediately after brushing the teeth so as not to wash away the beneficial fluoride residue left from the toothpaste. Similarly, the mouth should not be rinsed out with water after brushing. Patients were told to "spit don't rinse" after toothbrushing as part of an National Health Service campaign in the UK. 

Gargling is where the head is tilted back, allowing the mouthwash to sit in the back of the mouth while exhaling, causing the liquid to bubble. Gargling is practiced in Japan for perceived prevention of viral infection. One commonly used way is with infusions or tea. In some cultures, gargling is usually done in private, typically in a bathroom at a sink so the liquid can be rinsed away.

==Typical formulation of commercial mouthwashes==
Each commercial brand of mouthwash has different ingredients. The active ingredients are usually alcohol, chlorhexidine gluconate, cetylpyridinium chloride hexetidine, benzoic acid (acts as a buffer), methyl salicylate, triclosan, http://drbenkim.com/articles/triclosan-products.htm benzalkonium chloride, methylparaben, hydrogen peroxide, domiphen bromide and sometimes fluoride, enzymes, and calcium. They can also include essential oil constituents that have some antibacterial properties, like phenol, thymol, eugenol, eucalyptol or menthol. Ingredients also include water, sweeteners such as sorbitol, sucralose, sodium saccharin, and xylitol (which doubles as a bacterial inhibitor). 

Commercial mouthwashes usually contain a preservative such as sodium benzoate to preserve freshness once the container has been opened. Many newer brands are alcohol-free and contain odor-elimination agents such as oxidizers, as well as odor-preventing agents such as zinc ion to keep future bad breath from developing.

Alternative mouthwash ingredients might include persica or alum.

Minor and transient side effects of commercial mouthwashes are very common, such as taste disturbance, tooth staining, sensation of a dry mouth, etc. Alcohol-containing mouthwashes may make dry mouth and halitosis worse since it dries out the mouth. Soreness, ulceration and redness may sometimes occur (e.g. aphthous stomatitis, allergic contact stomatitis) if the person is allergic or sensitive to mouthwash ingredients such as preservatives, coloring, flavors and fragrances. Such effects might be reduced or eliminated by diluting the mouthwash with water, using a different mouthwash (e.g. salt water), or foregoing mouthwash entirely.

==Custom formulations ("magic mouthwash")==
A "magic mouthwash" (or "magic swizzle"), refers to a non-standardized mixture of ingredients prescribed for a specific purpose, e.g. oral surgery, or to treat the pain associated with mucositis caused by radiation therapy or chemotherapy. It is also prescribed for aphthous ulcers, other oral ulcers, and other mouth pain. Variations are common, and some are done with over-the-counter products. Magic mouthwashes are intended to combine ingredients to treat a variety of oral conditions. Magic mouthwashes are typically compounded in a pharmacy from a doctor's prescription. 

Common ingredients include: Diphenhydramine (antihistamine), Glucocorticoids (anti-inflammatory), Lidocaine/Xylocaine (local anesthetic), Maalox (antacid), Nystatin (antifungal for oral candidiasis), Sucralfate (coating agent), Tetracycline or Erythromycin (antibiotics). 

Despite a lack of evidence that magic mouthwashes are effective in decreasing the pain of oral lesions, many patients and prescribers continue to use them. There has been only one controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of magic mouthwash; it shows no difference in efficacy among the most common formulation and other agents such as chlorhexidine and a saline/baking soda solution. Current guidelines suggest that saline solution is just as effective as magic mouthwash in pain relief or shortening of healing time of oral mucositis from cancer therapies. 

Because magic mouthwash has no standard formulation, its use involves concerns about patient safety. It is important that the prescriber and pharmacist are in specific agreement about exactly what is being prescribed, so as to minimize the potential for drug interaction and the possibility of drug allergy.

==Specific mouthwash ingredients==

===Alcohol===
An example of a commercial mouthwash brand which is alcohol-free
Sometimes a significant amount of alcohol (up to 27% vol) is added, as a carrier for the flavor, to provide "bite". Because of the alcohol content, it is possible to fail a breathalyzer test after rinsing although breath alcohol levels return to normal after 10 minutes . In addition, alcohol is a drying agent, which encourages bacterial activity in the mouth, releasing more malodorous volatile sulfur compounds. Therefore, alcohol-containing mouthwash may temporarily worsen halitosis in those who already have it, or indeed be the sole cause of halitosis in other individuals.

It is theorized that alcohol mouthwashes acts as a carcinogen (cancer-inducing). Generally, there is no scientific consensus about this. One review stated:

The same researchers also state that the risk of acquiring oral cancer rises almost five times for users of alcohol-containing mouthwash who neither smoke nor drink (with a higher rate of increase for those who do). Farah, C; McIntosh, L; McCullough, M (2009). "Mouthwashes". Australian Prescriber, 32:162-4. Available at australianprescriber.com In addition, the authors highlight side effects from several mainstream mouthwashes that included dental erosion and accidental poisoning of children. The review garnered media attention and conflicting opinions from other researchers. Yinka Ebo of Cancer Research UK disputed the findings, concluding that "there is still not enough evidence to suggest that using mouthwash that contains alcohol will increase the risk of mouth cancer". Studies conducted in 1985, 1995, 2003, and 2012 did not support an association between alcohol-containing mouth rinses and oral cancer. Andrew Penman, chief executive of The Cancer Council New South Wales, called for further research on the matter. In a March 2009 brief, the American Dental Association said "the available evidence does not support a connection between oral cancer and alcohol-containing mouthrinse". Many newer brands of mouthwash are alcohol free, not just in response to consumer concerns about oral cancer, but also to cater for religious groups who abstain from alcohol consumption.

===Benzydamine (Difflam)===
In painful oral conditions such as aphthous stomatitis, analgesic mouthrinses (e.g. benzydamine mouthwash, or "Difflam") are sometimes used to ease pain, commonly used before meals to reduce discomfort while eating.

===Betamethasone===
Betamethasone is sometimes used as an anti-inflammatory, corticosteroid mouthwash. It may be used for severe inflammatory conditions of the oral mucosa such as the severe forms of aphthous stomatitis. 

===Cetylpyridinium chloride===
Cetylpyridinium chloride containing mouthwash (e.g. 0.05%) is used in some specialized mouthwashes for halitosis. Fedorowicz Z, Aljufairi H, Nasser M, Outhouse TL, Pedrazzi V. Mouthrinses for the treatment of halitosis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD006701. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD006701.pub2 Cetylpyridinium chloride mouthwash has less anti-plaque effect than chlorhexidine and may cause staining of teeth, or sometimes an oral burning sensation or ulceration. 

===Chlorhexidine digluconate===
Chlorhexidine digluconate is a chemical antispetic and is used in a 0.12-0.2% solution as a mouthwash. It has significant anti-plaque action, but also some anti-fungal action. It is especially effective against Gram-negative rods. It is sometimes used as an adjunct to prevent dental caries and to treat periodontal disease, although it does not penetrate into periodontal pockets well. Chlorhexidine mouthwash alone is unable to prevent plaque, so it is not a substitute for regular toothbrushing and flossing. In the short term, if toothbrushing is impossible due to pain, as may occur in primary herpetic gingivostomatitis, chlorhexidine is used as temporary substitute for other oral hygiene measures. It is not suited for use in acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis however. Rinsing with chlorhexidine mouthwash before a tooth extraction reduces the risk of dry socket, a painful condition where the blood clot is lost from an extraction socket and bone is exposed to the oral cavity. Other uses of chlorhexidine mouthwash include prevention of oral candidiasis in immunocompromised persons, treatment of denture-related stomatitis, and many other uses. 

Chlorhexidine has good substantivity (the ability of a mouthwash to bind to hard and soft tissues in the mouth). However, chlorhexidine binds to tannins, meaning that prolonged use in persons who consume coffee, tea or red wine is associated with extrinsic staining (i.e. removable staining) of teeth. Chlorhexidine is rarely associated with other issues like overgrowth of enterobacteria in persons with leukemia, desquamation and irritation of oral mucosa, salivary gland pain and swelling, and hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylaxis. 

===Essential oils===
Essential oils are oils which have been extracted from plants. Mouthwashes based on essential oils could be more effective than traditional mouthwashes. 

In traditional Ayurvedic medicine, the use of oil mouthwashes is called "oil pulling", "oil swishing", "Kavala" or "Gandusha", and this practice has more recently been re-marketed by the complimentary and alternative medicine industry. Its promoters claim it works by "pulling out" "toxins", which are known as ama in Ayurvedic medicine, and thereby reducing inflammation. Ayurvedic literature suggests oil pulling is capable of improving oral and systemic health, including a benefit in conditions such as headaches, migraines, diabetes mellitus, asthma, and acne, as well as whitening teeth. 

Oil pulling has received little study and there is little evidence to support claims made by the technique's advocates. When compared with chlorhexidine in one small study, it was found to be less effective at reducing oral bacterial load, Asokan S, Emmadi P, Chamundeswari R. "Effect of oil pulling on plaque induced gingivitis: A randomized, controlled, triple-blind study." Indian J Dent Res 2009;20:47-51 otherwise the health claims of oil pulling have failed scientific verification or have not been investigated. There is a report of lipid pneumonia caused by accidental inhalation of the oil during oil pulling. Kim JY, Jung JW, Choi JC, Shin JW, Park IW, Choi BW. "Recurrent lipoid pneumonia associated with oil pulling." Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2014 Feb;18(2):251-2. doi: 10.5588/ijtld.13.0852. 

The mouth is rinsed with approximately one tablespoon of oil for 10–20 minutes then spat out. Sesame oil, coconut oil and ghee are traditionally used, but newer oils such as sunflower oil are also used. 

===Fluoride===
Fluoride mouthwashes are sometimes used in individuals who are at high risk of dental decay. They usually contain about 1450 parts per million fluoride. The fluoride strengthens teeth against decay.

===Hydrogen peroxide===
Hydrogen peroxide can be used as an oxidizing mouthwash (e.g. Peroxyl, 1.5%). It kills anearobic bacteria, and also has a mechanical cleansing action when it froths as it comes into contact with debris in mouth. It is often used in the short term to treat acute necrotising ulcerative gingivitis. Side effects with prolonged use might occur, including hypertrophy lingual papillae. 

===Phenol===
Phenolic mouthwashes (e.g. Listerine) have some anti-plaque action but less substantivity than chlorhexidine. They do not stain teeth. 

===Providone/iodine===
A 2005 study found that gargling three times a day with simple water or with a providone/iodine solution (although with less effectiveness) was effective in preventing upper respiratory infection and decreasing the severity of symptoms if contracted. A later study found that the same procedure did not prevent influenza-like illnesses. http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/internalmedicine/46/18/1623/_pdf Other sources attribute the benefit to a simple placebo effect. To gargle or not to gargle? Japan Times, 15 December 2009 

===Sanguinarine===
Sanguinarine-containing mouthwashes are marketed as anti-plaque and anti-malodor. It is a toxic alkaloid herbal extract, obtained from plants such as Sanguinaria canadensis (Bloodroot), Argemone mexicana (Mexican Prickly Poppy) and others. However, its use is strongly associated with development of leukoplakia (a white patch in the mouth), usually in the buccal sulcus. Leukoplakia, (pdf format) hosted by the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology. Page accessed on 19 December 2006. This type of leukoplakia has been termed "sanguinaria-associated keratosis" and more than 80% of people with leukoplakia in the vestibule of the mouth have used this substance. Upon stopping contact with the causative substance, the lesions may persist for years. Although this type of leukoplakia may show dysplasia, the potential for malignant transformation is unknown. Ironically, elements within the complimentary and alternative medicine industry promote the use of sanguinaria as a therapy for cancer.

===Sodium bicarbonate (Baking soda)===
Sodium bicarbonate is sometimes combined with salt to make a simple homemade mouthwash, indicated for any of the reasons that a salt water mouthwash might be used. Pre-mixed mouthwashes of 1% sodium bicarbonate and 1.5% sodium chloride in aqueous solution are marketed, although pharmacists will easily be able to produce such a formulation from the base ingredients when required. Sodium bicarbonate mouthwash is sometimes used to remove viscous saliva and to aid visualization of the oral tissues during examination of the mouth. 

===Sodium chloride (Salt)===

Hot salt water mouth baths (or hot salt water mouth washes, sometimes abbreviated to "HSWMW") are also routinely used after oral surgery, to keep food debris out of healing wounds and to prevent infection. Some oral surgeons consider salt water mouthwashes the mainstay of wound cleanliness after surgery. In dental extractions, hot salt water mouthbaths should start about 24 hours after a dental extraction. The term mouth bath implies that the liquid is passively held in the mouth rather than vigorously swilled around, which could dislodge a blood clot. Once the blood clot has stabilized, the mouth wash can be used more vigorously. These mouthwashes tend to be advised about 6 times per day, especially after meals to remove food from the socket. 

Salt water mouth wash is made by dissolving 0.5-1 teaspoon of table salt into a cup of water, which is as hot as possible without causing discomfort in the mouth. Saline has a mechanical cleansing action and an antiseptic action as it is a hypertonic solution in relation to bacteria, which undergo lysis. The heat of the solution produces a therapeutic increase in blood flow (hyperemia) to the surgical site, promoting healing. Hot salt water mouthwashes also encourage the draining of pus from dental abscesses. Conversely, if heat is applied on the side of the face (e.g. hot water bottle) rather than inside the mouth, it may cause a dental abscess to drain extra-orally, which is later associated with an area of fibrosis on the face. Gargling with salt water is said to reduce the symptoms of a sore throat. 

===Sodium lauryl sulfate===
Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is notorious for causing aphthous stomatitis (mouth ulcers) in susceptible individuals. It is present in a great many oral hygiene products including many mouthwashes. Some may suggest that it is probably advisable to use mouthwash at least an hour after brushing with toothpaste when the toothpaste contains SLS, since the anionic compounds in the SLS toothpaste can deactivate cationic agents present in the mouthrinse. However, many of the popular mouthwashes also contain sodium lauryl sulfate as an ingredient (e.g., Listerine Total Care).

===Tetracycline===
Tetracycline is an antibiotic which may sometimes be used as a mouthwash in adults (it causes red staining of teeth in children). It is sometimes use for herpetiforme ulceration (an uncommon type of aphthous stomatitis), but prolonged use may lead to oral candidiasis as the fungal population of the mouth overgrows in the absence of enough competing bacteria. 

===Tranexamic acid===
4.8% tranexamic acid solution is sometimes used as an antifibrinolytic mouthwash to prevent bleeding during and after oral surgery in persons with coagulopathies (clotting disorders) or who are taking anticoagulants (blood thinners such as warfarin). 

===Triclosan===
Triclosan is a non-ionic chlorinate bisphenol antiseptic. When used in mouthwash (e.g. 0.03%), there is moderate substantivity, broad spectrum anti-bacterial action, some anti-fungal action and significant anti-plaque effect, especially when combined with copolymer or zinc citrate. Triclosan does not cause staining of the teeth. The safety of tricolsan has been questioned. http://newyorkorthodontists.net/triclosan-dangers-side-effects-in-toothpastes-and-mouthwash/ 

==Example brands of common commercial mouthwashes==
thumb
* Cēpacol
* Colgate
* Corsodyl
* Dentyl pH
* Listerine
* Oral-B
* Sarakan
* Scope (mouthwash)
* Tantum verde

==History==
Listerine advertisement, 1932.
The first known references to mouth rinsing is in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, about 2700 BC, for treatment of gingivitis. Later, in the Greek and Roman periods, mouth rinsing following mechanical cleansing became common among the upper classes, and Hippocrates recommended a mixture of salt, alum, and vinegar. The Jewish Talmud, dating back about 1800 years, suggests a cure for gum ailments containing "dough water" and olive oil. 

Before Europeans came to the Americas, Native North American and Mesoamerican cultures used mouthwashes, often made from plants such as Coptis trifolia. Indeed Aztec dentistry was more advanced than European dentistry of the age. Peoples of the Americas used salt water mouthwashes for sore throats, and other mouthwashes for problems such as teething and mouth ulcers. 

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the famous 17th century microscopist, discovered living organisms (living, because they were motile) in deposits on the teeth (what we now call dental plaque). He also found organisms in water from the canal next to his home in Delft. He experimented with samples by adding vinegar or brandy and found that this resulted in the immediate immobilization or killing of the organisms suspended in water. Next he tried rinsing the mouth of himself and somebody else with a mouthwash containing vinegar or brandy and found that living organisms remained in the dental plaque. He concluded&mdash;correctly&mdash;that the mouthwash either did not reach, or was not present long enough, to kill the plaque organisms. 

That remained the state of affairs until the late 1960s when Harald Loe (at the time a professor at the Royal Dental College in Aarhus, Denmark) demonstrated that a chlorhexidine compound could prevent the build-up of dental plaque. The reason for chlorhexidine effectiveness is that it strongly adheres to surfaces in the mouth and thus remains present in effective concentrations for many hours. 

Since then commercial interest in mouthwashes has been intense and several newer products claim effectiveness in reducing the build-up in dental plaque and the associated severity of gingivitis, in addition to fighting bad breath. Many of these solutions aim to control the Volatile Sulfur Compound (VSC)-creating anaerobic bacteria that live in the mouth and excrete substances that lead to bad breath and unpleasant mouth taste. 

==Research==
Research in the field of microbiomes shows that only a limited set of microbes cause tooth decay, with most of the bacteria in the human mouth being harmless. Focused attention on cavity-causing bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans has led research into new mouthwash treatments that prevent these bacteria from initially growing. While current mouthwash treatments must be used with a degree of frequency to prevent this bacteria from regrowing, future treatments could provide a viable long term solution. 

==References==

==External links==
* Article on Bad-Breath Prevention Products – from MSNBC
*Common formulations of Magic Mouthwash
*Mayo Clinic Q&A on Magic Mouthwash for chemotherapy sores
*Magic Mouthwash
*Gargle at the Centre for Cancer Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Accessed July 2007



[[Alexander the Great]]

Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the ), was a king of the Greek kingdom of Macedon. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II, to the throne at the age of twenty. He spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, until by the age of thirty he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to Egypt and into present-day Pakistan. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.

During his youth, Alexander was tutored by the philosopher Aristotle until the age of 16. When he succeeded his father to the throne in 336 BC, after Philip was assassinated, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He had been awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid empire, ruled Asia Minor, and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.

Seeking to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea", he invaded India in 326 BC, but was eventually forced to turn back at the demand of his troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city he planned to establish as his capital, Alexander the Great without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals and heirs.

Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion his conquests engendered. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and myth of Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics.

==Early life==

===Lineage and childhood===
Bust of a young Alexander the Great from the Hellenistic era, British Museum
Aristotle tutoring Alexander, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

Alexander was born on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which probably corresponds to 20 July 356 BC, although the exact date is not known, in Pella, the capital of the Ancient Greek Kingdom of Macedon. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his fourth wife, Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time, likely a result of giving birth to Alexander.

Several legends surround Alexander's birth and childhood. According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, Olympias, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunder bolt, causing a flame that spread "far and wide" before dying away. Some time after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb; or that Alexander's father was Zeus. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious. 

On the day that Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander. Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception. 

A statue showing Alexander taming Bucephalus in Edinburgh
In his early years, Alexander was raised by a nurse, Lanike, sister of Alexander's future general Cleitus the Black. Later in his childhood, Alexander was tutored by the strict Leonidas, a relative of his mother, and by Philip's general Lysimachus. Alexander was raised in the manner of noble Macedonian youths, learning to read, play the lyre, ride, fight, and hunt. 

When Alexander was ten years old, a trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted and Philip ordered it away. Alexander however, detecting the horse's fear of its own shadow, asked to tame the horse, which he eventually managed. Plutarch stated that Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed his son tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", and bought the horse for him. Alexander named it Bucephalas, meaning "ox-head". Bucephalas carried Alexander as far as Pakistan. When the animal died (due to old age, according to Plutarch, at age thirty), Alexander named a city after him, Bucephala. 

===Adolescence and education===
When Alexander was 13, Philip began to search for a tutor, and considered such academics as Isocrates and Speusippus, the latter offering to resign to take up the post. In the end, Philip chose Aristotle and provided the Temple of the Nymphs at Mieza as a classroom. In return for teaching Alexander, Philip agreed to rebuild Aristotle's hometown of Stageira, which Philip had razed, and to repopulate it by buying and freeing the ex-citizens who were slaves, or pardoning those who were in exile. 

Mieza was like a boarding school for Alexander and the children of Macedonian nobles, such as Ptolemy, Hephaistion, and Cassander. Many of these students would become his friends and future generals, and are often known as the 'Companions'. Aristotle taught Alexander and his companions about medicine, philosophy, morals, religion, logic, and art. Under Aristotle's tutelage, Alexander developed a passion for the works of Homer, and in particular the Iliad; Aristotle gave him an annotated copy, which Alexander later carried on his campaigns. 

==Philip's heir==

===Regency and ascent of Macedon===

Philip II of Macedon, Alexander's father.

At age 16, Alexander's education under Aristotle ended. Philip waged war against Byzantion, leaving Alexander in charge as regent and heir apparent. During Philip's absence, the Thracian Maedi revolted against Macedonia. Alexander responded quickly, driving them from their territory. He colonized it with Greeks, and founded a city named Alexandropolis. 

Upon Philip's return, he dispatched Alexander with a small force to subdue revolts in southern Thrace. Campaigning against the Greek city of Perinthus, Alexander is reported to have saved his father's life. Meanwhile, the city of Amphissa began to work lands that were sacred to Apollo near Delphi, a sacrilege that gave Philip the opportunity to further intervene in Greek affairs. Still occupied in Thrace, he ordered Alexander to muster an army for a campaign in Greece. Concerned that other Greek states might intervene, Alexander made it look as though he was preparing to attack Illyria instead. During this turmoil, the Illyrians invaded Macedonia, only to be repelled by Alexander. 

Philip and his army joined his son in 338 BC, and they marched south through Thermopylae, taking it after stubborn resistance from its Theban garrison. They went on to occupy the city of Elatea, only a few days' march from both Athens and Thebes. The Athenians, led by Demosthenes, voted to seek alliance with Thebes against Macedonia. Both Athens and Philip sent embassies to win Thebes' favor, but Athens won the contest. Philip marched on Amphissa (ostensibly acting on the request of the Amphictyonic League), capturing the mercenaries sent there by Demosthenes and accepting the city's surrender. Philip then returned to Elatea, sending a final offer of peace to Athens and Thebes, who both rejected it. 

Statue of Alexander in Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
As Philip marched south, his opponents blocked him near Chaeronea, Boeotia. During the ensuing Battle of Chaeronea, Philip commanded the right wing and Alexander the left, accompanied by a group of Philip's trusted generals. According to the ancient sources, the two sides fought bitterly for some time. Philip deliberately commanded his troops to retreat, counting on the untested Athenian hoplites to follow, thus breaking their line. Alexander was the first to break the Theban lines, followed by Philip's generals. Having damaged the enemy's cohesion, Philip ordered his troops to press forward and quickly routed them. With the Athenians lost, the Thebans were surrounded. Left to fight alone, they were defeated. 

After the victory at Chaeronea, Philip and Alexander marched unopposed into the Peloponnese, welcomed by all cities; however, when they reached Sparta, they were refused, but did not resort to war. At Corinth, Philip established a "Hellenic Alliance" (modeled on the old anti-Persian alliance of the Greco-Persian Wars), which included most Greek city-states except Sparta. Philip was then named Hegemon (often translated as "Supreme Commander") of this league (known by modern scholars as the League of Corinth), and announced his plans to attack the Persian Empire. 

===Exile and return===
When Philip returned to Pella, he fell in love with and married Cleopatra Eurydice, the niece of his general Attalus. The marriage made Alexander's position as heir less secure, since any son of Cleopatra Eurydice would be a fully Macedonian heir, while Alexander was only half-Macedonian. During the wedding banquet, a drunken Attalus publicly prayed to the gods that the union would produce a legitimate heir. 

Alexander fled Macedon with his mother, dropping her off with her brother, King Alexander I of Epirus in Dodona, capital of the Molossians. He continued to Illyria, where he sought refuge with the Illyrian King and was treated as a guest, despite having defeated them in battle a few years before. However, it appears Philip never intended to disown his politically and militarily trained son. Accordingly, Alexander returned to Macedon after six months due to the efforts of a family friend, Demaratus, who mediated between the two parties. 

In the following year, the Persian satrap (governor) of Caria, Pixodarus, offered his eldest daughter to Alexander's half-brother, Philip Arrhidaeus. Olympias and several of Alexander's friends suggested this showed Philip intended to make Arrhidaeus his heir. Alexander reacted by sending an actor, Thessalus of Corinth, to tell Pixodarus that he should not offer his daughter's hand to an illegitimate son, but instead to Alexander. When Philip heard of this, he stopped the negotiations and scolded Alexander for wishing to marry the daughter of a Carian, explaining that he wanted a better bride for him. Philip exiled four of Alexander's friends, Harpalus, Nearchus, Ptolemy and Erigyius, and had the Corinthians bring Thessalus to him in chains. 

==King of Macedon==

===Accession===
The Kingdom of Macedon in 336 BC.
In 336 BC, while at Aegae attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to Olympias's brother, Alexander I of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards, Pausanias. As Pausanias tried to escape, he tripped over a vine and was killed by his pursuers, including two of Alexander's companions, Perdiccas and Leonnatus. Alexander was proclaimed king by the nobles and army at the age of 20. 

===Consolidation of power===
Alexander began his reign by eliminating potential rivals to the throne. He had his cousin, the former Amyntas IV, executed. He also had two Macedonian princes from the region of Lyncestis killed, but spared a third, Alexander Lyncestes. Olympias had Cleopatra Eurydice and Europa, her daughter by Philip, burned alive. When Alexander learned about this, he was furious. Alexander also ordered the murder of Attalus, who was in command of the advance guard of the army in Asia Minor and Cleopatra's uncle. 

Attalus was at that time corresponding with Demosthenes, regarding the possibility of defecting to Athens. Attalus also had severely insulted Alexander, and following Cleopatra's murder, Alexander may have considered him too dangerous to leave alive. Alexander spared Arrhidaeus, who was by all accounts mentally disabled, possibly as a result of poisoning by Olympias. 

News of Philip's death roused many states into revolt, including Thebes, Athens, Thessaly, and the Thracian tribes north of Macedon. When news of the revolts reached Alexander, he responded quickly. Though advised to use diplomacy, Alexander mustered the 3,000 Macedonian cavalry and rode south towards Thessaly. He found the Thessalian army occupying the pass between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa, and ordered his men to ride over Mount Ossa. When the Thessalians awoke the next day, they found Alexander in their rear and promptly surrendered, adding their cavalry to Alexander's force. He then continued south towards the Peloponnese. 

Alexander stopped at Thermopylae, where he was recognized as the leader of the Amphictyonic League before heading south to Corinth. Athens sued for peace and Alexander pardoned the rebels. The famous encounter between Alexander and Diogenes the Cynic occurred during Alexander's stay in Corinth. When Alexander asked Diogenes what he could do for him, the philosopher disdainfully asked Alexander to stand a little to the side, as he was blocking the sunlight. This reply apparently delighted Alexander, who is reported to have said "But verily, if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes." At Corinth, Alexander took the title of Hegemon ("leader") and, like Philip, was appointed commander for the coming war against Persia. He also received news of a Thracian uprising. 

===Balkan campaign===

Before crossing to Asia, Alexander wanted to safeguard his northern borders. In the spring of 335 BC, he advanced to suppress several revolts. Starting from Amphipolis, he traveled east into the country of the "Independent Thracians"; and at Mount Haemus, the Macedonian army attacked and defeated the Thracian forces manning the heights. The Macedonians marched into the country of the Triballi, and defeated their army near the Lyginus river (a tributary of the Danube). Alexander then marched for three days to the Danube, encountering the Getae tribe on the opposite shore. Crossing the river at night, he surprised them and forced their army to retreat after the first cavalry skirmish. 

News then reached Alexander that Cleitus, King of Illyria, and King Glaukias of the Taulanti were in open revolt against his authority. Marching west into Illyria, Alexander defeated each in turn, forcing the two rulers to flee with their troops. With these victories, he secured his northern frontier. 

While Alexander campaigned north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once again. Alexander immediately headed south. While the other cities again hesitated, Thebes decided to fight. The Theban resistance was ineffective, and Alexander razed the city and divided its territory between the other Boeotian cities. The end of Thebes cowed Athens, leaving all of Greece temporarily at peace. Alexander then set out on his Asian campaign, leaving Antipater as regent. 

==Conquest of the Persian Empire==

===Asia Minor===

Map of Alexander's empire and his route.

Alexander's army crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC with approximately 48,100 soldiers, 6,100 cavalry and a fleet of 120 ships with crews numbering 38,000, drawn from Macedon and various Greek city-states, mercenaries, and feudally raised soldiers from Thrace, Paionia, and Illyria. (However, Arrian, who used Ptolemy as a source, said that Alexander crossed with more than 5,000 horse and 30,000 foot; Diodorus quoted the same totals, but listed 5,100 horse and 32,000 foot. Diodorus also referred to an advance force already present in Asia, which Polyaenus, in his Stratagems of War (5.44.4), said numbered 10,000 men.) He showed his intent to conquer the entirety of the Persian Empire by throwing a spear into Asian soil and saying he accepted Asia as a gift from the gods. This also showed Alexander's eagerness to fight, in contrast to his father's preference for diplomacy. 

After an initial victory against Persian forces at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis; he then proceeded along the Ionian coast. Though Alexander believed in his divine right to expend the lives of men in battle, he did experience sorrow, as those who died were rewarded generously: ‘To the relatives of his fallen, Alexander granted immunity from taxation and public service’. Whether it was his own warriors or the Persian forces opposing him, Alexander chose to respect those who died. He even went so far to set up statues to honor and respect these people. Though this did not directly influence the culture of the Persians they did not feel the need to begin a rebellion as their men and rulers were treated with proper respect. At Halicarnassus, in Caria, Alexander successfully waged the first of many sieges, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw by sea. Alexander left the government of Caria to Ada, who adopted Alexander. 

From Halicarnassus, Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain, asserting control over all coastal cities to deny the Persians naval bases. From Pamphylia onwards the coast held no major ports and Alexander moved inland. At Termessos, Alexander humbled but did not storm the Pisidian city. At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander "undid" the hitherto unsolvable Gordian Knot, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia". According to the story, Alexander proclaimed that it did not matter how the knot was undone and hacked it apart with his sword. 

===The Levant and Syria===

Detail of Alexander Mosaic, showing Battle of Issus, from the House of the Faun, Pompeii.

Alexander journeyed south but was met by Darius’ significantly larger army which he easily defeated, causing Darius to panic. Although he was chased by some troops ‘Alexander treated them (his family) with the respect out of consideration’ which demonstrated his continued generosity and kindness towards those he conquered. Darius fled the battle, causing his army to collapse, and left behind his wife, his two daughters, his mother Sisygambis, and a fabulous treasure. He offered a peace treaty that included the lands he had already lost, and a ransom of 10,000 talents for his family. Alexander replied that since he was now king of Asia, it was he alone who decided territorial divisions.

Alexander the Great, although a generous man in victory, eventually recognized the power that he was capable of when he would defeat an enemy in war. Following the siege of Tyre in 332, the enemy he defeated, Darius, attempted to present terms of unconditional surrender but Alexander became ruthless. He realized that he had control and could receive much more. Darius was thus forced to come back, ‘This time the offer was impressive. Darius offered all territory as a far the Euphrates… a colossal ransom of 30,000 talents for his family…invited to marry his eldest daughter’. This new change in diplomatic relations induced panic among the leaders of the surrounding nations, as they feared a similar defeat. This led to some barbarian cultures choosing to merely abdicate power to Alexander, to avoid certain death.” 

Alexander proceeded to take possession of Syria, and most of the coast of the Levant. In the following year, 332 BC, he was forced to attack Tyre, which he captured after a long and difficult siege. Alexander massacred the men of military age and sold the women and children into slavery. 

===Egypt===

Name of Alexander the Great in Egyptian hieroglyphs (written from right to left), c. 330 BC, Egypt. Louvre Museum.

When Alexander destroyed Tyre, most of the towns on the route to Egypt quickly capitulated, with the exception of Gaza. The stronghold at Gaza was heavily fortified and built on a hill, requiring a siege. Alexander came upon the city only to be met with a surprising resistance and fortification. When ‘his engineers pointed out to him that because of the height of the mound it would be impossible… this encouraged Alexander all the more to make the attempt’. The divine right that Alexander believed he had gave him confidence of a miracle occurring. After three unsuccessful assaults, the stronghold fell, but not before Alexander had received a serious shoulder wound. As in Tyre, men of military age were put to the sword and the women and children were sold into slavery. 

Jerusalem opened its gates in surrender, and according to Josephus, Alexander was shown the Book of Daniel's prophecy, presumably chapter 8, which described a mighty Greek king who would conquer the Persian Empire. He spared Jerusalem and pushed south into Egypt. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XI, 337 5 

Alexander advanced on Egypt in later 332 BC, where he was regarded as a liberator. He was pronounced the new "master of the Universe" and son of the deity of Amun at the Oracle of Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. Henceforth, Alexander often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father, and subsequent currency depicted him adorned with rams horn as a symbol of his divinity. During his stay in Egypt, he founded Alexandria-by-Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic Kingdom after his death. 

===Assyria and Babylonia===

Leaving Egypt in 331 BC, Alexander marched eastward into Mesopotamia (now northern Iraq) and again defeated Darius, at the Battle of Gaugamela. Darius once more fled the field, and Alexander chased him as far as Arbela. Gaugamela would be the final and decisive encounter between the two. Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamedan), while Alexander captured Babylon. 

===Persia===

Site of the Persian Gate; the road was built in the 1990s.

From Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the Achaemenid capitals, and captured its legendary treasury. He sent the bulk of his army to the Persian ceremonial capital of Persepolis via the Royal Road. Alexander himself took selected troops on the direct route to the city. He had to storm the pass of the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains) which had been blocked by a Persian army under Ariobarzanes and then hurried to Persepolis before its garrison could loot the treasury. 

On entering Persepolis, Alexander allowed his troops to loot the city for several days. Alexander stayed in Persepolis for five months. During his stay a fire broke out in the eastern palace of Xerxes and spread to the rest of the city. Possible causes include a drunken accident or deliberate revenge for the burning of the Acropolis of Athens during the Second Persian War. 

===Fall of the Empire and the East===
Silver coin of Alexander wearing the lion scalp of Herakles, British Museum.

Alexander then chased Darius, first into Media, and then Parthia. The Persian king no longer controlled his own destiny, and was taken prisoner by Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman. As Alexander approached, Bessus had his men fatally stab the Great King and then declared himself Darius' successor as Artaxerxes V, before retreating into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander. Alexander buried Darius' remains next to his Achaemenid predecessors in a regal funeral. He claimed that, while dying, Darius had named him as his successor to the Achaemenid throne. The Achaemenid Empire is normally considered to have fallen with Darius. 

Alexander viewed Bessus as a usurper and set out to defeat him. This campaign, initially against Bessus, turned into a grand tour of central Asia. Alexander founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan. The campaign took Alexander through Media, Parthia, Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan), Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan), and Scythia.

Spitamenes, who held an undefined position in the satrapy of Sogdiana, in 329 BC betrayed Bessus to Ptolemy, one of Alexander's trusted companions, and Bessus was executed. However, when, at some point later, Alexander was on the Jaxartes dealing with an incursion by a horse nomad army, Spitamenes raised Sogdiana in revolt. Alexander personally defeated the Scythians at the Battle of Jaxartes and immediately launched a campaign against Spitamenes, defeating him in the Battle of Gabai. After the defeat, Spitamenes was killed by his own men, who then sued for peace.

===Problems and plots===
The killing of Cleitus, André Castaigne 1898–1899

During this time, Alexander took the Persian title "King of Kings" (Shahanshah) and adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his court, notably the custom of proskynesis, either a symbolic kissing of the hand, or prostration on the ground, that Persians showed to their social superiors. The Greeks regarded the gesture as the province of deities and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by requiring it. This cost him the sympathies of many of his countrymen, and he eventually abandoned it. 

A plot against his life was revealed, and one of his officers, Philotas, was executed for failing to alert Alexander. The death of the son necessitated the death of the father, and thus Parmenion, who had been charged with guarding the treasury at Ecbatana, was assassinated at Alexander's command, to prevent attempts at vengeance. Most infamously, Alexander personally killed the man who had saved his life at Granicus, Cleitus the Black, during a violent drunken altercation at Maracanda (modern day Samarkand in Uzbekistan), in which Cleitus accused Alexander of several judgemental mistakes and most especially, of having forgotten the Macedonian ways in favour of a corrupt oriental lifestyle. 

Later, in the Central Asian campaign, a second plot against his life was revealed, this one instigated by his own royal pages. His official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus, was implicated in the plot; however, historians have yet to reach a consensus regarding this involvement. Callisthenes had fallen out of favor by leading the opposition to the attempt to introduce proskynesis. 

===Macedon in Alexander's absence===
When Alexander set out for Asia, he left his general Antipater, an experienced military and political leader and part of Philip II's "Old Guard", in charge of Macedon. Alexander's sacking of Thebes ensured that Greece remained quiet during his absence. The one exception was a call to arms by Spartan king Agis III in 331 BC, whom Antipater defeated and killed in battle at Megalopolis the following year. Antipater referred the Spartans' punishment to the League of Corinth, which then deferred to Alexander, who chose to pardon them. There was also considerable friction between Antipater and Olympias, and each complained to Alexander about the other. 

In general, Greece enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity during Alexander's campaign in Asia. Alexander sent back vast sums from his conquest, which stimulated the economy and increased trade across his empire. However, Alexander's constant demands for troops and the migration of Macedonians throughout his empire depleted Macedon's manpower, greatly weakening it in the years after Alexander, and ultimately led to its subjugation by Rome. 

==Indian campaign==

===Invasion of the Indian subcontinent===
The phalanx attacking the centre in the Battle of the Hydaspes by André Castaigne (1898–1899)

After the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana (Roshanak in Bactrian) to cement relations with his new satrapies, Alexander turned to the Indian subcontinent. He invited the chieftains of the former satrapy of Gandhara, in the north of what is now Pakistan, to come to him and submit to his authority. Omphis, ruler of Taxila, whose kingdom extended from the Indus to the Hydaspes (Jhelum), complied, but the chieftains of some hill clans, including the Aspasioi and Assakenoi sections of the Kambojas (known in Indian texts also as Ashvayanas and Ashvakayanas), refused to submit. 

In the winter of 327/326 BC, Alexander personally led a campaign against these clans; the Aspasioi of Kunar valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus valley, and the Assakenoi of the Swat and Buner valleys. A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi in which Alexander was wounded in the shoulder by a dart, but eventually the Aspasioi lost. Alexander then faced the Assakenoi, who fought in the strongholds of Massaga, Ora and Aornos. 

The fort of Massaga was reduced only after days of bloody fighting, in which Alexander was wounded seriously in the ankle. According to Curtius, "Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubble". A similar slaughter followed at Ora. In the aftermath of Massaga and Ora, numerous Assakenians fled to the fortress of Aornos. Alexander followed close behind and captured the strategic hill-fort after four bloody days. 

After Aornos, Alexander crossed the Indus and fought and won an epic battle against King Porus, who ruled a region in the Punjab, in the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC. Alexander was impressed by Porus's bravery, and made him an ally. He appointed Porus as satrap, and added to Porus' territory land that he did not previously own. Choosing a local helped him control these lands so distant from Greece. Alexander founded two cities on opposite sides of the Hydaspes river, naming one Bucephala, in honor of his horse, who died around this time. The other was Nicaea (Victory), thought to be located at the site of modern day Mong, Punjab. 

===Revolt of the army===
Alexander's invasion of the Indian subcontinent

East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, were the Nanda Empire of Magadha and further east the Gangaridai Empire (of modern day Bangladesh). Fearing the prospect of facing other large armies and exhausted by years of campaigning, Alexander's army mutinied at the Hyphasis River (Beas), refusing to march farther east. This river thus marks the easternmost extent of Alexander's conquests. 

Alexander tried to persuade his soldiers to march farther, but his general Coenus pleaded with him to change his opinion and return; the men, he said, "longed to again see their parents, their wives and children, their homeland". Alexander eventually agreed and turned south, marching along the Indus. Along the way his army conquered the Malhi (in modern day Multan) and other Indian tribes and sustained an injury during the siege. 

Alexander sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest back to Persia through the more difficult southern route along the Gedrosian Desert and Makran (now part of southern Iran and Pakistan). Alexander reached Susa in 324 BC, but not before losing many men to the harsh desert. 

==Last years in Persia==
Alexander, left, and Hephaestion, right

Discovering that many of his satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander executed several of them as examples on his way to Susa. As a gesture of thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would send over-aged and disabled veterans back to Macedon, led by Craterus. His troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the town of Opis. They refused to be sent away and criticized his adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian officers and soldiers into Macedonian units. 

After three days, unable to persuade his men to back down, Alexander gave Persians command posts in the army and conferred Macedonian military titles upon Persian units. The Macedonians quickly begged forgiveness, which Alexander accepted, and held a great banquet for several thousand of his men at which he and they ate together. In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, Alexander held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other noblewomen at Susa, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much beyond a year. Meanwhile, upon his return, Alexander learned that guards of the tomb of Cyrus the Great had desecrated it, and swiftly executed them. 

After Alexander traveled to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his closest friend and possible lover, Hephaestion, died of illness or poisoning. Hephaestion's death devastated Alexander, and he ordered the preparation of an expensive funeral pyre in Babylon, as well as a decree for public mourning. Back in Babylon, Alexander planned a series of new campaigns, beginning with an invasion of Arabia, but he would not have a chance to realize them, as he died shortly thereafter. 

==Death and succession==

A Babylonian astronomical diary (c. 323–322 BC) recording the death of Alexander (British Museum, London)
19th century depiction of Alexander's funeral procession based on the description of Diodorus
On either 10 or 11 June 323 BC, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in Babylon, at age 32. There are two different versions of Alexander’s death and details of the death differ slightly in each. Plutarch's account is that roughly 14 days before his death, Alexander entertained admiral Nearchus, and spent the night and next day drinking with Medius of Larissa. He developed a fever, which worsened until he was unable to speak. The common soldiers, anxious about his health, were granted the right to file past him as he silently waved at them. In the second account, Diodorus recounts that Alexander was struck with pain after downing a large bowl of unmixed wine in honour of Heracles, followed by 11 days of weakness; he did not develop a fever and died after some agony. Arrian also mentioned this as an alternative, but Plutarch specifically denied this claim. 

Given the propensity of the Macedonian aristocracy to assassination, foul play featured in multiple accounts of his death. Diodorus, Plutarch, Arrian and Justin all mentioned the theory that Alexander was poisoned. Justin stated that Alexander was the victim of a poisoning conspiracy, Plutarch dismissed it as a fabrication, while both Diodorus and Arrian noted that they mentioned it only for the sake of completeness. The accounts were nevertheless fairly consistent in designating Antipater, recently removed as Macedonian viceroy, and at odds with Olympias, as the head of the alleged plot. Perhaps taking his summons to Babylon as a death sentence, and having seen the fate of Parmenion and Philotas, Antipater purportedly arranged for Alexander to be poisoned by his son Iollas, who was Alexander's wine-pourer. There was even a suggestion that Aristotle may have participated. 

It is claimed that the strongest argument against the poison theory is the fact that twelve days passed between the start of his illness and his death; such long-acting poisons were probably not available. However, in 2003 Dr Leo Schep From The New Zealand National Poisons Centre proposed in a BBC documentary investigating his death that the plant white hellebore (Veratrum album) may have been used to poison Alexander. In 2014 Dr Leo Schep published this theory in the peer-reviewed medical journal Clinical Toxicology; in this journal article it was suggested Alexander's wine was spiked with Veratrum album, a plant known to the Ancient Greeks, which produces poisoning symptoms that match the course of events as described in the Alexander Romance. Veratrum album poisoning can have a prolonged course and it was suggested that if Alexander was poisoned, Veratrum album offers the most plausible cause. Another poisoning explanation was put forward in 2010, it was proposed that the circumstances of his death were compatible with poisoning by water of the river Styx (Mavroneri) that contained calicheamicin, a dangerous compound produced by bacteria. 

Several natural causes (diseases) have been suggested, including malaria and typhoid fever. A 1998 article in the New England Journal of Medicine attributed his death to typhoid fever complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis. Another recent analysis suggested pyogenic spondylitis or meningitis. Other illnesses fit the symptoms, including acute pancreatitis and West Nile virus. Natural-cause theories also tend to emphasise that Alexander's health may have been in general decline after years of heavy drinking and severe wounds. The anguish that Alexander felt after Hephaestion's death may also have contributed to his declining health. 

===After death===

Detail of Alexander on the Alexander Sarcophagus.

Alexander's body was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus that was filled with honey, which was in turn placed in a gold casket. According to Aelian, a seer called Aristander foretold that the land where Alexander was laid to rest "would be happy and unvanquishable forever". Perhaps more likely, the successors may have seen possession of the body as a symbol of legitimacy, since burying the prior king was a royal prerogative.

While Alexander's funeral cortege was on its way to Macedon, Ptolemy stole it and took it to Memphis. His successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, transferred the sarcophagus to Alexandria, where it remained until at least late Antiquity. Ptolemy IX Lathyros, one of Ptolemy's final successors, replaced Alexander's sarcophagus with a glass one so he could convert the original to coinage. 

Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus all visited the tomb in Alexandria. The latter allegedly accidentally knocked the nose off the body. Caligula was said to have taken Alexander's breastplate from the tomb for his own use. Around AD 200, Emperor Septimius Severus closed Alexander's tomb to the public. His son and successor, Caracalla, a great admirer, visited the tomb during his own reign. After this, details on the fate of the tomb are hazy. 

The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus", discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, is so named not because it was thought to have contained Alexander's remains, but because its bas-reliefs depict Alexander and his companions fighting the Persians and hunting. It was originally thought to have been the sarcophagus of Abdalonymus (died 311 BC), the king of Sidon appointed by Alexander immediately following the battle of Issus in 331. However, more recently, it has been suggested that it may date from earlier than Abdalonymus' death.

===Division of the empire===

Kingdoms of the Diadochi in 281 BC: the Ptolemaic Kingdom (dark blue), the Seleucid Empire (yellow), Kingdom of Pergamon (orange), and Macedonia (green). Also shown are the Roman Republic (light blue), the Carthaginian Republic (purple), and the Kingdom of Eprius (red).

Alexander's death was so sudden that when reports of his death reached Greece, they were not immediately believed. Alexander had no obvious or legitimate heir, his son Alexander IV by Roxane being born after Alexander's death. According to Diodorus, Alexander's companions asked him on his deathbed to whom he bequeathed his kingdom; his laconic reply was "tôi kratistôi"—"to the strongest". 

Arrian and Plutarch claimed that Alexander was speechless by this point, implying that this was an apocryphal story. Diodorus, Curtius and Justin offered the more plausible story that Alexander passed his signet ring to Perdiccas, a bodyguard and leader of the companion cavalry, in front of witnesses, thereby nominating him. 

Perdiccas initially did not claim power, instead suggesting that Roxane's baby would be king, if male; with himself, Craterus, Leonnatus, and Antipater as guardians. However, the infantry, under the command of Meleager, rejected this arrangement since they had been excluded from the discussion. Instead, they supported Alexander's half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus. Eventually, the two sides reconciled, and after the birth of Alexander IV, he and Philip III were appointed joint kings, albeit in name only. 

Dissension and rivalry soon afflicted the Macedonians, however. The satrapies handed out by Perdiccas at the Partition of Babylon became power bases each general used to bid for power. After the assassination of Perdiccas in 321 BC, Macedonian unity collapsed, and 40 years of war between "The Successors" (Diadochi) ensued before the Hellenistic world settled into four stable power blocks: the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, the Seleucid Empire in the east, the Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor, and Macedon. In the process, both Alexander IV and Philip III were murdered. 

===Testament===
Diodorus stated that Alexander had given detailed written instructions to Craterus some time before his death. Craterus started to carry out Alexander's commands, but the successors chose not to further implement them, on the grounds they were impractical and extravagant. Nevertheless, Perdiccas read Alexander's will to his troops. 

The testament called for military expansion into the southern and western Mediterranean, monumental constructions, and the intermixing of Eastern and Western populations. It included:
*Construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the pyramids of Egypt" 
*Erection of great temples in Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Dium, Amphipolis, and a monumental temple to Athena at Troy 
*Conquest of Arabia and the entire Mediterranean Basin 
*Circumnavigation of Africa 
*Development of cities and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties." 

==Character==

===Generalship===
The Battle of the Granicus, 334 BC
The Battle of Issus, 333 BC
Alexander earned the epithet "the Great" due to his unparalleled success as a military commander. He never lost a battle, despite typically being outnumbered. This was due to use of terrain, phalanx and cavalry tactics, bold strategy, and the fierce loyalty of his troops. The Macedonian phalanx, armed with the sarissa, a spear long, had been developed and perfected by Philip II through rigorous training, and Alexander used its speed and maneuverability to great effect against larger but more disparate Persian forces. Alexander also recognized the potential for disunity among his diverse army, which employed various languages and weapons. He overcame this by being personally involved in battle, in the manner of a Macedonian king. 

In his first battle in Asia, at Granicus, Alexander used only a small part of his forces, perhaps 13,000 infantry with 5,000 cavalry, against a much larger Persian force of 40,000. Alexander placed the phalanx at the center and cavalry and archers on the wings, so that his line matched the length of the Persian cavalry line, about 3 km. By contrast, the Persian infantry was stationed behind its cavalry. This ensured that Alexander would not be outflanked, while his phalanx, armed with long pikes, had a considerable advantage over the Persian's scimitars and javelins. Macedonian losses were negligible compared to those of the Persians. 

At Issus in 333 BC, his first confrontation with Darius, he used the same deployment, and again the central phalanx pushed through. Alexander personally led the charge in the center, routing the opposing army. At the decisive encounter with Darius at Gaugamela, Darius equipped his chariots with scythes on the wheels to break up the phalanx and equipped his cavalry with pikes. Alexander arranged a double phalanx, with the center advancing at an angle, parting when the chariots bore down and then reforming. The advance was successful and broke Darius' center, causing the latter to flee once again. 

When faced with opponents who used unfamiliar fighting techniques, such as in Central Asia and India, Alexander adapted his forces to his opponents' style. Thus, in Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander successfully used his javelin throwers and archers to prevent outflanking movements, while massing his cavalry at the center. In India, confronted by Porus' elephant corps, the Macedonians opened their ranks to envelop the elephants and used their sarissas to strike upwards and dislodge the elephants' handlers. 

===Physical appearance===
Roman copy of a herma by Lysippos, Louvre Museum. Plutarch reports that sculptures by Lysippos were the most faithful.
Greek biographer Plutarch (c. 45–120 AD) describes Alexander's appearance as:

Greek historian Arrian (Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon' c. 86–160) described Alexander as:

The semi-legendary Alexander Romance also suggests that Alexander suffered from heterochromia iridum: that one eye was dark and the other light.

British historian Peter Green provided a description of Alexander's appearance, based on his review of statues and some ancient documents:

Ancient authors recorded that Alexander was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysippos that he forbade other sculptors from crafting his image. Lysippos had often used the Contrapposto sculptural scheme to portray Alexander and other characters such as Apoxyomenos, Hermes and Eros. Lysippos' sculpture, famous for its naturalism, as opposed to a stiffer, more static pose, is thought to be the most faithful depiction.

===Personality===
Alexander (left) fighting an Asiatic lion with his friend Craterus (detail). 3rd century BC mosaic, Pella Museum.
Some of Alexander's strongest personality traits formed in response to his parents. His mother had huge ambitions, and encouraged him to believe it was his destiny to conquer the Persian Empire. Olympias' influence instilled a sense of destiny in him, and Plutarch tells us that his ambition "kept his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his years." However, his father Philip was Alexander's most immediate and influential role model, as the young Alexander watched him campaign practically every year, winning victory after victory while ignoring severe wounds. Alexander's relationship with his father forged the competitive side of his personality; he had a need to out-do his father, illustrated by his reckless behavior in battle. While Alexander worried that his father would leave him "no great or brilliant achievement to be displayed to the world", he also downplayed his father's achievements to his companions. 

According to Plutarch, among Alexander's traits were a violent temper and rash, impulsive nature, which undoubtedly contributed to some of his decisions. Although Alexander was stubborn and did not respond well to orders from his father, he was open to reasoned debate. He had a calmer side—perceptive, logical, and calculating. He had a great desire for knowledge, a love for philosophy, and was an avid reader. This was no doubt in part due to Aristotle's tutelage; Alexander was intelligent and quick to learn. His intelligent and rational side was amply demonstrated by his ability and success as a general. He had great self-restraint in "pleasures of the body," in contrast with his lack of self control with alcohol. 

Alexander was erudite and patronized both arts and sciences. However, he had little interest in sports or the Olympic games (unlike his father), seeking only the Homeric ideals of honor (timê) and glory (kudos). He had great charisma and force of personality, characteristics which made him a great leader. His unique abilities were further demonstrated by the inability of any of his generals to unite Macedonia and retain the Empire after his death – only Alexander had the ability to do so. 

During his final years, and especially after the death of Hephaestion, Alexander began to exhibit signs of megalomania and paranoia. His extraordinary achievements, coupled with his own ineffable sense of destiny and the flattery of his companions, may have combined to produce this effect. His delusions of grandeur are readily visible in his testament and in his desire to conquer the world. 

He appears to have believed himself a deity, or at least sought to deify himself. Olympias always insisted to him that he was the son of Zeus, a theory apparently confirmed to him by the oracle of Amun at Siwa. He began to identify himself as the son of Zeus-Ammon. Alexander adopted elements of Persian dress and customs at court, notably proskynesis, a practice of which Macedonians disapproved, and were loath to perform. This behavior cost him the sympathies of many of his countrymen. However, Alexander also was a pragmatic ruler who understood the difficulties of ruling culturally disparate peoples, many of whom lived in kingdoms where the king was divine. Thus, rather than megalomania, his behavior may simply have been a practical attempt at strengthening his rule and keeping his empire together. 

===Personal relationships===

A mural in Pompeii, depicting the marriage of Alexander to Barsine (Stateira) in 324 BC. The couple are apparently dressed as Ares and Aphrodite.
Alexander married twice: Roxana, daughter of the Bactrian nobleman Oxyartes, out of love; and Stateira II, a Persian princess and daughter of Darius III of Persia, for political reasons. He apparently had two sons, Alexander IV of Macedon of Roxana and, possibly, Heracles of Macedon from his mistress Barsine. He lost another child when Roxana miscarried at Babylon. 

Alexander also had a close relationship with his friend, general, and bodyguard Hephaestion, the son of a Macedonian noble. Hephaestion's death devastated Alexander. This event may have contributed to Alexander's failing health and detached mental state during his final months. 

Alexander's sexuality has been the subject of speculation and controversy. No ancient sources stated that Alexander had homosexual relationships, or that Alexander's relationship with Hephaestion was sexual. Aelian, however, writes of Alexander's visit to Troy where "Alexander garlanded the tomb of Achilles and Hephaestion that of Patroclus, the latter riddling that he was a beloved of Alexander, in just the same way as Patroclus was of Achilles". Noting that the word eromenos (ancient Greek for beloved) does not necessarily bear sexual meaning, Alexander may have been bisexual, which in his time was not controversial.

Green argues that there is little evidence in ancient sources that Alexander had much carnal interest in women; he did not produce an heir until the very end of his life. However, he was relatively young when he died, and Ogden suggests that Alexander's matrimonial record is more impressive than his father's at the same age. Apart from wives, Alexander had many more female companions. Alexander accumulated a harem in the style of Persian kings, but he used it rather sparingly; showing great self-control in "pleasures of the body". Nevertheless, Plutarch described how Alexander was infatuated by Roxana while complimenting him on not forcing himself on her. Green suggested that, in the context of the period, Alexander formed quite strong friendships with women, including Ada of Caria, who adopted him, and even Darius's mother Sisygambis, who supposedly died from grief upon hearing of Alexander's death. 

==Legacy==
The Hellenistic world view after Alexander: ancient world map of Eratosthenes (276–194 BC), incorporating information from the campaigns of Alexander and his successors. 

Alexander's legacy extended beyond his military conquests. His campaigns greatly increased contacts and trade between East and West, and vast areas to the east were significantly exposed to Greek civilization and influence. Some of the cities he founded became major cultural centers, many surviving into the 21st century. His chroniclers recorded valuable information about the areas through which he marched, while the Greeks themselves got a sense of belonging to a world beyond the Mediterranean. 

===Hellenistic kingdoms===

Alexander's most immediate legacy was the introduction of Macedonian rule to huge new swathes of Asia. At the time of his death, Alexander's empire covered some 5200000 km2, Peter Turchin, Thomas D. Hall and Jonathan M. Adams, "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires", Journal of World-Systems Research Vol. 12 (no. 2), pp. 219–229 (2006). and was the largest state of its time. Many of these areas remained in Macedonian hands or under Greek influence for the next 200–300 years. The successor states that emerged were, at least initially, dominant forces, and these 300 years are often referred to as the Hellenistic period. 

Plan of Alexandria c. 30 BC
The eastern borders of Alexander's empire began to collapse even during his lifetime. However, the power vacuum he left in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent directly gave rise to one of the most powerful Indian dynasties in history. Taking advantage of this, Chandragupta Maurya (referred to in Greek sources as "Sandrokottos"), of relatively humble origin, took control of the Punjab, and with that power base proceeded to conquer the Nanda Empire. 

===Founding of cities===
Over the course of his conquests, Alexander founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most of them east of the Tigris. The first, and greatest, was Alexandria in Egypt, which would become one of the leading Mediterranean cities. The cities locations' reflected trade routes as well as defensive positions. At first, the cities must have been inhospitable, little more than defensive garrisons. Following Alexander's death, many Greeks who had settled there tried to return to Greece. However, a century or so after Alexander's death, many of the Alexandrias were thriving, with elaborate public buildings and substantial populations that included both Greek and local peoples. 

===Hellenization===

Alexander's empire was the largest state of its time, covering approximately 5.2 million square km.

Hellenization was coined by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to denote the spread of Greek language, culture, and population into the former Persian empire after Alexander's conquest. That this export took place is undoubted, and can be seen in the great Hellenistic cities of, for instance, Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia (south of modern Baghdad). Alexander sought to insert Greek elements into Persian culture and attempted to hybridize Greek and Persian culture. This culminated in his aspiration to homogenize the populations of Asia and Europe. However, his successors explicitly rejected such policies. Nevertheless, Hellenization occurred throughout the region, accompanied by a distinct and opposite 'Orientalization' of the Successor states. 

The core of Hellenistic culture was essentially Athenian. The close association of men from across Greece in Alexander's army directly led to the emergence of the largely Attic-based "koine", or "common" Greek dialect. Koine spread throughout the Hellenistic world, becoming the lingua franca of Hellenistic lands and eventually the ancestor of modern Greek. Furthermore, town planning, education, local government, and art current in the Hellenistic period were all based on Classical Greek ideals, evolving into distinct new forms commonly grouped as Hellenistic. Aspects of Hellenistic culture were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century. 

The Buddha, in Greco-Buddhist style, 1st–2nd century AD, Gandhara (Modern Pakistan). Tokyo National Museum.
Some of the most unusual effects of Hellenization can be seen in India, in the region of the relatively late-arising Indo-Greek kingdoms. There, isolated from Europe, Greek culture apparently hybridized with Indian, and especially Buddhist, influences. The first realistic portrayals of the Buddha appeared at this time; they were modeled on Greek statues of Apollo. Several Buddhist traditions may have been influenced by the ancient Greek religion: the concept of Boddhisatvas is reminiscent of Greek divine heroes, and some Mahayana ceremonial practices (burning incense, gifts of flowers, and food placed on altars) are similar to those practiced by the ancient Greeks. One Greek king, Menander I, probably became Buddhist, and was immortalized in Buddhist literature as 'Milinda'. The process of Hellenization extended to the sciences, where ideas from Greek astronomy filtered eastward and had profoundly influenced Indian astronomy by the early centuries AD. For example, Greek astronomical instruments dating to the 3rd century BC were found in the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai Khanoum in modern-day Afghanistan while the Greek concept of a spherical earth surrounded by the spheres of planets was adopted in India and eventually supplanted the long-standing Indian cosmological belief of a flat and circular earth. The Yavanajataka and Paulisa Siddhanta texts in particular show Greek influence.

===Influence on Rome===
This medallion was produced in Imperial Rome, demonstrating the influence of Alexander's memory. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.
Alexander and his exploits were admired by many Romans, especially generals, who wanted to associate themselves with his achievements. Polybius began his Histories by reminding Romans of Alexander's achievements, and thereafter Roman leaders saw him as a role model. Pompey the Great adopted the epithet "Magnus" and even Alexander's anastole-type haircut, and searched the conquered lands of the east for Alexander's 260-year-old cloak, which he then wore as a sign of greatness. Julius Caesar dedicated a Lysippean equestrian bronze statue but replaced Alexander's head with his own, while Octavian visited Alexander's tomb in Alexandria and temporarily changed his seal from a sphinx to Alexander's profile. The emperor Trajan also admired Alexander, as did Nero and Caracalla. The Macriani, a Roman family that in the person of Macrinus briefly ascended to the imperial throne, kept images of Alexander on their persons, either on jewelry, or embroidered into their clothes. 
The Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius (reigned c. 200–180 BC), wearing an elephant scalp, took over Alexander's legacy in the east by again invading India, and establishing the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BC–10 AD).
On the other hand, some Roman writers, particularly Republican figures, used Alexander as a cautionary tale of how autocratic tendencies can be kept in check by republican values. Alexander was used by these writers as an example of ruler values such as amicita (friendship) and clementia (clemency), but also iracundia (anger) and cupiditas gloriae (over-desire for glory). 

===Legend===

Legendary accounts surround the life of Alexander the Great, many deriving from his own lifetime, probably encouraged by Alexander himself. His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing shortly after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, invented a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. When Onesicritus read this passage to his patron, Alexander's general and later King Lysimachus reportedly quipped, "I wonder where I was at the time." 

In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, containing many dubious stories, and was translated into numerous languages. 

===In ancient and modern culture===

Alexander the Great depicted in a 14th-century Byzantine manuscript

Alexander the Great's accomplishments and legacy have been depicted in many cultures. Alexander has figured in both high and popular culture beginning in his own era to the present day. The Alexander Romance, in particular, has had a significant impact on portrayals of Alexander in later cultures, from Persian to medieval European to modern Greek. 

Alexander features prominently in modern Greek folklore, more so than any other ancient figure. The colloquial form of his name in modern Greek ("O Megalexandros") is a household name, and he is the only ancient hero to appear in the Karagiozis shadow play. One well-known fable among Greek seamen involves a solitary mermaid who would grasp a ship's prow during a storm and ask the captain "Is King Alexander alive?". The correct answer is "He is alive and well and rules the world!", causing the mermaid to vanish and the sea to calm. Any other answer would cause the mermaid to turn into a raging Gorgon who would drag the ship to the bottom of the sea, all hands aboard. 

Post-Islamic Persian miniature depicting Khidr and Alexander watching the Water of Life revive a salted fish

St. Augustine in his book City of God restated Cicero’s parable showing that Alexander the Great was little more than a leader of a robber band:

And so if justice is left out, what are kingdoms except great robber bands? For what are robber bands except little kingdoms? The band also is a group of men governed by the orders of a leader, bound by a social compact, and its booty is divided according to a law agreed upon. If by repeatedly adding desperate men this plague grows to the point where it holds territory and establishes a fixed seat, seizes cities and subdues people, then it more conspicuously assumes the name of kingdom, and this name is now openly granted to it, not for any subtraction of cupidity, but by addition of impunity. For it was an elegant and true reply that was made to Alexander the Great by a certain pirate whom he had captured. When the king asked him what he was thinking of, that he should molest the sea, he said with defiant independence: 'The same as you when you molest the world! Since I do this with a little ship I am called a pirate. You do it with a great fleet and are called emperor'. 

In pre-Islamic Middle Persian (Zoroastrian) literature, Alexander is referred to by the epithet gujastak, meaning "accursed", and is accused of destroying temples and burning the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. In Islamic Iran, under the influence of the Alexander Romance (in Iskandarnamah), a more positive portrayal of Alexander emerges. Firdausi's Shahnameh ("The Book of Kings") includes Alexander in a line of legitimate Iranian shahs, a mythical figure who explored the far reaches of the world in search of the Fountain of Youth. Later Persian writers associate him with philosophy, portraying him at a symposium with figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in search of immortality. 

The Syriac version of the Alexander Romance portrays him as an ideal Christian world conqueror who prayed to "the one true God". In Egypt, Alexander was portrayed as the son of Nectanebo II, the last pharaoh before the Persian conquest. His defeat of Darius was depicted as Egypt's salvation, "proving" Egypt was still ruled by an Egyptian. 

The figure of Dhul-Qarnayn (literally "the Two-Horned One") mentioned in the Quran is believed by some scholars to represent Alexander, due to parallels with the Alexander Romance. In this tradition, he was a heroic figure who built a wall to defend against the nations of Gog and Magog. He then traveled the known world in search for the Water of Life and Immortality, eventually becoming a prophet. 

In India and Pakistan, more specifically the Punjab, the name "Sikandar", derived from Persian, denotes a rising young talent. In medieval Europe he was made a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes who encapsulated all the ideal qualities of chivalry.

==Historiography==

Apart from a few inscriptions and fragments, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander were all lost. Contemporaries who wrote accounts of his life included Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman. Their works are lost, but later works based on these original sources have survived. The earliest of these is Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), followed by Quintus Curtius Rufus (mid-to-late 1st century AD), Arrian (1st to 2nd century AD), the biographer Plutarch (1st to 2nd century AD), and finally Justin, whose work dated as late as the 4th century. Of these, Arrian is generally considered the most reliable, given that he used Ptolemy and Aristobulus as his sources, closely followed by Diodorus. 

==Ancestry==

==In film==
Alexander the Great was subject of the films Alexander the Great (1956), starring Richard Burton, and Alexander (2004), starring Colin Farrell.

==See also==
*Alexander the Great in the Qur'an
*Bucephalus
*Chronology of European exploration of Asia
*Diogenes and Alexander
*List of people known as The Great

==Notes==

==References==

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== External links ==

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[[Alfred Korzybski]]

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (; July 3, 1879 &ndash; March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics. Korzybski's work argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and by the structure of language.

Korzybski thought that people do not have access to direct knowledge of reality; rather they have access to perceptions and to a set of beliefs which human society has confused with direct knowledge of reality. Korzybski is remembered as the author of the dictum: "The map is not the territory".

==Early life and career==
Alfred Korzybski's family coat-of-arms (see Abdank coat of arms).
Korzybski was born in Warsaw, Poland which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. He was part of an aristocratic Polish family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned the Polish language at home and the Russian language in schools; and having a French governess and a German governess, he became fluent in these four languages as a child.

Korzybski was educated at the Warsaw University of Technology in engineering. During the First World War Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army. After being wounded in a leg and suffering other injuries, he moved to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then the United States) to coordinate the shipment of artillery to Russia. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of war bonds. After the War, he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940. He met Mira Edgerly, http://american-miniatures20c.blogspot.com/2007/06/edgerly-mira-portrait-of-three-sisters.html a painter of portraits on ivory, shortly after the Armistice, and married her in January 1919. Their marriage lasted until his death.

His first book, Manhood of Humanity, was published in 1921. In the book, he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a "time-binding" class of life (humans perform time binding by the transmission of knowledge and abstractions through time which are accreted in cultures).

==General semantics==
Korzybski's work culminated in the initiation of a discipline that he named general semantics (GS). As Korzybski said, GS should not be confused with semantics, a different subject. The basic principles of general semantics, which include time-binding, are described in the publication Science and Sanity, published in 1933. After the publication of Science and Sanity he traveled about teaching briefly in many schools and universities. In 1938 Korzybski founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. http://www.generalsemantics.org/about-us/history/ The post-World War II housing shortage in Chicago cost him the Institute's building lease, so in 1946, he moved the Institute to Lakeville, Connecticut, U.S., where he directed it until his death in 1950.

Korzybski's work maintained that human beings are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the structure of their languages. Human beings cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). Sometimes our perceptions and our languages actually mislead us as to the "facts" with which we must deal. Our understanding of what is happening sometimes lacks similarity of structure with what is actually happening.

He stressed training in awareness of abstracting, using techniques that he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting".

His system included modifying the way we consider the world, e.g., with an attitude of "I don't know; let's see," to better discover or reflect its realities as revealed by modern science. One of these techniques involved becoming inwardly and outwardly quiet, an experience that he termed, "silence on the objective levels".

=="To be"==
Many devotees and critics of Korzybski reduced his rather complex system to a simple matter of what he said about the verb form "is" of the more general verb "to be." Alfred Korzybski, Selections from Science and Sanity, 2010. His system, however, is based primarily on such terminology as the different "orders of abstraction," and formulations such as "consciousness of abstracting." It is often said that Korzybski opposed the use of the verb "to be," which is a profound exaggeration (see "Criticisms" below).

He thought that certain uses of the verb "to be", called the "is of identity" and the "is of predication", were faulty in structure, e.g., a statement such as, "Elizabeth is a fool" (said of a person named "Elizabeth" who has done something that we regard as foolish). In Korzybski's system, one's assessment of Elizabeth belongs to a higher order of abstraction than Elizabeth herself. Korzybski's remedy was to deny identity; in this example, to be aware continually that "Elizabeth" is not what we call her. We find Elizabeth not in the verbal domain, the world of words, but the nonverbal domain (the two, he said, amount to different orders of abstraction). This was expressed by Korzybski's most famous premise, "the map is not the territory". Note that this premise uses the phrase "is not", a form of "to be"; this and many other examples show that he did not intend to abandon "to be" as such. In fact, he said explicitly that there were no structural problems with the verb "to be" when used as an auxiliary verb or when used to state existence or location.

It was even acceptable at times to use the faulty forms of the verb "to be," as long as one was aware of their structural limitations. This was developed into the language "E-Prime" by D. David Bourland, Jr. 15 years after his death (E-Prime a form of the English language in which the verb "to be" does not appear in any of its forms; for example, the sentence "the movie was good" could translate into E-Prime as "I liked the movie", thereby distinguishing opinion from fact). Bourland "translated" several Rational Emotive Therapy books by psychotherapist Albert Ellis into E-Prime, including Ellis and Harper's A New Guide to Rational Living. 

==Anecdotes==
One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think," said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies." The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see," Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter." R. Diekstra, Haarlemmer Dagblad, 1993, cited by L. Derks & J. Hollander, Essenties van NLP (Utrecht: Servire, 1996), p. 58. 

William Burroughs went to a Korzybski workshop in the Autumn of 1939. He was 25 years old, and paid $40. His fellow students—there were 38 in all—included young Samuel I. Hayakawa (later to become a Republican member of the U.S. Senate), Ralph Moriarty deBit (later to become the spiritual teacher Vitvan) and Wendell Johnson (founder of the Monster Study). http://nakedlunch.org/naked-lunch/space-time-travel/naked-lunch-and-chicago/seminal-semantics-antics/ 

== Reception ==

Korzybski was well received in numerous disciplinary realms, as evidenced by the positive reactions from leading persons in the sciences and humanities in the 1940s and 1950s. 

Some of the persons listed are, like Korzybski, polymaths and several categories apply to them. For example, Heinlein was the "dean of science fiction writers" because he was "the scientist" of science fiction.

As reported in the Third Edition of Science and Sanity, The U.S. Army in World War II used Korzybski's system to treat battle fatigue in Europe with the supervision of Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who went on to become the psychiatrist in charge of the Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg.

Some of the General Semantics tradition was continued by Samuel I. Hayakawa, who had a dispute with Korzybski. When asked because of what, Hayakawa is said to have replied: "Words." 

===Writers and artists===
The general semantics concept "non-Aristotelian logic", influenced the science fiction of the most prolific, best selling, influential authors of the genre during its flowering and height. General semantics has helped guide the thinking of artists contemplating what to say to society, or how to study society, influencing a notable lyricist, a filmmaker, and other writers.

* Isaac Asimov, Science and Science Fiction author, professor of biochemistry
* Robert A. Heinlein, Korzybski is mentioned in the 1940 short story "Blowups Happen" and the 1949 novella Gulf. set the standard for scientific and engineering plausibility
*: "You may not like personally, but he's at least as great a man as Einstein - at least - because his field is broader. The same kind of work that Einstein did, the same kind of work, using the same methods; but in a much broader field, much more close to human relationships." “The Institute of General Semantics” Retrieved on 2010–08–17 Stockdale Steve: “Heinlein and Ellis: converging competencies”, ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Oct, 2007 Retrieved on 2010–08–17. 
* William S. Burroughs, novelist, short story writer, essayist and spoken word performer
* Frank Herbert, critically acclaimed, science fiction author of the best-selling science fiction novel of all time: Dune
* L. Ron Hubbard, author; founder of both the Church of Scientology and of Dianetics

* Robert Anton Wilson, polymath, author, philosopher, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian, (edu. in engineering, math, psychology), (See also Prometheus Rising.)
*: "and Sanity got a lot of enthusiastic reviews from a lot of distinguished people. And it had a tremendous impact on all the social sciences for a while." Robert Anton Wilson, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsjdEClYke0&feature=related, minute 7 
* Ken Keyes, Jr., sold or distributed millions of self-help books he wrote, organized lectures for his many students, spoke to dignitaries at political gatherings, and knew and moved among the self-help elite
* A. E. van Vogt, regarded as one of the most popular and complex science fiction writers during its "Golden Age"
* John W. Campbell, an influential science fiction writer who "shaped the Golden Age of Science Fiction"
* Steve Allen, television personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer
* Neil Postman, (1931 – 2003) author, media theorist and cultural critic
* Tommy Hall, lyricist for the 13th Floor Elevators
* Jan Bucquoy, See the seventh part of the comics series Jaunes: Labyrinthe, with its explicit references to Korzybski's "the map is not the territory". surrealist, anarchist, author, filmmaker, cartoon script-writer

===Gurus, futurists and philosophers===
These are the psychological, sociological, and knowledge-worker types.
* Kenneth Burke, literary theorist, linguist
*: But Burke also points out that the concepts of "incipient" and "delayed action" exist in the works of I. A. Richards and George Herbert Mead as well, and that although Korzybski analyzes knowing, he doesn't fully analyze doing. Burke wrote the book on Language As Symbolic Action.
* Albert Ellis the psychologist who developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy http://time-binding.org/misc/akml/akmls/58-ellis.pdf 
* Jacque Fresco, futurist, founder and director with his colleague Roxanne Meadows The Venus Project 
* Stephen Gaskin Self-proclaimed professional Hippy, author, political activist and musician.
* John Grinder, (with Richard Bandler) Neuro-linguistic programming, Bandler, Richard & John Grinder (1975). The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy. Palo Alto, CA: Science & Behavior Books. esp. the Meta model and "human modeling for performance"
* Alejandro Jodorowsky, Unofficial biography of Alejandro Jodorowsky. filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, comics writer and spiritual guru
* Alvin Toffler, futurist
* Alan Watts, Author, theologist, zen philosopher, interpreter of Eastern Philosophy and speaker.
* Benjamin Lee Whorf, linguist and fire prevention engineer
*: The article on Whorf states "Drawing on Nietzsche's ideas of perspectivism Alfred Korzybski developed the theory of general semantics which has been compared to Whorf's notions of linguistic relativity. (Pula 1992)".

===Mathematicians, scientists and physicists===
* Gregory Bateson, polymath, anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist
* Buckminster Fuller, systems theorist, architect, engineer, author, designer, inventor, and futurist
* Moshé Feldenkrais, physicist. The Feldenkrais Method improve functioning by increasing self-awareness through movement
* Douglas Engelbart, as an internet pioneer, the inventor of the computer mouse, in human–computer interaction, committed, vocal proponent of the development and use of computers and networks to help cope with the world’s increasingly urgent and complex problems
* Stuart Chase, economist, MIT trained engineer, writer. Coined the phrase "A New Deal"". Hybrid background of engineering and economics places him in the same philosophical camp as R. Buckminster Fuller
* Jacques Loeb, biologist
* Percy Williams Bridgman, physicist
* William Alanson White, neurologist and psychiatrist
* W. Horsley Gantt, researcher

==Quotation==
* "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking." Wisdomquotes 

==See also==
* General Semantics
* The map is not the territory
* Structural differential
* E-Prime
* Institute of General Semantics
* Robert Pula
* Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture
* Concept and object

==References==

==Further reading==
* Kodish, Bruce. 2011. Korzybski: A Biography. Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9700664-0-4 softcover, 978-09700664-28 hardcover.
* Kodish, Bruce and Susan Presby Kodish. 2011. Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics, Third Edition. Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9700664-1-1
* Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, foreword by Edward Kasner, notes by M. Kendig, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, hardcover, 2nd edition, 391 pages, ISBN 0-937298-00-X. (Copy of the first edition.)
* Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Preface by Robert P. Pula, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, hardcover, 5th edition, ISBN 0-937298-01-8. (Full text online.)
* Alfred Korzybski, Collected Writings 1920-1950, Institute of General Semantics, 1990, hardcover, ISBN 0-685-40616-4
* Montagu, M. F. A. (1953). Time-binding and the concept of culture. The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Sep., 1953), pp. 148–155.
* Murray, E. (1950). In memoriam: Alfred H. Korzybski. Sociometry, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Feb., 1950), pp. 76–77.

==External links==

* 
* Alfred Korzybski and Gestalt Therapy Website
* Australian General Semantics Society
* Institute of General Semantics



[[Asteroids (video game)]]

Asteroids is an arcade space shooter released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. and designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.

Asteroids was conceived during a meeting between Logg and Rains and used hardware developed by Howard Delman previously used for Lunar Lander. Based on an unfinished game titled Cosmos and inspired by Spacewar! and Computer Space, both early shoot 'em up video games, Asteroids physics model and control scheme were derived by Logg from these earlier games and refined through trial and error. The game is rendered on a vector display in a two-dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes.

Acclaimed by players and video game critics for its vector graphics, controls, and addictive gameplay, Asteroids was one of the first major hits of the golden age of arcade games. The game sold over 70,000 arcade cabinets and proved both popular with players and influential with developers. It has since been ported to multiple platforms. Asteroids was widely imitated and directly influenced two popular and often cloned arcade games, Defender and Gravitar, as well as many other video games.

==Gameplay==
A ship is surrounded by asteroids and a saucer.
The objective of Asteroids is to destroy asteroids and saucers. The player controls a triangular ship that can rotate left and right, fire shots straight forward, and thrust forward. Once the ship begins moving in a direction, it will continue in that direction for a time without player intervention unless the player applies thrust in a different direction. The ship eventually comes to a stop when not thrusting. The player can also send the ship into hyperspace, causing it to disappear and reappear in a random location on the screen, at the risk of self-destructing or appearing on top of an asteroid. 

Each level starts with a few large asteroids drifting in various directions on the screen. Objects wrap around screen edges – for instance, an asteroid that drifts off the top edge of the screen reappears at the bottom and continues moving in the same direction. As the player shoots asteroids, they break into smaller asteroids that move faster and are more difficult to hit. Smaller asteroids are also worth more points. Two flying saucers appear periodically on the screen; the "big saucer" shoots randomly and poorly, while the "small saucer" fires frequently at the ship. After reaching a score of 40,000, only the small saucer appears. As the player's score increases, the angle range of the shots from the small saucer diminishes until the saucer fires extremely accurately. Once the screen has been cleared of all asteroids and flying saucers, a new set of large asteroids appears, thus starting the next level. The game gets harder as the number of asteroids increases until after the score reaches a range between 40,000 and 60,000. The player starts with 3 lives after a coin is inserted and gains an extra life every 10,000 points. When the player loses all his lives, the game ends.

Like many games of its time, Asteroids contains several bugs. The game slows down as the player gains 50-100 lives, due to a programming error in that there is no limit for the permitted number of lives. The player can "lose" the game after more than 250 lives are collected. 

==Development and design==
Asteroids was conceived by Lyle Rains and programmed by Ed Logg with collaborations from other Atari staff. Logg was impressed with the Atari 2600 (then known as "Atari Video Computer System") and joined Atari's coin-op division and worked on Dirt Bike, which was never released due to an unsuccessful field test. He developed Super Breakout after hearing that Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, wanted Breakout updated. Paul Mancuso joined the development team as Asteroids technician and engineer Howard Delman contributed to the hardware. During a meeting in April 1979, Rains discussed Planet Grab, a multiplayer arcade game later renamed to Cosmos. Logg did not know the name of the game, thinking Computer Space as "the inspiration for the two-dimensional approach." The unfinished game featured a giant, indestructible asteroid, so Rains asked Logg: "Well, why don’t we have a game where you shoot the rocks and blow them up?" In response, Logg described a similar concept where the player selectively shoots at rocks that break into smaller pieces. Both agreed on the concept. 

Asteroids was implemented on hardware developed by Delman and is a vector game, in which the graphics are composed of lines drawn on a vector monitor. Rains initially wanted the game done in raster graphics, but Logg, experienced in vector graphics, suggested an XY monitor because the high 1024x760 resolution would permit precise aiming. The hardware is chiefly a MOS 6502 executing the game program, and QuadraScan, a high-resolution vector graphics processor developed by Atari and referred to as an "XY display system" and the "Digital Vector Generator (DVG)". Asteroids Flyer, 1979, Atari, Inc. 

The original design concepts for QuadraScan came out of Cyan Engineering, Atari's off-campus research lab in Grass Valley, California, in 1978. Cyan gave it to Delman, who finished the design and first used it for Lunar Lander. Logg received Delman's modified board with five buttons, 13 sound effects, and additional RAM, and used it to develop Asteroids. The size of the board was 4 by 4 inches, and it was "linked up" to a monitor. 

Logg modeled the player's ship, the five-button control scheme, and the game physics after Spacewar!, which he had played as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, but made several changes to improve playability. The ship was programmed into the hardware and rendered by the monitor, and was configured to move with thrust and inertia. The hyperspace button was not placed near Logg's right thumb, which he was dissatisfied, as he had a problem "tak his hand off the thrust button." Drawings of asteroids in various shapes were incorporated into the game. Logg copied the idea of a high score table with initials from Exidy's Star Fire. 

The two saucers were formulated to be different from each other. A steadily decreasing timer that shortens intervals between saucer attacks was employed to keep the player from not shooting asteroids and saucers. The minimalist soundtrack features a "heartbeat" sound effect, which quickens as the game progresses. The game did not have a sound chip, so Delman created a hardware circuit for 13 sound effects by hand which was wired onto the board. 

A prototype of Asteroids was well received by several Atari staff and engineers, who would "wander between labs, passing comment and 
stopping to play as they went." Logg was often asked when he would be leaving by employees eager to play the prototype, so he created a second prototype specifically for staff to play. Atari went to Sacramento, California for testing, setting up prototypes of the game in local arcades to measure its potential success. The company also observed veteran players and younger players during focus group sessions at Atari itself. A group of old players familiar with Spacewar! struggled to maintain grip on the thrust button and requested a joystick, whereas younger players accustomed to Space Invaders noted they get no break in the game. Logg and other Atari engineers observed proceedings and documented comments in four pages. 

==Reception and legacy==
Asteroids was immediately successful upon release. It displaced Space Invaders by popularity in the United States and became Atari's best selling arcade game of all time, with over 70,000 units sold. Atari earned an estimated $150 million in sales from the game, and arcade operators earned further $500 million from coin drops. Atari had been in the process of manufacturing another vector game, Lunar Lander, but demand for Asteroids was so high "that several hundred Asteroids games were shipped in Lunar Lander cabinets." 
 Asteroids was so popular that some video arcade operators had to install large boxes to hold the number of coins spent by players. 

The saucer in the original game design was supposed to take a shot as soon as it appeared. This action was altered so there would be a delay before the saucer shoots, leading to "lurking" from players. Lurking is a strategy in which the player uses thrust to keep the ship in motion, leaves 1 or 2 asteroids undamaged, and hunts for saucers, allowing the player to pick off as many 1,000-point UFOs as possible and play indefinitely on a single credit. Since the saucer could only shoot directly at the player's position on the screen, the player could "hide" at the opposite end of the screen and shoot across the screen boundary, while remaining relatively safe. Complaints from operators losing revenue due to lurking led to the creation of an EPROM restricting such chances. Usage of the names of Saturday Night Live characters "Mr. Bill" and "Sluggo" to refer to the saucers in an Esquire article about the game led to Logg receiving a cease and desist letter from a lawyer with the "Mr. Bill Trademark." 

Asteroids received positive reviews from video game critics and has been regarded as Logg's magnum opus. Brett Alan Weiss, writing for Allgame, likened the monochrome vector graphics to minimalism and viewed its sound effects as memorable. Weiss found its overall design to be near-perfect and cites the intensity and controls as elements that make the game addicting. He admitted the game is easily understandable and "holds up extremely well over time." William Cassidy, writing for GameSpy's "Classic Gaming", noticed its innovations, including being one of the first video games to track initials and allow players to enter their initials for appearing in the top 10 high scores, and commented, "the vector graphics fit the futuristic outer space theme very well." Asteroids was ranked fourth on Retro Gamers list of "Top 25 Arcade Games"; the Retro Gamer staff cited its simplicity and the lack of a proper ending as allowances of revisiting the game. It was added to the Museum of Modern Art's collection of video games. 

Released in 1981, Asteroids Deluxe is the first sequel to Asteroids. Dave Shepperd edited the code and made enhancements to the game without Logg's involvement. The onscreen objects were tinted blue, and hyperspace was replaced by a shield that depleted if used. The asteroids rotate, and the added killer satellite enemy breaks apart into three smaller ships when hit that home the player's position. The arcade machine's monitor displays vector graphics overlaying a holographic backdrop. It was followed by Owen Rubin's Space Duel in 1982, featuring colorful geometric shapes and co-op multiplayer gameplay, and Blasteroids in 1987, in which Ed Rotberg added "power-ups, ship morphing, branching levels, bosses and the ability to dock your ships in multiplayer for added firepower." Asteroids: Gunner, released to iOS platforms in 2011, has a large amount of content as a free-to-play game, with 150 waves, power-ups, and an achievement system. 

The gameplay in Asteroids was imitated by many games that followed, mostly "Asteroid clones". The Mattel Intellivision title Astrosmash was conceived as Avalanche! after Meteor! did not take up the cartridge's entire ROM space. Meteor!, an Asteroids clone, was cancelled to avoid a lawsuit and Avalanche! was released as Astrosmash. The resultant game borrows elements from Asteroids and Space Invaders, as with Defender and Gravitar, two popular and often cloned arcade games. 
 

Quality Software's Asteroids in Space (1980), another Asteroids clone, was one of the best selling games for the Apple II and was voted one of the most popular software titles of 1978-80 by Softalk magazine. Others include Acornsoft's Meteors and Ambrosia Software's Maelstrom, as well as those with expanded gameplay and background, such as Moons of Jupiter for the Commodore VIC-20 and MineStorm for the Vectrex. 

In 2009, Universal Studios won the rights to adapt Asteroids into a film, with Matthew Lopez as the scriptwriter and Lorenzo di Bonaventura as the producer. The game has no plot, so Universal would create the story from scratch, as done with Battleship, a film based on the Hasbro board game of the same name. 

==Ports==
A ship fires at one of the glowing asteroids. The Xbox Live Arcade port of Asteroids includes revamped HD graphics.
Asteroids has been ported to multiple platforms, including much of Atari's hardware (Atari 2600 in 1981, Atari 7800 in 1986, Atari Lynx in 1994) and many other platforms. Released in 1981, the 2600 port was the first game to use bank switching, a technique developed by Carl Nielsen's group of engineers that increased available ROM space from 4 KB to 8 KB. Brad Stewart, the programmer tasked to work on the port, used bank switching to complete the game. A port was in development for the Atari 5200 but was never officially released. The Atari 7800 version is a launch title and features co-operative play. The asteroids receive colorful textures, and the "heartbeat" sound effect remains intact. The game was included as part of the Atari Lynx title Super Asteroids & Missile Command, and featured in the original Microsoft Arcade compilation in 1993, the latter with four other Atari video games: Missile Command, Tempest, Centipede, and Battlezone. 

Activision made an enhanced version of Asteroids for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Microsoft Windows, and the Game Boy Color in 1998. Doug Perry, writing for entertainment and video game journalism website IGN, praised the high-end graphics – with realistic space object models, backgrounds, and special effects – for making Asteroids "a pleasure to look at" while being a homage to the original arcade version. The Atari Flashback series of dedicated video game consoles have included both the 2600 the arcade versions of Asteroids. 

Published by Crave Entertainment on December 14, 1999, Asteroids Hyper 64 is the Nintendo 64 port of Asteroids. The game's graphics were upgraded to 3D, with both the ship and asteroids receiving polygon models along static backgrounds, and it was supplemented with weapons and a multiplayer mode. IGN writer Matt Casamassina was pleased that the gameplay was faithful to the original but felt the minor additions and constant "repetition" was not enough to make the port "warrant a $50 purchase." He was disappointed about the lack of music and found the sound effects to be of poor quality. 

In 2001, Infogrames released Atari Anniversary Edition for the Sega Dreamcast, PlayStation, and PC compatibles. Developed by Digital Eclipse, it included emulated versions of Asteroids and other old Atari games. Jeff Gerstmann of Gamespot criticized the Dreamcast version for its limitations, such as the presentation of vector graphics on a low resolution television set, which obscures the copyright text in Asteroids. The arcade and Atari 2600 versions of Asteroids, along with Asteroids Deluxe, were included in Atari Anthology for both Xbox and PlayStation 2. 

Released on November 28, 2007, the Xbox Live Arcade port of Asteroids has revamped HD graphics along with an added intense "throttle monkey" mode. Both Asteroids in its arcade and 2600 versions and Asteroids Deluxe were ported to Microsofts Game Room download service in 2010. Glu Mobile released a mobile phone port of the game with supplementary features as well as the original arcade version. 

Asteroids was included on Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 for the Nintendo DS. Craig Harris, writing for IGN, noticed that the Nintendo DS's small screen can not properly display details of games with vector graphics. 

==Highest score==
On November 13, 1982, 15 year old Scott Safran of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, set a world record of 41,336,440 points on the arcade game Asteroids, beating the 40,101,910 point score set by Leo Daniels of Carolina Beach on February 6, 1982. In 1998, to congratulate Safran on his accomplishment, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard searched for him for four years until 2002, when it was discovered that he had died in an accident in 1989. In a ceremony in Philadelphia on April 27, 2002, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies presented an award to the surviving members of Safran's family, commemorating the Asteroid Champion's achievement. On April 6, 2010, John McAllister broke Safran's record with a high score of 41,338,740 in a 58-hour Internet livestream. 

==References==

==External links==

* 
* 
* 
* Official online version of Asteroids at Atari
* 
* 
* All About Asteroids at Atari Times
* Article at The Dot Eaters, featuring a history of Asteroids
*Edge Magazine The Making Of: Asteroids



[[Asparagales]]

Asparagales (older names include Irides) is the name of an order of plants, used in modern classification systems such as the APG III system (which is used throughout this article). The order takes its name from the family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots. The order has only recently been recognized in classification systems. It was first put forward by Huber in 1977 and later taken up in the Dahlgren system of 1985. Before this, many of its families were assigned to the old order Liliales: a very large order containing almost all monocots with colourful tepals and without starch in their endosperm. DNA sequence analysis indicated that Liliales should be divided into at least Liliales, Asparagales and Dioscoreales. The boundaries of the Asparagales and of its families have undergone a series of changes in recent years; future research may lead to further changes and ultimately greater stability.

The order is clearly circumscribed on the basis of DNA sequence analysis, but is difficult to define morphologically, since its members are structurally diverse. Thus although most species in the order are herbaceous, some no more than 15 cm high, there are a number of climbers (e.g., some species of Asparagus), as well as several genera forming trees (e.g. Agave, Cordyline, Yucca, Dracaena), some of which can exceed 10 m in height. Succulent genera occur in several families (e.g. Aloe).

One of the defining characteristics of the order is the presence of phytomelan, 'Phytomelan' appears as 'phytomelanin' in some sources. a black pigment present in the seed coat, creating a dark crust. Phytomelan is found in most families of the Asparagales (although not in Orchidaceae, thought to be a sister to the rest of the group).

Almost all species have a tight cluster of leaves (a rosette), either at the base of the plant or at the end of a more-or-less woody stem; the leaves are less often produced along the stem. The flowers are in the main not particularly distinctive, being of a general 'lily type', with six tepals, either free or fused from the base.

The order is thought to have first diverged from other related monocots some 120–130 million years ago (early in the Cretaceous period), although given the difficulty in classifying the families involved, estimates are likely to be uncertain.

From an economic point of view, the order Asparagales is second in importance within the monocots to the order Poales (which includes grasses and cereals). Species are used as food and flavourings (e.g. onion, garlic, leek, asparagus, vanilla), as cut flowers (e.g. freesia, gladiolus, iris, orchids), and as garden ornamentals (e.g. day lilies, lily of the valley, Agapanthus).

==Characteristics==
 Seeds of Hippeastrum with dark phytomelan-containing coat
 Tree-like habit created by secondary thickening in Nolina recurvata

Most species of Asparagales are herbaceous perennials, although some are climbers (e.g. species of Asparagus, family Asparagaceae) and some are tree-like. The order also contains many geophytes (bulbs, corms and various kinds of tuber). Almost all species have a tight cluster of leaves (a rosette) at the base of the plant or, in the tree-forming species, at the end of a woody stem. Only in a few cases are leaves produced along the length of the stem. The flowers are often at the tip of the stem and are mainly of a rather generalized 'lily type', with six tepals and up to six stamens.

The orders which have been separated from the old Liliales are difficult to characterize. No single morphological character appears to be diagnostic of the order Asparagales.

* The flowers of Asparagales are of a general type among the lilioid monocots. Compared to Liliales, they usually have plain tepals without markings in the form of dots. If nectaries are present, they are in the septa of the ovaries rather than at the base of the tepals or stamens. "Floral Morphology of Asparagales", Botany 2001, p. 16, Sabasrabudhe and Stace, 1974. 

* Those species which have relatively large dry seeds have a dark, crust-like (crustose) outer layer containing the pigment phytomelan. However, some species with hairy seeds (e.g. Eriospermum, family Asparagaceae s.l.), berries (e.g. Maianthemum, family Asparagaceae s.l.), or highly reduced seeds (e.g. orchids) lack this dark pigment in their seed coats. Phytomelan is not unique to Asparagales (i.e. it is not a synapomorphy) but it is common within the order and rare outside it. The inner portion of the seed coat is usually completely collapsed. In contrast, the morphologically similar seeds of Liliales have no phytomelan, and usually retain a cellular structure in the inner portion of the seed coat.

* Most monocots are unable to thicken their stems once they have formed, since they lack the cylindrical meristem present in other angiosperm groups. Asparagales have a method of secondary thickening which is otherwise only found inDioscorea (in the order Disoscoreales). In a process called 'anomalous secondary growth', they are able to create new vascular bundles around which thickening growth occurs. Agave, Yucca, Aloe, Dracaena, Nolina and Cordyline can become massive trees, albeit not of the height of the tallest dicots, and with less branching. Other genera in the order, such as Lomandra and Aphyllanthes, have the same type of secondary growth but confined to their underground stems.

* Microsporogenesis (part of pollen formation) distinguishes some members of Asparagales from Liliales. Microsporogenesis involves a cell dividing twice (meiotically) to form four daughter cells. There are two kinds of microsporogenesis: successive and simultaneous (although intermediates exist). In successive microsporogenesis, walls are laid down separating the daughter cells after each division. In simultaneous microsporogenesis, there is no wall formation until all four cell nuclei are present. Liliales all have successive microsporogenesis, which is thought to be the primitive condition in monocots. It seems that when the Asparagales first diverged they developed simultaneous microsporogenesis, which the 'lower' Asparagale families retain. However, the 'core' Asparagales (see #Phylogeny section) have reverted to successive microsporogenesis.

* The Asparagales appear to be unified by a mutation affecting their telomeres (a region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome). The typical Arabidopsis-type' sequence of bases has been fully or partially replaced by other sequences, with the 'human-type' predominating.

* Other apomorphic characters of the order according to Stevens are: the presence of chelidonic acid, anthers longer than wide, tapetal cells bi- to tetra-nuclear, tegmen not persistent, endosperm helobial, and loss of mitochondrial gene sdh3. 

==Diversity==
The taxonomic diversity of the monocotyledons is described in detail by Kubitzki. Up-to-date information on the Asparagales can be found on the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. 

The families of the Asparagales, as set out in the APG III system, are briefly surveyed below. For more information follow the links to the main articles.

Flowers of xBrassolaeliocattleya 'Turanbeat', a hybrid between the genera Brassavola, Laelia and Cattleya.

===Orchidaceae===

The orchid family is one of the two largest families of angiosperms (the other is Asteraceae). The shape of the flowers is very distinctive, making orchids easy to recognize. The flower is bilaterally symmetrical. The three sepals are generally colourful and bright (which is why they are sometimes called outer tepals), with one on each side ("lateral sepals") and one usually at the top of the flower ("dorsal sepal"), sometimes forming a hood. The three petals (or inner tepals), also showy, are located alternately between the sepals, two at the side and one usually at the bottom of the flower. The lower petal is referred to as the "labellum" or "lip", and is usually distinctively different from the side petals. Thelymitra is an example of a genus where the lower petal is similar in appearance to the other petals. The pollination systems of orchids are among the most complex and interesting of all the angiosperms.

Orchids include many species of great ornamental value. Vanilla is obtained from the fruit of the orchid Vanilla planifolia.

===Boryaceae===

The genus Borya contains tree-like species which behave as "resurrection plants". Growing on rocky slopes, the plants dry out during the dry season and become a rusty orange color, but quickly turn green and become active again once it starts to rain. Along with the other genus in the Boryaceae family, Alania, these xerophytic plants are native to Australia.

Flowers of Blandfordia grandiflora.

=== Blandfordiaceae ===

Blandfordia is the only genus in the family Blandfordiaceae, with four species distributed in eastern Australia. They are commonly called "Christmas Bells", because of the shape of their flowers and their flowering time, which coincides with Christmas in Australia. They are upright perennial herbs (to about 1.50 m), with distinctive leaves. The inflorescence is a raceme. Individual flowers have jointed pedicels and tepals forming a tubular shape. The seeds have conspicuous hairs.

=== Lanariaceae ===

Lanaria lanata is the only species in the family Lanariaceae and is found in southern South Africa. A more or less typical monocotyledon, the species can be recognized by its shortly branched inflorescence covered with branched hairs (giving rise to the common name of Lamb's-tail). The flowers are radially symmetrical.

 Habit of Collospermum hastatum, an epiphyte in the forests of New Zealand. The immature fruits are yellow, the ripe ones red.

=== Asteliaceae ===

The Asteliaceae is a family of two to four genera of plants found in the Southern Hemisphere. They are more or less rhizomatous, with spiral leaves and an inflorescence that may form a raceme or a spike. There are large bracts at the base of the inflorescence. The individual flowers are small, with tepals joined at the base.

 Habit of Hypoxis hemerocallidea

===Hypoxidaceae===

The family includes some 150 species with a worldwide distribution, excluding Europe and northern Asia. Species can be recognized by their rosettes of more or less folded leaves with persistent bases and quite prominent nonglandular hairs. The tepals in the outer whorl tend to be green on the outside. The ovary is inferior with often a thin tubular portion at its apex formed by joined tepals or the tip of the ovary.

 Habit of Ixiolirion.

=== Ixioliriaceae ===

The family includes a single genus, Ixiolirion, with four species distributed from Egypt to central Asia. They are herbs with corms and an inflorescence forming a cluster. The individual flowers are blue, shortly tubular, with an inferior ovary.

 Flowers of Tecophilaea violiflora.

===Tecophilaeaceae===

The nine genera are found in Chile, the United States and Africa. They are herbs with corms and leaves which are sometimes stalked (petiolate) with wide blades. The flowers have tepals that open outwards. The stamens are strongly dimorphic. The anthers open by pores.

The genus Cyanastrum is sometimes placed in its own family Cyanastraceae.

 Habit of Doryanthes palmeri

===Doryanthaceae===

The two species of Doryanthes, the only genus of the family, are huge rosette-forming herbs that are a conspicuous element of the flora in the vicinity of Sydney, being hard not to notice when in flower. The leaves have entire margins but disintegrate into fibres at the apex. The sub-umbellate inflorescences are borne at the end of long stems, having numerous bright red flowers, which are radially symmetric with inferior ovaries.

 Flower of Iris sibirica.

===Iridaceae===

The iris family contains about 70 genera and over 1,600 species with a worldwide distribution.

Members of the family are usually perennial herbs with sword-shaped unifacial leaves; the inflorescence is a spike or panicle of solitary flowers, or forms a monochasial cyme or rhipidium (meaning that the successive stems of the flowers follow a zig-zag path in the same plane); and the flower has only three stamens, each opposite to an outer tepal.

Saffron is obtained from the dried styles of Crocus sativus L., a member of the iris family. The corms of some species of Iridaceae are used as food by some indigenous peoples.

Many species in the iris family have a great economic importance in ornamental horticulture and the cut flower industry, especially Gladiolus, Freesia, Sparaxis, Iris, Tigridia (tiger lily), Ixia (corn lily), Romulea, Neomarica, Moraea (butterfly lily), Nemastylis, Belamcanda, Sisyrinchium (blue-eyed grass), Crocosmia and Trimezia. Many other genera, both perennials and bulbs, are grown in gardens in tropical and temperate regions (e.g. Watsonia, Crocus, Dietes, Tritonia, Hesperantha and Neomarica).

Moraea and Homeria are two genera of poisonous plants which are a problem in sheep and cattle producing regions, notably in South Africa.

 Flowers of a Xeronema species

===Xeronemataceae===

The family consists of a single genus Xeronema with two species, one found only on the Poor Knights islands in New Zealand and the other in New Caledonia. The inflorescence is crowded with quite large, radial symmetrical flowers, which face upwards. The stamens are strongly exserted (i.e. extend out of the flower). The family is still poorly known.

===Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato===

The Xanthorrhoeaceae, or grasstree, family has been recognized by most taxonomists, but the limits of the family have varied greatly. In the narrowest definition, the Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu stricto consists only of the genus Xanthorrhoea. Based on phylogenetic research, the latest (2009) revision of the APG classification groups together the former families Hemerocallidaceae, Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu stricto and Asphodelaceae as the Xanthorrhoeaceae. A paper published at the same time proposed that the original three families should be retained as subfamilies within Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato. This division has been used here.

 Flowers of Hemerocallis fulva.

====Hemerocallidoideae====

The Hemerocallidoideae, or day lily, subfamily of the Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Hemerocallidaceae.

It includes perennial herbaceous plants which are glabrous and have short rhizomes with fibrous roots or are rhizomatous with root tubers. The leaves form a rosette at the base of the plant, and are alternate, distichous, flat, sessile, simple, linear or lanceolate, and parallel veined, with entire margins. The flower is typically somewhat zygomorphic (i.e. not radially symmetrical) and has nectaries. The flowers are arranged in various types of inflorescence. The group includes eight genera and about 85 species distributed in the temperate zones of Europe and Asia, Malaysia, India, Madagascar, Africa and the Pacific, from Australia and New Zealand to South America.

Two of the genera, Hemerocallis (day lily) and Phormium (New Zealand flax), are grown as ornamentals worldwide.

Xanthorrhoea preissii

====Xanthorrhoeoideae====

The Xanthorrhoeoideae, or grasstree, subfamily of the Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu stricto.

It contains only one genus, Xanthorrhoea, endemic to Australia. Many species have an erect woody stem which is covered with persistent dried leaves unless there have been fires, topped by a crown of long thin leaves. The spike-like inflorescence is erect and densely crowded with small flowers. The fruit is a capsule. Plants are adapted to bush fires, which can stimulate flowering.

 Aloe striatula
 Flowers of Asphodeline lutea

====Asphodeloideae====

The Asphodeloideae, or asphodel, subfamily of the Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Asphodelaceae.

Members of the family are natives of temperate to tropical regions of the Old World, with 15 genera and 780 species. The greatest diversity occurs in South Africa, usually in arid habitats. They differ from other related families by often being pachycauline (i.e. with a thickened trunk, usually wider at the base, which has a water storage function), by usually having succulent leaves, and by possessing a trimerous flower with a superior ovary and seeds with an aryl.

The most conspicuous genus in the family is Aloe. Many species of Aloe are used medicinally and in cosmetics. For example, "aloin" is derived from Aloe vera and Aloe ferox and has important medical uses (e.g. as a laxative and in the treatment of burns) as well as cosmetic uses (e.g. in skin and hair products). Other genera are used as ornamental plants, both succulents such as Aloe, Haworthia and Gasteria and perennials such as Kniphofia, Asphodelus and Bulbine.

===Amaryllidaceae sensu lato===

The amaryllis family has been recognized in many taxonomic systems, but the limits of the family have varied. In the narrowest definition, the Amaryllidaceae sensu stricto is characterized by an umbellate inflorescence with an inferior ovary. Two other groups have similar inflorescences but a superior ovary, and have at times been put into separate families: the Agapanthaceae and the Alliaceae. Based on phylogenetic research, the latest (2009) revision of the APG classification groups together these three families under the conserved name of Amaryllidaceae. (Earlier the APG had used the name Alliaceae for this group.). A paper published at the same time as the 2009 classification proposed that the original three families should be retained as subfamilies within Amaryllidaceae sensu lato. This division has been used here.

 Flowers of Agapanthus

====Agapanthoideae====

The agapanthus subfamily of the Amaryllidaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Agapanthaceae.

Agapanthus, native to South Africa, is the sole genus of the subfamily. They are relatively robust herbaceous perennials with short rhizomes and leaves forming a rosette, individually linear-oblong, flat, rather fleshy. The flowers are quite large, blue or white, forming an umbel at the end of a stem (scape) which is longer than the leaves. The inflorescences are protected by bracts joined together along one side. The ovary is superior. Plants do not have the characteristic garlic odor of the allium subfamily (Allioideae). They are set apart from the amaryllis subfamily (Amaryllidoideae) by their superior ovary, the presence of saponins and the absence of the alkaloids typical of amaryllids.

Agapanthus is widely grown as an ornamental in temperate gardens.

 Flowers of Allium ursinum

====Allioideae====

The allium subfamily of the Amaryllidaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Alliaceae.

Members of the subfamily are found worldwide, in temperate, subtropical and tropical regions. They are herbaceous perennials, usually with bulbs, although in some cases they have short rhizomes. The subfamily can be easily recognized by its characteristic smell (the smell of garlic and onions, singular enough to be called "garlic odour"), by the very soft, fleshy leaves and the umbel-like inflorescence at the end of a stem (scape), which has small to medium flowers with a superior ovary.

The subfamily is of considerable economic importance, being grown as vegetables and seasoning, medicinal plants and ornamentals. The genus Allium includes some of the most widely used edible plants, such as onion and shallot (varieties of Allium cepa), garlic (A. sativum and A. scordoprasum), leek (Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum), and various flavourings such as chives (Allium schoenoprasum).

The organosulphur compounds responsible for the characteristic odour are believed to have antioxidant, antibiotic and anticarcinogenic properties, to stimulate the immune system and to be protective of liver functioning.

The family also has important ornamentals, mainly from the dominant genus Allium, but also including genera such as Ipheion.

Amaryllis belladonna

====Amaryllidoideae====

The amaryllis subfamily of the Amaryllidaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Amaryllidaceae sensu stricto.

The subfamily includes 59 genera and approximately 800 species from temperate and tropical regions worldwide. They are herbaceous perennials with bulbs, and can be identified by their rather fleshy leaves, usually large and attractive flowers, with six stamens and an inferior ovary. The flowers are solitary or, more frequently, arranged in umbellate inflorescences at the end of a stem (scape).

Many species of Amaryllidoideae are popular as ornamentals in parks and gardens. A special mention should be made of Narcissus (daffodils and narcissi), cultivated in various parts of the world as an ornamental in gardens and as a cut flower.

===Asparagaceae sensu lato===
The members of this group have a complex taxonomic history, having been assigned to widely differing families in different classification systems. Proposed subgroups are difficult to recognise, having similar 'lily-like' flowers, with the result that some members of the group have been included in different subgroups at different times. Based on phylogenetic research, the latest (2009) revision of the APG classification supports the use of a single broadly defined family, Asparagaceae sensu lato. A paper published at the same time as the 2009 classification proposed seven subfamilies for the families recognized in the very first APG classification of 1998. This division has been used here, although it is not clear whether the approach will be upheld by future research as some of the clades are weakly supported.

The broadly defined family is large, with some 153 genera and 2480 species, and occurs worldwide.

Flowers of Aphyllanthes monspeliensis

====Aphyllanthoideae====

The Aphyllanthoideae subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Aphyllanthaceae.

It comprises a single species, Aphyllanthes monspeliensis, found in arid areas of the western Mediterranean. The inflorescence is made up of small clusters of blue flowers at the end of a long stem (scape). An unusual feature of the species is that the stem (scape) is actually the main photosynthetic organ, since the paper-like leaves at the base lack chlorophyll.

 Flowers of Dichelostemma capitatum

====Brodiaeoideae====

The Brodiaeoideae subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, under the name Themidaceae.

It comprises about a dozen genera which are native to western North America. Plants are superficially similar to those of the allium subfamily, being perennial herbs with an umbellate inflorescence made up of quite small flowers. The tepals are more or less joined at the base, sometimes with a corona (a structure like the trumpet of a daffodil). The ovary is superior. Plants lack the "garlic odor" typical of the allium subfamily, and have a fibrous corm rather than a bulb. The inflorescence bracts also differ from those of alliums.

A number of genera, including Brodiaea and Triteleia, are grown as ornamental plants.

 Flowers of Hyacinthus orientalis.

====Scilloideae====

The Scilloideae, or scilla, subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, under the name Hyacinthaceae.

The group includes from 770 to 1,000 species, distributed predominantly in Mediterranean climates, especially South Africa, the Mediterranean to Central Asia and Burma, and South America. Characteristics of the subfamily include: flowers with six tepals and six stamens, typically arranged in a raceme; a superior ovary; growing from bulbs; rather fleshy mucilaginous leaves in a basal rosette. Plants contain poisonous compounds, so that they are not edible.

Many spring- and summer-flowering bulbs grown in gardens in temperate climates belong to this subfamily, including genera such as Scilla (squill), Muscari (grape hyacinth), Hyacinthus (hyacinths),Chionodoxa (glory of the snow) and Galtonia (summer hyacinth). Some are used as cut flowers.

 Habit of Yucca (Joshua Tree)
Hosta 'Bressingham Blue' in bloom.

====Agavoideae====

The Agavoideae, or agave, subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, under a variety of names, including Agavaceae. It includes species formerly placed in several other families (e.g. Anthericaceae and Hesperocallidaceae). Many species currently assigned to this group have been placed in other groups at different times. Stevens notes "The broad concept of Agavoideae adopted here may not seem very satisfactory, but I fear that none of the alternative solutions is much better ...". 

Given this broad definition, there are about 23 genera in over 600 species, distributed more or less around the world outside cold areas. South west North America, including Mexico, is an area of particular diversity. Some members of the subfamily form trees (such as the Joshua Tree, a species of Yucca). They often have large, succulent leaves in rosettes, either at the base or at the end of the branches. Others are herbaceous (e.g. Hosta, Anthericum). The flowers have six tepals and six stamens with either a superior or inferior ovary.

Agave has important economic uses (for example, it is used to make tequila and mezcal). Some genera are used as ornamental garden plants in temperate regions (e.g. Hosta) and as house plants (e.g. Chlorophytum).

 Habit of Cordyline

====Lomandroideae====

The Lomandroideae subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, Laxmanniaceae.

The group consists of some 15 genera and about 180 species from Australasia, south east Asia, and South America. The best known genus is Cordyline. The tepals of the flower persist in the fruit.

Species of Cordyline are grown as house plants and as garden plants in temperate to tropical regions.

 Flower of Asparagus officinalis
 Habit of Asparagus plumosus

====Asparagoideae====

The asparagus subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, the Asparagaceae sensu stricto.

The subfamily contains only two genera, one, Asparagus, with around 150–300 species distributed throughout the Old World and a small area of Australia, the other, Hemiphylacus, with only five species, found in Mexico. The photosynthetic organs of Asparagus have been the subject of some controversy; however, most authors consider them to be flattened stems rather than leaves (phylloclades). The leaves are reduced to non-photosynthetic scales, with the phylloclades in their axils. The flowers are small, bell-shaped, greenish-white to yellowish, with six tepals partially joined together at the base, either single or in small clusters, springing from the junctions of the phylloclades. Asparagus species are usually dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. The fruit is a small red berry, which is poisonous to humans.

Asparagus officinalis is used as a vegetable, the young shoots being cut before they become woody. Other species are used as house plants and as greenery in the cut flower trade.

 Habit of Dracaena draco, the dragon tree
 Habit of Ruscus aculeatus, butcher's broom

====Nolinoideae====

The Nolinoideae subfamily of the Asparagaceae sensu lato is treated in some systems as a separate family, under a variety of names, including Ruscaceae sensu lato. As with the subfamily Agavoideae, the Nolinoideae contains genera previously classified in a number of different families (including Ruscaceae sensu stricto, Nolinaceae sensu stricto, Convallariaceae sensu stricto and Eriospermaceae sensu stricto).

When broadly defined, the group contains some 26 genera and almost 500 species, distributed mainly in the temperate to tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. There are few morphological features separating the subfamily from other groups within the Asparagaceae sensu lato. The small flowers are radially symmetrical, with six tepals, usually joined at the base, six stamens and a superior ovary. The fruit is usually a berry with few seeds. Species vary from herbaceous perennials to tree-like forms (e.g. Dracaena).

There are several examples of convergent evolution between species in this subfamily and those in other subfamilies of the Asparagaceae sensu lato. Ruscus (butcher's broom) has photosynthetic branches (phylloclades), similar to those of Asparagus (Asparagoideae); Dracaena draco has a tree-like habit resembling Yucca (Agavoideae) and Cordyline (Lomandroideae).

Some genera are used in horticulture: Sanseviera and Aspidistra are used as house plants in temperate areas and as garden plants in warmer regions; Polygonatum and Ophiopogon are used as garden plants in temperate areas.

==Taxonomy==
The order Asparagales has only recently been recognized in classification systems, with the advent of phylogenetics. Older systems based on morphology placed many of the species now included in Asparagales into the lily family (Liliaceae); where other families were recognized, these were generally placed into the old order Liliales: a very large order which was used for almost all monocotyledons with colourful tepals and without starch in their endosperm (the lilioid monocots). The Liliales was difficult to divide into families because morphological characters were not present in patterns that clearly demarcated groups. Thus the Wettstein system, last revised in 1935, did not recognise the Asparagales, and placed many of the plants involved in an order called 'Liliiflorae'. The widely used Cronquist system of 1968–1988 also did not recognise Asparagales, using instead the very broadly defined order Liliales.

===APG system===
The 2009 revision of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, APG III, places the order in the clade monocots with the circumscription given below. The APG III system is very recent, , so it is not yet employed in many text books; however it is likely to become more influential since its family circumscriptions are being used as the basis of the Kew-hosted World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. With this circumscription, the order consists of 14 families with approximately 1120 genera and 26000 species. 

Order Asparagales Link
* Family Amaryllidaceae J.St.-Hil. (including Agapanthaceae F.Voigt, Alliaceae Borkh.) The name 'Alliaceae' has also been used for the expanded family comprising the Alliaceae sensu stricto, Amaryllidaceae and Agapanthaceae (e.g. in the APG II system). 'Amaryllidaceae' is used as a conserved name in APG III. 
* Family Asparagaceae Juss. (including Agavaceae Dumort. [which includes Anemarrhenaceae, Anthericaceae, Behniaceae and Herreriaceae], Aphyllanthaceae Burnett, Hesperocallidaceae Traub, Hyacinthaceae Batsch ex Borkh., Laxmanniaceae Bubani, Ruscaceae M.Roem. [which includes Convallariaceae] and Themidaceae Salisb.)
* Family Asteliaceae Dumort.
* Family Blandfordiaceae R. Dahlgren & Clifford
* Family Boryaceae M.W. Chase, Rudall & Conran
* Family Doryanthaceae R. Dahlgren & Clifford
* Family Hypoxidaceae R.Br.
* Family Iridaceae Juss.
* Family Ixioliriaceae Nakai
* Family Lanariaceae R. Dahlgren & A.E.van Wyk
* Family Orchidaceae Juss.
* Family Tecophilaeaceae Leyb.
* Family Xanthorrhoeaceae Dumort. (including Asphodelaceae Juss. and Hemerocallidaceae R.Br.)
* Family Xeronemataceae M.W. Chase, Rudall & M.F.Fay

The earlier 2003 version, APG II, allowed 'bracketed' families, i.e. families which could either be segregated from more comprehensive families or could be included in them. These are the families given under "including" in the list above. APG III does not allow bracketed families, requiring the use of the more comprehensive family; otherwise the circumscription of the Asparagales is unchanged. A separate paper accompanying the publication of the 2009 APG III system provided subfamilies to accommodate the families which were discontinued.

The first APG system of 1998 contained some extra families, included in square brackets in the list above.

===Other systems===
Two other systems which use the order Asparagales are the Dahlgren system and the Kubitzki system. The families included in the circumscriptions of the order in these two systems are shown in the first and second columns of the table below. The equivalent family in the APG III system is shown in the third column. Note that although these systems may use the same name for a family, the genera which it includes may be different, so the equivalence between systems is only approximate in some cases.

 Families included in Asparagales in three systems which use this order Dahlgren system Kubitzki system APG III system 
 – Agapanthaceae Amaryllidaceae: Agapanthoideae 
 Agavaceae Asparagaceae: Agavoideae 
 Alliaceae Amaryllidaceae: Allioideae 
 Amaryllidaceae Amaryllidaceae: Amaryllidoideae 
 – Anemarrhenaceae Asparagaceae: Agavoideae 
 Anthericaceae Asparagaceae: Agavoideae 
 Aphyllanthaceae Asparagaceae: Aphyllanthoideae 
 Asparagaceae Asparagaceae: Asparagoideae 
 Asphodelaceae Xanthorrhoeaceae: Asphodeloideae 
 Asteliaceae Asteliaceae 
 – Behniaceae Asparagaceae: Agavoideae 
 Blandfordiaceae Blandfordiaceae 
 – Boryaceae Boryaceae 
 Calectasiaceae — Not in Asparagales (family Dasypogonaceae, unplaced as to order, clade commelinids) 
 Convallariaceae Asparagaceae: Nolinoideae 
 Cyanastraceae – Tecophilaeaceae 
 Dasypogonaceae – Not in Asparagales (family Dasypogonaceae, unplaced as to order, clade commelinids) 
 Doryanthaceae Doryanthaceae 
 Dracaenaceae Asparagaceae: Nolinoideae 
 Eriospermaceae Asparagaceae: Nolinoideae 
 Hemerocallidaceae Xanthorrhoeaceae: Hemerocallidoideae 
 Herreriaceae Asparagaceae: Agavoideae 
 Hostaceae Asparagaceae: Agavoideae 
 Hyacinthaceae Asparagaceae: Scilloideae 
 Hypoxidaceae Hypoxidaceae 
 – Iridaceae Iridaceae 
 Ixioliriaceae Ixioliriaceae 
 – Johnsoniaceae Xanthorrhoeaceae: Hemerocallidoideae 
 Lanariaceae Lanariaceae 
 Luzuriagaceae – Not in Asparagales (family Alstroemeriaceae, order Liliales) 
 – Lomandraceae Asparagaceae: Lomandroideae 
 Nolinaceae Asparagaceae: Nolinoideae 
 – Orchidaceae Orchidaceae 
 Philesiaceae – Not in Asparagales (family Philesiaceae, order Liliales) 
 Phormiaceae – Xanthorrhoeaceae: Hemerocallidoideae 
 Ruscaceae Asparagaceae: Nolinoideae 
 Tecophilaeaceae Tecophilaeaceae 
 – Themidaceae Asparagaceae: Brodiaeoideae 
 Xanthorrhoeaceae Xanthorrhoeaceae: Xanthorrhoeoideae 

==Phylogeny==
From the Dahlgren system of 1985 onwards, studies based mainly on morphology had identified the Asparagales as a distinct group, but had also included groups now located in Liliales, Pandanales and Zingiberales. Research in the 21st century has supported the monophyly of Asparagales, based on morphology, 18S rDNA, and other DNA sequences, although some phylogenetic reconstructions based on molecular data have suggested that Asparagales may be paraphyletic, with Orchidaceae separated from the rest. Within the monocots, Asparagales is the sister of the commelinid clade.

A possible phylogenetic tree for the Asparagales, including those families recently reduced to subfamilies, is shown below. 

The tree shown above can be divided into a basal paraphyletic group, the 'lower Asparagales', from Orchidaceae to Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato, and a well-supported monophyletic group of 'core Asparagales', comprising Amaryllidaceae sensu lato and Asparagaceae sensu lato. 

Two differences between these two groups (although with exceptions) are: the mode of microsporogenesis and the position of the ovary. The 'lower Asparagales' typically have simultaneous microsporogenesis (i.e. cell walls develop only after both meiotic divisions), which appears to be an apomorphy within the monocots, whereas the 'core Asparagales' have reverted to successive microsporogenesis (i.e. cell walls develop after each division). The 'lower Asparagales' typically have an inferior ovary, whereas the 'core Asparagales' have reverted to a superior ovary. A 2002 morphological study by Rudall treated possessing an inferior ovary as a synapomorphy of the Asparagales, stating that reversions to a superior ovary in the 'core Asparagales' could be associated with the presence of nectaries below the ovaries. However, Stevens notes that superior ovaries are distributed among the 'lower Asparagales' in such a way that it is not clear where to place the evolution of different ovary morphologies. The position of the ovary seems a much more flexible character (here and in other angiosperms) than previously thought. 

===Orchid clade===
Orchidaceae is the largest family of all angiosperms and hence by far the largest in the order. The Dahlgren system recognized three families of orchids, but DNA sequence analysis later showed that these families are polyphyletic and so should be combined. Several studies suggest (with high bootstrap support) that Orchidaceae is the sister of the rest of the Asparagales. Other studies have placed the orchids differently in the phylogenetic tree, generally among the Boryaceae-Hypoxidaceae clade. The position of Orchidaceae shown above seems the best current hypothesis, but cannot be taken as confirmed.

Orchids have simultaneous microsporogenesis and inferior ovaries, two characters that are typical of the 'lower Asparagales'. However, their nectaries are rarely in the septa of the ovaries, and most orchids have dust-like seeds, atypical of the rest of the order. (Some members of Vanilloideae and Cypripedioideae have crustose seeds, probably associated with dispersal by birds and mammals that are attracted by fermenting fleshy fruit releasing fragrant compounds, e.g. vanilla.)

In terms of the number of species, Orchidaceae diversification is remarkable. However, although the other Asparagales may be less rich in species, they are more variable morphologically, including tree-like forms.

===Boryaceae to Hypoxidaceae===
The four families excluding Boryaceae form a well-supported clade in studies based on DNA sequence analysis. All four contain relatively few species, and it has been suggested that they be combined into one family under the name Hypoxidaceae sensu lato. The relationship between Boryaceae (which includes only two genera, Borya and Alania), and other Asparagales has remained unclear for a long time. The Boryaceae are mycorrhizal, but not in the same way as orchids. Morphological studies have suggested a close relationship between Boryaceae and Blandfordiaceae. There is relatively low support for the position of Boryaceae in the tree shown above.

===Ixioliriaceae to Xeronemataceae===
The relationship shown between Ixioliriaceae and Tecophilaeaceae is still unclear. Some studies have supported a clade of these two families, others have not. The position of Doryanthaceae has also varied, with support for the position shown above, but also support for other positions.

The clade from Iridaceae upwards appears to have stronger support. All have some genetic characteristics in common, having lost Arabidopsis-type telomeres. Iridaceae is distinctive among the Asparagales in the unique structure of the inflorescence (a ripidium), the combination of an inferior ovary and three stamens, and the common occurrence of unifacial leaves whereas bifacial leaves are the norm in other Asparagales.

Members of the clade from Iridaceae upwards have infra-locular septal nectaries, which Rudall interpreted as a driver towards secondarily superior ovaries.

===Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato + 'core Asparagales'===
The next node in the tree (Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato + the 'core Asparagales') has strong support. 'Anomalous' secondary thickening occurs among this clade, e.g. in Xanthorrhoea (family Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato) and Dracaena (family Asparagaceae sensu lato), with species reaching tree-like proportions.

The 'core Asparagales', comprising Amaryllidaceae sensu lato and Asparagaceae sensu lato, are a strongly supported clade, as are clades for each of the families. Relationships within these broadly defined families appear less clear, particularly within the Asparagaceae sensu lato. Stevens notes that most of its subfamilies are difficult to recognize, and that significantly different divisions have been used in the past, so that the use of a broadly defined family to refer to the entire clade is justified. Thus the relationships among subfamilies shown above, based on APWeb , is somewhat uncertain.

==Evolution==
Several studies have attempted to date the evolution of the Asparagales, based on phylogenetic evidence. Earlier studies generally give younger dates than more recent studies, which have been preferred in the table below.

+ Approx. date inMillions of Years Ago Event 
 133-120 Origin of Asparagales, i.e. first divergence from other monocots 
 93 Split between Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato and the 'core group' Asparagales 
 91–89 Origin of Alliodeae and Asparagoideae 
 47 Divergence of Agavoideae and Nolinoideae 

A 2009 study suggests that the Asparagales have the highest diversification rate in the monocots, about the same as the order Poales, although in both orders the rate is little over half that of the eudicot order Lamiales, the clade with the highest rate.

==Notes and references==

== Bibliography ==
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* : Families included in the checklist
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==External links==

*Asparagales in Angiosperm Phylogeny Website
* NCBI Taxonomy Browser

 



[[Alismatales]]

Snake lily (Dracunculus vulgaris) of Araceae family in Crete, Greece.
Ottelia alismoides from family Hydrocharitaceae in Hyderabad, India.
Alismatales is an order of flowering plants including about 4500 species. Plants assigned to this order are mostly tropical or aquatic.

==Description==
Alismatales comprise herbaceous flowering plants of aquatic and marshy habitats, and the only monocots known to have green embryos other than the Amaryllidaceae. They also include the only marine angiosperms. -Angiosperm Phylogeny Website The flowers are usually arranged in inflorescences, and the mature seeds lack endosperm.

Both marine and freshwater forms include those with staminate flowers that detach from the parent plant and float to the surface where they become pollinated. In others, pollination occurs underwater where pollen may form elongated strands, increasing chance of success. Most aquatic species have a totally submerged juvenile phase, and flowers are either floating or emergent. Vegetation may be totally submersed, have floating leaves, or protrude from the water. Collectively they are commonly known as "water plantain". -Alismatales (Water Plantains) 

==Classification==
As understood, the order contains about 165 genera in 13 families, with a cosmopolitan distribution.

===APG===
The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system (APG) of 1998 and APG II (2003) assigned the Alismatales to the monocots, which may be thought of as an unranked clade containing the families listed below. The biggest departure from earlier systems (see below) is the inclusion of family Araceae. By its inclusion the order has grown enormously in number of species. The family Araceae alone accounts for about a hundred genera, totaling over two thousand species. The rest of the families together contain only about five hundred species.
* order Alismatales APG-III
*: family Alismataceae (including Limnocharitaceae)
*: family Aponogetonaceae
*: family Araceae
*: family Butomaceae 
*: family Cymodoceaceae
*: family Hydrocharitaceae
*: family Juncaginaceae
*: family Posidoniaceae
*: family Potamogetonaceae
*: family Ruppiaceae
*: family Scheuchzeriaceae
*: family Tofieldiaceae
*: family Zosteraceae

The APG III system (2009) differs only in that the Limnocharitaceae are combined with the Alismataceae; it was also suggested that the genus Maundia (of the Juncaginaceae) could be separated into a monogeneric family, Maundiaceae, but the authors noted that more study was necessary before Maundiaceae could be recognized. 

===Earlier systems===
The Cronquist system (1981) places the Alismatales in subclass Alismatidae, class Liliopsida monocotyledons and includes only three families as shown:
* Alismataceae
* Butomaceae
* Limnocharitaceae
Cronquist's subclass Alismatidae conformed fairly closely to the order Alismatales as defined by APG, minus the Araceae.

The Dahlgren system places the Alismatales in the superorder Alismatanae in the subclass Liliidae monocotyledons in the class Magnoliopsida angiosperms with the following families included:
* Alismataceae
* Aponogetonaceae
* Butomaceae
* Hydrocharitaceae
* Limnocharitaceae

In Tahktajan's classification (1997), the Order Alismatales contains only the Alismataceae and Limnocharitaceae making it equivalent to the Alismataceae as revised in APG-III. Other families included in the Alismatates as currently defined are here distributed among ten additional orders, all of which are assigned, with the following exception, to the Subclass Alismatidae. Araceae in Tahktajan 1997 is assigned to the Arales and placed in the Subclass Aridae; Tofieldiaceae to the Melanthiales and placed in the Liliidae. -Flowering Plant Gateway 

== References ==

* B. C. J. du Mortier 1829. Analyse des Familles de Plantes : avec l'indication des principaux genres qui s'y rattachent. Imprimerie de J. Casterman, Tournay
* W. S. Judd, C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, M. J. Donoghue, 2002. Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach, 2nd edition. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts ISBN 0-87893-403-0.

==External links==

* NCBI Taxonomy Browser

 



[[Apiales]]

The Apiales are an order of flowering plants. The families, given at right, are those recognized in the APG III system. This is typical of the newer classifications, though there is some slight variation, and in particular the Torriceliaceae may be divided. Gregory M. Plunkett, Gregory T. Chandler, Porter P. Lowry, Steven M. Pinney, and Taylor S. Sprenkle (2004). "Recent advances in understanding Apiales and a revised classification". South African Journal of Botany 70(3):371-381. 

Under this definition, well-known members include carrots, celery, parsley, and ivy.

The order Apiales is placed within the asterid group of eudicots as circumscribed by the APG III system. Within the asterids, Apiales belongs to an unranked group called the campanulids, Richard C. Winkworth, Johannes Lundberg, and Michael J. Donoghue (2008). "Toward a resolution of Campanulid phylogeny, with special reference to the placement of Dipsacales". Taxon 57(1):53-65. and within the campanulids, it belongs to a clade known in phylogenetic nomenclature as Apiidae. In 2010, a subclade of Apiidae named Dipsapiidae was defined to consist of the three orders: Apiales, Paracryphiales, and Dipsacales. 

The circumscriptions of some of the families have changed. In 2009, one of the subfamilies of Araliaceae was shown to be polyphyletic. 

==History==
The present understanding of the Apiales is fairly recent and is based upon comparison of DNA sequences by phylogenetic methods. 

Under the Cronquist system, only the Apiaceae and Araliaceae were included here, and the restricted order was placed among the rosids rather than the asterids. The Pittosporaceae were placed within the Rosales, and many of the other forms within the family Cornaceae. Pennantia was in the family Icacinaceae.

==References==



[[Asterales]]

Asterales (AST-er-ALE'-eez) Botanical Latin, William T Stearn, Timber Press 2004, ISBN 0-88192-627-2 is an order of dicotyledonous flowering plants that includes the large family Asteraceae (or Compositae) known for composite flowers made of florets, and ten families related to the Asteraceae. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, Edited by K. Kubitzki, Volume VIII, Flowering Plants Eudicots Asterales; Springer 2006 

The order is a cosmopolite (plants found throughout most of the world including desert and frigid zones), and includes mostly herbaceous species, although a small number of trees (such as the giant Lobelia and the giant Senecio) and shrubs are also present.

Asterales are organisms that seem to have evolved from one common ancestor. Asterales share characteristics on morphological and biochemical levels. Synapomorphies (a character that is shared by two or more groups through evolutionary development) include the presence in the plants of oligosaccharide inulin, a nutrient storage molecule used instead of starch; and unique stamen morphology. The stamens are usually found around the style, either aggregated densely or fused into a tube, probably an adaptation in association with the plunger (brush; or secondary) pollination that is common among the families of the order, wherein pollen is collected and stored on the length of the pistil.

== Families ==
The order Asterales currently includes 11 families, the largest of which are the Asteraceae, with about 25,000 species, and the Campanulaceae ("bellflowers"), with about 2,000 species. The remaining families count together for less than 500 species. The two large families are cosmopolitan, with many of their species found in the Northern Hemisphere, and the smaller families are usually confined to Australia and the adjacent areas, or sometimes South America.

Only the Asteraceae have composite flower heads; the other families do not, but share other characteristics such as storage of inulin that define the 11 families as more closely related to each other than to other plant families or orders such as the rosids.

The name and order Asterales is botanically venerable, dating back to at least 1926 in the Hutchinson system of plant taxonomy when it contained only five families, of which only two are retained in the APG III classification. Under the Cronquist system of taxonomic classification of flowering plants, Asteraceae was the only family in the group, but newer systems (such as APG II and APG III) have expanded it to 11. 

==Biogeography==
The core Asterales are Stylidiaceae genera), APA clade (Alseuosmiaceae, Phellinaceae and Argophyllaceae (7 genera) and MGCA clade (Menyanthaceae, Goodeniaceae, Calyceraceae - total 20 genera), and Asteraceae (1600 genera). Other Asterales are Rousseaceae (four genera), Campanulaceae (84 genera) and Pentaphragmataceae (one genus).

All Asterales families are represented in the Southern Hemisphere; however, Asteraceae and Campanulaceae are cosmopolitan and Menyanthaceae nearly so. J.Lundberg 2009 Asteraceae and relationships within Asterales, Chapter 10 of Systematics, Evolution, and Biogeography of Compositae. IAPT, Austria, p.159 

==Evolution==
Although most extant species of Asteraceae are herbaceous, the examination of the basal members in the family suggests that the common ancestor of the family was an arborescent plant, a tree or shrub, perhaps adapted to dry conditions, radiating from South America. Less can be said about the Asterales themselves with certainty, although since several families in Asterales contain trees, the ancestral member is most likely to have been a tree or shrub.

Because all clades are represented in the southern hemisphere but many not in the northern hemisphere, it is natural to conjecture that there is a common southern origin to them. Asterales are angiosperms, flowering plants that appeared about 140 million years ago. The Asterales order probably originated in the Cretaceous (145 – 66 Mya) on the supercontinent Gondwana which broke up from 184 – 80 Mya, forming the area that is now Australia, South America, Africa, India and Antarctica.

Asterales contain about 14% of eudicot diversity. From an analysis of relationships and diversities within the Asterales and with their superorders, estimates of the age of the beginning of the Asterales have been made, which range from 116 Mya to 82Mya. p. 7 However few fossils have been found, of the Menyanthaceae-Asteraceae clade in the Oligocene, about 29 Mya.

Fossil evidence of the Asterales is rare and belongs to rather recent epochs, so the precise estimation of the order's age is quite difficult. An Oligocene (34 – 23 Mya) pollen is known for Asteraceae and Goodeniaceae, and seeds from Oligocene and Miocene (23 – 5.3 Mya) are known for Menyanthaceae and Campanulaceae respectively. (Bremer and Gustafsson, 1997)

==Economic importance==
The Asterales, by dint of being a super-set of the family Asteraceae, include some species grown for food, including the sunflower (Helianthus annuus), lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and chicory (Cichorium). Compositdb: A Brief Overview of the Compositae
http://compositdb.ucdavis.edu/compositae_overview.php Many spices and medicinal herbs are also present.

Asterales are common plants and have many known uses. For example, Pyrethrum (refers to several Old World plants of the genus Chrysanthemum) is a natural insecticide with minimal environmental impact. Wormwood, a genus that includes the sagebrush, is used as a source of flavoring for absinthe, a bitter classical liquor of European origin.
Of horticultural importance are many of the Asteraceae (e. g. chrysanthemum) and Campanulaceae.

Despite the large number of species in order Asterales, they do not compare in economic benefit for mankind to the Poales or to the Fabaceae. Furthermore, www.invasive.org notes 838 invasive plant species in the Asterales, all members of the Asteraceae.

==References==

* K. Bremer, M. H. G. Gustafsson (1997). East Gondwana ancestry of the sunflower alliance of families. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 94, 9188-9190. (Available online: Abstract | Full text (HTML) | Full text (PDF))
* W. S. Judd, C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, M. J. Donoghue (2002). Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach, 2nd edition. pp. 476–486 (Asterales). Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-87893-403-0.
* J. Lindley (1833). Nixus Plantarum, 20. Londini.
* Smissen, R. D. (December 2002). Asterales (Sunflower). In: Nature Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Nature Publishing Group, London. (Available online: DOI | ELS site)
* "Asterales (plant Order) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. .

*"Asterales - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. .
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants Background information on this field

* http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/apweb/ has detailed maps of locations of each family in the Asterales, and botanical and biochemical information relating to the evolution and relationships of the families in the order

 


[[Asteroid]]

253 Mathilde, a C-type asteroid measuring about 50 km across, covered in craters half that size. Photograph taken in 1997 by the NEAR Shoemaker probe.

Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but as minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found to resemble comets more closely and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids. Thus the term asteroid has come increasingly to refer specifically to the small bodies of the inner Solar System out to the orbit of Jupiter. They are grouped with the outer bodies—centaurs, Neptune trojans, and trans-Neptunian objects—as minor planets, which is the term preferred in astronomical circles. Asimov, Isaac, and Dole, Stephen H. Planets for Man (New York: Random House, 1964), p.43. In this article the term "asteroid" refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System.

There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the shattered remnants of planetesimals, bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter (the Jupiter Trojans). However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth asteroids. Individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups: C-type, S-type, and M-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbon-rich, stony, and metallic compositions, respectively.

Only one asteroid, 4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the naked eye for a short time. Closest Flyby of Large Asteroid to be Naked-Eye Visible, Space.com, 4 February 2005 As of September 2013, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than one million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, of which 625,000 had enough information to be given numbered designations. Provisional Designations, Minor Planet Center, 20 September 2013 

On 22 January 2014, ESA scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. The detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding is unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are typically considered to "sprout jets and plumes". According to one of the scientists, "The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids." 

== Naming ==

2013 EC, shown here in radar images, has a provisional designation
A newly discovered asteroid is given a provisional designation (such as ) consisting of the year of discovery and an alphanumeric code indicating the half-month of discovery and the sequence within that half-month. Once an asteroid's orbit has been confirmed, it is given a number, and later may also be given a name (e.g. 433 Eros). The formal naming convention uses parentheses around the number (e.g. (433) Eros), but dropping the parentheses is quite common. Informally, it is common to drop the number altogether, or to drop it after the first mention when a name is repeated in running text.

=== Symbols ===

The first asteroids to be discovered were assigned iconic symbols like the ones traditionally used to designate the planets. By 1855 there were two dozen asteroid symbols, which often occurred in multiple variants. 

 Asteroid Symbol Year 
 1 Ceres Old planetary symbol of Ceres Variant symbol of Ceres Other sickle variant symbol of Ceres Ceres' scythe, reversed to double as the letter C 1801 
 2 Pallas Old symbol of Pallas Variant symbol of Pallas Athena's (Pallas') spear 1801 
 3 Juno Old symbol of Juno Other symbol of Juno x20px A star mounted on a scepter, for Juno, the Queen of Heaven 1804 
 4 Vesta Modern astrological symbol of Vesta Old symbol of Vesta Old planetary symbol of Vesta x20px The altar and sacred fire of Vesta 1807 
 5 Astraea x20px x20px A scale, or an inverted anchor, symbols of justice 1845 
 6 Hebe x20px Hebe's cup 1847 
 7 Iris x20px A rainbow (iris) and a star 1847 
 8 Flora x20px A flower (flora) (specifically the Rose of England) 1847 
 9 Metis x20px The eye of wisdom and a star 1848 
 10 Hygiea x20px x20px Hygiea's serpent and a star, or the Rod of Asclepius 1849 
 11 Parthenope x20px x20px A harp, or a fish and a star; symbols of the sirens 1850 
 12 Victoria x20px The laurels of victory and a star 1850 
 13 Egeria Astronomical symbol of 13 Egeria A shield, symbol of Egeria's protection, and a star 1850 
 14 Irene x30px A dove carrying an olive branch (symbol of irene 'peace') with a star on its head, or an olive branch, a flag of truce, and a star 1851 
 15 Eunomia x20px A heart, symbol of good order (eunomia), and a star 1851 
 16 Psyche x20px A butterfly's wing, symbol of the soul (psyche), and a star 1852 
 17 Thetis x20px A dolphin, symbol of Thetis, and a star 1852 
 18 Melpomene x20px The dagger of Melpomene, and a star 1852 
 19 Fortuna x20px The wheel of fortune and a star 1852 
 26 Proserpina x20px Proserpina's pomegranate 1853 
 28 Bellona x20px Bellona's whip and lance 1854 
 29 Amphitrite x20px The shell of Amphitrite and a star 1854 
 35 Leukothea x20px A lighthouse beacon, symbol of Leucothea 1855 
 37 Fides x20px The cross of faith (fides) 1855 

In 1851, after the fifteenth asteroid (Eunomia) had been discovered, Johann Franz Encke made a major change in the upcoming 1854 edition of the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch (BAJ, Berlin Astronomical Yearbook). He introduced a disk (circle), a traditional symbol for a star, as the generic symbol for an asteroid. The circle was then numbered in order of discovery to indicate a specific asteroid (although he assigned ① to the fifth, Astraea, while continuing to designate the first four only with their existing iconic symbols). The numbered-circle convention was quickly adopted by astronomers, and the next asteroid to be discovered (16 Psyche, in 1852) was the first to be designated in that way at the time of its discovery. However, Psyche was given an iconic symbol as well, as were a few other asteroids discovered over the next few years. (See chart above.) 20 Massalia was the first asteroid that was not assigned an iconic symbol, and no iconic symbols were created after the 1855 discovery of 37 Fides. Except for Pluto and, in the astrological community, for a few outer bodies such as 2060 Chiron That year Astraea's number was increased to ⑤, but the first four asteroids, Ceres to Vesta, were not listed by their numbers until the 1867 edition. The circle was soon abbreviated to a pair of parentheses, which were easier to typeset and sometimes omitted altogether over the next few decades, leading to the modern convention. 

== Discovery ==
243 Ida and its moon Dactyl. Dactyl is the first satellite of an asteroid to be discovered.
The first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. Ceres is the largest asteroid and is now classified as a dwarf planet. All other asteroids are now classified as small Solar System bodies along with comets, centaurs, and the smaller trans-Neptunian objects. This was followed by the discovery of other similar bodies, which, with the equipment of the time, appeared to be points of light, like stars, showing little or no planetary disc, though readily distinguishable from stars due to their apparent motions. This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term "asteroid", coined in Greek as ἀστεροειδής asteroeidēs 'star-like, star-shaped', from Ancient Greek astēr 'star, planet'. In the early second half of the nineteenth century, the terms "asteroid" and "planet" (not always qualified as "minor") were still used interchangeably; for example, the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1871, page 316, reads "Professor J. Watson has been awarded by the Paris Academy of Sciences, the astronomical prize, Lalande foundation, for the discovery of eight new asteroids in one year. The planet Lydia (No. 110), discovered by M. Borelly at the Marseilles Observatory M. Borelly had previously discovered two planets bearing the numbers 91 and 99 in the system of asteroids revolving between Mars and Jupiter".

=== Historical methods ===
Asteroid discovery methods have dramatically improved over the past two centuries.

In the last years of the 18th century, Baron Franz Xaver von Zach organized a group of 24 astronomers to search the sky for the missing planet predicted at about 2.8 AU from the Sun by the Titius-Bode law, partly because of the discovery, by Sir William Herschel in 1781, of the planet Uranus at the distance predicted by the law. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the zodiacal band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, be spotted. The expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers.
First asteroid image (Ceres and Vesta) from Mars - viewed by Curiosity (20 April 2014).
The first object, Ceres, was not discovered by a member of the group, but rather by accident in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, director of the observatory of Palermo in Sicily. He discovered a new star-like object in Taurus and followed the displacement of this object during several nights. His colleague, Carl Friedrich Gauss, used these observations to find the exact distance from this unknown object to the Earth. Gauss' calculations placed the object between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Piazzi named it after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture.

Three other asteroids (2 Pallas, 3 Juno, and 4 Vesta) were discovered over the next few years, with Vesta found in 1807. After eight more years of fruitless searches, most astronomers assumed that there were no more and abandoned any further searches.

However, Karl Ludwig Hencke persisted, and began searching for more asteroids in 1830. Fifteen years later, he found 5 Astraea, the first new asteroid in 38 years. He also found 6 Hebe less than two years later. After this, other astronomers joined in the search and at least one new asteroid was discovered every year after that (except the wartime year 1945). Notable asteroid hunters of this early era were J. R. Hind, Annibale de Gasparis, Robert Luther, H. M. S. Goldschmidt, Jean Chacornac, James Ferguson, Norman Robert Pogson, E. W. Tempel, J. C. Watson, C. H. F. Peters, A. Borrelly, J. Palisa, the Henry brothers and Auguste Charlois.

In 1891, Max Wolf pioneered the use of astrophotography to detect asteroids, which appeared as short streaks on long-exposure photographic plates. This dramatically increased the rate of detection compared with earlier visual methods: Wolf alone discovered 248 asteroids, beginning with 323 Brucia, whereas only slightly more than 300 had been discovered up to that point. It was known that there were many more, but most astronomers did not bother with them, calling them "vermin of the skies", a phrase variously attributed to Eduard Suess and Edmund Weiss. Even a century later, only a few thousand asteroids were identified, numbered and named.

=== Manual methods of the 1900s and modern reporting ===
Until 1998, asteroids were discovered by a four-step process. First, a region of the sky was photographed by a wide-field telescope, or astrograph. Pairs of photographs were taken, typically one hour apart. Multiple pairs could be taken over a series of days. Second, the two films or plates of the same region were viewed under a stereoscope. Any body in orbit around the Sun would move slightly between the pair of films. Under the stereoscope, the image of the body would seem to float slightly above the background of stars. Third, once a moving body was identified, its location would be measured precisely using a digitizing microscope. The location would be measured relative to known star locations. 

These first three steps do not constitute asteroid discovery: the observer has only found an apparition, which gets a provisional designation, made up of the year of discovery, a letter representing the half-month of discovery, and finally a letter and a number indicating the discovery's sequential number (example: ).

The last step of discovery is to send the locations and time of observations to the Minor Planet Center, where computer programs determine whether an apparition ties together earlier apparitions into a single orbit. If so, the object receives a catalogue number and the observer of the first apparition with a calculated orbit is declared the discoverer, and granted the honor of naming the object subject to the approval of the International Astronomical Union.

=== Computerized methods ===

2004 FH is the center dot being followed by the sequence; the object that flashes by during the clip is an artificial satellite.
There is increasing interest in identifying asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's, and that could, given enough time, collide with Earth (see Earth-crosser asteroids). The three most important groups of near-Earth asteroids are the Apollos, Amors, and Atens. Various asteroid deflection strategies have been proposed, as early as the 1960s.

The near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros had been discovered as long ago as 1898, and the 1930s brought a flurry of similar objects. In order of discovery, these were: 1221 Amor, 1862 Apollo, 2101 Adonis, and finally 69230 Hermes, which approached within 0.005 AU of the Earth in 1937. Astronomers began to realize the possibilities of Earth impact.

Two events in later decades increased the alarm: the increasing acceptance of Walter Alvarez' hypothesis that an impact event resulted in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction, and the 1994 observation of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter. The U.S. military also declassified the information that its military satellites, built to detect nuclear explosions, had detected hundreds of upper-atmosphere impacts by objects ranging from one to 10 metres across.

All these considerations helped spur the launch of highly efficient automated systems that consist of Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) cameras and computers directly connected to telescopes. As of spring 2011, it was estimated that 89% to 96% of near-Earth asteroids one kilometer or larger in diameter had been discovered. NEO Discovery Statistics from Mainzer et al. (2011) A list of teams using such automated systems includes: 
* The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) team
* The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) team
* Spacewatch
* The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) team
* The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS)
* The Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Object Survey (CINEOS) team
* The Japanese Spaceguard Association
* The Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS)

The LINEAR system alone has discovered 138,393 asteroids, as of 20 September 2013. Among all the automated systems, 4711 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered including over 600 more than 1 km in diameter.

== Terminology == 

Traditionally, small bodies orbiting the Sun were classified as asteroids, comets or meteoroids, with anything smaller than ten metres across being called a meteoroid. Czechowski L., Adv. Space Res., 38, 2006,2054-2059. DOI 10.1016/j.astr.2006.09.004 The term "asteroid" is ill-defined. It never had a formal definition, with the broader term minor planet being preferred by the International Astronomical Union from 1853 on. In 2006, the term "small Solar System body" was introduced to cover both most minor planets and comets. The definition of "small Solar System bodies" says that they "include most of the Solar System asteroids, most trans-Neptunian objects, comets, and other small bodies". The Final IAU Resolution on the definition of "planet" ready for voting (IAU) Other languages prefer "planetoid" (Greek for "planet-like"), and this term is occasionally used in English for larger minor planets such as the dwarf planets. The word "planetesimal" has a similar meaning, but refers specifically to the small building blocks of the planets that existed when the Solar System was forming. The term "planetule" was coined by the geologist William Daniel Conybeare to describe minor planets, but is not in common use. The three largest objects in the asteroid belt, Ceres, 2 Pallas, and 4 Vesta, grew to the stage of protoplanets. Ceres is a dwarf planet, the only one in the inner Solar System.

When found, asteroids were seen as a class of objects distinct from comets, and there was no unified term for the two until "small Solar System body" was coined in 2006. The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is that a comet shows a coma due to sublimation of near surface ices by solar radiation. A few objects have ended up being dual-listed because they were first classified as minor planets but later showed evidence of cometary activity. Conversely, some (perhaps all) comets are eventually depleted of their surface volatile ices and become asteroids. A further distinction is that comets typically have more eccentric orbits than most asteroids; most "asteroids" with notably eccentric orbits are probably dormant or extinct comets. Weissman, Paul R., William F. Bottke, Jr., and Harold F. Levinson. "Evolution of Comets into Asteroids." Southwest Research Institute, Planetary Science Directorate. 2002. Web Retrieved 3 August 2010 

For almost two centuries, from the discovery of Ceres in 1801 until the discovery of the first centaur, 2060 Chiron, in 1977, all known asteroids spent most of their time at or within the orbit of Jupiter, though a few such as 944 Hidalgo ventured far beyond Jupiter for part of their orbit. When astronomers started finding more small bodies that permanently resided further out than Jupiter, now called centaurs, they numbered them among the traditional asteroids, though there was debate over whether they should be considered as asteroids or as a new type of object. Then, when the first trans-Neptunian object, 1992 QB1, was discovered in 1992, and especially when large numbers of similar objects started turning up, new terms were invented to sidestep the issue: Kuiper-belt object, trans-Neptunian object, scattered-disc object, and so on. These inhabit the cold outer reaches of the Solar System where ices remain solid and comet-like bodies are not expected to exhibit much cometary activity; if centaurs or trans-Neptunian objects were to venture close to the Sun, their volatile ices would sublimate, and traditional approaches would classify them as comets and not asteroids.

The innermost of these are the Kuiper-belt objects, called "objects" partly to avoid the need to classify them as asteroids or comets. "Are Kuiper Belt Objects asteroids?", "Ask an astronomer", Cornell University They are believed to be predominantly comet-like in composition, though some may be more akin to asteroids. "Asteroids and Comets", NASA website Furthermore, most do not have the highly eccentric orbits associated with comets, and the ones so far discovered are larger than traditional comet nuclei. (The much more distant Oort cloud is hypothesized to be the main reservoir of dormant comets.) Other recent observations, such as the analysis of the cometary dust collected by the Stardust probe, are increasingly blurring the distinction between comets and asteroids, "Comet Dust Seems More Asteroidy" Scientific American, 25 January 2008 suggesting "a continuum between asteroids and comets" rather than a sharp dividing line. "Comet samples are surprisingly asteroid-like", New Scientist, 24 January 2008 

The minor planets beyond Jupiter's orbit are sometimes also called "asteroids", especially in popular presentations. For instance, a joint NASA–JPL public-outreach website states:
 
However, it is becoming increasingly common for the term "asteroid" to be restricted to minor planets of the inner Solar System. Therefore, this article will restrict itself for the most part to the classical asteroids: objects of the asteroid belt, Jupiter trojans, and near-Earth objects.

When the IAU introduced the class small Solar System bodies in 2006 to include most objects previously classified as minor planets and comets, they created the class of dwarf planets for the largest minor planets—those that have enough mass to have become ellipsoidal under their own gravity. According to the IAU, "the term 'minor planet' may still be used, but generally the term 'Small Solar System Body' will be preferred." Questions and Answers on Planets, IAU Currently only the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres, at about 950 km across, has been placed in the dwarf planet category, although there are several large asteroids (Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea) that may be classified as dwarf planets when their shapes are better known. "Three new planets may join solar system", New Scientist, 16 August 2006 

== Formation ==
It is believed that planetesimals in the asteroid belt evolved much like the rest of the solar nebula until Jupiter neared its current mass, at which point excitation from orbital resonances with Jupiter ejected over 99% of planetesimals in the belt. Simulations and a discontinuity in spin rate and spectral properties suggest that asteroids larger than approximately 120 km in diameter accreted during that early era, whereas smaller bodies are fragments from collisions between asteroids during or after the Jovian disruption. Ceres and Vesta grew large enough to melt and differentiate, with heavy metallic elements sinking to the core, leaving rocky minerals in the crust. 

In the Nice model, many Kuiper-belt objects are captured in the outer asteroid belt, at distances greater than 2.6 AU. Most were later ejected by Jupiter, but those that remained may be the D-type asteroids, and possibly include Ceres. William B. McKinnon, 2008, "On The Possibility Of Large KBOs Being Injected Into The Outer Asteroid Belt". American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #38.03 

== Distribution within the Solar System ==

The asteroid belt (white) and the Trojan asteroids (green)

Various dynamical groups of asteroids have been discovered orbiting in the inner Solar System. Their orbits are perturbed by the gravity of other bodies in the Solar System and by the Yarkovsky effect. Significant populations include:

=== Asteroid belt ===

The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, generally in relatively low-eccentricity (i.e. not very elongated) orbits. This belt is now estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 km in diameter, 

 and millions of smaller ones. These asteroids may be remnants of the protoplanetary disk, and in this region the accretion of planetesimals into planets during the formative period of the Solar System was prevented by large gravitational perturbations by Jupiter.

=== Trojans ===

Trojan asteroids are a population that share an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but do not collide with it because they orbit in one of the two Lagrangian points of stability, L4 and L5, which lie 60° ahead of and behind the larger body.

The most significant population of Trojan asteroids are the Jupiter Trojans. Although fewer Jupiter Trojans have been discovered as of 2010, it is thought that they are as numerous as the asteroids in the asteroid belt.

A couple of trojans have also been found orbiting with Mars. Neptune also has a few known trojans, and these are thought to actually be much more numerous than the Jovian trojans. However, they are often included in the trans-Neptunian population rather than counted with the asteroids. 

=== Near-Earth asteroids ===

Near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, are asteroids that have orbits that pass close to that of Earth. Asteroids that actually cross the Earth's orbital path are known as Earth-crossers. As of May 2010, 7,075 near-Earth asteroids are known and the number over one kilometre in diameter is estimated to be 500–1,000.

== Characteristics ==
=== Size distribution ===

Asteroids vary greatly in size, from almost for the largest down to rocks just tens of metres across. Below , these rocks are by convention considered to be meteoroids. The three largest are very much like miniature planets: they are roughly spherical, have at least partly differentiated interiors, and are thought to be surviving protoplanets. The vast majority, however, are much smaller and are irregularly shaped; they are thought to be either surviving planetesimals or fragments of larger bodies.

The dwarf planet Ceres is by far the largest asteroid, with a diameter of 975 km. The next largest are 2 Pallas and 4 Vesta, both with diameters of just over 500 km. Vesta is the only main-belt asteroid that can, on occasion, be visible to the naked eye. On some rare occasions, a near-Earth asteroid may briefly become visible without technical aid; see 99942 Apophis.

The mass of all the objects of the asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is estimated to be about 2.8–3.2 kg, or about 4% of the mass of the Moon. Of this, Ceres comprises , a third of the total. Adding in the next three most massive objects, Vesta (9%), Pallas (7%), and Hygiea (3%), brings this figure up to 51%; whereas the three after that, 511 Davida (1.2%), 704 Interamnia (1.0%), and 52 Europa (0.9%), only add another 3% to the total mass. The number of asteroids then increases rapidly as their individual masses decrease.

The number of asteroids decreases markedly with size. Although this generally follows a power law, there are 'bumps' at and , where more asteroids than expected from a logarithmic distribution are found. Davis 2002, "Asteroids III", cited by Željko Ivezić 

+Approximate number of asteroids N larger than diameter D 
 D 100 m 300 m 500 m 1 km 3 km 5 km 10 km 30 km 50 km 100 km 200 km 300 km 500 km 900 km 
 N ~25,000,000 4,000,000 2,000,000 750,000 200,000 90,000 10,000 1,100 600 200 30 5 3 1 

====Largest asteroids====

of asteroids vs main belt.png|thumb|300px|right|The relative masses of the twelve largest asteroids known, [http://home.earthlink.net/~jimbaer1/astmass.txt "Recent Asteroid Mass Determinations". Maintained by Jim Baer. Last updated 2010-12-12. Retrieved 2 September 2011. The values of Juno and Herculina may be off by as much as 16%, and Euphrosyne by a third. The order of the lower eight may change as better data is acquired, but the values do not overlap with any known asteroid outside these twelve. compared to the remaining mass of the asteroid belt. 
 

 

]]
Although their location in the asteroid belt excludes them from planet status, the four largest objects, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea, are remnant protoplanets that share many characteristics common to planets, and are atypical compared to the majority of "potato"-shaped asteroids.

Ceres is the only asteroid with a fully ellipsoidal shape and hence dwarf planet. Vesta has—aside from the large crater at its southern pole, Rheasilvia—an ellipsoidal shape. Ceres has a much higher absolute magnitude than the other asteroids, of around 3.32, and may possess a surface layer of ice. Like the planets, Ceres is differentiated: it has a crust, a mantle and a core. Vesta, too, has a differentiated interior, though it formed inside the Solar System's frost line, and so is devoid of water; 
 its composition is mainly of basaltic rock such as olivine. Pallas is unusual in that, like Uranus, it rotates on its side, with its axis of rotation tilted at high angles to its orbital plane. Its composition is similar to that of Ceres: high in carbon and silicon, and perhaps partially differentiated. Hygiea is a carbonaceous asteroid and, unlike the other largest asteroids, lies relatively close to the plane of the ecliptic. 
 

 Attributes of protoplanetary asteroids 
 Name Orbitalradius (AU) Orbital period(years) Inclination to ecliptic Orbitaleccentricity Diameter(km) Diameter(% of Moon) Mass( kg) Mass(% of Ceres) Density g/cm3 Rotationperiod(hr) Axial tilt Surfacetemperature 
 Vesta 2.36 3.63 7.1° 0.089 573×557×446(mean 525) 15% 260 28% 3.44 ± 0.12 5.34 29° 85–270 K 
 Ceres 2.77 4.60 10.6° 0.079 975×975×909(mean 952) 28% 940 100% 2.12 ± 0.04 9.07 ≈ 3° 167 K 
 Pallas 2.77 4.62 34.8° 0.231 580×555×500(mean 545) 16% 210 22% 2.71 ± 0.11 7.81 ≈ 80° 164 K 
 Hygiea 3.14 5.56 3.8° 0.117 530×407×370(mean 430) 12% 87 9% 2.76 ± 1.2 27.6 ≈ 60° 164 K 

===Rotation===
Measurements of the rotation rates of large asteroids in the asteroid belt show that there is an upper limit. No asteroid with a diameter larger than 100 meters has a rotation period smaller than 2.2 hours. For asteroids rotating faster than approximately this rate, the inertia at the surface is greater than the gravitational force, so any loose surface material would be flung out. However, a solid object should be able to rotate much more rapidly. This suggests that most asteroids with a diameter over 100 meters are rubble piles formed through accumulation of debris after collisions between asteroids. 

=== Composition ===
Cratered terrain on 4 Vesta
The physical composition of asteroids is varied and in most cases poorly understood. Ceres appears to be composed of a rocky core covered by an icy mantle, where Vesta is thought to have a nickel-iron core, olivine mantle, and basaltic crust. HubbleSite – NewsCenter – Asteroid or Mini-Planet? Hubble Maps the Ancient Surface of Vesta (04/19/1995) – Release Images 10 Hygiea, however, which appears to have a uniformly primitive composition of carbonaceous chondrite, is thought to be the largest undifferentiated asteroid. Most of the smaller asteroids are thought to be piles of rubble held together loosely by gravity, though the largest are probably solid. Some asteroids have moons or are co-orbiting binaries: Rubble piles, moons, binaries, and scattered asteroid families are believed to be the results of collisions that disrupted a parent asteroid.

Asteroids contain traces of amino acids and other organic compounds, and some speculate that asteroid impacts may have seeded the early Earth with the chemicals necessary to initiate life, or may have even brought life itself to Earth. (See also panspermia.) Life is Sweet: Sugar-Packing Asteroids May Have Seeded Life on Earth , Space.com, 19 December 2001 In August 2011, a report, based on NASA studies with meteorites found on Earth, was published suggesting DNA and RNA components (adenine, guanine and related organic molecules) may have been formed on asteroids and comets in outer space. 

Artist's view of a watery asteroid in the white-dwarf system GD 61. 
Composition is calculated from three primary sources: albedo, surface spectrum, and density. The last can only be determined accurately by observing the orbits of moons the asteroid might have. So far, every asteroid with moons has turned out to be a rubble pile, a loose conglomeration of rock and metal that may be half empty space by volume. The investigated asteroids are as large as 280 km in diameter, and include 121 Hermione (268×186×183 km), and 87 Sylvia (384×262×232 km). Only half a dozen asteroids are larger than 87 Sylvia, though none of them have moons; however, some smaller asteroids are thought to be more massive, suggesting they may not have been disrupted, and indeed 511 Davida, the same size as Sylvia to within measurement error, is estimated to be two and a half times as massive, though this is highly uncertain. The fact that such large asteroids as Sylvia can be rubble piles, presumably due to disruptive impacts, has important consequences for the formation of the Solar system: Computer simulations of collisions involving solid bodies show them destroying each other as often as merging, but colliding rubble piles are more likely to merge. This means that the cores of the planets could have formed relatively quickly. Marchis, Descamps, et al. Icarus, February 2011 

On 7 October 2009, the presence of water ice was confirmed on the surface of 24 Themis using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility. The surface of the asteroid appears completely covered in ice. As this ice layer is sublimated, it may be getting replenished by a reservoir of ice under the surface. Organic compounds were also detected on the surface. Scientists hypothesize that some of the first water brought to Earth was delivered by asteroid impacts after the collision that produced the Moon. The presence of ice on 24 Themis supports this theory. 

In October 2013, water was detected on an extrasolar body for the first time, on an asteroid orbiting the white dwarf star GD 61. 

===Surface features===
Most asteroids outside the big four (Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Hygiea) are likely to be broadly similar in appearance, if irregular in shape. 50-km (31-mi) 253 Mathilde is a rubble pile saturated with craters with diameters the size of the asteroid's radius, and Earth-based observations of 300-km (186-mi) 511 Davida, one of the largest asteroids after the big four, reveal a similarly angular profile, suggesting it is also saturated with radius-size craters. A.R. Conrad et al. 2007. "Direct measurement of the size, shape, and pole of 511 Davida with Keck AO in a single night", Icarus, Medium-sized asteroids such as Mathilde and 243 Ida that have been observed up close also reveal a deep regolith covering the surface. Of the big four, Pallas and Hygiea are practically unknown. Vesta has compression fractures encircling a radius-size crater at its south pole but is otherwise a spheroid. Ceres seems quite different in the glimpses Hubble has provided, with surface features that are unlikely to be due to simple craters and impact basins, but details will not be known until Dawn arrives in 2015.

===Color===
Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering. However evidence suggests most of the color change occurs rapidly, in the first hundred thousands years, limiting the usefulness of spectral measurement for determining the age of asteroids. 

== Classification ==
Asteroids are commonly classified according to two criteria: the characteristics of their orbits, and features of their reflectance spectrum.

=== Orbital classification ===

Many asteroids have been placed in groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Apart from the broadest divisions, it is customary to name a group of asteroids after the first member of that group to be discovered. Groups are relatively loose dynamical associations, whereas families are tighter and result from the catastrophic break-up of a large parent asteroid sometime in the past. Families have only been recognized within the asteroid belt. They were first recognized by Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1918 and are often called Hirayama families in his honor.

About 30–35% of the bodies in the asteroid belt belong to dynamical families each thought to have a common origin in a past collision between asteroids. A family has also been associated with the plutoid dwarf planet .

==== Quasi-satellites and horseshoe objects ====
Some asteroids have unusual horseshoe orbits that are co-orbital with the Earth or some other planet. Examples are 3753 Cruithne and . The first instance of this type of orbital arrangement was discovered between Saturn's moons Epimetheus and Janus.

Sometimes these horseshoe objects temporarily become quasi-satellites for a few decades or a few hundred years, before returning to their earlier status. Both Earth and Venus are known to have quasi-satellites.

Such objects, if associated with Earth or Venus or even hypothetically Mercury, are a special class of Aten asteroids. However, such objects could be associated with outer planets as well.

=== Spectral classification ===
This picture of 433 Eros shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end. Features as small as 35 m across can be seen.

In 1975, an asteroid taxonomic system based on color, albedo, and spectral shape was developed by Clark R. Chapman, David Morrison, and Ben Zellner. These properties are thought to correspond to the composition of the asteroid's surface material. The original classification system had three categories: C-types for dark carbonaceous objects (75% of known asteroids), S-types for stony (silicaceous) objects (17% of known asteroids) and U for those that did not fit into either C or S. This classification has since been expanded to include many other asteroid types. The number of types continues to grow as more asteroids are studied.

The two most widely used taxonomies now used are the Tholen classification and SMASS classification. The former was proposed in 1984 by David J. Tholen, and was based on data collected from an eight-color asteroid survey performed in the 1980s. This resulted in 14 asteroid categories. In 2002, the Small Main-Belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey resulted in a modified version of the Tholen taxonomy with 24 different types. Both systems have three broad categories of C, S, and X asteroids, where X consists of mostly metallic asteroids, such as the M-type. There are also several smaller classes. 

The proportion of known asteroids falling into the various spectral types does not necessarily reflect the proportion of all asteroids that are of that type; some types are easier to detect than others, biasing the totals.

==== Problems ====
Originally, spectral designations were based on inferences of an asteroid's composition. However, the correspondence between spectral class and composition is not always very good, and a variety of classifications are in use. This has led to significant confusion. Although asteroids of different spectral classifications are likely to be composed of different materials, there are no assurances that asteroids within the same taxonomic class are composed of similar materials.

== Exploration ==

951 Gaspra is the first asteroid to be imaged in close-up (enhanced color).
Vesta, imaged by the Dawn spacecraft
Several views of 433 Eros in natural colour
Until the age of space travel, objects in the asteroid belt were merely pinpricks of light in even the largest telescopes and their shapes and terrain remained a mystery. The best modern ground-based telescopes and the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope can resolve a small amount of detail on the surfaces of the largest asteroids, but even these mostly remain little more than fuzzy blobs. Limited information about the shapes and compositions of asteroids can be inferred from their light curves (their variation in brightness as they rotate) and their spectral properties, and asteroid sizes can be estimated by timing the lengths of star occulations (when an asteroid passes directly in front of a star). Radar imaging can yield good information about asteroid shapes and orbital and rotational parameters, especially for near-Earth asteroids. In terms of delta-v and propellant requirements, NEOs are more easily accessible than the Moon. A Piloted Orion Flight to a Near-Earth Object: A Feasibility Study 

The first close-up photographs of asteroid-like objects were taken in 1971 when the Mariner 9 probe imaged Phobos and Deimos, the two small moons of Mars, which are probably captured asteroids. These images revealed the irregular, potato-like shapes of most asteroids, as did later images from the Voyager probes of the small moons of the gas giants.

The first true asteroid to be photographed in close-up was 951 Gaspra in 1991, followed in 1993 by 243 Ida and its moon Dactyl, all of which were imaged by the Galileo probe en route to Jupiter.

The first dedicated asteroid probe was NEAR Shoemaker, which photographed 253 Mathilde in 1997, before entering into orbit around 433 Eros, finally landing on its surface in 2001.

Other asteroids briefly visited by spacecraft en route to other destinations include 9969 Braille (by Deep Space 1 in 1999), and 5535 Annefrank (by Stardust in 2002).

In September 2005, the Japanese Hayabusa probe started studying 25143 Itokawa in detail and was plagued with difficulties, but returned samples of its surface to earth on 13 June 2010.

The European Rosetta probe (launched in 2004) flew by 2867 Šteins in 2008 and 21 Lutetia, the second-largest asteroid visited to date, in 2010.

In September 2007, NASA launched the Dawn Mission, which orbited the protoplanet 4 Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012, and is planned to orbit 1 Ceres in 2015. 4 Vesta is the largest asteroid visited to date.

On 13 December 2012, China's lunar orbiter Chang'e 2 flew within 2 mi of the asteroid 4179 Toutatis on an extended mission.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch around 2015 the improved Hayabusa 2 space probe and to return asteroid samples by 2020. Current target for the mission is the C-type asteroid .

In May 2011, NASA announced the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission to asteroid 1999 RQ36, and is expected to launch in 2016.

On 15 February 2013, an asteroid measuring approximately 18 m with a mass of about 9,100 tonnes (10,000 short tons) exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia causing 1,500 injuries and damaging 7,000 buildings. Small samples of the rocky Chelyabinsk meteorite were quickly recovered and analyzed with a larger fragment found several months later.

In early 2013, NASA announced the planning stages of a mission to capture a near-Earth asteroid and move it into lunar orbit where it could possibly be visited by astronauts and later impacted into the Moon. NASA May Slam Captured Asteroid Into Moon (Eventually), space.com, Mike Wall, 30 September 2013 

It has been suggested that asteroids might be used as a source of materials that may be rare or exhausted on earth (asteroid mining), or materials for constructing space habitats (see Colonization of the asteroids). Materials that are heavy and expensive to launch from earth may someday be mined from asteroids and used for space manufacturing and construction.

== Fiction ==

Asteroids and the asteroid belt are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places human beings might colonize, resources for extracting minerals, hazards encountered by spaceships traveling between two other points, and as a threat to life on Earth by potential impact.

== See also ==

* Asteroid deflection strategies
* Atira asteroids, (Interior-Earth objects, asteroids with orbits fully within that of Earth).
* BOOTES (Burst Observer and OpticalTransient Exploring System)
* Category:Asteroids
* Category:Asteroid groups and families
* Category:Binary asteroids
* Centaur (minor planet)
* Dwarf planet
* Impact event
* List of asteroid close approaches to Earth
* List of asteroids named after people
* List of asteroids named after places
* List of minor planets
* List of notable asteroids
* Lost asteroid
* Marco Polo (spacecraft)
* Meanings of asteroid names
* Mesoplanet
* Minor planet
* Near-Earth object
* Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite NEOsStat Canada's New Satellite
* Orion asteroid mission
* Pioneer 10 space probe
* Pronunciation of asteroid names
* Rosetta probe

== Notes ==
 

== References ==

== External links ==

* Asteroids@home (BOINC distributed computing project)

* Rocks from the Main Belt asteroids
* Alphabetical list of minor planet names (ASCII) (Minor Planet Center)
* Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT)
* Asteroids Page at NASA's Solar System Exploration
* Asteroid Simulator with Moon and Earth
* Alphabetical and numerical lists of minor planet names (Unicode) (Institute of Applied Astronomy)
* Future Asteroid Interception Research
* Near Earth Objects Dynamic Site
* Asteroids Dynamic Site Up-to-date osculating orbital elements and proper orbital elements University of Pisa, Italy.

* JPL small bodies database Current down-loadable ASCII table of orbit data and absolute magnitudes H for over 200000 asteroids, sorted by number. Caltech/JPL.
* Asteroid naming statistics
* Spaceguard UK
* Committee on Small Body Nomenclature
* List of minor planet orbital groupings and families from ProjectPluto
* Cunningham, Clifford, "Introduction to Asteroids: The Next Frontier", ISBN 0-943396-16-6
* James L. Hilton: When Did the Asteroids Become Minor Planets?
* Kirkwood, Daniel; Relations between the Motions of some of the Minor Planets (1874).
* Schmadel, L.D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. 5th ed. IAU/Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg.
* Asteroid articles in Planetary Science Research Discoveries
* Catalogue of the Solar System Small Bodies Orbital Evolution
* TECA Table of next close approaches to the Earth
* SAEL Small Asteroids Encounter List
* MBPL Minor Body Priority List
* PCEL Planetary Close Encounter List
* NEO MAP (Armagh Observatory)
* Information about near-Earth asteroids and their close approaches

 



[[Allocution]]

In the criminal procedure of some common law jurisdictions, an allocution or allocutus is a formal statement made to the court by the defendant who has been found guilty, prior to being sentenced.

An allows the defendant to explain why the sentence should be lenient.

In plea bargains, an allocution may be required of the defendant; the defendant explicitly admits specifically and in detail to what he or she did and for what reason, in exchange for a reduced sentence. In principle, it removes any doubt as to the exact nature of the defendant's guilt in the matter.

The term "allocution" is generally only in use in jurisdictions in the United States, though there are vaguely similar processes in other common law countries. In many other jurisdictions it is for the defense lawyer to mitigate on his client's behalf, and the defendant himself will rarely have the opportunity to speak. The right of victims to speak at sentencing is also sometimes referred to as allocution. 

==Specific jurisdictions==

===United States===
In most United States jurisdictions a defendant is allowed the opportunity to allocute&mdash;that is, explain himself&mdash;before sentence is passed. Some jurisdictions hold this as an absolute right, and in its absence, a sentence may potentially be overturned, with the result that a new sentencing hearing must be held. In the federal system, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(4) provides that the court must "address the defendant personally in order to permit the defendant to speak or present any information to mitigate the sentence." http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/Rule32.htm The Federal Public Defender recommends that defendants speak in terms of how a lenient sentence will be sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the statutory directives set forth in . http://www.fd.org/pdf_lib/allocution%20pleading.pdf 

===Australia===
In Australia the term "allocutus" will be used. It will be used by the Clerk of Arraigns or another formal associate of the Court. It will generally be phrased as "Prisoner at the Bar, you have been found Guilty by a jury of your peers of the offense of XYZ. Do you have anything to say as to why the sentence of this Court should not now be passed upon you?". The defense counsel will then make a "plea in mitigation" (also called "submissions on penalty") wherein he or she will attempt to mitigate the relative seriousness of the offense and heavily refer to and rely upon the defendant's previous good character and good works (if any). In Australia, the right to make a plea in mitigation is absolute. If a judge or magistrate were to refuse to hear such a plea, or obviously fail to properly consider it, then the sentence would, without doubt, be overturned on appeal.

== See also ==
* Confession (legal)

==References==

==External links==



[[Affidavit]]

Vasil Levski's affidavit, 16 June 1872, Bucharest, Romania

An affidavit ( ) is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public or commissioner of oaths. The name is Medieval Latin for he/she has declared upon oath. An affidavit is a type of verified statement or showing, or in other words, it contains a verification, meaning it is under oath or penalty of perjury, and this serves as evidence to its veracity and is required for court proceedings.
*To obtain a declaration on a legal document, such as an application for voter registration, that the information provided by the applicant is truthful to the best of the applicant's knowledge. If, after signing such a declaration, the information is found to be deliberately untrue with the intent to deceive, the applicant may face perjury charges.

Affidavits may be written in the first or third person, depending on who drafted the document. If in the first person, the document's component parts are:
* a commencement which identifies the "affiant of truth", Legal Dictionary retrieved on 11 October 2012 generally stating that everything is true, under penalty of perjury, fine, or imprisonment;
* an attestation clause, usually a jurat, at the end certifying the affiant made oath and the date; and
* signatures of the author and witness.

If an affidavit is notarized or authenticated, it will also include a caption with a venue and title in reference to judicial proceedings. In some cases, an introductory clause, called a preamble, is added attesting that the affiant personally appeared before the authenticating authority.

==India==
In Indian Law although an affidavit may be taken as proof of the facts stated therein, the Courts have no jurisdiction to admit evidence by way of affidavit. Affidavit is treated as “Evidence” within the meaning of Section 3 of the Evidence Act. However, it was held by the Supreme Court that an affidavit can be used as an evidence only if the Court so orders for sufficient reasons. Therefore an affidavit cannot ordinarily be used as evidence in absence of specific order of the Court.

==Ireland==
Affidavits are made in a similar way as to England and Wales, although "make oath" is sometimes omitted. A declaration may be substituted for an affidavit in most cases for those opposed to swearing oaths. The person making the affidavit is known as the deponent but does not sign the affidavit. The affidavit concludes in the standard format "sworn (declared) before me, of commissioner for oaths/solicitor, a commissioner for oaths (solicitor), on the at in the county/city of , and I know the deponent (declarant)", and it is signed and stamped by the commissioner for oaths...

==United States==
In American jurisprudence, under the rules for hearsay, admission of an unsupported affidavit as evidence is unusual (especially if the affiant is not available for cross-examination) with regard to material facts which may be dispositive of the matter at bar. Affidavits from persons who are dead or otherwise incapacitated, or who cannot be located or made to appear may be accepted by the court, but usually only in the presence of corroborating evidence. An affidavit which reflected a better grasp of the facts close in time to the actual events may be used to refresh a witness's recollection. Materials used to refresh recollection are admissible as evidence. If the affiant is a party in the case, the affiant's opponent may be successful in having the affidavit admitted as evidence, as statements by a party-opponent are admissible through an exception to the hearsay rule.

Affidavits are typically included in the response to interrogatories. Rule 33. Interrogatories to Parties. Cornell Legal Information Institute. Interrogatories. Requests for admissions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36, however, are not required to be sworn. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36.Cornell Legal Information Institute. 

Some types of motions will not be accepted by the court unless accompanied by an independent sworn statement or other evidence, in support of the need for the motion. In such a case, a court will accept an affidavit from the filing attorney in support of the motion, as certain assumptions are made, to wit: The affidavit in place of sworn testimony promotes judicial economy. The lawyer is an officer of the court and knows that a false swearing by him, if found out, could be grounds for severe penalty up to and including disbarment. The lawyer if called upon would be able to present independent and more detailed evidence to prove the facts set forth in his affidavit.

The acceptance of an affidavit by one society does not confirm its acceptance as a legal document in other jurisdictions. Equally, the acceptance that a lawyer is an officer of the court (for swearing the affidavit) is not a given. This matter is addressed by the use of the Apostille, a means of certifying the legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. Documents which have been notarized by a notary public, and certain other documents, and then certified with a conformant apostille are accepted for legal use in all the nations that have signed the Hague Convention. Thus most Affidavits now require to be Apostilled if used for cross border issues.

==See also==
*Deposition (law)
*Declaration (law)
*Statutory declaration

==Notes==

== External links ==

* McCarthyism and Academic Freedom on the University of Chicago Campus



[[Aries (constellation)]]

Aries is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is located in the northern celestial hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. The name Aries is Latin for ram, and its symbol is 20px (), representing a ram's horns. It is one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is a mid-sized constellation, ranking 39th overall size, with an area of 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere). 

Although Aries came to represent specifically the ram whose fleece became the Golden Fleece of Ancient Greek mythology, it has represented a ram since late Babylonian times. Before that, the stars of Aries formed a farmhand. Different cultures have incorporated the stars of Aries into different constellations including twin inspectors in China and a porpoise in the Marshall Islands. Aries is a relatively dim constellation, possessing only four bright stars: Hamal (Alpha Arietis, second magnitude), Sheratan (Beta Arietis, third magnitude), Mesarthim (Gamma Arietis, fourth magnitude), and 41 Arietis (also fourth magnitude). The few deep-sky objects within the constellation are quite faint and include several pairs of interacting galaxies. Several meteor showers appear to radiate from Aries, including the Daytime Arietids and the Epsilon Arietids.

== History and mythology ==

Aries is now recognized as an official constellation, albeit as a specific region of the sky, by the International Astronomical Union. It was originally defined in ancient texts as a specific pattern of stars, and has remained a constellation since ancient times; it now includes the ancient pattern as well as the surrounding stars. In the description of the Babylonian zodiac given in the clay tablets known as the MUL.APIN, the constellation now known as Aries was the final station along the ecliptic. The MUL.APIN was a comprehensive table of the risings and settings of stars, which likely served as an agricultural calendar. Modern-day Aries was known as , "The Agrarian Worker" or "The Hired Man". Although likely compiled in the 12th or 11th century BCE, the MUL.APIN reflects a tradition which marks the Pleiades as the vernal equinox, which was the case with some precision at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BCE. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram figure is distinct from the other characters present. The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created—by 1000 BCE—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi's ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.

In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram's head and represented fertility and creativity. Because it was the location of the vernal equinox, it was called the "Indicator of the Reborn Sun". During the times of the year when Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of "Lord of the Head" in Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance.

Aries and Musca Borealis as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825

Aries was not fully accepted as a constellation until classical times. In Hellenistic astrology, the constellation of Aries is associated with the golden ram of Greek mythology that rescued Phrixos and Helle on orders from Hermes, taking him to the land of Colchis. Phrixos and Helle were the son and daughter of King Athamas and his first wife Nephele. The king's second wife, Ino, was jealous and wished to kill his children. To accomplish this, she induced a famine in Boeotia, then falsified a message from the Oracle of Delphi that said Phrixos must be sacrificed to end the famine. Athamas was about to sacrifice his son atop Mount Laphystium when Aries, sent by Nephele, arrived. Helle fell off of Aries's back in flight and drowned in the Dardanelles, also called the Hellespont in her honor. After arriving, Phrixos sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the Fleece to Aeëtes of Colchis, who rewarded him with an engagement to his daughter Chalciope. Aeëtes hung its skin in a sacred place where it became known as the Golden Fleece and was guarded by a dragon. In a later myth, this Golden Fleece was stolen by Jason and the Argonauts.

Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards Taurus. Ptolemy asserted in his Almagest that Hipparchus depicted Alpha Arietis as the ram's muzzle, though Ptolemy did not include it in his constellation figure. Instead, it was listed as an "unformed star", and denoted as "the star over the head". John Flamsteed, in his Atlas Coelestis, followed Ptolemy's description by mapping it above the figure's head. Flamsteed followed the general convention of maps by depicting Aries lying down. Astrologically, Aries has been associated with the head and its humors. It was strongly associated with Mars, both the planet and the god. It was considered to govern Western Europe and Syria, and to indicate a strong temper in a person.

The First Point of Aries, the location of the vernal equinox, is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia ago. Hipparchus defined it in 130 BCE. as a point south of Gamma Arietis. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the First Point of Aries has since moved into Pisces and will move into Aquarius by around 2600 CE. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through mid May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.

Medieval Muslim astronomers depicted Aries in various ways. Astronomers like al-Sufi saw the constellation as a ram, modeled on the precedent of Ptolemy. However, some Islamic celestial globes depicted Aries as a nondescript four-legged animal with what may be antlers instead of horns. Some early Bedouin observers saw a ram elsewhere in the sky; this constellation featured the Pleiades as the ram's tail. The generally accepted Arabic formation of Aries consisted of thirteen stars in a figure along with five "unformed" stars, four of which were over the animal's hindquarters and one of which was the disputed star over Aries's head. Al-Sufi's depiction differed from both other Arab astronomers' and Flamsteed's, in that his Aries was running and looking behind itself.

The obsolete constellations introduced in Aries (Musca Borealis, Lilium, Vespa, and Apes) have all been composed of the northern stars. Musca Borealis was created from the stars 33 Arietis, 35 Arietis, 39 Arietis, and 41 Arietis. In 1612, Petrus Plancius introduced Apes, a constellation representing a bee. In 1624, the same stars were used by Jakob Bartsch to create a constellation called Vespa, representing a wasp. In 1679 Augustin Royer used these stars for his constellation Lilium, representing the fleur-de-lis. None of these constellation became widely accepted. Johann Hevelius renamed the constellation "Musca" in 1690 in his Firmamentum Sobiescianum. To differentiate it from Musca, the southern fly, it was later renamed Musca Borealis but it did not gain acceptance and its stars were ultimately officially reabsorbed into Aries.

In 1922, the International Astronomical Union defined its recommended three-letter abbreviation, "Ari". The official boundaries of Aries were defined in 1930 by Eugène Delporte as a polygon of 12 segments. Its right ascension is between 1h 46.4m and 3h 29.4m and its declination is between 10.36° and 31.22° in the equatorial coordinate system.

=== In non-Western astronomy ===

In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The brightest stars—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis—formed a constellation called Lou, variously translated as "bond", "lasso", and "sickle", which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle. This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The lunar mansion represented the area where animals were gathered before sacrifice around that time. This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head. 35, 39, and 41 Arietis were part of a constellation called Wei, which represented a fat abdomen and was the namesake of the 17th lunar mansion, which represented granaries. Delta and Zeta Arietis were a part of the constellation Tianyin, thought to represent the Emperor's hunting partner. Zuogeng (Tso-kang), a constellation depicting a marsh and pond inspector, was composed of Mu, Nu, Omicron, Pi, and Sigma Arietis. He was accompanied by Yeou-kang, a constellation depicting an official in charge of pasture distribution.

In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called "Aswini", after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year began with the vernal equinox, the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-year's related hymns to the twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as "Aja" and "Mesha". In Hebrew astronomy Aries was named "Teli"; it signified either Simeon or Gad, and generally symbolizes the "Lamb of the World". The neighboring Syrians named the constellation "Amru", and the bordering Turks named it "Kuzi". Half a world away, in the Marshall Islands, several stars from Aries were incorporated into a constellation depicting a porpoise, along with stars from Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Triangulum. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis formed the head of the porpoise, while stars from Andromeda formed the body and the bright stars of Cassiopeia formed the tail. Other Polynesian peoples recognized Aries as a constellation. The Marquesas islanders called it Na-pai-ka; the Maori constellation Pipiri may correspond to modern Aries as well. In indigenous Peruvian astronomy, a constellation with most of the same stars as Aries existed. It was called the "Market Moon" and the "Kneeling Terrace", as a reminder for when to hold the annual harvest festival, Ayri Huay.

== Notable features ==

The constellation Aries as it can be seen with the naked eye

=== Stars ===

Aries has three prominent stars forming an asterism, designated Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis by Johann Bayer. All three are commonly used for navigation. There is also one other star above the fourth magnitude, 41 Arietis. α Arietis, called Hamal, is the brightest star in Aries. Its traditional name is derived from the Arabic word for "lamb" or "head of the ram" (ras al-hamal), which references Aries's mythological background. With a spectral class of K2 and a luminosity class of III, it is an orange giant with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.00, which lies 66 light-years from Earth. Hamal has a luminosity of 96 L☉ and its absolute magnitude is −0.1.

β Arietis, also known as Sheratan, is a blue-white star with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.64. Its traditional name is derived from "sharatayn", the Arabic word for "the two signs", referring to both Beta and Gamma Arietis in their position as heralds of the vernal equinox. The two stars were known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal", "horns of the ram". It is 59 light-years from Earth. It has a luminosity of 11 L☉ and its absolute magnitude is 2.1. It is a spectroscopic binary star, one in which the companion star is only known through analysis of the spectra. The spectral class of the primary is A5. Hermann Carl Vogel determined that Sheratan was a spectroscopic binary in 1903; its orbit was determined by Hans Ludendorff in 1907. It has since been studied for its eccentric orbit.

γ Arietis, with a common name of Mesarthim, is a binary star with two white-hued components, located in a rich field of magnitude 8–12 stars. Its traditional name has conflicting derivations. It may be derived from a corruption of "al-sharatan", the Arabic word meaning "pair" or a word for "fat ram". However, it may also come from the Sanskrit for "first star of Aries" or the Hebrew for "ministerial servants", both of which are unusual languages of origin for star names. Along with Beta Arietis, it was known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal". The primary is of magnitude 4.59 and the secondary is of magnitude 4.68. The system is 164 light-years from Earth. The two components are separated by 7.8 arcseconds, and the system as a whole has an apparent magnitude of 3.9. The primary has a luminosity of 60 L☉ and the secondary has a luminosity of 56 L☉; the primary is an A-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.2 and the secondary is a B9-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.4. The angle between the two components is 1°. Mesarthim was discovered to be a double star by Robert Hooke in 1664, one of the earliest such telescopic discoveries. The primary, γ1 Arietis, is an Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variable star that has a range of 0.02 magnitudes and a period of 2.607 days. It is unusual because of its strong silicon emission lines.

The constellation is home to several double stars, including Epsilon, Lambda, and Pi Arietis. ε Arietis is a binary star with two white components. The primary is of magnitude 5.2 and the secondary is of magnitude 5.5. The system is 290 light-years from Earth. Its overall magnitude is 4.63, and the primary has an absolute magnitude of 1.4. Its spectral class is A2. The two components are separated by 1.5 arcseconds. λ Arietis is a wide double star with a white-hued primary and a yellow-hued secondary. The primary is of magnitude 4.8 and the secondary is of magnitude 7.3. The primary is 129 light-years from Earth. It has an absolute magnitude of 1.7 and a spectral class of F0. The two components are separated by 36 arcseconds at an angle of 50°; the two stars are located 0.5° east of 7 Arietis. π Arietis is a close binary star with a blue-white primary and a white secondary. The primary is of magnitude 5.3 and the secondary is of magnitude 8.5. The primary is 776 light-years from Earth. The primary itself is a wide double star with a separation of 25.2 arcseconds; the tertiary has a magnitude of 10.8. The primary and secondary are separated by 3.2 arcseconds.

Most of the other stars in Aries visible to the naked eye have magnitudes between 3 and 5. δ Ari, called Boteïn, is a star of magnitude 4.35, 170 light-years away. It has an absolute magnitude of −0.1 and a spectral class of K2. ζ Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.89, 263 light-years away. Its spectral class is A0 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0. 14 Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.98, 288 light-years away. Its spectral class is F2 and its absolute magnitude is 0.6. 39 Arietis is a similar star of magnitude 4.51, 172 light-years away. Its spectral class is K1 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0. 35 Arietis is a dim star of magnitude 4.55, 343 light-years away. Its spectral class is B3 and its absolute magnitude is −1.7. 41 Arietis, known both as c Arietis and Nair al Butain, is a brighter star of magnitude 3.63, 165 light-years away. Its spectral class is B8 and it has a luminosity of 105 L☉. Its absolute magnitude is −0.2. 53 Arietis is a runaway star of magnitude 6.09, 815 light-years away. Its spectral class is B2. It was likely ejected from the Orion Nebula approximately five million years ago, possibly due to supernovae. Finally, Teegarden's Star is the closest star to Earth in Aries. It is a brown dwarf of magnitude 15.14 and spectral class M6.5V. With a proper motion of 5.1 arcseconds per year, it is the 24th closest star to Earth overall.

Aries has its share of variable stars, including R and U Arietis, Mira-type variable stars, and T Arietis, a semi-regular variable star. R Arietis is a Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 13.7 to a maximum of 7.4 with a period of 186.8 days. It is 4,080 light-years away. U Arietis is another Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 15.2 to a maximum of 7.2 with a period of 371.1 days. T Arietis is a semiregular variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 11.3 to a maximum of 7.5 with a period of 317 days. It is 1,630 light-years away. One particularly interesting variable in Aries is SX Arietis, a rotating variable star considered to be the prototype of its class, helium variable stars. SX Arietis stars have very prominent emission lines of Helium I and Silicon III. They are normally main-sequence B0p—B9p stars, and their variations are not usually visible to the naked eye. Therefore, they are observed photometrically, usually having periods that fit in the course of one night. Similar to Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables, SX Arietis stars have periodic changes in their light and magnetic field, which correspond to the periodic rotation; they differ from the Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables in their higher temperature. There are between 39 and 49 SX Arietis variable stars currently known; ten are noted as being "uncertain" in the General Catalog of Variable Stars.

=== Deep-sky objects ===

The few deep-sky objects in Aries are very dim. Nevertheless, several scientifically interesting galaxies lie within its borders; it has spiral, elliptical, and interacting galaxies.

NGC 772, with a notated supernova.

NGC 772 is a spiral galaxy with an integrated magnitude of 10.3, located southeast of β Arietis and 15 arcminutes west of 15 Arietis. It is a relatively bright galaxy and shows obvious nebulosity and ellipticity in an amateur telescope. It is 7.2 by 4.2 arcminutes, meaning that its surface brightness, magnitude 13.6, is significantly lower than its integrated magnitude. NGC 772 is a class SA(s)b galaxy, which means that it is an unbarred spiral galaxy without a ring that possesses a somewhat prominent bulge and spiral arms that are wound somewhat tightly. The main arm, on the northwest side of the galaxy, is home to many star forming regions; this is due to previous gravitational interactions with other galaxies. NGC 772 has a small companion galaxy, NGC 770, that is about 113,000 light-years away from the larger galaxy. The two galaxies together are also classified as Arp 78 in the Arp peculiar galaxy catalog. NGC 772 has a diameter of 240,000 light-years and the system is 114 million light-years from Earth. Another spiral galaxy in Aries is NGC 673, a face-on class SAB(s)c galaxy. It is a weakly barred spiral galaxy with loosely wound arms. It has no ring and a faint bulge and is 2.5 by 1.9 arcminutes. It has two primary arms with fragments located farther from the core. 171,000 light-years in diameter, NGC 673 is 235 million light-years from Earth.

NGC 678 and NGC 680 are a pair of galaxies in Aries that are only about 200,000 light-years apart. Part of the NGC 691 group of galaxies, both are at a distance of approximately 130 million light-years. NGC 678 is an edge-on spiral galaxy that is 4.5 by 0.8 arcminutes. NGC 680, an elliptical galaxy with an asymmetrical boundary, is the brighter of the two at magnitude 12.9; NGC 678 has a magnitude of 13.35. Both galaxies have bright cores, but NGC 678 is the larger galaxy at a diameter of 171,000 light-years; NGC 680 has a diameter of 72,000 light-years. NGC 678 is further distinguished by its prominent dust lane. NGC 691 itself is a spiral galaxy slightly inclined to our line of sight. It has multiple spiral arms and a bright core. Because it is so diffuse, it has a low surface brightness. It has a diameter of 126,000 light-years and is 124 million light-years away. NGC 877 is the brightest member of an 8-galaxy group that also includes NGC 870, NGC 871, and NGC 876, with a magnitude of 12.53. It is 2.4 by 1.8 arcminutes and is 178 million light-years away with a diameter of 124,000 light-years. Its companion is NGC 876, which is about 103,000 light-years from the core of NGC 877. They are interacting gravitationally, as they are connected by a faint stream of gas and dust. Arp 276 is a different pair of interacting galaxies in Aries, consisting of NGC 935 and IC 1801.

NGC 821 is an E6 elliptical galaxy. It is unusual because it has hints of an early spiral structure, which is normally only found in lenticular and spiral galaxies. NGC 821 is 2.6 by 2.0 arcminutes and has a visual magnitude of 11.3. Its diameter is 61,000 light-years and it is 80 million light-years away. Another unusual galaxy in Aries is Segue 2. Segue 2 is a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, recently discovered to be a potential relic of the epoch of reionization.

=== Meteor showers ===

Aries is home to several meteor showers. The Daytime Arietid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers that occurs during the day, lasting from 22 May to 2 June. It is an annual shower associated with the Marsden group of comets that peaks on 7 June with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of 54 meteors. Its parent body may be the asteroid Icarus. The meteors are sometimes visible before dawn, because the radiant is 32 degrees away from the Sun. They usually appear at a rate of 1–2 per hour as "earthgrazers", meteors that last several seconds and often begin at the horizon. Because most of the Daytime Arietids are not visible to the naked eye, they are observed in the radio spectrum. This is possible because of the ionized gas they leave in their wake. Other meteor showers radiate from Aries during the day; these include the Daytime Epsilon Arietids and the Northern and Southern Daytime May Arietids. The Jodrell Bank Observatory discovered the Daytime Arietids in 1947 when James Hey and G.S. Stewart adapted the World War II-era radar systems for meteor observations.

The Delta Arietids are another meteor shower radiating from Aries. Peaking on 9 December with a low peak rate, the shower lasts from 8 December to 14 January, with the highest rates visible from 8 to 14 December. The average Delta Aquarid meteor is very slow, with an average velocity of 13.2 km per second. However, this shower sometimes produces bright fireballs. This meteor shower has northern and southern components, both of which are likely associated with 1990 HA, a near-Earth asteroid.

The Autumn Arietids also radiate from Aries. The shower lasts from 7 September to 27 October and peaks on 9 October. Its peak rate is low. The Epsilon Arietids appear from 12 to 23 October. Other meteor showers radiating from Aries include the October Delta Arietids, Daytime Epsilon Arietids, Daytime May Arietids, Sigma Arietids, Nu Arietids, and Beta Arietids. The Sigma Arietids, a class IV meteor shower, are visible from 12 to 19 October, with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of less than two meteors per hour on 19 October.

=== Planetary systems ===

Aries contains several stars with extrasolar planets. HIP 14810, a G5 type star, is orbited by three giant planets (those more than ten times the mass of Earth). HD 12661, like HIP 14810, is a G-type main sequence star, slightly larger than the Sun, with two orbiting planets. One planet is 2.3 times the mass of Jupiter, and the other is 1.57 times the mass of Jupiter. HD 20367 is a G0 type star, approximately the size of the Sun, with one orbiting planet. The planet, discovered in 2002, has a mass 1.07 times that of Jupiter and orbits every 500 days.

==Astrology==

, the Sun resides in the constellation Aries from April 18 to May 13 as it moves through the ecliptic. In tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Aries from March 21 to April 20, and in sidereal astrology, from April 15 to May 15.

== References ==

Explanatory notes

Citations

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== External links ==
* The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Aries
* Star Tales – Aries
* Aries Constellation at Constellation Guide

 



[[Aquarius (constellation)]]

Aquarius is a constellation of the zodiac, situated between Capricornus and Pisces. Its name is Latin for "water-carrier" or "cup-carrier", and its symbol is 20px (), a representation of water.

Aquarius is one of the oldest of the recognized constellations along the zodiac (the sun's apparent path). It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century AD astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is found in a region often called the Sea due to its profusion of constellations with watery associations such as Cetus the whale, Pisces the fish, and Eridanus the river.

==History and mythology==
Aquarius is identified as "The Great One" in the Babylonian star catalogues and represents the god Ea himself, who is commonly depicted holding an overflowing vase. The Babylonian star-figure appears on entitlement stones and cylinder seals from the second millennium. It contained the winter solstice in the Early Bronze Age. In Old Babylonian astronomy, Ea was the ruler of the southernmost quarter of the Sun's path, the "Way of Ea", corresponding to the period of 45 days on either side of winter solstice. Aquarius was also associated with the destructive floods that the Babylonians regularly experienced, and thus was negatively connoted. In Ancient Egypt, Aquarius was associated with the annual flood of the Nile; the banks were said to flood when Aquarius put his jar into the river, beginning spring.

In the Greek tradition, the constellation became represented as simply a single vase from which a stream poured down to Piscis Austrinus. The name in the Hindu zodiac is likewise kumbha "water-pitcher", showing that the zodiac reached India via Greek intermediaries.

In Greek mythology, Aquarius is sometimes associated with Deucalion, the son of Prometheus who built a ship with his wife Pyrrha to survive an imminent flood. They sailed for nine days before washing ashore on Mount Parnassus. Aquarius is also sometimes identified with beautiful Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology and the son of Trojan king Tros, who was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods. Neighboring Aquila represents the eagle, under Zeus' command, that snatched the young boy; some versions of the myth indicate that the eagle was in fact Zeus transformed. An alternative version of the tale recounts Ganymede's kidnapping by the goddess of the dawn, Eos, motivated by her affection for young men; Zeus then stole him from Eos and employed him as cup-bearer. Yet another figure associated with the water bearer is Cecrops I, a king of Athens who sacrificed water instead of wine to the gods.

===In non-Western astronomy===
In Chinese astronomy, the stream of water flowing from the Water Jar was depicted as the "Army of Yu-Lin" (Yu-lin-kiun or Yulinjun). The name "Yu-lin" means "feathers and forests", referring to the numerous light-footed soldiers from the northern reaches of the empire represented by these faint stars. The constellation's stars were the most numerous of any Chinese constellation, numbering 45, the majority of which were located in modern Aquarius. The celestial army was protected by the wall Leibizhen, which counted Iota, Lambda, Phi, and Sigma Aquarii among its 12 stars. 88, 89, and 98 Aquarii represent Fou-youe, the axes used as weapons and for hostage executions. Also in Aquarius is Loui-pi-tchin, the ramparts that stretch from 29 and 27 Piscium and 33 and 30 Aquarii through Phi, Lambda, Sigma, and Iota Aquarii to Delta, Gamma, Kappa, and Epsilon Capricorni.

Near the border with Cetus, the axe Fuyue was represented by three stars; its position is disputed and may have instead been located in Sculptor. Tienliecheng also has a disputed position; the 13-star castle replete with ramparts may have possessed Nu and Xi Aquarii but may instead have been located south in Piscis Austrinus. The Water Jar asterism was seen to the ancient Chinese as the tomb, Fenmu. Nearby, the emperors' mausoleum Xiuliang stood, demarcated by Kappa Aquarii and three other collinear stars. Ku ("crying") and Qi ("weeping"), each composed of two stars, were located in the same region.

Three of the Chinese lunar mansions shared their name with constellations. Nu, also the name for the 10th lunar mansion, was a handmaiden represented by Epsilon, Mu, 3, and 4 Aquarii. The 11th lunar mansion shared its name with the constellation Xu ("emptiness"), formed by Beta Aquarii and Alpha Equulei; it represented a bleak place associated with death and funerals. Wei, the rooftop and 12th lunar mansion, was a V-shaped constellation formed by Alpha Aquarii, Theta Pegasi, and Epsilon Pegasi; it shared its name with two other Chinese constellations, in modern-day Scorpius and Aries.

===Depictions===
A representation of Aquarius printed in 1825 as part of Urania's Mirror, (including a now-obsolete constellation, Ballon Aerostatique south of it).
In the first century CE, Ptolemy's Almagest established the common Western depiction of Aquarius. His water jar, an asterism itself, consists of Gamma, Pi, Eta, and Zeta Aquarii; it pours water in a stream of more than 20 stars terminating with Fomalhaut, now assigned solely to Piscis Austrinus. The water bearer's head is represented by 5th magnitude 25 Aquarii while his left shoulder is Beta Aquarii; his right shoulder and forearm are represented by Alpha and Gamma Aquarii respectively.

==Notable features==
The constellation Aquarius as it can be seen by the naked eye.

===Stars===
Despite both its prominent position on the zodiac and its large size, Aquarius has no particularly bright stars, with its 4 brightest stars less than magnitude 2. However, recent research has shown that there are several stars lying within its borders that possess planetary systems.

α Aquarii, also known as Sadalmelik, is a G2 spectral class star (yellow supergiant) named in Arabic for the phrase "the lucky stars of the king". It is the second brightest star in Aquarius with a magnitude of 2.96 (though it has an absolute magnitude of -4.5) and is 523 light-years from Earth. It has a luminosity of 5250 L☉.

β Aquarii, sometimes called Sadalsuud, is a G0 spectral class star (yellow supergiant) named for the Arabic phrase meaning "luckiest of the lucky stars". It is the brightest star in Aquarius with an apparent magnitude of 2.91 and an absolute magnitude of -4.5. Sadalsuud is 537 light-years from Earth and has a luminosity of 5250 L☉, the same as α Aquarii.

γ Aquarii, also called Sadachbia, is a blue-white A0 spectral class star of magnitude 3.84 and a luminosity of 50 L☉ that is 163 light years away. It has a luminosity of 50 L☉. The name Sadachbia comes from the Arabic for "lucky stars of the tents", sa'd al-akhbiya.

δ Aquarii, also known as Scheat or Skat, is a blue-white A2 spectral class star of magnitude 3.27 and luminosity of 105 L☉.

ε Aquarii, also known as Albali, is a blue-white A1 spectral class star with an apparent magnitude of 3.77, an absolute magnitude of 1.2, and a luminosity of 28 L☉.

ζ Aquarii is an F2 spectral class double star; both stars are white. Overall, it appears to be of magnitude 3.6 and luminosity of 50 L☉. The primary has a magnitude of 4.53 and the secondary a magnitude of 4.31, but both have an absolute magnitude of 0.6. Its orbital period is 760 years; the two components are currently moving farther apart.

θ Aquarii, sometimes called Ancha, is a G8 spectral class star with an apparent magnitude of 4.16 and an absolute magnitude of 1.4.

λ Aquarii, also called Hudoor or Ekchusis, is an M2 spectral class star of magnitude 3.74 and luminosity of 120 L☉.

ξ Aquarii, also called Bunda, is an A7 spectral class star with an apparent magnitude of 4.69 and an absolute magnitude of 2.4.

π Aquarii, also called Seat, is a B0 spectral class star with an apparent magnitude of 4.66 and an absolute magnitude of -4.1.

===Planetary systems===
Twelve exoplanet systems have been found in Aquarius as of 2013. Gliese 876, one of the nearest stars to Earth at a distance of 15 light-years, was the first red dwarf star to be found to possess a planetary system. It is orbited by four planets, including one terrestrial planet 6.6 times the mass of Earth. The planets vary in orbital period from 2 days to 124 days. 91 Aquarii is an orange giant star orbited by one planet, 91 Aquarii b. The planet's mass is 2.9 times the mass of Jupiter, and its orbital period is 182 days. Gliese 849 is a red dwarf star orbited by the first known long-period Jupiter-like planet, Gliese 849 b. The planet's mass is 0.99 times that of Jupiter and its orbital period is 1,852 days.

There are also less-prominent systems in Aquarius. WASP-6, a type G8 star of magnitude 12.4, is host to one exoplanet, WASP-6 b. The star is 307 parsecs from Earth and has a mass of 0.888 solar masses and a radius of 0.87 solar radii. WASP-6 b was discovered in 2008 by the transit method. It orbits its parent star every 3.36 days at a distance of 0.042 astronomical units (AU). It is 0.503 Jupiter masses but has a proportionally larger radius of 1.224 Jupiter radii. HD 206610, a K0 star located 194 parsecs from Earth, is host to one planet, HD 206610 b. The host star is larger than the Sun; more massive at 1.56 solar masses and larger at 6.1 solar radii. The planet was discovered by the radial velocity method n 2010 and has a mass of 2.2 Jupiter masses. It orbits every 610 days at a distance of 1.68 AU. Much closer to its sun is WASP-47 b, which orbits every 4.15 days only 0.052 AU from its sun, yellow dwarf (G9V) WASP-47. WASP-47 is close in size to the Sun, having a radius of 1.15 solar radii and a mass even closer at 1.08 solar masses. WASP-47 b was discovered in 2011 by the transit method, like WASP-6 b. It is slightly larger than Jupiter with a mass of 1.14 Jupiter masses and a radius of 1.15 Jupiter masses.

There are several more single-planet systems in Aquarius. HD 210277, a magnitude 6.63 yellow star located 21.29 parsecs from Earth, is host to one known planet: HD 210277 b. The 1.23 Jupiter mass planet orbits at nearly the same distance as Earth orbits the Sun - 1.1 AU, though its orbital period is significantly longer at around 442 days. HD 210277 b was discovered earlier than most of the other planets in Aquarius, detected by the radial velocity method in 1998. The star it orbits resembles the Sun beyond their similar spectral class; it has a radius of 1.1 solar radii and a mass of 1.09 solar masses. HD 212771 b, a larger planet at 2.3 Jupiter masses, orbits host star HD 212771 at a distance of 1.22 AU. The star itself, barely below the threshold of naked-eye visibility at magnitude 7.6, is a G8IV (yellow subgiant) star located 131 parsecs from Earth. Though it has a similar mass to the Sun - 1.15 solar masses - it is significantly less dense with its radius of 5 solar radii. Its lone planet was discovered in 2010 by the radial velocity method, like several other exoplanets in the constellation.

As of 2013, there are only two multiple-planet systems within the bounds of Aquarius: the Gliese 876 and HD 215152 systems. The former is quite prominent; the latter has only two planets and has a host star farther away at 21.5 parsecs. The HD 215152 system consists of the planets HD 215152 b and HD 215152 c orbiting their K0-type, magnitude 8.13 sun. Both discovered in 2011 by the radial velocity method, the two tiny planets orbit very close to their host star. HD 215152 c is the larger at 0.0097 Jupiter masses (still significantly larger than the Earth, which weighs in at 0.00315 Jupiter masses); its smaller sibling is barely smaller at 0.0087 Jupiter masses. The error in the mass measurements (0.0032 and 0.0049 MJ respectively) is large enough to make this discrepancy statistically insignificant. HD 215152 c also orbits further from the star than HD 215152 b, 0.0852 AU compared to 0.0652.

===Deep sky objects===
The green bean galaxy J2240 lies in the constellation of Aquarius.

Because of its position away from the galactic plane, the majority of deep-sky objects in Aquarius are galaxies, globular clusters, and planetary nebulae. Aquarius contains three deep sky objects that are in the Messier catalog: the globular clusters Messier 2, Messier 72, and the open cluster Messier 73. Two well-known planetary nebulae are also located in Aquarius: the Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), to the eastwest of μ Aquarii; and the famous Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), southwest of δ Aquarii.

M2, also catalogued as NGC 7089, is an incredibly rich globular cluster located approximately 37,000 light-years from Earth. At magnitude 6.5, it is viewable in small-aperture instruments, but a 100 mm aperture telescope is needed to resolve any stars. M72, also catalogued as NGC 6981, is a small 9th magnitude globular cluster located approximately 56,000 light-years from Earth. M73, also catalogued as NGC 6994, is an open cluster with highly disputed status.

Aquarius is also home to several planetary nebulae. NGC 6781 is a planetary nebula with a magnitude of 11.0, 2500 light-years from Earth. It appears as a near-perfect ring in a rich star field; the field is so rich that several stars appear superimposed on the nebula. Like the Ring Nebula in Lyra, the ring is approximately 1 light-year in diameter. NGC 7009, also known as the Saturn Nebula, is an 8th magnitude planetary nebula located 3,000 light-years from Earth. It was given its moniker by the 19th century astronomer Lord Rosse for its resemblance to the planet Saturn in a telescope; it has faint protrusions on either side that resemble Saturn's rings. It appears blue-green in a telescope and has a central star of magnitude 11.3. Compared to the Helix Nebula, another planetary nebula in Aquarius, it is quite small. NGC 7293, also known as the Helix Nebula, is the closest planetary nebula to Earth at a distance of 650 light-years. It covers 0.25 square degrees, making it also the largest planetary nebula as seen from Earth. However, because it is so large, it is only viewable as a very faint object, though it has a fairly high integrated magnitude of 6.0.

One galaxy visible in Aquarius is NGC 7727, also of interest for amateur astronomers who wish to discover or observe supernovae. A spiral galaxy (type S), it has an integrated magnitude of 10.7 and is 3 by 3 arcseconds.

===Meteor showers===
There are three major meteor showers with radiants in Aquarius: the Eta Aquariids, the Delta Aquariids, and the Iota Aquariids.

The Eta Aquariids are the strongest meteor shower radiating from Aquarius. It peaks between 5 and 6 May with a rate of approximately 35 meteors per hour. Originally discovered by Chinese astronomers in 401 CE, Eta Aquariids can be seen coming from the Water Jar beginning on April 21 and as late as May 12. The parent body of the shower is Halley's Comet, a periodic comet. Fireballs are common shortly after the peak, approximately between May 9 and May 11. The normal meteors appear to have yellow trails.

The Delta Aquariids is a double radiant meteor shower that peaks first on 29 July and second on 6 August. The first radiant is located in the south of the constellation, while the second radiant is located in the northern circlet of Pisces asterism. The southern radiant's peak rate is about 20 meteors per hour, while the northern radiant's peak rate is about 10 meteors per hour.

The Iota Aquariids is a fairly weak meteor shower that peaks on 6 August, with a rate of approximately 8 meteors per hour.

==Astrology==

, the Sun appears in the constellation Aquarius from 16 February to 11 March. In tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Aquarius from 20 January to 19 February, and in sidereal astrology, from 15 February to 14 March.

Aquarius is also associated with the Age of Aquarius, a concept popular in 1960s counterculture. Despite this prominence, the Age of Aquarius will not dawn until the year 2597, as an astrological age does not begin until the Sun is in a particular constellation on the vernal equinox.

==Notes==

==References==

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;Attribution
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==External links==

* The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Aquarius
* NightSkyInfo.com: Constellation Aquarius
* WIKISKY.ORG: Aquarius constellation
* Star Tales – Aquarius
* Aquarius Constellation at Constellation Guide

 



[[Anime]]

 are Japanese animated productions usually featuring hand-drawn or computer animation. The word is the abbreviated pronunciation of "animation" in Japanese, where this term references all animation. In other languages, the term is defined as animation from Japan or as a Japanese-disseminated animation style often characterized by colorful graphics, vibrant characters and fantastic themes. Arguably, the stylization approach to the meaning may open up the possibility of anime produced in countries other than Japan. For simplicity, many Westerners strictly view anime as an animation product from Japan. 

The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917, and production of anime works in Japan has since continued to increase steadily. The characteristic anime art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of Osamu Tezuka and spread internationally in the late twentieth century, developing a large domestic and international audience. Anime is distributed theatrically, by television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the internet and is classified into numerous genres targeting diverse broad and niche audiences.

Anime is a diverse art form with distinctive production methods and techniques that have been adapted over time in response to emergent technologies. The production of anime focuses less on the animation of movement and more on the realism of settings as well as the use of camera effects, including panning, zooming and angle shots. Diverse art styles are used and character proportions and features can be quite varied, including characteristically large emotive or realistically sized eyes.

The anime industry consists of over 430 production studios including major names like Studio Ghibli, Gainax and Toei Animation. Despite having a fraction of the domestic film market, anime achieves a majority of DVD sales and has been an international success after the rise of televised English dubs. This rise in international popularly has resulted in non-Japanese productions using the anime art style, but these works have been defined as anime-influenced animation by both fans and the industry.

== Definition and usage ==
Anime is an art form, specifically animation, that includes all genres found in cinema, but it can be mistakenly classified as a genre. In Japan, the term anime refers to all forms of animation from around the world. English-language dictionaries define anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or as "a style of animation developed in Japan". 

The etymology of the word anime is disputed. The English term "animation" is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション (animēshon, pronounced ), and is アニメ (anime) in its shortened form. Some sources claim that anime derives from the French term for animation, dessin animé, but others believe this to be a myth derived from the French popularity of the medium in the late 1970s and 1980s. In English, anime, when used as a common noun, normally functions as a mass noun (for example: "Do you watch anime?", "How much anime have you collected?"). American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed.; Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Prior to the widespread use of anime, the term Japanimation was prevalent throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the term anime began to supplant Japanimation. In general, the term now only appears in period works where it is used to distinguish and identify Japanese animation. 

In 1987 Hayao Miyazaki stated that he despised the truncated word "Anime" because to him it represented the desolation of the Japanese animation industry. A desolation he equated with animators lacking motivation and mass-produced, overly expressive products which rely on fixed iconography for facial expressions and protracted and exaggerated action scenes but lack depth and sophistication because they do not attempt to convey emotion or thought. 

== Format ==
The first format of anime was theatrical viewing which originally began with commercial productions in 1917. Originally the animated flips were crude and required played musical components before adding sound and vocal components to the production. On July 14, 1958, Nippon Television aired Mole's Adventure, both the first televised and first color anime to debut. It wasn't until the 1960s when the first televised series were broadcast and it has remained a popular medium since. Works released in a direct to video format are called "original video animation" (OVA) or "original animation video" (OAV); and are typically not released theatrically or televised prior to home media release. The emergence of the internet has led some animators to distribute works online in a format called "original net anime" (ONA). 

The home distribution of anime releases were popularized in the 1980s with the VHS and Laser Disc formats. The VHS NTSC video format used in both Japan and the United States is credited as aiding the rising popularity of anime in the 1990s. The Laser Disc and VHS formats were transcended by the DVD format which offered the unique advantages; including multiple subtitling and dubbing tracks on the same disc. The DVD format also has its drawbacks in the its usage of region coding; adopted by the industry to solve licensing, piracy and export problems and restricted region indicated on the DVD player. The Video CD (VCD) format was popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but became only a minor format in the United States that was closely associated with bootleg copies. 

== History ==

A cel from the earliest surviving Japanese animated short, produced in 1917

Anime arose in the early 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States and Russia. A claim for the earliest Japanese animation is Katsudō Shashin, an undated and private work by an unknown creator. Clements, Jonathan, and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917. Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2006. Page 169 In 1917, the first professional and publicly displayed works began to appear. Animators such as Ōten Shimokawa and Seitarou Kitayama produced numerous works, with the oldest surviving film being Kouchi's Namakura Gatana, a two-minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target only to suffer defeat. The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake resulted in widespread destruction to Japan's infrastructure and the destruction of Shimokawa's warehouse, destroying most of these early works.

By the 1930s animation was well established in Japan as an alternative format to the live-action industry. It suffered competition from foreign producers and many animators, such as Noburō Ōfuji and Yasuji Murata, who still worked in cheaper cutout animation rather than cel animation. Other creators, such as Kenzō Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, nonetheless made great strides in animation technique; they benefited from the patronage of the government, which employed animators to produce educational shorts and propaganda. The first talkie anime was Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, produced by Masaoka in 1933. By 1940, numerous anime artists' organizations had risen, including the Shin Mangaha Shudan and Shin Nippon Mangaka. The first feature length animated film was Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors directed by Seo in 1944 with sponsorship by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Official booklet, The Roots of Japanese Anime, DVD, Zakka Films, 2009.
 

A frame from Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors (1944), the first feature-length anime film

The success of The Walt Disney Company's 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs profoundly influenced many Japanese animators. In the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation techniques to reduce costs and to limit the number of frames in productions. He intended this as a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with inexperienced animation staff. Three Tales, aired in 1960, was the first anime shown on television. The first anime television series was Otogi Manga Calendar, aired from 1961 to 1964.

The 1970s saw a surge of growth in the popularity of manga, Japanese comic books and graphic novels, many of which were later animated. The work of Osamu Tezuka drew particular attention: he has been called a "legend" and the "god of manga". His work – and that of other pioneers in the field – inspired characteristics and genres that remain fundamental elements of anime today. The giant robot genre (known as "mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed into the Super Robot genre under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino who developed the Real Robot genre. Robot anime like the Gundam and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross series became instant classics in the 1980s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most common in Japan and worldwide today. In the 1980s, anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan (although less than manga), and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more at the turn of the 21st century. In 2002, Spirited Away, a Studio Ghibli production directed by Hayao Miyazaki won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and in 2003 at the 75th Academy Awards it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. 

== Genres ==
Anime are often classified by target demographic, including kodomo (children's), shōjo (girls'), shounen (boys') and a diverse range of genres targeting an adult audience. Shoujo and shounen anime sometimes contain elements popular with children of both sexes in an attempt to gain crossover appeal. Adult anime may feature a slower pace or greater plot complexity that younger audiences typically find unappealing, as well as adult themes and situations. A subset of adult anime works feature pornographic elements and are labeled "R18" in Japan, but internationally these works are grouped together under the term hentai (Japanese for "pervert"). By contrast, a variety of anime sub-genres across demographic groups incorporate ecchi, sexual themes or undertones without depictions of sexual intercourse, as typified in the comedic or harem genres; due to its popularity among adolescent and adult anime enthusiasts, incorporation of ecchi elements in anime is considered a form of fan service. Ask John: Why Do Americans Hate Harem Anime?. animenation.net. May 20. 2005. Note: fan service and ecchi are often considered the same in wording. Robin E. Brenner: Understanding manga and anime. Libraries Unlimited, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59158-332-5 

Anime's genre classification is different from other types of animation and does not lend itself to simple identity. Gilles Poitras compared the labeling Gundam 0080 and its complex depiction of war as a "giant robot" anime akin to simply labeling War and Peace a "war novel". Science fiction is a major anime genre and includes important historical works like Tezuka's Astro Boy and Yokoyama's Tetsujin 28-go. A major sub-genre of science fiction is mecha, with the Gundam metaseries being iconic. The diverse fantasy genre includes works based on Asian and Western traditions and folklore; examples include the Japanese feudal fairytale InuYasha, and the depiction of Scandinavian goddesses who move to Japan to maintain a computer called Yggdrasil in Oh My Goddess. Genre crossing in anime is also prevalent, such as the blend of fantasy and comedy in Dragon Half, and the incorporation of slapstick humor in the crime anime Castle of Cagliostro. Other subgenres found in anime include magical girl, harem, sports, martial arts, literary adaptations and war. 

Genres have emerged that explore homosexual romances. While originally pornographic in terminology, yaoi (male homosexuality) and yuri (female homosexuality) are broad terms used internationally to describe any focus on the themes or development of romantic homosexual relationships. Prior to 2000, homosexual characters were typically used for comedic effect, but some works portrayed these characters seriously or sympathetically. 

== Attributes ==
Anime artists employ many distinct visual styles

Anime is a diverse art form that is targeted and produced for the domestic Japanese audience and market. Anime differs greatly from other forms of animation by its diverse art styles, methods of animation, its production and its process. Visually, anime is a diverse art form that contains a wide variety of styles that share few similarities to one another.

=== Animation technique ===
Anime follows the typical production of animation, including storyboarding, voice acting, character design, and cel production. Since the 1990s, animators have increasingly used computer animation to improve the efficiency of the production process. Artists like Noburō Ōfuji pioneered the earliest anime works, which were experimental and consisted of images drawn on blackboards, stop motion animation of paper cutouts, and silhouette animation. Cel animation grew in popularity until it came to dominate the medium. In the 21st century, the use of other animation techniques is mostly limited to independent short films, including the stop motion puppet animation work produced by Tadahito Mochinaga, Kihachirō Kawamoto and Tomoyasu Murata. Computers were integrated into the animation process in the 1990s, with works such as Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke mixing cel animation with computer-generated images. Fuji Film, a major cel production company, announced it would stop cel production, producing an industry panic to procure cel imports and hastening the switch to digital processes. 

Prior to the digital era, anime was produced with traditional animation methods using a pose to pose approach. The majority of mainstream anime uses fewer expressive key frames and more in-between animation. 

Japanese animation studios were pioneers of many limited animation techniques, and have given anime a distinct set of conventions. Unlike Disney animation, where the emphasis is on the movement, anime emphasizes the art quality and let limited animation techniques make up for the lack of time spent on movement. Such techniques are often used not only to meet deadlines but also as artistic devices. Anime scenes place emphasis on achieving three-dimensional views, and backgrounds are instrumental in creating the atmosphere of the work. The backgrounds are not always invented and are occasionally based on real locations, as exemplified in Howl's Moving Castle and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Oppliger stated that anime is one of the rare mediums where putting together an all-star cast usually comes out looking "tremendously impressive." 

The cinematic effects of anime differentiates itself from the stage plays found in American animation. Anime is cinematically shot as if by camera, including panning, zooming, distance and angle shots to more complex dynamic shots that would be difficult to produce in reality. In anime, the animation is produced before the voice acting, contrary to American animation which does the voice acting first; this can cause lip sync errors in the Japanese version. 

=== Characters ===
Body proportions of human anime characters tend to accurately reflect the proportions of the human body in reality. The height of the head is considered by the artist as the base unit of proportion. Head heights can vary, but most anime characters are about seven to eight heads tall. Anime artists occasionally make deliberate modifications to body proportions to produce super deformed characters that feature a disproportionately small body compared to the head; many super deformed characters are two to four heads tall. Some anime works like Crayon Shin-chan completely disregard these proportions, such that they resemble Western cartoons.

A common anime character design convention is exaggerated eye size. The animation of characters with large eyes in anime can be traced back to Osamu Tezuka, who was deeply influenced by such early animation characters as Betty Boop, who was drawn with disproportionately large eyes. Tezuka is a central figure in anime and manga history, whose iconic art style and character designs allowed for the entire range of human emotions to be depicted solely through the eyes. The artist adds variable color shading to the eyes and particularly to the cornea to give them greater depth. Generally, a mixture of a light shade, the tone color, and a dark shade is used. Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn argues that Japanese animators and audiences do not perceive such stylized eyes as inherently more or less foreign. However, not all anime have large eyes. For example, the works of Hayao Miyazaki are known for having realistically proportioned eyes, as well as realistic hair colors on their characters. 

Anime and manga artists often draw from a defined set of facial expressions to depict particular emotions

Hair in anime is often unnaturally lively and colorful or uniquely styled. The movement of hair in anime is exaggerated and "hair action" is used to emphasize the action and emotions of characters for added visual effect. Poitras traces hairstyle color to cover illustrations on manga, where eye-catching artwork and colorful tones are attractive for children's manga. Despite being produced for a domestic market, anime features characters whose race or nationality is not always defined, and this is often a deliberate decision, such as in the Pokémon animated series. 

Anime and manga artists often draw from a common canon of iconic facial expression illustrations to denote particular moods and thoughts. These techniques are often different in form than their counterparts in Western animation, and they include a fixed iconography that is used as shorthand for certain emotions and moods. These expression are often exaggerated and are typically comedic in nature. For example, a male character may develop a nosebleed when aroused, stemming from a Japanese old wives' tale. A variety of visual symbols are employed, including sweatdrops to depict nervousness, visible blushing for embarrassment, or glowing eyes for an intense glare. 

===Music===
The opening and credits sequences of most anime television episodes are accompanied by J-pop or J-rock songs, often by reputed bands. They may be written with the series in mind, but are also aimed at the general music market, and therefore often allude only vaguely or not at all to the themes or plot of the series. Pop and rock songs are also sometimes used as incidental music ("insert songs") in an episode, often to highlight particularly important scenes.

== Industry ==
The animation industry consists of more than 430 production companies with some of the major studios including Toei Animation, Gainax, Madhouse, Gonzo, Sunrise, Bones and Studio Ghibli. Many of the studios are organized into a trade association, The Association of Japanese Animations. There is also a labor union for workers in the industry, the Japanese Animation Creators Association. Studios will often work together to produce more complex and costly projects, as done with Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away. An anime episode can cost between US$100,000 and US$300,000 to produce. In 2001, animation accounted for 7% of the Japanese film market, above the 4.6% market share for live-action works. The popularity and success of anime is seen through the profitability of the DVD market, contributing nearly 70% of total sales. Spirited Away (2001) is the highest-grossing anime film, with US$274,925,095. 

The anime market for the United States was worth approximately $2.74 billion in 2009. Dubbed animation began airing in the United States in 2000 on networks like The WB and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. In 2005, this resulted in five of the top ten anime titles having previously aired on Cartoon Network. As a part of localization, some editing of cultural references may occur to better follow the references of the non-Japanese culture. The cost of English localization averages US $10,000 per episode. 

The industry has been subject to both praise and condemnation for fansubs, the addition of unlicensed and unauthorized subtitled translations of anime series or films. Fansubs, which were originally distributed on VHS bootlegged cassettes in the 1980s, have been freely available and disseminated online since the 1990s. Fansubbers tend to adhere to an unwritten code to destroy or no longer distribute an anime once an official translated or subtitled version becomes licensed, although fansubs typically continue to circulate through file sharing networks. 

Legal international availability of anime on the internet has changed in recent years, with simulcasts of series available on websites like Crunchyroll.

=== Awards ===
The anime industry has several annual awards which honor the year's best works. Major annual awards in Japan include the Ōfuji Noburō Award, the Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film, the Animation Kobe Awards, the Japan Media Arts Festival animation awards, the Tokyo Anime Award and the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. In the United States, anime films compete in the ICv2.com Anime Awards There were also the American Anime Awards, which were designed to recognize excellence in anime titles nominated by the industry, and were held only once in 2006. Anime productions are also nominated and win awards not exclusively for anime.

== Influence on world culture ==
Akihabara district of Tokyo is the center of otaku subculture in Japan.

Anime has become commercially profitable in Western countries, as demonstrated by early commercially successful Western adaptations of anime, such as Astro Boy. Since the 19th century, many Westerners have expressed a particular interest towards Japan and anime has dramatically exposed more Westerners to the culture of Japan.

=== Fan response ===
Anime clubs gave rise to anime conventions in the 1990s with the "anime boom," a period marked by increased popularity of anime. These conventions are dedicated to anime and manga and include elements like cosplay contests and industry talk panels. Cosplay, a portmanteau for "costume play", is not unique to anime and has become popular in contests and masquerades at anime conventions. Japanese culture and words have entered English usage through the popularity of the medium, including otaku, a derogatory Japanese term commonly used in English to denote a fan of anime and manga. Anime enthusiasts have produced fan fiction and fan art, including computer wallpaper and anime music videos. 

==="Anime style"===
As a popular movement and unique art style, anime styling has been the subject of both satire and serious creative productions. South Parks "Chinpokomon" and "Good Times with Weapons" episodes, Adult Swim's Perfect Hair Forever, and Nickelodeon's Kappa Mikey are examples of satirical depictions of Japanese culture and anime. Some works have sparked debate for blurring the lines between satire and serious "anime style" productions, such as the American anime style production . These anime styled works have become defined as anime-influenced animation, in an attempt to classify all anime styled works of non-Japanese origin. Some creators of these works cite anime as a source of inspiration and like the French production team for Ōban Star-Racers moved to Tokyo to collaborate with a Japanese production team. When anime is defined as a "style" rather than as a national product it leaves open the possibility of anime being produced in other countries. A series dubbed as the "Middle East's First Anime Show" is currently in production. The web-based series RWBY is produced using an anime art style and has been declared to be anime. Defining anime as style has been contentious amongst fans, with John Oppliger stating, "The insistence on referring to original American art as Japanese "anime" or "manga" robs the work of its cultural identity." 

== See also ==

* List of anime
* Mechademia
* Animation director
* Voice acting in Japan

== References ==

== External links ==

* 

 



[[Asterism]]

Asterism may refer to:

* Asterism (astronomy), a pattern of stars
* Asterism (gemmology), an optical phenomenon in gemstones
* Asterism (typography), a moderately rare typographical symbol denoting a break in passages

==See also==
* 
* 
* Aster (disambiguation)



[[Ankara]]

Ankara (; historically known with the names Ancyra and Angora) is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city, Istanbul being the largest. The city has a mean elevation of sp=us 938 and has a population of 4,338,620, with its metropolitan municipality having 4,965,542 as of 2012. Citypopulation.de – Turkey 2011 Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TÜİK) – Büyükşehir belediyeleri ve bağlı belediyelerin nüfusları – 2011 Ankara, Turkey: Latitude, Longitude and Altitude 2014 Municipal Elections brought controversy to Ankara given some statistical evidence for fraud. 

Centrally located in Anatolia, Ankara is an important commercial and industrial city. It is the center of the Turkish Government, and houses all foreign embassies. It is an important crossroads of trade, strategically located at the center of Turkey's highway and railway networks, and serves as the marketing center for the surrounding agricultural area. The city was famous for its long-haired Angora goat and its prized wool (mohair), a unique breed of cat (Angora cat), Angora rabbits and their prized Angora wool, pears, honey, and the region's muscat grapes.

The historical center of Ankara is situated upon a rocky hill, which rises 150 sp=us above the plain on the left bank of the Ankara Çayı, a tributary of the Sakarya (Sangarius) river. Although situated in one of the driest places of Turkey and surrounded mostly by steppe vegetation except for the forested areas on the southern periphery, Ankara can be considered a green city in terms of green areas per inhabitant, which is 72 m2 per head. 

Ankara is a very old city with various Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman archaeological sites. The hill which overlooks the city is crowned by the ruins of the old castle, which adds to the picturesqueness of the view, but only a few historic structures surrounding the old citadel have survived to the present day. There are, however, many well-preserved remains of Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine architecture, the most remarkable being the Temple of Augustus and Rome (20 BC) which is also known as the Monumentum Ancyranum. 

==Etymology==
As with many ancient cities, Ankara has gone by several names over the ages. It has been identified with the Hittite cult center Ankuwaš, although this remains a matter of debate. Gorny, Ronald L. "Zippalanda and Ankuwa: The Geography of Central Anatolia in the Second Millennium B.C." The Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 117 (1997). In classical antiquity and during the medieval period, the city was known as (Ánkyra "anchor") in Greek and Ancyra in Latin; the Galatian Celtic name was probably a similar variant. Following its annexation by the Seljuk Turks in 1073, the city became known in many European languages as Angora, a usage which continued until its official international renaming to Ankara under the Turkish Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930. 

==History==

Hittite artifacts on display at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara.

The region's history can be traced back to the Bronze Age Hattic civilization, which was succeeded in the 2nd millennium BC by the Hittites, in the 10th century BC by the Phrygians, and later by the Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Galatians, Romans, Byzantines, and Turks (the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.)

===Ancient history===
The oldest settlements in and around the city center of Ankara belonged to the Hattic civilization which existed during the Bronze Age and was gradually absorbed ca. 2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites. The city grew significantly in size and importance under the Phrygians starting around 1000 BC, and experienced a large expansion following the mass migration from Gordion, (the capital of Phrygia), after an earthquake which severely damaged that city around that time. In Phrygian tradition, King Midas was venerated as the founder of Ancyra, but Pausanias mentions that the city was actually far older, which accords with present archaeological knowledge. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.4.1., "Ancyra was actually older even than that." 

Phrygian rule was succeeded first by Lydian and later by Persian rule, though the strongly Phrygian character of the peasantry remained, as evidenced by the gravestones of the much later Roman period. Persian sovereignty lasted until the Persians' defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great who conquered the city in 333 BC. Alexander came from Gordion to Ankara and stayed in the city for a short period. After his death at Babylon in 323 BC and the subsequent division of his empire among his generals, Ankara and its environs fell into the share of Antigonus.

Another important expansion took place under the Greeks of Pontos who came there around 300 BC and developed the city as a trading center for the commerce of goods between the Black Sea ports and Crimea to the north; Assyria, Cyprus, and Lebanon to the south; and Georgia, Armenia and Persia to the east. By that time the city also took its name Áγκυρα (Ànkyra, meaning Anchor in Greek) which in slightly modified form provides the modern name of Ankara.

===Celtic history===
The Dying Galatian was a famous statue commissioned some time between 230–220 BC by King Attalos I of Pergamon to honor his victory over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia. Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late 3rd century BC, at the Capitoline Museums, Rome.

In 278 BC, the city, along with the rest of central Anatolia, was occupied by a Celtic group, the Galatians, who were the first to make Ankara one of their main tribal centers, the headquarters of the Tectosages tribe. Other centers were Pessinos, today's Balhisar, for the Trocmi tribe, and Tavium, to the east of Ankara, for the Tolstibogii tribe. The city was then known as Ancyra. The Celtic element was probably relatively small in numbers; a warrior aristocracy which ruled over Phrygian-speaking peasants. However, the Celtic language continued to be spoken in Galatia for many centuries. At the end of the 4th century, St. Jerome, a native of Dalmatia, observed that the language spoken around Ankara was very similar to that being spoken in the northwest of the Roman world near Trier.

===Roman history===
Ancyra was the capital of the Celtic kingdom of Galatia, and later of the homonymous Roman province, after its conquest by Augustus in 25 BC.

The city was subsequently conquered by Augustus in 25 BC and passed under the control of the Roman Empire. Now the capital city of the Roman province of Galatia, Ancyra continued to be a center of great commercial importance. Ankara is also famous for the Monumentum Ancyranum (Temple of Augustus and Rome) which contains the official record of the Acts of Augustus, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, an inscription cut in marble on the walls of this temple. The ruins of Ancyra still furnish today valuable bas-reliefs, inscriptions and other architectural fragments.

Augustus decided to make Ancyra one of three main administrative centers in central Anatolia. The town was then populated by Phrygians and Celts—the Galatians who spoke a language somewhat closely related to Welsh and Gaelic. Ancyra was the center of a tribe known as the Tectosages, and Augustus upgraded it into a major provincial capital for his empire. Two other Galatian tribal centers, Tavium near Yozgat, and Pessinus (Balhisar) to the west, near Sivrihisar, continued to be reasonably important settlements in the Roman period, but it was Ancyra that grew into a grand metropolis.

The Res Gestae is the self-laudatory autobiography completed in 13 AD, just before his death, by the first Roman emperor Augustus. Most of the text is preserved in the Monumentum Ancyranum.
The Roman Baths of Ankara were constructed by the Roman emperor Caracalla (212–217) in honor of Asclepios, the God of Medicine, and built around three principal rooms: the caldarium (hot bath), the tepidarium (warm bath) and the frigidarium (cold bath) in a typically laid-out 80m x 120m classical complex.

An estimated 200,000 people lived in Ancyra in good times during the Roman Empire, a far greater number than was to be the case from after the fall of the Roman Empire until the early 20th century. A small river, the Ankara Çayı, ran through the center of the Roman town. It has now been covered and diverted, but it formed the northern boundary of the old town during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Çankaya, the rim of the majestic hill to the south of the present city center, stood well outside the Roman city, but may have been a summer resort. In the 19th century, the remains of at least one Roman villa or large house were still standing not far from where the Çankaya Presidential Residence stands today. To the west, the Roman city extended until the area of the Gençlik Park and Railway Station, while on the southern side of the hill, it may have extended downwards as far as the site presently occupied by Hacettepe University. It was thus a sizeable city by any standards and much larger than the Roman towns of Gaul or Britannia.

Ancyra's importance rested on the fact that it was the junction point where the roads in northern Anatolia running north-south and east-west intersected. The great imperial road running east passed through Ankara and a succession of emperors and their armies came this way. They were not the only ones to use the Roman highway network, which was equally convenient for invaders. In the second half of the 3rd century, Ancyra was invaded in rapid succession by the Goths coming from the west (who rode far into the heart of Cappadocia, taking slaves and pillaging) and later by the Arabs. For about a decade, the town was one of the western outposts of one of the most brilliant queens of the ancient world, the Arab empress Zenobia from Palmyra in the Syrian Desert, who took advantage of a period of weakness and disorder in the Roman Empire to set up a short-lived state of her own.

The town was reincorporated into the Roman Empire under Emperor Aurelian in 272. The tetrarchy, a system of multiple (up to four) emperors introduced by Diocletian (284–305), seems to have engaged in a substantial programme of rebuilding and of road construction from Ankara westwards to Germe and Dorylaeum (now Eskişehir).

In its heyday, Roman Ankara was a large market and trading center but it also functioned as a major administrative capital, where a high official ruled from the city's Praetorium, a large administrative palace or office. During the 3rd century, life in Ancyra, as in other Anatolian towns, seems to have become somewhat militarized in response to the invasions and instability of the town. In this period, like other cities of central Anatolia, Ankara was also undergoing Christianization.

Early martyrs, about whom little is known, included Proklos and Hilarios who were natives of the otherwise unknown village of Kallippi, near Ancyra, and suffered repression under the emperor Trajan (98–117). In the 280s AD we hear of Philumenos, a Christian corn merchant from southern Anatolia, being captured and martyred in Ankara, and Eustathius.

St. Theodotus of Ancyra

As in other Roman towns, the reign of Diocletian marked the culmination of the persecution of the Christians. In 303, Ancyra was one of the towns where the co-Emperors Diocletian and his deputy Galerius launched their anti-Christian persecution. In Ancyra, their first target was the 38-year-old Bishop of the town, whose name was Clement. Clement's life describes how he was taken to Rome, then sent back, and forced to undergo many interrogations and hardship before he, and his brother, and various companions were put to death. The remains of the church of St. Clement can be found today in a building just off Işıklar Caddesi in the Ulus district. Quite possibly this marks the site where Clement was originally buried. Four years later, a doctor of the town named Plato and his brother Antiochus also became celebrated martyrs under Galerius. Theodotus of Ancyra is also venerated as a saint.

However, the persecution proved unsuccessful and in 314 Ancyra was the center of an important council of the early church; which considered ecclesiastical policy for the reconstruction of the Christian Church after the persecutions, and in particular the treatment of 'lapsi'—Christians who had given in and conformed to paganism during these persecutions.

The Column of Julian (362) was erected in honor of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate's visit to Ancyra.

Three councils were held in the former capital of Galatia in Asia Minor, during the 4th century. The first, an orthodox plenary synod, was held in 314, and its 25 disciplinary canons constitute one of the most important documents in the early history of the administration of the Sacrament of Penance. Nine of them deal with conditions for the reconciliation of the lapsi; the others, with marriage, alienations of church property, etc.

Though paganism was probably tottering in Ancyra in Clement's day, it may still have been the majority religion. Twenty years later, Christianity and monotheism had taken its place. Ancyra quickly turned into a Christian city, with a life dominated by monks and priests and theological disputes. The town council or senate gave way to the bishop as the main local figurehead. During the middle of the 4th century, Ancyra was involved in the complex theological disputes over the nature of Christ, and a form of Arianism seems to have originated there.

The synod of 358 was a Semi-Arian conciliabulum, presided over by Basil of Ancyra. It condemned the grosser Arian blasphemies, but set forth an equally heretical doctrine in the proposition that the Son was in all things similar to the Father, but not identical in substance.

In 362–363, the Emperor Julian the Apostate passed through Ancyra on his way to an ill-fated campaign against the Persians, and according to Christian sources, engaged in a persecution of various holy men. The stone base for a statue, with an inscription describing Julian as "Lord of the whole world from the British Ocean to the barbarian nations", can still be seen, built into the eastern side of the inner circuit of the walls of Ankara Castle. The Column of Julian which was erected in honor of the emperor's visit to the city in 362 still stands today. In 375, Arian bishops met at Ancyra and deposed several bishops, among them St. Gregory of Nyssa. The modern Ankara, also known in some Western texts as Angora, remains a Roman Catholic titular see in the former Roman province of Galatia in Asia Minor, suffragan of Laodicea. Its episcopal list is given in Gams, "Series episc. Eccl. cath."; also that of another Ancyra in Phrygia Pacatiana.

In the late 4th century AD, Ancyra became something of an imperial holiday resort. After Constantinople became the East Roman capital, emperors in the 4th and 5th centuries would retire from the humid summer weather on the Bosporus to the drier mountain atmosphere of Ancyra. Theodosius II (408–450) kept his court in Ancyra in the summers. Laws issued in Ancyra testify to the time they spent there. The city's military as well as logistical significance lasted well into the long Byzantine rule. Although Ancyra temporarily fell into the hands of several Arab Muslim armies numerous times after the 7th century, it remained an important crossroads polis within the Byzantine Empire until the late 11th century. It was also the capital of the powerful Opsician Theme, and after ca. 750 of the Bucellarian Theme.

===Turkish history===
President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (center) and Prime Minister İsmet İnönü (left) leaving the Grand National Assembly of Turkey during the 7th anniversary celebrations of the Turkish Republic in 1930.
In 1071, the Turkish Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan conquered much of eastern and central Anatolia after his victory at the Battle of Manzikert. He then annexed Ankara, an important location for military transportation and natural resources, to his territory in 1073. After the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, in which the Mongols defeated the Seljuks, most of Anatolia became part of the dominion of the Mongols. Taking advantage of Seljuk decline, a semi-religious cast of craftsmen and trade people named Ahiler chose Ankara as their independent city-state in 1290. Orhan I, the second Bey of the Ottoman Empire, captured the city in 1356. Timur defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and took the city, but in 1403 Ankara was again under Ottoman control.

Following the Ottoman defeat at World War I, the Ottoman capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and much of Anatolia were occupied by the Allies, who planned to share these lands between Armenia, France, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom, leaving for the Turks the core piece of land in central Anatolia. In response, the leader of the Turkish nationalist movement, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, established the headquarters of his resistance movement in Ankara in 1920. After the Turkish War of Independence was won and the Treaty of Sèvres was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish nationalists replaced the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. A few days earlier, Ankara had officially replaced Constantinople as the new Turkish capital city, on 13 October 1923.

After Ankara became the capital of the newly founded Republic of Turkey, new development divided the city into an old section, called Ulus, and a new section, called Yenişehir. Ancient buildings reflecting Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman history and narrow winding streets mark the old section. The new section, now centered on Kızılay Square, has the trappings of a more modern city: wide streets, hotels, theaters, shopping malls, and high-rises. Government offices and foreign embassies are also located in the new section. Ankara has experienced a phenomenal growth since it was made Turkey's capital. It was "a small town of no importance" Columbia Lippincott Gazeteer when it was made the capital of Turkey. In 1924, the year after the government had moved there, Ankara had about 35,000 residents. By 1927 there were 44,553 residents and by 1950 the population had grown to 286,781.

==Climate==
Due to its elevation and inland location, Ankara has a dry summer continental climate, with cold, snowy winters and hot, dry summers. Rainfall occurs mostly during the spring and autumn. Under Köppen climate classification, Ankara has a dry summer continental climate with a hot summer subtype (Dsa), near the borderline of a cold semi-arid climate (BSk), with some regions of the province having a warm summer subtype (Dsb) of continental climate, depending on elevation. Because of Ankara's high altitude and its dry summers, nightly temperatures in the summer months are cool. Ankara's annual average precipitation is fairly low at sp=us 408, nevertheless precipitation can be observed throughout the year. Monthly mean temperatures range from 0.3 °C in January to 23.5 °C in July, with an annual mean of 12.02 °C.

Record rain= 88.9 kg/m2 (11.06.1997)

Record snow= 30.0 sp=us (05.01.2002)

==Demographics==
Ankara metropolitan area
Kızılay Square during the 2013 protests

Ankara had a population of 75,000 in 1927. In 2013, Ankara has a population of 5,045,083 of which 2,507,525 are men and 2,537,558 are women. Türkiye istatistik kurumu Address-based population survey 2007. Retrieved on 9 October 2008. 

When Ankara became the capital of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, it was designated as a planned city for 500,000 future inhabitants. During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, the city grew in a planned and orderly pace. However, from the 1950s onward, the city grew much faster than envisioned, because unemployment and poverty forced people to migrate from the countryside into the city in order to seek a better standard of living. As a result, many illegal houses called gecekondu were built around the city, causing the unplanned and uncontrolled urban landscape of Ankara, as not enough planned housing could be built fast enough. Although precariously built, the vast majority of them have electricity, running water and modern household amenities.

Nevertheless, many of these gecekondus have been replaced by huge public housing projects in the form of tower blocks such as Elvankent, Eryaman and Güzelkent; and also as mass housing compounds for military and civil service accommodation. Although many gecekondus still remain, they too are gradually being replaced by mass housing compounds, as empty land plots in the city of Ankara for new construction projects are becoming impossible to find.

==Economy==
Atatürk Avenue in central Ankara
Söğütözü business district in Ankara, with the Armada Tower & Mall rising behind the Turkish flag.

Historically, the production of mohair from the Angora goat, and Angora wool from the Angora rabbit, have been an important part of the city's economy. These fabrics have been exported from Ankara to Europe and other parts of the globe for centuries.

The Central Anatolia Region is one of the primary locations of grape and wine production in Turkey, and Ankara is particularly famous for its Kalecik Karası and Muscat grapes; and its Kavaklıdere wine, which is produced in the Kavaklıdere neighbourhood within the Çankaya district of the city. Ankara is also famous for its pears. Another renowned natural product of Ankara is its indigenous type of honey (Ankara Balı) which is known for its light color and is mostly produced by the Atatürk Forest Farm and Zoo in the Gazi district, and by other facilities in the Elmadağ, Çubuk and Beypazarı districts.

Ankara is the center of the state-owned and private Turkish defence and aerospace companies, where the industrial plants and headquarters of the Turkish Aerospace Industries, MKE, ASELSAN, Havelsan, Roketsan, FNSS, FNSS Nurol Makina, Nurol and numerous other firms are located. Exports to foreign countries from these defence and aerospace firms have steadily increased in the past decades. The IDEF in Ankara is one of the largest international expositions of the global arms industry. A number of the global automotive companies also have production facilities in Ankara, such as the German bus and truck manufacturer MAN SE. MAN Türkiye Ankara hosts the OSTIM Industrial Zone, Turkey's largest industrial park.

A large percentage of the complicated employment in Ankara is provided by the state institutions; such as the ministries, undersecretariats, and other administrative bodies of the Turkish government. There are also many foreign citizens working as diplomats or clerks in the embassies of their respective countries.

==Main sights==

===Museums===

====Anıtkabir====
Anıtkabir is located on an imposing hill, which forms the Anıttepe quarter of the city, where the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, stands. Completed in 1953, it is an impressive fusion of ancient and modern architectural styles. An adjacent museum houses a wax statue of Atatürk, his writings, letters and personal items, as well as an exhibition of photographs recording important moments in his life and during the establishment of the Republic. Anıtkabir is open every day, while the adjacent museum is open every day except Mondays.

====Ankara Ethnography Museum====
Ethnography Museum of Ankara (1930)
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (1921)

Ankara Ethnography Museum (Etnoğrafya Müzesi) is located opposite to the Ankara Opera House on Talat Paşa Boulevard, in the Ulus district. There is a fine collection of folkloric items, as well as artifacts from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods. In front of the museum building, there is a marble and bronze equestrian statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (who wears a Republic era modern military uniform, with the rank Field Marshal) which was crafted in 1927 by the renowned Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica.

====Museum of Anatolian Civilizations====
The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi) is situated at the entrance of the Ankara Castle. It is an old bedesten (covered bazaar) that has been beautifully restored and now houses a unique collection of Paleolithic, Neolithic, Hatti, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, and Roman works as well as a major section dedicated to Lydian treasures.

====State Art and Sculpture Museum====
The State Art and Sculpture Museum (Resim-Heykel Müzesi) is close to the Ethnography Museum and houses a rich collection of Turkish art from the late 19th century to the present day. There are also galleries which host guest exhibitions.

====Cer Modern====
Cer Modern is the modern-arts museum of Ankara, inaugurated on 1 April 2010. It is situated in the renovated building of the historic TCDD Cer Atölyeleri, formerly a workshop of the Turkish State Railways. The museum incorporates the largest exhibition hall in Turkey. The museum holds periodic exhibitions of modern and contemporary art as well as hosting other contemporary arts events.

====War of Independence Museum====
The War of Independence Museum (Kurtuluş Savaşı Müzesi) is located on Ulus Square. It was originally the first Parliament building (TBMM) of the Republic of Turkey. The War of Independence was planned and directed here as recorded in various photographs and items presently on exhibition. In another display, wax figures of former presidents of the Republic of Turkey are on exhibit.

====Mehmet Akif Literature Museum Library====
METU Science and Technology Museum (2003)

The Mehmet Akif Literature Museum Library is a literary museum and archive opened in 2011 and dedicated to Mehmet Akif Ersoy (1873–1936), the poet of the Turkish National Anthem.

====TCDD Open Air Steam Locomotive Museum====

The TCDD Open Air Steam Locomotive Museum is an open-air museum which traces the history of steam locomotives.

====Ankara Aviation Museum====
Ankara Aviation Museum (Hava Kuvvetleri Müzesi Komutanlığı) is located near the Istanbul Road in Etimesgut. It is home to various missiles, avionics, aviation materials and aircraft that have served in the Turkish Air Force (e.g. combat aircraft such as the F-86 Sabre, F-100 Super Sabre, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-5 Freedom Fighter, F-4 Phantom; and cargo planes such as the Transall C-160.) Also a Hungarian MiG-21, a Pakistani MiG-19, and a Bulgarian MiG-17 are on display at the museum.

====METU Science and Technology Museum====
The METU Science and Technology Museum (ODTÜ Bilim ve Teknoloji Müzesi) is located inside the Middle East Technical University campus.

===Parks===
Göksu Park 
Dikmen Valley Park

Ankara has many parks and open spaces mainly established in the early years of the Republic and well maintained and expanded thereafter. The most important of these parks are: Gençlik Parkı (houses an amusement park with a large pond for rowing), the Botanical garden, Seğmenler Park, Anayasa Park, Kuğulu Park (famous for the swans received as a gift from the Chinese government), Abdi İpekçi Park, Güven Park (see above for the monument), Kurtuluş Park (has an ice-skating rink), Altınpark (also a prominent exposition/fair area), Harikalar Diyarı (claimed to be Biggest Park of Europe inside city borders) and Göksu Park.

Gençlik Park was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 100 lira banknotes of 1952–1976. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Banknote Museum: 5. Emission Group – One Hundred Turkish Lira – I. Series, II. Series, III. Series, IV. Series, V. Series & VI. Series. – Retrieved on 20 April 2009. 

Atatürk Forest Farm and Zoo (Atatürk Orman Çiftliği) is an expansive recreational farming area which houses a zoo, several small agricultural farms, greenhouses, restaurants, a dairy farm and a brewery. It is a pleasant place to spend a day with family, be it for having picnics, hiking, biking or simply enjoying good food and nature. There is also an exact replica of the house where Atatürk was born in 1881, in Thessaloniki, Greece. Visitors to the "Çiftlik" (farm) as it is affectionately called by Ankarans, can sample such famous products of the farm such as old-fashioned beer and ice cream, fresh dairy products and meat rolls/kebaps made on charcoal, at a traditional restaurant (Merkez Lokantası, Central Restaurant), cafés and other establishments scattered around the farm.

===Shopping===
Atakule Tower (1989)
Sheraton Ankara rising behind Karum shopping mall in the Kavaklıdere quarter of the Çankaya business and leisure district.

Foreign visitors to Ankara usually like to visit the old shops in Çıkrıkçılar Yokuşu (Weavers' Road) near Ulus, where myriad things ranging from traditional fabrics, hand-woven carpets and leather products can be found at bargain prices. Bakırcılar Çarşısı (Bazaar of Coppersmiths) is particularly popular, and many interesting items, not just of copper, can be found here like jewelry, carpets, costumes, antiques and embroidery. Up the hill to the castle gate, there are many shops selling a huge and fresh collection of spices, dried fruits, nuts, and other produce.

Modern shopping areas are mostly found in Kızılay, or on Tunalı Hilmi Avenue, including the modern mall of Karum (named after the ancient Assyrian merchant colonies called Kârum that were established in central Anatolia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) which is located towards the end of the Avenue; and in Çankaya, the quarter with the highest elevation in the city. Atakule Tower next to Atrium Mall in Çankaya commands a magnificent view over Ankara and also has a revolving restaurant at the top, where the city's panorama can be enjoyed in a leisurely fashion. The symbol of the Armada Shopping Mall is an anchor, and there's a large anchor monument at its entrance, as a reference to the ancient Greek name of the city, Ἄγκυρα (Ánkyra), which means anchor. Likewise, the anchor monument is also related with the Spanish name of the mall, Armada, which means naval fleet.

As Ankara started expanding westward in the 1970s, several modern, suburbia-style developments and mini-cities began to rise along the western highway, also known as the Eskişehir Road. The Armada and CEPA malls on the highway, the Galleria in Ümitköy, and a huge mall, Real in Bilkent Center, offer North American and European style shopping opportunities (these places can be reached through the Eskişehir Highway.) There is also the newly expanded ANKAmall at the outskirts, on the Istanbul Highway, which houses most of the well-known international brands. This mall is the largest throughout the Ankara region.

===Archeological sites===

====Ankara Citadel====
Ankara citadel walls
In the Temple of Augustus and Rome (commonly known as the Monumentum Ancyranum) in Ulus, the primary intact copy of Res Gestae written by the first Roman emperor Augustus survives.

The foundations of the Ankara castle and citadel were laid by the Galatians on a prominent lava outcrop (), and the rest was completed by the Romans. The Byzantines and Seljuks further made restorations and additions. The area around and inside the citadel, being the oldest part of Ankara, contains many fine examples of traditional architecture. There are also recreational areas to relax. Many restored traditional Turkish houses inside the citadel area have found new life as restaurants, serving local cuisine.

The citadel was depicted in various Turkish banknotes during 1927–1952 and 1983–1989. The citadel was depicted in the following Turkish banknotes:
* On the obverse of the 1 lira banknote of 1927–1939 (1. Emission Group – One Turkish Lira – I. Series).
* On the obverse of the 5 lira banknote of 1927–1937 (1. Emission Group – Five Turkish Lira – I. Series).
* On the reverse of the 10 lira banknote of 1927–1938 (1. Emission Group – Ten Turkish Lira – I. Series).
* On the reverse of the 10 lira banknote of 1938–1952 (2. Emission Group – Ten Turkish Lira – I. Series).
* On the reverse of the 100 lira banknotes of 1983–1989 (7. Emission Group – One Hundred Turkish Lira – I. Series & II. Series).
Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Banknote Museum. – Links retrieved on 20 April 2009. 

====Roman Theatre====
The remains, the stage, and the backstage of the Roman theatre can be seen outside the castle. Roman statues that were found here are exhibited in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The seating area is still under excavation.

====Temple of Augustus and Rome====

The temple, also known as the Monumentum Ancyranum, was built between 25 BC – 20 BC following the conquest of Central Anatolia by the Roman Empire and the formation of the Roman province of Galatia, with Ancyra (modern Ankara) as its administrative capital. After the death of Augustus in 14 AD, a copy of the text of Res Gestae Divi Augusti was inscribed on the interior of the pronaos in Latin, whereas a Greek translation is also present on an exterior wall of the cella. The temple, on the ancient Acropolis of Ancyra, was enlarged by the Romans in the 2nd century. In the 5th century it was converted into a church by the Byzantines. It is located in the Ulus quarter of the city.

====Roman Baths====
The Roman Baths of Ankara have all the typical features of a classical Roman bath complex: a frigidarium (cold room), a tepidarium (warm room) and a caldarium (hot room). The baths were built during the reign of the Roman emperor Caracalla in the early 3rd century AD to honor Asclepios, the God of Medicine. Today, only the basement and first floors remain. It is situated in the Ulus quarter.

====Roman Road====
The Roman Road of Ankara or Cardo Maximus was found in 1995 by Turkish archaeologist Cevdet Bayburtluoğlu. It is 216 meters long and 6.7 meters wide. Many ancient artifacts were discovered during the excavations along the road and most of them are currently displayed at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. 

====Column of Julian====
The Column of Julian or Julianus, now in the Ulus district, was erected in honor of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate's visit to Ancyra in 362.

===Mosques===
Kocatepe Mosque (1989) is the largest mosque in Ankara.

====Alaeddin Mosque====
The Alaeddin Mosque is the oldest mosque in Ankara. It has a carved walnut mimber, the inscription on which records that the mosque was completed in early AH 574 (which corresponds to the summer of 1178 AD) and was built by the Seljuk prince Muhiddin Mesud Şah (d. 1204), the Bey of Ankara, who was the son of the Anatolian Seljuk sultan Kılıç Arslan II (reigned 1156–1192.)

====Ahi Elvan Mosque====
It was founded in the Ulus quarter near the Ankara Citadel and was constructed by the Ahi fraternity during the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The finely carved walnut member (pulpic) is of particular interest.

====Hacı Bayram Mosque====
This mosque, in the Ulus quarter next to the Temple of Augustus, was built in the early 15th century in Seljuk style by an unknown architect. It was subsequently restored by architect Mimar Sinan in the 16th century, with Kütahya tiles being added in the 18th century. The mosque was built in honor of Hacı Bayram-ı Veli, whose tomb is next to the mosque, two years before his death (1427–28). The usable space inside this mosque is 437 m2 on the first floor and sp=us 263 on the second floor.

====Yeni (Cenab Ahmet) Mosque====
It is the largest Ottoman mosque in Ankara and was built by the famous architect Sinan in the 16th century. The mimber (pulpit) and mihrap (prayer niche) are of white marble, and the mosque itself is of Ankara stone, an example of very fine workmanship. Yeni Cami is on Ulucanlar Avenue.

====Kocatepe Mosque====
Kocatepe Mosque is the largest mosque in the city. Located in the Kocatepe quarter, it was constructed between 1967 and 1987 in classical Ottoman style with four minarets. Its size and prominent location have made it a landmark for the city.

===Caravanserais===

====Suluhan====
Suluhan Caravanserai (1511)

Suluhan is a historical caravanserai (han) in Ankara. It is also called the Hasanpaşa Han. It is about sp=us 400 southeast of Ulus Square and situated in the Hacıdoğan neighbourhood. According to the vakfiye (inscription) of the building, the Ottoman era han was commissioned by Hasan Pasha, a regional beylerbey, and was constructed between 1508 and 1511, during the final years of the reign of Sultan Bayezid II. History of Ankara 

====Çengelhan Rahmi Koç Museum====
Çengelhan Rahmi Koç Museum is a museum of industrial technology situated in Çengel Han, an Ottoman era caravanserai (han) which was completed in 1523, during the early years of the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The exhibits include industrial/technological artifacts from the 1850s onwards.

===Modern monuments===

====Victory Monument====
Hatti Monument (1970) on Sıhhiye Square. It was the city's official logo.

The Victory Monument (Turkish: Zafer Anıtı) was crafted by Austrian sculptor Heinrich Krippel in 1925 and was erected in 1927 at Ulus Square. The monument is made of marble and bronze and features an equestrian statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who wears a Republic era modern military uniform, with the rank Field Marshal.

====Statue of Atatürk====
Located at Zafer Square (Turkish: Zafer Meydanı), the marble and bronze statue was crafted by the renowned Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica in 1927 and depicts a standing Atatürk who wears a Republic era modern military uniform, with the rank Field Marshal.

====Monument to a Secure, Confident Future====
This monument, located in Güven Park near Kızılay Square, was erected in 1935 and bears Atatürk's advice to his people: "Turk! Be proud, work hard, and believe in yourself."

The monument was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 5 lira banknote of 1937–1952 Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Banknote Museum: 2. Emission Group – Five Turkish Lira – I. Series. – Retrieved on 20 April 2009. and of the 1000 lira banknotes of 1939–1946. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Banknote Museum: 2. Emission Group – One Thousand Turkish Lira – I. Series & II. Series. – Retrieved on 20 April 2009. 

====Hatti Monument====
Built in the 1970s on Sıhhiye Square, this impressive monument symbolizes the Hatti gods and commemorates Anatolia's earliest known civilization. The symbol derived from this monument has been used as the logo of the city for a long time.

==Transportation==

Kızılay station of the Ankara Metro
Ankara Central Station in 2012. The station was built in 1937. Bus tickets from all other cities to Ankara can be found in Otobusbileti.

Esenboğa International Airport, located in the north-east of the city, is Ankara's main airport.
Ankara Intercity Bus Terminal () is an important part of the bus network which covers every neighbourhood in the city.

The Ankara Central Station is a major rail hub in Turkey. The Turkish State Railways operates passenger train service from Ankara to other major cities, such as: İstanbul, Eskişehir, Balıkesir, Kütahya, İzmir, Kayseri, Adana, Kars, Elâzığ, Malatya, Diyarbakır, Karabük, Zonguldak and Sivas. Commuter rail also runs between the stations of Sincan and Kayaş. In 2009, the new Yüksek Hızlı Tren high-speed rail service began operation between Ankara and Eskişehir. On 23 August 2011, another Yüksek Hızlı Tren high-speed rail line commercially started its service between Ankara and Konya.

The Electricity, Gas, Bus General Directorate (EGO) operates the Ankara Metro and other forms of public transportation. Ankara is currently served by suburban rail and two subway lines with about 300,000 total daily commuters, and three additional subway lines are under construction.

A gondola lift with four stations and 3.2 km long connects the disctrict of Şentepe to Yenimahalle metro station. 

==Sports==
Ankara Arena (2010)
As with all other cities of Turkey, football is the most popular sport in Ankara. The city has one football club currently competing in the Turkish Super League: Gençlerbirliği, founded in 1923, is known as the Ankara Gale or the Poppies because of their colors: red and black. They were the Turkish Cup winners in 1987 and 2001. Ankaragücü, founded in 1910, is the oldest club in Ankara and is associated with Ankara's military arsenal manufacturing company MKE. Ankaragücü used to play in the Turkish Super League until being relegated to the TFF First League at the end of the 2011–2012 season. They were the Turkish Cup winners in 1972 and 1981. Gençlerbirliği's B team, Hacettepe SK (formerly known as Gençlerbirliği OFTAŞ) played in the Turkish Super League for a while until being relegated. All of the aforementioned teams have their home at the Ankara 19 Mayıs Stadium in Ulus, which has a capacity of 21,250 (all-seater). A fourth team, Büyükşehir Belediye Ankaraspor, played in the Turkish Super League until 2010, when they were expelled, and currently are not a member of the Turkish league system. Their home was the Yenikent Asaş Stadium in the Sincan district of Yenikent, outside the city center.

Ankara has a large number of minor teams, playing at regional levels: Bugsaşspor in Sincan; Etimesgut Şekerspor in Etimesgut; Türk Telekomspor owned by the phone company in Yenimahalle; Ankara Demirspor in Çankaya; Keçiörengücü, Keçiörenspor, Pursaklarspor, Bağlumspor in Keçiören; and Petrol Ofisi Spor owned by the oil company in Altındağ. Most of them, including Hacettepespor, play their matches at Cebeci İnönü Stadium in the Cebeci district.

In the Turkish Basketball League, Ankara is represented by Türk Telekom, whose home is the Ankara Arena, and CASA TED Kolejliler, whose home is the TOBB Sports Hall.

Ankara Buz Pateni Sarayı is where the ice skating and ice hockey competitions take place in the city.

There are many popular spots for skateboarding which is active in the city since the 1980s. Skaters in Ankara usually meet in the park near the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

The 2012-built THF Sport Hall hosts the Handball Super League and Women's Handball Super League matches scheduled in Ankara. 

==Culture and education==
The historic Evkaf Apartmanı (1929) is the headquarters of the Turkish State Theatres. The building also houses the Küçük Tiyatro and Oda Tiyatrosu.
Ankara Opera House of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet (1933)
Bilkent Concert Hall

Turkish State Opera and Ballet, the national directorate of opera and ballet companies of Turkey, has its headquarters in Ankara, and serves the city with three venues:

*Ankara Opera House (Opera Sahnesi, also known as Büyük Tiyatro) is the largest of the three venues for opera and ballet in Ankara.

The Turkish State Theatres also has its head office in Ankara and runs the following stages in the city:

*125. Yıl Çayyolu Sahnesi
*Büyük Tiyatro, 
*Küçük Tiyatro,
*Şinasi Sahnesi,
*Akün Sahnesi,
*Altındağ Tiyatrosu,
*İrfan Şahinbaş Atölye Sahnesi,
*Oda Tiyatrosu,
*Mahir Canova Sahnesi,
*Muhsin Ertuğrul Sahnesi.

In addition, the city is served by several private theatre companies, among which Ankara Sanat Tiyatrosu, who have their own stage in the city center, is a notable example.

Ankara is host to five classical music orchestras:
*Presidential Symphony Orchestra (Turkish Presidential Symphony Orchestra)
*Bilkent Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is a major symphony orchestra of Turkey.
*Hacettepe Symphony Orchestra was founded in 2003 and is currently conducted by Erol Erdinç.
*Başkent Oda Orkestrası (Chamber Orchestra of the Capital) 

There are four concert halls in the city:
*CSO Concert Hall
*Bilkent Concert Hall is a performing arts center in Ankara. It is located in the Bilkent University campus.
*MEB Şura Salonu (also known as the Festival Hall), It is noted for its tango performances.
*Çankaya Çağdaş Sanatlar Merkezi Concert Hall was founded in 1994.

The city has been host to several well-established, annual theatre, music, film festivals:

*Ankara International Music Festival, a music festival organized in the Turkish capital presenting classical music and ballet programmes.

===Universities===
Ankara is noted, within Turkey, for the multitude of universities it is home to. These include the following, several of them being among the most reputable in the country:

*Ankara University
*Başkent University
*Altın Koza University
*Atılım University
*Turkish Aeronautical Association University
*Bilkent University
*Çankaya University
*Gazi University
*Hacettepe University
*Middle East Technical University
*TOBB University of Economics and Technology
*Turgut Özal University
*Ufuk University
*Yıldırım Beyazıt University
*Gülhane Military Medical Academy
*Turkish Military Academy
*Turkish National Police Academy

File:TOBB University of Economics & Technology.jpg|TOBB University of Economics and Technology
File:Dil ve Tarih Coğrafya Fakültesi Binası, Ankara.jpg|Ankara University Faculty of History and Geography (1940)
File:MiddleEastTechnicalUniversityCampus800x470.jpg|Part of the METU campus, as seen from its MM Building
File:Metuba1 big.jpg|An auditorium in METU
File:Merkez1.jpg|The Medical School on the main campus of Hacettepe University (1967)
File:Çankaya University Turquoise campus.JPG|Çankaya University (1997)

==Fauna==

===Angora cat===

Angora cat

Ankara is home to a world famous cat breed – the Turkish Angora, called Ankara kedisi (Ankara cat) in Turkish. It is a breed of domestic cat. Turkish Angoras are one of the ancient, naturally occurring cat breeds, having originated in Ankara and its surrounding region in central Anatolia.

They mostly have a white, silky, medium to long length coat, no undercoat and a fine bone structure. There seems to be a connection between the Angora Cats and Persians, and the Turkish Angora is also a distant cousin of the Turkish Van. Although they are known for their shimmery white coat, currently there are more than twenty varieties including black, blue and reddish fur. They come in tabby and tabby-white, along with smoke varieties, and are in every color other than pointed, lavender, and cinnamon (all of which would indicate breeding to an outcross.)

Eyes may be blue, green, or amber, or even one blue and one amber or green. The W gene which is responsible for the white coat and blue eye is closely related to the hearing ability, and the presence of a blue eye can indicate that the cat is deaf to the side the blue eye is located. However, a great many blue and odd-eyed white cats have normal hearing, and even deaf cats lead a very normal life if kept indoors.

Ears are pointed and large, eyes are almond shaped and the head is massive with a two plane profile. Another characteristic is the tail, which is often kept parallel to the back.

===Angora rabbit===

Angora rabbit

The Angora rabbit () is a variety of domestic rabbit bred for its long, soft hair. The Angora is one of the oldest types of domestic rabbit, originating in Ankara and its surrounding region in central Anatolia, along with the Angora cat and Angora goat. The rabbits were popular pets with French royalty in the mid-18th century, and spread to other parts of Europe by the end of the century. They first appeared in the United States in the early 20th century. They are bred largely for their long Angora wool, which may be removed by shearing, combing, or plucking (gently pulling loose wool.)

Angoras are bred mainly for their wool because it is silky and soft. They have a humorous appearance, as they oddly resemble a fur ball. Most are calm and docile but should be handled carefully. Grooming is necessary to prevent the fiber from matting and felting on the rabbit. A condition called "wool block" is common in Angora rabbits and should be treated quickly. Sometimes they are shorn in the summer as the long fur can cause the rabbits to overheat.

===Angora goat===

Angora goat

The Angora goat () is a breed of domestic goat that originated in Ankara and its surrounding region in central Anatolia.

This breed was first mentioned in the time of Moses, roughly in 1500 BC. The first Angora goats were brought to Europe by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, about 1554, but, like later imports, were not very successful. Angora goats were first introduced in the United States in 1849 by Dr. James P. Davis. Seven adult goats were a gift from Sultan Abdülmecid I in appreciation for his services and advice on the raising of cotton.

The fleece taken from an Angora goat is called mohair. A single goat produces between five and eight kilograms of hair per year. Angoras are shorn twice a year, unlike sheep, which are shorn only once. Angoras have high nutritional requirements due to their rapid hair growth. A poor quality diet will curtail mohair development. The United States, Turkey, and South Africa are the top producers of mohair.

For a long period of time, Angora goats were bred for their white coat. In 1998, the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association was set up to promote breeding of colored Angoras. Today, Angora goats produce white, black (deep black to greys and silver), red (the color fades significantly as the goat gets older), and brownish fiber.

Angora goats were depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 50 lira banknotes of 1938–1952. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Banknote Museum:2. Emission Group – Fifty Turkish Lira – I. Series;3. Emission Group – Fifty Turkish Lira – I. Series & II. Series. – Retrieved on 20 April 2009. 

==Ankara image gallery==

File:Atakule.JPG|Atakule Tower (1989)
 File:Sheraton Ankara.jpg|Sheraton Hotel & Convention Center (1991)
File:A view of the BDDK building, Atatürk Avenue in Ankara.jpg|BDDK Building (1975), formerly the Türkiye İş Bankası headquarters, on Atatürk Avenue
File:Kızılay Square in Ankara, Turkey.JPG|Emek Business Center (1965) at Kızılay Square
File:Airport lake style.JPG|Esenboğa International Airport (2006)
File:Ankara Airport departures dougbelshaw 1.jpg|Esenboğa International Airport (2006)
File:145 Ulus.05.2006 resize.JPG|The historic Ankara Palas Hotel (1927)
File:Ankara Palas 1.JPG|The historic Ankara Palas Hotel (1927)
File:Resim ve Heykel Müzesi Ankara.jpg|Entrance of the State Art and Sculpture Museum (1927)
File:Yunus Emre Institut Ulus Ankara.JPG|Yunus Emre Institute, originally the Tekel Building (1928)
File:TurkishStateTheatresHeadOfficeInAnkara.JPG|Evkaf Apartmanı (1929) is the headquarters of the Turkish State Theatres and houses the Küçük Tiyatro and Oda Tiyatrosu
File:Ziraat Bankası 5.JPG|The historic Ziraat Bank Building (1929)
File:Leyla Gencer Anıtı.jpg|Statue of Leyla Gencer in front of the Ankara Opera House (1933)
File:Ankara.jpg|View of central Ankara from the Botanical Park
File:Atatürk Meydanı'ndan TBMM.jpg|The third and current Grand National Assembly of Turkey building (1938)
File:Guvenpark.jpg|Güvenpark in Kızılay Square
File:Crowne Plaza Ankara.JPG|Crowne Plaza Hotel (2006)
File:Radisson Blu Hotel.JPG|Radisson Blu Hotel, originally Stad Oteli (1970), was designed in 1964 by Doğan Tekeli, Sami Sisa and Metin Hepgüler
File:Sogutozu Ankara Turkey.jpg|Söğütözü business district in Ankara, with the Armada Tower & Mall (2002) rising behind the Turkish flag
File:ArmadaAVM.jpg|Armada Tower & Mall (2002)
File:AŞTİ junction - Balgat.jpg|Yenimahalle, Ankara
File:Ankara, Aşti.jpg|Yenimahalle, Ankara
File:TOBB.jpg|TOBB Towers (2001)
File:Halkbank.jpg|Halkbank Tower (1993) designed by Doğan Tekeli and Sami Sisa

==International relations==
*List of twin towns and sister cities in Turkey

==See also==

*Angora cat
*Angora goat
*Angora rabbit
*Ankara Agreement
*Ankara Arena
*Ankara Central Station
*Ankara Esenboğa International Airport
*Ankara Metro
*Ankara Province
*Ankara University
*Basil of Ancyra
*Battle of Ancyra
*Battle of Ankara
*Clement of Ancyra
*Gemellus of Ancyra
*Marcellus of Ancyra
*Monumentum Ancyranum
*Nilus of Ancyra
*Roman Baths of Ankara
*Synod of Ancyra
*Theodotus of Ancyra (bishop)
*Theodotus of Ancyra (martyr)
*Treaty of Ankara

==References and notes==

==Bibliography==

==External links==

* Governorate of Ankara
* Municipality of Ankara
* Ankara Development Agency
* Esenboğa International Airport

 



[[Arabic language]]

Arabic ( or ) is a name for what are traditionally considered the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century. This includes both the literary language and varieties of Arabic spoken in a wide arc of territory, stretching across Western Asia (aka the Middle East), North Africa, and East Africa (aka the Horn of Africa). Arabic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family.

The literary language is called Modern Standard Arabic or Literary Arabic, which is a pluricentric, fusional language. It is currently the only official form of Arabic, used in most written documents as well as in formal spoken occasions, such as lectures and news broadcasts. However, this varies from one country to the other. Moroccan Arabic was official in Morocco for some time, before Morocco joined the Arab League.

Arabic languages are Central Semitic languages, most closely related to Aramaic, Hebrew, Ugaritic and Phoenician. The standardized written Arabic is distinct from and more conservative than all of the spoken varieties, and the two exist in a state known as diglossia, used side-by-side for different societal functions.

Some of the spoken varieties are mutually unintelligible, "Arabic language." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved on 29 July 2009. both written and orally, and the varieties as a whole constitute a sociolinguistic language. This means that on purely linguistic grounds they would likely be considered to constitute more than one language, but are commonly grouped together as a single language for political and/or religious reasons (see below). If considered multiple languages, it is unclear how many languages there would be, as the spoken varieties form a dialect chain with no clear boundaries. If Arabic is considered a single language, it perhaps is spoken by as many as 420 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it one of the half dozen most populous languages in the world. If considered separate languages, the most-spoken variety would most likely be Egyptian Arabic, with 54 million native speakers &mdash;still greater than any other Semitic language. Arabic also is a liturgical language of 1.6 billion Muslim speakers. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. 

The modern written language (Modern Standard Arabic) is derived from the language of the Quran (known as Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic). It is widely taught in schools, universities and used to varying degrees in workplaces, government and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the official language of 26 states and the liturgical language of Islam. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the grammatical standards of Quranic Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, especially in modern times.

Arabic is the only surviving member of the Ancient North Arabian dialect group attested in pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions dating back to the 4th century. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right-to-left although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left-to-right with no standardized forms.

Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history; some of the most influenced languages are Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Somali, Swahili, Bosnian, Kazakh, Bengali, Hindi, Malay, Indonesian, Tigrinya, Pashto, Punjabi, Tagalog, Sindhi and Hausa. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are also found in ancient languages like Latin and Greek. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in Romance languages, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Sicilian, owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and 800 years of Arabic culture and language in the Iberian Peninsula referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus.

Arabic has also borrowed words from many languages, including Hebrew, Greek, Persian and Syriac in early centuries, Turkish in medieval times and contemporary European languages in modern times, mostly from English and French.

==History==
===PreIslamic Arabic and Arabic Language ===
The earliest Arabic inscriptions date back to AD 512-568. The Aramaic alphabet was introduced to the Arab people through traders from the Mediterranean Empire and the Arab people began using the script during the Christian period in the Middle East. From the Aramaic, the script continued to develop through two separate kingdoms in the region: The Nabatean and the Palmyran. The Arabic script that is widely used today developed from the Nabataean Kingdom’s writing script. While the Nabatean alphabet and writing system met a great deal of the needs, it did not provide letters or symbols for /t/, /d/, /h/, /g/, /z/ and /d/, which were not represented by Aramaic script. The Aramaic writing system also only provided fifteen letter shapes for 28 consonants. In order to differentiate between consonants that had the same shape, a system of placing dots around the letters developed. It took over 100 years in order to codify these dots around letters (Bateson, 55). Evidence of the development of codified dots is recorded on numerous different codes and tombstones. In the 8th century, the dots were finally codified enough that all texts used dots with the exception of purely decorative writings that were not meant to be read. 
 In addition to the issue of codifying the dots above letters, there was also the issue of how to represent vowel sounds in Arabic script, a language made up of an all-consonants script. During the 7th century a dotting system also developed to mark voweling. Red dots were used to mark vowels while black lines were used to mark consonants. Eventually smaller versions of the letters representing short vowels were places above consonants in order to indicate that a vowel was present. 

===Pre-Islamic Poetry and Early Islamic Literature===
The oral poetic tradition had been alive and well for centuries in the Arabian Peninsula before it was eventually recorded. Arab poets blossomed in the 6th century AD but their work was not recorded or written down until the 8th or 9th century AD. There were linguistic oddities in regards to spelling found throughout the poems. The poems had been recorded, but there were different spelling and pronunciation techniques used by different authors when trying to record a poem that had previously only been recited. These differences reflected how different dialects had a large impact on written Arabic and how texts were recorded. To solve this problem, grammarians and scholars asked Bedouins to recite poems in order to hear how they pronounced the poem as their voices were believed to be pure. Consensus was then used to determine the correct pronunciation of a word so that the word could also be spelt correctly. Eventually, scholars and grammarian developed a system for Standardizing Classical Arabic so that texts and words would be written in a way that the majority of the population could understand. 
 The Quran was revealed to Muhammad in 632 CE, but it was nearly a century before it was written down, during the reign of the Caliph Uthman (Holes, 3). Beeston, A. F. L.. The Arabic language today. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006. Print. The Quran was written down in a way that reflected the pronunciation of the western dialect of Mecca. Scholars from lower Iraq eventually attempted to reclaim the Quran and have it written to reflect their accent and dialect. The scholars in Lower Iraq did not physically alter the script, as the Western Arab scholars did, but instead wrote a pronunciation guide above the existing version of the Quran. 
 Both a formal and informal version of Arabic existed during the Pre-Islamic Period. The informal dialect was used on coin and tomb inscriptions while the formal variety of Arabic was used on letters and contracts. However, contracts were sometimes written in a mixture of Formal and Informal Arabic, reflecting the large influence dialects had on the written language in Pre-Islamic Arabia. 

===The Islamic Conquests and Arabic Language===
The Islamic Conquests introduced Arabic to new non-Arab regions, such as Spain and Persia. As a result, Osmanli, Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Malay, Berber, Swahili and Hausa all adopted some Arabic alphabet into their writing systems and Arabic adopted 12 letters from others (for example, Persian P CH Zh and Ga). These sounds entered Arabic through loanwords (Bateson, 58). Bateson, Mary Catherine. Arabic language handbook. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003. Print In the 8th century Islamic scholars in Lower Iraq feared the influence that the recently conquered non-Arabs would have on the language and scholars became more conservative and a more standardized Classical Arabic writing system developed (Clive Holes, 4) However, non-Arabs had a huge influence on the religious writings at the time since many of intellectual elite were in fact non-Arab (Clive Holes, 4). 

===Modern era===
During the colonial era, the European powers occupying Arab nations actively encouraged the public spread and use of colloquial Arabic dialects and suppressed the use and teaching of classical Arabic. John Andrew Morrow, Islamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism, pg. 257. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2013. ISBN 9781476612881 After wiping out a third of the Algerian population between 1830 and 1872, for example, the French then closed all Qur'anic schools and banned public usage of Arabic; Arabic was actually declared a foreign language in 1938 and while about half the population was literate in Arabic at the beginning of French colonization, 90% of the native population was illiterate in both Arabic and French by its end in the 1960s. John andrew Morrow, Islamic Images and Ideas, pg. 258. 

== Classical, Modern Standard and spoken Arabic ==
Arabic usually designates one of three main variants: Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial or dialectal Arabic.

Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran, used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate. Theoretically, Classical Arabic is considered normative, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the ). In practice, however, modern authors almost never write in pure Classical Arabic, instead using a literary language with its own grammatical norms and vocabulary, commonly known as Modern Standard Arabic. This is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic.

Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows:
* Certain grammatical constructions of CA that have no counterpart in any modern dialect (e.g., the energetic mood) are almost never used in Modern Standard Arabic.
* No modern spoken variety of Arabic has case distinctions. As a result, MSA is generally composed without case distinctions in mind, and the proper cases are added after the fact, when necessary. Because most case endings are noted using final short vowels, which are normally left unwritten in the Arabic script, it is unnecessary to determine the proper case of most words. The practical result of this is that MSA, like English and Standard Chinese, is written in a strongly determined word order and alternative orders that were used in CA for emphasis are rare. In addition, because of the lack of case marking in the spoken varieties, most speakers cannot consistently use the correct endings in extemporaneous speech. As a result, spoken MSA tends to drop or regularize the endings except when reading from a prepared text.
* The numeral system in CA is complex and heavily tied in with the case system. This system is never used in MSA, even in the most formal of circumstances; instead, a significantly simplified system is used, approximating the system of the conservative spoken varieties.

MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., 'to go') that is not present in the spoken varieties. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined a large number of terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling, and not real pronunciation (e.g., 'film' or 'democracy'). However, the current preference is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; 'wing', also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.) or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( 'apoptosis', using the root m/w/t 'death' put into the Xth form, or 'university', based on 'to gather, unite'; 'republic', based on 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to repurpose older words that had fallen into disuse (e.g., 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk').

Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; these sometimes differ enough to be mutually unintelligible, and some linguists consider them distinct languages. "Arabic Language." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2009. Retrieved on 29 July 2009. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows, as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media, such as poetry and printed advertising. The only variety of modern Arabic to have acquired official language status is Maltese, spoken in (predominately Roman Catholic) Malta and written with the Latin script. It is descended from Classical Arabic through Siculo-Arabic and is not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Arabic. Most linguists list it as a separate language rather than as a dialect of Arabic. Historically, Algerian Arabic was taught in French Algeria under the name darija.
Flag of the Arab league, used in some cases for the Arabic Language.
Flag used in some cases for the Arabic Language

Note that even during Muhammad's lifetime, there were dialects of spoken Arabic. Muhammad spoke in the dialect of Mecca, in the western Arabian peninsula, and it was in this dialect that the Quran was written down. However, the dialects of the eastern Arabian peninsula were considered the most prestigious at the time, so the language of the Quran was ultimately converted to follow the eastern phonology. It is this phonology that underlies the modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic. The phonological differences between these two dialects account for some of the complexities of Arabic writing, most notably the writing of the glottal stop or hamzah (which was preserved in the eastern dialects but lost in western speech) and the use of (representing a sound preserved in the western dialects but merged with in eastern speech).

==Language and dialect==
The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia, which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native, mutually unintelligible "dialects"; Janet C. E. Watson, The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, Introduction, pg. xix. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780191607752 Proceedings and Debates of the 107th United States Congress Congressional Record, pg. 10,462. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 2002. Shalom Staub, Yemenis in New York City: The Folklore of Ethnicity, pg. 124. Philadelphia: Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, 1989. ISBN 9780944190050 Daniel Newman, Arabic-English Thematic Lexicon, pg. 1. London: Routledge, 2007. ISBN 9781134103928 Rebecca L. Torstrick and Elizabeth Faier, Culture and Customs of the Arab Gulf States, pg. 41. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009. ISBN 9780313336591 these dialects linguistically constitute separate languages which may have dialects of their own. Walter J. Ong, Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture, pg. 32. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780801466304 When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. Arabic speakers often improve their familiarity with other dialects via music or film.

The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, similar to the issue with Chinese, Hindi and Urdu, Serbian and Croatian, Scots and English, etc. Similar to how speakers of Hindi and Urdu will claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they can't. Clive Holes, Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, pg. 3. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004. ISBN 9781589010222 The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a significant complicating factor: A single written form, significantly different from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites a number of sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak a single language, despite significant issues of mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. Nizar Y. Habash,Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, pgs. 1-2. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2010. ISBN 9781598297959 

From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages. Bernard Bate, Tamil Oratory and the Dravidian Aesthetic: Democratic Practice in South India, pgs. 14-15. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. ISBN 9780231519403 This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for the Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb, a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq, much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages.

== Influence of Arabic on other languages ==

The influence of Arabic has been most important in Islamic countries, because it is the language of the Islamic sacred book, Quran. Arabic is also an important source of vocabulary for languages such as Baluchi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Catalan, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hausa, Hindustani, Italian, Indonesian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kutchi, Malay, Malayalam, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Rohingya, Saraiki, Sindhi, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Urdu, Uzbek and Wolof, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken.

In addition, English has many Arabic loanwords, some directly but most through the medium of other Mediterranean languages. Examples of such words include admiral, adobe, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, algorithm, alkaline, almanac, amber, arsenal, assassin, candy, carat, cipher, coffee, cotton, ghoul, hazard, jar, kismet, lemon, loofah, magazine, mattress, sherbet, sofa, sumac, tariff and many other words. Other languages such as Maltese and Kinubi derive ultimately from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary or grammar rules.

Terms borrowed range from religious terminology (like Berber 'prayer' < salat) ( ), academic terms (like Uyghur mentiq 'logic'), economic items (like English coffee) to placeholders (like Spanish fulano 'so-and-so') and everyday conjunctions (like Hindustani lekin 'but', or Spanish taza meaning 'cup' and Portuguese até meaning 'until'), and expressions (like Catalan a betzef 'galore, in quantity'). Most Berber varieties (such as Kabyle), along with Swahili, borrow some numbers from Arabic. Most Islamic religious terms are direct borrowings from Arabic, such as salat 'prayer' and imam 'prayer leader.'

In languages not directly in contact with the Arab world, Arabic loanwords are often transferred indirectly via other languages rather than being transferred directly from Arabic. For example, most Arabic loanwords in Hindustani entered through Persian though Persian is an Indo-Iranian language. Older Arabic loanwords in Hausa were borrowed from Kanuri.

Some words in English and other European languages are derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish and Italian. Among them are commonly used words like "coffee" (qahwah), "cotton" () and "magazine" ([[makhzen|]]). English words more recognizably of Arabic origin include "algebra", "alcohol", "alchemy", "alkali", "zenith," and "nadir".

Arabic words also made their way into several West African languages as Islam spread across the Sahara. Variants of Arabic words such as kitāb (book) have spread to the languages of African groups who had no direct contact with Arab traders. 

As, throughout the Islamic world, Arabic occupied a position similar to that of Latin in Europe, many of the Arabic concepts in the field of science, philosophy, commerce etc. were coined from Arabic roots by non-native Arabic speakers, notably by Aramaic and Persian translators, and then found their way into other languages. This process of using Arabic roots, especially in Turkish and Persian, to translate foreign concepts continued right until the 18th and 19th century, when swaths of Arab-inhabited lands were under Ottoman rule.

==Influence of other languages on Arabic==
Arabic was influenced by other languages as well. The most important sources of borrowings into (pre-Islamic) Arabic are from the related (Semitic) languages Aramaic, See the seminal study by Siegmund Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen, Leiden 1886 (repr. 1962) which used to be the principal, international language of communication throughout the ancient Near and Middle East, Ethiopic, and to a lesser degree Hebrew (mainly religious concepts). In addition, many cultural, religious and political terms have entered Arabic from Iranian, notably Middle Persian or Parthian and (Classical) Persian, See for instance Wilhelm Eilers, "Iranisches Lehngut im Arabischen", Actas IV. Congresso des Estudos Árabes et Islâmicos, Coimbra, Lisboa, Leiden 1971, with earlier references. and Hellenistic Greek (kīmiyāʼ has as origin the Greek chymia, meaning in that language the melting of metals; see Roger Dachez, Histoire de la Médecine de l'Antiquité au XXe siècle, Tallandier, 2008, p. 251), alembic (distiller) from ambix (cup), qalam (pen, pencil, feather) from kalamos (reed, pen), almanac (climate) from almenichiakon (calendar). (For the origin of the last three borrowed words, see Alfred-Louis de Prémare, Foundations of Islam, Seuil, L'Univers Historique, 2002.) Some Arabic borrowings from Semitic or Persian languages are, as presented in De Prémare's above-cited book:

* raḥmān (رحمن, merciful), from Hebrew and Aramaic, where it had a similar meaning

* nabī (نبي, prophet), old non-Arabic term that came into Arabic from Aramaic and Hebrew before the emergence of Islam.

* madīnah/medina (مدينة, city or city square), a word of Aramaic or Hebrew origin; Alfred-Louis de Prémare explains in The Foundations Of Islam (p. 101) that the Jews were long before Arabs a sedentary population of "Arabian desert."

* jizyah (جزية), the tax imposed by the caliphate on individuals of religion other than Islam (dhimmis), a tax in addition to the levy on agricultural land (kharāj). The term comes from the Syriac gzita, which is in turn borrowed from Persian gazit.

* kharāj (خراج), land tax originally imposed only on non-Muslims, which comes from the Persian term kharazh, a term which designates the act by which the wealthy citizens were taxed, sometimes imposed upon states; satrapies were supposed to collect them. This term probably originates from the Greek language. Bertold Spuler, The Muslim World a Historical Survey Part 1: The Age of the Caliphs, transl. F.R.C. Bagley, (E.J. Brill, 1960), 24 n1. 

* jazīrah (جزيرة), as in the well-known form "Al Jazeera," means 'island' and has its origin in Syriac gazīra/gzīrta.

* fārūq (فاروق, savior) is the naturalized form of the Aramaic word poruk, which in the Syriac Bible (Peshitta) means the Savior or Liberator. Once naturalized, the term produced mnemonic derivatives or shortcuts, so the root f-r-q (meaning cutting) became a folk etymological explanation for faruq: the Savior was one who cuts (separates) the truth from falsehood.

* munāfiq (منافق, hypocrite), a term borrowed from Ethiopian, where it had the sense of heretical sect.

* lāzaward (لازورد) is taken from Persian lājvard, the name of a blue stone, lapis lazuli. This word was borrowed in several European languages to mean (light) blue - azure in English, azur in French and azul in Spanish.

==Arabic Alphabet and Nationalism==

There have been many instances of national movements to convert Arabic script into Latin script or to Romanize the language.

===Lebanon===
A Beirut newspaper “La Syrie” pushed for the change from Arabic script to Latin Script in 1922. The major head of this movement was Louis Massignon, a French Orientalist, who brought his concern before the Arabic Language Academy in Damacus in 1928. Massignon’s attempt at Romanization failed as the Academy and population viewed the proposal as an attempt from the Western world to take over their country. Sa’id Afghani, a member of the Academy, mentioned that the movement to Romanize the script was a Zionist plan to dominate Lebanon. Shrivtiel, p. 188 

===Egypt===
After the period of colonialism in Egypt, Egyptians were looking for a way to reclaim and reemphasize Egyptian culture. As a result, some Egyptians pushed for an Egyptianization of the Arabic language in which the formal Arabic and the colloquial Arabic would be combined into one language and the Latin alphabet would be used. There was also the idea of finding a way to use Hieroglyphics instead of the Latin Alphabet, but this was seen as too complicated to use. A scholar, Salama Musa agreed with the idea of applying a Latin alphabet to Arabic, as he believed that would allow Egypt to have a closer relationship with the West. He also believed that Latin script was key to the success of Egypt as it would allow for more advances in science and technology. This change in script, he believed, would solve the problems inherent with Arabic, such as a lack of written vowels and difficulties writing foreign words that made it difficult for non native speakers to learn. Ahmad Lutfi As Sayid and Muhammad Azmi, two Egyptian intellectuals, agreed with Musa and supported the push for Romanization. Shrivtiel, p. 189 The idea that Romanization was necessary for modernization and growth in Egypt continued with Abd Al Aziz Fahmi in 1944. He was the chairman for the Writing and Grammar Committee for the Arabic Language Academy of Cairo. However, this effort failed as the Egyptian people felt a strong cultural tie to the Arabic alphabet. In particular, the older Egpytian generations believed that the Arabic alphabet had strong connections to Arab values and history, which is easy to believe due to the long history of the Arabic alphabet (Shrivtiel, 189).

== Arabic and Islam ==
Classical Arabic is the language of the Qur'an. Arabic is closely associated with the religion of Islam because the Qur'an is written in the language, but it is nevertheless also spoken by Arab Christians, Mizrahi Jews and Iraqi Mandaeans. Most of the world's Muslims do not speak Arabic as their native language, but many can read the Quranic script and recite the Quran. Among non-Arab Muslims, translations of the Quran are most often accompanied by the original text.

Some Muslims present a monogenesis of languages and claim that the Arabic language was the language revealed by God for the benefit of mankind and the original language as a prototype symbolic system of communication, based upon its system of triconsonantal roots, spoken by man from which all other languages were derived, having first been corrupted. Judaism has a similar account with the Tower of Babel.

== External history ==

Arabic languages (brown) within Semitic languages.
Among the earliest surviving texts in Ancient North Arabian, a group of languages closely related to but not a direct predecessor of Arabic, are the Hasaean inscriptions of in eastern Saudi Arabia, from about the 4th century BC, written not in the modern Arabic alphabet, nor in its Nabataean ancestor, but in variants of the epigraphic South Arabian musnad. More numerous are the 6th-century BC Lihyanite texts from southeastern Saudi Arabia and the Thamudic texts found throughout Arabia and the Sinai, and not actually connected with Thamud. Later come the Safaitic inscriptions beginning in the 1st century AD and the many Arabic personal names attested in Nabataean inscriptions (which are, however, written in Aramaic).

Classical Arabic co-existed with the Old North Arabian languages. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus (Histories I,131; III,8) quotes the epithet of a goddess in its preclassical Arabic form as Alilat (Ἀλιλάτ, i. e.,ʼal-ʼilat), which means "the goddess". Woodard, Roger D. Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. p 208 Apart from this isolated theonym, Arabic is first attested in an inscription in Qaryat al-Fāw (formerly Qaryat Dhat Kahil, near Sulayyil, Saudi Arabia) in the 1st century BC. Woodard, Roger D. (2008), Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. p. 180 M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections on the Linguistic Map of Pre-Islamic Arabia", Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 2000, Volume 11, p. 50 and 61 The oldest inscription in Classical Arabic known in 1985 goes back to 328 AD and is known as the inscription, written in the Nabataean alphabet and named after the place where it was found in southern Syria in April 1901. 
By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq and the Ghassanids in southern Syria appeared. The Kindite Kingdom emerged in Central Arabia. Their courts were responsible for some notable examples of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and for some of the few surviving pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic script. 

== Internal history ==
The Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in terms of grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages — all maintained in Classical Arabic — include
*The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense.
*The conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense.
*The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms (e.g., a present tense formed by doubling the middle root, a perfect formed by infixing a /t/ after the first root consonant, probably a jussive formed by a stress shift) in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms (e.g. -u for indicative, -a for subjunctive, no ending for jussive, -an or -anna for energetic).
*The development of an internal passive.

===Phonological history===
Of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost: , which merged with . But the consonant is still found in many colloquial Arabic. Various other consonants have changed their sound too, but have remained distinct. An original lenited to , and became palatalized to or by the time of the Quran and , , or in MSA (see Arabic phonology#Local variations for more detail). An original voiceless alveolar lateral fricative became . Its emphatic counterpart was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic (Hence the Classical Arabic's appellation or "language of the "); for most modern dialects, it has become an emphatic stop with loss of the laterality or with complete loss of any pharyngealization or velarization, . (The classical pronunciation of pharyngealization still occurs in the Mehri language and the similar sound without velarization exists in other Modern South Arabian languages.)

Other changes may also have happened. Classical Arabic pronunciation is not thoroughly recorded and different reconstructions of the sound system of Proto-Semitic propose different phonetic values. One example is the emphatic consonants, which are pharyngealized in modern pronunciations may have been velarized in the eighth century and glottalized in Proto-Semitic. 

Reduction of and between vowels occurs in a number of circumstances and is responsible for much of the complexity of third-weak ("defective") verbs. Early Akkadian transcriptions of Arabic names shows that this reduction had not yet occurred as of the early part of the 1st millennium BC.

The Classical Arabic language as recorded was a poetic koine that reflected a consciously archaizing dialect, chosen based on the Bedouin tribes in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, who spoke the most conservative variants of Arabic. Even at the time of Mohammed and before, other dialects existed with many more changes, including the loss of most glottal stops, the loss of case endings, the reduction of the diphthongs and into monophthongs , etc. Most of these changes are present in most or all modern varieties of Arabic.

An interesting feature of the writing system of the Quran (and hence of Classical Arabic) is that it contains certain features of Muhammad's native dialect of Mecca, corrected through diacritics into the forms of standard Classical Arabic. Among these features visible under the corrections are the loss of the glottal stop and a differing development of the reduction of certain final sequences containing : Evidently, final became as in the Classical language, but final became a different sound, possibly (rather than again in the Classical language). This is the apparent source of the alif maqṣūrah 'restricted alif' where a final is reconstructed: a letter that would normally indicate or some similar high-vowel sound, but is taken in this context to be a logical variant of alif and represent the sound .

== Dialects and descendants ==
Different dialects of Arabic.

Colloquial Arabic is a collective term for the spoken varieties of Arabic used throughout the Arab world, which differ radically from the literary language. The main dialectal division is between the varieties within and outside of the Arabian peninsula, followed by that between sedentary varieties and the much more conservative Bedouin varieties. All of the varieties outside of the Arabian peninsula (which include the large majority of speakers) have a large number of features in common with each other that are not found in Classical Arabic. This has led researchers to postulate the existence of a prestige koine dialect in the one or two centuries immediately following the Arab conquest, whose features eventually spread to all of the newly conquered areas. (These features are present to varying degrees inside the Arabian peninsula. Generally, the Arabian peninsula varieties have much more diversity than the non-peninsula varieties, but have been understudied.)

Within the non-peninsula varieties, the largest difference is between the non-Egyptian North African dialects (especially Moroccan Arabic) and the others. Moroccan Arabic in particular is hardly comprehensible to Arabic speakers east of Libya (although the converse is not true, in part due to the popularity of Egyptian films and other media).

One factor in the differentiation of the dialects is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fīh and North African kayən all mean 'there is', and all come from Classical Arabic forms (yakūn, fīhi, kā'in respectively), but now sound very different.

===Examples===
Transcription is a broad IPA transcription, so minor differences were ignored for easier comparison.

 Variety I love reading a lot When I went to the library I didn't find this old book I wanted to read a book about the history of women in France. 
 Literary Arabic in Arabic script(dialects are written in other non-standardized spellings) 
 Classical Arabic(liturgical or poetic only) 
 Modern Standard Arabic 
 Yemeni Arabic (Sanaa) 
 Gulf Arabic (Kuwait) 
 Gilit Mesopotamian (Baghdad?) 
 Hijazi Arabic (Makka?) 
 Western Syrian Arabic (Damascus) 
 Lebanese Arabic (Beyrut?) 
 Urban Palestinian (Jerusalem). 
 Rural Palestinian (West Bank). 
 Egyptian (Cairo) 
 Libyan Arabic (Tripoli?) 
 Tunisian (Tunis?) 
 Algerian (Algiers?) 
 Moroccan (Rabat?) 

=== Koine ===
According to Charles A. Ferguson, the following are some of the characteristic features of the koine that underlies all of the modern dialects outside the Arabian peninsula. Although many other features are common to most or all of these varieties, Ferguson believes that these features in particular are unlikely to have evolved independently more than once or twice and together suggest the existence of the koine:
* Loss of the dual (grammatical number) except on nouns, with consistent plural agreement (cf. feminine singular agreement in plural inanimates).
* Change of a to i in many affixes (e.g., non-past-tense prefixes ti- yi- ni-; wi- 'and'; il- 'the'; feminine -it in the construct state).
* Loss of third-weak verbs ending in w (which merge with verbs ending in y).
* Reformation of geminate verbs, e.g., 'I untied' → .
* Conversion of separate words lī 'to me', laka 'to you', etc. into indirect-object clitic suffixes.
* Certain changes in the cardinal number system, e.g., 'five days' → , where certain words have a special plural with prefixed t.
* Loss of the feminine elative (comparative).
* Adjective plurals of the form 'big' → .
* Change of nisba suffix > .
* Certain lexical items, e.g., 'bring' < 'come with'; 'see'; 'what' (or similar) < 'which thing'; (relative pronoun).
* Merger of and .

=== Dialect groups ===
* Egyptian Arabic, spoken by around 55 million in Egypt. It is one of the most understood varieties of Arabic, due in large part to the widespread distribution of Egyptian films and television shows throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
* Levantine Arabic includes North Levantine Arabic, South Levantine Arabic and Cypriot Arabic. It is spoken by about 21 million people in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Cyprus and Turkey.
* Maghrebi Arabic, spoken by about 70 million people in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Malta. It is very hard to understand for Arabic speakers from the Mashriq or Mesopotamia, the easiest being Libyan Arabic and the hardest Moroccan Arabic and Maltese language.
* Maltese, spoken on the island of Malta, is the only dialect to have established itself as a fully separate language, with independent literary norms. Sicilian Arabic, spoken on the island of Sicily until the 14th century, developed into Maltese in Malta. In the course of its history the language has adopted numerous loanwords, phonetic and phonological features, and even some grammatical patterns, from Italian, Sicilian and English. It is also the only Semitic language written in the Latin script. 
* Mesopotamian Arabic, spoken by about 15 million people in Iraq, eastern Syria and southwestern Iran (Khuzestan).
* Sudanese Arabic is spoken by 17 million people in Sudan and some parts of southern Egypt. Sudanese Arabic is quite distinct from the dialect of its neighbor to the north; rather, the Sudanese have a dialect similar to the Hijazi dialect.
* Gulf Arabic, spoken by around four million people, predominantly in Kuwait, Bahrain, some parts of Oman, eastern Saudi Arabia coastal areas and some parts of UAE and Qatar. Also spoken in Iran's Bushehr and Hormozgan provinces. Although Gulf Arabic is spoken in Qatar, most Qatari citizens speak Najdi Arabic (Bedawi).
* Yemeni Arabic spoken in Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti and southern Saudi Arabia by 15 million people. Similar to Gulf Arabic.
* Najdi Arabic, spoken by around 10 million people, mainly spoken in Najd, central and northern Saudi Arabia. Most Qatari citizens speak Najdi Arabic (Bedawi).
* Hejazi Arabic (6 million speakers), spoken in Hijaz, western Saudi Arabia
* Hassaniya Arabic (3 million speakers), spoken in Mauritania, Western Sahara, some parts of northern Mali, southern Morocco and south-western Algeria.
* Bahrani Arabic (600,000 speakers), spoken by Bahrani Shiʻah in Bahrain and Qatif, the dialect exhibits many big differences from Gulf Arabic. It is also spoken to a lesser extent in Oman.
* Judeo-Arabic dialects
* Central Asian Arabic, spoken in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, is highly endangered
* The Muslim Hui people in China had knowledge of archaic forms of Arabic. The Hui of Yunnan (Burmaese called them Panthays) were reported to be fluent in Arabic. (Original from Harvard University) During the Panthay Rebellion, Arabic replaced Chinese as official language of the rebel kingdom. (Original from the University of Virginia) In 1844 "The Chinese repository, Volume 13" was published, including an account of an Englishman who stayed in Ningbo in China. There he visited the local mosque, the Hui running the mosque was from Shandong and he was a descendant of Muslims from the city of Medina. He spoke both Arabic and Chinese, and could read Arabic as well. (Original from Harvard University) In Tianjin, Hui could speak an old, archaic form of Arabic, when they met Arab Muslims in recent times, it was found out that Old Arabic and Modern Arabic were very different, so Modern Arabic is now being taught to Hui. 
* Samaritan Arabic - spoken by only several hundred in the Nablus region
* Shirvani Arabic, spoken in Azerbaijan and Dagestan until the 1930s, now extinct.
* Andalusian Arabic, spoken in Spain and Portugal until the 16th century.
* Sicilian Arabic, spoken in Sicily until the 14th century, developed into Maltese in Malta.

== Phonology ==

The "colloquial" spoken varieties of Arabic are learned at home and constitute the native languages of Arabic speakers. "Formal" Literary Arabic (usually specifically Modern Standard Arabic) is learned at school; although many speakers have a native-like command of the language, it is technically not the native language of any speakers. Both varieties can be both written and spoken, although the colloquial varieties are rarely written down and the formal variety is spoken mostly in formal circumstances, e.g., in radio broadcasts, formal lectures, parliamentary discussions and to some extent between speakers of different colloquial varieties. Even when the literary language is spoken, however, it is normally only spoken in its pure form when reading a prepared text out loud. When speaking extemporaneously (i.e. making up the language on the spot, as in a normal discussion among people), speakers tend to deviate somewhat from the strict literary language in the direction of the colloquial varieties. In fact, there is a continuous range of "in-between" spoken varieties: from nearly pure Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), to a form that still uses MSA grammar and vocabulary but with significant colloquial influence, to a form of the colloquial language that imports a number of words and grammatical constructions in MSA, to a form that is close to pure colloquial but with the "rough edges" (the most noticeably "vulgar" or non-Classical aspects) smoothed out, to pure colloquial. The particular variant (or register) used depends on the social class and education level of the speakers involved and the level of formality of the speech situation. Often it will vary within a single encounter, e.g., moving from nearly pure MSA to a more mixed language in the process of a radio interview, as the interviewee becomes more comfortable with the interviewer. This type of variation is characteristic of the diglossia that exists throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

=== Literary Arabic ===
Although Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is a unitary language, its pronunciation varies somewhat from country to country and from region to region within a country. The variation in individual "accents" of MSA speakers tends to mirror corresponding variations in the colloquial speech of the speakers in question, but with the distinguishing characteristics moderated somewhat. Note that it is important in descriptions of "Arabic" phonology to distinguish between pronunciation of a given colloquial (spoken) dialect and the pronunciation of MSA by these same speakers. Although they are related, they are not the same. For example, the phoneme that derives from Proto-Semitic /g/ has many different pronunciations in the modern spoken varieties, e.g., . Speakers whose native variety has either or will use the same pronunciation when speaking MSA, even speakers from Cairo, whose native Egyptian Arabic has , normally use when speaking MSA. of Persian Gulf is the only pronunciation which isn't pronounced in MSA, but instead .

Another example: Many colloquial varieties are known for a type of vowel harmony in which the presence of an "emphatic consonant" triggers backed allophones of nearby vowels (especially of the low vowels , which are backed to in these circumstances and very often fronted to in all other circumstances). In many spoken varieties, the backed or "emphatic" vowel allophones spread a fair distance in both directions from the triggering consonant; in some varieties (most notably Egyptian Arabic), the "emphatic" allophones spread throughout the entire word, usually including prefixes and suffixes, even at a distance of several syllables from the triggering consonant. Speakers of colloquial varieties with this vowel harmony tend to introduce it into their MSA pronunciation as well, but usually with a lesser degree of spreading than in the colloquial varieties. (For example, speakers of colloquial varieties with extremely long-distance harmony may allow a moderate, but not extreme, amount of spreading of the harmonic allophones in their MSA speech, while speakers of colloquial varieties with moderate-distance harmony may only harmonize immediately adjacent vowels in MSA.)

==== Vowels ====
Modern Standard Arabic has six pure vowels, with short and corresponding long vowels . There are also two diphthongs: and .

The pronunciation of the vowels differs from speaker to speaker, in a way that tends to echo the pronunciation of the corresponding colloquial variety. Nonetheless, there are some common trends. Most noticeable is the differing pronunciation of and , which tend towards fronted , or in most situations, but a back in the neighborhood of emphatic consonants. (Some accents and dialects, such as those of Hijaz, have central in all situations.) The vowels and are often affected somewhat in emphatic neighborhoods as well, with generally more back and/or centralized allophones, but the differences are less great than for the low vowels. The pronunciation of short and tends towards and in many dialects.

The definition of both "emphatic" and "neighborhood" vary in ways that echo (to some extent) corresponding variations in the spoken dialects. Generally, the consonants triggering "emphatic" allophones are the pharyngealized consonants ; ; and , if not followed immediately by . Frequently, the fricatives also trigger emphatic allophones; occasionally also the pharyngeal consonants (the former more than the latter). Many dialects have multiple emphatic allophones of each vowel, depending on the particular nearby consonants. In most MSA accents, emphatic coloring of vowels is limited to vowels immediately adjacent to a triggering consonant, although in some it spreads a bit farther: e.g., 'time'; 'homeland'; 'downtown' (sometimes or similar).

In a non-emphatic environment, the vowel /a/ in the diphthong tends to be fronted even more than elsewhere, often pronounced or : hence 'sword' but 'summer'. However, in accents with no emphatic allophones of /a/ (e.g., in the Hijaz), the pronunciation occurs in all situations.

==== Consonants ====

 Standardized Arabic consonant phonemes 
 Labial Inter-dental Dental/Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn-geal4 Glottal 
 plain emphatic emphatic plain 
 Nasal 
 Plosive voiceless 
 voiced 3 ~~~~1 
 Fricative voiceless 6 ~5 4 
 voiced ~ ~5 4 
 Approximant 2 
 Trill 

# This phoneme is represented by the Arabic letter () and has many standard pronunciations. is characteristic of north Algeria, Iraq, also in most of the Arabian peninsula but with an allophonic in some positions; occurs in most of the Levant and most North Africa; and is used in most of Egypt and some regions in Yemen and Oman. Generally this corresponds with the pronunciation in the colloquial dialects. In some regions in Sudan and Yemen, as well as in some Sudanese and Yemeni dialects, it may be either or , representing the original pronunciation of Classical Arabic. Foreign words containing may be transcribed with , , , , , or , mainly depending on the regional spoken variety of Arabic or the commonly diacriticized Arabic letter. Note also that in northern Egypt, where the Arabic letter () is normally pronounced , a separate phoneme , which may be transcribed with , occurs in a small number of mostly non-Arabic loanwords, e.g., 'jacket'.
# is pronounced in , the name of God, q.e. Allah, when the word follows a, ā, u or ū (after i or ī it is unvelarized: bismi l–lāh ). Some speakers velarize other occurrences of /l/ in MSA, in imitation of their spoken dialects.
# The emphatic consonant was actually pronounced , or possibly &mdash;either way, a highly unusual sound. The medieval Arabs actually termed their language 'the language of the Ḍād' (the name of the letter used for this sound), since they thought the sound was unique to their language. (In fact, it also exists in a few other minority Semitic languages, e.g., Mehri.)
# In many varieties, () are actually epiglottal (despite what is reported in many earlier works).
# and () are often post-velar, though velar and uvular pronunciations are also possible. 
# () can be pronounced as or even . In some places of Maghreb it can be also pronounced as .

Arabic has consonants traditionally termed "emphatic" (), which exhibit simultaneous pharyngealization as well as varying degrees of velarization , so they may be written with the "Velarized or pharyngealized" diacritic () as: . This simultaneous articulation is described as "Retracted Tongue Root" by phonologists. e.g., In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter, for example, is written ; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it, for example, .

Vowels and consonants can be phonologically short or long. Long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription (i.e. bb, dd, etc.), reflecting the presence of the Arabic diacritic mark , which indicates doubled consonants. In actual pronunciation, doubled consonants are held twice as long as short consonants. This consonant lengthening is phonemically contrastive: 'he accepted' vs. 'he kissed'.

==== Syllable structure ====
Arabic has two kinds of syllables: open syllables (CV) and (CVV)—and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC). The syllable types with three morae (units of time), i.e. CVC and CVV, are termed heavy syllables, while those with four morae, i.e. CVVC and CVCC, are superheavy syllables. Superheavy syllables in Classical Arabic occur in only two places: at the end of the sentence (due to pausal pronunciation) and in words such as 'hot', 'stuff, substance', 'they disputed with each other', where a long occurs before two identical consonants (a former short vowel between the consonants has been lost). (In less formal pronunciations of Modern Standard Arabic, superheavy syllables are common at the end of words or before clitic suffixes such as 'us, our', due to the deletion of final short vowels.)

In surface pronunciation, every vowel must be preceded by a consonant (which may include the glottal stop ). There are no cases of hiatus within a word (where two vowels occur next to each other, without an intervening consonant). Some words do have an underlying vowel at the beginning, such as the definite article al- or words such as 'he bought', 'meeting'. When actually pronounced, one of three things happens:
* If the word occurs after another word ending in a consonant, there is a smooth transition from final consonant to initial vowel, e.g., 'meeting' .
* If the word occurs after another word ending in a vowel, the initial vowel of the word is elided, e.g., 'house of the director' .
* If the word occurs at the beginning of an utterance, a glottal stop is added onto the beginning, e.g., 'The house is ...' .

==== Stress ====
Word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic. It bears a strong relationship to vowel length. The basic rules for Modern Standard Arabic are:
* A final vowel, long or short, may not be stressed.
* Only one of the last three syllables may be stressed.
* Given this restriction, the last heavy syllable (containing a long vowel or ending in a consonant) is stressed, if it is not the final syllable.
* If the final syllable is super heavy and closed (of the form CVVC or CVCC) it receives stress.
* If no syllable is heavy or super heavy, the first possible syllable (i.e. third from end) is stressed.
* As a special exception, in Form VII and VIII verb forms stress may not be on the first syllable, despite the above rules: Hence 'he subscribed' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced), 'he subscribes' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced), 'he should subscribe (juss.)'. Likewise Form VIII 'he bought', 'he buys'.

Examples: 'book', 'writer', 'desk', 'desks', 'library' (but 'library' in short pronunciation), (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they wrote' = (dialect), (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they wrote it' = (dialect), (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they (dual, fem) wrote', (Modern Standard Arabic) 'I wrote' = (short form or dialect). Doubled consonants count as two consonants: 'magazine', "place".

These rules may result in differently stressed syllables when final case endings are pronounced, vs. the normal situation where they are not pronounced, as in the above example of 'library' in full pronunciation, but 'library' in short pronunciation.

The restriction on final long vowels does not apply to the spoken dialects, where original final long vowels have been shortened and secondary final long vowels have arisen from loss of original final -hu/hi.

Some dialects have different stress rules. In the Cairo (Egyptian Arabic) dialect a heavy syllable may not carry stress more than two syllables from the end of a word, hence 'school', 'Cairo'. This also affects the way that Modern Standard Arabic is pronounced in Egypt. In the Arabic of Sanaa, stress is often retracted: 'two houses', 'their table', 'desks', 'sometimes', 'their school'. (In this dialect, only syllables with long vowels or diphthongs are considered heavy; in a two-syllable word, the final syllable can be stressed only if the preceding syllable is light; and in longer words, the final syllable cannot be stressed.)

==== Levels of pronunciation ====
The final short vowels (e.g., the case endings -a -i -u and mood endings -u -a) are often not pronounced in this language, despite forming part of the formal paradigm of nouns and verbs. The following levels of pronunciation exist:

===== Full pronunciation =====

===== Full pronunciation with pausa =====
This is the most formal level actually used in speech. All endings are pronounced as written, except at the end of an utterance, where the following changes occur:
* Final short vowels are not pronounced. (But possibly an exception is made for feminine plural -na and shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!'".)
* The entire indefinite noun endings -in and -un (with nunation) are left off. The ending -an is left off of nouns preceded by a tāʾ marbūṭah ة (i.e. the -t in the ending -at- that typically marks feminine nouns), but pronounced as -ā in other nouns (hence its writing in this fashion in the Arabic script).
* The tāʼ marbūṭah itself (typically of feminine nouns) is pronounced as h. (At least, this is the case in extremely formal pronunciation, e.g., some Quranic recitations. In practice, this h is usually omitted.)

===== Formal short pronunciation =====
This is a formal level of pronunciation sometimes seen. It is somewhat like pronouncing all words as if they were in pausal position (with influence from the colloquial varieties). The following changes occur:
* Most final short vowels are not pronounced. However, the following short vowels are pronounced:
** feminine plural -na
** shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!'
** second-person singular feminine past-tense -ti and likewise anti 'you (fem. sg.)'
** sometimes, first-person singular past-tense -tu
** sometimes, second-person masculine past-tense -ta and likewise anta 'you (masc. sg.)'
** final -a in certain short words, e.g., laysa 'is not', sawfa (future-tense marker)
* The nunation endings -an -in -un are not pronounced. However, they are pronounced in adverbial accusative formations, e.g., تَقْرِيبًا 'almost, approximately', عَادَةً 'usually'.
* The tāʾ marbūṭah ending ة is unpronounced, except in construct state nouns, where it sounds as t (and in adverbial accusative constructions, e.g., عَادَةً 'usually', where the entire -tan is pronounced).
* The masculine singular nisbah ending is actually pronounced and is unstressed (but plural and feminine singular forms, i.e. when followed by a suffix, still sound as ).
* Full endings (including case endings) occur when a clitic object or possessive suffix is added (e.g., 'us/our').

===== Informal short pronunciation =====
This is the pronunciation used by speakers of Modern Standard Arabic in extemporaneous speech, i.e. when producing new sentences rather than simply reading a prepared text. It is similar to formal short pronunciation except that the rules for dropping final vowels apply even when a clitic suffix is added. Basically, short-vowel case and mood endings are never pronounced and certain other changes occur that echo the corresponding colloquial pronunciations. Specifically:
* All the rules for formal short pronunciation apply, except as follows.
* The past tense singular endings written formally as -tu -ta -ti are pronounced -t -t -ti. But masculine is pronounced in full.
* Unlike in formal short pronunciation, the rules for dropping or modifying final endings are also applied when a clitic object or possessive suffix is added (e.g., 'us/our'). If this produces a sequence of three consonants, then one of the following happens, depending on the speaker's native colloquial variety:
** A short vowel (e.g., -i- or -ǝ-) is consistently added, either between the second and third or the first and second consonants.
** Or, a short vowel is added only if an otherwise unpronounceable sequence occurs, typically due to a violation of the sonority hierarchy (e.g., -rtn- is pronounced as a three-consonant cluster, but -trn- needs to be broken up).
** Or, a short vowel is never added, but consonants like r l m n occurring between two other consonants will be pronounced as a syllabic consonant (as in the English words "butter bottle bottom button").
** When a doubled consonant occurs before another consonant (or finally), it is often shortened to a single consonant rather than a vowel added. (But note that Moroccan Arabic never shortens doubled consonants or inserts short vowels to break up clusters, instead tolerating arbitrary-length series of arbitrary consonants and hence Moroccan Arabic speakers are likely to follow the same rules in their pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic.)
* The clitic suffixes themselves tend also to be changed, in a way that avoids many possible occurrences of three-consonant clusters. In particular, -ka -ki -hu generally sound as -ak -ik -uh.
* Final long vowels are often shortened, merging with any short vowels that remain.
* Depending on the level of formality, the speaker's education level, etc., various grammatical changes may occur in ways that echo the colloquial variants:
** Any remaining case endings (e.g. masculine plural nominative -ūn vs. oblique -īn) will be leveled, with the oblique form used everywhere. (However, in words like 'father' and 'brother' with special long-vowel case endings in the construct state, the nominative is used everywhere, hence 'father of', 'brother of'.)
** Feminine plural endings in verbs and clitic suffixes will often drop out, with the masculine plural endings used instead. If the speaker's native variety has feminine plural endings, they may be preserved, but will often be modified in the direction of the forms used in the speaker's native variety, e.g. -an instead of -na.
** Dual endings will often drop out except on nouns and then used only for emphasis (similar to their use in the colloquial varieties); elsewhere, the plural endings are used (or feminine singular, if appropriate).

=== Colloquial varieties ===

====Vowels====
As mentioned above, many spoken dialects have a process of emphasis spreading, where the "emphasis" (pharyngealization) of emphatic consonants spreads forward and back through adjacent syllables, pharyngealizing all nearby consonants and triggering the back allophone in all nearby low vowels. The extent of emphasis spreading varies. For example, in Moroccan Arabic, it spreads as far as the first full vowel (i.e. sound derived from a long vowel or diphthong) on either side; in many Levantine dialects, it spreads indefinitely, but is blocked by any or ; while in Egyptian Arabic, it usually spreads throughout the entire word, including prefixes and suffixes. In Moroccan Arabic, also have emphatic allophones .

Unstressed short vowels, especially , are deleted in many contexts. Many sporadic examples of short vowel change have occurred (especially /a/→/i/ and interchange /i/↔/u/). Most Levantine dialects merge short /i u/ into /ǝ/ in most contexts (all except directly before a single final consonant). In Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, short /u/ triggers labialization of nearby consonants (especially velar consonants and uvular consonants), and then short /a i u/ all merge into /ǝ/, which is deleted in many contexts. (The labialization plus /ǝ/ is sometimes interpreted as an underlying phoneme .) This essentially causes the wholesale loss of the short-long vowel distinction, with the original long vowels remaining as half-long , phonemically , which are used to represent both short and long vowels in borrowings from Literary Arabic.

Most spoken dialects have monophthongized original to (in all circumstances, including adjacent to emphatic consonants). In Moroccan Arabic, these have subsequently merged into original .

====Consonants====
In some dialects, there may be more or fewer phonemes than those listed in the chart above. For example, non-Arabic is used in the Maghrebi dialects as well in the written language mostly for foreign names. Semitic became extremely early on in Arabic before it was written down; a few modern Arabic dialects, such as Iraqi (influenced by Persian and Turkish) distinguish between and . The Iraqi Arabic uses also sounds , and uses Persian adding letters, e.g.: – a plum; – a truffle and so on.

Early in the expansion of Arabic, the separate emphatic phonemes and coalesced into a single phoneme . Many dialects (such as Egyptian, Levantine, and much of the Maghreb) subsequently lost fricatives, converting into . Most dialects borrow "learned" words from the Standard language using the same pronunciation as for inherited words, but some dialects without interdental fricatives (particularly in Egypt and the Levant) render original in borrowed words as .

Another key distinguishing mark of Arabic dialects is how they render the original velar and uvular plosives , (Proto-Semitic ), and :
* retains its original pronunciation in widely scattered regions such as Yemen, Morocco, and urban areas of the Maghreb. It is pronounced as a glottal stop in several prestige dialects, such as those spoken in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. But it is rendered as a voiced velar plosive in Persian Gulf, Upper Egypt, parts of the Maghreb, and less urban parts of the Levant (e.g. Jordan). In Iraqi Arabic it sometimes retains its original pronunciation and is sometimes rendered as a voiced velar plosive, depending on the word. Some traditionally Christian villages in rural areas of the Levant render the sound as , as do Shiʻi Bahrainis. In some Gulf dialects, it is palatalized to or . It is pronounced as a voiced uvular constrictive in Sudanese Arabic. Many dialects with a modified pronunciation for maintain the pronunciation in certain words (often with religious or educational overtones) borrowed from the Classical language.
* is pronounced as an affricate in Iraq and much of the Arabian Peninsula, but is pronounced in most of North Egypt and parts of Yemen and Oman, in Morocco, Tunisia and the Levant, and , in most words in much of the Persian Gulf.
* usually retains its original pronunciation, but is palatalized to in many words in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Iraq, and much of the Arabian Peninsula. Often a distinction is made between the suffixes ('you', masc.) and ('you', fem.), which become and , respectively. In Sana'a, Omani, and Bahrani is pronounced .

Pharyngealization of the emphatic consonants tends to weaken in many of the spoken varieties, and to spread from emphatic consonants to nearby sounds. In addition, the "emphatic" allophone automatically triggers pharyngealization of adjacent sounds in many dialects. As a result, it may difficult or impossible to determine whether a given coronal consonant is phonemically emphatic or not, especially in dialects with long-distance emphasis spreading. (A notable exception is the sounds vs. in Moroccan Arabic, because the former is pronounced as an affricate but the latter is not.)

== Grammar ==
Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works.

=== Literary Arabic ===

As in other Semitic languages, Arabic has a complex and unusual morphology (i.e. method of constructing words from a basic root). Arabic has a nonconcatenative "root-and-pattern" morphology: A root consists of a set of bare consonants (usually three), which are fitted into a discontinuous pattern to form words. For example, the word for 'I wrote' is constructed by combining the root 'write' with the pattern 'I Xed' to form 'I wrote'. Other verbs meaning 'I Xed' will typically have the same pattern but with different consonants, e.g. 'I read', 'I ate', 'I went', although other patterns are possible (e.g. 'I drank', 'I said', 'I spoke', where the subpattern used to signal the past tense may change but the suffix is always used).

From a single root , numerous words can be formed by applying different patterns:
* 'I wrote'
* 'I had (something) written'
* 'I corresponded (with someone)'"
* 'I dictated'
* 'I subscribed'
* 'we corresponded with each other'
* 'I write'
* 'I have (something) written'
* 'I correspond (with someone)'
* 'I dictate'
* 'I subscribe'
* 'we correspond each other'
* 'it was written'
* 'it was dictated'"
* 'written'
* 'dictated'
* 'book'
* 'books'
* 'writer'
* 'writers'
* 'desk, office'
* 'library, bookshop'
* etc.

====Nouns and adjectives====
Nouns in Literary Arabic have three grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, and genitive used when the noun is governed by a preposition); three numbers (singular, dual and plural); two genders (masculine and feminine); and three "states" (indefinite, definite, and construct). The cases of singular nouns (other than those that end in long ā) are indicated by suffixed short vowels (/-u/ for nominative, /-a/ for accusative, /-i/ for genitive).

The feminine singular is often marked by /-at/, which is reduced to /-ah/ or /-a/ before a pause. Plural is indicated either through endings (the sound plural) or internal modification (the broken plural). Definite nouns include all proper nouns, all nouns in "construct state" and all nouns which are prefixed by the definite article /al-/. Indefinite singular nouns (other than those that end in long ā) add a final /-n/ to the case-marking vowels, giving /-un/, /-an/ or /-in/ (which is also referred to as nunation or tanwīn).

Adjectives in Literary Arabic are marked for case, number, gender and state, as for nouns. However, the plural of all non-human nouns is always combined with a singular feminine adjective, which takes the /-ah/ or /-at/ suffix.

Pronouns in Literary Arabic are marked for person, number and gender. There are two varieties, independent pronouns and enclitics. Enclitic pronouns are attached to the end of a verb, noun or preposition and indicate verbal and prepositional objects or possession of nouns. The first-person singular pronoun has a different enclitic form used for verbs (/-ni/) and for nouns or prepositions (/-ī/ after consonants, /-ya/ after vowels).

Nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives agree with each other in all respects. However, non-human plural nouns are grammatically considered to be feminine singular. Furthermore, a verb in a verb-initial sentence is marked as singular regardless of its semantic number when the subject of the verb is explicitly mentioned as a noun. Numerals between three and ten show "chiasmic" agreement, in that grammatically masculine numerals have feminine marking and vice versa.

====Verbs====
Verbs in Literary Arabic are marked for person (first, second, or third), gender, and number. They are conjugated in two major paradigms (past and non-past); two voices (active and passive); and six moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, jussive, shorter energetic and longer energetic), the fifth and sixth moods, the energetics, exist only in Classical Arabic but not in MSA. Rydin, Karin C. (2005). A reference grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. New York: Cambridge University Press. There are also two participles (active and passive) and a verbal noun, but no infinitive.

The past and non-past paradigms are sometimes also termed perfective and imperfective, indicating the fact that they actually represent a combination of tense and aspect. The moods other than the indicative occur only in the non-past, and the future tense is signaled by prefixing or onto the non-past. The past and non-past differ in the form of the stem (e.g., past vs. non-past ), and also use completely different sets of affixes for indicating person, number and gender: In the past, the person, number and gender are fused into a single suffixal morpheme, while in the non-past, a combination of prefixes (primarily encoding person) and suffixes (primarily encoding gender and number) are used. The passive voice uses the same person/number/gender affixes but changes the vowels of the stem.

The following shows a paradigm of a regular Arabic verb, 'to write'. Note that in Modern Standard Arabic, many final short vowels are dropped (indicated in parentheses below), and the energetic mood (in either long or short form, which have the same meaning) is almost never used.

====Derivation====
Unlike most languages, Arabic has virtually no means of deriving words by adding prefixes or suffixes to words. Instead, they are formed according to a finite (but fairly large) number of templates applied to roots.

For verbs, a given root can construct up to fifteen different verbs, each with one or more characteristic meanings and each with its own templates for the past and non-past stems, active and passive participles, and verbal noun. These are referred to by Western scholars as "Form I", "Form II", and so on through "Form XV" (although Forms XI to XV are rare). These forms encode concepts such as the causative, intensive and reflexive. These forms can be viewed as analogous to verb conjugations in languages such as Spanish in terms of the additional complexity of verb formation that they induce. (Note, however, that their usage in constructing vocabulary is somewhat different, since the same root can be conjugated in multiple forms, with different shades of meaning.)

Examples of the different verbs formed from the root 'write' (using 'red' for Form IX, which is limited to colors and physical defects):

+Most of these forms are exclusively Classical Arabic Form Past Meaning Non-past Meaning 
 I 'he wrote' 'he writes' 
 II 'he made (someone) write' \"he makes (someone) write\" 
 III 'he corresponded with, wrote to (someone)' 'he corresponds with, writes to (someone)' 
 IV 'he dictated' 'he dictates' 
 V 'nonexistent' 'nonexistent' 
 VI 'he corresponded (with someone, esp. mutually)' 'he corresponds (with someone, esp. mutually)' 
 VII 'he subscribed' 'he subscribes' 
 VIII 'he copied' 'he copies' 
 IX 'he turned red' 'he turns red' 
 X 'he asked (someone) to write' 'he asks (someone) to write' 

Form II is sometimes used to create transitive denominative verbs (verbs built from nouns); Form V is the equivalent used for intransitive denominatives.

The associated participles and verbal nouns of a verb are the primary means of forming new lexical nouns in Arabic. This is similar to the process by which, for example, the English gerund "meeting" (similar to a verbal noun) has turned into a noun referring to a particular type of social, often work-related event where people gather together to have a "discussion" (another lexicalized verbal noun). Another fairly common means of forming nouns is through one of a limited number of patterns that can be applied directly to roots, such as the "nouns of location" in ma- (e.g. 'desk, office' < 'write', 'kitchen' < 'cook').

The only three genuine suffixes are as follows:
* The feminine suffix -ah; variously derives terms from women from related terms for men, or more generally terms along the same lines as the corresponding masculine, e.g. 'library' (also a writing-related place, but different than , as above).
* The nisbah suffix -iyy-. This suffix is extremely productive, and forms adjectives meaning "related to X". It corresponds to English adjectives in -ic, -al, -an, -y, -ist, etc.
* The feminine nisbah suffix -iyyah. This is formed by adding the feminine suffix -ah onto nisba adjectives to form abstract nouns. For example, from the basic root 'share' can be derived the Form VIII verb 'to cooperate, participate', and in turn its verbal noun 'cooperation, participation' can be formed. This in turn can be made into a nisbah adjective 'socialist', from which an abstract noun 'socialism' can be derived. Other recent formations are 'republic' (lit. "public-ness", < 'multitude, general public'), and the Gaddafi-specific variation 'people's republic' (lit. "masses-ness", < 'the masses', pl. of , as above).

=== Colloquial varieties ===

The spoken dialects have lost the case distinctions and make only limited use of the dual (it occurs only on nouns and its use is no longer required in all circumstances). They have lost the mood distinctions other than imperative, but many have since gained new moods through the use of prefixes (most often /bi-/ for indicative vs. unmarked subjunctive). They have also mostly lost the indefinite "nunation" and the internal passive.

The following is an example of a regular verb paradigm in Egyptian Arabic.

+Example of a regular Form I verb in Egyptian Arabic, kátab/yíktib \"write\" Tense/Mood Past Present Subjunctive Present Indicative Future Imperative 
 Singular 
 1st katáb-t á-ktib bá-ktib ḥá-ktib 
 2nd masculine katáb-t tí-ktib bi-tí-ktib ḥa-tí-ktib í-ktib 
 feminine katáb-ti ti-ktíb-i bi-ti-ktíb-i ḥa-ti-ktíb-i i-ktíb-i 
 3rd masculine kátab yí-ktib bi-yí-ktib ḥa-yí-ktib 
 feminine kátab-it tí-ktib bi-tí-ktib ḥa-tí-ktib 
 Plural 
 1st katáb-na ní-ktib bi-ní-ktib ḥá-ní-ktib 
 2nd katáb-tu ti-ktíb-u bi-ti-ktíb-u ḥa-ti-ktíb-u i-ktíb-u 
 3rd kátab-u yi-ktíb-u bi-yi-ktíb-u ḥa-yi-ktíb-u 

== Writing system ==

Islamic calligraphy written by a Malay Muslim in Malaysia. The calligrapher is making a rough draft.
The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic through Nabatean, to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic scripts to Greek script. Traditionally, there were several differences between the Western (North African) and Middle Eastern versions of the alphabet—in particular, the faʼ had a dot underneath and qaf a single dot above in the Maghreb, and the order of the letters was slightly different (at least when they were used as numerals).

However, the old Maghrebi variant has been abandoned except for calligraphic purposes in the Maghreb itself, and remains in use mainly in the Quranic schools (zaouias) of West Africa. Arabic, like all other Semitic languages (except for the Latin-written Maltese, and the languages with the Ge'ez script), is written from right to left. There are several styles of script, notably naskh, which is used in print and by computers, and ruqʻah, which is commonly used in handwriting. 

=== Calligraphy ===

After Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi finally fixed the Arabic script around 786, many styles were developed, both for the writing down of the Quran and other books, and for inscriptions on monuments as decoration.

Arabic calligraphy has not fallen out of use as calligraphy has in the Western world, and is still considered by Arabs as a major art form; calligraphers are held in great esteem. Being cursive by nature, unlike the Latin script, Arabic script is used to write down a verse of the Quran, a hadith, or simply a proverb. The composition is often abstract, but sometimes the writing is shaped into an actual form such as that of an animal. One of the current masters of the genre is Hassan Massoudy.

=== Romanization ===

 Examples of different transliteration/transcription schemes Letter IPA UNGEGN ALA-LC Wehr DIN ISO SAS -2 BATR ArabTeX chat 
 , ' e ' 2 
 aa aa / A a a/e/é 
 , y y; y; e y; ii y y; i/ee; ei/ai 
 th ç c _t s/th 
 ~~ j j j ^g j/g/dj 
 H .h 7 
 kh j x K _h kh/7'/5 
 dh đ z' _d z/dh/th 
 sh x ^s sh/ch 
 S .s s/9 
 D .d d/9' 
 T .t t/6 
 ~ đ̣ Z .z z/dh/6' 
 ř E ' 3 
 gh g j g .g gh/3'/8 

There are a number of different standards for the romanization of Arabic, i.e. methods of accurately and efficiently representing Arabic with the Latin script. There are various conflicting motivations involved, which leads to multiple systems. Some are interested in transliteration, i.e. representing the spelling of Arabic, while others focus on transcription, i.e. representing the pronunciation of Arabic. (They differ in that, for example, the same letter is used to represent both a consonant, as in "you" or "yet", and a vowel, as in "me" or "eat".) Some systems, e.g. for scholarly use, are intended to accurately and unambiguously represent the phonemes of Arabic, generally making the phonetics more explicit than the original word in the Arabic script. These systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks such as "š" for the sound equivalently written sh in English. Other systems (e.g. the Bahá'í orthography) are intended to help readers who are neither Arabic speakers nor linguists to intuitively pronounce Arabic names and phrases. Kharusi, N. S. & Salman, A. (2011) The English Transliteration of Place Names in Oman. Journal of Academic and Applied Studies Vol. 1(3) September 2011, pp. 1–27 Available online at www.academians.org These less "scientific" tend to avoid diacritics and use digraphs (like sh and kh). These are usually more simple to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems, and may lead to ambiguities, e.g. whether to interpret sh as a single sound, as in gash, or a combination of two sounds, as in gashouse. The ALA-LC romanization solves this problem by separating the two sounds with a prime symbol ( ′ ); e.g., as′hal 'easier'.

During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin script only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic script as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script, sometimes known as IM Arabic.

To handle those Arabic letters that cannot be accurately represented using the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. For example, the numeral "3" may be used to represent the Arabic letter . There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet. Other systems of transliteration exist, such as using dots or capitalization to represent the "emphatic" counterparts of certain consonants. For instance, using capitalization, the letter , may be represented by d. Its emphatic counterpart, , may be written as D.

=== Numerals ===
In most of present-day North Africa, the Western Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) are used. However, in Egypt and Arabic-speaking countries to the east of it, the Eastern Arabic numerals ( – – – – – – – – – ) are in use. When representing a number in Arabic, the lowest-valued position is placed on the right, so the order of positions is the same as in left-to-right scripts. Sequences of digits such as telephone numbers are read from left to right, but numbers are spoken in the traditional Arabic fashion, with units and tens reversed from the modern English usage. For example, 24 is said "four and twenty" just like in the German language (vierundzwanzig) and Classical Hebrew, and 1975 is said "a thousand and nine-hundred and five and seventy" or, more eloquently, "five and seventy and nine-hundred and a thousand."

== Language-standards regulators ==
Academy of the Arabic Language is the name of a number of language-regulation bodies formed in the Arab League. The most active are in Damascus and Cairo. They review language development, monitor new words and approve inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts.

== Studying Arabic ==
Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around the world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages, Middle Eastern studies, and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study the language. Software and books with tapes are also important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. 

 English Arabic Arabic (vowelled) Romanization (ALA-LC) IPA 
 English or or (varies) (varies) 
 Yes 
 No 
 Hello 
 Peace (Usually Islamic) 
 How are you? 
 Welcome 
 Goodbye 
 Please 
 Thanks 
 Excuse me 
 I'm sorry 
 What's your name? 
 How much? 
 I don't understand. 
 I don't speak Arabic. 
 I don't know. 
 I'm hungry. 
 Orange 
 Black 
 One 
 Two 
 Three 
 Four 
 Five 
 Six 
 Seven 
 Eight 
 Nine 
 Ten 
 Eleven 
 Twelve 

==Arabic speakers and other languages==

Historically, Arab linguists considered the Arabic language to be superior to all other languages, and took almost no interest in learning any language other than Arabic. With the sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati - who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab - scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Linguistic Tradition, pg. 106. Part of Landmarks in Linguistic Thought series, vol. 3. New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 9780415157575 

In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of the Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and when feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Suleiman, p. 93 Arab-American professor Franck Salamah went as far as to declare Arabic a dead language conveying dead ideas, blaming its stagnation for Arab intellectual stagnation and lamenting that great writers in Arabic are judged by their command of the language and not the merit of the ideas they express with it. Franck Salamah, Language, Memory, and Identity in the Middle East: The Case for Lebanon, Introduction, pg. xvi. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010. ISBN 9780739137406 

== See also ==

* Arabic diglossia
* AIDA - International Association of Arabic Dialectology
* Arabic grammar
* Arabic influence on the Spanish language
* Arabic literature
* Arabic–English Lexicon
* Arabist
* Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

* Glossary of Islam
* List of arabophones
* List of countries where Arabic is an official language
* List of French words of Arabic origin
* List of Portuguese words of Arabic origin
* List of replaced loanwords in Turkish

== References ==
Notes

Bibliography

* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Suileman, Yasir. Arabic, Self and Identity: A Study in Conflict and Displacement. Oxford University Press, 10 August 2011. ISBN 0199747016, 9780199747016.
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

== External links ==

* Arabic: a Category III language Languages which are difficult for native English speakers.
* Foreign Service Institute Arabic basic-intermediate courses, audio, assignments, G+ hangouts and media sources 
* Dr. Nizar Habash's, Columbia University, Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing
* Google Ta3reeb – Google Transliteration
* Transliteration Arabic language pronunciation applet
* USA Foreign Service Institute Arabic basic course
* How to speak Arabic
* 

 



[[Alfred Hitchcock]]

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer. Often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense", he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, renowned as England's best director, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 Life, 19 June 1939, p. 66: Alfred Hitchcock: England's Best Director starts work in Hollywood. Retrieved 4 October 2012 and became a US citizen in 1955.

Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing. His stories often feature fugitives on the run from the law alongside "icy blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of violence, murder, and crime. Many of the mysteries, however, are used as decoys or "MacGuffins" that serve the film's themes and the psychological examinations of the characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and feature strong sexual overtones. Through his cameo appearances in his own films, interviews, film trailers, and the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he became a cultural icon.

Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." The magazine MovieMaker has described him as the most influential filmmaker of all time, and he is widely regarded as one of cinema's most significant artists. 

==Early life==
Born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone, (then part of Essex, now part of London), England, Hitchcock was the second son and the youngest of three children of William Hitchcock (1862–1914), a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock (née Whelan; 1863–1942). Named Alfred after his father's brother, Hitchcock was brought up as a Roman Catholic and was sent to Salesian College and the Jesuit Classic school St Ignatius' College in Stamford Hill, London. His parents were both of half-English and half-Irish ancestry. Patrick McGilligan, p. 7 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm He often described a lonely and sheltered childhood worsened by his obesity. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 18–19 

Around age five, according to Hitchcock, he was sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for five minutes as punishment for behaving badly. This incident not only implanted a lifetime fear of policemen in Hitchcock, but such harsh treatment and wrongful accusations would be found frequently throughout his films. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 7–8 

When Hitchcock was 15, his father died. In the same year, he left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. Patrick McGillang, p. 25. The school is now part of Tower Hamlets College. After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a cable company called Henley's. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 24–25 During the First World War, Hitchcock was rejected for military service because of his obesity – sometimes thought to have been caused by a glandular condition. Nevertheless, the young man signed up to a cadet regiment of the Royal Engineers in 1917. His military stint was limited: he received theoretical briefings, weekend drills and exercises. Hitchcock would march around Hyde Park and was required to wear puttees, which he could never master how to wrap around his legs properly. 

While working at Henley's, Hitchcock began to dabble creatively. After the company's in-house publication, The Henley Telegraph, was founded in 1919, he often submitted short articles and eventually became one of its most prolific contributors. His first piece was "Gas" (1919), published in the first issue, in which a young woman imagines that she is being assaulted one night in Paris – only for the twist to reveal that it was all just a hallucination in the dentist's chair, induced by the anaesthetic.

Hitchcock's second piece was "The Woman's Part" (1919), which involves the conflicted emotions a husband feels as he watches his wife, an actress, perform onstage. "Sordid" (1920) surrounds an attempt to buy a sword from an antiques dealer, with another twist ending. The short story "And There Was No Rainbow" (1920) was Hitchcock's first brush with possibly censurable material. A young man goes out looking for a brothel, only to stumble into the house of his best friend's girl. "What's Who?" (1920), while humorous, was also a forerunner to the famous Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" routine. "The History of Pea Eating" (1920) was a satirical disquisition on the various attempts people have made over the centuries to eat peas successfully. His final piece, "Fedora" (1921), was his shortest and most enigmatic contribution. It also gave a strikingly accurate description of his future wife, Alma Reville (whom he had not yet met). Patrick McGilligan, pp. 30–45 

During this period, Hitchcock became intrigued by photography and started working in film production in London, working as a title card designer for the London branch of what would become Paramount Pictures. In 1920, he received a full-time position at Islington Studios with its American owner, Famous Players-Lasky, and their British successor, Gainsborough Pictures, designing the titles for silent movies. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 46–51 His rise from title designer to film director took five years.

==Inter-war British career==
Hitchcock's last collaboration with Graham Cutts led him to Germany in 1924. The film The Blackguard (German title Die Prinzessin und der Geiger, 1925), directed by Cutts and co-written by Hitchcock, was produced in the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam near Berlin. Hitchcock also observed part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film The Last Laugh (1924). Sidney Gottlieb (ed), Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews By Alfred Hitchcock. Illustrated Edition. (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2003). pp. 157–158. He was very impressed with Murnau's work and later used many techniques for the set design in his own productions. In a book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock also said he was influenced by Fritz Lang's film Destiny (1921). He was likewise influenced by other foreign filmmakers whose work he absorbed as one of the earliest members of the "seminal" London Film Society, formed in 1925. 

Hitchcock (right) during the making of Number 13
Hitchcock's first few films faced a string of bad luck. His first directing project came in 1922 with the aptly titled Number 13. Donald Spoto. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Anchor Books, 1976–1992. p. 3 ISBN 978-0-385-41813-3 The production was cancelled because of financial problems; filmed in London, the few scenes that had been finished at that point have been lost. In 1925, Michael Balcon of Gainsborough Pictures gave Hitchcock another opportunity for a directing credit with The Pleasure Garden made at UFA Studios in Germany; the film was a commercial flop. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 68–71 Next, Hitchcock directed a drama called The Mountain Eagle (possibly released under the title Fear o' God in the United States). This film was also eventually lost. Donald Spoto. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Anchor Books, 1976–1992. p. 5 ISBN 978-0-385-41813-3 

In 1926, Hitchcock's luck changed with his first thriller, , a suspense film about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper type of serial killer in London. Robert A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky. "The films of Alfred Hitchcock". p.6. Citadel Press, 1976 Released in January 1927, it was a major commercial and critical success in the United Kingdom. See Robert E. Kapsis, Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation. Illustrated Edition. (University of Chicago Press, 1992). p. 19 As with many of his earlier works, this film was influenced by Expressionist techniques Hitchcock had witnessed first-hand in Germany. Alan Jones (2005) The rough guide to horror movies p. 20. Rough Guides, 2005 Some commentators regard this piece as the first truly "Hitchcockian" film, incorporating such themes as the "wrong man". Patrick McGilligan, p. 85 

Following the success of The Lodger, Hitchcock hired a publicist to help strengthen his growing reputation. On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director, Alma Reville, at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington, London. Their only child, daughter Patricia, was born on 7 July 1928. Alma was to become Hitchcock's closest collaborator, but her contributions to his films (some of which were credited on screen) Hitchcock would discuss only in private, as she was keen to avoid public attention. 

Blackmail (1929), features one of the longest Hitchcock cameos. In the image, Hitchcock (left) is being bothered by a small boy in a train on the London Underground
In 1929, Hitchcock began work on his tenth film Blackmail. While the film was still in production, the studio, British International Pictures (BIP), decided to convert it to sound. As an early 'film#Transition: Europe|talkie]', the film is often cited by film historians as a landmark film, Rob White, Edward Buscombe. British Film Institute film classics, Volume 1 p. 94. Taylor & Francis, 2003 and is often considered to be the first British sound feature film. Richard Allen, S. Ishii-Gonzalès. Hitchcock: past and future. p.xv. Routledge, 2004 Music hall mimesis in British film, 1895–1960: on the halls on the screen p.79. Associated University Presse, 2009 With the climax of the film taking place on the dome of the British Museum, Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground. Walker, Michael (2005). Hitchcock's motifs. p.88. Amsterdam University Press In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies, Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 120–123 During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP musical film revue Elstree Calling (1930) and directed a short film featuring two Film Weekly scholarship winners, An Elastic Affair (1930). Another BIP musical revue, Harmony Heaven (1929), reportedly had minor input from Hitchcock, but his name does not appear in the credits.

In 1933, Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. His first film for the company, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), was a success and his second, The 39 Steps (1935), is often considered one of the best films from his early period with the British Film Institute ranking it the fourth best British film of the 20th century. Already acclaimed in Britain, the success of the film made Hitchcock a star in the US, and established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' Madeleine Carroll as the template for his succession of ice cold and elegant leading ladies. "From Hollywood starlet to wartime angel". Daily Mail. Retrieved 16 February 2014 This film was also one of the first to introduce the "MacGuffin". In The 39 Steps, the MacGuffin is a stolen set of design plans. Hitchcock told French director François Truffaut:

There are two men sitting in a train going to Scotland and one man says to the other, "Excuse me, sir, but what is that strange parcel you have on the luggage rack above you?", "Oh", says the other, "that's a Macguffin.", "Well", says the first man, "what's a Macguffin?", The other answers, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.", "But", says the first man, "there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.", "Well", says the other, "then that's no Macguffin." Patrick McGilligan, p. 158 

Hitchcock's next major success was his 1938 film The Lady Vanishes, a fast-paced film about the search for a kindly old Englishwoman Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), who disappears while on board a train in the fictional country of Bandrika. 

By 1938, Hitchcock had become known for his alleged observation, "Actors are cattle". He once said that he first made this remark as early as the late 1920s, in connection to stage actors who were snobbish about motion pictures. However, Michael Redgrave said that Hitchcock had made the statement during the filming of The Lady Vanishes. The phrase would haunt Hitchcock for years to come. During the filming of his 1941 production of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Carole Lombard brought some heifers onto the set with name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond, the stars of the film, to surprise the director. Hitchcock said he was misquoted: "I said 'Actors should be treated like cattle'." Patrick McGilligan, pp. 210–211, 277; American Movie Classics 

Lauded in Britain where he was dubbed "Alfred the Great" by Picturegoer magazine, by the end of the 1930s Hitchcock's reputation was beginning to soar overseas, with a New York Times feature writer stating; "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not. Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world." Leff, 1999. p. 16 Variety magazine referred to him as, "probably the best native director in England." Leff, 1999. p. 21. David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. Leff, 1999. p. 35. 

==Hollywood==
In Hollywood, the suspense and the gallows humour that had become Hitchcock's trademark in film continued to appear in his productions. The working arrangements with Selznick were less than ideal. Selznick suffered from constant money problems, and Hitchcock was often displeased with Selznick's creative control over his films. In a later interview, Hitchcock summarised the working relationship thus:

Alfred Hitchcock with Chandran Rutnam (centre) and Sri Lankan Film Maker Anton Wickremasinghe at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
 was the Big Producer. ... Producer was king, The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the "only director" he'd "trust with a film". Sidney Gottlieb, Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews By Alfred Hitchcock. Illustrated Edition. (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2003). p. 206. 

Selznick lent Hitchcock to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock's films himself. In addition, Selznick, as well as fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, made only a few films each year, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. Hitchcock was quickly impressed with the superior resources of the American studios compared with the financial limits he had often faced in England. Leff, 1999. p. 30. 

With the prestigious Selznick picture Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American movie, set in a Hollywood version of England's West Country and based on a novel by English author Daphne du Maurier. The film starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. The story concerns a naïve (and unnamed) young woman who marries a widowed aristocrat. She goes to live in his huge English country house, and struggles with the lingering reputation of the elegant and worldly first wife, whose name was Rebecca, and who died under mysterious circumstances. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940. The statuette was given to Selznick, as the film's producer. Hitchcock was nominated for the Best Director award, his first of five such nominations, but did not win.

There were additional problems between Selznick and Hitchcock, with Selznick known to impose restrictive rules on Hitchcock. At the same time, Selznick complained about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting", which meant that the producer did not have nearly the leeway to create his own film as he liked, but had to follow Hitchcock's vision of the finished product. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 251–252 Rebecca was the fourth longest of Hitchcock's films, at 130 minutes, exceeded only by The Paradine Case (132 minutes), North by Northwest (136 minutes), and Topaz (142 minutes). Patrick McGilligan, p. 253 

Hitchcock's second American film, the European-set thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), based on Vincent Sheean's Personal History and produced by Walter Wanger, was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock and other British subjects felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while their country was at war; his concern resulted in a film that overtly supported the British war effort. Duncan, Paul (2003). Alfred Hitchcock: architect of anxiety, 1899–1980. p.90. Taschen, 1 November 2003 The movie was filmed in the first year of the Second World War and was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as fictionally covered by an American newspaper reporter portrayed by Joel McCrea. The film mixed footage of European scenes with scenes filmed on a Hollywood back lot. The film avoided direct references to Nazism, Germany, and Germans to comply with Hollywood's Production Code censorship. Patrick McGilligan, p. 244 

===1940s films===
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946)
Hitchcock's films during the 1940s were diverse, ranging from the romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) to the courtroom drama The Paradine Case (1947) to the dark and disturbing film noir Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

In September 1940, the Hitchcocks bought the 200 acre Cornwall Ranch near Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ranch became the primary residence of the Hitchcocks for the rest of their lives, although they kept their Bel Air home. Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer as well as director. The film was set in England, and Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz, California, for the English coastline sequence. This film was to be actor Cary Grant's first time working with Hitchcock, and it was one of the few times that Grant would be cast in a sinister role. Joan Fontaine won Best Actress Oscar for her "outstanding performance in Suspicion". Grant plays an irresponsible English con man whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety in his shy young English wife (Fontaine). Tom Scott Cadden (1984). "What a bunch of characters!: an entertaining guide to who played what in the movies". p. 131. Prentice-Hall, In a notable scene, Hitchcock uses a lightbulb to illuminate what might be a fatal glass of milk that Grant is bringing to his wife. In the book the movie is based on (Before the Fact by Francis Iles), the Grant character is a killer, but Hitchcock and the studio felt Grant's image would be tarnished by that ending. Though a homicide would have suited him better, as he stated to François Truffaut, Hitchcock settled for an ambiguous finale. Thomas Leitch, The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock, Facts on File, New York, pp. 324–325, ISBN 978-0-8160-4386-6 

Saboteur (1942) was the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal, a studio where he would continue his career during his later years. Hitchcock was forced to use Universal contract players Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, both known for their work in comedies and light dramas. Patrick Humphries (1994). "The Films of Alfred Hitchcock". p. 71.Random House Value Pub, Breaking with Hollywood conventions of the time, Hitchcock did extensive location filming, especially in New York City, and depicted a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd) atop the Statue of Liberty. That year he also directed Have You Heard?, a photographic dramatisation of the dangers of rumours during wartime, for Life magazine. 

Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Hitchcock's personal favourite of all his films and the second of the early Universal films, In an interview on the Dick Cavett show aired on 8 June 1972, when asked if he had a personal favourite, Hitchcock responded that it was Shadow of a Doubt. was about young Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial murderer. Hitchcock again filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa, during the summer of 1942. The director showcased his personal fascination with crime and criminals when he had two of his characters discuss various ways of killing people, to the obvious annoyance of Charlotte.

Working at 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock adapted a script of John Steinbeck's that recorded the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack in the film Lifeboat (1944). The action sequences were shot in a small boat in the studio water tank. The locale also posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance. That was solved by having Hitchcock's image appear in a newspaper that William Bendix is reading in the boat, showing the director in a before-and-after advertisement for "Reduco-Obesity Slayer". Leitch, p. 181 

While at Fox, Hitchcock seriously considered directing the film version of A. J. Cronin's novel about a Catholic priest in China, Patrick McGilligan, p. 343 The Keys of the Kingdom, but the plans for this fell through. John M. Stahl ended up directing the 1944 film, which was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Gregory Peck, among other luminaries. 

Returning to England for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944, Hitchcock made two short films for the British Ministry of Information, Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache. The two British propaganda films made for the Free French, were the only films Hitchcock made in the French language, and "feature typical Hitchcockian touches". Patrick McGilligan, pp. 346–348 In the 1990s, the two films were shown by Turner Classic Movies and released on home video.

In 1945, Hitchcock served as "treatment advisor" (in effect, a film editor) for a Holocaust documentary produced by the British Army. The film, which recorded the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, remained unreleased until 1985, when it was completed by PBS Frontline and distributed under the title Memory of the Camps. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 372–374 

Hitchcock worked for Selznick again when he directed Spellbound (1945), which explored psychoanalysis and featured a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past. Leitch, p. 310 The dream sequence as it appears in the film is ten minutes shorter than was originally envisioned, having been edited by Selznick to make it "play" more effectively. Two point-of-view shots were achieved by building a large wooden hand (which would appear to belong to the character whose point of view the camera took) and out-sized props for it to hold: a bucket-sized glass of milk and a large wooden gun. For added novelty and impact, the climactic gunshot was hand-coloured red on (some copies of) the black-and-white film.
Some of the original musical score by Miklós Rózsa (which makes use of the theremin) was later adapted by the composer into a concert piano concerto.

Grant and Bergman in Notorious (1946)
Notorious (1946) followed Spellbound. According to Hitchcock, in his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Selznick sold the director, the two stars (Grant and Bergman) and the screenplay (by Ben Hecht) to RKO Radio Pictures as a "package" for $500,000 due to cost overruns on Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946). Notorious starred Hitchcock regulars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. It was a huge box office success and has remained one of Hitchcock's most acclaimed films. His prescient use of uranium as a plot device led to Hitchcock's being briefly under FBI surveillance. McGilligan writes that Hitchcock consulted Dr. Robert Millikan of Caltech about the development of an atomic bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was "science fiction", only to be confronted by the news stories of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 366–381 

After completing his final film for Selznick, The Paradine Case (a courtroom drama that critics found lost momentum because it apparently ran too long and exhausted its resource of ideas), Hitchcock filmed his first colour film, Rope (1948). Here Hitchcock experimented with marshaling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat (1943). Appearing to have been shot in a single take, Rope was actually shot in 10 takes ranging from four and a half to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film being the maximum a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place. Featuring James Stewart in the leading role, Rope was the first of four films Stewart would make with Hitchcock. It was based on the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s. Somehow Hitchcock's cameraman managed to move the bulky, heavy Technicolor camera quickly around the set as it followed the continuous action of the long takes.

Under Capricorn (1949), set in nineteenth-century Australia, also used the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black-and-white films for several years. For Rope and Under Capricorn, Hitchcock formed a production company with Sidney Bernstein called Transatlantic Pictures, which became inactive after these two unsuccessful pictures. Hitchcock continued to produce his own films for the rest of his life.

===1950s: Peak years===
James Stewart and Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954)

Hitchcock filmed Stage Fright (1950) in the UK. For the first time, he matched one of Warner Bros.' most popular stars, Jane Wyman, with the sultry German actress Marlene Dietrich. Hitchcock used several prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, and Alastair Sim. This was Hitchcock's first production for Warner Bros., which had distributed Rope and Under Capricorn, because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 429, 774–775 

With the film Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. Leitch, p. 320 Two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof murder technique. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain. Leitch, p.322 

MCA head Lew Wasserman, whose client list included James Stewart, Janet Leigh and other actors who would appear in Hitchcock's films, had a significant impact in packaging and marketing Hitchcock's films beginning in the 1950s.

After I Confess (1953) with Montgomery Clift, three popular films starring Grace Kelly followed. Dial M for Murder (1954) was adapted from the stage play by Frederick Knott. Ray Milland plays the scheming villain, an ex-tennis pro who tries to murder his unfaithful wife Grace Kelly for her money. When she kills the hired assassin in self-defense, Milland manipulates the evidence to make it look like a premeditated murder by his wife. Her lover, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), and Police Inspector Hubbard (John Williams), work urgently to save her from execution. Leitch, pp. 78–80 With Dial M, Hitchcock experimented with 3D cinematography. The public was growing weary of the gimmick by the time of the film's release, however, and it was shown in 3D only in a few first-run engagements. The 3D version has been revived occasionally, including a brief reissue in some major US cities in the 1980s. The film marked a return to color productions for Hitchcock.

Hitchcock then moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character, a photographer based on Robert Capa, must temporarily use a wheelchair; out of boredom he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, and becomes convinced one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart tries to sway both his glamorous model-girlfriend (Kelly), whom screenwriter John Michael Hayes based on his own wife, and his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) to his theory, and eventually succeeds. Leitch, p. 269 As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters were almost entirely confined to a small space, in this case Stewart's tiny studio apartment overlooking a massive courtyard. Hitchcock used close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions to all he sees, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment". 

In 1955, Hitchcock became a United States citizen. Patrick Mcgilligan, p. 512 His third Kelly film, To Catch a Thief (1955), set in the French Riviera, paired her with Cary Grant. He plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera. A thrill-seeking American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity and tries to seduce him. "Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success." Leitch, p. 366 It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly. She married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and the residents of her new land were against her making any more films.

Hitchcock successfully remade his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956. This time, the film starred Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song and became a big hit for her. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination. As in the 1934 film, the climax takes place at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Royal S. Brown (1994). "Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music". p. 75. University of California Press, 1994 

James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958)

The Wrong Man (1957), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Bros., was a low-key black-and-white production based on a real-life case of mistaken identity reported in Life Magazine in 1953. This was the only film of Hitchcock's to star Henry Fonda. Fonda plays a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief who is arrested and tried for robbery while his wife (newcomer Vera Miles) emotionally collapses under the strain. Hitchcock told Truffaut that his lifelong fear of the police attracted him to the subject and was embedded in many scenes. Leitch, p. 377 

Vertigo (1958) again starred Stewart, this time with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Stewart plays "Scottie", a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman he is shadowing (Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. The film contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts that has been copied many times by filmmakers, wherein the image appears to "stretch". This is achieved by moving the camera in the opposite direction of the camera's zoom. It has become known by many nicknames, including Dolly zoom, "Zolly," "Hitchcock Zoom," and "Vertigo Effect."

Although the film is widely considered a classic today, Vertigo met with negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and was the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. Leitch, pp. 376–377 Although ranked second (behind Citizen Kane) for almost 50 years the film was voted top by critics in the 2012 Sight & Sound decade poll. It was premiered in the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where Hitchcock won a Silver Seashell.
Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959)
By this time, Hitchcock had filmed in many areas of the United States. He followed Vertigo with three more successful films. Two are also recognised as among his best movies: North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). The third film was The Birds (1963).

In North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent. Leitch, p. 234 He is hotly pursued across the United States by enemy agents, apparently one of them being Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), in fact working undercover.

===1960: Psycho===
Psycho is almost certainly Hitchcock's best-known film. Leitch, p. 260 Produced on a constrained budget of $800,000, it was shot in black-and-white on a spare set using crew members from his television show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Leitch, p. 261 The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early death of the heroine, the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer became the defining hallmarks of a new horror movie genre and have been copied by many authors of subsequent films. Leitch, p. 262 

The public loved the film, with lines stretching outside of theatres as people had to wait for the next showing. It broke box-office records in China and the rest of Asia, France, Britain, South America, the United States and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period. Leigh, Janet with Christopher Nickens. Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller. Harmony Press, 1995. It was the most profitable black-and-white sound film ever made, and Hitchcock personally realized well in excess of $15 million. He subsequently swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc. and his own boss at Universal, in theory at least. But that did not stop them from interfering with him. Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Soft Skull Press, Berkeley, 1990. Psycho was the most profitable film of Hitchcock's career, earning $15 million by the end of the first year. Hitchcock's second most profitable was Family Plot, earning $7.5 million, and third place was a tie between Torn Curtain (1966) and Frenzy (1972), each earning $6.5 million.

===After 1960===
The Birds, inspired by a Daphne du Maurier short story and by a news story about a mysterious infestation of birds in Santa Cruz, California, was Hitchcock's 49th film. Leitch, p. 32 Newcomer Tippi Hedren made her screen debut in the film, co-starring Rod Taylor and Suzanne Pleshette. The scenes of the birds attacking included hundreds of shots mixing live and animated sequences. The cause of the birds' attack is left unanswered, "perhaps highlighting the mystery of forces unknown". Leitch, p. 33 Hitchcock cast Hedren again opposite Sean Connery in his next film, Marnie, a romantic drama and psychological thriller. Decades later, Hedren called Hitchcock a misogynist and said that Hitchcock effectively ended her career by keeping her to an exclusive contract for two years when she rebuffed his sexual advances. In 2012, Hedren described Hitchcock as a "sad character"; a man of "unusual genius", yet "evil, and deviant, almost to the point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that were totally unsuspecting." In response, a Daily Telegraph article quoted several actresses who had worked with Hitchcock, including Eva Marie Saint, Doris Day and Kim Novak, none of whom shared Hedren's opinion about him. Novak, who worked on Hitchcock's Vertigo, told the Telegraph "I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody." 

Psycho and The Birds had unconventional soundtracks: the screeching strings played in the murder scene in Psycho were unusually dissonant, and The Birds dispensed with any conventional score, instead using a new technique of electronically produced sound effects. Bernard Herrmann composed the former and was a consultant on the latter.

Failing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his career. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal "forced" two movies on him, Torn Curtain and Topaz. Leigh, Janet with Christopher Nickens. Both were spy thrillers set with Cold War-related themes. The first, Torn Curtain (1966), with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the twelve-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann was fired when Hitchcock was unsatisfied with his score. Topaz (1969), based on a Leon Uris novel, is partly set in Cuba. Both received mixed reviews from critics.
Hitchcock cameo in Frenzy features him wearing a bowler hat in the middle of a crowd in front of London's River Thames
In 1972, Hitchcock returned to England to film his penultimate film Frenzy. After two only moderately successful espionage films, the plot marks a return to the murder thriller genre of earlier in his career, and is based upon the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. The plot centres on a serial killer in contemporary London. In a very early scene there is dialogue that mentions two actual London serial murder cases: the Christie murders in the early 1950s, and the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888. The basic story recycles his early film The Lodger. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barkeeper with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect for the "Necktie Murders," which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). Leitch, p. 114 This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites, as in Strangers on a Train. Only one of them, however, has crossed the line to murder. For the first time, Hitchcock allowed nudity and profane language, which had previously been taboo, in one of his films. He also shows rare sympathy for the chief inspector and his comic domestic life. Leitch, p. 115 

Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the longtime head of Hollywood's Production Code. Many times Hitchcock slipped in subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet Patrick McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realised that Hitchcock was inserting such things and were actually amused as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's "inescapable inferences". Patrick McGilligan, p. 249 Beginning with Torn Curtain, Hitchcock was finally able to blatantly include plot elements previously forbidden in American films and this continued for the remainder of his film career.
Hitchcock at work on location in San Francisco for Family Plot
Family Plot (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It relates the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler, played by Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi driver lover Bruce Dern, making a living from her phony powers. William Devane, Karen Black and Cathleen Nesbitt co-starred. It is the only Hitchcock film scored by John Williams. Based on the Victor Canning novel The Rainbird Pattern, the novel's tone is more sinister and dark than what Hitchcock wanted for the film. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman originally wrote the film with a dark tone but was pushed to a lighter, more comical tone by Hitchcock. The film went through various titles including Deceit and Missing Heir. It was changed to Family Plot at the suggestion of the studio.

===Last project and death===
Near the end of his life, Hitchcock had worked on the script for a projected spy thriller, The Short Night, collaborating with screenwriters James Costigan and Ernest Lehman. Despite some preliminary work, the story was never filmed. This was caused primarily by Hitchcock's own failing health and his concerns over the health of his wife, Alma, who had suffered a stroke. The script was eventually published posthumously, in a book on Hitchcock's last years. Patrick McGilligan, pp. 731–734 

Hitchcock died at age 80 in his Bel Air home of renal failure at 9:17 am on 29 April 1980. Patrick Mcgilligan (2010). "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light". p. 745. Harper Collins While biographer Spoto wrote that Hitchcock "rejected suggestions that he allow a priest ... to come for a visit, or celebrate a quiet, informal ritual at the house for his comfort," Jesuit priest Mark Henninger wrote that he and fellow priest Tom Sullivan celebrated Mass at the filmmaker's home; Father Sullivan heard Hitchcock's confession. He was survived by his wife and their daughter. Hitchcock's funeral Mass was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills, after which his body was cremated and his remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. 

==Signature appearances in his films==

Hitchcock appeared briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train (Strangers on a Train), or walking dogs out of a pet shop (The Birds), as a shadow (Family Plot), sitting at a table in a photograph (Dial M for Murder) and misses the bus (North by Northwest).

==Themes, plot devices and motifs==

Hitchcock returned several times to cinematic devices such as suspense, the audience as voyeur, and his well-known "MacGuffin," a plot device that is essential to the characters on the screen, but is irrelevant to the audience. Thus, the MacGuffin was always hazily described (in "North By Northwest," Leo G. Carroll describes James Mason as an "importer-exporter.")

A central theme of Hitchcock's films was murder and the psychology behind it. 

==Psychology of characters==
Hitchcock's films sometimes feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers. In North by Northwest (1959), Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant's character) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in Frenzy (1972) has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in Notorious has a clearly conflictual relationship with his mother, who is (correctly) suspicious of his new bride Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman). Norman Bates has troubles with his mother in Psycho.

Hitchcock heroines tend to be blondes. The famous victims in The Lodger are all blondes. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, is put in handcuffs. In Marnie (1964), the title character (played by Tippi Hedren) is a thief. In To Catch a Thief (1955), Francie (Grace Kelly) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In Rear Window, Lisa (Grace Kelly again) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. The best-known example is in Psycho where Janet Leigh's unfortunate character steals $40,000 and is murdered by a reclusive psychopath. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was—years after Dany Robin and her "daughter" Claude Jade in Topaz—Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in his final film, 1976's Family Plot. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black could also fit that role, as she wears a long blonde wig in various scenes and becomes increasingly uncomfortable about her line of work.

Some critics and Hitchcock scholars, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo represents the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death than any other film in his filmography. 

Hitchcock often said that his favourite film (of his own work) was Shadow of a Doubt. Cavett Show interview, 8 June 1972 

==Style of working==

===Writing===
Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest." In an interview with Roger Ebert in 1969, Hitchcock elaborated further:

In Writing with Hitchcock, a book-length study of Hitchcock's working method with his writers, author Steven DeRosa noted that "Although he rarely did any actual 'writing', especially on his Hollywood productions, Hitchcock supervised and guided his writers through every draft, insisting on a strict attention to detail and a preference for telling the story through visual rather than verbal means. While this exasperated some writers, others admitted the director inspired them to do their very best work. Hitchcock often emphasised that he took no screen credit for the writing of his films. However, over time the work of many of his writers has been attributed solely to Hitchcock’s creative genius, a misconception he rarely went out of his way to correct. Notwithstanding his technical brilliance as a director, Hitchcock relied on his writers a great deal." Steven DeRosa, Writing with Hitchcock, New York: Faber and Faber, 2001, p. xi. 

===Storyboards and production===
Hitchcock's films were strongly believed to have been extensively storyboarded to the finest detail by the majority of commentators over the years. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he did not need to, though in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternate takes to consider.
Alfred Hitchcock by Jack Mitchell
However, this view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by the book Hitchcock at Work, written by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of Cahiers du cinéma. Krohn, after investigating several script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock alongside inspection of storyboards, and other production material, has observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned. He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his movies, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. A great example would be the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of North by Northwest which was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.

Even when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's extensive analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like Notorious reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including Strangers on a Train and Topaz. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his movies, he was fully cognizant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines utilized during many other film productions.

Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternate takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how he/she chooses (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency of giving himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work. According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock.

His fastidiousness and attention to detail also found its way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—and kept them busy with countless rounds of revision until he felt that the single image of the poster accurately represented his entire film.

===Approach to actors===

Similarly, much of Hitchcock's supposed dislike of actors has been exaggerated. Hitchcock simply did not tolerate the method approach, as he believed that actors should only concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. In a Sight and Sound interview, he stated that, 'the method actor is OK in the theatre because he has a free space to move about. But when it comes to cutting the face and what he sees and so forth, there must be some discipline'. He often used the same actors in many of his films.

During the making of Lifeboat, Walter Slezak, who played the German character, stated that Hitchcock knew the mechanics of acting better than anyone he knew. Several critics have observed that despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, several actors who worked with him gave fine, often brilliant performances and these performances contribute to the film's success. As more fully discussed above, in "Inter-War British Career," actress Dolly Haas, who was a personal friend of Hitchcock's and who acted for him in the 1953 film I Confess, stated that Hitchcock regarded actors as "animated props."

For Hitchcock, the actors, like the props, were part of the film's setting, as he said to Truffaut:

In my opinion, the chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be utilised and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights. Truffaut, François. "Hitchcock by Truffaut: The Definitive Study". Grafton Books, 1984. p. 153 

Regarding Hitchcock's sometimes less than pleasant relationship with actors, there was a persistent rumour that he had said that actors were cattle. Hitchcock addressed this story in his interview with François Truffaut:

I'm not quite sure in what context I might have made such a statement. It may have been made...when we used actors who were simultaneously performing in stage plays. When they had a matinee, and I suspected they were allowing themselves plenty of time for a very leisurely lunch. And this meant that we had to shoot our scenes at breakneck speed so that the actors could get out on time. I couldn't help feeling that if they'd been really conscientious, they'd have swallowed their sandwich in the cab, on the way to the theatre, and get there in time to put on their make-up and go on stage. I had no use for that kind of actor. Truffaut, François. "Hitchcock". Simon & Schuster, 1984. p. 140 

Carole Lombard, tweaking Hitchcock and drumming up a little publicity, brought some cows along with her when she reported to the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. 

In the late 1950s, French New Wave critics, especially Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut, were among the first to see and promote Hitchcock's films as artistic works. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to whom they applied their auteur theory, which stresses the artistic authority of the director in the film-making process.

Hitchcock's innovations and vision have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers, and actors. His influence helped start a trend for film directors to control artistic aspects of their movies without answering to the movie's producer.

==Awards and honours==

Hitchcock was a multiple nominee and winner of a number of prestigious awards, receiving two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, as well as being five times nominated for, albeit never winning, an Academy Award as Best Director. His film Rebecca (nominated for 11 Oscars) won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940—particularly notable as another Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent, was also nominated that same year. "The 13th Academy Awards (1941) Nominees and Winners". 2012 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 

In addition to these, Hitchcock received a knighthood in 1980 when he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. Adair, Gene. "Alfred Hitchcock: Filming Our Fears". p. 145. Oxford University Press, 2002 Asked by a reporter why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, "I suppose it was a matter of carelessness". Haley, Michael. "The Alfred Hitchcock album". p. 2. Prentice-Hall, 1981 An English Heritage blue plaque, unveiled in 1999, marks where Sir Alfred Hitchcock lived in London at 153 Cromwell Road, Kensington and Chelsea, SW5. 

In June 2013, nine restored versions of Hitchcock's early silent films, including his 1925 directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden, were shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater. Known as "The Hitchcock 9," the traveling tribute was made possible by a $3 million program organized by the British Film Institute. 

==Television, radio, and books==
Along with Walt Disney, Hitchcock was among the first prominent motion picture producers to fully envisage just how popular the medium of television would become. From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host and producer of a television series titled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While his films had made Hitchcock's name strongly associated with suspense, the TV series made Hitchcock a celebrity himself. His irony-tinged voice and signature droll delivery, gallows humour, iconic image and mannerisms became instantly recognisable and were often the subject of parody.

The title-sequence of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of Hitchcock's profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes), which his real silhouette then filled. His introductions before the stories in his program always included some sort of wry humour, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are now shown with a sign "Two chairs—no waiting!". He directed 18 episodes of the TV series himself, which aired from 1955 to 1965 in two versions. It became The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962.

The series used a curious little tune as its title-theme. Funeral March of a Marionette, by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893), the composer of the 1859 opera Faust, was suggested to him by composer Bernard Herrmann.

Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra included the piece on one of their extended play 45-rpm discs for RCA Victor during the 1950s. Alfred Hitchcock Presents was parodied by Friz Freleng's 1961 cartoon The Last Hungry Cat, which contains a plot similar to Blackmail.

In the 1980s, a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colourised form.

Hitchcock appears as a character in the popular juvenile detective book series, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. The long-running detective series was created by Robert Arthur, who wrote the first several books, although other authors took over after he left the series. The Three Investigators—Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews and Peter Crenshaw—were amateur detectives, slightly younger than the Hardy Boys. In the introduction to each book, "Alfred Hitchcock" introduces the mystery, and he sometimes refers a case to the boys to solve. At the end of each book, the boys report to Hitchcock, and sometimes give him a memento of their case.

At the height of Hitchcock's success, he was also asked to introduce a set of books with his name attached. The series was a collection of short stories by popular short-story writers, primarily focused on suspense and thrillers. These titles included Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Door Locked, Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum, Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbinders in Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Witch's Brew, Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock's A Hangman's Dozen, Alfred Hitchcock's Stories Not For the Nervous and Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful. Hitchcock himself was not actually involved in the reading, reviewing, editing or selection of the short stories; in fact, even his introductions were ghost-written. The entire extent of his involvement with the project was to lend his name and collect a check.

Some notable writers whose works were used in the collection include Shirley Jackson (Strangers in Town, The Lottery), T. H. White (The Once and Future King), Robert Bloch, H. G. Wells (The War of the Worlds), Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain and the creator of The Three Investigators, Robert Arthur. In a similar manner, Hitchcock's name was licensed for a digest-sized monthly, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, which has been published since 1956.

Hitchcock also wrote a mystery story for Look magazine in 1943, "The Murder of Monty Woolley". This was a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to inspect the pictures for clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves, such as Woolley, Doris Merrick and make-up man Guy Pearce, whom Hitchcock identified, in the last photo, as the murderer. The article was reprinted in Games Magazine in November/December 1980.

In September 2010, BBC Radio 7 broadcast a series of five fifteen-minute programs entitled The Late Alfred Hitchcock Presents with Michael Roberts impersonating Alfred Hitchcock for introductory/concluding comments and reading the stories in his own voice. "The Late Alfred Hitchcock Presents". BBC Radio 4 Extra. These five stories were originally intended for the television series, but were rejected because of their rather gruesome nature:
* "The Waxwork" by A. M. Burrage (broadcast 13 September 2010)
* "Sredni Vashtar" by Saki (broadcast 14 September 2010)
* "The Perfectionist" by Margaret St. Clair (broadcast 15 September 2010)
* "Being a Murderer Myself" by Arthur Williams (broadcast 16 September 2010)
* "The Dancing Partner" by Jerome K. Jerome (broadcast 17 September 2010)

==Filmography==

* Number 13 (1922) (unfinished)
* Always Tell Your Wife (1923) 
* The Pleasure Garden (1925)
* The Mountain Eagle (1926) (lost)
* (1927)
* The Ring (1927)
* Downhill (1927)
* The Farmer's Wife (1928)
* Easy Virtue (1928)
* Champagne (1928)
* The Manxman (1929)
* Blackmail (1929)
* Juno and the Paycock (1930)
* Murder! (1930)
* Elstree Calling (1930)
* The Skin Game (1931)
* Mary (1931)
* Rich and Strange (1931)
* Number Seventeen (1932)
* Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

* The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
* The 39 Steps (1935)
* Secret Agent (1936)
* Sabotage (1936)
* Young and Innocent (1937)
* The Lady Vanishes (1938)
* Jamaica Inn (1939)
* Rebecca (1940)
* Foreign Correspondent (1940)
* Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
* Suspicion (1941)
* Saboteur (1942)
* Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
* Lifeboat (1944)
* Aventure Malgache (1944)
* Bon Voyage (1944)
* Spellbound (1945)
* Notorious (1946)
* The Paradine Case (1947)
* Rope (1948)

* Under Capricorn (1949)
* Stage Fright (1950)
* Strangers on a Train (1951)
* I Confess (1953)
* Dial M for Murder (1954)
* Rear Window (1954)
* To Catch a Thief (1955)
* The Trouble with Harry (1955)
* The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
* The Wrong Man (1956)
* Vertigo (1958)
* North by Northwest (1959)
* Psycho (1960)
* The Birds (1963)
* Marnie (1964)
* Torn Curtain (1966)
* Topaz (1969)
* Frenzy (1972)
* Family Plot (1976)
* The Short Night (1979) (cancelled)

==Frequently cast actors and actresses==

7 films

* Clare Greet: Number 13 (1922), The Ring (1927), The Manxman (1929), Murder! (1930), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Sabotage (1936), Jamaica Inn (1939)

6 films

* Leo G. Carroll: Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951), and North By Northwest (1959)

5 films

* Hannah Jones: Downhill (1927), Champagne (1928), Blackmail (1929), Murder! (1930), and Rich and Strange (1932)

4 films

* Donald Calthrop: Blackmail (1929), Murder! (1930), Juno and the Paycock (1930), and Number Seventeen (1932)
* Cary Grant: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North By Northwest (1959)
* Edmund Gwenn: The Skin Game (1931), Waltzes from Vienna (1934), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and The Trouble with Harry (1955)
* Phyllis Konstam: Champagne (1928), Blackmail (1929), Murder! (1930), and The Skin Game (1931)
* John Longden: Blackmail (1929), Juno and the Paycock (1930), The Skin Game (1931), and Young and Innocent (1937)
* James Stewart: Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Vertigo (1958)

3 films

* Ingrid Bergman: Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Under Capricorn (1949)
* Charles Halton: Foreign Correspondent (1940), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Saboteur (1942)
* Patricia Hitchcock: Stage Fright (1950), Strangers on a Train (1951), Psycho (1960)
* Ian Hunter: The Ring (1927), Downhill (1927), Easy Virtue (1928)
* Grace Kelly: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955)
* Basil Radford: Young and Innocent (1937), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Jamaica Inn (1939)
* John Williams: The Paradine Case (1947), Dial M for Murder, (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955)

==Frequent collaborators==

;Actors and actresses
* Sara Allgood
* Murray Alper
* Ingrid Bergman
* Paul Bryar
* Donald Calthrop
* Leonard Carey
* Leo G. Carroll
* Edward Chapman
* Joseph Cotten (actor – Hitchcock movies and TV series)
* Hume Cronyn (also as writer)
* Violet Farebrother
* Bess Flowers
* Cary Grant
* Clare Greet
* Edmund Gwenn
* Gordon Harker
* Tippi Hedren
* Tom Helmore
* Patricia Hitchcock (daughter)
* Ian Hunter
* Isabel Jeans
* Hannah Jones
* Malcolm Keen
* Grace Kelly
* Phyllis Konstam
* John Longden
* Percy Marmont
* Eve McVeagh (actress – 7 Hitchcock TV episodes)
* Vera Miles (actress – Hitchcock movies and TV series)
* Basil Radford
* Jeffrey Sayre
* Mary Scott
* James Stewart
* John Williams
;Screenwriters
* Charles Bennett
* James Bridie
* Joan Harrison
* John Michael Hayes
* Ben Hecht
* Angus MacPhail
* Eliot Stannard (9 films)

;Film crew
* Fred Ahern – production manager
* Michael Balcon – producer
* Jack Barron – make-up
* Saul Bass – main titles design
* Robert F. Boyle – art director/production designer
* Henry Bumstead – art director
* Robert Burks – cinematographer
* Herbert Coleman – assistant director/associate producer
* Jack E. Cox – cinematographer
* Graham Cutts – director
* Lowell J. Farrell – assistant director
* Charles Frend – film editor
* Bill Gold – film poster designer
* Hilton A. Green – assistant director
* Bobby Greene – first assistant camera
* Edith Head – costume designer
* Bernard Herrmann – music composer
* J. McMillan Johnson – art director/production designer
* Barbara Keon – production assistant
* Emile Kuri – set decoration
* Bryan Langley – cinematographer/assistant camera
* Louis Levy – musical director/music composer
* Norman Lloyd – producer/director
* John Maxwell – producer
* Daniel McCauley – assistant director
* Frank Mills – assistant director
* George Milo – set decoration
* Ivor Montagu – editor/producer
* Hal Pereira – art director
* Alec Patterson – make-up/special effects artist
* Michael Powell – still photographer/assistant camera
* Alma Reville (wife) – assistant director/writer
* Rita Riggs – costume designer
* Peggy Robertson – assistant
* Emile de Ruelle – film editor
* William Russell – sound recordist
* David O. Selznick – producer
* Harry Stradling – cinematographer/director of photography
* Lois Thurman – script supervisor
* Dimitri Tiomkin – music composer
* George Tomasini – film editor
* Joseph A. Valentine – cinematographer
* Gaetano di Ventimiglia – cinematographer
* Waldon O. Watson – sound recordist
* Franz Waxman – music composer
* Albert Whitlock – matte painter
* William H. Ziegler – film editor
* James H. Brown – assistant director

== Portrayals in film and television ==
* Anthony Hopkins, in the 2012 film Hitchcock. 
* Toby Jones, in the 2012 HBO telefilm The Girl.
* Roger Ashton-Griffiths, in the 2014 film Grace of Monaco.

Keith Staskiewicz wrote in Entertainment Weekly about the 2012 films, "...Hitchcock was depicted in his twin biopics as either a charming but troubled genius or a monstrous sexual obsessive..." Staskiewicz, Keith. "This Was The Year That Everyone Was Obsessed with Lincoln & Hitchcock." Entertainment Weekly, 28 December 2012, p. 19. 

==See also==

* Alfred Hitchcock filmography
* Alfred Hitchcock Presents
* List of Hitchcock cameo appearances
* List of film collaborations
* List of unproduced Hitchcock projects

==Notes==

==References==

* Leff, Leonard J: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood. University of California Press, 1999
* Leitch, Thomas: The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock (ISBN 978-0-8160-4387-3). Checkmark Books, 2002. A single-volume encyclopaedia of all things about Alfred Hitchcock.
* McGilligan, Patrick: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. Regan Books, 2003. A comprehensive biography of the director.

==Further reading==
* Auiler, Dan: Hitchcock's notebooks: an authorised and illustrated look inside the creative mind of Alfred Hitchcock. New York, Avon Books, 1999. Much useful background to the films.
* Barr, Charles: English Hitchcock. Cameron & Hollis, 1999. On the early films of the director.
* Clues: A Journal of Detection'31.1 (2013). Theme issue on Hitchcock and adaptation.
* Conrad, Peter: The Hitchcock Murders. Faber and Faber, 2000. A highly personal and idiosyncratic discussion of Hitchcock's oeuvre.
* DeRosa, Steven: Writing with Hitchcock. Faber and Faber, 2001. An examination of the collaboration between Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, his most frequent writing collaborator in Hollywood. Their films include Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much.
* Deutelbaum, Marshall; Poague, Leland (ed.): A Hitchcock Reader. Iowa State University Press, 1986. A wide-ranging collection of scholarly essays on Hitchcock.
* Durgnat, Raymond: The strange case of Alfred Hitchcock Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1974 OCLC 1233570
* Durgnat, Raymond; James, Nick; Gross, Larry: Hitchcock British Film Institute, 1999 OCLC 42209162
* Durgnat, Raymond: A long hard look at Psycho London: British Film Institute Pub., 2002 OCLC 48883020
* Giblin, Gary: Alfred Hitchcock's London. Midnight Marquee Press, 2006, (Paperback: ISBN 978-1-887664-67-7)
* Gottlieb, Sidney: Hitchcock on Hitchcock. Faber and Faber, 1995. Articles, lectures, etc. by Hitchcock himself. Basic reading on the director and his films.
* Gottlieb, Sidney: Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2003. A collection of Hitchcock interviews.
* Grams, Martin, Jr. & Wikstrom, Patrik: The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub, 2001, (Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9703310-1-4)
* Haeffner, Nicholas: Alfred Hitchcock. Longman, 2005. An undergraduate-level text.
* Hitchcock, Patricia; Bouzereau, Laurent: Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man. Berkley, 2003.
* Henry Keazor (ed.): Hitchcock und die Künste, Schüren, Marburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-89472-828-1. Examines the way Hitchcock was inspired by other arts such as literature, theatre, painting, architecture, music and cooking, used them in his films, and how they then inspired other art forms such as dancing and media art.
* Krohn, Bill: Hitchcock at Work. Phaidon, 2000. Translated from the award-winning French edition. The nitty-gritty of Hitchcock's filmmaking from scripting to post-production.
* Leff, Leonard J.: Hitchcock and Selznick. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. An in-depth examination of the rich collaboration between Hitchcock and David O Selznick.
* Loker, Altan: Film and Suspense. Trafford Publishing, 2006. (ISBN 978-1412058407). Discusses the psychological means by which Hitchcock created the sense of reality in his works and manipulated his audience.
* McDevitt, Jim; San Juan, Eric: A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense. Scarecrow Press, 2009, (ISBN 978-0-8108-6388-0). A comprehensive film-by-film examination of Hitchcock's artistic development from 1927 through 1976.
* Modleski, Tania: The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock And Feminist Theory. Routledge, 2005 (2nd edition). A collection of critical essays on Hitchcock and his films; argues that Hitchcock's portrayal of women was ambivalent, rather than simply misogynist or sympathetic (as widely thought).
* Mogg, Ken. The Alfred Hitchcock Story. Titan, 2008 (revised edition). Note: the original 1999 UK edition, from Titan, and the 2008 re-issue world-wide, also from Titan, have significantly more text than the 1999 abridged US edition from Taylor Publishing. New material on all the films.
* Moral, Tony Lee: Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie. Scarecrow Press, 2005 (2nd edition). Well researched making of Hitchcock's "Marnie".
* Paglia, Camille. The Birds. British Film Institute, January 2008 ISBN 978-0-85170-651-1
* Poague, Leland and Thomas Leitch: A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Collection of original essays by leading scholars examining all facets of Hitchcock’s influence
* Rebello, Stephen: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. St. Martin's, 1990. Intimately researched and detailed history of the making of Psycho,.
* Rohmer, Eric; Chabrol, Claude. Hitchcock, the first forty-four films (ISBN 978-0-8044-2743-2). F. Ungar, 1979. First book-long study of Hitchock art and probably still the best one.
* Rothman, William. The Murderous Gaze. Harvard Press, 1980. Auteur study that looks at several Hitchcock films intimately.
* San Juan, Eric; McDevitt, Jim: Hitchcock's Villains: Murderers, Maniacs, and Mother Issues. Scarecrow Press, 2013, (ISBN 978-0-8108-8775-6). An in-depth analysis of the villains who were critically important to Hitchcock's films and were often emblematic of Hitchcock himself.
* Spoto, Donald: The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. Anchor Books, 1992. The first detailed critical survey of Hitchcock's work by an American.
* Spoto, Donald: The Dark Side of Genius. Ballantine Books, 1983. A biography of Hitchcock, featuring a controversial exploration of Hitchcock's psychology.
* Sullivan, Jack: Hitchcock's Music. Yale University Press, 2006. The first book to fully explore the role music played in the Hitchcock's films. ISBN 0-300-11050-2
* Truffaut, François: Hitchcock. Simon and Schuster, 1985. A series of interviews of Hitchcock by the influential French director.
* Vest, James: Hitchcock and France: The Forging of an Auteur. Praeger Publishers, 2003. A study of Hitchcock's interest in French culture and the manner by which French critics, such as Truffaut, came to regard him in such high esteem.
* Weibel, Adrian: Spannung bei Hitchcock. Zur Funktionsweise der auktorialen Suspense. (ISBN 978-3-8260-3681-1) Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008
* Wikstrom, Patrik & Grams, Martin, Jr.: The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub, 2001, (Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9703310-1-4)
* Wood, Robin: Hitchcock's Films Revisited. Columbia University Press, 2002 (2nd edition). A much-cited collection of critical essays, now supplemented and annotated in this second edition with additional insights and changes that time and personal experience have brought to the author (including his own coming-out as a gay man).
* Contains interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and a discussion of the making of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Secret Agent (1936), which co-starred classic film actor Peter Lorre.
* Žižek, Slavoj: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan... But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, London: Verso, 1993

==External links==

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[[Anaconda]]

Green Anaconda
An anaconda is a large, non-venomous snake found in tropical South America. Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species in particular, the common or green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, which is one of the largest snakes in the world.

Anaconda may refer to:

* Any member of the genus Eunectes, a group of large, aquatic snakes found in South America
** Eunectes murinus, the green anaconda, the largest species, is found east of the Andes in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago.
** Eunectes notaeus, the yellow anaconda, a small species, is found in eastern Bolivia, southern Brazil, Paraguay and northeastern Argentina.
** Eunectes deschauenseei, the darkly-spotted anaconda, is a rare species found in northeastern Brazil and coastal French Guiana.
** Eunectes beniensis, the Bolivian anaconda, the most recently defined species, is found in the Departments of Beni and Pando in Bolivia.
* The giant anaconda is a mythical snake of enormous proportions said to be found in South America.
* Any large snake that "constricts" its prey (see Constriction), if applied loosely, could be called anaconda. Oxford. 1991. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Second Edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-861258-3. 

==Etymology==
Although the name refers to a snake found only in South America, the name commonly used in Brazil is sucuri, sucuriju or sucuriuba. The South American names anacauchoa and anacaona were suggested in an account by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera but the idea of a South American origin was questioned by Henry Walter Bates who, in his travels in South America, failed to find any similar name in use. The word anaconda is derived from the name of a snake from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) that John Ray described in Latin in his Synopsis Methodica Animalium (1693) as serpens indicus bubalinus anacandaia zeylonibus, ides bubalorum aliorumque jumentorum membra conterens. Ray used a catalogue of snakes from the Leyden museum supplied by Dr. Tancred Robinson but the description of its habit was based on Andreas Cleyer who in 1684 described a gigantic snake that crushed large animals by coiling and crushing their bones. Henry Yule in his Hobson-Jobson notes that the word became more popular due to a piece of fiction published in 1768 in the Scots Magazine by a certain R. Edwin. Edwin described a tyger being crushed and killed by an anaconda when in fact tigers never occurred in Sri Lanka. Yule and Frank Wall noted that the snake was in fact a python and suggested a Tamil origin anai-kondra meaning elephant killer. A Sinhalese origin was suggested by Donald Ferguson who pointed out that the word Henakandaya (hena lightning and kanda stem/trunk) was used in Sri Lanka for the small whip snake (Ahaetulla pulverulenta) and somehow got misapplied to the python before myths were created. 

==References==

==Further reading==

* Ray J. 1693. Synopsis methodica animalium quadrupedum et serpentini generis. Vulgarium natas characteristicas, rariorum descriptiones integras exhibens: cum historiis & observationibus anatomicis perquam curiosis. Præmittuntur nonnulla de animalium in genere, sensu, generatione, divisione, &c. - pp. , 1-336, . Londini. (Smith & Walford).
* Yule H, Burnell AC. 1886. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical, and Discursive. London: J. Murray. pp. 133–134. (reprinted in 1903 by W. Crooke).



[[Altaic languages]]

Altaic is a proposed language family of central Eurasia. Various versions include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages. Georg et al. 1999: 73-74 These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe. The group is named after the Altai Mountains, a mountain range in Central Asia.

The Altaic language families share numerous characteristics. The debate is over the origin of their similarities. One camp, often called the "Altaicists", views these similarities as arising from common descent from a proto-Altaic language spoken several thousand years ago. The other camp, often called the "anti-Altaicists", views these similarities as arising from areal interaction between the language groups concerned. Some linguists believe the case for either interpretation is about equally strong; they have been called the "skeptics". Georg et al. 1999: 81 

Another view accepts Altaic as a valid family but includes in it only Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic. This view was widespread prior to the 1960s, but has almost no supporters among specialists today. Georg et al. 1999: 73-74 The expanded grouping, including Korean and Japanese, came to be known as "Macro-Altaic", leading to the designation of the smaller grouping as "Micro-Altaic" by retronymy. Most proponents of Altaic continue to support the inclusion of Korean and Japanese. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis. 

Micro-Altaic includes about 66 living languages, to which Macro-Altaic would add Korean, Japanese, and the Ryukyuan languages for a total of about 74. (These are estimates, depending on what is considered a language and what is considered a dialect. They do not include earlier states of language, such as Middle Mongol or Old Japanese.) Micro-Altaic has a total of about 348 million speakers today, Macro-Altaic about 558 million.

==History of the Altaic idea==
The Altai Mountains give their name to the proposed language family.

The idea that the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages are closely related to each other was allegedly first published in 1730 by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, a Swedish officer who traveled in the eastern Russian Empire while a prisoner of war after the Great Northern War. However, as has been pointed out by Alexis Manaster Ramer and Paul Sidwell (1997), von Strahlenberg actually opposed the idea of a closer relationship among the languages which later became known as "Altaic". Von Strahlenberg's classification was the first attempt at classification of a large number of languages some of which are Altaic. Poppe 1965: 125 

The term "Altaic", as the name for a language family, was introduced in 1844 by Matthias Castrén, a pioneering Finnish philologist who made major contributions to the study of the Uralic languages. As originally formulated by Castrén, Altaic included not only Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (=Tungusic) but also Finno-Ugric and Samoyed. Poppe 1965: 126 

Finno-Ugric and Samoyed eventually came to be grouped in a separate family, known as Uralic (though doubts long persisted about its validity). The original Altaic family thus came to be known as the Ural–Altaic. Poppe 1965: 127 In the "Ural–Altaic" nomenclature, Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic are regarded as "Uralic", whereas Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic are regarded as "Altaic" - while Korean is sometimes considered Altaic, as is, less often, Japanese.

For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the theory of a common Ural–Altaic family was widespread, based on such shared features as vowel harmony and agglutination. However, while the Ural–Altaic hypothesis can still be found in encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general references, it has generally been abandoned by linguists. For instance it was characterized by Sergei Starostin as "an idea now completely discarded". Starostin et al. 2003: 8 

In 1857, the Austrian scholar Anton Boller suggested adding Japanese to the Ural–Altaic family. Miller 1986: 34 In the 1920s, G.J. Ramstedt and E.D. Polivanov advocated the inclusion of Korean. However, Ramstedt's two-volume magnum opus, Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft ('Introduction to Altaic Linguistics'), published in 1952–1957, rejected the Ural–Altaic hypothesis and included Korean in Altaic, an inclusion followed by most leading Altaicists to date. The first volume of his work, Lautlehre ('Phonology'), contained the first comprehensive attempt to identify regular correspondences among the sound systems within the Altaic language families. 

In 1960, Nicholas Poppe published what was in effect a heavily revised version of Ramstedt’s volume on phonology Miller 1991: 298 that has since set the standard in Altaic studies. Poppe considered the issue of the relationship of Korean to Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic not settled. Poppe 1965: 148 In his view, there were three possibilities: (1) Korean did not belong with the other three genealogically, but had been influenced by an Altaic substratum; (2) Korean was related to the other three at the same level they were related to each other; (3) Korean had split off from the other three before they underwent a series of characteristic changes.

===Development of the Macro-Altaic theory===
Roy Andrew Miller's 1971 book Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages convinced most Altaicists that Japanese also belonged to Altaic. Poppe 1976: 470 Since then, the standard set of languages included in Macro-Altaic has been Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese.

An alternative classification, though one with much less currency among Altaicists, was proposed by John C. Street (1962), according to which Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic forms one grouping and Korean-Japanese-Ainu another, the two being linked in a common family that Street designated as "North Asiatic". The same schema was adopted by James Patrie (1982) in the context of an attempt to classify the Ainu language. The Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic and Korean-Japanese-Ainu groupings were also posited by Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002); however, he treated them as independent members of a larger family, which he termed Eurasiatic.
 

Anti-Altaicists Gerard Clauson (1956), Gerhard Doerfer (1963), and Alexander Shcherbak argued that the words and features shared by Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages were for the most part borrowings and that the rest could be attributed to chance resemblances. They noted that there was little vocabulary shared by Turkic and Tungusic languages, though more shared with Mongolic languages. They reasoned that if all three families had a common ancestor, we should expect losses to happen at random, not only at the geographical margins of the family; and that the observed pattern is consistent with borrowing. Furthermore, they argued that many of the typological features of the supposed Altaic languages, such as agglutinative morphology and SOV word order, usually co-occur in languages. In sum, the idea was that Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages form a Sprachbund – the result of convergence through intensive borrowing and long contact among speakers of languages that are not necessarily closely related.

Doubt was also raised about the affinities of Korean and Japanese; in particular, some authors tried to connect Japanese to the Austronesian languages. Starostin et al. 2003: 8–9 

Starostin's (1991) lexicostatistical research claimed that the proposed Altaic groups shared about 15–20% of potential cognates within a 110-word Swadesh-Yakhontov list (e.g. Turkic–Mongolic 20%, Turkic–Tungusic 18%, Turkic–Korean 17%, Mongolic–Tungusic 22%, Mongolic–Korean 16%, Tungusic–Korean 21%). Altogether, Starostin concluded that the Altaic grouping was substantiated, though "older than most other language families in Eurasia, such as Indo-European or Finno-Ugric, and this is the reason why the modern Altaic languages preserve few common elements".

Unger (1990) advocates a family consisting of Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic languages but not Turkic or Mongolic; and Doerfer (1988) rejects all the genetic claims over these major groups. In 2003, Claus Schönig published a critical overview of the history of the Altaic hypothesis up to that time. He concluded:

In 2003, "An Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages" was published by Starostin, Dybo, and Mudrak. It contains 2800 proposed cognate sets, a set of sound laws based on those proposed sets, and a number of grammatical correspondences, as well as a few important changes to the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic. For example, while most of today's Altaic languages have vowel harmony, Proto-Altaic as reconstructed by Starostin et al. lacked it—instead various vowel assimilations between the first and second syllables of words occurred in Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic. It tries hard to distinguish loans between Turkic and Mongolic and between Mongolic and Tungusic from cognates; and it suggests words that occur in Turkic and Tungusic but not Mongolic. All other combinations between the five branches also occur in the book. Starostin et al. 2003: 20 It lists 144 items of shared basic vocabulary (most of them already present in Starostin 1991), including words for such items as 'eye', 'ear', 'neck', 'bone', 'blood', 'water', 'stone', 'sun', and 'two'. Starostin et al. 2003: 230-234 This work has not changed the minds of any of the principal authors in the field, however. The debate continues unabated – e.g. S. Georg 2004, A. Vovin 2005, S. Georg 2005 (anti-Altaic); S. Starostin 2005, V. Blažek 2006, M. Robbeets 2007, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008 (pro-Altaic).

According to Roy Andrew Miller (1996: 98-99), the Clauson–Doerfer critique of Altaic relies exclusively on lexicon, whereas the fundamental evidence for Altaic consists in verbal morphology. Lars Johanson (2010: 15-17) suggests that a resolution of the Altaic dispute may yet come from the examination of verbal morphology and calls for a muting of the polemic. In his view, "The dark age of pro and contra slogans, unfair polemics, and humiliations is not yet completely over and done with, but there seems to be some hope for a more constructive discussion" (ib. 17).

==Postulated Urheimat==
The earliest known texts in a Turkic language are the Orkhon inscriptions, of which the earliest dates from around 720 AD and the latest from 735 AD (Miller 1971: 3). They were deciphered in 1893 by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in a scholarly race with his rival, the Germano-Russian linguist Wilhelm Radloff. However, Radloff was the first to publish the inscriptions.

The first Tungusic language to be attested is Jurchen, the language of the ancestors of the Manchus. A writing system for it was devised in 1119 AD and an inscription using this system is known from 1185 (see List of Jurchen inscriptions).

The earliest Mongolic language of which we have written evidence is known as Middle Mongol. It is first attested by an inscription dated to 1224 or 1225 AD and by the Secret History of the Mongols, written in 1228 (see Mongolic languages). The earliest Para-Mongolic text is the Memorial for Yelu Yanning, written in the Khitan Large Script and dated to 986 AD.

The prehistory of the peoples speaking these languages is largely unknown. Whereas for certain other language families, such as the speakers of Indo-European, Uralic, and Austronesian, we are able to frame substantial hypotheses, in the case of the proposed Altaic family everything remains to be done. Miller 1991: 319–320 In the absence of written records, there are several ways to study the (pre)history of a people:

*Identification of archaeological cultures: the material remains found at dwelling sites, burial grounds, and other places where people left traces of their activity.
*Physical anthropology, which studies the physical characteristics of peoples, ancient and modern.
*Genetics, in particular the study of ancient DNA.
*Philology, which studies the evidence in language families for their primitive locations and the nature of their cultures. (For an example, see Proto-Uralic language.) Mythology and legend often contain important clues to the earlier history of peoples.
*Glottochronology, which attempts to estimate the time depth of a language family based on an assumed rate of change in languages. Related to this is lexicostatistics, which attempts to determine the degree of relation between a set of languages by comparing the percentage of basic vocabulary (words like "I", "you", "heart", "stone", "two", "be", "and") they share in common.
*Developing a family tree of languages and noting the relative distance of the splits that occur in it.
*Observing evidence for contact between languages, which may indicate approximately when and where they were adjacent to each other.

All of these methods remain to be applied to the languages attributed to Altaic with the same degree of focus and intensity they have been applied to the Indo-European family (e.g. Mallory 1989, Anthony 2007).

===Macro-Altaic Urheimat===
Japanese is first attested in a few short inscriptions from the 5th century AD, such as the Inariyama Sword. The first substantial text in Japanese, however, is the Kojiki, which dates from 712 AD. It is followed by the Nihon shoki, completed in 720, and that by the Man'yōshū, which dates from c. 771-785, but includes material that is about 400 years earlier (Miller 1971: 4).

The most important text for the study of early Korean is the Hyangga, a collection of 25 poems, of which some go back to the Three Kingdoms period (57–668 AD), but are preserved in an orthography that only goes back to the 9th century AD (Miller 1996: 60). Korean is copiously attested from the mid-15th century on in the phonetically precise Hangul system of writing (ib. 61).

According to Juha Janhunen, the ancestral languages of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese were spoken in a relatively small area comprising present-day North Korea, Southern Manchuria, and Southeastern Mongolia (Johanson and Robbeets 2010: 2). However Janhunen (1992) is skeptical about an affiliation of Japanese to Altaic languages, while Róna-Tas (1998: 77) remarked that a relationship between Altaic and Japanese, if it ever existed, must be more remote than the relationship of any two of the Indo-European languages. Ramsey (2004: 340) stated that "the genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese, if it in fact exists, is probably more complex and distant than we can imagine on the basis of our present state of knowledge", a concept later restated by Lee (2011).

Supporters of Altaic formerly set the date of the Proto-Altaic language at around 4000 BC, but today at around 5000 BC (Starostin et al. 2003) or 6000 BC (Kuz'mina 2007: 364). This would make it a language family about as old as Indo-European (4000 to 7,000 BC according to several hypotheses cited in Mallory 1997: 106) but considerably younger than Afroasiatic (c. 10,000 BC according to Diakonoff 1988: 33n, 11,000 to 16,000 BC according to Ehret 2002: 35–36).

==List of Altaicists and critics of Altaic==
Note: This list is limited to linguists who have worked specifically on the Altaic problem since the publication of the first volume of Ramstedt's Einführung in 1952. The dates given are those of works concerning Altaic. For Altaicists, the version of Altaic they favor is given at the end of the entry, if other than the prevailing one of Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean–Japanese.

===Altaicists===
*Pentti Aalto (1955). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.
*Anna V. Dybo (S. Starostin et al. 2003, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).
*Ki-Moon Lee (K.-M. Lee and S.R. Ramsey 2011). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean and perhaps Japanese.
*Karl H. Menges (1975). Common ancestor of Korean, Japanese and traditional Altaic dated back to the 7th or 8th millennium BC (1975: 125).
*Roy Andrew Miller (1971, 1980, 1986, 1996).
*Oleg A. Mudrak (S. Starostin et al. 2003).
*Nicholas Poppe (1965). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and perhaps Korean.
*Alexis Manaster Ramer.
*Martine Robbeets (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008).
*G.J. Ramstedt (1952–1957). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.
*George Starostin (A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).
*Sergei Starostin (1991, S. Starostin et al. 2003).
*John C. Street (1962). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped as "North Asiatic".
*Talat Tekin (1994). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.

===Major critics of Altaic===
*Gerard Clauson (1956, 1959, 1962).
*Gerhard Doerfer (1963, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1993).
*Stefan Georg (2004, 2005).
*Juha Janhunen (1992).
*Claus Schönig (2003).
*Alexander Shcherbak.
*Alexander Vovin (2005, 2010). Formerly an advocate of Altaic (1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001), now a critic of it.

===Alternative hypotheses===
*Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped in Eurasiatic.
*Lars Johanson (2010). Agnostic, proponent of a "Transeurasian" verbal morphology not necessarily genealogically linked.
*James Patrie (1982). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped in a common taxon (cf. John C. Street 1962).
*J. Marshall Unger (1990). Tungusic–Korean–Japanese ("Macro-Tungusic"), with Turkic and Mongolic as separate language families.

==Comparative grammar==

===Reconstructed phonology===
Based on the proposed correspondences listed below, the following phoneme inventory has been reconstructed for the hypothetical Proto(-Macro)-Altaic language (taken from Blažek's summary of the newest Altaic etymological dictionary et al. 2003 and transcribed into the IPA):

====Consonants====

 Bilabial Alveolar or dental Alveolopalatal Postalveolar Palatal Velar 
 Plosives aspirated /pʰ/ /tʰ/ /kʰ/ 
 voiceless /p/ /t/ /k/ 
 voiced /b/ /d/ /ɡ/ 
 Affricates aspirated /tʃʰ/ 
 voiceless /tʃ/ 
 voiced /dʒ/ 
 Fricatives voiceless /s/ /ʃ/ 
 voiced /z/-1 
 Nasals /m/ /n/ /nʲ/ /ŋ/ 
 Trills -/r/-2 /rʲ/ 
 Approximants /l/ /lʲ/ -/j/-2 

1 This phoneme only occurred at the beginnings of words.
2 These phonemes only occurred in the interior of words.

====Vowels====

 Front Back 
 unrounded rounded 
 Close /i/ /y/ /u/ 
 Mid /e/ /ø/ /o/ 
 Near-open /æ/ 
 Open /a/ 

It is not clear whether , , were monophthongs as shown here (presumably ) or diphthongs (); the evidence is equivocal. In any case, however, they only occurred in the first (and sometimes only) syllable of any word.

Every vowel occurred in long and short versions which were different phonemes in the first syllable. Starostin et al. (2003) treat length together with pitch as a prosodic feature.

====Prosody====
As reconstructed by Starostin et al. (2003), Proto-Altaic was a pitch accent or tone language; at least the first and probably every syllable could have a high or a low pitch.

===Sound correspondences===
If a Proto(-Macro)-Altaic language really existed, it should be possible to reconstruct regular sound correspondences between that protolanguage and its descendants; such correspondences would make it possible to distinguish cognates from loanwords (in many cases). Such attempts have repeatedly been made. The latest version is reproduced here, taken from Blažek's (2006) summary of the newest Altaic etymological dictionary (Starostin et al. 2003) and transcribed into the IPA.

When a Proto-Altaic phoneme developed differently depending on its position in a word (beginning, interior, or end), the special case (or all cases) is marked with a hyphen; for example, Proto-Altaic disappears (marked "0") or becomes at the beginning of a Turkic word and becomes elsewhere in a Turkic word.

====Consonants====
Only single consonants are considered here. In the middle of words, clusters of two consonants were allowed in Proto-Altaic as reconstructed by Starostin et al. (2003); the correspondence table of these clusters spans almost 7 pages in their book (83–89), and most clusters are only found in one or a few of the reconstructed roots.

 Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic Proto-Mongolic Proto-Tungusic Proto-Korean Proto-Japonic 
 /pʰ/ 0-1, /j/-, /p/ /h/-2, /j/-, -/b/-, -/h/-2, -/b/ /p/ /p/ /p/ 
 /p/ /b/ /b/-6, /h/-2, /b/ /p/-, /b/ 
 /b/ /b/-, -/h/-, -/b/-9, -/b/ /b/ /p/, -/b/- /p/-, /w/, /b/10, /p/11 
 /tʰ/ /t/-, /d/-3, /t/ /t/, /tʃ/4, -/d/ /t/ /t/ /t/ 
 /t/ /d/-, /t/ /t/, /tʃ/4 /d/-, /dʒ/-7, /t/ /t/, -/r/- /t/-, /d/-, /t/ 
 /d/ /j/-, /d/ /d/, /dʒ/4 /d/ /d/-, /t/-, /t/, /j/ 
 /tʃʰ/ /tʃ/ /tʃ/ /tʃ/ /tʃ/ /t/ 
 /tʃ/ /d/-, /tʃ/ /d/-, /dʒ/-4, /tʃ/ /s/-, -/dʒ/-, -/s/- /t/-, -/s/- 
 /dʒ/ /j/ /dʒ/ /dʒ/ /d/-, /j/ 
 /kʰ/ /k/ /k/-, -/k/-, -/ɡ/-5, -/ɡ/ /x/-, /k/, /x/ /k/, /h/ /k/ 
 /k/ /k/-, /k/, /ɡ/8 /k/-, /ɡ/ /k/-, /ɡ/-, /ɡ/ /k/-, -/h/-, -0-, -/k/ 
 /ɡ/ /ɡ/ /ɡ/-, -/h/-, -/ɡ/-5, -/ɡ/ /ɡ/ /k/, -/h/-, -0- /k/-, /k/, 012 
 /s/ /s/ /s/ /s/ /s/-, /h/-, /s/ /s/ 
 /z/ /j/ /s/ 
 /ʃ/ /s/-, /tʃ/-13, /s/ /s/-, /tʃ/-13, /s/ /ʃ/ 
 /m/ /b/-, -/m/- /m/ /m/ /m/ /m/ 
 /n/ /j/-, -/n/- /n/ /n/ /n/ /n/ 
 /nʲ/ /j/-, /nʲ/ /dʒ/-, /j/, /n/ /nʲ/ /n/-, /nʲ/14 /m/-, /n/, /m/ 
 /ŋ/ 0-, /j/-, /ŋ/ 0-, /j/-, /ɡ/-15, /n/-16, /ŋ/, /n/, /m/, /h/ /ŋ/ /n/-, /ŋ/, 0 0-, /n/-, /m/-7, /m/, /n/ 
 /r/ /r/ /r/ /r/ /r/ /r/, /t/4, 15 
 /rʲ/ /rʲ/ /r/, /t/ 
 /l/ /j/-, /l/ /n/-, /l/-, /l/ /l/ /n/-, /r/ /n/-, /r/ 
 /lʲ/ /j/-, /lʲ/ /d/-, /dʒ/-4, /l/ /n/-, /s/ 
 /j/ /j/ /j/, /h/ /j/ /j/, 0 /j/, 0 

1 The Khalaj language has instead. (It also retains a number of other archaisms.) However, it has also added in front of words for which no initial consonant (except in some cases , as expected) can be reconstructed for Proto-Altaic; therefore, and because it would make them dependent on whether Khalaj happens to have preserved any given root, Starostin et al. (2003: 26–28) have not used Khalaj to decide whether to reconstruct an initial in any given word and have not reconstructed a for Proto-Turkic even though it was probably there.
2 The Monguor language has here instead (Kaiser & Shevoroshkin 1988); it is therefore possible that Proto-Mongolian also had which then became (and then usually disappeared) in all descendants except Monguor. Tabgač and Kitan, two extinct Mongolic languages not considered by Starostin et al. (2003), even preserve in these places (Blažek 2006).
3 This happened when the next consonant in the word was , , or .
4 Before .
5 When the next consonant in the word was .
6 This happened "in syllables with original high pitch" (Starostin et al. 2003:135).
7 Before , or .
8 When the next consonant in the word was .
9 When the preceding consonant was , , , or , or when the next consonant was .
10 Before , , or any vowel followed by .
11 Before , or and then another vowel.
12 When preceded by a vowel preceded by .
13 Before .
14 Starostin et al. (2003) follow a minority opinion (Vovin 1993) in interpreting the sound of the Middle Korean letter as or rather than . (Dybo & Starostin 2008:footnote 50)
15 Before .
16 Before , , or .

====Vowels====
Vowel harmony is pervasive in the languages attributed to Altaic: most Turkic and Mongolic as well as some Tungusic languages have it, Korean is arguably in the process of losing its traces, and it is (controversially) hypothesized for Old Japanese. (Vowel harmony is also typical of the neighboring Uralic languages and was often counted among the arguments for the Ural–Altaic hypotheses.) Nevertheless, Starostin et al. (2003) reconstruct Proto-Altaic as lacking vowel harmony. Instead, according to them, vowel harmony originated in each daughter branch as assimilation of the vowel in the first syllable to the vowel in the second syllable (which was usually modified or lost later). "The situation therefore is very close, e.g., to Germanic Germanic umlaut or to the Nakh languages in the Eastern Caucasus, where the quality of non-initial vowels can now only be recovered on the basis of umlaut processes in the first syllable." (Starostin et al. 2003:91) The table below is taken from Starostin et al. (2003):

 Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic Proto-Mongolic Proto-Tungusic Middle Korean Proto-Japonic 
 first s. second s. first syllable 
 /a/ /a/ /a/, /a/1, /ʌ/1 /a/ /a/ /a/, /e/ /a/ 
 /e/ /a/, /ɯ/ /a/, /i/ /ə/ 
 /i/ /ɛ/, /a/ /a/, /e/ /a/, /e/, /i/ /i/ 
 /o/ /o/, /ja/, /aj/ /a/, /i/, /e/ /ə/, /o/ /a/ 
 /u/ /a/ /a/, /o/, /u/ /a/, /ə/, /o/, /u/ /u/ 
 /e/ /a/ /a/, /ʌ/, /ɛ/ /a/, /e/ /e/ /a/, /e/ /a/ 
 /e/ /ja/-, /ɛ/, /e/2 /e/, /ja/ /a/, /e/, /i/, /ɨ/ /ə/ 
 /i/ /ja/-, /ɛ/, /e/2 /e/, /i/ /i/, /ɨ/, /a/, /e/ /i/ 
 /o/ /ʌ/, /e/ /a/, /e/, /y/3, /ø/3 /ə/, /o/, /u/ /ə/, /a/ 
 /u/ /ɛ/, /a/, /ʌ/ /e/, /a/, /o/3 /o/, /u/, /a/ /u/ 
 /i/ /a/ /ɯ/, /i/ /i/ /i/ /a/, /e/ /a/ 
 /e/ , /e/2 /e/, /i/ /i/, /ɨ/ /i/ 
 /i/ /i/ /i/, /e/1 /i/ /i/ 
 /o/ /ɯ/ /i/ /o/, /u/, /ɨ/ /i/, /ə/ 
 /u/ /ɯ/, /i/ /i/, /ɨ/ /u/ 
 /o/ /a/ /o/ /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/ /a/, /e/ /a/ 
 /e/ /ø/, /o/ /ø/, /y/, /o/ /ɨ/, /o/, /u/ /ə/ 
 /i/ /ø/, /o/ /ø/ /o/, /u/ /u/ 
 /o/ /o/ /u/ /a/, /e/ /ə/ 
 /u/ /o/ /o/, /u/ /ə/, /o/, /u/ /u/ 
 /u/ /a/ /u/, /o/ /a/, /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/ /a/, /e/ /a/ 
 /e/ /y/ /o/, /u/, /y/ /u/ /a/, /e/ /ua/, /a/1 
 /i/ /y/, /u/ /y/, /ø/ /o/, /u/, /ɨ/ /u/ 
 /o/ /u/ /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/, /ɨ/ /ə/ 
 /u/ /o/, /u/ /u/ 
 /æ/ /a/ /ia/, /ja/, /ɛ/ /a/ /ia/, /i/4 /ə/, /a/3 /a/ 
 /e/ /ia/, /ja/ /i/, /a/, /e/ /i/ /i/, /e/, /je/ /ə/ 
 /i/ /ia/, /ja/, /ɛ/ /i/, /e/ /ia/, /i/4 /ə/, /e/, /je/ /i/ 
 /o/ /ia/, /ja/, /a/1 /e/ /o/, /u/ /ə/, /o/, /u/ /a/ 
 /u/ /e/, /a/, /ʌ/1 /a/, /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/, /e/, /je/ /u/ 
 /ø/ /a/ /ia/, /ja/, /a/1 /a/, /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/, /ə/ /a/ 
 /e/ /e/, /a/, /ʌ/1 /e/, /ø/ /o/, /u/, /je/ /ə/, /u/ 
 /i/ /ia/, /ja/, /a/1 /i/, /e/, /ø/ /o/, /u/, /ə/ /i/ 
 /o/ /o/, /u/ /ø/, /y/, /o/, /u/ /i/ /i/, /e/, /je/ /ə/, /a/ 
 /u/ /u/, /o/ /e/, /i/, /u/ /ia/, /i/4 /ə/, /u/, /je/ /u/ 
 /y/ /a/ /ɯ/ /o/, /u/, /i/ /o/, /u/ /a/, /e/ /a/ 
 /e/ /y/, /ø/, /i/2 /ø/, /y/, /o/, /u/ /y/, /u/1 /a/, /e/, /ja/, /je/, /o/, /u/ /u/, /ə/ 
 /i/ /y/, /ø/ /i/, /u/1 /ɨ/, /i/, /o/, /u/ /i/ 
 /o/ /u/, /o/ /o/, /u/ /y/ /a/, /e/, /ja/, /je/, /o/, /u/ /u/, /ə/ 
 /u/ /ɯ/ /i/, /o/, /u/, /y/, /ø/ /o/, /u/ /o/, /u/, /i/, /ɨ/ /u/ 

1 When preceded by a bilabial consonant.
2 When followed by a trill, , or .
3 When preceded or followed by a bilabial consonant.
4 When preceded by a fricative ().

====Prosody====
Length and pitch in the first syllable evolved as follows according to Starostin et al. (2003), with the caveat that it is not clear which pitch was high and which was low in Proto-Altaic (Starostin et al. 2003:135). For simplicity of input and display every syllable is symbolized as "a" here:

 Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic Proto-Mongolic Proto-Tungusic Proto-Korean Proto-Japonic 
 1 2 
 
 1 2 
 

¹ "Proto-Mongolian has lost all traces of the original prosody except for voicing *p > *b in syllables with original high pitch" (Starostin et al. 2003:135).
² " several secondary metatonic processes happened in Korean, basically in the verb subsystem: all verbs have a strong tendency towards low pitch on the first syllable." (Starostin et al. 2003:135)

===Morphological correspondences===
Starostin et al. (2003) have reconstructed the following correspondences between the case and number suffixes (or clitics) of the (Macro-)Altaic languages (taken from Blažek, 2006):

 Case 
 Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic (*), Old Turkic Proto-Mongolic (*), Classical Mongolian Proto-Tungusic Proto-Korean (*), Middle Korean Proto-Japonic (*), Old Japanese 
 nominative: - - - - - - 
 accusative: 
 partitive: (accusative) (possessive) 
 genitive: 
 dative-locative: (locative-ablative) (dative-locative), (attributive) (dative), (locative) (attributive-locative) 
 dative-instrumental: (instrumental) (dative-locative) 
 dative-directive: (dative) (directive) 
 comitative-locative: (locative), (prolative), (comitative) (instrumental-lative) 
 comitative-equative: (equative) (ablative), (terminative) (comitative) 
 allative: (directive) (allative) 
 directive: (lative) 
 instrumental-ablative: *? terminal dative (ablative) 
 singulative: 
 Number 
 dual: (plural for paired objects) (plural) (plural for paired objects) 
 plural: 
 plural: 
 plural: 

/V/ symbolizes an uncertain vowel. Suffixes reconstructed for Proto-Turkic, Proto-Mongolic, Proto-Korean, or Proto-Japonic, but not attested in Old Turkic, Classical Mongolian, Middle Korean, or Old Japanese are marked with asterisks.

===Selected cognates===

====Personal pronouns====
The table below is taken (with slight modifications) from Blažek (2006) and transcribed into IPA.

 Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic Proto-Mongolic (*), Classical Mongolian Proto-Tungusic Proto-Korean (*), Middle Korean Proto-Japonic 
 \"I\" (nominative) 
 \"me\" (oblique cases) 
 \"I\" Old Chinese: (oblique) (Korean: 나) (Sino-Korean: */我/, */吾/), (矣)1 (Sino-Japanese: */我,吾/, わ- 私) 
 \"thou\" (nominative) and/or (Turkic: Sen, Сен) (Mongolian: чи) (Manchu: Si, Nanai: Си) 1 
 \"thee\" (oblique cases) (Turkic: Sen, Сен) ? 
 \"thou\" Proto-Tibeto-Burman (Korean: 너) (Japanese: な */那/) 
 \"we\" (nominative) (Turkic: Biz, Біз) (Mongolian: Бид) (Nanai: Буэ Manchu: be) (Korean: 우리,울 */于尸/) 
 \"us\" (oblique cases) (Manchu: muse) 
 \"ye\" (nominative) and/or (Turkic: Siz, Сіз) (Mongolian: та нар) (Manchu: suwe) 
 \"you\" (oblique) 

As above, forms not attested in Classical Mongolian or Middle Korean but reconstructed for their ancestors are marked with an asterisk, and /V/ represents an uncertain vowel.

====Other basic vocabulary====
The following table is a brief selection of further proposed cognates in basic vocabulary across the Altaic family (from Starostin et al. ). Their reconstructions and equivalences are not widely accepted by the mainstream linguists.

 Proto-Altaic meaning Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic Proto-Mongolic Proto-Tungusic Proto-Korean Proto-Japonic 
 that /di/- or /ti/- /te-re/ /ta/ /tjé/ /tso-re/ 
 eye /ni-dy/ 5 /nú-n/ /mà/- 
 neck /mje-k/ /nəmpV/ 
 breast 1 /køkø-n/2 /kuku-n/2 /kokajŋi/ \"pith; medulla; core\" /kəkə-rə/1 \"heart\" 
 stone 3 
 star /ho-dun/ /osi/4 
 oath, god, sky /taŋgarag/ /taŋgura/ 

1 Contains the Proto-Altaic dual suffix : "both breasts" – "chest" – "heart".
2 Contains the Proto-Altaic singulative suffix -/nV/: "one breast".
3 Compare Baekje */turak/ "stone" (Blažek 2006).
4 This is in the Jurchen language. In modern Manchu it is usiha.
5 This is disputed by Georg (2004), who states: "The traditional Tungusological reconstruction *yāsa [ = ] cannot be replaced by the nasal-initial one espoused here, needed for the comparison." However, Starostin (2005) mentions evidence from several Tungusic languages cited by Starostin et al. (2003). Georg (2005) does not accept this, referring to Georg (1999/2000) and a then upcoming paper. Georg 2005 

====Numerals and related words====
In the Indo-European family, the numerals are remarkably stable. This is a rather exceptional case; especially words for higher numbers are often borrowed wholesale. (Perhaps the most famous cases are Japanese and Korean, which have two complete sets of numerals each – one native, one Chinese.) Indeed, the Altaic numerals are less stable than the Indo-European ones, but nevertheless Starostin et al. (2003) reconstruct them as follows:

 Proto-Altaic meaning Proto-Altaic Proto-Turkic Proto-Mongolic Proto-Tungusic Proto-Korean Proto-Japonic 
 1 /byri/ /bir/ /byri/ \"all, each\" \"at first\" /pi-tə/ 
 single /nøŋe/ /nige/ \"1\" /noŋ/~/non/ \"be the first, begin\" /nəmi/ \"only\" 
 front /emo/ /øm-gen/ \"upper part of breast\" /emy/- /emu/~/ume/ \"1\" /maen-/~/môn-chô \"first of all\"26 /upe/ \"upper\" /mape/ \"front\" 
 single, one of a pair \"one of a pair\" /son-du-/ \"odd\" 1 \"1\" or /hə̀t-/ 1 /sa/- \"together, reciprocally\" 
 2 /tybu/ 2 \"2 (feminine)\"3 4 
 pair, couple /eki/ \"2\", \"twins\"; ? \"20\" /(h)ekire/ \"twins\" 
 different, other /gojV/ /gojar/ \"2\" /goj/~/gia/ /kía/ 
 pair, half /puta/- \"2\" 
 3 /ŋy/ \"30\"5 /gu-rban/; \"30\" 6 /mi/-7 
 (footnote 8) /ìlù/ /øløŋ/9 /ila-n/ \"3\" /ùrù-pu/ \"bissextile (year or month)\" 
 object consisting of 3 parts /séjra/ \"trident, pitchfork\" \"3\" /sárápi/ \"rake, pitchfork\" 
 4 /dø-rben/; \"40\"10 /dy-gin/ /də/- 
 5 /ta-bun/; /ta-bin/ \"50\"11 /tà/- /i-tu-/12 
 6 ; \"60\"13 14 /mu/- 
 7 15 /jeti/ ; /dala-n/ \"70\"15 /nada-n/ /nìr-(kúp)/16 /nana/- 
 8 /jè-t-/17 /da/- 
 9 /xegyn/ /kəkənə/ 
 10 or /tøbe/ /təwə/18,/-so/\"-0\"/i-so/50 
 many, a big number \"100\" 19 /jér(h)/ \"10\" /jə̀rə̀/ \"many\" \"10,000\" /jə̀rə̀/ \"many\" 
 \"10\" /ha-rban/ \"10\", /ha-na/ \"all\" 20 -/pə/, -/pua/ \"-00\"21 
 20 or \"40\"22 /kori-n/ /xori-n/ /pata-ti/23 
 100 ?/jom/ \"big number, all\" 24 
 1000 /dymen/ or /tymen/ \"10,000\"25 /ti/ 

1 Manchu /soni/ "single, odd".
2 Old Bulgarian /tvi-rem/ "second".
3 Kitan has "2" (Blažek 2006).
4 is probably a contraction of -/ubu/-.
5 The /y/- of "3" "may also reflect the same root, although the suffixation is not clear." (Starostin et al. 2003:223)
6 Compare Silla /mir/ "3" (Blažek 2006).
7 Compare Goguryeo /mir/ "3" (Blažek 2006).
8 "third (or next after three = fourth)", "consisting of three objects"
9 "song with three out of four verses rhyming (first, second and fourth)"
10 Kitan has "4" (Blažek 2006).
11 Kitan has "5" (Blažek 2006).
12 "(the prefixed i- is somewhat unclear: it is also used as a separate word meaning ‘fifty’, but the historical root here is no doubt *tu-)" (Starostin et al. 2003:223). – Blažek (2006) also considers Goguryeo "5" (from ) to be related.
13 Kitan has "6" (Blažek 2006).
14 Middle Korean has "6", which may fit here, but the required loss of initial "is not quite regular" (Starostin et al. 2003:224).
15 The Mongolian forms "may suggest an original proto-form" or "with dissimilation or metathesis in" Proto-Mongolic (Starostin et al. 2003:224). – Kitan has "7".
16 in Early Middle Korean(タリクニ/チリクヒ in 二中歴).
17 "Problematic" (Starostin et al. 2003:224).
18 Compare Goguryeo "10" (Blažek 2006).
19 Manchu "a very big number".
20 Orok "a bundle of 10 squirrels", Nanai "collection, gathering".
21 "Hundred" in names of hundreds.
22 Starostin et al. (2003) suspect this to be a reduplication: "20 + 20".
23 would be expected; Starostin et al. (2003) think that this irregular change from to is due to influence from "2" .
24 From .
25 Also see Tümen.
26 Modern Korean – needs further investigations

==See also==
*Classification of Japonic
*Nostratic languages
*Uralo-Siberian languages
*Xiongnu

==References==

==Bibliography==

===Works cited===
*Aalto, Pentti. 1955. "On the Altaic initial *p-." Central Asiatic Journal 1, 9–16.
*Anonymous. 2008. missing. Bulletin of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, 31 March 2008, 264: ____.
*Anthony, David W. 2007. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Blažek, Václav. 2006. "Current progress in Altaic etymology." Linguistica Online, 30 January 2006.
*Boller, Anton. 1857. Nachweis, daß das Japanische zum ural-altaischen Stamme gehört. Wien.
*Clauson, Gerard. 1956. "The case against the Altaic theory." Central Asiatic Journal 2, 181–187 
*Clauson, Gerard. 1959. "The case for the Altaic theory examined." Akten des vierundzwanzigsten internationalen Orientalisten-Kongresses, edited by H. Franke. Wiesbaden: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, in Komission bei Franz Steiner Verlag.
*Clauson, Gerard. 1968. "A lexicostatistical appraisal of the Altaic theory." Central Asiatic Journal 13: 1–23.
*Diakonoff, Igor M. 1988. Afrasian Languages. Moscow: Nauka.
*Doerfer, Gerhard. 1963. "Bemerkungen zur Verwandtschaft der sog. altaische Sprachen", 'Remarks on the relationship of the so-called Altaic languages'. In Gerhard Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen, Bd. I: Mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen, 1963, 51–105. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
*Doerfer, Gerhard. 1973. "Lautgesetze und Zufall: Betrachtungen zum Omnicomparativismus." Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 10.
*Doerfer, Gerhard. 1974. "Ist das Japanische mit den altaischen Sprachen verwandt?" Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 114.1.
*Doerfer, Gerhard. 1985. Mongolica-Tungusica. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
*Doerfer, Gerhard. 1988. Grundwort und Sprachmischung: Eine Untersuchung an Hand von Körperteilbezeichnungen. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
*Dybo, Anna V. and Georgiy S. Starostin. 2008. "In defense of the comparative method, or the end of the Vovin controversy." Aspects of Comparative Linguistics 3, 109–258. Moscow: RSUH Publishers.
*Georg, Stefan, Peter A. Michalove, Alexis Manaster Ramer, and Paul J. Sidwell. 1999. "Telling general linguists about Altaic." Journal of Linguistics 35:65–98.
*Georg, Stefan. 1999 / 2000. "Haupt und Glieder der altaischen Hypothese: die Körperteilbezeichnungen im Türkischen, Mongolischen und Tungusischen" ('Head and members of the Altaic hypothesis: The body-part designations in Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic'). Ural-altaische Jahrbücher, neue Folge B 16, 143–182.
*Georg, Stefan. 2004. Review of Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. Diachronica 21.2, 445–450.
*Georg, Stefan. 2005. "Reply Starostin 2005." Diachronica 22(2), 455–457.
*Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000–2002. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, 2 volumes. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
*Johanson, Lars. 2010. "The high and low spirits of Transeurasian language studies" in Johanson and Robbeets (2010), 7–20. 
*Johanson, Lars and Martine Robbeets (editors). 2010. Transeurasian Verbal Morphology in a Comparative Perspective: Genealogy, Contact, Chance. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (Includes contributions by Róna-Tas, Janhunen, Comrie, and others.)
*Kuzmina, Elena E. edited by J. P. Mallory. 2007. The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. BRILL. ISBN 978-9004160-54-5
*Lee, Ki-Moon and S. Robert Ramsey. 2011. A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Manaster Ramer, Alexis and Paul Sidwell. 1997. "The truth about Strahlenberg's classification of the languages of Northeastern Eurasia." Journal de la Société finno-ougrienne 87, 139–160.
*Menges, Karl. H. 1975. Altajische Studien II. Japanisch und Altajisch. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
*Mallory, J.P. 1989. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames and Hudson.
*Miller, Roy Andrew. 1971. Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-52719-0.
*Miller, Roy Andrew. 1980. Origins of the Japanese Language: Lectures in Japan during the Academic Year 1977–1978. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
*Miller, Roy Andrew. 1986. Nihongo: In Defence of Japanese. London: Athlone Press. ISBN 0-485-11251-5.
*Miller, Roy Andrew. 1991. "Genetic connections among the Altaic languages." In Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (editors), Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages, 1991, 293–327. ISBN 0-8047-1897-0.
*Miller, Roy Andrew. 1996. Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 974-8299-69-4.
*Patrie, James. 1982. The Genetic Relationship of the Ainu Language. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-0724-3.
*Poppe, Nicholas. 1960. Vergleichende Grammatik der altaischen Sprachen. Teil I. Vergleichende Lautlehre, 'Comparative Grammar of the Altaic Languages, Part 1: Comparative Phonology'. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (Only part to appear of a projected larger work.)
*Poppe, Nicholas. 1965. Introduction to Altaic Linguistics. Ural-altaische Bibliothek 14. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
*Poppe, Nicholas. 1976. Review of Karl H. Menges, Altajische Studien II. Japanisch und Altajisch (1975). In The Journal of Japanese Studies 2.2, 470–474.
*Ramsey, S. Robert. 2004. Accent, Liquids, and the Search for a Common Origin for Korean and Japanese, 'Japanese Language and Literature Vol.38, No.2, Special Issue: In Honor of Samuel E. Martin', American Association of Teachers of Japanese.
*Ramstedt, G.J. 1952. Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft II. Formenlehre, 'Introduction to Altaic Linguistics, Volume 2: Morphology', edited and published by Pentti Aalto. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.
*Ramstedt, G.J. 1957. Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft I. Lautlehre, 'Introduction to Altaic Linguistics, Volume 1: Phonology', edited and published by Pentti Aalto. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.
*Ramstedt, G.J. 1966. Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft III. Register, 'Introduction to Altaic Linguistics, Volume 3: Index', edited and published by Pentti Aalto. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.
*Robbeets, Martine. 2004. "Swadesh 100 on Japanese, Korean and Altaic." Tokyo University Linguistic Papers, TULIP 23, 99–118.
*Robbeets, Martine. 2005. Is Japanese related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic? Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
*Robbeets, Martine. 2007. "How the actional suffix chain connects Japanese to Altaic." In Turkic Languages 11.1, 3–58.
*Schönig, Claus. 2003. "Turko-Mongolic Relations." In The Mongolic Languages, edited by Juha Janhunen, 403–419. London: Routledge.
*Starostin, Sergei A. 1991. Altajskaja problema i proisxoždenie japonskogo jazyka, 'The Altaic Problem and the Origin of the Japanese Language'. Moscow: Nauka.
*Starostin, Sergei A., Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak. 2003. Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13153-1.
*Starostin, Sergei A. 2005. "Response to Stefan Georg's review of the Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages." Diachronica 22(2), 451–454.
*Strahlenberg, P.J.T. von. 1730. Das nord- und ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia.... Stockholm. (Reprint: 1975. Studia Uralo-Altaica. Szeged and Amsterdam.)
*Strahlenberg, P.J.T. von. 1738. Russia, Siberia and Great Tartary, an Historico-geographical Description of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia.... (Reprint: 1970. New York: Arno Press.) English translation of the previous.
*Street, John C. 1962. Review of N. Poppe, Vergleichende Grammatik der altaischen Sprachen, Teil I (1960). Language 38, 92–98.
*Tekin, Talat. 1994. "Altaic languages." In The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, edited by R.E. Asher. Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press.
*Unger, J. Marshall. 1990. "Summary report of the Altaic panel." In Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology, edited by Philip Baldi, 479–482. Berlin – New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
*Vovin, Alexander. 1993. "About the phonetic value of the Middle Korean grapheme ." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 56(2), 247–259.
*Vovin, Alexander. 1994. "Genetic affiliation of Japanese and methodology of linguistic comparison." Journal de la Société finno-ougrienne 85, 241–256.
*Vovin, Alexander. 2001. "Japanese, Korean, and Tungusic: evidence for genetic relationship from verbal morphology." Altaic Affinities (Proceedings of the 40th Meeting of PIAC, Provo, Utah, 1997), edited by David B. Honey and David C. Wright, 83–202. Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies.
*Vovin, Alexander. 2005. "The end of the Altaic controversy" (review of Starostin et al. 2003). Central Asiatic Journal 49.1, 71–132.
*Vovin, Alexander. 2010. Koreo-Japonica: A Re-Evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. University of Hawaii Press.
*Whitney Coolidge, Jennifer. 2005. Southern Turkmenistan in the Neolithic: A Petrographic Case Study. Oxbow Books.

===Further reading===
*Greenberg, Joseph H. 1997. "Does Altaic exist?" In Irén Hegedus, Peter A. Michalove, and Alexis Manaster Ramer (editors), Indo-European, Nostratic and Beyond: A Festschrift for Vitaly V. Shevoroshkin, Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 1997, 88–93. (Reprinted in Joseph H. Greenberg, Genetic Linguistics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 325–330.)
*Hahn, Reinhard F. 1994. LINGUIST List 5.908, 18 August 1994.
*Janhunen, Juha. 1992. "Das Japanische in vergleichender Sicht." Journal de la Société finno-ougrienne 84, 145–161.
*Johanson, Lars. 1999. "Cognates and copies in Altaic verb derivation." Language and Literature – Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages: Studies in Honour of Roy Andrew Miller on His 75th Birthday, edited by Karl H. Menges and Nelly Naumann, 1–13. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (Also: HTML version.)
*Johanson, Lars. 1999. "Attractiveness and relatedness: Notes on Turkic language contacts." Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Caucasian, Dravidian, and Turkic Linguistics, edited by Jeff Good and Alan C.L. Yu, 87–94. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
*Johanson, Lars. 2002. Structural Factors in Turkic Language Contacts, translated by Vanessa Karam. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press.
*Kortlandt, Frederik. 1993. "The origin of the Japanese and Korean accent systems." Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 26, 57–65.
*Martin, Samuel E. 1966. "Lexical evidence relating Korean to Japanese." Language 12.2, 185–251.
*Nichols, Johanna. 1992. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Robbeets, Martine. 2004. "Belief or argument? The classification of the Japanese language." Eurasia Newsletter 8. Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University.
*Ruhlen, Merritt. 1987. A Guide to the World's Languages. Stanford University Press.
*Sinor, Denis. 1990. Essays in Comparative Altaic Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. ISBN 0-933070-26-8.

==External links==
*Altaic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project: Genealogical trees attributed to Ramstedt 1957, Miller 1971, and Poppe 1982
*Swadesh vocabulary lists for Altaic languages (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
*Monumenta altaica Altaic linguistics website, maintained by Ilya Gruntov
*Altaic Etymological Dictionary, database version by Sergei A. Starostin, Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak (does not include introductory chapters)
*LINGUIST List 5.911 defense of Altaic by Alexis Manaster Ramer (1994)
*LINGUIST List 5.926 1. Remarks by Alexander Vovin. 2. Clarification by J. Marshall Unger. (1994)

 



[[Austrian German]]

Austrian German (), or Austrian Standard German (Österreichisches Standard-Deutsch), is the standard variety of the German language written and spoken in Austria. In Austria it has the highest sociolinguistic prestige, as it is the variation used in the media and for other formal situations. When a lower grade of formality has to be expressed, Austrians tend to use variations, which are closer to or identical with the Bavarian and Alemannic dialects traditionally spoken but rarely written in Austria. 

Austrian German has its beginning in the mid-18th century, when empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II introduced compulsory schooling (in 1774) and several reforms of administration in their multilingual Empire. At the time the written standard was Oberdeutsche Schreibsprache, which was highly influenced by the Bavarian and Alemannic dialects of Austria. Another option was to create a new standard based on the Southern German dialects, as proposed by the linguist Janez Žiga Popovič (=Johann Siegmund Popowitsch). Instead they decided for pragmatic reasons to adopt the already standardized Chancellery language of Saxony (Sächsische Kanzleisprache or Meißner Kanzleideutsch), which was based on the standard language used for administrative purposes in the area of the cities of Meißen and Dresden, which were not part of the Austrian lands. Thus Austrian German is based on the same historical standard as the Federal German High German (Bundesdeutsches Hochdeutsch or nowadays also called Deutschländisches Deutsch, the Standard German of Germany) and Swiss High German (Schweizer Hochdeutsch, not to be confused with Swiss German, a group of Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland). The process of introducing the new written Standard was led by Joseph von Sonnenfels.

Since 1951 the standardized form of Austrian German for official texts and schools is defined by the Austrian Dictionary (), published under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture.

== General situation of German language ==
As German is a pluricentric language, Austrian German is merely one among several varieties of Standard German. Much like the relationship between British English and American English, the German varieties differ in minor respects (e.g., spelling, word usage and grammar) but are recognizably equivalent and largely mutually intelligible. The official Austrian dictionary, "Das Österreichische Wörterbuch", gives grammar and spelling rules defining the official language. In addition to this standard variety, in everyday life most Austrians speak one of a number of Upper German dialects.

== Standard German in Austria ==
A street sign in Vienna, "Fußgeher" (meaning "pedestrian") is normally seen as "Fußgänger" in Germany.
With German being a pluricentric language, German dialects in Austria should not be confused with the variety of Standard German spoken by most Austrians, which is distinct from that of Germany or Switzerland. Distinctions in vocabulary persist, for example, in culinary terms, where communication with Germans is frequently difficult, and administrative and legal language, which is due to Austria's exclusion from the development of a German nation-state in the late 19th century and its manifold particular traditions. A comprehensive collection of Austrian-German legal, administrative and economic terms is offered in: Markhardt, Heidemarie: Wörterbuch der österreichischen Rechts-, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsterminologie (Peter Lang, 2006).

===Former Standard (spoken)===
The "Former Standard", used for about 300 years or more in speech in refined language, was the "Schönbrunner Deutsch", a sociolect spoken by the imperial Habsburg Family and the nobility of Austria-Hungary. It differed from other dialects in vocabulary and pronunciation: it appears to have been spoken slightly nasally. This was not a standard in a modern technical sense – it was the social standard of "upper class" speech. Here are some examples of Schönbrunner Deutsch: 
* "Crown Prince" Otto von Habsburg Otto von Habsburg - Quo vadis Integration - Festvortrag Eggenberg 2004
* Emperor Charles I. of Austria (1916–1918) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMU9FFzez1A
* Emperor Franz Joseph (1848–1916) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jecUwMPk8pE&feature=related 

===Special forms in written language===
For many years, Austria had a special form of the language for official government documents. This form is known as: "Österreichische Kanzleisprache" or "Austrian chancellery language" in English. It is a very traditional form of the language, probably derived from medieval deeds and documents, and has a very complicated structure and vocabulary which is generally reserved only for such documents. For most speakers (even native speakers), this form of the language is generally difficult to understand, as it contains many highly specialised terms for diplomatic, internal, official, and military matters. There are no regional variations, because this special written form has mainly been used by a government that has now for centuries been based in Vienna. "Österreichische Kanzleisprache" is now used less and less, thanks to various administrative reforms which have led to there being fewer of the classic civil servants, the Beamter. As a result, Standard German is replacing it in government and administrative texts.

=== European Union ===
When Austria became a member of the European Union, the Austrian variety of the German language — limited to 23 agricultural terms — was "protected" in Protocol No 10, regarding the use of specific Austrian terms of the German language in the framework of the European Union, which forms part of the Austrian EU accession treaty. Austrian German is the only variety of a pluricentric language recognized under international law / EU primary law. All facts concerning “Protocol no. 10” are documented in Markhardt, Heidemarie: “Das österreichische Deutsch im Rahmen der EU,” Peter Lang, 2005.

=== Grammar ===

====Verbs====
In Austria, as in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and in southern Germany, verbs that express a state tend to use sein as the auxiliary verb in the perfect, as well as verbs of movement. Verbs which fall into this category include sitzen (to sit), liegen (to lie) and, in parts of Carinthia, schlafen (to sleep). Therefore the perfect of these verbs would be ich bin gesessen, ich bin gelegen and ich bin geschlafen respectively (note: ich bin geschlafen is a rarely used form, more commonly ich habe geschlafen is used; however ich bin eingeschlafen fell asleep is not uncommon). 
In the variant of German that is spoken in Germany, the words stehen (to stand) and gestehen (to confess) are identical in the present perfect: habe gestanden. The Austrian variant avoids this potential ambiguity (bin gestanden from stehen, "to stand"; and habe gestanden from gestehen, "to confess").

In addition, the preterite (simple past) is very rarely used in Austria, especially in the spoken language, with the exception of some modal verbs (i.e. ich sollte, ich wollte).

=== Vocabulary ===
There are many official terms that differ in Austrian German from their usage in most parts of Germany. Words primarily used in Austria are Jänner (January) rather than Januar, heuer (this year) rather than dieses Jahr, Stiege (stairs) instead of Treppe, Rauchfang (chimney) instead of Schornstein, many administrative, legal and political terms – and a whole series of foods such as: Erdäpfel (potatoes) German Kartoffeln (but Dutch Aardappel), Schlagobers (whipped cream) German Schlagsahne, Faschiertes (ground beef) German Hackfleisch (but Hungarian fasírt), Fisolen (green beans) German Gartenbohne (but Czech fazole, Italian fagioli, Hungarian folkish paszuly), Karfiol (cauliflower) German Blumenkohl (but Hungarian and Slovak karfiol, Italian cavolfiore), Kohlsprossen (Brussels sprouts) German Rosenkohl, Marillen (apricots) German Aprikosen (but Slovak marhuľa, Polish morela, Slovenian marelice, Croatian marelica), Paradeiser (tomatoes) German Tomaten (but Hungarian paradicsom, Slovak paradajka, Slovenian paradižnik, Serbian paradajz), Palatschinken (pancakes) German Pfannkuchen (but Czech palačinky, Hungarian palacsinta), Topfen (a semi-sweet cottage cheese) German Quark and Kren (horseradish) German Meerrettich (but Czech křen, Slovak chren etc.). Otto Back, Erich Benedikt, Karl Blüml, et al.: Österreichisches Wörterbuch (neue Rechtschreibung). Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur. Auf der Grundlage des amtlichen Regelwerks. 41. circulation, Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Wien 2009, ISBN 978-3-209-06875-0 

There are, however, some false friends between the two languages:
* Kasten (wardrobe) instead of Schrank – as opposed to Kiste (box) instead of Kasten (Kiste in Germany means both box and kist).
* Sessel (chair) instead of Stuhl – whereas Sessel means easy chair in Germany and Stuhl means stool (feces) in both varieties
* Vorzimmer (hall) instead of Diele – whereas Vorzimmer means antechamber in Germany
* Ofen (oven) instead of Kamin – whereas Kamin means Schornstein in Germany

==Dialects==

=== Classification ===
* Dialects of the Austro-Bavarian group, which also comprises the dialects of German Bavaria
** Central Austro-Bavarian (along the main rivers Isar and Danube, spoken in the northern parts of the State of Salzburg, Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and the Northern Burgenland)
***Viennese German
** Southern Austro-Bavarian (in Tyrol, South Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria, and the southern parts of Salzburg and Burgenland).
* Vorarlbergerisch, spoken in Vorarlberg, is a High Alemannic dialect.

=== Intercomprehensibility and regional accents ===
While strong forms of the various dialects are not normally fully comprehensible to Northern Germans, communication is much easier in Bavaria, especially rural areas, where Bavarian dialect still predominates as the mother tongue. The Central Austro-Bavarian dialects are more intelligible to speakers of Standard German than the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects of Tyrol. Viennese, the Austro-Bavarian dialect of Vienna, is most frequently used in Germany for impersonations of the typical inhabitant of Austria. The people of Graz, the capital of Styria, speak yet another dialect which is not very Styrian and more easily understood by people from other parts of Austria than other Styrian dialects, for example from western Styria.

Simple words in the various dialects are very similar, but pronunciation is distinct for each and, after listening to a few spoken words it may be possible for an Austrian to realise which dialect is being spoken. However, in regard to the dialects of the deeper valleys of the Tirol, other Tyroleans are often unable to understand them. Speakers from the different states of Austria can easily be distinguished from each other by their particular accents (probably more so than Bavarians), those of Carinthia, Styria, Vienna, Upper Austria, and the Tyrol being very characteristic. Speakers from those regions, even those speaking Standard German, can usually be easily identified by their accent, even by an untrained listener.

Several of the dialects have been influenced by contact with non-Germanic linguistic groups, such as the dialect of Carinthia, where in the past many speakers were bilingual with Slovene, and the dialect of Vienna, which has been influenced by immigration during the Austro-Hungarian period, particularly from what is today the Czech Republic. The German dialects of South Tyrol have been influenced by local Romance languages, in particular with many loan words from Italian, and Ladin.

Interestingly, the geographic borderlines between the different accents (isoglosses) coincide strongly with the borders of the states and also with the border with Bavaria, with Bavarians having a markedly different rhythm of speech in spite of the similarities in the language.

== See also ==
* Austro-Bavarian
* German language

== Sources ==
 

== References and further reading ==
* Ammon, Ulrich: Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz: Das Problem der nationalen Varietäten. de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 1995.
* Ammon, Ulrich / Hans Bickel, Jakob Ebner u. a.: Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen. Die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol. Berlin/New York 2004, ISBN 3-11-016574-0.
* Grzega, Joachim: „Deutschländisch und Österreichisches Deutsch: Mehr Unterschiede als nur in Wortschatz und Aussprache.“ In: Joachim Grzega: Sprachwissenschaft ohne Fachchinesisch. Shaker, Aachen 2001, S. 7-26. ISBN 3-8265-8826-6.
* Grzega, Joachim: “On the Description of National Varieties: Examples from (German and Austrian) German and (English and American) English.” In: Linguistik Online 7 (2000).
* Grzega, Joachim: “Nonchalance als Merkmal des Österreichischen Deutsch.” In: Muttersprache 113 (2003): 242-254.
* Muhr, Rudolf / Schrodt, Richard: Österreichisches Deutsch und andere nationale Varietäten plurizentrischer Sprachen in Europa. Wien, 1997
* Muhr, Rudolf/Schrodt, Richard/Wiesinger, Peter (eds.): Österreichisches Deutsch: Linguistische, sozialpsychologische und sprachpolitische Aspekte einer nationalen Variante des Deutschen. Wien, 1995.
* Pohl, Heinz Dieter: „Österreichische Identität und österreichisches Deutsch“ aus dem „Kärntner Jahrbuch für Politik 1999“
* Wiesinger, Peter: Die deutsche Sprache in Österreich. Eine Einführung, In: Wiesinger (Hg.): Das österreichische Deutsch. Schriften zur deutschen Sprache. Band 12. (Wien, Köln, Graz, 1988, Verlag, Böhlau)

 



[[Anglican Church]]

#redirect Anglican Communion

[[Axiom of choice]]

(Si) is a family of sets indexed over the real numbers R; that is, there is a set Si for each real number i, with a small sample shown above. Each set contains a nonzero, and possibly infinite, number of elements. The axiom of choice allows us to arbitrarily select a single element from each set, forming a corresponding family of elements (x'i) also indexed over the real numbers, with x'i drawn from Si. In general the collections may be indexed over any set I, not just R.

In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that the cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty. It states that for every indexed family of nonempty sets there exists an indexed family of elements such that for every . The axiom of choice was formulated in 1904 by Ernst Zermelo in order to formalize his proof of the well-ordering theorem. 

Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin. In many cases such a selection can be made without invoking the axiom of choice; this is in particular the case if the number of bins is finite, or if a selection rule is available: a distinguishing property that happens to hold for exactly one object in each bin. To give an informal example, for any (even infinite) collection of pairs of shoes, one can pick out the left shoe from each pair to obtain an appropriate selection, but for an infinite collection of pairs of socks (assumed to have no distinguishing features), such a selection can be obtained only by invoking the axiom of choice.

Although originally controversial, the axiom of choice is now used without reservation by most mathematicians, Jech, 1977, p. 348ff; Martin-Löf 2008, p. 210. and it is included in Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC), the standard form of axiomatic set theory. One motivation for this use is that a number of generally accepted mathematical results, such as Tychonoff's theorem, require the axiom of choice for their proofs. Contemporary set theorists also study axioms that are not compatible with the axiom of choice, such as the axiom of determinacy. The axiom of choice is avoided in some varieties of constructive mathematics, although there are varieties of constructive mathematics in which the axiom of choice is embraced.

==Statement==
A choice function is a function f, defined on a collection X of nonempty sets, such that for every set s in X, f(s) is an element of s. With this concept, the axiom can be stated:
:For any set X of nonempty sets, there exists a choice function f defined on X.

Formally, this may be expressed as follows:

:

Thus the negation of the axiom of choice states, there exists a set of nonempty sets that has no choice function.

Each choice function on a collection X of nonempty sets is an element of the Cartesian product of the sets in X. This is not the most general situation of a Cartesian product of a family of sets, where a same set can occur more than once as a factor; however, one can focus on elements of such a product that select the same element every time a given set appears as factor, and such elements correspond to an element of the Cartesian product of all distinct sets in the family. The axiom of choice asserts the existence of such elements; it is therefore equivalent to:

:Given any family of nonempty sets, their Cartesian product is a nonempty set.

=== Nomenclature ZF, AC, and ZFC ===
In this article and other discussions of the Axiom of Choice the following abbreviations are common:
*AC &ndash; the Axiom of Choice.
*ZF &ndash; Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory omitting the Axiom of Choice.
*ZFC &ndash; Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, extended to include the Axiom of Choice.

===Variants===
There are many other equivalent statements of the axiom of choice. These are equivalent in the sense that, in the presence of other basic axioms of set theory, they imply the axiom of choice and are implied by it.

One variation avoids the use of choice functions by, in effect, replacing each choice function with its range.
:Given any set X of pairwise disjoint non-empty sets, there exists at least one set C that contains exactly one element in common with each of the sets in X. Herrlich, p. 9. 
This guarantees for any partition of a set X the existence of a subset C of X containing exactly one element from each part of the partition.

Another equivalent axiom only considers collections X that are essentially powersets of other sets:
:For any set A, the power set of A (with the empty set removed) has a choice function.
Authors who use this formulation often speak of the choice function on A, but be advised that this is a slightly different notion of choice function. Its domain is the powerset of A (with the empty set removed), and so makes sense for any set A, whereas with the definition used elsewhere in this article, the domain of a choice function on a collection of sets is that collection, and so only makes sense for sets of sets. With this alternate notion of choice function, the axiom of choice can be compactly stated as
:Every set has a choice function. Patrick Suppes, "Axiomatic Set Theory", Dover, 1972 (1960), ISBN 0-486-61630-4, p. 240 
which is equivalent to
:For any set A there is a function f such that for any non-empty subset B of A, f(B) lies in B.
The negation of the axiom can thus be expressed as:
:There is a set A such that for all functions f (on the set of non-empty subsets of A), there is a B such that f(B) does not lie in B.

=== Restriction to finite sets ===
The statement of the axiom of choice does not specify whether the collection of nonempty sets is finite or infinite, and thus implies that every finite collection of nonempty sets has a choice function. However, that particular case is a theorem of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory without the axiom of choice (ZF); it is easily proved by mathematical induction. Tourlakis (2003), pp. 209–210, 215–216. In the even simpler case of a collection of one set, a choice function just corresponds to an element, so this instance of the axiom of choice says that every nonempty set has an element; this holds trivially. The axiom of choice can be seen as asserting the generalization of this property, already evident for finite collections, to arbitrary collections.

==Usage==
Until the late 19th century, the axiom of choice was often used implicitly, although it had not yet been formally stated. For example, after having established that the set X contains only non-empty sets, a mathematician might have said "let F(s) be one of the members of s for all s in X." In general, it is impossible to prove that F exists without the axiom of choice, but this seems to have gone unnoticed until Zermelo.

Not every situation requires the axiom of choice. For finite sets X, the axiom of choice follows from the other axioms of set theory. In that case it is equivalent to saying that if we have several (a finite number of) boxes, each containing at least one item, then we can choose exactly one item from each box. Clearly we can do this: We start at the first box, choose an item; go to the second box, choose an item; and so on. The number of boxes is finite, so eventually our choice procedure comes to an end. The result is an explicit choice function: a function that takes the first box to the first element we chose, the second box to the second element we chose, and so on. (A formal proof for all finite sets would use the principle of mathematical induction to prove "for every natural number k, every family of k nonempty sets has a choice function.") This method cannot, however, be used to show that every countable family of nonempty sets has a choice function, as is asserted by the axiom of countable choice. If the method is applied to an infinite sequence (X'i : i∈ω) of nonempty sets, a function is obtained at each finite stage, but there is no stage at which a choice function for the entire family is constructed, and no "limiting" choice function can be constructed, in general, in ZF without the axiom of choice.

==Examples==
The nature of the individual nonempty sets in the collection may make it possible to avoid the axiom of choice even for certain infinite collections. For example, suppose that each member of the collection X is a nonempty subset of the natural numbers. Every such subset has a smallest element, so to specify our choice function we can simply say that it maps each set to the least element of that set. This gives us a definite choice of an element from each set, and makes it unnecessary to apply the axiom of choice.

The difficulty appears when there is no natural choice of elements from each set. If we cannot make explicit choices, how do we know that our set exists? For example, suppose that X is the set of all non-empty subsets of the real numbers. First we might try to proceed as if X were finite. If we try to choose an element from each set, then, because X is infinite, our choice procedure will never come to an end, and consequently, we will never be able to produce a choice function for all of X. Next we might try specifying the least element from each set. But some subsets of the real numbers do not have least elements. For example, the open interval (0,1) does not have a least element: if x is in (0,1), then so is x/2, and x/2 is always strictly smaller than x. So this attempt also fails.

Additionally, consider for instance the unit circle S, and the action on S by a group G consisting of all rational rotations. Namely, these are rotations by angles which are rational multiples of π. Here G is countable while S is uncountable. Hence S breaks up into uncountably many orbits under G. Using the axiom of choice, we could pick a single point from each orbit, obtaining an uncountable subset X of S with the property that all of its translates by G are disjoint from X. The set of those translates partitions the circle into a countable collection of disjoint sets, which are all pairwise congruent. Since X is not measurable for any rotation-invariant countably additive finite measure on S, finding an algorithm to select a point in each orbit requires the axiom of choice. See non-measurable set for more details.

The reason that we are able to choose least elements from subsets of the natural numbers is the fact that the natural numbers are well-ordered: every nonempty subset of the natural numbers has a unique least element under the natural ordering. One might say, "Even though the usual ordering of the real numbers does not work, it may be possible to find a different ordering of the real numbers which is a well-ordering. Then our choice function can choose the least element of every set under our unusual ordering." The problem then becomes that of constructing a well-ordering, which turns out to require the axiom of choice for its existence; every set can be well-ordered if and only if the axiom of choice holds.

==Criticism and acceptance==

A proof requiring the axiom of choice may establish the existence of an object without explicitly defining the object in the language of set theory. For example, while the axiom of choice implies that there is a well-ordering of the real numbers, there are models of set theory with the axiom of choice in which no well-ordering of the reals is definable. Similarly, although a subset of the real numbers that is not Lebesgue measurable can be proven to exist using the axiom of choice, it is consistent that no such set is definable.

The axiom of choice produces these intangibles (objects that are proven to exist, but which cannot be explicitly constructed), which may conflict with some philosophical principles. Because there is no canonical well-ordering of all sets, a construction that relies on a well-ordering may not produce a canonical result, even if a canonical result is desired (as is often the case in category theory). This has been used as an argument against the use of the axiom of choice.

Another argument against the axiom of choice is that it implies the existence of objects that may seem counterintuitive. One example is the Banach–Tarski paradox which says that it is possible to decompose the 3-dimensional solid unit ball into finitely many pieces and, using only rotations and translations, reassemble the pieces into two solid balls each with the same volume as the original. The pieces in this decomposition, constructed using the axiom of choice, are non-measurable sets.

Despite these facts, most mathematicians accept the axiom of choice as a valid principle for proving new results in mathematics. The debate is interesting enough, however, that it is considered of note when a theorem in ZFC (ZF plus AC) is logically equivalent (with just the ZF axioms) to the axiom of choice, and mathematicians look for results that require the axiom of choice to be false, though this type of deduction is less common than the type which requires the axiom of choice to be true.

It is possible to prove many theorems using neither the axiom of choice nor its negation; such statements will be true in any model of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZF), regardless of the truth or falsity of the axiom of choice in that particular model. The restriction to ZF renders any claim that relies on either the axiom of choice or its negation unprovable. For example, the Banach–Tarski paradox is neither provable nor disprovable from ZF alone: it is impossible to construct the required decomposition of the unit ball in ZF, but also impossible to prove there is no such decomposition. Similarly, all the statements listed below which require choice or some weaker version thereof for their proof are unprovable in ZF, but since each is provable in ZF plus the axiom of choice, there are models of ZF in which each statement is true. Statements such as the Banach–Tarski paradox can be rephrased as conditional statements, for example, "If AC holds, then the decomposition in the Banach–Tarski paradox exists." Such conditional statements are provable in ZF when the original statements are provable from ZF and the axiom of choice.

== In constructive mathematics ==

As discussed above, in ZFC, the axiom of choice is able to provide "nonconstructive proofs" in which the existence of an object is proved although no explicit example is constructed. ZFC, however, is still formalized in classical logic. The axiom of choice has also been thoroughly studied in the context of constructive mathematics, where non-classical logic is employed. The status of the axiom of choice varies between different varieties of constructive mathematics.

In Martin-Löf type theory and higher-order Heyting arithmetic, the appropriate statement of the axiom of choice is (depending on approach) included as an axiom or provable as a theorem. Per Martin-Löf, Intuitionistic type theory, 1980. 
Anne Sjerp Troelstra, Metamathematical investigation of intuitionistic arithmetic and analysis, Springer, 1973. Errett Bishop argued that the axiom of choice was constructively acceptable, saying
:"A choice function exists in constructive mathematics, because a choice is implied by the very meaning of existence." Errett Bishop and Douglas S. Bridges, Constructive analysis, Springer-Verlag, 1985. 

In constructive set theory, however, Diaconescu's theorem shows that the axiom of choice implies the Law of excluded middle (unlike in Martin-Löf type theory, where it does not). Thus the axiom of choice is not generally available in constructive set theory. A cause for this difference is that the axiom of choice in type theory does not have the extensionality properties that the axiom of choice in constructive set theory does. Per Martin-Löf, "100 Years of Zermelo’s Axiom of Choice: What was the Problem with It?", The Computer Journal (2006) 49 (3): 345-350. doi: 10.1093/comjnl/bxh162 

Some results in constructive set theory use the axiom of countable choice or the axiom of dependent choice, which do not imply the law of the excluded middle in constructive set theory. Although the axiom of countable choice in particular is commonly used in constructive mathematics, its use has also been questioned. Fred Richman, “Constructive mathematics without choice”, in: Reuniting the Antipodes—Constructive and Nonstandard Views of the Continuum (P. Schuster et al., eds), Synthèse Library 306, 199–205, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, 2001. 

==Independence==

Assuming ZF is consistent, Kurt Gödel showed that the negation of the axiom of choice is not a theorem of ZF by constructing an inner model (the constructible universe) which satisfies ZFC and thus showing that ZFC is consistent. Assuming ZF is consistent, Paul Cohen employed the technique of forcing, developed for this purpose, to show that the axiom of choice itself is not a theorem of ZF by constructing a much more complex model which satisfies ZF¬C (ZF with the negation of AC added as axiom) and thus showing that ZF¬C is consistent. Together these results establish that the axiom of choice is logically independent of ZF. The assumption that ZF is consistent is harmless because adding another axiom to an already inconsistent system cannot make the situation worse. Because of independence, the decision whether to use the axiom of choice (or its negation) in a proof cannot be made by appeal to other axioms of set theory. The decision must be made on other grounds.

One argument given in favor of using the axiom of choice is that it is convenient to use it because it allows one to prove some simplifying propositions that otherwise could not be proved. Many theorems which are provable using choice are of an elegant general character: every ideal in a ring is contained in a maximal ideal, every vector space has a basis, and every product of compact spaces is compact. Without the axiom of choice, these theorems may not hold for mathematical objects of large cardinality.

The proof of the independence result also shows that a wide class of mathematical statements, including all statements that can be phrased in the language of Peano arithmetic, are provable in ZF if and only if they are provable in ZFC. This is because arithmetical statements are absolute to the constructible universe L. Shoenfield's absoluteness theorem gives a more general result. Statements in this class include the statement that P = NP, the Riemann hypothesis, and many other unsolved mathematical problems. When one attempts to solve problems in this class, it makes no difference whether ZF or ZFC is employed if the only question is the existence of a proof. It is possible, however, that there is a shorter proof of a theorem from ZFC than from ZF.

The axiom of choice is not the only significant statement which is independent of ZF. For example, the generalized continuum hypothesis (GCH) is not only independent of ZF, but also independent of ZFC. However, ZF plus GCH implies AC, making GCH a strictly stronger claim than AC, even though they are both independent of ZF.

==Stronger axioms==
The axiom of constructibility and the generalized continuum hypothesis each imply the axiom of choice and so are strictly stronger than it. In class theories such as Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory and Morse–Kelley set theory, there is a possible axiom called the axiom of global choice which is stronger than the axiom of choice for sets because it also applies to proper classes. And the axiom of global choice follows from the axiom of limitation of size.

==Equivalents==
There are important statements that, assuming the axioms of ZF but neither AC nor ¬AC, are equivalent to the axiom of choice. The most important among them are Zorn's lemma and the well-ordering theorem. In fact, Zermelo initially introduced the axiom of choice in order to formalize his proof of the well-ordering theorem.

*Set theory
**Well-ordering theorem: Every set can be well-ordered. Consequently, every cardinal has an initial ordinal.
**Tarski's theorem: For every infinite set A, there is a bijective map between the sets A and A×A.
**Trichotomy: If two sets are given, then either they have the same cardinality, or one has a smaller cardinality than the other.
**The Cartesian product of any family of nonempty sets is nonempty.
**König's theorem: Colloquially, the sum of a sequence of cardinals is strictly less than the product of a sequence of larger cardinals. (The reason for the term "colloquially" is that the sum or product of a "sequence" of cardinals cannot be defined without some aspect of the axiom of choice.)
**Every surjective function has a right inverse.

*Order theory
**Zorn's lemma: Every non-empty partially ordered set in which every chain (i.e. totally ordered subset) has an upper bound contains at least one maximal element.
**Hausdorff maximal principle: In any partially ordered set, every totally ordered subset is contained in a maximal totally ordered subset. The restricted principle "Every partially ordered set has a maximal totally ordered subset" is also equivalent to AC over ZF.
**Tukey's lemma: Every non-empty collection of finite character has a maximal element with respect to inclusion.
**Antichain principle: Every partially ordered set has a maximal antichain.

*Abstract algebra
**Every vector space has a basis. 
**Every unital ring other than the trivial ring contains a maximal ideal.
**For every non-empty set S there is a binary operation defined on S that gives it a group structure. A. Hajnal, A. Kertész: Some new algebraic equivalents of the axiom of choice, Publ. Math. Debrecen, 19(1972), 339&ndash;340, see also H. Rubin, J. Rubin, Equivalents of the axiom of choice, II, North-Holland, 1985, p. 111. (A cancellative binary operation is enough.)

*Functional analysis
**The closed unit ball of the dual of a normed vector space over the reals has an extreme point.

*Point-set topology
**Tychonoff's theorem: Every product of compact topological spaces is compact.
**In the product topology, the closure of a product of subsets is equal to the product of the closures.

*Mathematical logic
**If S is a set of sentences of first-order logic and B is a consistent subset of S, then B is included in a set that is maximal among consistent subsets of S. The special case where S is the set of all first-order sentences in a given signature is weaker, equivalent to the Boolean prime ideal theorem; see the section "Weaker forms" below.

*Graph theory
**Every connected graph has a spanning tree. ; . See in particular Theorem 2.1, pp. 192–193. 

=== Category theory ===
There are several results in category theory which invoke the axiom of choice for their proof. These results might be weaker than, equivalent to, or stronger than the axiom of choice, depending on the strength of the technical foundations. For example, if one defines categories in terms of sets, that is, as sets of objects and morphisms (usually called a small category), or even locally small categories, whose hom-objects are sets, then there is no category of all sets, and so it is difficult for a category-theoretic formulation to apply to all sets. On the other hand, other foundational descriptions of category theory are considerably stronger, and an identical category-theoretic statement of choice may be stronger than the standard formulation, à la class theory, mentioned above.

Examples of category-theoretic statements which require choice include:
*Every small category has a skeleton.
*If two small categories are weakly equivalent, then they are equivalent.
*Every continuous functor on a small-complete category which satisfies the appropriate solution set condition has a left-adjoint (the Freyd adjoint functor theorem).

==Weaker forms==
There are several weaker statements that are not equivalent to the axiom of choice, but are closely related. One example is the axiom of dependent choice (DC). A still weaker example is the axiom of countable choice (ACω or CC), which states that a choice function exists for any countable set of nonempty sets. These axioms are sufficient for many proofs in elementary mathematical analysis, and are consistent with some principles, such as the Lebesgue measurability of all sets of reals, that are disprovable from the full axiom of choice.

Other choice axioms weaker than axiom of choice include the Boolean prime ideal theorem and the axiom of uniformization. The former is equivalent in ZF to the existence of an ultrafilter containing each given filter, proved by Tarski in 1930.

===Results requiring AC (or weaker forms) but weaker than it===
One of the most interesting aspects of the axiom of choice is the large number of places in mathematics that it shows up. Here are some statements that require the axiom of choice in the sense that they are not provable from ZF but are provable from ZFC (ZF plus AC). Equivalently, these statements are true in all models of ZFC but false in some models of ZF.

*Set theory
**Any union of countably many countable sets is itself countable.
**If the set A is infinite, then there exists an injection from the natural numbers N to A (see Dedekind infinite).
**Every infinite game in which is a Borel subset of Baire space is determined.

*Measure theory
**The Vitali theorem on the existence of non-measurable sets which states that there is a subset of the real numbers that is not Lebesgue measurable.
**The Hausdorff paradox.
**The Banach–Tarski paradox.
**The Lebesgue measure of a countable disjoint union of measurable sets is equal to the sum of the measures of the individual sets.

*Algebra
**Every field has an algebraic closure.
**Every field extension has a transcendence basis.
**Stone's representation theorem for Boolean algebras needs the Boolean prime ideal theorem.
**The Nielsen–Schreier theorem, that every subgroup of a free group is free.
**The additive groups of R and C are isomorphic. http://www.cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2006-February/009959.html http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=4931240&aid=4931232 

*Functional analysis
**The Hahn–Banach theorem in functional analysis, allowing the extension of linear functionals
**The theorem that every Hilbert space has an orthonormal basis.
**The Banach–Alaoglu theorem about compactness of sets of functionals.
**The Baire category theorem about complete metric spaces, and its consequences, such as the open mapping theorem and the closed graph theorem.
**On every infinite-dimensional topological vector space there is a discontinuous linear map.

*General topology
**A uniform space is compact if and only if it is complete and totally bounded.
**Every Tychonoff space has a Stone–Čech compactification.

*Mathematical logic
**Gödel's completeness theorem for first-order logic: every consistent set of first-order sentences has a completion. That is, every consistent set of first-order sentences can be extended to a maximal consistent set.

==Stronger forms of the negation of AC==
Now, consider stronger forms of the negation of AC. For example, if we abbreviate by BP the claim that every set of real numbers has the property of Baire, then BP is stronger than ¬AC, which asserts the nonexistence of any choice function on perhaps only a single set of nonempty sets. Note that strengthened negations may be compatible with weakened forms of AC. For example, ZF + DC Axiom of dependent choice + BP is consistent, if ZF is.

It is also consistent with ZF + DC that every set of reals is Lebesgue measurable; however, this consistency result, due to Robert M. Solovay, cannot be proved in ZFC itself, but requires a mild large cardinal assumption (the existence of an inaccessible cardinal). The much stronger axiom of determinacy, or AD, implies that every set of reals is Lebesgue measurable, has the property of Baire, and has the perfect set property (all three of these results are refuted by AC itself). ZF + DC + AD is consistent provided that a sufficiently strong large cardinal axiom is consistent (the existence of infinitely many Woodin cardinals).

==Statements consistent with the negation of AC==
There are models of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory in which the axiom of choice is false. We will abbreviate "Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory plus the negation of the axiom of choice" by ZF¬C. For certain models of ZF¬C, it is possible to prove the negation of some standard facts.
Note that any model of ZF¬C is also a model of ZF, so for each of the following statements, there exists a model of ZF in which that statement is true.

*There exists a model of ZF¬C in which there is a function f from the real numbers to the real numbers such that f is not continuous at a, but f is sequentially continuous at a, i.e., for any sequence {xn} converging to a, limn f(xn)=f(a).
*There exists a model of ZF¬C which has an infinite set of real numbers without a countably infinite subset.
*There exists a model of ZF¬C in which real numbers are a countable union of countable sets. Jech, Thomas (1973) "The axiom of choice", ISBN 0-444-10484-4, CH. 10, p. 142. 
*There exists a model of ZF¬C in which there is a field with no algebraic closure.
*In all models of ZF¬C there is a vector space with no basis.
*There exists a model of ZF¬C in which there is a vector space with two bases of different cardinalities.
*There exists a model of ZF¬C in which there is a free complete boolean algebra on countably many generators. 

For proofs, see Thomas Jech, The Axiom of Choice, American Elsevier Pub. Co., New York, 1973.

*There exists a model of ZF¬C in which every set in Rn is measurable. Thus it is possible to exclude counterintuitive results like the Banach–Tarski paradox which are provable in ZFC. Furthermore, this is possible whilst assuming the Axiom of dependent choice, which is weaker than AC but sufficient to develop most of real analysis.
*In all models of ZF¬C, the generalized continuum hypothesis does not hold.

==Quotes==
"The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, the well-ordering principle obviously false, and who can tell about Zorn's lemma?" — Jerry Bona
:This is a joke: although the three are all mathematically equivalent, many mathematicians find the axiom of choice to be intuitive, the well-ordering principle to be counterintuitive, and Zorn's lemma to be too complex for any intuition.

"The Axiom of Choice is necessary to select a set from an infinite number of socks, but not an infinite number of shoes." — Bertrand Russell
:The observation here is that one can define a function to select from an infinite number of pairs of shoes by stating for example, to choose the left shoe. Without the axiom of choice, one cannot assert that such a function exists for pairs of socks, because left and right socks are (presumably) indistinguishable from each other.

"Tarski tried to publish his theorem equivalence between AC and 'every infinite set A has the same cardinality as AxA, see above in Comptes Rendus, but Fréchet and Lebesgue refused to present it. Fréchet wrote that an implication between two well known propositions is not a new result, and Lebesgue wrote that an implication between two false propositions is of no interest".
:Polish-American mathematician Jan Mycielski relates this anecdote in a 2006 article in the Notices of the AMS.

"The axiom gets its name not because mathematicians prefer it to other axioms." — A. K. Dewdney
:This quote comes from the famous April Fools' Day article in the computer recreations column of the Scientific American, April 1989.

== Notes ==
 

==References==
* Horst Herrlich, Axiom of Choice, Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1876, Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (2006). ISBN 3-540-30989-6.
*Paul Howard and Jean Rubin, "Consequences of the Axiom of Choice". Mathematical Surveys and Monographs 59; American Mathematical Society; 1998.
*Thomas Jech, "About the Axiom of Choice." Handbook of Mathematical Logic, John Barwise, ed., 1977.
* Per Martin-Löf, "100 years of Zermelo's axiom of choice: What was the problem with it?", in Logicism, Intuitionism, and Formalism: What Has Become of Them?, Sten Lindström, Erik Palmgren, Krister Segerberg, and Viggo Stoltenberg-Hansen, editors (2008). ISBN 1-4020-8925-2
*Gregory H Moore, "Zermelo's axiom of choice, Its origins, development and influence", Springer; 1982. ISBN 0-387-90670-3, available as a Dover Publications reprint, 2013, ISBN 0-486-48841-1.
*Herman Rubin, Jean E. Rubin: Equivalents of the axiom of choice. North Holland, 1963. Reissued by Elsevier, April 1970. ISBN 0-7204-2225-6.
*Herman Rubin, Jean E. Rubin: Equivalents of the Axiom of Choice II. North Holland/Elsevier, July 1985, ISBN 0-444-87708-8.
*George Tourlakis, Lectures in Logic and Set Theory. Vol. II: Set Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-511-06659-7
*Ernst Zermelo, "Untersuchungen über die Grundlagen der Mengenlehre I," Mathematische Annalen 65: (1908) pp. 261–81. PDF download via digizeitschriften.de
::Translated in: Jean van Heijenoort, 2002. From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931. New edition. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-32449-8
::*1904. "Proof that every set can be well-ordered," 139-41.
::*1908. "Investigations in the foundations of set theory I," 199-215.

==External links==
*
*Axiom of Choice and Its Equivalents at ProvenMath includes formal statement of the Axiom of Choice, Hausdorff's Maximal Principle, Zorn's Lemma and formal proofs of their equivalence down to the finest detail.
*Consequences of the Axiom of Choice, based on the book by Paul Howard and Jean Rubin.
*

 

[[Attila]]

Attila ( or ; ?–453), frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea.

During his reign he was one of the most feared enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans, but was unable to take Constantinople. His unsuccessful campaign in Persia was followed in 441 by an invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, the success of which emboldened Attila to invade the West. He also attempted to conquer Roman Gaul (modern France), crossing the Rhine in 451 and marching as far as Aurelianum (Orléans) before being defeated at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.

Subsequently he invaded Italy, devastating the northern provinces, but was unable to take Rome. He planned for further campaigns against the Romans but died in 453.

== Appearance and character ==
While there is no surviving first-person account of Attila's appearance, there is a possible second-hand source, provided by Jordanes, who cites a description given by Priscus. 

The description suggests a person typical of Asian or Mongoloid features. 

== Etymology ==
The origin of Attila's name is unclear. Menander used the term Attila as the name of the Volga River. Pritsak considers it to mean "universal ruler" in a Turkic language related to Danube Bulgarian. 

The turkologist Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen rejects a Turkic etymology, and suggests an East Germanic origin: "Attila is formed from Gothic or Gepidic atta, "father", by means of the diminutive suffix -ila." He finds Pritsak's etymology "ingenious but for many reasons unacceptable". However, he suggests that these names were 

The name of Attila's brother Bleda is also of Germanic origin. Judging by a hypothetical Germanic etymology of Attila's name and the status of Gothic and the lingua franca at his court, historian Peter Heather states that the possibility of Attila being of Germanic ancestry cannot be ruled out. 

The name has many variants in modern languages: Atli and Atle in Norse, Attila/Atilla/Etele in Hungarian (Attila is the most popular), Etzel in German (Nibelungenlied), Attila, Atilla, Atilay or Atila in Turkish, and Adil and Edil in Kazakh or Adil ("same/similar") or Edil ("to use") in Mongolian.

== Historiography and source ==
The historiography of Attila is faced with a major challenge, in that the only complete sources are written in Greek and Latin, by the enemies of the Huns. His contemporaries left many testimonials of his life, but only fragments of these remain. Priscus, a Roman diplomat and historian who wrote in Greek, was both a witness to and an actor in the story of Attila, as a member of the embassy of Theodosius II at the Hunnic court in 449. Although he was obviously biased by his political position, his writing is a major source for the life of Attila and he is the only person known to have recorded a physical description of him. He was the author of an eight-volume work of history covering the period from 434 to 452.

Today we have only fragments of this work, but it was cited extensively by the 6th-century historians Procopius and Jordanes, especially in Jordanes' The Origin and Deeds of the Goths. As it contains numerous references to Priscus's history, it is an important source of information about the Hunnic empire and its neighbors. Here, he describes the legacy of Attila and the Hunnic people for a century after Attila's death. Marcellinus Comes, a chancellor of Justinian during the same era, also describes the relations between the Huns and the Eastern Roman Empire. 

Numerous ecclesiastical writings contain useful albeit scattered information, sometimes difficult to authenticate or distorted by years of hand-copying between the 6th and 17th centuries. The Hungarian writers of the 12th century, wishing to portray the Huns in a positive light as their glorious ancestors, repressed certain historical elements and added their own legends. 

The literature and knowledge of the Huns themselves was transmitted solely orally, by means of epics and chanted poems that were handed down from generation to generation. Indirectly, fragments of this oral history have reached us via the literature of the Scandinavians and Germans, neighbors of the Huns who wrote between the 9th and 13th centuries. Attila is a major character in many Medieval epics, such as the Nibelungenlied, as well as various Eddas and sagas. 

Archaeological investigation has uncovered some details about the lifestyle, art and warfare of the Huns. There are a few traces of battles and sieges, but today the tomb of Attila and the location of his capital have not yet been found. 

== Early life and background ==

The Huns were a group of Eurasian nomads, appearing from east of the Volga, who migrated into Europe c. 370 and built up an enormous empire there. Their main military techniques were mounted archery and javelin throwing. They were possibly the descendants of the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu) who had been northern neighbors of China three hundred years before and may be the first expansion of Turkic people across Eurasia. Even though they were in the process of developing settlements before their arrival in Europe, the Huns were a society of pastoral warriors whose primary form of nourishment was meat and milk, products of their herds.

The origin and language of the Huns has been the subject of debate for centuries. According to some theories, their leaders at least may have spoken a Turkic language, perhaps closest to the modern Chuvash language. One scholar suggests a relationship to Yeniseian. According to the Encyclopedia of European Peoples, "the Huns, especially those who migrated to the west, may have been a combination of central Asian Turkic, Mongolic, and Ugric stocks." 

Attila's father, Mundzuk, was the brother of the kings Octar and Rugila, who reigned jointly over the Hunnic empire in the early fifth century. This form of diarchy was recurrent with the Huns, but historians are unsure whether it was institutionalized, merely customary, or an occasional occurrence. His family was from a noble lineage, but it is uncertain whether they constituted a royal dynasty. Attila's birthdate is not known, but the journalist Éric Deschodt and the writer Herman Schreiber have proposed a date of 395. However, the historian Iaroslav Lebedynsky and archaeologist Katalin Escher prefer an estimate between the 390s and the first decade of the fifth century. 

Attila grew up in a rapidly changing world. His people were nomads who had only recently arrived in Europe. After crossing the Volga river during the 370s and annexing the territory of the Alans, they attacked the Gothic kingdom between the Carpathian mountains and the Danube. They were a very mobile people, whose mounted archers had acquired a reputation of invincibility, and the Germanic tribes seemed unable to withstand them. Vast populations fleeing the Huns moved from Germania into the Roman Empire in the west and south, and along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. In 376, the Goths crossed the Danube, initially submitting to the Romans but soon rebelling against the emperor Valens, whom they killed in the Battle of Adrianople in 378. On December 31, 406, to escape the Huns, large numbers of Vandals, Alans, Suebi and Burgundians crossed the Rhine and invaded Roman Gaul. The Roman Empire had been split into half since 395 and was ruled by two distinct governments, one based in Ravenna in the West, and the other in Constantinople in the East. In Attila's lifetime, despite several power struggles, the Roman Emperors both East and West were generally from the same family, the Theodosians. 

The Huns dominated a vast territory with nebulous borders determined by the will of a constellation of ethnically varied peoples. Some were assimilated to Hunnic nationality, whereas many retained their own identities and rulers but acknowledged the suzerainty of the king of the Huns. While the Huns were the indirect source of many of the Romans' problems by driving various Germanic tribes into Roman territory, relations between the two empires were cordial: the Romans used the Huns as mercenaries against the Germans and even in their civil wars. Thus, the usurper Joannes was able to recruit thousands of Huns for his army against Valentinian III in 424. They exchanged ambassadors and hostages, the alliance lasting from 401 to 450 and permitting the Romans numerous military victories. The Huns considered the Romans to be paying them tribute, whereas the Romans preferred to view this as payment for services rendered. By the time Attila came of age during the reign of his uncle Rugila, the Huns had become a great power, to the point that the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, deplored the situation with these words: "They have become both masters and slaves of the Romans." 

== Campaigns against the Eastern Roman Empire ==
Hunnic Empire (green)
The death of Rugila (also known as Rua or Ruga) in 434 left the sons of his brother Mundzuk, Attila and Bleda (Buda), in control of the united Hun tribes. At the time of two brothers' accession, the Hun tribes were bargaining with Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II's envoys for the return of several renegades (possibly Hunnic nobles who disagreed with the brothers' assumption of leadership) who had taken refuge within the Eastern Roman Empire.

The following year Attila and Bleda met with the imperial legation at Margus (Požarevac) and, all seated on horseback in the Hunnic manner, negotiated a successful treaty. The Romans agreed, not only to return the fugitives, but also to double their previous tribute of 350 Roman pounds (c. 115 kg) of gold, to open their markets to Hunnish traders, and to pay a ransom of eight solidi for each Roman taken prisoner by the Huns. The Huns, satisfied with the treaty, decamped from the Roman Empire and returned to their home in the Great Hungarian Plain, perhaps to consolidate and strengthen their empire. Theodosius used this opportunity to strengthen the walls of Constantinople, building the city's first sea wall, and to build up his border defenses along the Danube.

The Huns remained out of Roman sight for the next few years while they invaded the Sassanid Empire. When defeated in Armenia by the Sassanids, the Huns abandoned their invasion and turned their attentions back to Europe. In 440 they reappeared in force on the borders of the Roman Empire, attacking the merchants at the market on the north bank of the Danube that had been established by the treaty.

Crossing the Danube, they laid waste to the cities of Illyricum and forts on the river, including (according to Priscus) Viminacium, a city of Moesia. Their advance began at Margus, where they demanded that the Romans turn over a bishop who had retained property that Attila regarded as his. While the Romans discussed turning the bishop over, he slipped away secretly to the Huns and betrayed the city to them.

While the Huns attacked city-states along the Danube, the Vandals led by Geiseric captured the Western Roman province of Africa and its capital of Carthage. Carthage was the richest province of the Western Empire and a main source of food for Rome. The Sassanid Shah Yazdegerd II invaded Armenia in 441.

The Romans stripped the Balkan area of forces, sending them to Sicily in order to mount an expedition against the Vandals in Africa. This left Attila and Bleda a clear path through Illyricum into the Balkans, which they invaded in 441. The Hunnish army sacked Margus and Viminacium, and then took Singidunum (Belgrade) and Sirmium. During 442 Theodosius recalled his troops from Sicily and ordered a large issue of new coins to finance operations against the Huns. Believing he could defeat the Huns, he refused the Hunnish kings' demands.

Attila responded with a campaign in 443. Striking along the Danube, the Huns, equipped with new military weapons like the battering rams and rolling siege towers, overran the military centers of Ratiara and successfully besieged Naissus (Niš).

Advancing along the Nišava River, the Huns next took Serdica (Sofia), Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and Arcadiopolis (Lüleburgaz). They encountered and destroyed a Roman army outside Constantinople but were stopped by the double walls of the Eastern capital. They defeated a second army near Callipolis (Gelibolu).

Theodosius, stripped of his armed forces, admitted defeat, sending the Magister militum per Orientem Anatolius to negotiate peace terms. The terms were harsher than the previous treaty: the Emperor agreed to hand over 6,000 Roman pounds (c. 2000 kg) of gold as punishment for having disobeyed the terms of the treaty during the invasion; the yearly tribute was tripled, rising to 2,100 Roman pounds (c. 700 kg) in gold; and the ransom for each Roman prisoner rose to 12 solidi.

Their demands were met for a time; the Hun kings withdrew into the interior of their empire. Following the Huns' withdrawal from Byzantium (probably around 445), Bleda died. Attila then took the throne for himself, becoming the sole ruler of the Huns. 

== Solitary kingship ==
Mór Than's painting The Feast of Attila, based on a fragment of Priscus

In 447 Attila again rode south into the Eastern Roman Empire through Moesia. The Roman army under the Gothic magister militum Arnegisclus met him in the Battle of the Utus and was defeated, though not without inflicting heavy losses. The Huns were left unopposed and rampaged through the Balkans as far as Thermopylae.

Constantinople itself was saved by the Isaurian troops of the magister militum per Orientem Zeno and protected by the intervention of the prefect Constantinus, who organized the reconstruction of the walls that had been previously damaged by earthquakes, and, in some places, to construct a new line of fortification in front of the old. An account of this invasion survives:

== In the west ==
The general path of the Hun forces in the invasion of Gaul

In 450 Attila proclaimed his intent to attack the Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse by making an alliance with Emperor Valentinian III. He had previously been on good terms with the Western Roman Empire and its influential general Flavius Aëtius. Aëtius had spent a brief exile among the Huns in 433, and the troops Attila provided against the Goths and Bagaudae had helped earn him the largely honorary title of magister militum in the west. The gifts and diplomatic efforts of Geiseric, who opposed and feared the Visigoths, may also have influenced Attila's plans.

However, Valentinian's sister was Honoria, who, in order to escape her forced betrothal to a Roman senator, had sent the Hunnish king a plea for help—and her engagement ring—in the spring of 450. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry.

When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of his mother Galla Placidia convinced him to exile, rather than kill, Honoria. He also wrote to Attila strenuously denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila sent an emissary to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his.

Attila the Hun on horseback by George S. Stuart
Attila interfered in a succession struggle after the death of a Frankish ruler. Attila supported the elder son, while Aëtius supported the younger. (The location and identity of these kings is not known and subject to conjecture.) Attila gathered his vassals—Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirians, Heruls, Thuringians, Alans, Burgundians, among others–and began his march west. In 451 he arrived in Belgica with an army exaggerated by Jordanes to half a million strong. J. B. Bury believes that Attila's intent, by the time he marched west, was to extend his kingdom—already the strongest on the continent—across Gaul to the Atlantic Ocean. 

On April 7 he captured Metz. Other cities attacked can be determined by the hagiographic vitae written to commemorate their bishops: Nicasius was slaughtered before the altar of his church in Rheims; Servatus is alleged to have saved Tongeren with his prayers, as Saint Genevieve is to have saved Paris. Lupus, bishop of Troyes, is also credited with saving his city by meeting Attila in person. 

Aëtius moved to oppose Attila, gathering troops from among the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Celts. A mission by Avitus, and Attila's continued westward advance, convinced the Visigoth king Theodoric I (Theodorid) to ally with the Romans. The combined armies reached Orléans ahead of Attila, thus checking and turning back the Hunnish advance. (Later accounts of the battle report that the Huns were either already within the city or in the midst of storming it when the Roman-Visigoth army arrived; Jordanes mentions no such thing.) Aëtius gave chase and caught the Huns at a place usually assumed to be near Catalaunum (modern Châlons-en-Champagne).

The two armies clashed in the Battle of Châlons, whose outcome is commonly considered to be a strategic victory for the Visigothic-Roman alliance. Theodoric was killed in the fighting and Aëtius failed to press his advantage, according to Edward Gibbon and Edward Creasy, because he feared the consequences of an overwhelming Visigothic triumph as much as he did a defeat. From Aëtius' point of view, the best outcome was what occurred: Theodoric died, Attila was in retreat and disarray, and the Romans had the benefit of appearing victorious.

== Invasion of Italy and death ==
Raphael's The Meeting between Leo the Great and Attila depicts Leo, escorted by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, meeting with the Hun king outside Rome

Attila returned in 452 to claim his marriage to Honoria anew, invading and ravaging Italy along the way. The city of Venice was founded as a result of these attacks when the residents fled to small islands in the Venetian Lagoon. His army sacked numerous cities and razed Aquileia so completely that it was afterwards hard to recognize its original site. 

Legend has it he had his soldiers carry dirt in their helmets to build a hill north of Aquileia from which he could watch the destruction of the city, thus founding the town of Udine, where a castle now stands on the legendary hill. Aëtius, who lacked the strength to offer battle, managed to harass and slow Attila's advance with only a shadow force. Attila finally halted at the River Po. By this point disease and starvation may have broken out in Attila's camp, thus helping to stop his invasion.

Emperor Valentinian III sent three envoys, the high civilian officers Gennadius Avienus and Trigetius, as well as the Bishop of Rome Leo I, who met Attila at Mincio in the vicinity of Mantua, and obtained from him the promise that he would withdraw from Italy and negotiate peace with the Emperor. Prosper of Aquitaine gives a short description of the historic meeting, but gives all the credit of the successful negotiation to Leo. Priscus reports that superstitious fear of the fate of Alaric—who died shortly after sacking Rome in 410—gave him pause.

In reality, Italy had suffered from a terrible famine in 451 and her crops were faring little better in 452; Attila's devastating invasion of the plains of northern Italy this year did not improve the harvest. To advance on Rome would have required supplies which were not available in Italy, and taking the city would not have improved Attila's supply situation. Therefore, it was more profitable for Attila to conclude peace and retreat back to his homeland. 

Secondly, an East Roman force had crossed the Danube under the command of another officer also named Aetius—who had participated in the Council of Chalcedon the previous year—and proceeded to defeat the Huns who had been left behind by Attila to safeguard their home territories. Attila, hence, faced heavy human and natural pressures to retire "from Italy without ever setting foot south of the Po." As Hydatius writes in his Chronica Minora:

Huns, led by Attila, invade Italy (Attila, the Scourge of God, by Ulpiano Checa, as reproduced in [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10522 Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV by John Lord.)]]

After Attila left Italy and returned to his palace across the Danube, he planned to strike at Constantinople again and reclaim the tribute which Marcian had stopped. (Marcian was the successor of Theodosius and had ceased paying tribute in late 450 while Attila was occupied in the west; multiple invasions by the Huns and others had left the Balkans with little to plunder). However, Attila died in the early months of 453.

The conventional account, from Priscus, says that at a feast celebrating his latest marriage to the beautiful and young Ildico (if uncorrupted, the name suggests a Gothic, more likely Ostrogoth origin) he suffered a severe nosebleed and choked to death in a stupor. An alternative theory is that he succumbed to internal bleeding after heavy drinking, possibly a condition called esophageal varices, where dilated veins in the lower part of the esophagus rupture leading to death by hemorrhage. 

Another account of his death, first recorded 80 years after the events by the Roman chronicler Marcellinus Comes, reports that "Attila, King of the Huns and ravager of the provinces of Europe, was pierced by the hand and blade of his wife." The Volsunga saga and the Poetic Edda also claim that King Atli (Attila) died at the hands of his wife, Gudrun. Most scholars reject these accounts as no more than hearsay, preferring instead the account given by Attila's contemporary Priscus. Priscus' version, however, has recently come under renewed scrutiny by Michael A. Babcock. Based on detailed philological analysis, Babcock concludes that the account of natural death, given by Priscus, was an ecclesiastical "cover story" and that Emperor Marcian (who ruled the Eastern Roman Empire from 450 to 457) was the political force behind Attila's death.

Jordanes says: "The greatest of all warriors should be mourned with no feminine lamentations and with no tears, but with the blood of men." His horsemen galloped in circles around the silken tent where Attila lay in state, singing in his dirge, according to Cassiodorus and Jordanes: "Who can rate this as death, when none believes it calls for vengeance?"

Then they celebrated a strava (lamentation) over his burial place with great feasting. Legend says that he was laid to rest in a triple coffin made of gold, silver, and iron, along with some of the spoils of his conquests. His men diverted a section of the river, buried the coffin under the riverbed, and then were killed to keep the exact location a secret.

His sons Ellac (his appointed successor), Dengizich, and Ernakh fought over the division of his legacy, specifically which vassal kings would belong to which brother. As a consequence they were divided, defeated and scattered the following year in the Battle of Nedao by the Ostrogoths and the Gepids under Ardaric who had been Attila's most prized chieftain.

Attila's many children and relatives are known by name and some even by deeds, but soon valid genealogical sources all but dry up and there seems to be no verifiable way to trace Attila's descendants. This has not stopped many genealogists from attempting to reconstruct a valid line of descent for various medieval rulers. One of the most credible claims has been that of the khans of Bulgaria (see Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans). A popular, but ultimately unconfirmed, attempt tries to relate Attila to Charlemagne.

== Later folklore and iconography ==
Attila himself is said to have claimed the titles "Descendant of the Great Nimrod", and "King of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, and the Medes"—the last two peoples being mentioned to show the extent of his control over subject nations even on the peripheries of his domain. 

Jordanes embellished the report of Priscus, reporting that Attila had possessed the "Holy War Sword of the Scythians", which was given to him by Mars and made him a "prince of the entire world." 

Attila was the standard source of legitimacy on the European steppe until Genghis Khan. By the end of the 12th century the royal court of Hungary proclaimed their descent from Attila. Lampert of Hersfeld's contemporary chronicles report that shortly before the year 1071, the Sword of Attila had been presented to Otto of Nordheim by the exiled queen of Hungary, Anastasia of Kiev. This sword, a cavalry sabre now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, appears to be the work of Hungarian goldsmiths of the ninth or tenth century. 

Illustration of the meeting between Attila and Pope Leo from the Chronicon Pictum, c. 1360
Later writers developed the meeting of Leo I and Attila into a pious "fable which has been represented by the pencil of Raphael and the chisel of Algardi", reporting that the Pope, aided by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, convinced Attila to turn away from the city. 

According to a version of this legend related in the Chronicon Pictum, a mediaeval Hungarian chronicle, the Pope promised Attila that if he left Rome in peace, one of his successors would receive a holy crown (which has been understood as referring to the Holy Crown of Hungary).

Attila in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
Some histories and chronicles describe him as a great and noble king, and he plays major roles in three Norse sagas: Atlakviða, Völsungasaga, and Atlamál. The Polish Chronicle represents Attila's name as Aquila.

Frutolf of Michelsberg and Otto of Freising pointed out that some songs as "vulgar fables" made Theoderic the Great, Attila and Ermanaric contemporaries, when any reader of Jordanes knew that this was not the case. 

In 1812, Ludwig van Beethoven conceived the idea of writing an opera about Attila and approached August von Kotzebue to write the libretto. It was, however, never written. 

In World War I, Allied propaganda referred to Germans as the "Huns", based on a 1900 speech by Emperor Wilhelm II praising Attila the Hun's military prowess, according to Jawaharlal Nehru's Glimpses of World History. 

Der Spiegel commented on November 6, 1948, that the Sword of Attila was hanging menacingly over Austria. 

American writer Cecelia Holland wrote The Death of Attila (1973), a historical novel in which Attila appears as a powerful background figure whose life and death deeply impact the protagonists, a young Hunnish warrior and a Germanic one.

In modern Hungary and in Turkey, "Attila" and its Turkish variation "Atilla" are commonly used as a male first name. In Hungary, several public places are named after Attila; for instance, in Budapest there are 10 Attila Streets, one of which is an important street behind the Buda Castle. When the Turkish Armed Forces invaded Cyprus in 1974, the operations were named after Attila ("The Attila Plan"). 

The 1954 Universal International film Sign of the Pagan starred Jack Palance as Attila.

== Depictions of Attila ==

File:Attila Museum.JPG|Attila in a museum in Hungary
File:Attila 01.jpg|A depiction of Attila in the Badisches Landes museum, Karlsruhe, Germany

File:Attila statue.jpg|Renaissance statue representing Attila
File:Alessandro Algardi Meeting of Leo I and Attila 01.jpg|The Meeting of Leo I and Attila by Alessandro Algardi
File:Attila leo.jpg|Detail of The Meeting by Algardi from another perspective

== See also ==

* Attila (opera) by Verdi
* Attila the Hun in popular culture
* Attila (TV miniseries)

== Notes ==

== References ==

=== Primary sources ===
* Priscus. Byzantine History. Bury, J. B. (English translation). Priscus at the court of Attila (Archived Online.) Dindorf, Ludwig (1870) (the original Greek). Historici Graeci Minores. Leipzig: Teubner.
* Jordanes. The Origin and Deeds of the Goths (Online). Translated by Mierow, Charles C.. 

=== Historiography ===
* 
* This is a collection of fragments from Priscus, Olympiodorus, and others, with original text and translation.
* Guttenberg Project 1996–97 online edition of the revised 1845 edition.
* This is a translated collection, with commentary and annotation, of ancient writings on the subject, including Priscus.
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* This is the authoritative English work on the subject. Originally titled, A History of Attila and the Huns.Afterword" by Heather which adds substantial new material. Thompson did not enter controversies over Hunnic origins and considers that Attila's victories were achieved only when there was no concerted opposition. The 1999 edition includes an "Afterword" by Heather which adds substantial new material and explains how the revised edition came to be. A preview of many of the pages of the Afterword is available at the link if you are a registered Amazon buyer via their "Look Inside!" feature. Click on the cover and use "Afterword" as the search term to preview several pages from that section.



[[Aegean Sea]]

Map of the Aegean Sea
upright=1.10
Topographical and bathymetric map

The Aegean Sea (; ; or Ege Denizinin Orijinal Adı Nedir?, Turkish Naval Force web site (in Turkish) ) is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus. The Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes.

The sea was traditionally known as Archipelago (in Greek, Αρχιπέλαγος, meaning "chief sea"), but in English this word's meaning has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally, to any island group.

==Name==
In ancient times, there were various explanations for the name Aegean. It was said to have been named after the Greek town of Aegae, or after Aegea, a queen of the Amazons who died in the sea, or Aigaion, the "sea goat", another name of Briareus, one of the archaic Hecatonchires, or, especially among the Athenians, Aegeus, the father of Theseus, who drowned himself in the sea when he thought his son had died.

A possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word – aiges = "waves" (Hesychius of Alexandria; metaphorical use of (aix) "goat"), hence "wavy sea", cf. also (aigialos = aiges (waves) + hals (sea)), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. "αἰγιαλός" hence meaning "sea-shore".

In some South Slavic language the sea is often called White Sea (, Byalo more, Macedonian and Serbian: Бело море, Belo more). Zbornik Matice srpske za društvene nauke: (1961), Volumes 28-31, p.74 

==Geography==
The Aegean Sea covers about 214000 km2 in area, and measures about 610 km longitudinally and 300 km latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is 3543 m, east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south (generally from west to east): Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes.

The Aegean Islands, which almost all belong to Greece, can be divided into seven groups:

#Northeastern Aegean Islands
#Euboea
#Northern Sporades
#Cyclades
#Saronic Islands (or Argo-Saronic Islands)
#Dodecanese (or Southern Sporades), with the exclusion of Kastellorizo
#Crete

The word archipelago was originally applied specifically to the Aegean Sea and its islands. Many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are actually extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, and a third extends across the Peloponnese and Crete to Rhodes, dividing the Aegean from the Mediterranean.

The bays and gulfs of the Aegean beginning at the South and moving clockwise include on Crete, the Mirabelli, Almyros, Souda and Chania bays or gulfs, on the mainland the Myrtoan Sea to the west, the Saronic Gulf northwestward, the Petalies Gulf which connects with the South Euboic Sea, the Pagasetic Gulf which connects with the North Euboic Sea, the Thermian Gulf northwestward, the Chalkidiki Peninsula including the Cassandra and the Singitic Gulfs, northward the Strymonian Gulf and the Gulf of Kavala and the rest are in Turkey; Saros Gulf, Edremit Gulf, Dikili Gulf, Gulf of Çandarlı, İzmir Gulf, Kuşadası Gulf, Gulf of Gökova, Güllük Gulf.

===Extent===
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Aegean Sea as follows: 

On the South. A line running from Cape Aspro (28°16'E) in Asia Minor, to Cum Burnù (Capo della Sabbia) the Northeast extreme of the Island of Rhodes, through the island to Cape Prasonisi, the Southwest point thereof, on to Vrontos Point (35°33'N) in Skarpanto [Karpathos], through this island to Castello Point, the South extreme thereof, across to Cape Plaka (East extremity of Crete), through Crete to Agria Grabusa, the Northwest extreme thereof, thence to Cape Apolitares in Antikithera Island, through the island to Psira Rock (off the Northwest point) and across to Cape Trakhili in Kithera Island, through Kithera to the Northwest point (Cape Karavugia) and thence to Cape Santa Maria () in the Morea.
In the Dardanelles. A line joining Kum Kale (26°11'E) and Cape Helles.

Panoramic view of the Santorini caldera, taken from Oia.

===Hydrography===
The cliffs in Santorini, Greece.
Traditional street of Lefkes,Paros
Aegean surface water circulates in a counter-clockwise gyre, with hypersaline Mediterranean water moving northward along the west coast of Turkey, before being displaced by less dense Black Sea outflow. The dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of 23 -, then flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara at velocities of 5–15 cm/s. The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea, then flows southwards along the east coast of Greece. Aksu, A. E., D. Yasar, et al. (1995). "LATE GLACIAL-HOLOCENE PALEOCLIMATIC AND PALEOCEANOGRAPHIC EVOLUTION OF THE AEGEAN SEA – MICROPALEONTOLOGICAL AND STABLE ISOTOPIC EVIDENCE." Marine Micropaleontology 25(1): 1–28. 

The physical oceanography of the Aegean Sea is controlled mainly by the regional climate, the fresh water discharge from major rivers draining southeastern Europe, and the seasonal variations in the Black Sea surface water outflow through the Dardanelles Strait.

Analysis Yagar, D., 1994. Late glacial-Holocene evolution of the Aegean Sea. Ph.D. Thesis, Inst. Mar. Sci. Technol., Dokuz Eyltil Univ., 329 pp. (Unpubl.) of the Aegean during 1991 and 1992 revealed 3 distinct water masses:

*Aegean Sea Surface Water – 40 - thick veneer, with summer temperatures of 21–26 °C and winter temperatures ranging from 10 °C in the north to 16 °C in the south.
*Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40–50 m to 200 - with temperatures ranging from 11–18 °C.
*Aegean Sea Bottom Water – occurring at depths below 500–1000 m with a very uniform temperature (13–14 °C) and salinity (39.1–39.2%).

==History==
Historic map (1528) of Aegean Sea by Ottoman geographer Piri Reis.
The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC. Before that time, at the peak of the last ice age (c. 16,000 BC) sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the present-day islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared c. 7000 BC, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3,000 years after that. 

The subsequent Bronze Age civilizations of Greece and the Aegean Sea have given rise to the general term Aegean civilization. In ancient times, the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations – the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenean Civilization of the Peloponnese. Tracey Cullen, Aegean Prehistory: A Review (American Journal of Archaeology. Supplement, 1); Oliver Dickinson, The Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge World Archaeology). 
Satellite view of the Aegean Sea
Later arose the city-states of Athens and Sparta among many others that constituted the Athenian Empire and Hellenic Civilization. Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean "like frogs around a pond". The Aegean Sea was later invaded by the Persians and the Romans, and inhabited by the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians, the Venetians, the Genoese, the Seljuq Turks, and the Ottoman Empire. The Aegean was the site of the original democracies, and its seaways were the means of contact among several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean.

==Economics and politics==
Many of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays. In ancient times, navigation through the sea was easier than travelling across the rough terrain of the Greek mainland (and to some extent the coastal areas of Anatolia). Many of the islands are volcanic, and marble and iron are mined on other islands. The larger islands have some fertile valleys and plains. Of the main islands in the Aegean Sea, two belong to Turkey – Bozcaada (Tenedos) and Gökçeada (Imbros); the rest belong to Greece. Between the two countries, there are political disputes over several aspects of political control over the Aegean space, including the size of territorial waters, air control and the delimitation of economic rights to the continental shelf.

==See also==

*Aegean languages
*List of traditional Greek place names
*Thracian Sea

==References==

 ^ The word "Aegean" is pronounced "i-Jee-en". "Aegean islands – Definition and More", Merriam-Webster.com, 2011, web:MWaegean. 

==External links==

* 

 



[[A Clockwork Orange]]

A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess published in 1962. Set in a not-so-distant future English society that has a culture of extreme youth violence, the novel's teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?". The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Nadsat". According to Burgess it was a jeu d'esprit written in just three weeks. 

In 2005, A Clockwork Orange was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. "100 Best Novels". Modern Library. Retrieved 31 October 2012 The original manuscript of the book is located at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since that institution purchased the documents in 1971. 

==Plot summary==

===Part 1: Alex's world===
Alex, a teenager living in near-future dystopian England, leads his gang on a night of opportunistic, random "ultra-violence". Alex's friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, 'Nadsat') are: Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for ultra-violence. Characterized as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent and quick-witted, with sophisticated taste in music, being particularly fond of Beethoven, referred to as "Lovely Ludwig Van".

The novel begins with the droogs sitting in their favorite hangout (the Korova Milk Bar), drinking "milk-plus", a drink consisting of milk, prodded with the customer's choice of certain drugs, including "vellocet", "synthemesc", or "drencrom" (which is what Alex and his droogs were drinking, according to Alex's own first-person narration). This drug, referred to as "knives", would "sharpen you up", as it did for Alex, in preparation of the night's mayhem. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library, rob a store, leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious, stomp a panhandling derelict, then scuffle with a rival gang. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and maul the young couple living there, beating the husband and raping his wife. In a metafictional touch, the husband is a writer working on a manuscript called "A Clockwork Orange," and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. Back at the milk bar, Alex punishes Dim for some crude behaviour, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his dreary flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume while fantasizing about more orgiastic violence.

Alex skips school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P. R. Deltoid, his "post-corrective advisor," Alex meets a pair of ten-year-old girls and takes them back to his parents' flat, where he serves them scotch and soda, injects himself with hard drugs, and then rapes them. That evening, Alex finds his droogs in a mutinous mood. Georgie challenges Alex for leadership of the gang, demanding that they pull a "man-sized" job. Alex quells the rebellion by slashing Dim's hand and fighting with Georgie, then in a show of generosity takes them to a bar, where Alex insists on following through on Georgie's idea to burgle the home of a wealthy old woman. The break-in starts as farce and ends in tragic pathos, as Alex's attack kills the elderly woman. His escape is blocked by an attack by Dim, as payback for the earlier fight, leaving Alex incapacitated on the front step when the police arrive.

===Part 2: The Ludovico Technique===
Sentenced to prison for murder, Alex gets a job at the Wing chapel playing religious music on the stereo before and after services as well as during the singing of hymns. The prison chaplain mistakes Alex's Bible studies for stirrings of faith (Alex is actually reading Scripture for the violent passages). After Alex's fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he agrees to undergo an experimental behaviour-modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex receives an injection that makes him feel sick while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to suffer crippling bouts of nausea at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films—Beethoven's Ninth Symphony—renders Alex unable to listen to his beloved classical music.

The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated to a group of VIPs, who watch as Alex collapses before a walloping bully, and abases himself before a scantily-clad young woman whose presence has aroused his predatory sexual inclinations. Although the prison chaplain accuses the state of stripping Alex of free will, the government officials on the scene are pleased with the results and Alex is released into society early as a result.

===Part 3: After prison===
Since his parents are now renting his room to a lodger, Alex wanders the streets homeless. He enters a public library where he hopes to learn a painless way to commit suicide. There, he accidentally encounters the old scholar he assaulted earlier in the book, who, keen on revenge, beats Alex with the help of his friends. The policemen who come to Alex's rescue turn out to be none other than Dim and former gang rival Billyboy. The two policemen take Alex outside of town and beat him up. Dazed and bloodied, Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realizing too late that it is the house he and his droogs invaded in the first part of the story. Because the gang wore masks during the assault, the writer does not recognize Alex. The writer, whose name is revealed as F. Alexander, shelters Alex and questions him about the conditioning. During this sequence, it is revealed that Mrs. Alexander died of injuries inflicted during the gang-rape, while her husband has decided to continue living "where her fragrant memory persists" despite the horrid memories. Alex reveals in his description that he has been conditioned to feel intolerable deathly nausea on hearing certain classical music. Alexander, a critic of the government, intends to use Alex's therapy as a symbol of state brutality and thereby prevent the incumbent government from being re-elected, but a careless Alex soon inadvertently reveals that he was the ringleader during the night two years ago. Frightened for his own safety, Alex blurts out a confession to the writer's radical associates after they remove him from F. Alexander's home. Instead of protecting him, however, they imprison Alex in a dreary flat not far from his parents' residence. They pretend to leave, and then while he is sleeping in a locked bedroom subject him to a relentless barrage of classical music, prompting him to attempt suicide by leaping from a high window.

Alex wakes up in a hospital, where he is courted by government officials anxious to counter the bad publicity created by his suicide attempt. With Alexander placed in a mental institution, Alex is offered a well-paying job if he agrees to side with the government. As photographers snap pictures, Alex daydreams of orgiastic violence and reflects upon the news that his Ludovico conditioning has been reversed as part of his recovery: "I was cured, all right".

In the final chapter, Alex finds himself half-heartedly preparing for yet another night of crime with a new trio of droogs. After a chance encounter with Pete, who has reformed and married, Alex finds himself taking less and less pleasure in acts of senseless violence. He begins contemplating giving up crime himself to become a productive member of society and start a family of his own, while reflecting on the notion that his own children will be just as destructive—if not more so—than he himself.

==Omission of the final chapter==
The book has three parts, each with seven chapters. Burgess has stated that the total of 21 chapters was an intentional nod to the age of 21 being recognised as a milestone in human maturation. The 21st chapter was omitted from the editions published in the United States prior to 1986. Burgess, Anthony (1986) A Clockwork Orange Resucked in A Clockwork Orange, W. W. Norton & Company, New York. In the introduction to the updated American text (these newer editions include the missing 21st chapter), Burgess explains that when he first brought the book to an American publisher, he was told that U.S. audiences would never go for the final chapter, in which Alex sees the error of his ways, decides he has lost all energy for and thrill from violence and resolves to turn his life around (a slow-ripening but classic moment of metanoia—the moment at which one's protagonist realises that everything he thought he knew was wrong).

At the American publisher's insistence, Burgess allowed their editors to cut the redeeming final chapter from the U.S. version, so that the tale would end on a darker note, with Alex succumbing to his violent, reckless nature—an ending which the publisher insisted would be 'more realistic' and appealing to a U.S. audience. The film adaptation, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on the American edition of the book (which Burgess considered to be "badly flawed"). Kubrick called Chapter 21 "an extra chapter" and claimed that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay, and that he had never given serious consideration to using it. In Kubrick's opinion, the final chapter was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book.

==Characters==
* Alex: The novel's anti-hero and leader among his droogs. He often refers to himself as "Your Humble Narrator". (Having seduced two girls in his bedroom, Alex refers to himself as "Alexander the Large" while ravishing them; this was later the basis for Alex's claimed surname DeLarge in the 1971 film.)
* George or Georgie: Effectively Alex's greedy second-in-command. Georgie attempts to undermine Alex's status as leader of the gang. He is later killed during a botched robbery, while Alex is in prison.
*Pete: The most rational and least violent member of the gang. He is the only one who doesn't take particular sides when the droogs fight among themselves. He later meets and marries a girl, renouncing his old ways and even losing his former (Nadsat) speech patterns. A chance encounter with Pete in the final chapter influences Alex to realize that he grows bored with violence and recognises that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction. A Clockwork Orange Resucked. The Floating Library. Retrieved on 2013-10-31. 
* Dim: An idiotic and thoroughly gormless member of the gang, persistently condescended to by Alex, but respected to some extent by his droogs for his formidable fighting abilities, his weapon of choice being a length of bike chain. He later becomes a police officer, exacting his revenge on Alex for the abuse he once suffered under his command.
* P. R. Deltoid: A criminal rehabilitation social worker assigned the task of keeping Alex on the straight and narrow. He seemingly has no clue about dealing with young people, and is devoid of empathy or understanding for his troublesome charge. Indeed, when Alex is arrested for murdering an old woman, and then ferociously beaten by several police officers, Deltoid simply spits on him.
* The prison chaplain: The character who first questions whether it's moral to turn a violent person into a behavioural automaton who can make no choice in such matters. This is the only character who is truly concerned about Alex's welfare; he is not taken seriously by Alex, though. (He is nicknamed by Alex "prison charlie" or "chaplin", possibly an allusion to Charlie Chaplin.)
* Billyboy: A rival of Alex's. Early on in the story, Alex and his droogs battle Billyboy and his droogs, which ends abruptly when the police arrive. Later, after Alex is released from prison, Billyboy (along with Dim, who like Billyboy has become a police officer) rescue Alex from a mob, then subsequently beat him, in a location out of town.
* The prison governor: The man who decides to let Alex "choose" to be the first reformed by the Ludovico technique.
* The Minister of the Interior, or the Inferior, as Alex refers to him. The government high-official who is determined that Ludovico's technique will be used to cut recidivism.
* Dr. Branom: Brodsky's colleague and co-developer of the Ludovico technique. He appears friendly and almost paternal towards Alex at first, before forcing him into the theatre and what Alex calls the "chair of torture".
* Dr. Brodsky: The scientist and co-developer of the "Ludovico technique". He seems much more passive than Branom, and says considerably less.
* F. Alexander: An author who was in the process of typing his magnum opus A Clockwork Orange, when Alex and his droogs broke into his house, beat him, tore up his work and then brutally gang-raped his wife, which caused her subsequent death. He is left deeply scarred by these events, and when he encounters Alex two years later he uses him as a guinea pig in a sadistic experiment intended to prove the Ludovico technique unsound.
* Cat Woman: An indirectly named woman who blocks Alex's gang's entrance scheme, and threatens to shoot Alex and set her cats on him if he doesn't leave. After Alex breaks into her house, she fights with him, ordering her cats to join the melee, but reprimands Alex for fighting them off. She sustains a fatal blow to the head during the scuffle.

==Analysis==

===Background===
A Clockwork Orange was written in Hove, then a senescent seaside town. Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had grown, including coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs. A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback) by Anthony Burgess, Blake Morrison xv England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency. Burgess claimed that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried. Burgess, A. A Clockwork Orange, Penguin UK, 2011, introduction by Blake Morrison, page 17 : his first wife, Lynne, was beaten, kicked and robbed in London by a gang of four GI deserters . In its investigation of free will, the book's target is ostensibly the concept of behaviourism, pioneered by such figures as B. F. Skinner. A Clockwork Orange (Paperback) by Anthony Burgess, Will Self 

Burgess later stated that he wrote the book in three weeks. 

===Title===
Burgess gave three possible origins for the title:

* He had overheard the phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" in a London pub in 1945 and assumed it was a Cockney expression. In Clockwork Marmalade, an essay published in the Listener in 1972, he said that he had heard the phrase several times since that occasion. He also explained the title in response to a question from William Everson on the television programme, Camera Three in 1972, "Well, the title has a very different meaning but only to a particular generation of London Cockneys. It's a phrase which I heard many years ago and so fell in love with, I wanted to use it, the title of the book. But the phrase itself I did not make up. The phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" is good old East London slang and it didn't seem to me necessary to explain it. Now, obviously, I have to give it an extra meaning. I've implied an extra dimension. I've implied the junction of the organic, the lively, the sweet – in other words, life, the orange – and the mechanical, the cold, the disciplined. I've brought them together in this kind of oxymoron, this sour-sweet word." An examination of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange Camera Three: Creative Arts Television, 2010-08-04. (Video) Clockwork Orange: A review with William Everson. Retrieved: 2012-03-11. However, no other record of the expression being used before 1962 has ever appeared. Kingsley Amis notes in his Memoirs (1991) that no trace of it appears in Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Historical Slang.
* His second explanation was that it was a pun on the Malay word orang, meaning "man." The novel contains no other Malay words or links. 
* In a prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music, he wrote that the title was a metaphor for "...an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into a mechanism." 

In his essay, "Clockwork Oranges," Burgess asserts that "this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian or mechanical laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness." This title alludes to the protagonist's positively conditioned responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will. To induce this conditioning, the protagonist is subjected to a technique in which violent scenes displayed on screen, which he is forced to watch, are systematically paired with negative stimulation in the form of nausea and "feelings of terror" caused by an emetic medicine administered just before the presentation of the films.

===Point of view===
A Clockwork Orange is written using a narrative first-person singular perspective of a seemingly biased and unreliable narrator. The protagonist, Alex, never justifies his actions in the narration, giving a sense that he is somewhat sincere; a narrator who, as unlikeable as he may attempt to seem, evokes pity from the reader by telling of his unending suffering, and later through his realisation that the cycle will never end. Alex's perspective is effective in that the way that he describes events is easy to relate to, even if the situations themselves are not.

===Use of slang===

The book, narrated by Alex, contains many words in a slang argot which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat. It is a mix of modified Slavic words, rhyming slang, derived Russian (like baboochka), and words invented by Burgess himself. For instance, these terms have the following meanings in Nadsat: droog = friend; korova = cow; gulliver ('golova') = head; malchick or malchickiwick = boy; soomka = sack or bag; Bog = God; khorosho ('horrorshow') = good; prestoopnick = criminal; rooka ('rooker') = hand; cal = crap; veck ('chelloveck') = man or guy; litso = face; malenky = little; and so on. Compare Polari.

One of Alex's doctors explains the language to a colleague as "odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav propaganda. Subliminal penetration." Some words are not derived from anything, but merely easy to guess, e.g. 'in-out, in-out' or 'the old in-out' means sexual intercourse. Cutter, however, means 'money,' because 'cutter' rhymes with 'bread-and-butter'; this is rhyming slang, which is intended to be impenetrable to outsiders (especially eavesdropping policemen). Additionally, slang like Appypolly loggy (Apology) seems to derive from school boy slang. This reflects Alex's age of 15.

In the first edition of the book, no key was provided, and the reader was left to interpret the meaning from the context. In his appendix to the restored edition, Burgess explained that the slang would keep the book from seeming dated, and served to muffle "the raw response of pornography" from the acts of violence. Furthermore, in a novel where a form of brainwashing plays a role, the narrative itself brainwashes the reader into understanding Nadsat. The fact that the reader is forced to buy a Russian dictionary, also forms part of the brainwashing.

The term "ultraviolence," referring to excessive and/or unjustified violence, was coined by Burgess in the book, which includes the phrase "do the ultra-violent." The term's association with aesthetic violence has led to its use in the media. 

===Banning and censorship history in the US===
In 1976, A Clockwork Orange was removed from an Aurora, Colorado high school because of "objectionable language". A year later in 1977 it was removed from high school classrooms in Westport, Massachusetts over similar concerns with "objectionable" language. In 1982, it was removed from two Anniston, Alabama libraries, later to be reinstated on a restricted basis. Also, in 1973 a bookseller was arrested for selling the novel. Charges were later dropped. "Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century". American Library Association, 29 March 2007. (Accessed 24 April 2012)Document ID: a6b9d0cb-cf04-dcc4-e1b3-acda735f48bd However, each of these instances came after the release of Stanley Kubrick's popular 1971 film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, itself the subject of much controversy.

===Writer's dismissal===
Burgess in 1986
In 1985, Burgess published Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence, and while discussing Lady Chatterley's Lover in his biography, Burgess compared that novel's notoriety with A Clockwork Orange: "We all suffer from the popular desire to make the known notorious. The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation, and the same may be said of Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover." Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence (Heinemann, London 1985) Anthony Burgess, p 205 Burgess also dismissed A Clockwork Orange as "too didactic to be artistic". A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback) by Anthony Burgess, Blake Morrison xxii 

==Awards and nominations and rankings==
* 1983 – Prometheus Award (Preliminary Nominee)
* 1999 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
* 2002 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
* 2003 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
* 2006 – Prometheus Award (Nomination) 
* 2008 – Prometheus Award (Hall of Fame Award)

The novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. 

==Adaptations==
Stanley Kubrick film version's theatrical release poster by Bill Gold
The best known adaptation of the novel to other forms is the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, starring Malcolm McDowell as Alex. 

A 1965 film by Andy Warhol entitled Vinyl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuENhAm5Tks was an adaptation of Burgess' novel.

After Kubrick's film was released, Burgess wrote a stage play titled A Clockwork Orange. In it, Dr. Branom defects from the psychiatric clinic when he grasps that the aversion therapy has destroyed Alex's ability to enjoy music. The play restores the novel's original ending.

In 1988, a German adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at the intimate theatre of Bad Godesberg featured a musical score by the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen which, combined with orchestral clips of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and "other dirty melodies" (so stated by the subtitle), was released on the album Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau. The track Hier kommt Alex became one of the band's signature songs.

Vanessa Claire Smith, Sterling Wolfe, Michael Holmes, and Ricky Coates in Brad Mays' multi-media stage production of A Clockwork Orange, 2003, Los Angeles. (photo: Peter Zuehlke) Vanessa Claire Smith in Brad Mays' multi-media stage production of A Clockwork Orange, 2003, Los Angeles. (photo: Peter Zuehlke) 
In February 1990, another musical version was produced at the Barbican Theatre in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Titled A Clockwork Orange: 2004, it received mostly negative reviews, with John Peter of The Sunday Times of London calling it "only an intellectual Rocky Horror Show," and John Gross of The Sunday Telegraph calling it "a clockwork lemon." Even Burgess himself, who wrote the script based on his novel, was disappointed. According to The Evening Standard, he called the score, written by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2, "neo-wallpaper." Burgess had originally worked alongside the director of the production, Ron Daniels, and envisioned a musical score that was entirely classical. Unhappy with the decision to abandon that score, he heavily criticised the band's experimental mix of hip hop, liturgical and gothic music. Lise Hand of The Irish Independent reported The Edge as saying that Burgess' original conception was "a score written by a novelist rather than a songwriter." Calling it "meaningless glitz," Jane Edwardes of 20/20 Magazine said that watching this production was "like being invited to an expensive French Restaurant - and being served with a Big Mac."

In 1994, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater put on a production of A Clockwork Orange directed by Terry Kinney. The American premiere of novelist Anthony Burgess' own adaptation of his A Clockwork Orange starred K. Todd Freeman as Alex. In 2001, UNI Theatre (Mississauga, Ontario) presented the Canadian premiere of the play under the direction of Terry Costa. 

In 2002, Godlight Theatre Company presented the New York Premiere adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at Manhattan Theatre Source. The production went on to play at the SoHo Playhouse (2002), Ensemble Studio Theatre (2004), 59E59 Theaters (2005) and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2005). While at Edinburgh, the production received rave reviews from the press while playing to sold-out audiences. The production was directed by Godlight's Artistic Director, Joe Tantalo.

In 2003, Los Angeles director Brad Mays and the ARK Theatre Company staged a multi-media adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, which was named "Pick Of The Week" by the LA Weekly and nominated for three of the 2004 LA Weekly Theater Awards: Direction, Revival Production (of a 20th-century work), and Leading Female Performance. Vanessa Claire Smith won Best Actress for her gender-bending portrayal of Alex, the music-loving teenage sociopath. This production utilised three separate video streams outputted to seven onstage video monitors - six 19-inch and one 40-inch. In order to preserve the first-person narrative of the book, a pre-recorded video stream of Alex, "your humble narrator," was projected onto the 40-inch monitor, thereby freeing the onstage character during passages which would have been awkward or impossible to sustain in the breaking of the fourth wall. 

David Bowie referenced the book/film in various songs in his early 1970s oeuvre: "Suffragette City" mentions "droogie" in its lyrics, which is a reference to a term used in the book. Live appearances would include tracks from the soundtrack album, usually opening with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony segment "Ode To Joy" (as can be heard on live albums "Santa Monica '72" and the "" soundtrack CD & DVD). The song "Sex and Violence" by American thrash metal band Carnivore (band) is about A Clockwork Orange. The Brazilian heavy metal group Sepultura used the plot of A Clockwork Orange for their concept album A-Lex. German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen wrote an album based on A Clockwork Orange, titled Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau or "A Tiny Bit of Horrorshow." English punk rock band the Adicts became known for their "droog" image inspired by Kubrick's movie. Their third studio album was also entitled smart alex, referring to the book's protagonist.
* Rapper Cage previously rapped under the name of Alex, after the books protagonist, and he has since released the song Agent Orange which uses the title theme from the 1971 film as the beat

==Release details==

* 1962, UK, William Heinemann (ISBN ?), December 1962, Hardcover
* 1962, US, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN ?), 1962, Hardcover
* 1963, US, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN 0-345-28411-9), 1963, Paperback
* 1965, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0-345-01708-0), 1965, Paperback
* 1969, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN ?), 1969, Paperback
* 1971, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0-345-02624-1), 1971, Paperback,Movie released
* 1972, UK, Lorrimer, (ISBN 0-85647-019-8), 11 September 1972, Hardcover
* 1972, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0-14-003219-3), 25 January 1973, Paperback
* 1973, US, Caedmon Records, 1973, Vinyl LP (First 4 chapters read by Anthony Burgess)
* 1977, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0-345-27321-4), 12 September 1977, Paperback
* 1979, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0-345-31483-2), April 1979, Paperback
* 1983, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0-345-31483-2), 12 July 1983, Unbound
* 1986, US, W. W. Norton & Company (ISBN 0-393-31283-6), November 1986, Paperback (Adds final chapter not previously available in U.S. versions)
* 1987, UK, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN 0-393-02439-3), July 1987, Hardcover
* 1988, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0-345-35443-5), March 1988, Paperback
* 1995, UK, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN 0-393-31283-6), June 1995, Paperback
* 1996, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0-14-018882-7), 25 April 1996, Paperback
* 1996, UK, HarperAudio (ISBN 0-694-51752-6), September 1996, Audio Cassette
* 1997, UK, Heyne Verlag (ISBN 3-453-13079-0), 31 January 1997, Paperback
* 1998, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0-14-027409-X), 3 September 1998, Paperback
* 1999, UK, Rebound by Sagebrush (ISBN 0-8085-8194-5), October 1999, Library Binding
* 2000, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0-14-118260-1), 24 February 2000, Paperback
* 2000, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0-14-029105-9), 2 March 2000, Paperback
* 2000, UK, Turtleback Books (ISBN 0-606-19472-X), November 2000, Hardback
* 2001, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0-14-100855-5), 27 September 2001, Paperback
* 2002, UK, Thorndike Press (ISBN 0-7862-4644-8), October 2002, Hardback
* 2005, UK, Buccaneer Books (ISBN 1-56849-511-0), 29 January 2005, Library Binding
* 2010, Greece, Anubis Publications (ISBN 978-960-306-847-1), 2010, Paperback (Adds final chapter not previously available in Greek versions)
* 2012, US, W. W. Norton & Company (ISBN 978-0-393-08913-4) October 22, 2012, Hardback (50th Anniversary Edition, revised text version. Andrew Biswell, PhD, director of the International Burgess Foundation, has taken a close look at the three varying published editions alongside the original typescript to recreate the novel as Anthony Burgess envisioned it. 

==See also==

* Aestheticization of violence
* List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange
* List of stories set in a future now past
* Nadsat
* Project MKUltra

==References==

==Further reading==
* A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music. Century Hutchinson Ltd. (1987). An extract is quoted on several web sites: Anthony Burgess from A Clockwork Orange: A play with music (Century Hutchinson Ltd, 1987), , A Clockwork Orange - From A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music
* Burgess, Anthony (1978). Clockwork Oranges. In 1985. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-136080-3 (extracts quoted here)
*
* 

==External links==

* 
* A Clockwork Orange at SparkNotes
* A Clockwork Orange at Literapedia
* A Clockwork Orange (1962) | Last chapter | Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)

;Comparisons with the Kubrick film adaptation
* Dalrymple, Theodore. "A Prophetic and Violent Masterpiece", City Journal
* Giola, Ted. "A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess" at Conceptual Fiction
* Priestley, Brenton. "Of Clockwork Apples and Oranges: Burgess and Kubrick (2002)"

 



[[Amsterdam]]

Amsterdam (; ) is the capital city of and the most populous within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the Dutch capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands though it is not the seat of the Dutch government, which is at The Hague (Den Haag). Amsterdam has a population of within the city-proper, in the urban region and in the greater metropolitan area. The city is located in the province of North Holland (Noord Holland) in the west of the country. It comprises much of the northern part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe, with a population of approximately 7 million. 

Amsterdam's name derives from Amstelredamme, Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Vol 1, pp. 896-898. indicative of the city's origin as a dam of the river Amstel. Originating as a small fishing village in the late 12th century, Amsterdam became one of the most important ports in the world during the Dutch Golden Age (17th century), a result of its innovative developments in trade. During that time, the city was the leading center for finance and diamonds. Cambridge.org, Capitals of Capital -A History of International Financial Centres – 1780–2005, Youssef Cassis, ISBN 978-0-521-84535-9 In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned and built. The 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered an alpha world city by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) study group. The city is also the cultural capital of the Netherlands. After Athens in 1888 and Florence in 1986, Amsterdam was in 1986 chosen as the European Capital of Culture, confirming its eminent position in Europe and the Netherlands. See EC.europa.eu for an overview of the European cities and capitals of culture over the years. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and 7 of the world's top 500 companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. Forbes.com, Forbes Global 2000 Largest Companies – Dutch rankings. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked 2nd best city to live by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and 12th globally on quality of living by Mercer. The city was previously ranked 3rd in innovation by 2thinknow in the Innovation Cities Index 2009. 

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. Amsterdam's main attractions, including its historic canals, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Hermitage Amsterdam, Anne Frank House, Amsterdam Museum, its red-light district, and its many cannabis coffee shops draw more than 3.66 million international visitors annually.

==History==

===Etymology===
The Oude Kerk was consecrated in 1306.

Shortly after the floods of 1170 en 1173 locals of the river Amstel vicinity built a bridge over- and a dam across the river, hence giving its name to the village: "Aemstelredamme". The earliest recorded use of the name "Aemstelredamme" (Amsterdam) comes from a document dated October 27, 1275. Inhabitants of the village, by this document, were exempted from paying a bridge toll in the County of Holland by Count Floris V. 
 Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam, page 19. Geert Mak. (1994) Uitgeverij Atlas, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 
This meant it had been allowed to the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland without having to pay toll at bridges, locks and dams all through the county. The certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme (people living near Amestelledamme). By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam. Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam,pp 18-20. Geert Mak. (1994) Uitgeverij Atlas, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 

A woodcut depicting Amsterdam as of 1544. The famous Grachtengordel had not yet been established.

===Founding and Middle Ages===
Amsterdam's founding is relatively recent compared with much older Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean that there was already a settlement then since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat, used as fuel. 

Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306. From the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely because of trade with the Hanseatic League. In 1345, an alleged Eucharistic miracle in the Kalverstraat rendered the city an important place of pilgrimage until the adoption of the Protestant faith. The Stille Omgang—a silent procession in civil attire—is today a remnant of the rich pilgrimage history. 

===Conflict with Spain===
In the 16th century, the Dutch rebelled against Philip II of Spain and his successors. The main reasons for the uprising were the imposition of new taxes, the tenth penny, and the religious persecution of Protestants by the Spanish Inquisition. The revolt escalated into the Eighty Years' War, which ultimately led to Dutch independence. Strongly pushed by Dutch Revolt leader William the Silent, the Dutch Republic became known for its relative religious tolerance. Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Huguenots from France, prosperous merchants and printers from Flanders, and economic and religious refugees from the Spanish-controlled parts of the Low Countries found safety in Amsterdam. The influx of Flemish printers and the city's intellectual tolerance made Amsterdam a centre for the European free press. Case in point: After his trial and sentencing in Rome in 1633, Galileo chose Lodewijk Elzevir in Amsterdam to publish one of his finest works, Two New Sciences. See Wade Rowland (2003), Galileo's Mistake, A new look at the epic confrontation between Galileo and the Church, New York: Arcade Publishing, ISBN 1-55970-684-8, p. 260. 

===Center of the Dutch Golden Age===
The Royal Palace, Nieuwe Kerk, and now demolished weigh house on Dam Square in 1814.

The 17th century is considered Amsterdam's Golden Age, during which it became the wealthiest city in the world. E. Haverkamp-Bergmann, Rembrandt; The Night Watch (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 57 Ships sailed from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea, North America, and Africa, as well as present-day Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, forming the basis of a worldwide trading network. Amsterdam's merchants had the largest share in both the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company. These companies acquired overseas possessions that later became Dutch colonies. Amsterdam was Europe's most important point for the shipment of goods and was the leading Financial Centre of the world. Amsterdam in the 17th century, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke In 1602, the Amsterdam office of the Dutch East India Company became the world's first stock exchange by trading in its own shares. 

===Decline and modernization===
Amsterdam's prosperity declined during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The wars of the Dutch Republic with England and France took their toll on Amsterdam. During the Napoleonic Wars, Amsterdam's significance reached its lowest point, with Holland being absorbed into the French Empire. However, the later establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 marked a turning point.

Vijzelstraat looking towards Muntplein in 1891

The end of the 19th century is sometimes called Amsterdam's second Golden Age. New museums, a train station, and the Concertgebouw were built; in this same time, the Industrial Revolution reached the city. The Amsterdam-Rhine Canal was dug to give Amsterdam a direct connection to the Rhine, and the North Sea Canal was dug to give the port a shorter connection to the North Sea. Both projects dramatically improved commerce with the rest of Europe and the world. In 1906, Joseph Conrad gave a brief description of Amsterdam as seen from the seaside, in The Mirror of the Sea.

===Twentieth century===
Shortly before the First World War, the city began expanding, and new suburbs were built. Even though the Netherlands remained neutral in this war, Amsterdam suffered a food shortage, and heating fuel became scarce. The shortages sparked riots in which several people were killed. These riots are known as the Aardappeloproer (Potato rebellion). People started looting stores and warehouses in order to get supplies, mainly food. 
National Monument a memorial to the war victims

After landflood in 1916 the depleted municipalities, Durgerdam, Holysloot, Zunderdorp and Schellingwoude, all lying north of Amsterdam, were, on their own request, annexed to the city on 1-1-1921. Amsterdan city archives http://www.centraledorpenraad.nl/landelijk-noord/historie | website centrale dorpen raad (villages central council) 

Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 and took control of the country. Some Amsterdam citizens sheltered Jews, thereby exposing themselves and their families to the high risk of being imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps of which some 60.000 lived in Amsterdam. Perhaps the most famous deportee was the young Jewish girl Anne Frank, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. At the end of the Second World War, communication with the rest of the country broke down, and food and fuel became scarce. Many citizens traveled to the countryside to forage. Dogs, cats, raw sugar beets, and Tulip bulbs—cooked to a pulp—were consumed to stay alive. Most of the trees in Amsterdam were cut down for fuel, and all the wood was taken from the apartments of deported Jews.

The (reconstructed) bookcase that covered the entrance to the "Secret Annex" where Anne Frank hid from Germans occupying Amsterdam during World War II.
Many new suburbs, such as Osdorp, Slotervaart, Slotermeer, and Geuzenveld, were built in the years after the Second World War. 
These suburbs contained many public parks and wide, open spaces, and the new buildings provided improved housing conditions with larger and brighter rooms, gardens, and balconies. Because of the war and other incidents of the 20th century, almost the entire city centre had fallen into disrepair. As society was changing, politicians and other influential figures made plans to redesign large parts of it. There was an increasing demand for office buildings and new roads as the automobile became available to most common people. A metro started operating in 1977 between the new suburb of Bijlmer and the centre of Amsterdam. Further plans were to build a new highway above the metro to connect the Central Station and city centre with other parts of the city.

The incorporated large-scale demolitions began in Amsterdam's formerly Jewish neighbourhood. Smaller streets, such as the Jodenbreestraat, were widened and saw almost all of their houses demolished. During the destruction's peak, the Nieuwmarktrellen (Nieuwmarkt riots) broke out, where people expressed their fury about the demolition caused by the restructuring of the city.

As a result, the demolition was stopped, and the highway was never built, with only the metro being finished. Only a few streets remained widened. The new city hall was built on the almost completely demolished Waterlooplein. Meanwhile, large private organisations, such as Stadsherstel Amsterdam, were founded with the aim of restoring the entire city centre. Although the success of this struggle is visible today, efforts for further restoration are still ongoing. The entire city centre has reattained its former splendor and, as a whole, is now a protected area. Many of its buildings have become monuments, and in July 2010 the Grachtengordel (Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht) was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. 

The Zuidas district is the headquarters of many Dutch multinationals.

===Twenty-first century===
At the beginning of the new millennium, social problems such as safety, ethnic discrimination and segregation between religious and social groups began to develop. Forty-five percent of the population of Amsterdam has non-Dutch parents. Large social groups come from Suriname, the Dutch Antilles, Morocco and Turkey. Amsterdam is characterized by its (perceived) social tolerance and diversity. The former mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, and his alderman for integration Ahmed Aboutaleb (Now mayor of Rotterdam) formulated a policy of "keeping things together" which involves social dialogue, tolerance and harsh measures against those who break the law.

==Geography==
Topographic map of Amsterdam, March 2014
Amsterdam is located in the western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The river Amstel terminates in the city centre and connects to a large number of canals that eventually terminate in the IJ. Amsterdam is situated 2 metres below sea level. The surrounding land is flat as it is formed of large polders. A man made forest, Amsterdamse Bos, is situated southwest. Amsterdam is connected to the North Sea through the long North Sea Canal.

Amsterdam canals in summer
Amsterdam is intensely urbanized, as is the Amsterdam metropolitan area surrounding the city. Comprising 219.4 km of land, the city proper has 4,457 inhabitants per km2 and 2,275 houses per km2. 
 Parks and nature reserves make up 12% of Amsterdam's land area. 
 

===Climate===
Amsterdam has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb), strongly influenced by its proximity to the North Sea to the west, with prevailing westerly winds. Winters are cold, and summers are mild, although occasionally quite cool. Amsterdam, as well as most of the North Holland province, lies in USDA Hardiness zone 8b. Frosts mainly occur during spells of easterly or northeasterly winds from the inner European continent. Even then, because Amsterdam is surrounded on three sides by large bodies of water, as well as having a significant heat-island effect, nights rarely fall below -5 °C, while it could easily be −12 °C in Hilversum, 25 km southeast. Summers are moderately warm but rarely hot. The average daily high in August is 22.1 °C, and 30 °C or higher is only measured on average on 2.5 days, placing Amsterdam in AHS Heat Zone 2. The record extremes range from -24 °C to 36.8 °C. 
Days with more than 1 mm of precipitation are common, on average 133 days per year. Amsterdam's average annual precipitation is 838 mm, more than what is measured at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. A large part of this precipitation falls as light rain or brief showers. Cloudy and damp days are common during the cooler months of October through March.

==Demographics==

Amsterdam has a population of 810,084 inhabitants within city limits. On 1 January 2012, the ethnic makeup of Amsterdam was 49.5% of Dutch ancestry and 50.5% of foreign origin.
In the 16th and 17th century non-Dutch immigrants to
Amsterdam were mostly Huguenots, Flemings, Sephardi Jews and Westphalians. Huguenots came after the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, while the Flemish Protestants came during the Eighty Years' War. The Westphalians came to Amsterdam mostly for economic reasons – their influx continued through the 18th and 19th centuries. Before the Second World War, 10% of the city population was Jewish. Just twenty percent of them survived the Shoah.

The first mass immigration in the 20th century were by people from Indonesia, who came to Amsterdam after the independence of the Dutch East Indies in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s guest workers from Turkey, Morocco, Italy and Spain emigrated to Amsterdam. After the independence of Suriname in 1975, a large wave of Surinamese settled in Amsterdam, mostly in the Bijlmer area. Other immigrants, including refugees asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, came from Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, many 'old' Amsterdammers moved to 'new' cities like Almere and Purmerend, prompted by the third planological bill of the Dutch government. This bill promoted suburbanisation and arranged for new developments in so called "groeikernen", literally "cores of growth". Young professionals and artists moved into neighbourhoods de Pijp and the Jordaan abandoned by these Amsterdammers. The non-Western immigrants settled mostly in the social housing projects in Amsterdam-West and the Bijlmer. Today, people of non-Western origin make up approximately one-third of the population of Amsterdam, and more than 50% of children. A tendence to ethnical segregation is clearly visible, with people of non-Western origins, considered as a separate group by Statistics Netherlands, concentrating in specific neighborhoods especially in Nieuw-West, Zeeburg, Bijlmer and in certain areas of Amsterdam-Noord. 

The largest religious group are Christians (17% in 2000), who are divided between Roman Catholics and Protestants. The next largest religion is Islam (14% in 2000), most of whose followers are Sunni. 

In 1578 the previously Roman Catholic city of Amsterdam joined the revolt against Spanish rule, late in comparison to other major northern Dutch cities. In line with Protestant procedure of that time, all churches were converted to Protestant worship. Calvinism became the dominant religion, and although Catholicism was not forbidden and priests allowed to serve, the Catholic hierarchy was prohibited. This led to the establishment of schuilkerken, covert churches, behind seemingly ordinary canal side house fronts. One example is the current debate centre de Rode Hoed.
A large influx of foreigners of many religions came to 17th-century Amsterdam, in particular Sefardic Jews from Spain and Portugal, Huguenots from France, and Protestants from the Southern Netherlands. This led to the establishment of many non-Dutch-speaking religious churches. In 1603, the first notification was made of Jewish religious service. In 1639, the first synagogue was consecrated. The Jews came to call the town Jerusalem of the West, a reference to their sense of belonging there.

The Church of St Nicholas
As they became established in the city, other Christian denominations used converted Catholic chapels to conduct their own services. The oldest English-language church congregation in the world outside the United Kingdom is found at the Begijnhof. Regular services there are still offered in English under the auspices of the Church of Scotland. The Huguenots accounted for nearly 20% of Amsterdam's inhabitants in 1700. Being Calvinists, they soon integrated into the Dutch Reformed Church, though often retaining their own congregations. Some, commonly referred by the moniker 'Walloon', are recognizable today as they offer occasional services in French.

In the second half of the 17th century, Amsterdam experienced an influx of Ashkenazim, Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, which continued into the 19th century. Jews often fled the pogroms in those areas. The first Ashkenazi who arrived in Amsterdam were refugees from the Chmielnicki Uprising in Poland and the Thirty Years' War. They not only founded their own synagogues, but had a strong influence on the 'Amsterdam dialect' adding a large Yiddish local vocabulary.

Despite an absence of an official Jewish ghetto, most Jews preferred to live in the eastern part of the old medieval heart of the city. The main street of this Jewish neighborhood was the Jodenbreestraat. The neighborhood comprised the Waterlooplein and the Nieuwmarkt. Buildings in this neighborhood fell into disrepair after the Second World War, and a large section of the neighbourhood was demolished during the construction of the subway. This led to riots, and as a result the original plans for large-scale reconstruction were abandoned and the neighborhood was rebuilt with smaller-scale residence buildings on the basis of its original layout.

Vondelpark is the largest park in Amsterdam.
Catholic churches in Amsterdam have been constructed since the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853. One of the principal architects behind the city's Catholic churches, Cuypers, was also responsible for the Amsterdam Central Station and the Rijksmuseum, which led to a refusal of Protestant King William III to open 'that monastery'.
In 1924, the Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands hosted the International Eucharistic Congress in Amsterdam, and numerous Catholic prelates visited the city, where festivities were held in churches and stadiums. Catholic processions on the public streets, however, were still forbidden under law at the time. Only in the 20th century was Amsterdam's relation to Catholicism normalized, but despite its far larger population size, the Catholic clergy chose to place its episcopal see of the city in the nearby provincial town of Haarlem. 

In recent times, religious demographics in Amsterdam have been changed by large-scale immigration from former colonies. Immigrants from Suriname have introduced Evangelical Protestantism and Lutheranism, from the Hernhutter variety; Hinduism has been introduced mainly from Suriname; and several distinct branches of Islam have been brought from various parts of the world. Islam is now the largest non-Christian religion in Amsterdam. The large community of Ghanaian and Nigerian immigrants have established African churches, often in parking garages in the Bijlmer area, where many have settled. In addition, a broad array of other religious movements have established congregations, including Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism.

The De Gooyer Windmill was constructed in 1725 and moved to its current location in 1814; it is one of eight windmills in Amsterdam.
Although the saying "Leef en laat leven" or "Live and let live" summarizes the Dutch and especially the Amsterdam open and tolerant society, the increased influx of many races, religions, and cultures after the Second World War, has on a number of occasions strained social relations. With 176 different nationalities, Amsterdam is home to one of the widest varieties of nationalities of any city in the world. Quest, issue of March 2009 The share of the population of immigrant ancestry in the city proper now is about 50%. 

The city has been at times marked by ethnic tension. In 2004 film director Theo van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic extremist in Amsterdam. Among others, in line with attitude changes in Dutch politics towards certain (especially Islamic) minorities Turkish-language and Arabic-language TV channels have been dropped from the basic cable TV package. In recent years, politicians are actively discouraged against campaigning in minority languages. In the previous local elections politicians were criticized by current Amsterdam mayor Mr van der Laan (then minister of Integration) for distributing election leaflets in minority languages and in some cases leaflets were collected. Due to this anti-Multicultural stand, van der Laan has been accused of hypocrisy by its own party's PvdA main candidate. Also during the same period, possibly due to his belief in integration via (possibly not always voluntary) assimilation, Amsterdam has been one of the municipalities in the Netherlands which provided immigrants with extensive and free Dutch-language courses, which have benefited many immigrants.

==Cityscape and architecture==

Amsterdam fans out south from the Amsterdam Centraal railway station. The oldest area of the town is known as de Wallen (the quays). It lies to the east of Damrak and contains the city's famous red light district. To the south of de Wallen is the old Jewish quarter of Waterlooplein. The medieval and colonial age canals of Amsterdam, known as Grachten, embraces the heart of the city where homes have interesting gables. Beyond the Grachtengordel are the former working class areas of Jordaan and de Pijp. The Museumplein with the city's major museums, the Vondelpark, a 19th-century park named after the Dutch writer Joost van den Vondel, and the Plantage neighbourhood, with the zoo, are also located outside the Grachtengordel.

Several parts of the city and the surrounding urban area are polders. This can be recognised by the suffix -meer which means lake, as in Aalsmeer, Bijlmermeer, Haarlemmermeer, and Watergraafsmeer.

===Canals===

Canal in Amsterdam
The Amsterdam canal system is the result of conscious city planning. In the early 17th century, when immigration was at a peak, a comprehensive plan was developed that was based on four concentric half-circles of canals with their ends emerging at the IJ bay. Known as the Grachtengordel, three of the canals were mostly for residential development: the Herengracht (where "Heren" refers to Heren Regeerders van de stad Amsterdam (ruling lords of Amsterdam), and gracht means canal, so the name can be roughly translated as "Canal of the lords"), Keizersgracht (Emperor's Canal), and Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal). The fourth and outermost canal is the Singelgracht, which is often not mentioned on maps, because it is a collective name for all canals in the outer ring. The Singelgracht should not be confused with the oldest and most inner canal Singel. The canals served for defence, water management and transport. The defences took the form of a moat and earthen dikes, with gates at transit points, but otherwise no masonry superstructures. The original plans have been lost, so historians, such as Ed Taverne, need to speculate on the original intentions: it is thought that the considerations of the layout were purely practical and defensive rather than ornamental. 

A view of the Reguliersgracht on the corner with the Keizersgracht at dusk.
Construction started in 1613 and proceeded from west to east, across the breadth of the layout, like a gigantic windshield wiper as the historian Geert Mak calls it – and not from the centre outwards, as a popular myth has it. The canal construction in the southern sector was completed by 1656. Subsequently, the construction of residential buildings proceeded slowly. The eastern part of the concentric canal plan, covering the area between the Amstel river and the IJ bay, has never been implemented. In the following centuries, the land was used for parks, senior citizens' homes, theatres, other public facilities, and waterways without much planning. 

Bridges over a canal.
Over the years, several canals have been filled in, becoming streets or squares, such as the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and the Spui. 

===Expansion===

After the development of Amsterdam's canals in the 17th century, the city did not grow beyond its borders for two centuries. During the 19th century, Samuel Sarphati devised a plan based on the grandeur of Paris and London at that time. The plan envisaged the construction of new houses, public buildings and streets just outside the grachtengordel. The main aim of the plan, however, was to improve public health. Although the plan did not expand the city, it did produce some of the largest public buildings to date, like the Paleis voor Volksvlijt. 

Following Sarphati, Van Niftrik and Kalff designed an entire ring of 19th century neighbourhoods surrounding the city’s centre, with the city preserving the ownership of all land outside the 17th century limit, thus firmly controlling development. Most of these neighbourhoods became home to the working class. 

In response to overcrowding, two plans were designed at the beginning of the 20th century which were very different from anything Amsterdam had ever seen before: Plan Zuid, designed by the architect Berlage, and West. These plans involved the development of new neighbourhoods consisting of housing blocks for all social classes. 

After the Second World War, large new neighbourhoods were built in the western, southeastern, and northern parts of the city. These new neighbourhoods were built to relieve the city's shortage of living space and give people affordable houses with modern conveniences. The neighbourhoods consisted mainly of large housing blocks situated among green spaces, connected to wide roads, making the neighbourhoods easily accessible by motor car. The western suburbs which were built in that period are collectively called the Westelijke Tuinsteden. The area to the southeast of the city built during the same period is known as the Bijlmer. 

===Architecture===
The Westerkerk (1631), designed by Dutch architect Hendrick de Keyser in the Renaissance style. At 85m (280 ft) the cathedral's "Westertoren" steeple is the highest in Amsterdam. The canal houses on the right are characteristic of the architectural styles from the Dutch Golden Age.
The old city houses on Damrak
Amsterdam has a rich architectural history. The oldest building in Amsterdam is the Oude Kerk (Old Church), at the heart of the Wallen, consecrated in 1306. The oldest wooden building is het Houten Huys at the Begijnhof.
It was constructed around 1425 and is one of only two existing wooden buildings. It is also one of the few examples of Gothic architecture in Amsterdam.
In the 16th century, wooden buildings were razed and replaced with brick ones. During this period, many buildings were constructed in the architectural style of the Renaissance. Buildings of this period are very recognisable with their stepped gable façades, which is the common Dutch Renaissance style. Amsterdam quickly developed its own Renaissance architecture. These buildings were built according to the principles of the architect Hendrick de Keyser. One of the most striking buildings designed by Hendrick de Keyer is the Westerkerk. In the 17th century baroque architecture became very popular, as it was elsewhere in Europe. This roughly coincided with Amsterdam’s Golden Age. The leading architects of this style in Amsterdam were Jacob van Campen, Philips Vingboons and Daniel Stalpaert. 

The Scheepvaarthuis, by architects Johan van der Mey, Michel de Klerk, Piet Kramer is characteristic of the architecture of the Amsterdam School.
Philip Vingboons designed splendid merchants' houses throughout the city. A famous building in baroque style in Amsterdam is the Royal Palace on Dam Square. Throughout the 18th century, Amsterdam was heavily influenced by French culture. This is reflected in the architecture of that period. Around 1815, architects broke with the baroque style and started building in different neo-styles. Most Gothic style buildings date from that era and are therefore said to be built in a neo-gothic style. At the end of the 19th century, the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau style became popular and many new buildings were constructed in this architectural style. Since Amsterdam expanded rapidly during this period, new buildings adjacent to the city centre were also built in this style. The houses in the vicinity of the Museum Square in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid are an example of Jugendstil. The last style that was popular in Amsterdam before the modern era was Art Deco. Amsterdam had its own version of the style, which was called the Amsterdamse School. Whole districts were built this style, such as the Rivierenbuurt. A notable feature of the façades of buildings designed in Amsterdamse School is that they are highly decorated and ornate, with oddly shaped windows and doors.

The old city centre is the focal point of all the architectural styles before the end of the 19th century.
Jugendstil and Georgian are mostly found outside the city’s centre in the neighbourhoods built in the early
20th century, although there are also some striking examples of these styles in the city centre.
Most historic buildings in the city centre and nearby are houses, such as the famous merchants' houses lining the canals.

===Parks and recreational areas===
Amsterdam has many parks, open spaces, and squares throughout the city. Vondelpark, the largest park in the city, is located in the Oud-Zuid borough and is named after the 17th century Amsterdam author, Joost van den Vondel. Yearly, the park has around 10 million visitors. In the park is an open air theatre, a playground and several horeca facilities. In the Zuid borough, is Beatrixpark, named after Queen Beatrix. Between Amsterdam and Amstelveen is the Amsterdamse Bos (Amsterdam Forest), the largest recreational area in Amsterdam. Annually, almost 4.5 million people visit the park, which has a size of 1,000 hectares and is approximately three times the size of Central Park. Amsterdamse Bos - English site. City of Amsterdam. Retrieved on 2008-11-27. Amstelpark in the Zuid borough houses the Rieker windmill, which dates to 1636. Other parks include Sarphatipark in the De Pijp neighborhood, Oosterpark in the Oost borough, and Westerpark in the Westerpark neighborhood. The city has four beaches, the Nemo Beach, Citybeach "Het stenen hoofd" (Silodam), Blijburg, and one in Amsterdam-Noord.

The city has many open squares (plein in Dutch). The namesake of the city as the site of the original dam, Dam Square, is the main town square and has the Royal Palace and National Monument. Museumplein hosts various museums, including the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, and Stedelijk Museum. Other squares include Rembrandtplein, Muntplein, Nieuwmarkt, Leidseplein, Spui, and Waterlooplein.

==Economy==
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, right, is the oldest stock exchange in the world.
Amsterdam is the financial and business capital of the Netherlands. 
Amsterdam is currently one of the best European cities in which to locate an international business. It is ranked fifth in this category and is only surpassed by London, Paris, Frankfurt and Barcelona. Many large corporations and banks have their headquarters in Amsterdam, including Akzo Nobel, Heineken International, ING Group, Ahold, TomTom, Delta Lloyd Group and Philips. KPMG International's global headquarters is located in nearby Amstelveen, where many non-Dutch companies have settled as well, because surrounding communities allow full land ownership, contrary to Amsterdam's land-lease system.

Though many small offices are still located on the old canals, companies are increasingly relocating outside the city centre. The Zuidas (English: South Axis) has become the new financial and legal hub. The five largest law firms of the Netherlands, a number of Dutch subsidiaries of large consulting firms like Boston Consulting Group and Accenture, and the World Trade Center Amsterdam are also located in Zuidas.

There are three other smaller financial districts in Amsterdam. The first is the area surrounding Amsterdam Sloterdijk railway station, where several newspapers like De Telegraaf have their offices. Also, Deloitte, the municipal public transport company (Gemeentelijk Vervoersbedrijf) and the Dutch tax offices (Belastingdienst) are located there. The second Financial District is the area surrounding Amsterdam Arena. The third is the area surrounding Amsterdam Amstel railway station. The tallest building in Amsterdam, the Rembrandt Tower, is situated there, as is the headquarters of Philips. 

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (AEX), now part of Euronext, is the world's oldest stock exchange and is one of Europe's largest bourses. It is situated near Dam Square in the city's centre.

Together with Eindhoven (Brainport) and Rotterdam (Seaport), Amsterdam (Airport) forms the foundation of the Dutch economy. 

Tourists near Munttoren

===Tourism===

Canal boats, such as this one on Keizersgracht, give tours of the city.
Amsterdam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, receiving more than 4.63 million international visitors annually, this is excluding the 16 million day trippers visiting the city every year. The number of visitors has been growing steadily over the past decade. This can be attributed to an increasing number of European visitors. Two thirds of the hotels are located in the city's centre. Hotels with 4 or 5 stars contribute 42% of the total beds available and 41% of the overnight stays in Amsterdam. The room occupation rate was 78% in 2006, up from 70% in 2005. The majority of tourists (74%) originate from Europe. The largest group of non-European visitors come from the United States, accounting for 14% of the total. Certain years have a theme in Amsterdam to attract extra tourists. For example, the year 2006 was designated "Rembrandt 400", to celebrate the 400th birthday of Rembrandt van Rijn. Some hotels offer special arrangements or activities during these years. The average number of guests per year staying at the four campsites around the city range from 12,000 to 65,000. 

====Red light district====

The red-light district is the main tourist attraction.
De Wallen, also known as Walletjes or Rosse Buurt, is a designated area for legalised prostitution and is Amsterdam's largest and most well known red-light district. This neighborhood has become a famous attraction for tourists. It consists of a network of roads and alleys containing several hundred small, one-room apartments rented by sex workers who offer their services from behind a window or glass door, typically illuminated with red lights.

===Retail===
Shops in Amsterdam range from large department stores such as De Bijenkorf founded in 1870 and Maison de Bonneterie a Parisian style store founded in 1889, to small specialty shops. Amsterdam's high-end shops are found in the streets Pieter Cornelisz Hooftstraat and Cornelis Schuytstraat, which are located in the vicinity of the Vondelpark. One of Amsterdam's busiest high streets is the narrow, medieval Kalverstraat in the heart of the city. Other shopping areas include the Negen Straatjes and Haarlemmerdijk and Haarlemmerstraat. Negen Straatjes are nine narrow streets within the Grachtengordel, the concentric canal system of Amsterdam. The Negen Straatjes differ from other shopping districts with the presence of a large diversity of privately owned shops. The Haarlemmerstraat and Haarlemmerdijk were voted best shopping street in the Netherlands in 2011. These streets have as the Negen Straatjes a large diversity of privately owned shops. But as the Negen Straatjes are dominated by fashion stores the Haarlemmerstraat and Haarlemmerdijk offer a very wide variety of all kinds of stores, just to name some specialties: candy and other food related stores, lingerie, sneakers, wedding clothing, interior shops, books, Italian deli's, racing and mountain bikes, skatewear, etc.

The city also features a large number of open-air markets such as the Albert Cuypmarkt, Westerstraat-markt, Ten Katemarkt, and Dappermarkt. Some of these markets are held on a daily basis, like the Albert Cuypmarkt and the Dappermarkt. Others, like the Westerstraatmarkt, are held on a weekly basis.

===Fashion===
Fashion brands like G-star, Gsus, BlueBlood, Iris van Herpen, 10 feet and Warmenhoven & Venderbos, and fashion designers like Mart Visser, Viktor & Rolf, Sheila de Vries, Marlies Dekkers and Frans Molenaar are based in Amsterdam. Modelling agencies Elite Models, Touche models and Tony Jones have opened branches in Amsterdam. Supermodels Yfke Sturm, Doutzen Kroes and Kim Noorda started their careers in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has its garment centre in the World Fashion Center. Buildings which formerly housed brothels in the red light district have been converted to ateliers for young fashion designers, AKA eagle fuel.

==Culture==
The Rijksmuseum houses The Night Watch.
The Van Gogh Museum houses the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and letters.
During the later part of the 16th century Amsterdam's Rederijkerskamer (Chamber of Rhetoric) organized contests between different Chambers in the reading of poetry and drama. In 1638, Amsterdam opened its first theatre. Ballet performances were given in this theatre as early as 1642. In the 18th century, French theatre became popular. While Amsterdam was under the influence of German music in the 19th century there were few national opera productions; the Hollandse Opera of Amsterdam was built in 1888 for the specific purpose of promoting Dutch opera. In the 19th century, popular culture was centred on the Nes area in Amsterdam (mainly vaudeville and music-hall). The metronome, one of the most important advances in European classical music, was invented here in 1812 by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel. At the end of this century, the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk Museum were built. In 1888, the Concertgebouworkest was established. With the 20th century came cinema, radio and television. Though most studios are located in Hilversum and Aalsmeer, Amsterdam's influence on programming is very strong. Many people who work in the television industry live in Amsterdam. Also, the headquarters of SBS 6 is located in Amsterdam. 

===Museums===
The most important museums of Amsterdam are located on the Museumplein (Museum Square), located at the southwestern side of the Rijksmuseum. It was created in the last quarter of the 19th century on the grounds of the former World's fair. The northeastern part of the square is bordered by the very large Rijksmuseum. In front of the Rijksmuseum on the square itself is a long, rectangular pond. This is transformed into an ice rink in winter. The northwestern part of the square is bordered by the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum, House of Bols Cocktail & Genever Experience and Coster Diamonds. The southwestern border of the Museum Square is the Van Baerlestraat, which is a major thoroughfare in this part of Amsterdam. The Concertgebouw is situated across this street from the square. To the southeast of the square are situated a number of large houses, one of which contains the American consulate. A parking garage can be found underneath the square, as well as a supermarket. Het Museumplein is covered almost entirely with a lawn, except for the northeastern part of the square which is covered with gravel. The current appearance of the square was realized in 1999, when the square was remodeled. The square itself is the most prominent site in Amsterdam for festivals and outdoor concerts, especially in the summer. Plans were made in 2008 to remodel the square again, because many inhabitants of Amsterdam are not happy with its current appearance. 

Rembrandt monument on Rembrandtplein
The Rijksmuseum possesses the largest and most important collection of classical Dutch art. 
It opened in 1885. Its collection consists of nearly one million objects. 
 The artist most associated with Amsterdam is Rembrandt, whose work, and the work of his pupils, is displayed in the Rijksmuseum. Rembrandt's masterpiece De Nachtwacht (The Night Watch) is one of top pieces of art of the museum. It also houses paintings from artists like Van der Helst, Vermeer, Frans Hals, Ferdinand Bol, Albert Cuyp, Jacob van Ruisdael and Paulus Potter. Aside from paintings, the collection consists of a large variety of decorative art. This ranges from Delftware to giant dollhouses from the 17th century. The architect of the gothic revival building was P.J.H. Cuypers. The museum underwent a 10 year, 375 million euro renovation starting in 2003. The full collection was reopened to the public on April 13, 2013.

Van Gogh lived in Amsterdam for a short while and there is a museum dedicated to his work. The museum is housed in one of the few modern buildings in this area of Amsterdam. The building was designed by Gerrit Rietveld. This building is where the permanent collection is displayed. A new building was added to the museum in 1999. This building, known as the performance wing, was designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. Its purpose is to house temporary exhibitions of the museum. Some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, like the Aardappeleters (The Potato Eaters) and Zonnebloemen (Sunflowers), are present in the collection. The Van Gogh museum is the most visited museum in Amsterdam. 

Next to the Van Gogh museum stands the Stedelijk Museum. This is Amsterdam's most important museum of modern art . The museum is as old as the square it borders and was opened in 1895. The permanent collection consists of works of art from artists like Piet Mondriaan, Karel Appel, and Kazimir Malevich. After renovations lasting several years the museum opened in September 2012 with a new composite extension that has been called "The Bathtub" due to its resemblance to one.

Amsterdam contains many other museums throughout the city. They range from small museums such as the Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum), the Anne Frank Huis (Anne Frank House), and the Rembrandthuis (Rembrandt House), to the very large, like the Tropenmuseum (Museum of the Tropics), Amsterdam Museum (formerly known as "Amsterdams Historisch Museum", Amsterdam Historical Museum), Hermitage Amsterdam (a dependency of the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg) and the Joods Historisch Museum (Jewish Historical Museum). The modern-styled NEMO (museum) is dedicated to child-friendly science exhibitions.

===Music===

Amsterdam's musical culture includes a large collection of songs which treat the city nostalgically and lovingly. The 1949 song "Aan de Amsterdamse grachten" ("On the canals of Amsterdam") was performed and recorded by many artists, including John Kraaijkamp sr.; the best-known version is probably that by Wim Sonneveld (1962). In the 1950s Johnny Jordaan rose to fame with "Geef mij maar Amsterdam" ("I prefer Amsterdam"), which praises the city above all others (explicitly Paris); Jordaan sang especially about his own neighborhood, the Jordaan ("Bij ons in de Jordaan"). Colleagues and contemporaries of Johnny include Tante Leen, Zwarte Riek, and Manke Nelis. Other notable Amsterdam songs are "Amsterdam" by Jacques Brel (1964) and "Deze Stad" by De Dijk (1989). A 2011 poll by Amsterdam paper Het Parool found, somewhat surprisingly, that Trio Bier's "Oude Wolf" was voted "Amsterdams lijflied". Notable Amsterdam bands from the modern era include the Osdorp Posse and The Ex.

The Heineken Music Hall is a concert hall located near the Amsterdam ArenA. Its main purpose is to serve as a podium for pop concerts for big audiences. Many famous international artists have performed there. Two other notable venues, Paradiso and the Melkweg are located near the Leidseplein. Both focus on broad programming, ranging from indie rock to hip hop, R&B, and other popular genres. Other more subculturally focused music venues are OCCII, OT301, De Nieuwe Anita, Winston Kingdom and Zaal 100. Jazz has a strong following in Amsterdam, with the Bimhuis being the premier venue. In 2012, Ziggo Dome was opened, also near Amsterdam ArenA, a state of the art indoor music arena.

The Heineken Music Hall is also host to many electronic dance music festivals, alongside many other venues. Armin van Buuren and Tiesto, some of the worlds leading Trance DJ's hail from the Netherlands and perform frequently in Amsterdam. Each year in October, the city hosts the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) which is one of the leading electronic music conferences and one of the biggest club festivals for electronic music in the world. Another popular dance festival is 5daysoff, which takes place in the venues Paradiso and Melkweg. In summer time there are several big outdoor dance parties in or nearby Amsterdam, such as Awakenings, Dance Valley, Mystery Land, Loveland, A Day at the Park, Welcome to the Future, and Valtifest.

The Concertgebouw concert hall has some of the finest acoustics in the world.
Amsterdam has a world-class symphony orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Their home is the Concertgebouw, which is across the Van Baerlestraat from the Museum Square. It is considered by critics to be a concert hall with some of the best acoustics in the world. The building contains three halls, Grote Zaal, Kleine Zaal, and Spiegelzaal. Some nine hundred concerts and other events per year take place in the Concertgebouw, for a public of over 700,000, making it one of the most-visited concert halls in the world. The opera house of Amsterdam is situated adjacent to the city hall. Therefore, the two buildings combined are often called the Stopera, (a word originally coined by protesters against it very construction: Stop the Opera). This huge modern complex, opened in 1986, lies in the former Jewish neighbourhood at Waterlooplein next to the river Amstel. The Stopera is the homebase of Dutch National Opera, Dutch National Ballet and the Holland Symfonia. Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is a concert hall, which is situated in the IJ near the central station. Its concerts perform mostly modern classical music. Located adjacent to it, is the Bimhuis, a concert hall for improvised and Jazz music.

===Performing arts===
Amsterdam has three main theatre buildings.

The Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam at the Leidseplein is the home base of Toneelgroep Amsterdam. The current building dates from 1894. Most plays are performed in the Grote Zaal (Great Hall). The normal program of events encompasses all sorts of theatrical forms. The Stadsschouwburg is currently being renovated and expanded. The third theater space, to be operated jointly with next door Melkweg, will open in late 2009 or early 2010.

Dutch National Opera & Ballet (formerly known as Het Muziektheater), dating from 1986, is the principal opera house and home to Dutch National Opera and Dutch National Ballet.

Royal Theatre Carré was built as a permanent circus theatre in 1887 and is currently mainly used for musicals, cabaret performances and pop concerts.

The recently re-opened DeLaMar Theater houses the more commercial plays and musicals.

The Netherlands has a tradition of cabaret or kleinkunst, which combines music, storytelling, commentary, theatre and comedy. Cabaret dates back to the 1930s and artists like Wim Kan, Wim Sonneveld and Toon Hermans were pioneers of this form of art in the Netherlands. In Amsterdam is the Kleinkunstacademie (English: Cabaret Academy). Contemporary popular artists are Youp van 't Hek, Freek de Jonge, Herman Finkers, Hans Teeuwen, Theo Maassen, Herman van Veen, Najib Amhali, Raoul Heertje, Jörgen Raymann, Brigitte Kaandorp and Comedytrain. The English spoken comedy scene was established with the founding of Boom Chicago in 1993. They have their own theatre at Leidseplein.

===Nightlife===
Amsterdam is famous for its vibrant and diverse nightlife. Amsterdam has many cafés (bars). They range from large and modern to small and cozy. The typical Bruine Kroeg (brown café) breathe a more old fashioned atmosphere with dimmed lights, candles, and somewhat older clientele. Most cafés have terraces in summertime. A common sight on the Leidseplein during summer is a square full of terraces packed with people drinking beer or wine. Many restaurants can be found in Amsterdam as well. Since Amsterdam is a multicultural city, a lot of different ethnic restaurants can be found. Restaurants range from being rather luxurious and expensive to being ordinary and affordable. Amsterdam also possesses many discothèques. The two main nightlife areas for tourists are the Leidseplein and the Rembrandtplein. The Paradiso, Melkweg and Sugar Factory are cultural centres, which turn into discothèques on some nights. Examples of discothèques near the Rembrandtplein are the Escape and Club Home. Also noteworthy are Panama, Hotel Arena (East), The Sand and The Powerzone. Bimhuis located near the Central Station, with its rich programming hosting the best in the field is considered one of the best jazz clubs in the world. The Reguliersdwarsstraat is the main street for the LGBT community and nightlife.

===Festivals===
Koninginnedag 2009 in Amsterdam
In 2008, there were 140 festivals and events in Amsterdam. 
Famous festivals and events in Amsterdam include: Koninginnedag (In 2013 Koningsdag since the crowning of king Willem-Alexander) (Queen's Day - King's Day); the Holland Festival for the performing arts; the yearly Prinsengrachtconcert (classical concerto on the Prinsen canal) in August; the 'Stille Omgang' (a silent Roman Catholic evening procession held every March); Amsterdam Gay Pride; The Cannabis Cup; and the Uitmarkt. On Koninginnedag—held each year on 30 April—hundreds of thousands of people travel to Amsterdam to celebrate with the city's residents. The entire city becomes overcrowded with people buying products from the freemarket, or visiting one of the many music concerts.

The yearly Holland Festival attracts international artists and visitors from all over Europe. Amsterdam Gay Pride is a yearly local LGBT parade of boats in Amsterdam's canals, held on the first Saturday in August. The Gay Pride event is a frequent source of both criticism and praise. The annual Uitmarkt is a three-day cultural event at the start of the cultural season in late August. It offers previews of many different artists, such as musicians and poets, who perform on podia. 

===Sports===
The European Champion Clubs' Cup, won by Ajax Amsterdam in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1995.
Amsterdam is home of the Eredivisie football club Ajax Amsterdam. The stadium Amsterdam ArenA is the home of Ajax. It is located in the south-east of the city next to the new Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA railway station. Before moving to their current location in 1996, Ajax played their regular matches in De Meer Stadion. 
 
In 1928, Amsterdam hosted the Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium built for the occasion has been completely restored and is now used for cultural and sporting events, such as the Amsterdam Marathon. 
 In 1920, Amsterdam assisted in hosting some of the sailing events for the Summer Olympics held in neighboring Antwerp, Belgium by hosting events at Buiten Y.

The city holds the Dam to Dam Run, a 10-mile race from Amsterdam to Zaandam, as well as the Amsterdam Marathon.

The ice hockey team Amstel Tijgers play in the Jaap Eden ice rink. The team competes in the Dutch ice hockey premier league. Speed skating championships have been held on the 400-metre lane of this ice rink.

Amsterdam holds two American Football franchises: the Amsterdam Crusaders and the Amsterdam Panthers.
The Amsterdam Pirates baseball team competes in the Dutch Major League. There are three field hockey teams: Amsterdam, Pinoké and Hurley, who play their matches around the Wagener Stadium in the nearby city of Amstelveen. The basketball team MyGuide Amsterdam competes in the Dutch premier division and play their games in the Sporthallen Zuid. 

There is one rugbyclub in Amsterdam, which also hosts sports training classes such as RTC(Rugby Talenten Centrum or Rugby Talent Centre) and the National Rugby stadium.

Since 1999 the city of Amsterdam honours the best sportsmen and women at the Amsterdam Sports Awards. Boxer Raymond Joval and field hockey midfielder Carole Thate were the first to receive the awards, in 1999.

==Government==
The administration of the municipality of Amsterdam used to be divided into 15 boroughs or stadsdelen; the central one, Centrum, being circled by Westerpark, Bos en Lommer, De Baarsjes, Oud-West, Oud-Zuid, Oost/Watergraafsmeer, Zeeburg and Amsterdam-Noord, with the six outer boroughs (Westpoort, Geuzenveld-Slotermeer, Osdorp, Slotervaart, Zuideramstel, and Zuidoost) creating a further encirclement. On 1 May 2010, the number of boroughs was reduced to eight (Centrum, Noord, Oost, Zuid, West, Nieuw-West, Zuidoost, and Westpoort).

===Definitions===
The 8 boroughs of Amsterdam

"Amsterdam" is mostly understood to refer to the municipality of Amsterdam. Colloquially, some areas within the municipality, such as the village of Durgerdam, may not be considered part of Amsterdam. Statistics Netherlands uses three other definitions of Amsterdam: metropolitan agglomeration Amsterdam (Grootstedelijke Agglomeratie Amsterdam, not to be confused with Grootstedelijk Gebied Amsterdam, a synonym of Groot Amsterdam), Greater Amsterdam (Groot Amsterdam, a COROP region) and the urban region Amsterdam (Stadsgewest Amsterdam). The Amsterdam Department for Research and Statistics uses a fourth conurbation, namely the City region Amsterdam. This region is similar to Greater Amsterdam but includes the municipalities Zaanstad and Wormerland. It excludes Graft-De Rijp.

The smallest of these areas is the municipality, with a population of 802,938 in 2013. The metropolitan agglomeration had a population of 1,096,042 in 2013. It includes the municipalities of Zaanstad, Wormerland, Oostzaan, Diemen and Amstelveen only, as well as the municipality of Amsterdam. Greater Amsterdam includes 15 municipalities, and had a population of 1,293,208 in 2013. Though much larger in area, the population of this area is only slightly larger, because the definition excludes the relatively populous municipality of Zaanstad. The largest area by population, the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (Dutch: Metropoolregio Amsterdam), has a population of 2,33 million. It includes for instance Zaanstad, Wormerveer, Muiden, Abcoude, Haarlem, Almere and Lelystad but excludes Graft-De Rijp. Amsterdam is part of the conglomerate metropolitan area Randstad, with a total population of 6,659,300 inhabitants. 

===City government===

As with all Dutch municipalities, Amsterdam is governed by a mayor, aldermen, and the municipal council. However, unlike most other Dutch municipalities, Amsterdam is subdivided into seven "stadsdelen" (boroughs), a system that was implemented in the 1980s to improve local governance. The stadsdelen are responsible for many activities that had previously been run by the central city. The city had initially been divided into 15 stadsdelen. 14 of those had their own council, chosen by a popular election. The 15th, Westpoort, covers the harbour of Amsterdam, had very few residents, and was governed by the central municipal council. Local decisions are made at borough level, and only affairs pertaining to the whole city, such as major infrastructure projects, are handled by the central city council.

===National government===
Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands in a technical legal sense. The present version of the Dutch constitution mentions "Amsterdam" and "capital" only in one place, chapter 2, article 32: The king's confirmation by oath and his coronation take place in "the capital Amsterdam" ("de hoofdstad Amsterdam"). Previous versions of the constitution spoke of "the city of Amsterdam" ("de stad Amsterdam"), without mention of capital. In any case, the seat of the government, parliament and supreme court of the Netherlands is (and always has been, with the exception of a brief period between 1808 and 1810) located at The Hague. Foreign embassies are also in The Hague. The capital of North Holland is Haarlem.

The Magere Brug or "Skinny Bridge" at night

===Symbols===

The coat of arms of Amsterdam is composed of several historical elements. First and centre are three St Andrew's crosses, aligned in a vertical band on the city's shield (although Amsterdam's patron saint was Saint Nicholas). These St Andrew's crosses can also be found on the cityshields of neighbours Amstelveen and Ouder-Amstel. This part of the coat of arms is the basis of the flag of Amsterdam, flown by the city government, but also as civil ensign for ships registered in Amsterdam. Second is the Imperial Crown of Austria. In 1489, out of gratitude for services and loans, Maximilian I awarded Amsterdam the right to adorn its coat of arms with the king's crown. Then, in 1508, this was replaced with Maximilian's imperial crown when he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In the early years of the 17th century, Maximilian's crown in Amsterdam's coat of arms was again replaced, this time with the crown of Emperor Rudolph II, a crown that became the Imperial Crown of Austria. The lions date from the late 16th century, when city and province became part of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. Last came the city's official motto: Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig ("Heroic, Determined, Merciful"), bestowed on the city in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina, in recognition of the city's bravery during the Second World War.

==Transport==

A tram on Damrak with Centraal Station in the background
In the city centre, driving a car is discouraged. Parking fees are expensive, and many streets are closed to cars or are one-way. The local government sponsors carsharing and carpooling initiatives such as Autodelen and Meerijden.nu. 

Regional buses, and some suburban buses, are operated by Connexxion and EBS. Currently, there are sixteen tram lines, and four metro lines, with a fifth line, the North/South line, under construction, all operated by GVB. Three free ferries carry pedestrians and cyclists across the IJ to Amsterdam-Noord, and two fare-charging ferries run east and west along the harbour. There are also water taxis, a water bus, a boat sharing operation, electric rental boats (Boaty) and canal cruises, that transport people along Amsterdam's waterways.

The A10 ringroad surrounding the city connects Amsterdam with the Dutch national network of freeways. Interchanges on the A10 allow cars to enter the city by transferring to one of the 18 city roads, numbered S101 through to S118. These city roads are regional roads without grade separation, and sometimes without a central reservation. Most are accessible by cyclists. The S100 Centrumring is a smaller ringroad circumnavigating the city's centre.

Amsterdam was intended in 1932 to be the hub, a kind of Kilometre Zero, of the highway system of the Netherlands, with freeways numbered One to Eight planned to originate from the city. The outbreak of the Second World War and shifting priorities led to the current situation, where only roads A1, A2, and A4 originate from Amsterdam according to the original plan. The A3 road to Rotterdam was cancelled in 1970 in order to conserve the Groene Hart. Road A8, leading north to Zaandam and the A10 Ringroad were opened between 1968 and 1974. Besides the A1, A2, A4 and A8, several freeways, such as the A7 and A6, carry traffic mainly bound for Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol ranks as Europe's 4th busiest airport and the world's 16th busiest for passenger traffic.
Amsterdam is served by ten stations of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways). Six are intercity stops: Sloterdijk, Zuid, Amstel, Bijlmer ArenA, Lelylaan and Amsterdam Centraal. The stations for local services are: RAI, Holendrecht, Muiderpoort and Science Park. Amsterdam Centraal is also an international railway station. From the station there are regular services to destinations such as Austria, Belarus, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Switzerland. Among these trains are international trains of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Amsterdam-Berlin) and the Thalys (Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris/Lille), CityNightLine, and InterCityExpress (Amsterdam-Cologne-Frankfurt). 

Eurolines has coaches from Amsterdam Amstel railway station to destinations all over Europe. IDBUS has a coach service from Amsterdam Sloterdijk railway station to Paris, Brussels and London. Megabus (Europe) offers coach services from Zuiderzeeweg in east Amsterdam to Paris, Brussels and London.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is less than 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam Central Station and is also served by domestic and international intercity trains, such as Thalys and Intercity Brussel. Schiphol is the biggest airport in the Netherlands, the fourth largest in Europe, and the twelfth largest in the world in terms of passengers. It handles about 50 million passengers per year and is the home base of four airlines, KLM, transavia.com, Martinair and Arkefly. As of 2013, Schiphol was the sixth busiest airport in the world measured by international passenger numbers. 

Amsterdam Police Bicyclist crossing a bridge over Prinsengracht.

===Cycling===

Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle-friendly large cities in the world and is a centre of bicycle culture with good facilities for cyclists such as bike paths and bike racks, and several guarded bike storage garages (fietsenstalling) which can be used for a nominal fee. In 2013, there were about 1,200,000 bicycles in Amsterdam outnumbering the amount of citizens in the city. Theft is widespread – in 2011, about 83,000 bicycles were stolen in Amsterdam. Bicycles are used by all socio-economic groups because of their convenience, Amsterdam's small size, the 400 km of bike paths, 
 the flat terrain, and the arguable inconvenience of driving an automobile. 

==Education==
The Agnietenkapel Gate at the University of Amsterdam, founded in 1632 as the Athenaeum Illustre
Amsterdam has two universities: the University of Amsterdam (Universiteit van Amsterdam), and the VU University Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit or "VU"). Other institutions for higher education include an art school – Gerrit Rietveld Academie, a university of applied sciences - the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. Amsterdam's International Institute of Social History is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions concerning social history, and especially the history of the labour movement. Amsterdam's Hortus Botanicus, founded in the early 17th century, is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, with many old and rare specimens, among them the coffee plant that served as the parent for the entire coffee culture in Central and South America. 

Some of Amsterdam's primary schools base their teachings on particular pedagogic theories like the various Montessori schools. The biggest Montessori High School in Amsterdam is the Montessori Lyceum Amsterdam. Many schools, however, are based on religion. This used to be primarily Roman Catholicism and various Protestant denominations, but with the influx of Muslim immigrants there has been a rise in the number of Islamic schools. Jewish schools can be found in the southern suburbs of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is noted for having five independent grammar schools (Dutch: gymnasia), the Vossius Gymnasium, Barlaeus Gymnasium, St. Ignatius Gymnasium, Het 4e Gymnasium and the Cygnus Gymnasium where a classical curriculum including Latin and classical Greek is taught. Though believed until recently by many to be an anachronistic and elitist concept that would soon die out, the gymnasia have recently experienced a revival, leading to the formation of a fourth and fifth grammar school in which the three aforementioned schools participate. Most secondary schools in Amsterdam offer a variety of different levels of education in the same school. The city also has various colleges ranging from art and design to politics and economics which are mostly also available for students coming from other countries.

==Notable people==
* Frits Bolkestein (born 1933), politics
* Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken (born 1954), business
* Paul Crutzen (born 1933), atmospheric chemist
* Willem Drees sr. (1886–1988), politics
* Freddy Heineken (1923–2002, business)
* Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (born 1948), politics
* André Kuipers (born 1958), astronaut
* Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), philosophy
* Anne Frank (February 1934-3 September 1944), diarist and Holocaust victim

===Entertainment===
* Karel Appel (1921–2006), painter
* Jan Akkerman (born 1946), musician
* Willeke van Ammelrooy (born 1944), actress
* Willem Breuker (1944–2010), musician
* Frans Brüggen (born 1934), musician
* Bernard Haitink (born 1929), orchestra conductor
* Rudi van Dantzig (1933–2012), ballet
* Joop van den Ende (born 1942), producer

===Sports===
* Co Adriaanse (born 1947), football trainer
* Dennis Bergkamp (born 1969), football player
* Jan van Beveren (1948–2011) 
* Michael Bleekemolen (born 1949) 
* Cor Brom (1932–2008), football player and football trainer
* Ellie van den Brom (born 1949) 
* Johan Cruijff (born 1947), football player and football trainer
* Max Euwe (1901–1981) 
* Louis van Gaal (born 1951), football trainer
* Ruud Gullit (born 1962), football player
* Bobby Haarms (1934–2009), football player and football trainer
* Cor van der Hart (1928–2006), football player and football trainer
* Rinus Israël (born 1942), football player and football trainer
* Jan Jongbloed (born 1940), football player (goalkeeper)
* Piet Keizer (born 1943), football player
* Patrick Kluivert (born 1976), football player
* Gerrie Knetemann (1951–2004), cyclist
* Ada Kok (born 1947), swimmer
* Ruud Krol (born 1949), football player and football coach
* Edward Metgod (born 1959), football player (goalkeeper) and football trainer
* John Metgod (born 1958), football player and football traine
* Rinus Michels (1928–2005), football player and football trainer
* Bennie Muller (born 1938), football (47 caps)
* Eddy Pieters Graafland (born 1934) Football player (goalkeeper)
* Peter Post (1933–2011), cyclist
* Anton (Ton) Pronk (born 1941), football (19 caps)
* Rob Rensenbrink (born 1947), football
* Frank Rijkaard (born 1962), football player and football coach
* Wim Ruska (born 1940) 
* Ton Sijbrands (born 1949) 
* Sjaak Swart (born 1938), football player

===Originating from elsewhere===
* Fanny Blankers-Koen (1918–2004), athlete
* Inge de Bruijn (born 1973), swimmer
* Joop den Uyl (1919–1987), politics
* Jan Hein Donner (1927–1988), chess
* Søren Lerby (born 1958), football
* Theo van Gogh (1957–2004), film director
* Carice van Houten (born 1976), actress
* Rembrandt van Rijn (1606/7–1669), painter

==Media==
Amsterdam is a prominent center for national and international media. Some locally-based newspapers include Het Parool, a national daily paper; De Telegraaf, the largest Dutch daily newspaper; the daily newspapers Trouw, De Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad; De Groene Amsterdammer, a weekly newspaper; the free newspapers Sp!ts, Metro, and The Holland Times (printed in English).

Amsterdam is home to the Netherlands' second-largest commercial TV group SBS Broadcasting Group, consisting of TV-stations SBS 6, Net 5 and Veronica. However, Amsterdam is not being considered 'the media city of the Netherlands'. The town of Hilversum, 30 km (19 mi) south-east of Amsterdam, has been crowned with this unofficial title. Hilversum is the principal center for radio and television broadcasting in the Netherlands. Radio Netherlands, heard worldwide via shortwave radio since the 1920s, is also based there. Hilversum is home to an extensive complex of audio and television studios belonging to the national broadcast production company NOS, as well as to the studios and offices of all the Dutch public broadcasting organizations and many commercial TV production companies.

Amsterdam is also featured in John Green's book 'The Fault in Our Stars,' which has also been made in a film, and part of the film takes place in Amsterdam.

==Housing==
The housing market is heavily regulated. In Amsterdam, 55% of existing housing and 30% of new housing is owned by Housing Associations, which are Government sponsored entities.

Squat properties are common throughout Amsterdam, due to property law strongly favouring tenants. A number of these squats have become well known, such as OT301, Paradiso, Vrankrijk (closed down by city government), and the Binnenpret, and several are now businesses, such as health clubs and licensed restaurants.

==International relations==

Amsterdam is twinned with the following cities: 

 * Algiers, Algeria * Athens, Greece * Bogotá, Colombia * Beijing, China * Brasília, Brazil * Istanbul, Turkey * Kiev, Ukraine * Manchester, United Kingdom (2006) * Managua, Nicaragua (1984) * Montreal, Canada * Moscow, Russia * Nicosia, Cyprus * Recife, Brazil (2009) * Riga, Latvia * Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina * Willemstad, Curaçao, Kingdom of the Netherlands (2009) * Jakarta, Indonesia * Prague, Czech Republic * Tbilisi, Georgia (2012) 

==See also==

* Amsterdammertje
* Amstel
* Dam Square
* Government of Amsterdam
* History of Amsterdam

==References==

;Attribution
* 

==External links==

* Tourist information about Amsterdam – Website of the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions
* Amsterdam.nl – Official government site
* I amsterdam – Portal for international visitors
* Amsterdam City Archives
* ; voted "Amsterdams lijflied" in 2011
* Free Amsterdam audio guide

 



[[Museum of Work]]

The Iron is a famous 19th century landmark in central Norrköping
The Museum of Work, or Arbetets museum, is a museum located in Norrköping, Sweden. The museum can be found in the 19th century building The Iron in the Motala ström river in central Norrköping.

==See also==
* List of museums in Sweden
* Culture of Sweden

==External links==
*Museum of Work - Official site



[[Audi]]

Audi head office in Ingolstadt
 () is a German automobile manufacturer that designs, engineers, manufactures, market and distributes automobiles. Audi oversees worldwide operations from its headquarters in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. Audi-branded vehicles are produced in nine production facilities worldwide.

Audi has been a majority owned (99.55%) subsidiary of Volkswagen Group since 1966, following a phased purchase of AUDI AG's predecessor, Auto Union, from Daimler-Benz. Volkswagen relaunched the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction of the Audi F103 series.

The company name is based on the surname of the founder, August Horch. "Horch", meaning "listen" in German, becomes "Audi" when translated into Latin. The four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create Audi's predecessor company, Auto Union. Audi's slogan is Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning "Advancement through Technology". Recently in the United States, Audi has updated the slogan to "Truth in Engineering". Audi is a member of the "German Big 3" luxury automakers, along with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which are the three best-selling luxury automakers in the world. 

==History==

===Birth of the company and its name===
Originally in 1885, automobile company Wanderer was established, later becoming a branch of Audi AG. Another company, NSU, which also later merged into Audi, was founded during this time, and later supplied the chassis for Gottlieb Daimler's four-wheeler. 

On 14 November 1899, August Horch (1868–1951) established the company A. Horch & Cie. in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne. Three years later in 1902 he moved with his company to Reichenbach im Vogtland. On May, 10th, 1904 he founded the August Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG, a joint-stock company in Zwickau (State of Saxony).

After troubles with Horch chief financial officer, August Horch left Motorwagenwerke and founded in Zwickau on 16 July 1909, his second company, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement. The German Reichsgericht (Supreme Court) in Leipzig, Audi AG motion picture 1994: "The Silver Arrows from Zwickau", running time approx. 49 mins. eventually determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company. Audi History audiusa.com 
Audi Type E
Since August Horch was banned from using "Horch" as a trade name in his new car business, he called a meeting with close business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau, Germany. At the apartment of Franz Fikentscher, they discussed how to come up with a new name for the company. During this meeting, Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until he finally blurted out, "Father – audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?" August Horch: "Ich baute Autos – Vom Schmiedelehrling zum Autoindustriellen", Schützen-Verlag Berlin 1937 "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "hear", which is "Audi" in the singular imperative form of "audire" – "to listen" – in Latin. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the meeting. On 25 April 1910 the Audi Automobilwerke GmbH Zwickau (from 1915 on Audiwerke AG Zwickau) was entered in the company's register of Zwickau registration court.

The first Audi automobile, the Audi Type A 10/22 hp Sport-Phaeton, was produced in the same year, followed by the successor Type B 10/28PS in the same year. 

Audi started with a 2,612 cc inline-four engine model Type A, followed by a 3,564 cc model, as well as 4,680 cc and 5,720 cc models. These cars were successful even in sporting events. The first six-cylinder model Type M, 4,655 cc appeared in 1924. 

August Horch left the Audiwerke in 1920 for a high position at the ministry of transport, but he was still involved with Audi as a member of the board of trustees. In September 1921, Audi became the first German car manufacturer to present a production car, the Audi Type K, with left-handed drive. Audi chronicle 1915–1929. audi.com Left-hand drive spread and established dominance during the 1920s because it provided a better view of oncoming traffic, making overtaking safer. 

===The merger of the four companies under the logo of four rings===

In August 1928, Jørgen Rasmussen,the owner of Dampf-Kraft-Wagen (DKW), acquired the majority of shares in Audiwerke AG. Audi chronicle 1930–1944. Audi.com In the same year, Rasmussen bought the remains of the U.S. automobile manufacturer Rickenbacker, including the manufacturing equipment for eight-cylinder engines. These engines were used in Audi Zwickau and Audi Dresden models that were launched in 1929. At the same time, six-cylinder and four-cylinder (the "four" with a Peugeot engine) models were manufactured. Audi cars of that era were luxurious cars equipped with special bodywork.

In 1932, Audi merged with Horch, DKW, and Wanderer, to form Auto Union AG, Chemnitz. It was during this period that the company offered the Audi Front that became the first European car to combine a six-cylinder engine with front-wheel drive. It used a powertrain shared with the Wanderer, but turned 180-degrees, so that the drive shaft faced the front.

Before World War II, Auto Union used the four interlinked rings that make up the Audi badge today, representing these four brands. This badge was used, however, only on Auto Union racing cars in that period while the member companies used their own names and emblems. The technological development became more and more concentrated and some Audi models were propelled by Horch or Wanderer built engines.

Reflecting the economic pressures of the time, Auto Union concentrated increasingly on smaller cars through the 1930s, so that by 1938 the company's DKW brand accounted for 17.9% of the German car market, while Audi held only 0.1%. After the final few Audis were delivered in 1939 the "Audi" name disappeared completely from the new car market for more than two decades.

===Post-World War II===
IFA F9
Like most German manufacturing, at the onset of World War II the Auto Union plants were retooled for military production, and were a target for allied bombing during the war which left them damaged.

Overrun by the Soviet Army in 1945, on the orders of the Soviet Union military administration the factories were dismantled as part of war reparations. Following this, the company's entire assets were expropriated without compensation. On 17 August 1948, Auto Union AG of Chemnitz was deleted from the commercial register. These actions had the effect of liquidating Germany's Auto Union AG. The remains of the Audi plant of Zwickau became the VEB (for "People Owned Enterprise") Automobilwerk Zwickau or AWZ (in English: Automobile Works Zwickau).

The former Audi factory in Zwickau restarted assembly of the pre-war-models in 1949. These DKW models were renamed to IFA F8 and IFA F9 and were similar to the West German versions. West and East German models were equipped with the traditional and renowned DKW two-stroke engines. The Zwickau plant manufactured the infamous Trabant until 1991, when it came under Volkswagen control—effectively bringing it under the same umbrella as Audi since 1945.

===New Auto Union unit===
A new West German headquartered Auto Union was launched in Ingolstadt, Bavaria with loans from the Bavarian state government and Marshall Plan aid. The reformed company was launched 3 September 1949 and continued DKW's tradition of producing front-wheel drive vehicles with two-stroke engines. This included production of a small but sturdy 125 cc motorcycle and a DKW delivery van, the DKW F 89 L at Ingolstadt. The Ingolstadt site was large, consisting of an extensive complex of formerly military buildings which was suitable for administration as well as vehicle warehousing and distribution, but at this stage there was at Ingolstadt no dedicated plant suitable for mass production of automobiles: for manufacturing the company's first post-war mass-market passenger car plant capacity in Düsseldorf was rented from Rheinmetall-Borsig. It was only ten years later, after the company had attracted an investor that funds became available for construction of major car plant at the Ingolstadt head office site.

In 1958, in response to pressure from Friedrich Flick, then their largest single shareholder, Oswald, p 263 Daimler-Benz took an 87% holding in the Auto Union company, and this was increased to a 100% holding in 1959. However, small two-stroke cars were not the focus of Daimler-Benz's interests, and while the early 1960s saw major investment in new Mercedes models and in a state of the art factory for Auto Union's, the company's aging model range at this time did not benefit from the economic boom of the early 1960s to the same extent as competitor manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Opel. The decision to dispose of the Auto Union business was based on its lack of profitability. Ironically, by the time they sold the business, it also included a large new factory and near production-ready modern four-stroke engine, which would enable the Auto Union business, under a new owner, to embark on a period of profitable growth, now producing not Auto Unions or DKWs, but using the "Audi" name, resurrected in 1965 after a 25 year gap. Under the terms of the sale, Daimler-Benz retained the old Düsseldorf plant, which survives to the present day as a centre for Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle assembly.

In 1964, Volkswagen acquired a 50% holding in the business, which included the new factory in Ingolstadt and the trademark rights of the Auto Union. Eighteen months later, Volkswagen bought complete control of Ingolstadt, and by 1966 were using the spare capacity of the Ingolstadt plant to assemble an additional 60,000 Volkswagen Beetles per year. Two-stroke engines became less popular during the 1960s as customers were more attracted to the smoother four-stroke engines. In September 1965, the DKW F102 was fitted with a four-stroke engine and a facelift for the car's front and rear. Volkswagen dumped the DKW brand because of its associations with two-stroke technology, and having classified the model internally as the F103, sold it simply as the "Audi." Later developments of the model were named after their horsepower ratings and sold as the Audi 60, 75, 80, and Super 90, selling until 1972. Initially, Volkswagen was hostile to the idea of Auto Union as a standalone entity producing its own models having acquired the company merely to boost its own production capacity through the Ingolstadt assembly plant. Then VW chief Heinz Nordhoff explicitly forbade Auto Union from any further product development. Fearing that the company's heritage would disappear underneath VW badge engineering, Auto Union engineers under the leadership of Ludwig Kraus developed the first Audi 100 in secret, without Nordhoff's knowledge. When presented with a finished prototype, Nordhoff was so impressed he authorised the car for production, which when launched in 1968, went on to be a huge success. With this, the resurrection of the Audi brand was now complete, this being followed by the first generation Audi 80 in 1972, which would in turn provide a template for VW's new front wheel drive watercooled range which debuted from the mid-1970s onward.

Audi 80 assembly line in Wolfsburg, 1973
In 1969, Auto Union merged with NSU, based in Neckarsulm, near Stuttgart. In the 1950s, NSU had been the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles, but had moved on to produce small cars like the NSU Prinz, the TT and TTS versions of which are still popular as vintage race cars. NSU then focused on new rotary engines based on the ideas of Felix Wankel. In 1967, the new NSU Ro 80 was a car well ahead of its time in technical details such as aerodynamics, light weight, and safety. However, teething problems with the rotary engines put an end to the independence of NSU. The Neckarsulm plant is now used to produce the larger Audi models A6 and A8. The Neckarsulm factory is also home of the quattro GmbH, a subsidiary responsible for development and production of Audi high-performance models: the R8 and the "RS" model range.

The mid-sized car that NSU had been working on, the K70, was intended to slot between the rear-engined Prinz models and the futuristic NSU Ro 80. However, Volkswagen took the K70 for its own range, spelling the end of NSU as a separate brand.

===Modern era===
The new merged company was known as Audi NSU Auto Union AG, and saw the emergence of Audi as a separate brand for the first time since the pre-war era. Volkswagen introduced the Audi brand to the United States for the 1970 model year.

The first new car of this regime was the Audi 100 of 1968. This was soon joined by the Audi 80/Fox (which formed the basis for the 1973 Volkswagen Passat) in 1972 and the Audi 50 (later rebadged as the Volkswagen Polo) in 1974. The Audi 50 was a seminal design because it was the first incarnation of the Golf/Polo concept, one that led to a hugely successful world car.

The Audi image at this time was a conservative one, and so, a proposal from chassis engineer Jörg Bensinger was accepted to develop the four-wheel drive technology in Volkswagen's Iltis military vehicle for an Audi performance car and rally racing car. The performance car, introduced in 1980, was named the "Audi Quattro", a turbocharged coupé which was also the first German large-scale production vehicle to feature permanent all-wheel drive through a centre differential. Commonly referred to as the "Ur-Quattro" (the "Ur-" prefix is a German augmentative used, in this case, to mean "original" and is also applied to the first generation of Audi's S4 and S6 Sport Saloons, as in "UrS4" and "UrS6"), few of these vehicles were produced (all hand-built by a single team), but the model was a great success in rallying. Prominent wins proved the viability of all-wheel drive racecars, and the Audi name became associated with advances in automotive technology.

In 1985, with the Auto Union and NSU brands effectively dead, the company's official name was now shortened to simply Audi AG.

Audi Quattro
In 1986, as the Passat-based Audi 80 was beginning to develop a kind of "grandfather's car" image, the type 89 was introduced. This completely new development sold extremely well. However, its modern and dynamic exterior belied the low performance of its base engine, and its base package was quite spartan (even the passenger-side mirror was an option.) In 1987, Audi put forward a new and very elegant Audi 90, which had a much superior set of standard features. In the early 1990s, sales began to slump for the Audi 80 series, and some basic construction problems started to surface.

In the early part of the 21st century, Audi set forth on a German racetrack to claim and maintain several world records, such as top speed endurance. This effort was in-line with the company's heritage from the 1930s racing era Silver Arrows.

Through the early 1990s, Audi began to shift its target market upscale to compete against German automakers Mercedes-Benz and BMW. This began with the release of the Audi V8 in 1990. It was essentially a new engine fitted to the Audi 100/200, but with noticeable bodywork differences. Most obvious was the new grille that was now incorporated in the bonnet.

By 1991, Audi had the four-cylinder Audi 80, the 5-cylinder Audi 90 and Audi 100, the turbocharged Audi 200 and the Audi V8. There was also a coupe version of the 80/90 with both 4- and 5-cylinder engines.

Although the five-cylinder engine was a successful and robust powerplant, it was still a little too different for the target market. With the introduction of an all-new Audi 100 in 1992, Audi introduced a 2.8L V6 engine. This engine was also fitted to a face-lifted Audi 80 (all 80 and 90 models were now badged 80 except for the USA), giving this model a choice of four-, five-, and six-cylinder engines, in Saloon, Coupé and Cabriolet body styles.

The five-cylinder was soon dropped as a major engine choice; however, a turbocharged 230 hp version remained. The engine, initially fitted to the 200 quattro 20V of 1991, was a derivative of the engine fitted to the Sport Quattro. It was fitted to the Audi Coupé, and named the S2 and also to the Audi 100 body, and named the S4. These two models were the beginning of the mass-produced S series of performance cars.

===Audi 5000 unintended acceleration allegations===
Sales in the United States fell after a series of recalls from 1982 to 1987 of Audi 5000 models associated with reported incidents of sudden unintended acceleration linked to six deaths and 700 accidents. At the time, NHTSA was investigating 50 car models from 20 manufacturers for sudden surges of power. 

A 60 Minutes report aired 23 November 1986, featuring interviews with six people who had sued Audi after reporting unintended acceleration, showing an Audi 5000 ostensibly suffering a problem when the brake pedal was pushed. Subsequent investigation revealed that 60 Minutes had engineered the failure – fitting a canister of compressed air on the passenger-side floor, linked via a hose to a hole drilled into the transmission. 

Audi 100 C3, sold as the Audi 5000 in the U.S.

Audi contended, prior to findings by outside investigators, that the problems were caused by driver error, specifically pedal misapplication. Subsequently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluded that the majority of unintended acceleration cases, including all the ones that prompted the 60 Minutes report, were caused by driver error such as confusion of pedals. CBS did not acknowledge the test results of involved government agencies, but did acknowledge the similar results of another study. 

In a review study published in 2012, NHTSA summarized its past findings about the Audi unintended acceleration problems: "Once an unintended acceleration had begun, in the Audi 5000, due to a failure in the idle-stabilizer system (producing an initial acceleration of 0.3g), pedal misapplication resulting from panic, confusion, or unfamiliarity with the Audi 5000 contributed to the severity of the incident." 

This summary is consistent with the conclusions of NHTSA's most technical analysis at the time: "Audi idle-stabilization systems were prone to defects which resulted in excessive idle speeds and brief unanticipated accelerations of up to 0.3g is similar in magnitude to an emergency stop in a subway car. These accelerations could not be the sole cause of sudden acceleration incidents (SAI), but might have triggered some SAIs by startling the driver. The defective idle-stabilization system performed a type of electronic throttle control. Significantly: multiple "intermittent malfunctions of the electronic control unit were observed and recorded ... and also observed and reported by Transport Canada." 

With a series of recall campaigns, Audi made several modifications; the first adjusted the distance between the brake and accelerator pedal on automatic-transmission models. Later repairs, of 250,000 cars dating back to 1978, added a device requiring the driver to press the brake pedal before shifting out of park. A legacy of the Audi 5000 and other reported cases of sudden unintended acceleration are intricate gear stick patterns and brake interlock mechanisms to prevent inadvertent shifting into forward or reverse. It is unclear how the defects in the idle-stabilization system were addressed.

Audi's U.S. sales, which had reached 74,061 in 1985, dropped to 12,283 in 1991 and remained level for three years. – with resale values falling dramatically. Audi subsequently offered increased warranty protection and renamed the affected models – with the 5000 becoming the 100 and 200 in 1989 – and only reached the same sales levels again by model year 2000. 

A 2010 BusinessWeek article – outlining possible parallels between Audi's experience and 2009–2010 Toyota vehicle recalls – noted a class-action lawsuit filed in 1987 by about 7,500 Audi 5000-model owners remains unsettled and is currently being contested in county court in Chicago after appeals at the Illinois state and U.S. federal levels. 

===Model introductions===
Audi TT
In the mid-to-late 1990s, Audi introduced new technologies including the use of aluminum construction. Produced from 1999 to 2005, the Audi A2 was a futuristic super mini, born from the Al2 concept, with many features that helped regain consumer confidence, like the aluminium space frame, which was a first in production car design. In the A2 Audi further expanded their TDI technology through the use of frugal three-cylinder engines. The A2 was extremely aerodynamic and was designed around a wind tunnel. The Audi A2 was criticised for its high price and was never really a sales success but it planted Audi as a cutting-edge manufacturer. The model, a Mercedes-Benz A-Class competitor, sold relatively well in Europe. However, the A2 was discontinued in 2005 and Audi decided not to develop an immediate replacement.

The next major model change came in 1995 when the Audi A4 replaced the Audi 80. The new nomenclature scheme was applied to the Audi 100 to become the Audi A6 (with a minor facelift). This also meant the S4 became the S6 and a new S4 was introduced in the A4 body. The S2 was discontinued. The Audi Cabriolet continued on (based on the Audi 80 platform) until 1999, gaining the engine upgrades along the way. A new A3 hatchback model (sharing the Volkswagen Golf Mk4's platform) was introduced to the range in 1996, and the radical Audi TT coupé and roadster were debuted in 1998 based on the same underpinnings.

The engines available throughout the range were now a 1.4 L, 1.6 L and 1.8 L four-cylinder, 1.8 L four-cylinder turbo, 2.6 L and 2.8 L V6, 2.2 L turbo-charged five-cylinder and the 4.2 L V8 engine. The V6s were replaced by new 2.4 L and 2.8 L 30V V6s in 1998, with marked improvement in power, torque and smoothness. Further engines were added along the way, including a 3.7 L V8 and 6.0 L W12 engine for the A8.

===Audi AG today===
Audi Q7
Audi's sales grew strongly in the 2000s, with deliveries to customers increasing from 653,000 in 2000 to 1,003,000 in 2008. The largest sales increases came from Eastern Europe (+19.3%), Africa (+17.2%) and the Middle East (+58.5%). China in particular has become a key market, representing 108,000 out of 705,000 cars delivered in the first three quarters of 2009. One factor for its popularity in China is that Audis have become the car of choice for purchase by the Chinese government for officials, and purchases by the government are responsible for 20% of its sales in China. As of late 2009, Audi's operating profit of €1.17-billion ($1.85-billion) made it the biggest contributor to parent Volkswagen Group's nine-month operating profit of €1.5-billion, while the other marques in Group such as Bentley and SEAT had suffered considerable losses. May 2011 saw record sales for Audi of America with the new Audi A7 and Audi A3 TDI Clean Diesel. In May 2012, Audi reported a 10% increase in its sales—from 408 units to 480 in the last year alone. 

Audi manufactures vehicles in seven plants around the world, some of which are shared with other VW Group marques although many sub-assemblies such as engines and transmissions are manufactured within other Volkswagen Group plants.

Audi's two principal assembly plants are:

* Ingolstadt, Opened by Auto Union in 1964, (A3, A4, A5, Q5)
* Neckarsulm, Acquired from NSU in 1969 (A4, A6, A7, A8, R8 & all RS variants)

Outside of Germany, Audi produces vehicles at:

* Aurangabad, India since 2006
* Bratislava, Slovakia, shared with Volkswagen, SEAT, Škoda and Porsche (Q7)
* Brussels, Belgium, acquired from Volkswagen in 2007 (A1)
* Changchun, China since 1995
* Győr, Hungary, (TT and some A3 variants)
* Jakarta, Indonesia since 2011
* Martorell, Spain shared with SEAT and Volkswagen (Q3)

In September 2012, Audi announced the construction of its first North American manufacturing plant in Puebla, Mexico. This plant is expected to be operative in 2016 and produce the second generation Q5. 

From 2002 up to 2003, Audi headed the Audi Brand Group, a subdivision of the Volkswagen Group's Automotive Division consisting of Audi, Lamborghini and SEAT, that was focused on sporty values, with the marques' product vehicles and performance being under the higher responsibility of the Audi brand.

In 2014 Audi UK falsely claimed that the Audi A7, A8, and R8 were Euro NCAP safety tested, all achieving five out of five stars. In fact none were tested. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27392157 

==Technology==

===Bodyshells===
Audi produces 100% galvanised cars to prevent corrosion, Corrosion protection. audiusa.com and was the first mass-market vehicle to do so, following introduction of the process by Porsche, c.1975. Along with other precautionary measures, the full-body zinc coating has proved to be very effective in preventing rust. The body's resulting durability even surpassed Audi's own expectations, causing the manufacturer to extend its original 10-year warranty against corrosion perforation to currently 12 years (except for aluminium bodies which do not rust). 

===Space frame===
The Audi R8 uses Audi Space Frame technology
Audi introduced a new series of vehicles in the mid-1990s and continues to pursue new technology and high performance. An all-aluminium car was brought forward by Audi, and in 1994 the Audi A8 was launched, which introduced aluminium space frame technology (called Audi Space Frame or ASF) which saves weight and improves torsion rigidity compared to a conventional steel frame. Prior to that effort, Audi used examples of the Type 44 chassis fabricated out of aluminium as test-beds for the technique. The disadvantage of the aluminium frame is that it is very expensive to repair and requires a specialized aluminium bodyshop. The weight reduction is somewhat offset by the quattro four-wheel drive system which is standard in most markets. Nonetheless, the A8 is usually the lightest all-wheel drive car in the full-size luxury segment, also having best-in-class fuel economy. The Audi A2, Audi TT and Audi R8 also use Audi Space Frame designs.

===Drivetrains===

====Layout====
Audi A4
For most of its lineup (excluding the A3, A1, and TT models), Audi has not adopted the transverse engine layout which is typically found in economy cars (such as Peugeot and Citroën), since that would limit the type and power of engines that can be installed. In order to be able to mount powerful engines (such as a V8 engine in the Audi S4 and Audi RS4, as well as the W12 engine in the Audi A8L W12), Audi has usually engineered its more expensive cars with a longitudinally front-mounted engine, in an "overhung" position, over the front wheels in front of the axle line. While this allows for the easy adoption of all-wheel drive, it goes against the ideal 50:50 weight distribution.

In all its post Volkswagen-era models, Audi has firmly refused to adopt the traditional rear-wheel drive layout favored by its two arch rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW, favoring either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. The majority of Audi's lineup in the United States features all-wheel drive standard on most of its expensive vehicles (only the entry-level trims of the A4 and A6 are available with front-wheel drive), in contrast to Mercedes-Benz and BMW whose lineup treats all-wheel drive as an option. BMW did not offer all-wheel drive on its V8-powered cars (as opposed to crossover SUVs) until the 2010 BMW 7 Series and 2011 BMW 5 Series, while the Audi A8 has had all-wheel drive available/standard since the 1990s. Regarding high-performance variants, Audi S and RS models have always had all-wheel drive, unlike their direct rivals from BMW M and Mercedes-AMG whose cars are rear-wheel drive only (although their performance crossover SUVs are all-wheel drive).

Audi has recently applied the quattro badge to models such as the A3 and TT which do not use the Torsen-based system as in prior years with a mechanical center differential, but with the Haldex Traction electro-mechanical clutch AWD system.

====Engines====
Volkswagen Group W12 engine from the Volkswagen Phaeton W12

In the 1980s, Audi, along with Volvo, was the champion of the inline-five cylinder, 2.1/2.2 L engine as a longer-lasting alternative to more traditional six-cylinder engines. This engine was used not only in production cars but also in their race cars. The 2.1 L inline five-cylinder engine was used as a base for the rally cars in the 1980s, providing well over 400 hp after modification. Before 1990, there were engines produced with a displacement between 2.0 L and 2.3 L. This range of engine capacity allowed for both fuel economy and power.

For the ultra-luxury version of its Audi A8 fullsize luxury flagship sedan, the Audi A8L W12, Audi uses the Volkswagen Group W12 engine instead of the conventional V12 engine favored by rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The W12 engine configuration (also known as a "WR12") is created by forming two imaginary narrow-angle 15° VR6 engines at an angle of 72°, and the narrow angle of each set of cylinders allows just two overhead camshafts to drive each pair of banks, so just four are needed in total. The advantage of the W12 engine is its compact packaging, allowing Audi to build a 12-cylinder sedan with all-wheel drive, whereas a conventional V12 engine could only have a rear-wheel drive configuration as it would have no space in the engine bay for a differential and other components required to power the front wheels. In fact, the 6.0 L W12 in the Audi A8L W12 is smaller in overall dimensions than the 4.2 L V8 that powers the Audi A8 4.2 variants. The 2011 Audi A8 debuted a revised 6.3-litre version of the W12 (WR12) engine with 500 PS.

====Fuel Stratified Injection====
New models of the A3, A4, A6 and A8 have been introduced, with the ageing 1.8-litre engine now having been replaced by new Fuel Stratified Injection (FSI) engines. Nearly every petroleum burning model in the range now incorporates this fuel-saving technology.

V8 FSI engine

====Direct-Shift Gearbox====
At the turn of the century, Volkswagen introduced the Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG), a type of dual clutch transmission. It is an automated semi-automatic transmission, drivable like a conventional automatic transmission. Based on the gearbox found in the Group B S1, the system includes dual electrohydraulically controlled clutches instead of a torque converter. This is implemented in some VW Golfs, Audi A3, Audi A4 and TT models where DSG is called S-tronic.

===LED daytime running lights===
Beginning in 2006, Audi has implemented white LED technology as daytime running lights (DRL) in their products. The distinctive shape of the DRLs has become a trademark of sorts. LEDs were first introduced on the Audi A8 W12, the world's first production car to have LED DRLs, and have since spread throughout the entire model range. The LEDs are present on some Audi billboards.

Since 2010, Audi has also offered the LED technology in low- and high-beam headlights. 

The DRL in an Audi A4 B8

===Multi Media Interface===
Audi has recently started offering a computerised control system for its cars, called Multi Media Interface (MMI). This came amid criticism of BMW's iDrive control. It is essentially a rotating control knob and 'segment' buttons – designed to control all in-car entertainment devices (radio, CD changer, iPod, TV tuner), satellite navigation, heating and ventilation, and other car controls with a screen. MMI was widely reported to be a considerable improvement on BMW's iDrive, although BMW has since made their iDrive more user-friendly.

MMI has been generally well-received, as it requires less menu-surfing with its segment buttons around a central knob, along with 'main function' direct access buttons – with shortcuts to the radio or phone functions. The screen, either colour or monochrome, is mounted on the upright dashboard, and on the A4 (new), A5, A6, A8, and Q7, the controls are mounted horizontally.

An "MMI-like" system is also available on the A3, TT, A4 (B7), and R8 models – when equipped with the Audi Navigation System Plus (RNS-E) satellite navigation system.

==Models==

===Current model range===
The following tables list Audi production vehicles that are sold as of 2012:

 Audi cars 
 A1 75px Supermini * 3-door Hatchback * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) 
 A3 75px Small Family Car * 3-door Hatchback * Saloon (Sedan) * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) * Cabriolet 
 A4 75px Compact Executive Car * Saloon (Sedan) * Avant (Estate/Wagon) * Allroad (Crossover Estate/Wagon) 
 A5 75px Compact Executive Car * Coupé * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) * Cabriolet (Convertible) 
 A6 75px Executive Car * Saloon (Sedan) * Avant (Estate/Wagon) * Allroad (Crossover Estate/Wagon) 
 A7 75px Executive Car * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) 
 A8 75px Full-size Luxury Car * Saloon (Sedan) 

 Audi coupés and SUVs 
 TT 75px Compact Sports Car * Coupé * Roadster (Convertible) 
 R8 75px Sports Car * Coupé * Spyder (Convertible) 
 Q3 75px Compact Crossover SUV * SUV 
 Q5 75px Compact Crossover SUV * SUV 
 Q7 75px Full-size Crossover SUV * SUV 

===S and RS models===

 S (Sport) models 
 S3 75px Small Family Car * 3-door Hatchback * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) 
 S4 75px Compact Executive Car * Saloon (Sedan) * Avant (Estate/Wagon) 
 S5 75px Compact Executive Car * Coupé * Cabriolet (Convertible) * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) 
 S6 75px Executive Car * Saloon (Sedan) * Avant (Estate/Wagon) 
 S7 75px Executive Car * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) 
 S8 75px Full-size Luxury Car * Saloon (Sedan) 
 TTS 75px Compact Sports Car * Coupé * Roadster (Convertible) 

 RS (RennSport/Racing) models 
 RS4 75px Compact Executive Car * Avant (Estate/Wagon) 
 RS5 75px Compact Executive Car * Coupé * Cabriolet (Convertible) 
 RS7 75px Executive Car * Sportback (5-door Hatchback) 
 TT RS 75px Compact Sports Car * Coupé * Roadster (Convertible) 

RS Q3 Concept

===Electric vehicles===

Audi is planning an alliance with the Japanese electronics giant Sanyo to develop a pilot hybrid electric project for the Volkswagen Group. The alliance could result in Sanyo batteries and other electronic components being used in future models of the Volkswagen Group. Audi Plans To Run On Sanyo Hybrid Batteries. lexisnexis.com (1 June 2008). Concept electric vehicles unveiled to date include the Audi A1 Sportback Concept, Audi A4 TDI Concept E, and the fully electric Audi e-tron Concept Supercar. 

==Production figures==

 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 Q3 Q5 Q7 TT R8 
 1998 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 1999 (Including 1998) p. 50 volkswagenag.com — — 143,974 271,152 — 174,867 — 15,355 — — — 13,682 — 
 1999 — — 143,505 252,514 — 162,573 — 14,636 — — — 52,579 — 
 2000 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2000. p. 53 volkswagenag.com — 32,164 136,141 231,869 — 180,715 — 12,894 — — — 56,776 — 
 2001 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2001. p. 41 volkswagenag.com — 49,369 131,082 308,778 — 186,467 — 11,708 — — — 39,349 — 
 2002 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2002. p. 77 volkswagenag.com — 37,578 125,538 360,267 — 178,773 — 10,942 — — — 34,711 — 
 2003 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2003. p. 97 volkswagenag.com — 27,323 159,417 353,836 — 168,612 — 21,748 — — — 32,337 — 
 2004 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2004. p. 91 volkswagenag.com — 19,745 181,274 345,231 — 195,529 — 22,429 — — — 23,605 — 
 2005 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2005. p. 41 volkswagenag.com — 10,026 224,961 337,705 — 215,437 — 21,515 — — 1,185 12,307 — 
 2006 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2006. p. 45 volkswagenag.com — — 231,752 341,110 487 229,021 — 22,468 — — 72,169 23,675 164 
 2007 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2007. p. 83 volkswagenag.com — — 231,117 289,806 25,549 243,842 — 22,182 — 162 77,395 56,766 4,125 
 2008 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2008. p. 83 volkswagenag.com — — 222,164 378,885 57,650 214,074 — 20,140 — 20,324 59,008 41,789 5,656 
 2009 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2009. p. 93 volkswagenag.com — — 206,747 282,033 84,883 182,090 — 8,599 — 105,074 27,929 22,821 2,101 
 2010 Volkswagen AG Annual Report 2010. p. 111 volkswagenag.com 51,937 — 198,974 306,291 111,270 211,256 8,496 22,435 — 154,604 48,937 26,217 3,485 
 2011 117,566 — 189,068 321,045 111,758 241,862 37,301 38,542 19,613 183,678 53,703 25,508 3,551 
 2012 123,111 — 164,666 329,759 103,357 284,888 28,950 35,932 106,918 209,799 54,558 21,880 2,241 

* Data from 1998 to 2010. Figures for different body types/versions of models have been merged to create overall figures for each model.

==Motorsport==
Audi has competed in various forms of motorsports. Audi's tradition in motorsport began with their former company Auto Union in the 1930s. In the 1990s, Audi found success in the Touring and Super Touring categories of motor racing after success in circuit racing in North America.

===Rallying===

Walter Röhrl with his Quattro A2 during the 1984 Rally Portugal
In 1980, Audi released the Quattro, a four-wheel drive (4WD) turbocharged car that went on to win rallies and races worldwide. It is considered one of the most significant rally cars of all time, because it was one of the first to take advantage of the then-recently changed rules which allowed the use of four-wheel drive in competition racing. Many critics doubted the viability of four-wheel drive racers, thinking them to be too heavy and complex, yet the Quattro was to become a successful car. Leading its first rally it went off the road, however the rally world had been served notice 4WD was the future. The Quattro went on to achieve much success in the World Rally Championship. It won the 1983 (Hannu Mikkola) and the 1984 (Stig Blomqvist) drivers' titles, and brought Audi the manufacturers' title in 1982 and 1984. 
Audi Quattro S1 driven at the 2007 Rallye Deutschland

In 1984, Audi launched the short-wheelbase Sport Quattro which dominated rally races in Monte Carlo and Sweden, with Audi taking all podium places, but succumbed to problems further into WRC contention. In 1985, after another season mired in mediocre finishes, Walter Röhrl finished the season in his Sport Quattro S1, and helped place Audi second in the manufacturers' points. Audi also received rally honours in the Hong Kong to Beijing rally in that same year. Michèle Mouton, the only female driver to win a round of the World Rally Championship and a driver for Audi, took the Sport Quattro S1, now simply called the "S1", and raced in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The 1439 m climb race pits a driver and car to drive to the summit of the 4302 m Pikes Peak mountain in Colorado, and in 1985, Michèle Mouton set a new record of 11:25.39, and being the first woman to set a Pikes Peak record. In 1986, Audi formally left international rally racing following an accident in Portugal involving driver Joaquim Santos in his Ford RS200. Santos swerved to avoid hitting spectators in the road, and left the track into the crowd of spectators on the side, killing three and injuring 30. Bobby Unser used an Audi in that same year to claim a new record for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb at 11:09.22.

In 1987, Walter Röhrl claimed the title for Audi setting a new Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record of 10:47.85 in his Audi S1, which he had retired from the WRC two years earlier. The Audi S1 employed Audi's time-tested inline-five-cylinder turbocharged engine, with the final version generating 441 kW. The engine was mated to a six-speed gearbox and ran on Audi's famous four-wheel drive system. All of Audi's top drivers drove this car; Hannu Mikkola, Stig Blomqvist, Walter Röhrl and Michèle Mouton. This Audi S1 started the range of Audi 'S' cars, which now represents an increased level of sports-performance equipment within the mainstream Audi model range.

===In the USA===
As Audi moved away from rallying and into circuit racing, they chose to move first into America with the Trans-Am in 1988.

In 1989, Audi moved to International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) GTO with the Audi 90, however as they avoided the two major endurance events (Daytona and Sebring) despite winning on a regular basis, they would lose out on the title.

===Touring cars===
In 1990, having completed their objective to market cars in North America, Audi returned to Europe, turning first to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) series with the Audi V8, and then in 1993, being unwilling to build cars for the new formula, they turned their attention to the fast growing Super Touring series, which are a series of national championships. Audi first entered in the French Supertourisme and Italian Superturismo. In the following year, Audi would switch to the German Super Tourenwagen Cup (known as STW), and then to British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) the year after that.

The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), having difficulty regulating the quattro four-wheel drive system, and the impact it had on the competitors, would eventually ban all four-wheel drive cars from competing in 1998, but by then, Audi switched all their works efforts to sports car racing.

By 2000, Audi would still compete in the US with their RS4 for the SCCA Speed World GT Challenge, through dealer/team Champion Racing competing against Corvettes, Vipers, and smaller BMWs (where it is one of the few series to permit 4WD cars). In 2003, Champion Racing entered an RS6. Once again, the quattro four-wheel drive was superior, and Champion Audi won the championship. They returned in 2004 to defend their title, but a newcomer, Cadillac with the new Omega Chassis CTS-V, gave them a run for their money. After four victories in a row, the Audis were sanctioned with several negative changes that deeply affected the car's performance. Namely, added ballast weights, and Champion Audi deciding to go with different tyres, and reducing the boost pressure of the turbocharger.

In 2004, after years of competing with the TT-R in the revitalised DTM series, with privateer team Abt Racing/Christian Abt taking the 2002 title with Laurent Aïello, Audi returned as a full factory effort to touring car racing by entering two factory supported Joest Racing A4 DTM cars.

===24 Hours of Le Mans===

Audi R10 TDI
Audi began racing prototype sportscars in 1999, debuting at the Le Mans 24 hour. Two car concepts were developed and raced in their first season - the Audi R8R (open-cockpit 'roadster' prototype) and the Audi R8C (closed-cockpit 'coupé' GT-prototype). The R8R scored a credible podium on its racing debut at Le Mans and was the concept which Audi continued to develop into the 2000 season due to favourable rules for open-cockpit prototypes.

However, most of the competitors (such as BMW, Toyota, Mercedes and Nissan) retired at the end of 1999.
The factory-supported Joest Racing team won at Le Mans three times in a row with the Audi R8 (2000–2002), as well as winning every race in the American Le Mans Series in its first year. Audi also sold the car to customer teams such as Champion Racing.

In 2003, two Bentley Speed 8s, with engines designed by Audi, and driven by Joest drivers loaned to the fellow Volkswagen Group company, competed in the GTP class, and finished the race in the top two positions, while the Champion Racing R8 finished third overall, and first in the LMP900 class. Audi returned to the winner's podium at the 2004 race, with the top three finishers all driving R8s: Audi Sport Japan Team Goh finished first, Audi Sport UK Veloqx second, and Champion Racing third.

At the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans, Champion Racing entered two R8s, along with an R8 from the Audi PlayStation Team Oreca. The R8s (which were built to old LMP900 regulations) received a narrower air inlet restrictor, reducing power, and an additional 50 kg of weight compared to the newer LMP1 chassis. On average, the R8s were about 2–3 seconds off pace compared to the Pescarolo–Judd. But with a team of excellent drivers and experience, both Champion R8s were able to take first and third, while the Oreca team took fourth. The Champion team was also the first American team to win Le Mans since the Gulf Ford GTs in 1967. This also ends the long era of the R8; however, its replacement for 2006, called the Audi R10 TDI, was unveiled on 13 December 2005.

The R10 TDI employed many new and innovative features, the most notable being the twin-turbocharged direct injection diesel engine. It was first raced in the 2006 12 Hours of Sebring as a race-test in preparation for the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans, which it later went on to win. Audi has been on the forefront of sports car racing, claiming a historic win in the first diesel sports car at 12 Hours of Sebring (the car was developed with a Diesel engine due to ACO regulations that favor diesel engines). As well as winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2006 making history, the R10 TDI has also shown its capabilities by beating the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP in , and beating Peugeot again in , (however Peugeot won the 24h in 2009) and, in a podium clean-sweep by proving its reliability throughout the race (compared to all four 908 entries retired before the end of the race) while breaking a new distance record (set way back by the Porsche 917K of Martini Racing in ), in with the R15 TDI Plus. 

Audi's sports car racing success would continue with the Audi R18's victory at the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans. Audi Sport Team Joest's Benoît Tréluyer earned Audi their first pole position in five years while the team's sister car locked out the front row. Early accidents eliminated two of Audi's three entries, but the sole remaining Audi R18 TDI of Tréluyer, Marcel Fässler, and André Lotterer held off the trio of Peugeot 908s to claim victory by a margin of 13.8 seconds.

====Results====

 Car Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 
 
 1 Position 4 3 1 1 4 3 3 3 1 6 3 3 Ret 1 5 
 2 3 1 2 2 3 1 1 1 Ret 1 Ret 2 1 2 1 
 3 Ret 2 Ret 3 Ret 5 4 Ret 4 17 1 Ret 5 3 
 4 Ret Ret 7 2 3 
 

===American Le Mans Series===
Audi entered a factory racing team run by Joest Racing into the American Le Mans Series under the Audi Sport North America name in 2000. This was a successful operation with the team winning on its debut in the series at the 2000 12 Hours of Sebring. Factory backed Audi R8s were the dominant car in ALMS taking 25 victories between 2000 and the end of the 2002 season. In 2003 Audi sold customer cars to Champion Racing as well as continuing to race the factory Audi Sport North America team. Champion Racing won many races as a private team running Audi R8s and eventually replaced Team Joest as the Audi Sport North America between 2006 and 2008. Since 2009 Audi has not taken part in full American Le Mans Series Championships, but has competed in the series opening races at Sebring, using the 12 hour race as a test for Le Mans, and also as part of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship season calendar.

====Results====

 Year Manufacturer Chassis Team Rd1 Rd2 Rd3 Rd4 Rd5 Rd6 Rd7 Rd8 Rd9 Rd10 Rd11 Rd12 
 2000 Audi R8 
 Audi Sport North America 2 20 3 Ret 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 
 1 6 4 3 2 Ret 1 4 2 2 1 15 
 2001 Audi R8 Audi Sport North America 1 1 1 1 1 5 Ret 2 Ret Ret 
 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 4 1 1 
 2002 Audi R8 Audi Sport North America 5 14 1 2 3 2 Ret 1 1 6 
 1 2 1 2 1 1 4 3 1 
 2003 Audi R8 Audi Sport North America 1 2 2 1 1 7 1 2 3 
 Champion Racing 2 1 3 2 20 1 4 1 1 
 2004 Audi R8 Audi Sport UK 1 
 2 
 Champion Racing 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 
 2005 Audi R8 Champion Racing 1 1 18 1 3 Ret 3 2 7 4 
 2 3 3 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 
 2006 Audi R8 Audi Sport North America 1 3 1 
 R10 Ret 1 2 1 4 7 2 
 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 
 2007 Audi R10 Audi Sport North America 4 1 7 3 2 5 5 2 2 3 1 1 
 1 2 12 6 23 3 3 4 2 17 3 
 2008 Audi R10 Audi Sport North America 3 Ret 2 Ret 21 2 2 2 DSQ 1 2 
 6 1 1 7 4 1 1 1 Ret 3 1 
 2009 Audi R15 Audi Sport North America 5 
 4 
 2010 Audi R15 Audi Sport North America 1 
 3 
 2012 Audi R18 Audi Sport Team Joest 16 
 1 
 2 
 2013 Audi R18 Audi Sport Team Joest 1 
 2 
 

===European Le Mans Series===
Audi participated in the 2003 1000km of Le Mans which was a one-off sports car race in preparation for the 2004 European Le Mans Series. The factory team Audi Sport UK won races and the championship in the 2004 season but Audi was unable to match their sweeping success of Audi Sport North America in the American Le Mans Series, partly due to the arrival of a factory competitor in LMP1, Peugeot. The French manufacturer's 908 HDi FAP became the car to beat in the series from 2008 onwards with 20 LMP wins. However, Audi were able to secure the championship in 2008 even though Peugeot scored more race victories in the season. http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/16/audi-wins-everything-add-european-le-mans-to-the-list/ 

====Results====

 Year Manufacturer Chassis Team Rd1 Rd2 Rd3 Rd4 Rd5 
 2003 Audi R8 Audi Sport Japan 1 
 2004 Audi R8 Audi Sport UK 2 1 1 Ret 
 1 2 3 1 
 Audi Sport Japan 3 4 2 2 
 2005 Audi R8 Team Oreca Ret 1 2 2 
 2008 Audi R10 Audi Sport Team Joest 5 6 4 4 1 
 2 2 2 3 4 
 2010 Audi R15 Audi Sport Team Joest 1 3 Ret 
 5 3 
 12 
 

===World Endurance Championship===

====2012====
In 2012, the FIA sanctioned a World Endurance Championship which would be organised by the ACO as a continuation of the ILMC. Audi competed won the first WEC race at Sebring and followed this up with a further three successive wins, including the 2012 24 hours of Le Mans. Audi scored a final 5th victory in the 2012 WEC in Bahrain and were able to win the inaugural WEC Manufacturers' Championship.

====2013====
As defending champions, Audi once again entered the Audi R18 e-tron quattro chassis into the 2013 WEC and the team won the first five consecutive races, including the 2013 24 hours of le Mans. The victory at Round 5, Circuit of the Americas, was of particular significance as it marked the 100th win for Audi in Le Mans prototypes. https://www.audi-mediaservices.com/publish/ms/content/en/public/pressemitteilungen/2013/09/22/audi_celebrates_100th.html Audi secured their second consecutive WEC Manufacturers' Championship at Round 6 after taking second place and half points in the red-flagged Fuji race. 

====2014====
For the 2014 season Audi entered a redesigned and upgraded R18 e-tron quattro which featured a 2 MJ energy recovery system. As defending champions, Audi would once again face a challenge in LMP1 from Toyota, and additionally from Porsche who returned to endurance racing after a 16 year absence. The season opening 6hrs of Silverstone was a disaster for Audi who saw both cars retire from the race, marking the first time that an Audi car has failed to score a podium in a World Endurance Championship race.

====Results====

 Year Manufacturer Chassis SEB SPA LMS SIL SÃO BHR FUJ SHA 
 2012 Audi R18 e-tron quattro 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 173 (209) 1st 
 

 Year Manufacturer Chassis SIL SPA LMS SÃO COA FUJ SHA BHR Totalpoints 
 2013 Audi R18 e-tron quattro 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 207 (207) 1st 
 

 Year Manufacturer Chassis Car SIL SPA LMS COA FUJ SHA BHR SÃU 
 2014 Audi R18 e-tron quattro 1 Ret 2 28 3rd* 
 
 2 Ret 5 
 

* Season in progress.

===Formula E===

Audi will provide factory support to a Formula E team in partnership with DTM team Abt Sportsline. This team will be called Audi Sport Abt Formula E Team in the inaugural 2014/15 Formula E season. In the 13th February 2014 the team announced that it's driver line up as Daniel Abt and World Endurance Championship driver Lucas di Grassi. http://www.fiaformulae.com/news/abt-reveal-drivers-line-up 

 Team Chassis Driver CHI MAL HKG URU ARG LOS MIA MON GER GBR Totalpoints 
 Audi Sport Abt Formula E Team TBC Daniel Abt 2014 2015 
 Lucas di Grassi 2014 2015 

==Marketing==

===Branding===
The old logo used by Audi (1985–2009)
The Audi emblem is four overlapping rings that represent the four marques of Auto Union. The Audi emblem symbolises the amalgamation of Audi with DKW, Horch and Wanderer: the first ring from the left represents Audi, the second represents DKW, third is Horch, and the fourth and last ring Wanderer. 
Its similarity to the Olympic rings caused the International Olympic Committee to sue Audi in International Trademark Court in 1995, to which they lost. 

As part of Audi's centennial celebration in 2009, the company updated the logo, changing the font to left-aligned Audi Type, and altering the shading for the overlapping rings. The revised logo was designed by Rayan Abdullah. 

Audi developed a Corporate Sound concept, with Audi Sound Studio designed for producing the Corporate Sound. Audi Corporate Sound The Corporate Sound project began with sound agency Klangerfinder GmbH & Co KG and s12 GmbH. Audio samples were created in Klangerfinder's sound studio in Stuttgart, becoming part of Audi Sound Studio collection. Other Audi Sound Studio components include The Brand Music Pool, The Brand Voice. Luxurious sound from the Audi brand Audi also developed Sound Branding Toolkit including certain instruments, sound themes, rhythm and car sounds which all are supposed to reflect the AUDI sound character. Benchmark case: new AUDI Sound Branding 

Audi started using a beating heart sound trademark beginning in 1996. An updated heartbeat sound logo, developed by agencies KLANGERFINDER GmbH & Co KG of Stuttgart and S12 GmbH of Munich, was first used in 2010 in an Audi A8 commercial with the slogan “The Art of Progress.” Audi Sound Studio Corporate Sound Guideline As at: 05/2010 

====Slogans====
Audi's corporate tagline is Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning "Progress through Technology". The German-language tagline is used in many European countries, including the United Kingdom, and in other markets, such as Latin America, Oceania and parts of Asia including Japan. A few years ago, the North American tagline was "Innovation through technology", but in Canada the German tagline Vorsprung durch Technik was used in advertising. More recently, however, Audi has updated the tagline to "Truth in Engineering" in the U.S. Lavrinc, Damon. Audi planning TT and R8 lightweight "Sport" models. Autoblog. Retrieved 24 April 2010. 

====Typography====
Audi Sans (based on Univers Extended) was originally created in 1997 by Ole Schäfer for MetaDesign. MetaDesign was later commissioned for a new corporate typeface called Audi Type, designed by Paul van der Laan and Pieter van Rosmalen of Bold Monday. The font began to appear in Audi's 2009 products and marketing materials. 

===Sponsorships===
Audi sponsors Bundesliga club Bayern Munich
Audi is a strong partner of different kinds of sports. In football, long partnerships exist between Audi and domestic clubs including FC Bayern Munich, Hamburger SV, 1. FC Nuremberg, Hertha Berlin, and Borussia Mönchengladbach and international clubs including Chelsea FC, Real Madrid CF, FC Barcelona, AC Milan, Ajax Amsterdam, Queens Park Rangers F.C. and Perspolis F.C.. Audi also sponsors winter sports: The Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is named after the company. Additionally, Audi supports the German Ski Association (DSV) as well as the alpine skiing national teams of Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, France, Liechtenstein, Italy, Austria and the US. For almost two decades Audi fosters golf sport: for example with the Audi quattro Cup and the HypoVereinsbank Ladies German Open presented by Audi. In sailing, Audi is engaged in the Medcup regatta and supports the team Luna Rossa during the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and also is the primary sponsor of the Melges 20 sailboat. Further, Audi sponsors the regional teams ERC Ingolstadt (hockey) and FC Ingolstadt 04 (soccer). 
In 2009, the year of Audis 100th anniversary, the company organises the Audi Cup for the first time. Audi also sponsor the New York Yankees as well. In October 2010 they agreed to a three sponsorship year-deal with Everton. Audi also sponsors the England Polo Team and holds the Audi Polo Awards. 

===Multitronic campaign===
Audi Centre Sydney, Zetland, New South Wales, Australia

In 2001, Audi promoted the new multitronic continuously variable transmission with television commercials throughout Europe, featuring an impersonator of musician and actor Elvis Presley. A prototypical dashboard figure – later named "Wackel-Elvis" ("Wobble Elvis" or "Wobbly Elvis") – appeared in the commercials to demonstrate the smooth ride in an Audi equipped with the multitronic transmission. The dashboard figure was originally intended for use in the commercials only, but after they aired the demand for Wackel-Elvis fans grew among fans and the figure was mass-produced in China and marketed by Audi in their factory outlet store. 

===Audi TDI===
As part of Audi's attempt to promote its Diesel technology in 2009, the company began Audi Mileage Marathon. The driving tour featured a fleet of 23 Audi TDI vehicles from 4 models (Audi Q7 3.0 TDI, Audi Q5 3.0 TDI, Audi A4 3.0 TDI, Audi A3 Sportback 2.0 TDI with S tronic transmission) travelling across the American continent from New York to Los Angeles, passing major cities like Chicago, Dallas and Las Vegas during the 13 daily stages, as well as natural wonders including the Rocky Mountains, Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. 

As part of 2014 model year Audi TDI vehicles launch in the US, 3 television commercials ("The Station", "Future", "Range") were produced. In the 60-second 'The Station' ad, a woman at a fueling station reaches for the diesel pump to fill up her Audi A6. In a dramatic fashion, unsuspecting onlookers race towards her and they can't imagine the luxury vehicle is in fact a diesel. The spot ends with the tagline "It's time to rethink diesel – join the club." "The Station" appeared on primetime network and cable 2013 fall programming including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Hostages, Sons of Anarchy and NBC NFL Sunday Night Football. The 15-second "Range" ad demonstrates the potential to drive from New York to Chicago on a single tank of gas, covering a range of approximately 790 miles. In the 15-second "Future" ad, viewers see the potential for clean diesel as today's leading alternative fuel solution and an intelligent choice for those on the leading-edge. Audi TDI provides drivers with 30% better fuel economy and range without compromises on performance and design. In addition to the three new television spots, Audi also tried to dispel the most common myths of diesel – gas station availability, the smell and perception associated with an older generation of diesel vehicles, weak performance – in a series of four online video shorts that would roll out over the next two months on the Audi YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/audiusa). The spots also will appear on The Washington Post and Slate.com in a custom user-generated content hub through 2013-10-31. In addition to standard and high-impact ads, the content hub features custom videos, articles and infographics, along with relevant social conversations. The Audi TDI clean diesel campaign also features print ads that reinforce the message "the future of fuel is here now." Print ads would roll out in select automotive buff books in fall 2013. Audi launches 2014 TDI models with hilarious spot Audi reinforces the future of fuel is here today in new campaign introducing the all-new 2014 TDI® clean diesel model lineup 'The Station' ad was premiered in Canada in September 2013. Lady! That's Diesel! New Audi "The Station" Finally Airs In Canada 'The Station' (also called 'The Moment of Truth') ad was produced by Venables Bell & Partners, Biscuit Filmworks, Final Cut. Hey Lady! That's Diesel! - Audi TDI "The Station" noam murro - audi "moment of truth" Wanda Productions - Director - noam Murro 

As part of 2014 model year Audi TDI vehicles launch in the US, the 'Truth in 48' driving challenge took place from Audi Pacific dealership at Los Angeles to New York in 48 hours or less, began at 9 a.m. PDT on 2013-09-07. The Coast-to-coast attempt used 2014 Audi A6 TDI and Audi A7 TDI and a 2014 Audi Q5 TDI crossover as the support vehicle, with teams of eight noted hypermilers and four journalists. Audi TDI Truth in 48 drives us from LA to NYC in mpg efficiency run Newest Audi TDI® models powering “Truth in 48” challenge to drive from L.A. to N.Y. in 48 hours on four tanks of clean diesel fuel 

===Audi e-tron===
The next phase of technology Audi is developing is the e-tron electric drive powertrain system. They have shown several concept cars , each with different levels of size and performance. The original e-tron concept shown at the 2009 Frankfurt motor show is based on the platform of the R8 and has been scheduled for limited production. Power is provided by electric motors at all four wheels. The second concept was shown at the 2010 Detroit Motor Show. Power is provided by two electric motors at the rear axle. This concept is also considered to be the direction for a future mid-engined gas-powered 2-seat performance coupe. The Audi A1 e-tron concept, based on the Audi A1 production model, is a hybrid vehicle with a range extending Wankel rotary engine to provide power after the initial charge of the battery is depleted. It is the only concept of the three to have range extending capability. The car is powered through the front wheels, always using electric power.
It is all set to be displayed at the Auto Expo 2012 in New Delhi, India, from 5 January. Powered by a 1.4 litre engine, and can cover a distance up to 54 km s on a single charge. The e-tron was also shown in the 2013 blockbuster film Iron Man 3 and was driven by Tony Stark (Iron Man).

===In video games===
 Audi R8
In PlayStation Home, the PlayStation 3's online community-based service, Audi has supported Home by releasing a dedicated Home space in the European version of Home. Audi is the first carmaker to develop a space for Home. On 17 December 2009, Audi released the Audi Space as two spaces; the Audi Home Terminal and the Audi Vertical Run. The Audi Home Terminal features an Audi TV channel delivering video content, an Internet Browser feature, and a view of a city. The Audi Vertical Run is where users can access the mini-game Vertical Run, a futuristic mini-game featuring Audi's e-tron concept. Players collect energy and race for the highest possible speeds and the fastest players earn a place in the Audi apartments located in a large tower in the centre of the Audi Space. In both the Home Terminal and Vertical Run spaces, there are teleports where users can teleport back and forth between the two spaces. Audi has stated that additional content will be added in 2010. 

==See also==

*Wanderer (car)
*DKW
*Horch

==References==

* 

==External links==
* Global corporate portal

 



[[Aircraft]]

A Qantas Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner
The Mil Mi-8 is the most-produced helicopter in history

An aircraft is a machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, dictionary.com definition of aircraft or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.

The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation. Crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as lift type, propulsion, usage and others.

==History==

Flying model craft and stories of manned flight go back many centuries, however the first manned ascent – and safe descent – in modern times took place by hot-air balloon in the 18th century. Each of the two World Wars led to great technical advances. Consequently the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras:
*Pioneers of flight, from the earliest experiments to 1914.
*First World War, 1914 to 1918.
*Aviation between the World Wars, 1918 to 1939.
*Second World War, 1939 to 1945.
*Postwar era, also called the jet age, 1945 to the present day.

==Methods of lift==

===Lighter than air – aerostats===
A hot air balloon in flight

Aerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large gasbags or canopies, filled with a relatively low-density gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, it adds up to the same weight as the air that the craft displaces.

Small hot-air balloons called sky lanterns date back to the 3rd century BC, and were only the second type of aircraft to fly, the first being kites.

A balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs – usually fixed-wing – though none had yet been built. The advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by a rigid outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced, the Zeppelins being the largest and most famous. There were still no fixed-wing aircraft or non-rigid balloons large enough to be called airships, so "airship" came to be synonymous with these aircraft. Then several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a "balloon" is an unpowered aerostat and an "airship" is a powered one.

A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible. Sometimes this term is applied only to non-rigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship (which may then be rigid or non-rigid). Non-rigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back. These soon became known as blimps. During the Second World War, this shape was widely adopted for tethered balloons; in windy weather, this both reduces the strain on the tether and stabilizes the balloon. The nickname blimp was adopted along with the shape. In modern times, any small dirigible or airship is called a blimp, though a blimp may be unpowered as well as powered.

===Heavier-than-air – aerodynes===

Heavier-than-air aircraft, such as airplanes, must find some way to push air or gas downwards, so that a reaction occurs (by Newton's laws of motion) to push the aircraft upwards. This dynamic movement through the air is the origin of the term aerodyne. There are two ways to produce dynamic upthrust: aerodynamic lift, and powered lift in the form of engine thrust.

Aerodynamic lift involving wings is the most common, with fixed-wing aircraft being kept in the air by the forward movement of wings, and rotorcraft by spinning wing-shaped rotors sometimes called rotary wings. A wing is a flat, horizontal surface, usually shaped in cross-section as an aerofoil. To fly, air must flow over the wing and generate lift. A flexible wing is a wing made of fabric or thin sheet material, often stretched over a rigid frame. A kite is tethered to the ground and relies on the speed of the wind over its wings, which may be flexible or rigid, fixed, or rotary.

With powered lift, the aircraft directs its engine thrust vertically downward. V/STOL aircraft, such as the Harrier Jump Jet and F-35B take off and land vertically using powered lift and transfer to aerodynamic lift in steady flight.

A pure rocket is not usually regarded as an aerodyne, because it does not depend on the air for its lift (and can even fly into space); however, many aerodynamic lift vehicles have been powered or assisted by rocket motors. Rocket-powered missiles that obtain aerodynamic lift at very high speed due to airflow over their bodies are a marginal case.

====Fixed-wing====
NASA test aircraft
Comparison between four of the largest aircraft:
 "Spruce Goose" (aircraft with greatest wingspan)
 (aircraft with the greatest payload)
 (largest airliner)
 (longest passenger aircraft)

The forerunner of the fixed-wing aircraft is the kite. Whereas a fixed-wing aircraft relies on its forward speed to create airflow over the wings, a kite is tethered to the ground and relies on the wind blowing over its wings to provide lift. Kites were the first kind of aircraft to fly, and were invented in China around 500 BC. Much aerodynamic research was done with kites before test aircraft, wind tunnels, and computer modelling programs became available.

The first heavier-than-air craft capable of controlled free-flight were gliders. A glider designed by Cayley carried out the first true manned, controlled flight in 1853.

Practical, powered, fixed-wing aircraft (the aeroplane or airplane) were invented by Wilbur and Orville Wright. Besides the method of propulsion, fixed-wing aircraft are in general characterized by their wing configuration. The most important wing characteristics are:
*Number of wings – Monoplane, biplane, etc.
*Wing support – Braced or cantilever, rigid, or flexible.
*Wing planform – including aspect ratio, angle of sweep, and any variations along the span (including the important class of delta wings).
*Location of the horizontal stabilizer, if any.
*Dihedral angle – positive, zero, or negative (anhedral).

A variable geometry aircraft can change its wing configuration during flight.

A flying wing has no fuselage, though it may have small blisters or pods. The opposite of this is a lifting body, which has no wings, though it may have small stabilizing and control surfaces.

Wing-in-ground-effect vehicles may be considered as fixed-wing aircraft. They "fly" efficiently close to the surface of the ground or water, like conventional aircraft during takeoff. An example is the Russian ekranoplan (nicknamed the "Caspian Sea Monster"). Man-powered aircraft also rely on ground effect to remain airborne with a minimal pilot power, but this is only because they are so underpowered — in fact, the airframe is capable of flying higher.

====Rotorcraft====
An autogyro

Rotorcraft, or rotary-wing aircraft, use a spinning rotor with aerofoil section blades (a rotary wing) to provide lift. Types include helicopters, autogyros, and various hybrids such as gyrodynes and compound rotorcraft.

Helicopters have a rotor turned by an engine-driven shaft. The rotor pushes air downward to create lift. By tilting the rotor forward, the downward flow is tilted backward, producing thrust for forward flight. Some helicopters have more than one rotor and a few have rotors turned by gas jets at the tips.

Autogyros have unpowered rotors, with a separate power plant to provide thrust. The rotor is tilted backward. As the autogyro moves forward, air blows upward across the rotor, making it spin. This spinning increases the speed of airflow over the rotor, to provide lift. Rotor kites are unpowered autogyros, which are towed to give them forward speed or tethered to a static anchor in high-wind for kited flight.

Cyclogyros rotate their wings about a horizontal axis.

Compound rotorcraft have wings that provide some or all of the lift in forward flight. They are nowadays classified as powered lift types and not as rotorcraft. Tiltrotor aircraft (such as the V-22 Osprey), tiltwing, tailsitter, and coleopter aircraft have their rotors/propellers horizontal for vertical flight and vertical for forward flight.

====Other methods of lift====
X-24B lifting body, specialized glider

*A lifting body is an aircraft body shaped to produce lift. If there are any wings, they are too small to provide significant lift and are used only for stability and control. Lifting bodies are not efficient: they suffer from high drag, and must also travel at high speed to generate enough lift to fly. Many of the research prototypes, such as the Martin-Marietta X-24, which led up to the Space Shuttle, were lifting bodies (though the shuttle itself is not), and some supersonic missiles obtain lift from the airflow over a tubular body.
*Powered lift types rely on engine-derived lift for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). Most types transition to fixed-wing lift for horizontal flight. Classes of powered lift types include VTOL jet aircraft (such as the Harrier jump-jet) and tiltrotors (such as the V-22 Osprey), among others.
*The Flettner airplane uses a rotating cylinder in place of a fixed wing, obtaining lift from the magnus effect.

==Propulsion==

===Unpowered aircraft===

Gliders are heavier-than-air aircraft that do not employ propulsion once airborne. Take-off may be by launching forward and downward from a high location, or by pulling into the air on a tow-line, either by a ground-based winch or vehicle, or by a powered "tug" aircraft. For a glider to maintain its forward air speed and lift, it must descend in relation to the air (but not necessarily in relation to the ground). Many gliders can 'soar' – gain height from updrafts such as thermal currents. The first practical, controllable example was designed and built by the British scientist and pioneer George Cayley, whom many recognise as the first aeronautical engineer. Common examples of gliders are sailplanes, hang gliders and paragliders.

Balloons drift with the wind, though normally the pilot can control the altitude, either by heating the air or by releasing ballast, giving some directional control (since the wind direction changes with altitude). A wing-shaped hybrid balloon can glide directionally when rising or falling; but a spherically shaped balloon does not have such directional control.

Kites are aircraft NASA's Beginners Guide to Aeronautics that are tethered to the ground or other object (fixed or mobile) that maintains tension in the tether or kite line; they rely on virtual or real wind blowing over and under them to generate lift and drag. Kytoons are balloon-kite hybrids that are shaped and tethered to obtain kiting deflections, and can be lighter-than-air, neutrally buoyant, or heavier-than-air.

===Powered aircraft===

Powered aircraft have one or more onboard sources of mechanical power, typically aircraft engines although rubber and manpower have also been used. Most aircraft engines are either lightweight piston engines or gas turbines. Engine fuel is stored in tanks, usually in the wings but larger aircraft also have additional fuel tanks in the fuselage.

====Propeller aircraft====
A turboprop-engined DeHavilland Twin Otter adapted as a floatplane

Propeller aircraft use one or more propellers (airscrews) to create thrust in a forward direction. The propeller is usually mounted in front of the power source in tractor configuration but can be mounted behind in pusher configuration. Variations of propeller layout include contra-rotating propellers and ducted fans.

Many kinds of power plant have been used to drive propellers. Early airships used man power or steam engines. The more practical internal combustion piston engine was used for virtually all fixed-wing aircraft until World War II and is still used in many smaller aircraft. Some types use turbine engines to drive a propeller in the form of a turboprop or propfan. Human-powered flight has been achieved, but has not become a practical means of transport. Unmanned aircraft and models have also used power sources such as electric motors and rubber bands.

====Jet aircraft====
Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor

Jet aircraft use airbreathing jet engines, which take in air, burn fuel with it in a combustion chamber, and accelerate the exhaust rearwards to provide thrust.

Turbojet and turbofan engines use a spinning turbine to drive one or more fans, which provide additional thrust. An afterburner may be used to inject extra fuel into the hot exhaust, especially on military "fast jets". Use of a turbine is not absolutely necessary: other designs include the pulse jet and ramjet. These mechanically simple designs cannot work when stationary, so the aircraft must be launched to flying speed by some other method. Other variants have also been used, including the motorjet and hybrids such as the Pratt & Whitney J58, which can convert between turbojet and ramjet operation.

Compared to propellers, jet engines can provide much higher thrust, higher speeds and, above about 40000 ft, greater efficiency. They are also much more fuel-efficient than rockets. As a consequence nearly all large, high-speed or high-altitude aircraft use jet engines.

====Rotorcraft====
Some rotorcraft, such as helicopters, have a powered rotary wing or rotor, where the rotor disc can be angled slightly forward so that a proportion of its lift is directed forwards. The rotor may, like a propeller, be powered by a variety of methods such as a piston engine or turbine. Experiments have also used jet nozzles at the rotor blade tips.

====Other types of powered aircraft====
*Rocket-powered aircraft have occasionally been experimented with, and the Messerschmitt Komet fighter even saw action in the Second World War. Since then, they have been restricted to research aircraft, such as the North American X-15, which traveled up into space where air-breathing engines cannot work (rockets carry their own oxidant). Rockets have more often been used as a supplement to the main power plant, typically for the rocket-assisted take off of heavily loaded aircraft, but also to provide high-speed dash capability in some hybrid designs such as the Saunders-Roe SR.53.
*The ornithopter obtains thrust by flapping its wings. It has found practical use in a model hawk used to freeze prey animals into stillness so that they can be captured, and in toy birds.

==Design and construction==
Aircraft are designed according to many factors such as customer and manufacturer demand, safety protocols and physical and economic constraints. For many types of aircraft the design process is regulated by national airworthiness authorities.

The key parts of an aircraft are generally divided into three categories:
*The structure comprises the main load-bearing elements and associated equipment.
*The propulsion system (if it is powered) comprises the power source and associated equipment, as described above.
*The avionics comprise the control, navigation and communication systems, usually electrical in nature.

===Structure===
The approach to structural design varies widely between different types of aircraft. Some, such as paragliders, comprise only flexible materials that act in tension and rely on aerodynamic pressure to hold their shape. A balloon similarly relies on internal gas pressure but may have a rigid basket or gondola slung below it to carry its payload. Early aircraft, including airships, often employed flexible doped aircraft fabric covering to give a reasonably smooth aeroshell stretched over a rigid frame. Later aircraft employed semi-monocoque techniques, where the skin of the aircraft is stiff enough to share much of the flight loads. In a true monocoque design there is no internal structure left.

The key structural parts of an aircraft depend on what type it is.

====Aerostats====
Lighter-than-air types are characterised by one or more gasbags, typically with a supporting structure of flexible cables or a rigid framework called its hull. Other elements such as engines or a gondola may also be attached to the supporting structure.

====Aerodynes====
Airframe diagram for an AgustaWestland AW101 helicopter
Heavier-than-air types are characterised by one or more wings and a central fuselage. The fuselage typically also carries a tail or empennage for stability and control, and an undercarriage for takeoff and landing. Engines may be located on the fuselage or wings. On a fixed-wing aircraft the wings are rigidly attached to the fuselage, while on a rotorcraft the wings are attached to a rotating vertical shaft. Smaller designs sometimes use flexible materials for part or all of the structure, held in place either by a rigid frame or by air pressure. The fixed parts of the structure comprise the airframe.

===Avionics===

The avionics comprise the flight control systems and related equipment, including the cockpit instrumentation, navigation, radar, monitoring, and communication systems.

==Flight characteristics==

===Flight envelope===

The flight envelope of an aircraft refers to its capabilities in terms of airspeed and load factor or altitude. §23.333 Flight envelope Flight envelope – diagram The term can also refer to other measurements such as maneuverability. When a craft is pushed, for instance by diving it at high speeds, it is said to be flown "outside the envelope", something considered unsafe.

===Range===
The Boeing 777-200LR is the longest-range airliner, capable of flights of more than halfway around the world.

The range is the distance an aircraft can fly between takeoff and landing, as limited by the time it can remain airborne.

For a powered aircraft the time limit is determined by the fuel load and rate of consumption.

For an unpowered aircraft, the maximum flight time is limited by factors such as weather conditions and pilot endurance. Many aircraft types are restricted to daylight hours, while balloons are limited by their supply of lifting gas. The range can be seen as the average ground speed multiplied by the maximum time in the air.

===Flight dynamics===

200px
Flight dynamics is the science of air vehicle orientation and control in three dimensions. The three critical flight dynamics parameters are the angles of rotation around three axes about the vehicle's center of mass, known as pitch, roll, and yaw (quite different from their use as Tait-Bryan angles).

*Roll is a rotation about the longitudinal axis (equivalent to the rolling or heeling of a ship) giving an up-down movement of the wing tips measured by the roll or bank angle.

*Pitch is a rotation about the sideways horizontal axis giving an up-down movement of the aircraft nose measured by the angle of attack.

*Yaw is a rotation about the vertical axis giving a side-to-side movement of the nose known as sideslip.

Flight dynamics is concerned with the stability and control of an aircraft's rotation about each of these axes.

====Stability====
The empennage of a Boeing 747–200

An aircraft that is unstable tends to diverge from its current flight path and so is difficult to fly. An aircraft which is very stable tends to stay on its current flight path and is difficult to manoeuvre. So it is important for any design to achieve the desired degree of stability. Since the widespread use of digital computers, it is becoming increasingly common for designs to be inherently unstable and to rely on computerised control systems to provide artificial stability.

A fixed wing is typically unstable in pitch, roll and yaw. Pitch and yaw stabilities of conventional fixed wing designs need horizontal and vertical stabilisers, Crane, Dale: Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition, page 194. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ISBN 1-56027-287-2 Aviation Publishers Co. Limited, From the Ground Up, page 10 (27th revised edition) ISBN 0-9690054-9-0 which act in a similar way to the feathers on an arrow. http://www.airlines.org/ATAResources/Handbook/Pages/AirlineHandbookChapter5HowAircraftFly.aspx ATA Airline Handbook Chapter 5: How Aircraft Fly These stabilizing surfaces allow equilibrium of aerodynamic forces and to stabilise the flight dynamics of pitch and yaw. They are usually mounted on the tail section (empennage), although in the canard layout, the main aft wing replaces the canard foreplane as pitch stabilizer. tandem and Tailless aircraft rely on the same general rule to achieve stability, the aft surface being the stabilising one.

A rotary wing is typically unstable in yaw, requiring a vertical stabiliser.

A balloon is typically very stable in pitch and roll due to the way the payload is hung underneath.

====Control====
Flight control surfaces enable the pilot to control an aircraft's flight attitude and are usually part of the wing or mounted on, or integral with, the associated stabilizing surface. Their development was a critical advance in the history of aircraft, which had until that point been uncontrollable in flight.

Aerospace engineers develop control systems for a vehicle's orientation (attitude) about its center of mass. The control systems include actuators, which exert forces in various directions, and generate rotational forces or moments about the aerodynamic center of the aircraft, and thus rotate the aircraft in pitch, roll, or yaw. For example, a pitching moment is a vertical force applied at a distance forward or aft from the aerodynamic center of the aircraft, causing the aircraft to pitch up or down. Control systems are also sometimes used to increase or decrease drag, for example to slow the aircraft to a safe speed for landing.

The two main aerodynamic forces acting on any aircraft are lift supporting it in the air and drag opposing its motion. Control surfaces or other techniques may also be used to affect these forces directly, without inducing any rotation.

==Impacts of aircraft use==

Aircraft permit long distance, high speed travel and may be the more fuel efficient mode of transportation in some circumstances. Aircraft have environmental and climate impacts beyond fuel efficiency considerations, however. They are also relatively noisy compared to other forms of travel and high altitude aircraft generate contrails, which experimental evidence suggests may alter weather patterns.

==Uses for aircraft==
Aircraft are produced in several different types optimized for various uses; military aircraft, which includes not just combat types but many types of supporting aircraft, and civil aircraft, which include all non-military types, experimental and model.

===Military===
Boeing B-17E in flight

A military aircraft is any aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat:
* Combat aircraft are aircraft designed to destroy enemy equipment using its own armament. Combat aircraft divide broadly into fighters and bombers, with several in-between types such as fighter-bombers and ground-attack aircraft (including attack helicopters).
* Non-combat aircraft are not designed for combat as their primary function, but may carry weapons for self-defense. Non-combat roles include search and rescue, reconnaissance, observation, transport, training, and aerial refueling. These aircraft are often variants of civil aircraft.

Most military aircraft are powered heavier-than-air types. Other types such as gliders and balloons have also been used as military aircraft; for example, balloons were used for observation during the American Civil War and World War I, and military gliders were used during World War II to land troops.

===Civil===
Agusta A109 helicopter of the Swiss air rescue service

Civil aircraft divide into commercial and general types, however there are some overlaps.

Commercial aircraft include types designed for scheduled and charter airline flights, carrying passengers, mail and other cargo. The larger passenger-carrying types are the airliners, the largest of which are wide-body aircraft. Some of the smaller types are also used in general aviation, and some of the larger types are used as VIP aircraft.

General aviation is a catch-all covering other kinds of private (where the pilot is not paid for time or expenses) and commercial use, and involving a wide range of aircraft types such as business jets (bizjets), trainers, homebuilt, gliders, warbirds and hot air balloons to name a few. The vast majority of aircraft today are general aviation types.

===Experimental===

An experimental aircraft is one that has not been fully proven in flight, or one that carries an FAA airworthiness certificate in the "Experimental" category. Often, this implies that new aerospace technologies are being tested on the aircraft, although the term also refers to amateur- and kit-built aircraft; many of which are based on proven designs.
A model aircraft, weighing six grams

===Model===

A model aircraft is a small unmanned type made to fly for fun, for static display, for aerodynamic research or for other purposes. A scale model is a replica of some larger design.

==See also==

===Lists===
*List of aircraft
*List of aircraft by category
**List of civil aircraft
**List of early flying machines
**List of fighter aircraft
**List of large aircraft

*List of aircraft by date and usage category
*List of altitude records reached by different aircraft types
*List of aviation, aerospace and aeronautical terms

===Topics===

 *Aircraft spotting *Air traffic control *Airport *Flying car/roadable aircraft *Personal air vehicle *Powered parachute *Rocket *Spacecraft *Spaceplane *Steam aircraft 

==References==

*

==External links==

History
*Prehistory of Powered Flight
*The Channel Crossing
*The Evolution of Modern Aircraft (NASA)
*Virtual Museum
*Smithsonian Air and Space Museum – Online collection with a particular focus on history of aircraft and spacecraft
*New Scientist's History of Aviation
*Amazing Early Flying Machines slideshow by Life magazine

;
Information
*Airliners.net
*Aviation Dictionary Free aviation terms, phrases and jargons
*New Scientist's Aviation page

 

[[Alfred Nobel]]

Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer.

He was the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments. Nobel held 350 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. His fortune was used posthumously to institute the Nobel Prizes. The synthetic element nobelium was named after him. His name also survives in modern-day companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, which are descendants of or mergers with companies Nobel himself established.

==Life and career==
Born in Stockholm, Alfred Nobel was the fourth son of Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, and Karolina Andriette (Ahlsell) Nobel (1805–1889). The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished, and only Alfred and his three brothers survived past childhood. Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe 1789–1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, "Alfred Nobel", 2006 Thomson Gale. Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630–1702), Schück, Henrik, Ragnar Sohlman, Anders Österling, Carl Gustaf Bernhard, the Nobel Foundation, and Wilhelm Odelberg, eds. Nobel: The Man and His Prizes. 1950. 3rd ed. Coordinating Ed., Wilhelm Odelberg. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1972, p. 14. ISBN 0-444-00117-4, ISBN 978-0-444-00117-7. (Originally published in Swedish as Nobelprisen 50 år: forskare, diktare, fredskämpar.) and in his turn the boy was interested in engineering, particularly explosives, learning the basic principles from his father at a young age. Alfred Nobel's interest in technology was inherited from his father, an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. http://www.svantelindqvist.com/anobel_inventor.pdf 
Portrait of Nobel by Gösta Florman (1831–1900)

Following various business failures, Nobel's father moved to Saint Petersburg in 1837 and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented modern plywood and started work on the "torpedo". In 1842, the family joined him in the city. Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English, French, German, and Russian. For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel went to the only school he ever attended as a child, the Jacobs Apologistic School in Stockholm. 
Alfred Nobel's death mask, at Bjorkborn, Nobel's residence in Karlskoga, Sweden.
As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further the work; and, at 18, he went to the United States for four years to study chemistry, collaborating for a short period under inventor John Ericsson, who designed the American Civil War ironclad USS Monitor. Nobel filed his first patent, for a gas meter, in 1857. Carlisle, Rodney (2004). Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries, p. 256. John Wiley & Songs, Inc., New Jersey. ISBN 0-471-24410-4. 

The family factory produced armaments for the Crimean War (1853–1856); but, had difficulty switching back to regular domestic production when the fighting ended and they filed for bankruptcy. In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel (1831–1888), who greatly improved the business. Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia and Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerine (discovered in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero, one of his fellow students under Théophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Turin). Nobel invented a detonator in 1863; and, in 1865, he designed the blasting cap.

On 3 September 1864, a shed, used for the preparation of nitroglycerin, exploded at the factory in Heleneborg Stockholm, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brother Emil. Dogged by more minor accidents but unfazed, Nobel went on to build further factories, focusing on improving the stability of the explosives he was developing. Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally. In 1875 Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887 patented ballistite, a forerunner of cordite.

Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.

Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert exploited oilfields along the Caspian Sea and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. During his life Nobel issued 350 patents internationally and by his death had established 90 armaments factories, despite his belief in pacifism.
Alfred Nobel Medal 1975 by Richard Renninger

In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. A French obituary stated "Le marchand de la mort est mort" ("The merchant of death is dead"). 

In 1891, following the death of his mother and his brother Ludvig and the end of a longstanding relationship, Nobel moved from Paris to San Remo, Italy. Suffering from angina, Nobel died at home, of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1896. Unbeknownst to his family, friends or colleagues, he had left most of his wealth in trust, in order to fund the awards that would become known as the Nobel Prizes. He is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

==Personal life==

Through baptism and confirmation Alfred Nobel was Lutheran and during his Paris years he frequented regularly the Church of Sweden Abroad led by pastor Nathan Söderblom who would in 1930 also be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Nobel travelled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in various countries in Europe and North America and keeping a permanent home in Paris from 1873 to 1891. He remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. Though Nobel remained unmarried, his biographers note that he had at least three loves. Nobel's first love was in Russia with a girl named Alexandra, who rejected his proposal. In 1876 Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky became Alfred Nobel's secretary. But after only a brief stay she left him to marry her previous lover, Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Though her personal contact with Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will. Bertha von Suttner was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize, 'for her sincere peace activities'.
The Björkborn manor house, Nobel's residence at the time of his death, on the property of the Bofors iron works.

Nobel's third and longest-lasting relationship was with Sofie Hess from Vienna, whom he met in 1876. The liaison lasted for 18 years. After his death, according to his biographers Evlanoff, Fluor, and Fant, Nobel's letters were locked within the Nobel Institute in Stockholm. They were released only in 1955, to be included with other biographical data.

Despite the lack of formal secondary and tertiary level education, Nobel gained proficiency in six languages: Swedish, French, Russian, English, German and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English. His Nemesis, a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci, partly inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, was printed while he was dying. The entire stock except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. The first surviving edition (bilingual Swedish–Esperanto) was published in Sweden in 2003. The play has been translated into Slovenian via the Esperanto version and into French. In 2010 it was published in Russia in another bilingual (Russian–Esperanto) edition.

==Inventions==

Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as 'dynamite'. Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. In order to help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with the dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to the Greek word for 'power'.

Nobel later on combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. 'Gelignite', or blasting gelatin, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than the previously used compounds and was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the Age of Engineering bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a significant cost to his health. An off-shoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention of ballistite, the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.

==Nobel Prizes==

In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper erroneously published Alfred's obituary. It condemned him for his invention of dynamite and is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death. The obituary stated, ("The merchant of death is dead") and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." Alfred was disappointed with what he read and concerned with how he would be remembered.

On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94% of his total assets, 31,225,000 Swedish kronor, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. This converted to GBP £1,687,837 at the time. At exchange rate of 18.5:1 in SEK:GBP In 2012, the capital was worth around SEK 3.1 billion (USD 472 million, EUR 337 million), which is almost twice the amount of the initial capital, taking inflation into account. 

The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.

The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" ( in Swedish), is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" () and used it as a reason not to give the prize to important but less Romantic authors, such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy. This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example, Dario Fo and José Saramago, who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism.

There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making the will. In his one-page testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians or other inventors.

In 2001, Alfred Nobel's great-grandnephew, Peter Nobel (b. 1931), asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually a "Nobel Prize". 

==References==

==Further reading==
* Nobel, Alfred Bernhard in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
* Schück, H, and Sohlman, R., (1929). The Life of Alfred Nobel. London: William Heineman Ltd.
* Alfred Nobel US Patent No 78,317, dated 26 May 1868
* Evlanoff, M. and Fluor, M. Alfred Nobel – The Loneliest Millionaire. Los Angeles, Ward Ritchie Press, 1969.
* Sohlman, R. The Legacy of Alfred Nobel, transl. Schubert E. London: The Bodley Head, 1983 (Swedish original, Ett Testamente, published in 1950).
* Jorpes, J.E. Alfred Nobel. British Medical Journal, Jan.3, 1959, 1(5113): 1–6.
* Sri Kantha, S. Alfred Nobel's unusual creativity; an analysis. Medical Hypotheses, April 1999; 53(4): 338–344.
* Sri Kantha, S. Could nitroglycerine poisoning be the cause of Alfred Nobel's anginal pains and premature death? Medical Hypotheses, 1997; 49: 303–306.

==External links==

*
* Alfred Nobel – Man behind the Prizes
* Biography at the Norwegian Nobel Institute
* Nobelprize.org
* "The Nobels in Baku" in Azerbaijan International, Vol 10.2 (Summer 2002), 56–59.
* The Nobel Prize in Postage Stamps
* A German branch or followup (German)



[[Alexander Graham Bell]]

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) "The Bell Family". Bell Homestead National Historic Site, 2013. Retrieved: September 27, 2013. was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. Bruce 1990, p. 419. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first US patent for the telephone in 1876. In retrospect, Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. MacLeod 1999, p. 19. 

Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils and aeronautics. In 1888, Bell became one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society. "National Geographic Mission." nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. 

==Early life==
Alexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on March 3, 1847. Petrie 1975, p. 4. The family home was at 16 South Charlotte Street, and has a stone inscription, marking it as Alexander Graham Bell's birthplace. He had two brothers: Melville James Bell (1845–70) and Edward Charles Bell (1848–67). Both of his brothers died of tuberculosis. "Time Line of Alexander Graham Bell." memory.loc.goiv. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. His father was Professor Alexander Melville Bell, and his mother was Eliza Grace (née Symonds). Although he was born "Alexander", at age 10, he made a plea to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers. "Call me Alexander Graham Bell." fi.edu. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. For his 11th birthday, his father acquiesced and allowed him to adopt the middle name "Graham", chosen out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a Canadian being treated by his father and boarder who had become a family friend. Groundwater 2005, p. 23. To close relatives and friends he remained "Aleck" which his father continued to call him into later life. Bruce 1990, pp. 17–19. 

===First invention===
As a child, young Alexander displayed a natural curiosity about his world, resulting in gathering botanical specimens as well as experimenting even at an early age. His best friend was Ben Herdman, a neighbor whose family operated a flour mill, the scene of many forays. Young Aleck asked what needed to be done at the mill. He was told wheat had to be dehusked through a laborious process and at the age of 12, Bell built a homemade device that combined rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes, creating a simple dehusking machine that was put into operation and used steadily for a number of years. Bruce 1990, p. 16. In return, John Herdman gave both boys the run of a small workshop in which to "invent". 

From his early years, Bell showed a sensitive nature and a talent for art, poetry and music that was encouraged by his mother. With no formal training, he mastered the piano and became the family's pianist. Gray 2006, p. 8. Despite being normally quiet and introspective, he reveled in mimicry and "voice tricks" akin to ventriloquism that continually entertained family guests during their occasional visits. Bell was also deeply affected by his mother's gradual deafness, (she began to lose her hearing when he was 12) and learned a manual finger language so he could sit at her side and tap out silently the conversations swirling around the family parlour. Gray 2006, p. 9. He also developed a technique of speaking in clear, modulated tones directly into his mother's forehead wherein she would hear him with reasonable clarity. Mackay 1997, p. 25. Bell's preoccupation with his mother's deafness led him to study acoustics.

His family was long associated with the teaching of elocution: his grandfather, Alexander Bell, in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, in Edinburgh, were all elocutionists. His father published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are still well known, especially his The Standard Elocutionist (1860), which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. The Standard Elocutionist appeared in 168 British editions and sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States alone. In this treatise, his father explains his methods of how to instruct deaf-mutes (as they were then known) to articulate words and read other people's lip movements to decipher meaning. Aleck's father taught him and his brothers not only to write Visible Speech but to identify any symbol and its accompanying sound. Petrie 1975, p. 7. Aleck became so proficient that he became a part of his father's public demonstrations and astounded audiences with his abilities. He could decipher Visible Speech representing virtually every language, including Latin, Scottish Gaelic and even Sanskrit, accurately reciting written tracts without any prior knowledge of their pronunciation. 

===Education===
As a young child, Bell, like his brothers, received his early schooling at home from his father. At an early age, however, he was enrolled at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Scotland, which he left at age 15, completing only the first four forms. Mackay 1997, p. 31. His school record was undistinguished, marked by absenteeism and lacklustre grades. His main interest remained in the sciences, especially biology, while he treated other school subjects with indifference, to the dismay of his demanding father. Gray 2006, p. 11. Upon leaving school, Bell travelled to London to live with his grandfather, Alexander Bell. During the year he spent with his grandfather, a love of learning was born, with long hours spent in serious discussion and study. The elder Bell took great efforts to have his young pupil learn to speak clearly and with conviction, the attributes that his pupil would need to become a teacher himself. Town 1988, p. 7. At age 16, Bell secured a position as a "pupil-teacher" of elocution and music, in Weston House Academy, at Elgin, Moray, Scotland. Although he was enrolled as a student in Latin and Greek, he instructed classes himself in return for board and £10 per session. Bruce 1990, p. 37. The following year, he attended the University of Edinburgh; joining his older brother Melville who had enrolled there the previous year. In 1868, not long before he departed for Canada with his family, Aleck completed his matriculation exams and was accepted for admission to the University of London. Shulman 2008, p. 49. 

===First experiments with sound===
Bell's father encouraged Aleck's interest in speech and, in 1863, took his sons to see a unique automaton, developed by Sir Charles Wheatstone based on the earlier work of Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Groundwater 2005, p. 25. The rudimentary "mechanical man" simulated a human voice. Aleck was fascinated by the machine and after he obtained a copy of von Kempelen's book, published in German, and had laboriously translated it, he and his older brother Melville built their own automaton head. Their father, highly interested in their project, offered to pay for any supplies and spurred the boys on with the enticement of a "big prize" if they were successful. While his brother constructed the throat and larynx, Aleck tackled the more difficult task of recreating a realistic skull. His efforts resulted in a remarkably lifelike head that could "speak", albeit only a few words. The boys would carefully adjust the "lips" and when a bellows forced air through the windpipe, a very recognizable "Mama" ensued, to the delight of neighbors who came to see the Bell invention. Petrie 1975, pp. 7–9. 

Intrigued by the results of the automaton, Bell continued to experiment with a live subject, the family's Skye Terrier, "Trouve". Petrie 1975, p. 9. After he taught it to growl continuously, Aleck would reach into its mouth and manipulate the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce a crude-sounding "Ow ah oo ga ma ma". With little convincing, visitors believed his dog could articulate "How are you grandma?" More indicative of his playful nature, his experiments convinced onlookers that they saw a "talking dog". Groundwater 2005, p. 30. However, these initial forays into experimentation with sound led Bell to undertake his first serious work on the transmission of sound, using tuning forks to explore resonance.

At the age of 19, he wrote a report on his work and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father (who would later be portrayed as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion). Groundwater 2005, p. 30. Ellis immediately wrote back indicating that the experiments were similar to existing work in Germany, and also lent Aleck a copy of Hermann von Helmholtz's work, The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. Shulman 2008, p. 46. 

Dismayed to find that groundbreaking work had already been undertaken by Helmholtz who had conveyed vowel sounds by means of a similar tuning fork "contraption", he pored over the German scientist's book. Working from his own errant mistranslation of a French edition, Aleck fortuitously then made a deduction that would be the underpinning of all his future work on transmitting sound, reporting: "Without knowing much about the subject, it seemed to me that if vowel sounds could be produced by electrical means, so could consonants, so could articulate speech." He also later remarked: "I thought that Helmholtz had done it ... and that my failure was due only to my ignorance of electricity. It was a valuable blunder ... If I had been able to read German in those days, I might never have commenced my experiments!" MacKenzie 2003, p. 41. Groundwater 2005, p. 31. Shulman 2008, pp. 46–48. 

===Family tragedy===
In 1865, when the Bell family moved to London, Micklos 2006, p. 8. Bell returned to Weston House as an assistant master and, in his spare hours, continued experiments on sound using a minimum of laboratory equipment. Bell concentrated on experimenting with electricity to convey sound and later installed a telegraph wire from his room in Somerset College to that of a friend. Bruce 1990, p. 45. Throughout late 1867, his health faltered mainly through exhaustion. His younger brother, Edward "Ted," was similarly bed-ridden, suffering from tuberculosis. While Bell recovered (by then referring to himself in correspondence as "A.G. Bell") and served the next year as an instructor at Somerset College, Bath, England, his brother's condition deteriorated. Edward would never recover. Upon his brother's death, Bell returned home in 1867. His older brother Melville had married and moved out. With aspirations to obtain a degree at the University College London, Bell considered his next years as preparation for the degree examinations, devoting his spare time at his family's residence to studying.

Helping his father in Visible Speech demonstrations and lectures brought Bell to Susanna E. Hull's private school for the deaf in South Kensington, London. His first two pupils were "deaf mute" girls who made remarkable progress under his tutelage. While his older brother seemed to achieve success on many fronts including opening his own elocution school, applying for a patent on an invention, and starting a family, Bell continued as a teacher. However, in May 1870, Melville died from complications due to tuberculosis, causing a family crisis. His father had also suffered a debilitating illness earlier in life and had been restored to health by a convalescence in Newfoundland. Bell's parents embarked upon a long-planned move when they realized that their remaining son was also sickly. Acting decisively, Alexander Melville Bell asked Bell to arrange for the sale of all the family property, Bruce 1990, pp. 67–68. conclude all of his brother's affairs (Bell took over his last student, curing a pronounced lisp), Bruce 1990, p. 68. and join his father and mother in setting out for the "New World". Groundwater 2005, p. 33. Reluctantly, Bell also had to conclude a relationship with Marie Eccleston, who, he had surmised, was not prepared to leave England with him. 

==Canada==

Melville House, the Bells' first home in North America, now a National Historic Site of Canada.

In 1870, at age 23, Bell, his brother's widow, Caroline (Margaret Ottaway), Mackay 1997, p. 50. and his parents travelled on the SS Nestorian to Canada. Petrie 1975, p. 10. After landing at Quebec City the Bells transferred to another steamer to Montreal and then boarded a train to Paris, Ontario, Gray 2006, p. 21. to stay with the Reverend Thomas Henderson, a family friend. After a brief stay with the Hendersons, the Bell family purchased a farm of 10.5 acre at Tutelo Heights (now called Tutela Heights), near Brantford, Ontario. The property consisted of an orchard, large farm house, stable, pigsty, hen-house and a carriage house, which bordered the Grand River. Mackay 1997, p. 61. 

At the homestead, Bell set up his own workshop in the converted carriage house near to what he called his "dreaming place", a large hollow nestled in trees at the back of the property above the river. Groundwater 2005, p. 34. Despite his frail condition upon arriving in Canada, Bell found the climate and environs to his liking, and rapidly improved. Mackay 1997, p. 62. He continued his interest in the study of the human voice and when he discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river at Onondaga, he learned the Mohawk language and translated its unwritten vocabulary into Visible Speech symbols. For his work, Bell was awarded the title of Honorary Chief and participated in a ceremony where he donned a Mohawk headdress and danced traditional dances. Groundwater 2005, p. 35. 

After setting up his workshop, Bell continued experiments based on Helmholtz's work with electricity and sound. Wing 1980, p. 10. He also modified a melodeon (a type of pump organ) so that it could transmit its music electrically over a distance. Waldie, Jean H. "Historic Melodeon Is Given To Bell Museum", likely published either by the London Free Press or by the Brantford Expositor, date unknown. Once the family was settled in, both Bell and his father made plans to establish a teaching practice and in 1871, he accompanied his father to Montreal, where Melville was offered a position to teach his System of Visible Speech.

==Work with the deaf==
Bell, top right, providing pedagogical instruction to teachers at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes, 1871. Throughout his life he referred to himself as "a teacher of the deaf".

Bell's father was invited by Sarah Fuller, principal of the Boston School for Deaf Mutes (which continues today as the public Horace Mann School for the Deaf), Bruce 1990, p. 74. in Boston, Massachusetts, to introduce the Visible Speech System by providing training for Fuller's instructors, but he declined the post, in favor of his son. Traveling to Boston in April 1871, Bell proved successful in training the school's instructors. Town 1988, p. 12. He was subsequently asked to repeat the program at the American Asylum for Deaf-mutes in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Returning home to Brantford after six months abroad, Bell continued his experiments with his "harmonic telegraph". Alexander Graham Bell 1979, p. 8. The basic concept behind his device was that messages could be sent through a single wire if each message was transmitted at a different pitch, but work on both the transmitter and receiver was needed. Unsure of his future, he first contemplated returning to London to complete his studies, but decided to return to Boston as a teacher. Petrina 1975, p. 14. His father helped him set up his private practice by contacting Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the president of the Clarke School for the Deaf for a recommendation. Teaching his father's system, in October 1872 Alexander Bell opened his "School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech" in Boston, which attracted a large number of deaf pupils with his first class numbering 30 students. Petrel 1975, p. 15. Town 1988, pp. 12–13. While he was working as a private tutor, one of his most famous pupils was Helen Keller, who came to him as a young child unable to see, hear, or speak. She was later to say that Bell dedicated his life to the penetration of that "inhuman silence which separates and estranges." Petrie 1975, p. 17. In 1893 Keller performed the sod-breaking ceremony for the construction of the new Bell's new Volta Bureau, dedicated to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf". Schoenherr, Steven. Recording Technology History: Charles Sumner Tainter and the Graphophone, originally published at the History Department of, University of San Diego, revised July 6, 2005. Retrieved from University of San Diego History Department website December 19, 2009. Document transferred to a personal website upon Professor Schoenherr's retirement. Retrieved again from homepage.mac. com/oldtownman website July 21, 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica. "Alexander Graham Bell", Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, December 21, 2009. 

Several influential people of the time, including Bell, viewed deafness as something that ought to be eradicated, and also believed that with resources and effort they could teach the deaf to speak and avoid the use of sign language, thus enabling their integration within the wider society from which many were often being excluded. Miller and Branson 2002, pp. 30–31, 152–153. However in several schools children were mistreated, for example by having their hands tied behind their backs so they could not communicate by signing—the only language they knew—in order to force them to attempt oral communication. Due to his efforts to suppress the teaching of sign language, Bell is often viewed negatively by those embracing deaf culture. Ayers et al. 2009, pp. 194–195. 

==Continuing experimentation==
In the following year, Bell became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory. During this period, he alternated between Boston and Brantford, spending summers in his Canadian home. At Boston University, Bell was "swept up" by the excitement engendered by the many scientists and inventors residing in the city. He continued his research in sound and endeavored to find a way to transmit musical notes and articulate speech, but although absorbed by his experiments, he found it difficult to devote enough time to experimentation. While days and evenings were occupied by his teaching and private classes, Bell began to stay awake late into the night, running experiment after experiment in rented facilities at his boarding house. Keeping up "night owl" hours, he worried that his work would be discovered and took great pains to lock up his notebooks and laboratory equipment. Bell had a specially made table where he could place his notes and equipment inside a locking cover. Town 1988, p. 15. Worse still, his health deteriorated as he suffered severe headaches. Groundwater 2005, p. 39. Returning to Boston in fall 1873, Bell made a fateful decision to concentrate on his experiments in sound.

Deciding to give up his lucrative private Boston practice, Bell only retained two students, six-year old "Georgie" Sanders, deaf from birth and 15-year old Mabel Hubbard. Each pupil would serve to play an important role in the next developments. George's father, Thomas Sanders, a wealthy businessman, offered Bell a place to stay at nearby Salem with Georgie's grandmother, complete with a room to "experiment". Although the offer was made by George's mother and followed the year-long arrangement in 1872 where her son and his nurse had moved to quarters next to Bell's boarding house, it was clear that Mr. Sanders was backing the proposal. The arrangement was for teacher and student to continue their work together with free room and board thrown in. Town 1988, p. 16. Mabel was a bright, attractive girl who was ten years his junior but became the object of Bell's affection. Losing her hearing after a near-fatal bout of scarlet fever close to her fifth birthday, Toward 1984, p. 1. Eber 1991, p. 43. she had learned to read lips but her father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell's benefactor and personal friend, wanted her to work directly with her teacher. Dunn 1990, p. 20. 

==Telephone==

By 1874, Bell's initial work on the harmonic telegraph had entered a formative stage with progress it made both at his new Boston "laboratory" (a rented facility) as well as at his family home in Canada a big success.
While working that summer in Brantford, Bell experimented with a "phonautograph", a pen-like machine that could draw shapes of sound waves on smoked glass by tracing their vibrations. Bell thought it might be possible to generate undulating electrical currents that corresponded to sound waves. Matthews 1999, pp. 19–21. Bell also thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies like a harp would be able to convert the undulating currents back into sound. But he had no working model to demonstrate the feasibility of these ideas. Matthews 1999, p. 21. 

In 1874, telegraph message traffic was rapidly expanding and in the words of Western Union President William Orton, had become "the nervous system of commerce". Orton had contracted with inventors Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages on each telegraph line to avoid the great cost of constructing new lines. "A History of Electrical Engineering." ieee.cincinnati.fuse.net. Retrieved: December 29, 2009. When Bell mentioned to Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders that he was working on a method of sending multiple tones on a telegraph wire using a multi-reed device, the two wealthy patrons began to financially support Bell's experiments. Town 1988, p. 17. Patent matters would be handled by Hubbard's patent attorney, Anthony Pollok. Evenson 2000, pp. 18–25. 

In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited the famous scientist Joseph Henry, who was then director of the Smithsonian Institution, and asked Henry's advice on the electrical multi-reed apparatus that Bell hoped would transmit the human voice by telegraph. Henry replied that Bell had "the germ of a great invention". When Bell said that he did not have the necessary knowledge, Henry replied, "Get it!" That declaration greatly encouraged Bell to keep trying, even though he did not have the equipment needed to continue his experiments, nor the ability to create a working model of his ideas. However, a chance meeting in 1874 between Bell and Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams, changed all that.

With financial support from Sanders and Hubbard, Bell hired Thomas Watson as his assistant, and the two of them experimented with acoustic telegraphy. On June 2, 1875, Watson accidentally plucked one of the reeds and Bell, at the receiving end of the wire, heard the overtones of the reed; overtones that would be necessary for transmitting speech. That demonstrated to Bell that only one reed or armature was necessary, not multiple reeds. This led to the "gallows" sound-powered telephone, which could transmit indistinct, voice-like sounds, but not clear speech.

===The race to the patent office===

In 1875, Bell developed an acoustic telegraph and drew up a patent application for it. Since he had agreed to share U.S. profits with his investors Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, Bell requested that an associate in Ontario, George Brown, attempt to patent it in Britain, instructing his lawyers to apply for a patent in the U.S. only after they received word from Britain (Britain would issue patents only for discoveries not previously patented elsewhere). Bruce 1990, pp. 158–159. 

Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent drawing, March 7, 1876.

Meanwhile, Elisha Gray was also experimenting with acoustic telegraphy and thought of a way to transmit speech using a water transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a caveat with the U.S. Patent Office for a telephone design that used a water transmitter. That same morning, Bell's lawyer filed Bell's application with the patent office. There is considerable debate about who arrived first and Gray later challenged the primacy of Bell's patent. Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not arrive in Washington until February 26.

Bell's patent 174,465, was issued to Bell on March 7, 1876, by the U.S. Patent Office. Bell's patent covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound" MacLeod 1999, pp. 12–13. Bell returned to Boston the same day and the next day resumed work, drawing in his notebook a diagram similar to that in Gray's patent caveat.

On March 10, 1876, three days after his patent was issued, Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work, using a liquid transmitter similar to Gray's design. Vibration of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, varying the electrical resistance in the circuit. When Bell spoke the famous sentence "Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you" into the liquid transmitter, "Bell's Lab notebook I, pp. 40–41 (image 22)." loc.gov. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly. MacLeod 1999, p. 12. 

Although Bell was, and still is, accused of stealing the telephone from Gray, Shulman 2008, p. 211. Bell used Gray's water transmitter design only after Bell's patent was granted and only as a proof of concept scientific experiment Evenson 2000, p. 99. to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" (Bell's words) could be electrically transmitted. Evenson 2000, p. 98. After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray's liquid transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use. Evenson 2000, p. 100. 

The question of priority for the variable resistance feature of the telephone was raised by the Examiner before he approved Bell's patent application. He told Bell that his claim for the variable resistance feature was also described in Gray's caveat. Bell pointed to a variable resistance device in Bell's previous application in which Bell described a cup of mercury, not water. Bell had filed the mercury application at the patent office a year earlier on February 25, 1875, long before Elisha Gray described the water device. In addition, Gray abandoned his caveat, and because Gray did not contest Bell's priority, the Examiner approved Bell's patent on March 3, 1876. Gray had reinvented the variable resistance telephone, but Bell was the first to write down the idea and the first to test it in a telephone. Evenson 2000, pp. 81–82. 

The patent examiner, Zenas Fisk Wilber, later stated in an affidavit that he was an alcoholic who was much in debt to Bell's lawyer, Marcellus Bailey, with whom he had served in the Civil War. He claimed he showed Gray's patent caveat to Bailey. Wilber also claimed (after Bell arrived in Washington D.C. from Boston) that he showed Gray's caveat to Bell and that Bell paid him $100. Bell claimed they discussed the patent only in general terms, although in a letter to Gray, Bell admitted that he learned some of the technical details. Bell denied in an affidavit that he ever gave Wilber any money. "Mr. Wilbur confesses." The Washington Post, May 22, 1886, p. 1. 

===Later developments===
Continuing his experiments in Brantford, Bell brought home a working model of his telephone. On August 3, 1876, from the telegraph office in Mount Pleasant five miles (8 km) away from Brantford, Bell sent a tentative telegram indicating that he was ready. With curious onlookers packed into the office as witnesses, faint voices were heard replying. The following night, he amazed guests as well as his family when a message was received at the Bell home from Brantford, four miles (six km) distant along an improvised wire strung up along telegraph lines and fences, and laid through a tunnel. This time, guests at the household distinctly heard people in Brantford reading and singing. These experiments clearly proved that the telephone could work over long distances. MacLeod 1999, p. 14. 
Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago in 1892.
Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000. The president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy. Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent. Fenster, Julie M. AmericanHeritage.com, American Heritage, 2006. Bell's investors would become millionaires while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly one million dollars. Winfield 1987, p. 21. 

Bell began a series of public demonstrations and lectures to introduce the new invention to the scientific community as well as the general public. A short time later, his demonstration of an early telephone prototype at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia brought the telephone to international attention. Webb 1991, p. 15. Influential visitors to the exhibition included Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Later Bell had the opportunity to demonstrate the invention personally to Sir William Thomson (later, Lord Kelvin), a renowned Scottish scientist, as well as to Queen Victoria who had requested a private audience at Osborne House, her Isle of Wight home. She called the demonstration "most extraordinary". The enthusiasm surrounding Bell's public displays laid the groundwork for universal acceptance of the revolutionary device. Ross 1995, pp. 21–22. 

The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877, and by 1886, more than 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. Bell company engineers made numerous other improvements to the telephone, which emerged as one of the most successful products ever. In 1879, the Bell company acquired Edison's patents for the carbon microphone from Western Union. This made the telephone practical for longer distances and it was no longer necessary to shout to be heard at the receiving telephone.

In January 1915, Bell made the first ceremonial transcontinental telephone call. Calling from the AT&T head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, Bell was heard by Thomas Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. The New York Times reported:

===Competitors===

As is sometimes common in scientific discoveries, simultaneous developments can occur, as evidenced by a number of inventors who were at work on the telephone. Over a period of 18 years, the Bell Telephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, Australasian Telephone Collecting Society. "Who Really Invented The Telephone?" ATCS, Moorebank, NSW, Australia. Retrieved from telephonecollecting.org on April 22, 2011. but none was successful in establishing priority over the original Bell patent Black 1997, p. 19. and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage. Bell's laboratory notes and family letters were the key to establishing a long lineage to his experiments. Groundwater 2005, p. 95. The Bell company lawyers successfully fought off myriad lawsuits generated initially around the challenges by Elisha Gray and Amos Dolbear. In personal correspondence to Bell, both Gray and Dolbear had acknowledged his prior work, which considerably weakened their later claims. Mackay 1997, p. 179. 

On January 13, 1887, the U,S. Government moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. After a series of decisions and reversals, the Bell company won a decision in the Supreme Court, though a couple of the original claims from the lower court cases were left undecided. "U.S. Supreme Court: U S v. AMERICAN BELL TEL CO, 167 U.S. 224 (1897)." caselaw.lp. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. "United States V. American Bell Telephone Co., 128 U.S. 315 (1888)." supreme.justia.com. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. By the time that the trial wound its way through nine years of legal battles, the U.S. prosecuting attorney had died and the two Bell patents (No. 174,465 and dated March 7, 1876 and No. 186,787 dated January 30, 1877) were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a "precedent". With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the US Attorney General dropped the lawsuit on November 30, 1897 leaving several issues undecided on the merits. Basilio Catania 2002 "The United States Government vs. Alexander Graham Bell. An important acknowledgment for Antonio Meucci." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 22, 2002, pp. 426–442. Retrieved: December 29, 2009. 

During a deposition filed for the 1887 trial, Italian inventor Antonio Meucci also claimed to have created the first working model of a telephone in Italy in 1834. In 1886, in the first of three cases in which he was involved, Meucci took the stand as a witness in the hopes of establishing his invention's priority. Meucci's evidence in this case was disputed due to a lack of material evidence for his inventions as his working models were purportedly lost at the laboratory of American District Telegraph (ADT) of New York, which was later incorporated as a subsidiary of Western Union in 1901. Catania, Basilio "Antonio Meucci – Questions and Answers: What did Meucci to bring his invention to the public?" Chezbasilio.org. Retrieved: July 8, 2009. "History of ADT Security." ADT.com website. Retrieved: July 8, 2009. Meucci's work, like many other inventors of the period, was based on earlier acoustic principles and despite evidence of earlier experiments, the final case involving Meucci was eventually dropped upon Meucci's death. Bruce 1990, pp. 271–272. However, due to the efforts of Congressman Vito Fossella, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 11, 2002 stated that Meucci's "work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged", even though this did not put an end to a still contentious issue. "H.RES.269: Resolution 269." thomas.loc.gov. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. "Congressional Record on Meucci." esanet.it. Retrieved: December 29, 2009. "Meucci Story." Italian Historical Society. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. Some modern scholars do not agree with the claims that Bell's work on the telephone was influenced by Meucci's inventions. "Antonio Meucci." inventors.about.com. Retrieved: December 29, 2009. 

The value of the Bell patent was acknowledged throughout the world, and patent applications were made in most major countries, but when Bell had delayed the German patent application, the electrical firm of Siemens & Halske (S&H) managed to set up a rival manufacturer of Bell telephones under their own patent. The Siemens company produced near-identical copies of the Bell telephone without having to pay royalties. Mackay 1997, p. 178. The establishment of the International Bell Telephone Company in Brussels, Belgium in 1880, as well as a series of agreements in other countries eventually consolidated a global telephone operation. The strain put on Bell by his constant appearances in court, necessitated by the legal battles, eventually resulted in his resignation from the company. Parker 1995, p. 23. 

==Family life==
Alexander Graham Bell, his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, and their daughters Elsie (left) and Marian ca. 1885

The Brodhead-Bell mansion, the Bell family residence in Washington, D.C., from 1882 to 1889. Bruce 1990, pp. 297–299. 

On July 11, 1877, a few days after the Bell Telephone Company was established, Bell married Mabel Hubbard (1857–1923) at the Hubbard estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His wedding present to his bride was to turn over 1,487 of his 1,497 shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company. Eber 1982, p. 44. Shortly thereafter, the newlyweds embarked on a year-long honeymoon in Europe. During that excursion, Alec took a handmade model of his telephone with him, making it a "working holiday". The courtship had begun years earlier; however, Alexander waited until he was more financially secure before marrying. Although the telephone appeared to be an "instant" success, it was not initially a profitable venture and Bell's main sources of income were from lectures until after 1897. Dunn 1990, p. 28. One unusual request exacted by his fiancée was that he use "Alec" rather than the family's earlier familiar name of "Aleck". From 1876, he would sign his name "Alec Bell". Mackay 1997, p. 120. They had four children: Elsie May Bell (1878–1964) who married Gilbert Grosvenor of National Geographic fame, Marian Hubbard Bell (1880–1962) who was referred to as "Daisy", and two sons who died in infancy (Edward in 1881 and Robert in 1883). The Bell family home was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until 1880 when Bell's father-in-law bought a house in Washington, D.C., and later in 1882 bought a home in the same city for Bell's family, so that they could be with him while he attended to the numerous court cases involving patent disputes. Gray 2006, pp. 202–205. 

Bell was a British subject throughout his early life in Scotland and later in Canada until 1882, when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1915, he characterized his status as: "I am not one of those hyphenated Americans who claim allegiance to two countries." Bruce 1990, p. 90. Despite this declaration, Bell has been proudly claimed as a "native son" by all three countries he resided in: the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Bruce 1990, pp. 471–472. 

By 1885, a new summer retreat was contemplated. That summer, the Bells had a vacation on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, spending time at the small village of Baddeck. Bethune 2009, p. 2. Returning in 1886, Bell started building an estate on a point across from Baddeck, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. Bethune 2009, p. 92. By 1889, a large house, christened The Lodge was completed and two years later, a larger complex of buildings, including a new laboratory, were begun that the Bells would name Beinn Bhreagh (Gaelic: beautiful mountain) after Alec's ancestral Scottish highlands. Tulloch 2006, pp. 25–27. Bell also built the Bell Boatyard on the estate, employing up to 40 people building experimental craft as well as wartime lifeboats and workboats for the Royal Canadian Navy and pleasure craft for the Bell family. An enthusiastic boater, Bell and his family sailed a rowed a long series of vessels on Bras d'Or Lake, ordering additional vessels from the H.W. Embree and Sons boatyard in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. In his final, and some of his most productive years, Bell split his residency between Washington, D.C., where he and his family initially resided for most of the year, and at Beinn Bhreagh where they spent increasing amounts of time. MacLeod 1999, p. 22. 

Until the end of his life, Bell and his family would alternate between the two homes, but Beinn Bhreagh would, over the next 30 years, become more than a summer home as Bell became so absorbed in his experiments that his annual stays lengthened. Both Mabel and Alec became immersed in the Baddeck community and were accepted by the villagers as "their own". The Bells were still in residence at Beinn Bhreagh when the Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917. Mabel and Alec mobilized the community to help victims in Halifax. Tulloch 2006, p. 42. 

==Later inventions==
Alexander Graham Bell in his later years.

Although Alexander Graham Bell is most often associated with the invention of the telephone, his interests were extremely varied. According to one of his biographers, Charlotte Gray, Bell's work ranged "unfettered across the scientific landscape" and he often went to bed voraciously reading the Encyclopædia Britannica, scouring it for new areas of interest. Gray 2006, p. 219. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for "hydroairplanes" and two for selenium cells. Bell's inventions spanned a wide range of interests and included a metal jacket to assist in breathing, the audiometer to detect minor hearing problems, a device to locate icebergs, investigations on how to separate salt from seawater, and work on finding alternative fuels.

Bell worked extensively in medical research and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. During his Volta Laboratory period, Bell and his associates considered impressing a magnetic field on a record as a means of reproducing sound. Although the trio briefly experimented with the concept, they could not develop a workable prototype. They abandoned the idea, never realizing they had glimpsed a basic principle which would one day find its application in the tape recorder, the hard disc and floppy disc drive and other magnetic media.

Bell's own home used a primitive form of air conditioning, in which fans blew currents of air across great blocks of ice. He also anticipated modern concerns with fuel shortages and industrial pollution. Methane gas, he reasoned, could be produced from the waste of farms and factories. At his Canadian estate in Nova Scotia, he experimented with composting toilets and devices to capture water from the atmosphere. In a magazine interview published shortly before his death, he reflected on the possibility of using solar panels to heat houses.

===Photophone===

Photophone receiver, one half of Bell's wireless optical communication system, ca. 1880

Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter jointly invented a wireless telephone, named a photophone, which allowed for the transmission of both sounds and normal human conversations on a beam of light. Bruce 1990, p. 336. Jones, Newell. "First 'Radio' Built by San Diego Resident Partner of Inventor of Telephone: Keeps Notebook of Experiences With Bell." San Diego Evening Tribune, July 31, 1937. Retrieved from the University of San Diego History Department website, November 26, 2009. Both men later became full associates in the Volta Laboratory Association.

On June 21, 1880, Bell's assistant transmitted a wireless voice telephone message a considerable distance, from the roof of the Franklin School in Washington, D.C., to Bell at the window of his laboratory, some 213 m away, 19 years before the first voice radio transmissions. Carson 2007, pp. 76–78. Bruce 1990, p. 338. Groth, Mike. "Photophones Revisted." Amateur Radio magazine, Wireless Institute of Australia, Melbourne, April 1987, pp. 12–17 and May 1987, pp. 13–17. Mims 1982, p. 11. 

Bell believed the photophone's principles were his life's "greatest achievement", telling a reporter shortly before his death that the photophone was "the greatest invention have ever made, greater than the telephone". Phillipson, Donald J.C., and Laura Neilson. "Bell, Alexander Graham." The Canadian Encyclopedia online. Retrieved: August 6, 2009. The photophone was a precursor to the fiber-optic communication systems which achieved popular worldwide usage in the 1980s. Morgan, Tim J. "The Fiber Optic Backbone". University of North Texas, 2011. Miller, Stewart E. "Lightwaves and Telecommunication". American Scientist, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Vol. 72, No. 1, January–February 1984, pp. 66-71. Its master patent was issued in December 1880, many decades before the photophone's principles came into popular use.

===Metal detector===
Bell's voice, from a Volta Laboratory recording in 1885. Restored by the Smithsonian in 2013.

Bell is also credited with the invention of the metal detector in 1881. The device was quickly put together in an attempt to find the bullet in the body of U.S. President James Garfield. According to some accounts, the metal detector worked flawlessly in tests but did not find the assassin's bullet partly because the metal bed frame on which the President was lying disturbed the instrument, resulting in static. Grosvenor and Wesson 1997, p. 107. The president's surgeons, who were skeptical of the device, ignored Bell's requests to move the president to a bed not fitted with metal springs. Alternatively, although Bell had detected a slight sound on his first test, the bullet may have been lodged too deeply to be detected by the crude apparatus. 

Bell's own detailed account, presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1882, differs in several particulars from most of the many and varied versions now in circulation, most notably by concluding that extraneous metal was not to blame for failure to locate the bullet. Perplexed by the peculiar results he had obtained during an examination of Garfield, Bell "...proceeded to the Executive Mansion the next morning...to ascertain from the surgeons whether they were perfectly sure that all metal had been removed from the neighborhood of the bed. It was then recollected that underneath the horse-hair mattress on which the President lay was another mattress composed of steel wires. Upon obtaining a duplicate, the mattress was found to consist of a sort of net of woven steel wires, with large meshes. The extent of the that produced a response from the detector having been so small, as compared with the area of the bed, it seemed reasonable to conclude that the steel mattress had produced no detrimental effect." In a footnote, Bell adds that "The death of President Garfield and the subsequent post-mortem examination, however, proved that the bullet was at too great a distance from the surface to have affected our apparatus." Bell, A. 1882. "Upon the electrical experiments to determine the location of the bullet in the body of the late President Garfield; and upon a successful form of induction balance for the painless detection of metallic masses in the human body." (Available at archive.org). Private printing of "A paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Montreal meeting, August 1882." See page 33. Retrieved 29 April 2013. 

===Hydrofoils===

Bell HD-4 on a test run ca. 1919

The March 1906 Scientific American article by American pioneer William E. Meacham explained the basic principle of hydrofoils and hydroplanes. Bell considered the invention of the hydroplane as a very significant achievement. Based on information gained from that article he began to sketch concepts of what is now called a hydrofoil boat. Bell and assistant Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin began hydrofoil experimentation in the summer of 1908 as a possible aid to airplane takeoff from water. Baldwin studied the work of the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini and began testing models. This led him and Bell to the development of practical hydrofoil watercraft.

During his world tour of 1910–11, Bell and Baldwin met with Forlanini in France. They had rides in the Forlanini hydrofoil boat over Lake Maggiore. Baldwin described it as being as smooth as flying. On returning to Baddeck, a number of initial concepts were built as experimental models, including the Dhonnas Beag, the first self-propelled Bell-Baldwin hydrofoil. Boileau 2004, p. 18. The experimental boats were essentially proof-of-concept prototypes that culminated in the more substantial HD-4, powered by Renault engines. A top speed of 54 mph was achieved, with the hydrofoil exhibiting rapid acceleration, good stability and steering along with the ability to take waves without difficulty. Boileau 2004, pp. 28–30. In 1913, Dr. Bell hired Walter Pinaud, a Sydney yacht designer and builder as well as the proprietor of Pinaud's Yacht Yard in Westmount, Nova Scotia to work on the pontoons of the HD-4. Pinaud soon took over the boatyard at Bell Laboratories on Beinn Bhreagh, Bell's estate near Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Pinaud's experience in boat-building enabled him to make useful design changes to the HD-4. After the First World War, work began again on the HD-4. Bell's report to the U.S. Navy permitted him to obtain two 350 hp engines in July 1919. On September 9, 1919, the HD-4 set a world marine speed record of 70.86 mph, Boileau 2004, p. 30. a record which stood for ten years.

===Aeronautics===

AEA Silver Dart ca. 1909

In 1891, Bell had begun experiments to develop motor-powered heavier-than-air aircraft. The AEA was first formed as Bell shared the vision to fly with his wife, who advised him to seek "young" help as Alexander was at the graceful age of 60.

In 1898, Bell experimented with tetrahedral box kites and wings constructed of multiple compound tetrahedral kites covered in maroon silk. The tetrahedral wings were named Cygnet I, II and III, and were flown both unmanned and manned (Cygnet I crashed during a flight carrying Selfridge) in the period from 1907–1912. Some of Bell's kites are on display at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. "Nova Scotia's Electric Scrapbook." ns1763.ca. Retrieved: December 29, 2009. 

Bell was a supporter of aerospace engineering research through the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), officially formed at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in October 1907 at the suggestion of his wife Mabel and with her financial support after the sale of some of her real estate. Gillis, Rannie. "Mabel Bell Was A Focal Figure In The First Flight of the Silver Dart." Cape Breton Post, September 29, 2008. Retrieved from "First Airplane Flight In Canada." ns1763.ca, April 2, 2010. Retrieved: June 12, 2010. The AEA was headed by Bell and the founding members were four young men: American Glenn H. Curtiss, a motorcycle manufacturer at the time and who held the title "world's fastest man", having ridden his self-constructed motor bicycle around in the shortest time, and who was later awarded the Scientific American Trophy for the first official one-kilometre flight in the Western hemisphere, and who later became a world-renowned airplane manufacturer; Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, an official observer from the U.S. Federal government and the only person in the army who believed aviation was the future; Frederick W. Baldwin, the first Canadian and first British subject to pilot a public flight in Hammondsport, New York, and J.A.D. McCurdy —Baldwin and McCurdy being new engineering graduates from the University of Toronto. 

The AEA's work progressed to heavier-than-air machines, applying their knowledge of kites to gliders. Moving to Hammondsport, the group then designed and built the Red Wing, framed in bamboo and covered in red silk and powered by a small air-cooled engine. Phillips 1977, p. 95. On March 12, 1908, over Keuka Lake, the biplane lifted off on the first public flight in North America. The innovations that were incorporated into this design included a cockpit enclosure and tail rudder (later variations on the original design would add ailerons as a means of control). One of the AEA's inventions, a practical wingtip form of the aileron, was to become a standard component on all aircraft. The White Wing and June Bug were to follow and by the end of 1908, over 150 flights without mishap had been accomplished. However, the AEA had depleted its initial reserves and only a $15,000 grant from Mrs. Bell allowed it to continue with experiments. Phillips 1977, p. 96. 

Their final aircraft design, the Silver Dart embodied all of the advancements found in the earlier machines. On February 23, 1909, Bell was present as the Silver Dart flown by J.A.D. McCurdy from the frozen ice of Bras d'Or, made the first aircraft flight in Canada. Bell had worried that the flight was too dangerous and had arranged for a doctor to be on hand. With the successful flight, the AEA disbanded and the Silver Dart would revert to Baldwin and McCurdy who began the Canadian Aerodrome Company and would later demonstrate the aircraft to the Canadian Army. Phillips 1977, pp. 96–97. 

==Eugenics==

Bell was connected with the eugenics movement in the United States. In his lecture Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race presented to the National Academy of Sciences on November 13, 1883 he noted that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf children and tentatively suggested that couples where both parties were deaf should not marry. Bell, Alexander Graham. "Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race." Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, 1883. However, it was his hobby of livestock breeding which led to his appointment to biologist David Starr Jordan's Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the American Breeders Association. The committee unequivocally extended the principle to man. Bruce 1990, pp. 410–417. From 1912 until 1918 he was the chairman of the board of scientific advisers to the Eugenics Record Office associated with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, and regularly attended meetings. In 1921, he was the honorary president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics held under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Organisations such as these advocated passing laws (with success in some states) that established the compulsory sterilization of people deemed to be, as Bell called them, a "defective variety of the human race". By the late 1930s, about half the states in the U.S. had eugenics laws, and California's compulsory sterilization law was used as a model for that of Nazi Germany. Lusane 2003, p. 124. 

==Legacy and honors==

Bell statue by A.E. Cleeve Horne, similar in style to the Lincoln Memorial, in the front portico of the Bell Telephone Building of Brantford, Ontario, The Telephone City. (Courtesy: Brantford Heritage Inventory, City of Brantford, Ontario, Canada)

Honors and tributes flowed to Bell in increasing numbers as his most famous invention became ubiquitous and his personal fame grew. Bell received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, to the point that the requests almost became burdensome. "Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers." Library of Congress. During his life he also received dozens of major awards, medals and other tributes. These included statuary monuments to both him and the new form of communication his telephone created, notably the Bell Telephone Memorial erected in his honor in Alexander Graham Bell Gardens in Brantford, Ontario, in 1917. Osborne, Harold S. "Biographical Memoir of Alexander Gramam Bell." National Academy of Sciences: Biographical Memoirs, Vol. XXIII, 1847–1922, presented to the Academy at its 1943 annual meeting. 

A large number of Bell's writings, personal correspondence, notebooks, papers and other documents "Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers: Home." Memory.loc.gov. Retrieved: February 14, 2012. reside at both the United States Library of Congress Manuscript Division (as the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers), and at the Alexander Graham Bell Institute, Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia; major portions of which are available for online viewing.

A number of historic sites and other marks commemorate Bell in North America and Europe, including the first telephone companies of the United States and Canada. Among the major sites are:
* The Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, maintained by Parks Canada, which incorporates the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, close to the Bell estate Beinn Bhreagh "Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site." Parks Canada. Retrieved: February 14, 2012. 
* The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, includes the Bell family home, "Melville House", and farm overlooking Brantford, Ontario and the Grand River. It was their first home in North America;
* Canada's first telephone company building, the "Henderson Home" of the late 1870s, a predecessor of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (officially chartered in 1880). In 1969 the building was carefully moved to the historic Bell Homestead National Historic Site in Brantford, Ontario and was refurbished to become a telephone museum. The Bell Homestead, the Henderson Home telephone museum, and the National Historic Site's reception centre are all maintained by the Bell Homestead Society; "Bell Homestead", Bell Homestead Society. Retrieved: February 14, 2012. 
* The Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Park, which features a broad neoclassical monument built in 1917 by public subscription. The monument graphically depicts mankind's ability to span the globe through telecommunications; "Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Park." maps.google.com. Retrieved: February 14, 2012. 
* The Alexander Graham Bell Museum (opened in 1956), part of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site which was completed in 1978 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Many of the museum's artifacts were donated by Bell's daughters;The Bell Museum, Cape Breton, part of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site.

In 1880, Bell received the Volta Prize with a purse of 50,000 francs (approximately US$ in today's dollars) for the invention of the telephone from the Académie française, representing the French government. Among the luminaries who judged were Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. The Volta Prize was conceived by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801, and named in honor of Alessandro Volta, with Bell receiving the third grand prize in its history. Crosland, Maurice P. "Science Under Control: The French Academy of Sciences, 1795–1914". Cambridge University Press, 1992. As cited by James Love in "KEI Issues Report on Selected Innovation Prizes and Reward Programs: The Volta Prize For Electricity." Knowledge Ecology International, March 20, 2008, p. 16. Retrieved: January 5, 2010. Davis. John L. "Artisans and savants: The Role of the Academy of Sciences in the Process of Electrical Innovation in France, 1850–1880." Annals of Science, Volume 55, Issue 3, July 1998, p. 301. Retrieved from InformaWorld.com, January 5, 2010. "Honors to Professor Bell." Boston Daily Evening Traveller, September 1, 1880, Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. Retrieved: April 5, 2009. "Volta Prize of the French Academy Awarded to Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, September 1, 1880." Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. Retrieved: April 5, 2009. "Telegram from Grossman to Alexander Graham Bell, August 2, 1880." Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. Retrieved: April 5, 2009. "Telegram from Alexander Graham Bell to Count du Moncel, 1880." Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. Retrieved: April 5, 2009. "Letter from Frederick T. Frelinghuysen to Alexander Graham Bell, January 7, 1882." Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. Retrieved: April 5, 2009. Since Bell was becoming increasingly affluent, he used his prize money to create endowment funds (the 'Volta Fund') and institutions in and around the United States capital of Washington, D.C.. These included the prestigious 'Volta Laboratory Association' (1880), also known as the Volta Laboratory and as the 'Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory', and which eventually led to the Volta Bureau (1887) as a center for studies on deafness which is still in operation in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The Volta Laboratory became an experimental facility devoted to scientific discovery, and the very next year it improved Edison's phonograph by substituting wax for tinfoil as the recording medium and incising the recording rather than indenting it, key upgrades that Edison himself later adopted. "Letter from Mabel Hubbard Bell, February 27, 1880." Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. Retrieved: April 5, 2009. Note (N.B.): The last line of the typed note refers to the future disposition of award funds: "... and thus the matter lay till the paper turned up. He intends putting the full amount into his Laboratory and Library". The laboratory was also the site where he and his associate invented his "proudest achievement", "the photophone", the "optical telephone" which presaged fibre optical telecommunications, while the Volta Bureau would later evolve into the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (the AG Bell), a leading center for the research and pedagogy of deafness.

In partnership with Gardiner Hubbard, Bell helped establish the publication Science during the early 1880s. In 1888, Bell was one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society and became its second president (1897–1904), and also became a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution (1898–1922). The French government conferred on him the decoration of the Légion d'honneur (Legion of Honor); the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert Medal in 1902; the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, granted him a PhD, and he was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1912. He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884, and served as its president from 1891–92. Bell was later awarded the AIEE's Edison Medal in 1914 "For meritorious achievement in the invention of the telephone". "Alexander Graham Bell." IEEE Global History Network. Retrieved: August 8, 2011. 

The bel (B) and the smaller decibel (dB) are units of measurement of sound intensity invented by Bell Labs and named after him. "Decibel." sfu.ca. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. "Definition: 'bel'." freedictionary.com, American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language by Houghton Mifflin Company, Fourth Edition, 2000. Retrieved: September 2, 2009. Since 1976 the IEEE's Alexander Graham Bell Medal has been awarded to honor outstanding contributions in the field of telecommunications.
~ A.G. Bell issue of 1940 ~

In 1936 the US Patent Office declared Bell first on its list of the country's greatest inventors, Beauchamp, Christopher. Who Invented the Telephone?: Lawyers, Patents, and the Judgments of History, Technology and Culture, Vol. 51, No. 4, October 2010, p. 878 (of pp. 854–878), . leading to the US Post Office issuing a commemorative stamp honoring Bell in 1940 as part of its 'Famous Americans Series'. The First Day of Issue ceremony was held on October 28 in Boston, Massachusetts, the city where Bell spent considerable time on research and working with the deaf. The Bell stamp became very popular and sold out in little time. The stamp became, and remains to this day, the most valuable one of the series. Scott's United States Stamp catalogue. 

The 150th anniversary of Bell's birth in 1997 was marked by a special issue of commemorative £1 banknotes from the Royal Bank of Scotland. The illustrations on the reverse of the note include Bell's face in profile, his signature, and objects from Bell's life and career: users of the telephone over the ages; an audio wave signal; a diagram of a telephone receiver; geometric shapes from engineering structures; representations of sign language and the phonetic alphabet; the geese which helped him to understand flight; and the sheep which he studied to understand genetics. "Royal Bank Commemorative Notes." Rampant Scotland. Retrieved: October 14, 2008. Additionally, the Government of Canada honored Bell in 1997 with a C$100 gold coin, in tribute also to the 150th anniversary of his birth, and with a silver dollar coin in 2009 to honor of the 100th anniversary of flight in Canada. That first flight was made by an airplane designed under Dr. Bell's tutelage, named the Silver Dart. "100th Anniversary of Flight in Canada." Royal Canadian Mint. Retrieved: June 12, 2010. Bell's image, and also those of his many inventions have graced paper money, coinage and postal stamps in numerous countries worldwide for many dozens of years.

Alexander Graham Bell was ranked 57th among the 100 Greatest Britons (2002) in an official BBC nationwide poll, and among the Top Ten Greatest Canadians (2004), and the 100 Greatest Americans (2005). "100 great British heroes." BBC News World Edition, August 21, 2002. Retrieved: April 5, 2010. "Beatlelinks: The Greatest Britons of All Times." news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved: December 29, 2009. In 2006 Bell was also named as one of the 10 greatest Scottish scientists in history after having been listed in the National Library of Scotland's 'Scottish Science Hall of Fame'. Bell's name is still widely known and used as part of the names of dozens of educational institutes, corporate namesakes, street and place names around the world.

Bell, an alumnus of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (LL.D.) at the university in 1906.

===Honorary degrees===
Alexander Graham Bell, who could not complete the university program of his youth, received numerous Honorary Degrees from academic institutions, including:
*Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C. (PhD) in 1880 "Honorary Degree Recipients." Provost.gallaudet.edu. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. 
*Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (LL.D) in 1896
*University of Würzburg in Würzburg, Bavaria (PhD) in 1902
*University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland (LL.D) in April 1906 "Overview, Graduations, Registry." Registry.ed.ac.uk, July 12, 2010. Retrieved: July 28, 2010. 
*Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 1909
*Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire (LL.D) on June 25, 1913 "Dartmouth graduates." The New York Times. Retrieved: July 30, 2009. 

==Death==
Bell died of complications arising from diabetes on August 2, 1922, at his private estate, Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, at age 75. Gray 2006, p. 419. Bell had also been afflicted with pernicious anemia. Gray 2006, p. 418. His last view of the land he had inhabited was by moonlight on his mountain estate at 2:00 A.M. Bethune, 2009, p. 119. While tending to him after his long illness, Mabel, his wife, whispered, "Don't leave me." By way of reply, Bell traced the sign for "no" in the air —and then he died. "Obituary: Dr. Bell, Inventor of Telephone, Dies: Sudden End, Due to Anemia, Comes in Seventy-Sixth Year at His Nova Scotia Home: Notables Pay Him Tribute." The New York Times, August 3, 1922. Retrieved: March 3, 2009. Bruce 1990, p. 491. 

On learning of Bell's death, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, cabled Mrs. Bell, saying:
Government expresses to you our sense of the world's loss in the death of your distinguished husband. It will ever be a source of pride to our country that the great invention, with which his name is immortally associated, is a part of its history. On the behalf of the citizens of Canada, may I extend to you an expression of our combined gratitude and sympathy. 

Bell's coffin was constructed of Beinn Bhreagh pine by his laboratory staff, lined with the same red silk fabric used in his tetrahedral kite experiments. To help celebrate his life, his wife asked guests not to wear black (the traditional funeral color) while attending his service, during which soloist Jean MacDonald sang a verse of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem": Bethune 2009, pp. 119–120. 
Under a wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I lay me down with a will.

Upon the conclusion of Bell's funeral, "every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in honor of the man who had given to mankind the means for direct communication at a distance". Osborne, Harold S. "Biographical Memoir of Alexander Graham Bell, 1847–1922." National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Bibliographical Memoirs, Volume XXIII, First Memoir. Annual Meeting presentation, 1943, pp. 18–19. 

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell was buried atop Beinn Bhreagh mountain, on his estate where he had resided increasingly for the last 35 years of his life, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. He was survived by his wife Mabel, his two daughters, Elsie May and Marian, and nine of his grandchildren. "Dr. Bell, Inventor of Telephone, Dies." The New York Times, August 3, 1922. Retrieved: July 21, 2007. Quote: Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, died at 2 o'clock this morning at Beinn Breagh, his estate near Baddeck. "Descendants of Alexander Melville Bell - Three Generations". Bell Telephone Company of Canada Historical Collection and Company Library (undated), from the Brant Historical Society, June 2012. 

==Quotations==

* “In scientific researches, there are no unsuccessful experiments; every experiment contains a lesson. If we don’t get the results anticipated and stop right there, it is the man that is unsuccessful, not the experiment.” 
Bell, Alexander Graham, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, 1921–1930 (Volume XV), University of Toronto and Université Laval, 2000. Retrieved March 1, 2013. 
* “We are all too much inclined, I think, to walk through life with our eyes closed... We should not keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone; we should leave the beaten track occasionally and enter the woods. Every time you do that you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before.... Follow it up, explore all around it; one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind, for all really big discoveries are the results of thought.” 
* “God has strewn our paths with wonders, and we shall certainly not go through Life with our eyes shut.” (1872) 
* “To ask the value of speech is like asking the value of life.” Through Deaf Eyes: Signing, Alexander Graham Bell and the NAD, PBS.org website. 
* “The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.” (1891) 
* “I have always considered myself as an Agnostic, but I have now discovered that I am a Unitarian Agnostic.” (1901) 
* "The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking" (c.1906) Far-Off Speakers Seen As Well As Heard Here In A Test Of Television, New York Times, April 8, 1927, pg.20. 
* “will not be long until a man can take dinner in New York and breakfast the next morning in Liverpool” (1907). “The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately rule the world” (1908). 
* “Every town or city has a vast expanse of roof exposed to the sun. There is no reason why we should not use the roofs of our houses to install solar apparatus to catch and store the heat received from the sun. Solar heat be used.... to heat a liquid and store the liquid in an insulated tank... applying even the Thermos bottle principle of a partial vacuum around the tank.” (1914) Grosvenor and Wesson 1997, p. 269. 
* “Coal and oil are......strictly limited in quantity. We can take coal out of a mine but we can never put it back.” “What shall we do when we have no more coal or oil?” Grosvenor and Wesson 1997, p. 274. “unchecked burning of fossil fuels would have a sort of greenhouse effect.” “The net result is the greenhouse becomes a sort of hot-house.”(1917). 
* “Self-education is a lifelong affair. There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.” Grosvenor and Wesson 1997, p. 275. 

==See also==

*Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
*Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site
*Bell Boatyard
*Bell Homestead National Historic Site
*Bell Telephone Memorial
*Berliner, Emile
*Bourseul, Charles
*Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell
*IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal
*Manzetti, Innocenzo
*Meucci, Antonio
*Oriental Telephone Company
*Reis, Philipp
*Pioneers, a Volunteer Network
*The Telephone Cases
*Volta Laboratory and Bureau

==References==

===Notes===

===Citations===

===Bibliography===

* Alexander Graham Bell (booklet). Halifax, Nova Scotia: Maritime Telegraph & Telephone Limited, 1979.
* Ayers, William C., Therese Quinn and David Stovall, eds. The Handbook of Social Justice in Education. London: Routledge, 2009. ISBN 978-0-80585-928-7.
* , also published as: 
* Bell, Alexander Graham. The Question of Sign-Language and The Utility of Signs in the Instruction of the Deaf—Two papers. Washington, D.C.: Sanders Printing Office, 1898.
* Bethune, Jocelyn. Historic Baddeck (Images of our Past series). Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Nimbus Publishing, 2009. ISBN 978-1-55109-706-0.
* Bruce, Robert V. Bell: Alexander Bell and the Conquest of Solitude. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8014-9691-8.
* Black, Harry. Canadian Scientists and Inventors: Biographies of People who made a Difference. Markham, Ontario, Canada: Pembroke Publishers Limited, 1997. ISBN 1-55138-081-1.
* Boileau, John. Fastest in the World: The Saga of Canada's Revolutionary Hydrofoils. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Formac Publishing Company Limited, 2004. ISBN 0-88780-621-X.
* Dunn, Andrew. Alexander Graham Bell (Pioneers of Science series). East Sussex, UK: Wayland (Publishers) Limited, 1990. ISBN 1-85210-958-0.
* Eber, Dorothy Harley. Genius at Work: Images of Alexander Graham Bell. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: McClelland and Stewart, 1982. ISBN 0-7710-3036-3.
* Evenson, A. Edward. The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray — Alexander Bell Controversy. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-7864-0138-9.
* Gray, Charlotte. Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-55970-809-3.
* Grosvenor, Edwin S. and Morgan Wesson. Alexander Graham Bell: The Life and Times of the Man Who Invented the Telephone. New York: Harry N. Abrahms, Inc., 1997. ISBN 0-8109-4005-1.
* Groundwater, Jennifer. Alexander Graham Bell: The Spirit of Invention. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Altitude Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-55439-006-0.
* Lusane, Clarence. Hitler's Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era. Hove, East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-415932-950.
* Mackay, James. Sounds Out of Silence: A life of Alexander Graham Bell. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company, 1997. ISBN 1-85158-833-7.
* MacKenzie, Catherine. Alexander Graham Bell. Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7661-4385-2.
* MacLeod, Elizabeth. Alexander Graham Bell: An Inventive Life. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Kids Can Press, 1999. ISBN 1-55074-456-9.
* Matthews, Tom L. Always Inventing: A Photobiography of Alexander Graham Bell. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1999. ISBN 0-7922-7391-5.
* Micklos, John Jr. Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the Telephone. New York: Harper Collins Publishers Ltd., 2006. ISBN 978-0-06-057618-9.
* Miller, Don and Jan Branson. Damned For Their Difference: The Cultural Construction Of Deaf People as Disabled: A Sociological History. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-1-56368-121-9.
* Mims III, Forest M. "The First Century of Lightwave Communications." Fiber Optics Weekly Update(Information Gatekeepers), February 10–26, 1982, pp. 6–23.
* Mullett, Mary B. The Story of A Famous Inventor. New York: Rogers and Fowle, 1921.
* Parker, Steve. Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone(Science Discoveries series). New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1995. ISBN 0-7910-3004-0.
* Petrie, A. Roy. Alexander Graham Bell. Don Mills, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 1975. ISBN 0-88902-209-7.
* Phillips, Allan. Into the 20th Century: 1900/1910 (Canada's Illustrated Heritage). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Natural Science of Canada Limited, 1977. ISBN 0-919644-22-8.
* Ross, Stewart. Alexander Graham Bell (Scientists who Made History series). New York: Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0-7398-4415-6.
* Shulman, Seth. The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Bell's Secret. New York: Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-06206-9.
* Toward, Lilias M. Mabel Bell: Alexander's Silent Partner. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Methuen, 1984. ISBN 0-458-98090-0, ISBN 978-0-458-98090-1.
* Town, Florida. Alexander Graham Bell. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Grolier Limited, 1988. ISBN 0-7172-1950-X.
* Tulloch, Judith. The Bell Family in Baddeck: Alexander Graham Bell and Mabel Bell in Cape Breton. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Formac Publishing Company Limited, 2006. ISBN 978-0-88780-713-8.
* Walters, Eric. The Hydrofoil Mystery. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Puffin Books, 1999. ISBN 0-14-130220-8.
* Webb, Michael, ed. Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the Telephone. Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1991. ISBN 0-7730-5049-3.
* Winfield, Richard. Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet, and the Communications Debate. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-913580-99-6.
* Wing, Chris. Alexander Graham Bell at Baddeck. Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada: Christopher King, 1980.
* Winzer, Margret A. The History Of Special Education: From Isolation To Integration. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-1-56368-018-2.

==External links==

* Alexander Graham Bell Institute at Cape Breton University
* Bell Telephone Memorial, Brantford, Ontario
* Bell Homestead National Historic Site, Brantford, Ontario
* Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site of Canada, Baddeck, Nova Scotia
* Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress
* 
* Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
* Science.ca profile: Alexander Graham Bell
* 
* 
* 

===Patents===
U.S. patent images in TIFF format
* Improvement in Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs, filed March 1875, issued April 1875 (multiplexing signals on a single wire)
* Improvement in Telegraphy, filed February 14, 1876, issued March 7, 1876 (Bell's first telephone patent)
* Improvement in Telephonic Telegraph Receivers, filed April 1876, issued June 1876
* Improvement in Generating Electric Currents (using rotating permanent magnets), filed August 1876, issued August 1876
* Electric Telegraphy (permanent magnet receiver), filed January 15, 1877, issued January 30, 1877
* Apparatus for Signalling and Communicating, called Photophone, filed August 1880, issued December 1880
* Aerial Vehicle, filed June 1903, issued April 1904

===Multimedia===
* Alexander Graham Bell at The Biography Channel
* 
* 
* 
* 

 
 

 



[[Anatolia]]

The location of Turkey (within the rectangle) in reference to the European continent. Anatolia roughly corresponds to the Asian part of Turkey.

Anatolia (from Greek , — "east" or "(sun)rise"; in modern ), in geography known as Asia Minor (from — "small Asia"), Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, denotes the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of the Republic of Turkey. "Anatolia comprises more than 95 percent of Turkey's total land area." The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of İskenderun and the Black Sea, approximately corresponding to the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. However, since Anatolia is now often considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, its eastern and southeastern borders are widely taken to be the Turkish borders with the neighboring countries, which are Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, in clockwise direction.

==Definition==
traditional definition of Anatolia within modern Turkey Stephen Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. The Celts in Anatolia and the impact of Roman rule. Clarendon Press, Aug 24, 1995 - 296 pages. ISBN 978-0198150299 [http://books.google.com/books?id=pUYtwuve40kC&dq=anatolia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1OC3T-CDDoGsiAL4q7X-Bg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ ]]
The Anatolian peninsula, also called Asia Minor, is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, and the Sea of Marmara to the northwest, which separates Anatolia from Thrace in Europe.

Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of İskenderun to the Black Sea, coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, as well as the archeological community. Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the East by the Armenian Highland, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria (region) and the Mesopotamian plain. 

However, following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Anatolia was defined by the Turkish government as being effectively co-terminous with Asian Turkey. Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two regions to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line named the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region, Ali Yiğit, "Geçmişten Günümüze Türkiye'yi Bölgelere Ayıran Çalışmalar ve Yapılması Gerekenler", Ankara Üniversitesi Türkiye Coğrafyası Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi, IV. Ulural Coğrafya Sempozyumu, "Avrupa Birliği Sürecindeki Türkiye'de Bölgesel Farklılıklar", pp. 34-35. the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highland, the latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. This wider definition of Anatolia has gained widespread currency outside of Turkey and has, for instance, been adopted by Encyclopædia Britannica and other encyclopedic and general reference publications. 

==Etymology==
The oldest known reference to Anatolia – as “Land of the Hatti” – was found on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of the Akkadian Empire (2350–2150 BC). The first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία (Asía), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Ἀσία, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to other areas east of the Mediterranean, the name for Anatolia was specified as Μικρὰ Ἀσία (Mikrá Asía) or Asia Minor, meaning “Lesser Asia”, in Late Antiquity.

The name Anatolia derives from the Greek () meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, comparable to the Latin derived terms “levant” and “orient”. Online Etymology Dictionary The precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme (Aνατολικόν θέμα) was a theme covering the western and central parts of Turkey’s present-day Central Anatolia Region. “On the First Thema, called Anatolikón. This theme is called Anatolikón or Theme of the Anatolics, not because it is above and in the direction of the east where the sun rises, but because it lies to the East of Byzantium and Europe.” Constantine VII Porphyogenitus, De Thematibus, ed. A. Pertusi. Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1952, pp. 59–61. John Haldon, Byzantium, a History, 2002. Page 32 The modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή (Anatolḗ). The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin.

In English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. 1369. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia (meaning “Land of the Turks”, Turkish Türkiye), which was originally used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert.

==History==

===Prehistory and antiquity===
Mural of aurochs, a deer, and humans in Çatalhöyük, which is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012. 

Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic. Neolithic Anatolia has been also proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Indo-European Anatolian languages had been present in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC.

Eastern Anatolia contains the oldest monumental structures in the world. For example, the monumental structures at Göbekli Tepe were built by hunters and gatherers a thousand years before the development of agriculture. Eastern Anatolia, alongside Mesopotamia and the Levant, is a heart region for the Neolithic Revolution, one of the earliest areas in which humans domesticated plants and animals. Neolithic sites such as Çatalhöyük, Çayönü, Nevalı Çori and Hacilar represent the world's oldest known agricultural towns.

The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamia-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC. Scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The Hattians spoke a language of unclear affiliation, and the Hurrian language belongs to a small family called Hurro-Urartian, all these languages now being extinct; relationships with indigenous languages of the Caucasus have been proposed Bryce 2005:12 but are not generally accepted. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian- and Hurrian-populated southeast Anatolia were colonised by the Akkadians. 

The Lion Gate at Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire. The city's history dates to before 2000 BC.
After the fall of the Akkadian empire in the mid-21st century BC, the Assyrians, who were the northern branch of the Akkadian people, colonised parts of the region between the 21st and mid-18th centuries BC and claimed the resources, notably silver. One of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. 

Unlike the Semitic Akkadians and their descendants, the Assyrians, whose Anatolian possessions were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia, the Hittites were centred at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia by 2000 BC. They were speakers of an Indo-European language known as the "language of Nesa". Originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations.

The Hittites adopted the cuneiform written script, invented in Mesopotamia. During the Late Bronze Age circa 2000 BC, they created an empire, the Hittite New Kingdom, which reached its height in the 14th century BC, controlling much of Asia Minor. The empire included a large part of Anatolia, northwestern Syria and northwest upper Mesopotamia. They failed to reach the Anatolian coasts of the Black Sea, however, as another non-Indo-European people, the Kaskians, had established a kingdom there in the 17th century BC, displacing earlier Palaic speaking Indo-Europeans. Carruba, O. Das Palaische. Texte, Grammatik, Lexikon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970. StBoT 10 Much of the history of the Hittite Empire was concerned with warring with the rival empires of Egypt, Assyria and the Mitanni. Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq 

Lycian rock cut tombs of Kaunos (Dalyan)
The Mitanni Empire was also an Indo-European (and Hurrian)-speaking and Anatolian-based empire. The Mitanni appeared in the 17th century BC and spoke an Indo-Aryan language related to the Indo-European languages eventually to be found in India. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 229. Penguin Books, 1966. 

The Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The Assyrians and Hittites were then left in the field to battle over control over eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria. The Assyrians had better success than the Egyptians, annexing much Hittite (and Hurrian) territories in these regions. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books, 1966. 

After 1180 BC, the Hittite empire disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" states, subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians, another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from the Balkans. The Phrygian expansion into southeast Anatolia was eventually halted by the Assyrians, who controlled that region. 

Ancient regions of Anatolia (500 BC)
Ancient Anatolia is subdivided by modern scholars into regions named after the Indo-European (and largely Hittite, Luwian or Greek speaking) peoples that occupied them, such as Lydia, Lycia, Caria, Mysia, Bithynia, Phrygia, Galatia, Lycaonia, Pisidia, Paphlagonia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia.

Semitic Arameans encroached over the borders of south central Anatolia in the century or so after the fall of the Hittite empire, and some of the Neo-Hittite states in this region became an amalgam of Hittites and Arameans. These became known as Syro-Hittite states.

In central and western Anatolia, another Indo-European people, the Luwians, came to the fore, circa 2000 BC. Their language was closely related to Hittite. Melchert 2003 The general consensus amongst scholars is that Luwian was spoken—to a greater or lesser degree—across a large area of western Anatolia, including (possibly) Wilusa (Troy), the Seha River Land (to be identified with the Hermos and/or Kaikos valley), and the kingdom of Mira-Kuwaliya with its core territory of the Maeander valley. Watkins 1994; id. 1995:144–51; Starke 1997; Melchert 2003; for the geography Hawkins 1998 From the 9th century BC, Luwian regions coalesced into a number of states such as Lydia, Caria and Lycia, all of which had Hellenic influence.

The north western coasts of Anatolia were inhabited by Greeks of the Achaean/Mycenaean culture from the 20th century BC, related to the Greeks of south eastern Europe and the Aegean. Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times 

The temple of Athena (funded by Alexander the Great) in the Greek city of Priene
Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian Greeks, usurping the area of the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks. Over several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were established on the coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia (Pre-Socratic philosophy). 

Hurrian kingdoms, such as Nairi and the powerful state of Urartu arose in northeastern Anatolia from the 10th century BC, before eventually falling to the Assyrians. During the same period the Georgian states of Colchis and Tabal arose around the Black Sea and central Anatolia respectively.

From the late 8th century BC, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians. The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the Scythians threatened to do the same to Urartu and Lydia, before both were finally checked by the Assyrians.

From the 10th to late 7th centuries BC, much of Anatolia (particularly the east, central, southwestern and southeastern regions) fell to the Neo Assyrian Empire, including all of the Neo-Hittite and Syro-Hittite states, Phrygia, Urartu, Nairi, Tabal, Cilicia, Commagene, Caria, Lydia, the Cimmerians and Scythians and swathes of Cappadocia.

The Assyrian empire collapsed due to a bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes, Persians, Scythians and their own Babylonian relations. The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in southeast Anatolia. This city was the birthplace of the last king of Babylon, the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar. Much of the region then fell to the short-lived Iran-based Median Empire, with the Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory.

The Dying Gaul c. 230 BC, a Roman copy of a Greek statue commemorating the victory over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia
Anatolia is known as the birthplace of minted coinage (as opposed to unminted coinage, which first appears in Mesopotamia at a much earlier date) as a medium of exchange, some time in the 7th century BC in Lydia. The use of minted coins continued to flourish during the Greek and Roman eras. Asia Minor Coins - an index of Greek and Roman coins from Asia Minor (ancient Anatolia) 

During the 6th century BC, most of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty in Iran. Also in the 6th century BC, the Indo-European Armenians founded the Orontid Dynasty in Urartu. In 499 BC, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule. The Ionian Revolt, as it became known, initiated the Greco-Persian Wars, which ended in a Greek victory in 449 BC, and the Ionian cities regained their independence.

In 334 BC, the Macedonian Greek king Alexander the Great conquered the peninsula. Alexander's conquest opened up the interior of Asia Minor to Greek settlement and influence. Following the death of Alexander and the breakup of his empire, Anatolia was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Attalids of Pergamum and the Seleucids, the latter controlling most of Anatolia. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BC. In 133 BC the last Attalid king bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman Republic, and western and central Anatolia came under Roman control, but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. During the 1st century BC the Armenians established the powerful Armenian kingdom under Tigran who reigned throughout much of eastern Anatolia between the Caspian, Black, and Mediterranean seas. Areas of the southeast such as Harran and the Hakkari mountains continued to be inhabited by remnants of the Assyrians, but these regions remained under Parthian and then Sassanid Persian rule.

===Medieval and Renaissance periods===
Byzantine Anatolia and the Byzantine-Arab frontier zone in the mid-9th century
Beyliks and other states around Anatolia, c. 1300.

After the division of the Roman Empire, Anatolia became part of the East Roman, or Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was one of the first places where Christianity spread, so that by the 4th century AD, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. For the next 600 years, while Imperial possessions in Europe were subjected to barbarian invasions, Anatolia would be the center of the Hellenic world. Byzantine control was challenged by Arab raids starting in the 8th century (see Byzantine–Arab Wars), but in the 9th and 10th century a resurgent Byzantine Empire regained its lost territories and even expanded beyond its traditional borders, into Armenia and Syria (ancient Aram). In the 10 years following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia established themselves over large areas of Anatolia, with particular concentrations around the north western rim. The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking (although some ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians remained numerous and retained Christianity and their native languages). In the following century, the Byzantines managed to reassert their control in western and northern Anatolia. Control of Anatolia was then split between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, with the Byzantine holdings gradually being reduced. In 1255, the Mongols swept through eastern and central Anatolia, and would remain until 1335. The Ilkhanate garrison was stationed near Ankara. H. M. Balyuzi Muḥammad and the course of Islám, p.342 John Freely Storm on Horseback: The Seljuk Warriors of Turkey, p.83 

By the end of the 14th century, most of Anatolia was controlled by various Anatolian beyliks. Smyrna fell in 1330, and the last Byzantine stronghold in Anatolia, Philadelphia, fell in 1390. The Turkmen Beyliks were under the control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk Sultans. Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Gary Leiser-The origins of the Ottoman empire, p.33 Peter Partner God of battles: holy wars of Christianity and Islam, p.122 The Beyliks did not mint coins in the names of their own leaders while they remained under the suzerainty of the Mongol Ilkhanids. Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, p.13 The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s, for it bears the legend "Minted by Osman son of Ertugul". Artuk - Osmanli Beyliginin Kurucusu, 27f Since the minting of coins was a prerogative accorded in Islamic practice only to a sovereign, it can be considered that Osmanli became formally independent from the Mongol Khans. Pamuk - A Monetary History, p.30-31 

After the decline of the Ilkhanate from 1335–1353, the Mongol Empire's legacy in the region was the Uyghur Eretna Dynasty that was overthrown by Kadi Burhan al-Din in 1381. Clifford Edmund Bosworth-The new Islamic dynasties: a chronological and genealogical manual, p.234 Among the Turkmen leaders the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman and his son Orhan I. The Anatolian beyliks were in turn absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. The Ottomans completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1517 with the taking of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum) from the Knights of Saint John.

===Modern times===
Ethnographic map of Anatolia from 1911.

With the beginning of the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of the expansionist policies of Czarist Russia in the Caucasus, many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians, Tatars, Azeris, Lezgis, Chechens and several Turkic groups left their ancestral homelands and settled in Anatolia. As the Ottoman Empire further shrank in the Balkan regions and then fragmented during the Balkan Wars, much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly Balkan Muslims (Bosnians, Albanians, Turks, Muslim Bulgarians and Greek Muslims such as the Vallahades from Greek Macedonia, Bulgaria, Northern Macedonia), were resettled in various parts of Anatolia, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia. Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, 1996, ISBN 0-87850-094-4 

A continuous reverse migration occurred since the early 19th century, when Greeks from Anatolia, Constantinopole and Pontus area migrated toward the newly independent Kingdom of Greece, and also towards the United States, southern part of the Russian Empire, Latin America and rest of Europe. Following the Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) and the incorporation of the Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire, another reverse migration involved the large Armenian population of Anatolia, which recorded significant migration rates from Western Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) toward the Russian Empire, especially toward the newly established Armenian provinces of the empire.

Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until the early 20th century (see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire). During World War I, the Armenian Genocide, the Greek genocide (especially in Pontus), and the Assyrian Genocide almost entirely removed the ancient indigenous communities of Armenian and Assyrian populations in Anatolia, as well as a large part of its ethnic Greek population. Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, all remaining ethnic Anatolian Greeks were forced out during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Anatolia has become Turkey, its inhabitants being mainly Turks and Kurds (see demographics of Turkey and history of Turkey).

==Geography==

===Geology===

Anatolia's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs, covered by recent deposits and giving the appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowland is confined to a few narrow coastal strips along the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Black Sea coasts. Flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River, the coastal plains of Çukurova and the valley floors of the Gediz River and the Büyük Menderes River as well as some interior high plains in Anatolia, mainly around Lake Tuz (Salt Lake) and the Konya Basin (Konya Ovasi).

===Climate===

image:Klima_ankara.png|Ankara (central Anatolia)
image:Klima_antalya.png|Antalya (southern Anatolia)
image:Klima_van.png|Van (eastern Anatolia)

Anatolia has a varied range of climates. The central plateau is characterized by a continental climate, with hot summers and cold snowy winters. The south and west coasts enjoy a typical Mediterranean climate, with mild rainy winters, and warm dry summers. The Black Sea and Marmara coasts have temperate oceanic climate, with cool foggy summers and much rainfall throughout the year.

===Ecoregions===
There is a diverse number of plant and animal communities.

The mountains and coastal plain of northern Anatolia experiences humid and mild climate. There are temperate broadleaf, mixed and coniferous forests. The central and eastern plateau, with its drier continental climate, has deciduous forests and forest steppes. Western and southern Anatolia, which have a Mediterranean climate, contain Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions.
* Euxine-Colchic deciduous forests: These temperate broadleaf and mixed forests extend across northern Anatolia, lying between the mountains of northern Anatolia and the Black Sea. They include the enclaves of temperate rainforest lying along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea in eastern Turkey and Georgia. 
* Northern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests: These forests occupy the mountains of northern Anatolia, running east and west between the coastal Euxine-Colchic forests and the drier, continental climate forests of central and eastern Anatolia. 
* Central Anatolian deciduous forests: These forests of deciduous oaks and evergreen pines cover the plateau of central Anatolia. 
* Central Anatolian steppe: These dry grasslands cover the drier valleys and surround the saline lakes of central Anatolia, and include halophytic (salt tolerant) plant communities. 
* Eastern Anatolian deciduous forests: This ecoregion occupies the plateau of eastern Anatolia. The drier and more continental climate is beneficial for steppe-forests dominated by deciduous oaks, with areas of shrubland, montane forest, and valley forest. 
* Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests: These forests occupy the western, Mediterranean-climate portion of the Anatolian plateau. Pine forests and mixed pine and oak woodlands and shrublands are predominant. 
* Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests: These Mediterranean-climate forests occupy the coastal lowlands and valleys of western Anatolia bordering the Aegean Sea. The ecoregion has forests of Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), oak forests and woodlands, and maquis shrubland of Turkish pine and evergreen sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, including Olive (Olea europaea), Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo), Arbutus andrachne, Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera), and Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis). 
* Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests: These mountain forests occupy the Mediterranean-climate Taurus Mountains of southern Anatolia. Conifer forests are predominant, chiefly Anatolian black pine (Pinus nigra), Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), Taurus fir (Abies cilicica), and juniper (Juniperus foetidissima and J. excelsa). Broadleaf trees include oaks, hornbeam, and maples. 
* Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests: This ecoregion occupies the coastal strip of southern Anatolia between the Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. Plant communities include broadleaf sclerophyllous maquis shrublands, forests of Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) and Turkish Pine (Pinus brutia), and dry oak (Quercus spp.) woodlands and steppes. 

==Demographics==

Almost 80% of the people currently residing in Anatolia are Turks. Kurds constitute a major community in southeastern Anatolia, and are the largest ethnic minority. Abkhazians, Albanians, Arabs, Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Azerbaijanis, Bosniaks, Circassians, Gagauz, Georgians, Serbs, Greeks, Hemshin, Jews, Laz, Levantines, Pomaks, Zazas and a number of other ethnic groups also live in Anatolia in smaller numbers.

==See also==

==Notes==

==References==

==Bibliography==

* 

 



[[Apple Inc.]]

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, online services, and personal computers. Its best-known hardware products are the Mac line of computers, the iPod media player, the iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its online services include iCloud, iTunes Store, and App Store. Its consumer software includes the OS X and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media browser, the Safari web browser, and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites.

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976, to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977, and was renamed as Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007, to reflect its shifted focus towards consumer electronics.

Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue after Samsung Electronics, and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker after Samsung and Nokia. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. However, the company has received criticism for its contractors' labor practices, as well as for its own environmental and business practices.

As of June 2014, Apple maintains 425 retail stores in fourteen countries, http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/07/23Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html as well as the online Apple Store and iTunes Store, US Apple Store. Retrieved July 8, 2013. the latter of which is the world's largest music retailer. Apple is the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization, with an estimated market capitalization of $446 billion by January, 2014. As of September 29, 2012, the company had 72,800 permanent full-time employees and 3,300 temporary full-time employees worldwide. Its worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totalled $170 billion. As of Q1 2014, Apple's five-year growth average is 39% for top line growth and 45% for bottom line growth. In May 2013, Apple entered the top ten of the Fortune 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position. 

==History==

===1976–80: Founding and incorporation===
The Apple I, Apple's first product, was sold as an assembled circuit board and lacked basic features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case. The owner of this unit added a keyboard and a wooden case.
Apple was established on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple I personal computer kit, a computer single handedly designed by Wozniak. The kits were hand-built by Wozniak "A Chat with Computing Pioneer Steve Wozniak", National Public Radio, September 29, 2006. and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. Wozniak, Stephen. "Homebrew and How the Apple Came to Be", Digital Deli. Retrieved March 2, 2007. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips), which is less than what is today considered a complete personal computer. Kahney, Leander. Rebuilding an Apple From the Past, Wired, November 19, 2002. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66 ($ in dollars, adjusted for inflation). Game Makers (TV Show): Apple II. Originally aired January 6, 2005. Wozniak, Steven. "iWoz", p. 180. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 978-0-393-06143-7 

Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977, Apple Investor Relations FAQ, Apple inc. Retrieved March 2, 2007. without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multi-millionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple. 

During the first five years of operations, revenues doubled every four months, an average growth rate of 700%.

The Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, due to its character cell-based color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II. 

The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world, VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program. Hormby, Thomas. VisiCalc and the rise of the Apple II, Low End Mac, September 22, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users compatibility with the office, an additional reason to buy an Apple II. Apple was a distant third place to Commodore and Tandy until VisiCalc came along. Personal Computer Market Share: 1975–2004 The figures show Mac higher, but that is not a single model. 

By the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The company introduced the Apple III in May 1980 in an attempt to compete with IBM and Microsoft in the business and corporate computing market. Coventry, Joshua. "Apple III Chaos: What Happened When Apple Tried to Enter the Business Market". Low End Mac. September 1, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. 

Jobs and several Apple employees, including Jef Raskin, visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Xerox Alto. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (800,000 split-adjusted shares) of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share. Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface (GUI), and development of a GUI began for the Apple Lisa. 

On December 12, 1980, Apple went public at $22 per share, generating more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956 and instantly creating more millionaires (about 300) than any company in history. Malone, Michale S. Infinite Loop. ISBN 978-1-85410-638-4 

===1981–89: Success with Macintosh===

Apple's "1984" television ad, set in a dystopian future modeled after the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, set the tone for the introduction of the Macintosh.
Apple began working on the Apple Lisa in 1978. In 1982, Jobs was pushed from the Lisa team due to infighting. Jobs took over Jef Raskin's low-cost-computer project, the Macintosh. A race broke out between the Lisa team and the Macintosh team over which product would ship first. Lisa won the race in 1983 and became the first personal computer sold to the public with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price tag and limited software titles. Hormby, Thomas. A history of Apple's Lisa, 1979–1986, Low End Mac, October 6, 2005. Retrieved March 2, 2007. 

The first Macintosh, released in 1984
In 1984, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by the now famous $1.5 million television commercial "1984". It was directed by Ridley Scott and was aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. It is now hailed as a watershed event for Apple's success and a "masterpiece". 

The Macintosh initially sold well, but follow-up sales were not strong Hormby, Thomas. Good-bye Woz and Jobs: How the first Apple era ended in 1985, Low End Mac, October 2, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. due to its high price and limited range of software titles. The Macintosh was the first personal computer to be sold without a programming language at all. Brian Harvey (1994): Is Programing Obsolete?, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, accessed, and archived June 14, 2013 by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6HMvs40Qe 

The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first PostScript laser printer to be sold at a reasonable price, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing package. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market. The Mac was particularly powerful in the desktop publishing market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which had necessarily been built in to create the intuitive Macintosh GUI.

In 1985 a power struggle developed between Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired two years earlier. Hormby, Thomas. Growing Apple with the Macintosh: The Sculley years, Low End Mac, February 22, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. The Apple board of directors instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a coup and called a board meeting at which Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties. Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. the same year. 

The Macintosh Portable was Apple's first "portable" Macintosh computer, released in 1989.
The Macintosh Portable was introduced in 1989 and was designed to be just as powerful as a desktop Macintosh, but weighed a bulky 7.5 kg with a 12-hour battery life. After the Macintosh Portable, Apple introduced the PowerBook in 1991. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the operating system which added color to the interface and introduced new networking capabilities. It remained the architectural basis for Mac OS until 2001.

The success of the PowerBook and other products brought increasing revenue. For some time, Apple was doing incredibly well, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.

Following the success of the Macintosh LC, Apple introduced the Centris line, a low-end Quadra, and the ill-fated Performa line that was sold with an overwhelming number of configurations and software bundles to avoid competing with the various consumer outlets such as Sears, Price Club, and Wal-Mart (the primary dealers for these models). Consumers ended up confused and did not understand the difference between models. 

===1990–99: Decline and restructuring===

During this time Apple experimented with a number of other failed consumer targeted products including digital cameras, portable CD audio players, speakers, video consoles, and TV appliances. Enormous resources were also invested in the problem-plagued Newton division based on John Sculley's unrealistic market forecasts. Ultimately, none of these products helped, as Apple's market share and stock prices continued to slide.

Apple saw the Apple II series as too expensive to produce, while taking away sales from the low-end Macintosh. In 1990, Apple released the Macintosh LC with a single expansion slot for the Apple IIe Card to migrate Apple II users to the Macintosh platform. Apple stopped selling the Apple IIe in 1993.

Microsoft continued to gain market share with Windows focusing on delivering software to cheap commodity personal computers while Apple was delivering a richly engineered, but expensive, experience. Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response. Instead, they sued Microsoft for using a graphical user interface similar to the Apple Lisa in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation. Hormby, Thomas. The Apple vs. Microsoft GUI lawsuit, Low End Mac, August 25, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. The lawsuit dragged on for years before it was finally dismissed. At the same time, a series of major product flops and missed deadlines sullied Apple's reputation, and Sculley was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler. 

The Newton was Apple's first foray into the PDA markets, as well as one of the first in the industry. Despite being a financial flop at the time of its release, it helped pave the way for the Palm Pilot and Apple's own iPhone and iPad in the future.
By the early 1990s, Apple was developing alternative platforms to the Macintosh, such as the A/UX. Apple had also begun to experiment in providing a Mac-only online portal which they called eWorld, developed in collaboration with America Online and designed as a Mac-friendly alternative to other online services such as CompuServe. The Macintosh platform was itself becoming outdated because it was not built for multitasking, and several important software routines were programmed directly into the hardware. In addition, Apple was facing competition from OS/2 and UNIX vendors such as Sun Microsystems. The Macintosh would need to be replaced by a new platform, or reworked to run on more powerful hardware. 

In 1994, Apple allied with IBM and Motorola in the AIM alliance. The goal was to create a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple's software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind, thus countering Microsoft. The same year, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh, the first of many Apple computers to use Motorola's PowerPC processor. 

In 1996, Michael Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio as CEO. Gil Amelio made many changes at Apple, including extensive layoffs. Chaffin, Bryan. "Former Apple CEO Gil Amelio Lands A New CEO Job | The Mac Observer", The Mac Observer, February 6, 2001. Retrieved August 15, 2008. After numerous failed attempts to improve Mac OS, first with the Taligent project, then later with Copland and Gershwin, Amelio chose to purchase NeXT and its NeXTSTEP operating system, bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple as an advisor. On July 9, 1997, Amelio was ousted by the board of directors after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. Jobs acted as the interim CEO and began restructuring the company's product line; it was during this period that Jobs identified Jonathan Ive's design talent and the pair worked collaboratively to rebuild Apple's status. 

At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Jobs announced that Apple would join Microsoft to release new versions of Microsoft Office for the Macintosh, and that Microsoft had made a $150 million investment in non-voting Apple stock. Microsoft and Apple Affirm Commitment to Build Next Generation Software for Macintosh Microsoft Corp., August 6, 1997. On November 10, 1997, Apple introduced the Apple Online Store, tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing strategy. Harreld, Heather. "Apple gains tech, agency customers in Next deal", Federal Computer Week, January 5, 1997. Retrieved August 15, 2008. 

On August 15, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one computer reminiscent of the Macintosh 128K: the iMac. The iMac design team was led by Ive, who would later design the iPod and the iPhone. Grossman, Lev. The Apple Of Your Ear, Time, January 12, 2007. Retrieved February 1, 2007. Wilson, Greg. Private iCreator is genius behind Apple's polish, New York Daily News, January 14, 2007. Retrieved February 1, 2007. The iMac featured modern technology and a unique design, and sold almost 800,000 units in its first five months. 

Through this period, Apple purchased several companies to create a portfolio of professional and consumer-oriented digital production software. In 1998, Apple announced the purchase of Macromedia's Final Cut software, signaling its expansion into the digital video editing market. Sarkar, Pia. "Friends and Foes/ Despite squabbles, Apple and Adobe have benefited from one another" SFGate, February 25, 2002. Retrieved August 15, 2008. The following year, Apple released two video editing products: iMovie for consumers and, for professionals, Final Cut Pro, which has gone on to be a significant video-editing program, with 800,000 registered users in early 2007. In 2002, Apple purchased Nothing Real for their advanced digital compositing application Shake, Chaffin, Bryan. "Apple Shake: Apple Buys Nothing Real, A High End Compositing Software Maker", The Mac Observer, February 7, 2002. Retrieved August 15, 2008. as well as Emagic for their music productivity application Logic, which led to the development of their consumer-level GarageBand application. Apple Acquires Emagic, Apple, July 1, 2002. Retrieved August 15, 2008. Deitrich, Andy. Garage Band: Part 1, ars technica, February 2, 2004. Retrieved August 15, 2008. iPhoto's release the same year completed the iLife suite. Apple Introduces iPhoto, Apple Inc., January 7, 2002. Retrieved August 15, 2008. 

===2000–06: Return to profitability===

Apple retail stores allow potential customers to use floor models without making a purchase.(Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois in 2005)

Mac OS X, based on NeXT's OPENSTEP and BSD Unix, was released on March 24, 2001 after several years of development. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, Mac OS X aimed to combine the stability, reliability and security of Unix with the ease of use afforded by an overhauled user interface. To aid users in migrating from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications within Mac OS X as the Classic environment, which meant that users were able to continue running their old applications. 

On May 19, 2001, Apple opened the first official Apple Retail Stores in Virginia and California. On July 9, they bought Spruce Technologies, a DVD authoring company. On October 23 of the same year, Apple announced the iPod portable digital audio player, and started selling it on November 10. The product was phenomenally successful — over 100 million units were sold within six years. Apple enjoys ongoing iPod demand, BBC News, January 18, 2006. Retrieved April 27, 2007. Cantrell, Amanda. Apple's remarkable comeback story, CNN, March 29, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. In 2003, Apple's iTunes Store was introduced, offering online music downloads for $0.99 a song and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 5 billion downloads by June 19, 2008. iTunes Store Tops Five Billion Songs, Apple Inc., June 19, 2008. Retrieved September 3, 2008. 

Since 2001, Apple's design team has progressively abandoned the use of translucent colored plastics first used in the iMac G3. This began with the PowerBook, made with titanium, and was followed by the iBook's white polycarbonate structure and the flat-panel iMac. "Apple revamps iBook. Network World (May, 2001)", Network World, May 2, 2001. Retrieved August 19, 2008. Magee, Mike. "iMac "All-in-One" is a trinity", The Inquirer, January 26, 2002. Retrieved August 19, 2008. 

The MacBook Pro, Apple's first laptop with an Intel microprocessor, announced in January 2006.
At the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 6, 2005, Jobs announced that Apple would begin producing Intel-based Mac computers in 2006. Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006, Apple Inc., June 6, 2005. Retrieved March 2, 2007. On January 10, 2006, the new MacBook Pro and iMac became the first Apple computers to use Intel's Core Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel chips for the entire Mac product line—over one year sooner than announced. The Power Mac, iBook and PowerBook brands were retired during the transition; the Mac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro became their respective successors. On April 29, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was building its own team of engineers to design microchips. Apple also introduced Boot Camp in 2006 to help users install Windows XP or Windows Vista on their Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X. 

Apple's success during this period was evident in its stock price. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around $6 per share (split-adjusted) to over $80. In January 2006, Apple's market cap surpassed that of Dell. Gamet, Jeff. Apple Passes Dell's Market Cap, MacObserver, January 16, 2006. Retrieved March 2, 2007. Nine years prior, Dell's CEO Michael Dell said that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." Singh, Jal. Dell: Apple should close shop, CNET News, October 6, 1997. Retrieved March 2, 2007. Although Apple's market share in computers had grown, it remained far behind competitors using Microsoft Windows, accounting for about 8% of desktops and laptops in the US.

===2007–10: Success with mobile devices===
Apple achieved widespread success with its iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad products, which introduced innovations in mobile phones, portable music players and personal computers respectively. In addition, the implementation of a store for the purchase of software applications represented a new business model. Touch screens had been invented and seen in mobile devices before, but Apple was the first to achieve mass market adoption of such a user interface that included particular pre-programmed touch gestures.

Delivering his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would from that point on be known as Apple Inc., because computers were no longer the main focus of the company, which had shifted its emphasis to mobile electronic devices. The event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV. 
The following day, Apple shares hit $97.80, an all-time high at that point. In May, Apple's share price passed the $100 mark. AAPL surges past $100, target at $140, MacNN, April 26, 2007. Retrieved July 10, 2007. 

In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management (DRM), thereby allowing tracks to be played on third-party players, if record labels would agree to drop the technology. On April 2, 2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May 2007. Other record labels eventually followed suit and Apple published a press release in January 2009 to announce the corresponding changes to the iTunes Store. 

In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store to sell third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Flandez, Raymund. "Programmers Jockey for iPhone Users at Apple Site", The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 16, 2008. Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and registered an average daily revenue of $1 million, with Jobs speculating in August 2008 that the App Store could become a billion-dollar business for Apple. McLaughlin, Kevin. "Apple's Jobs Gushes Over App Store Success – The Channel Wire – IT Channel News And Views by CRN and VARBusiness", ChannelWeb, August 11, 2008. Retrieved August 16, 2008. An October 2008 announcement by Jobs identified Apple as the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world due to the popularity of the iPhone. 

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that 2009 would be the last year the corporation would be attending the Macworld Expo, after more than 20 years of attendance. The announcement also explained that senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing Philip Schiller would deliver the 2009 keynote address in lieu of the expected Jobs. The official press release explained that Apple was "scaling back" on trade shows generally, with Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris, France two other events that the corporation had ceased attendance at. The enormous success of the Apple Retail Stores and website had rendered trade shows into a minor promotional channel and was cited as the primary reason for the change. 

On January 14, 2009, an internal memo from Jobs announced that he would be taking a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple until the end of June 2009, during which time he would focus on his health. In the email, Jobs also stated that he realized "the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well," further explaining that the break would allow the company "to focus on delivering extraordinary products." Despite Jobs's absence, Apple recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the recession with a revenue of $8.16 billion and a profit of $1.21 billion. 

After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks", Apple announced a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the iPad on January 27, 2010. The iPad runs the same touch based operating system that the iPhone uses and many of the same iPhone apps are compatible with the iPad. This gave the iPad a large app catalog on launch even with very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the iPad was launched in the US and sold more than 300,000 units on that day, reaching 500,000 by the end of the first week. In May of the same year, Apple's market cap exceeded that of competitor Microsoft for the first time since 1989. 

Apple released the iPhone 4, which introduced video calling, multitasking, and a new uninsulated stainless steel design, which acts as the phone's antenna. Because of this antenna implementation, some iPhone 4 users reported a reduction in signal strength when the phone is held in specific ways. After a large amount of media coverage including mainstream news organizations, Apple held a press conference where they offered buyers a free rubber 'bumper' case, which had been proven to eliminate the signal reduction issue. Later that year Apple again refreshed its iPod line of MP3 players which introduced a multi-touch iPod Nano, iPod Touch with FaceTime, and iPod Shuffle with buttons which brought back the buttons of earlier generations. 

In October 2010, Apple shares hit an all-time high, eclipsing $300. Additionally, on October 20, Apple updated their MacBook Air laptop, iLife suite of applications, and unveiled Mac OS X Lion, the last version with the name Mac OS X. On January 6, 2011, the company opened their Mac App Store, a digital software distribution platform, similar to the existing iOS App Store. Apple was featured in the documentary Something Ventured which premiered in 2011.

===2011–12: Steve Jobs's death===
Apple store in Yonkers, New York
On January 17, 2011, Jobs announced in an internal Apple memo that he would take another medical leave of absence, for an indefinite period, to allow him to focus on his health. Chief operating officer Tim Cook assumed Jobs's day-to-day operations at Apple, although Jobs would still remain "involved in major strategic decisions for the company." Apple became the most valuable consumer-facing brand in the world. In June 2011, Steve Jobs surprisingly took the stage and unveiled iCloud, an online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files and software which replaced MobileMe, Apple's previous attempt at content syncing. Helft, Miguel. "Apple Unveils ‘Cloud’ Music and Storage Service". The New York Times. June 6, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2011. 

This would be the last product launch Jobs would attend before his death. It has been argued that Apple has achieved such efficiency in its supply chain that the company operates as a monopsony (one buyer, many sellers), in that it can dictate terms to its suppliers. In July 2011, due to the American debt-ceiling crisis, Apple's financial reserves were briefly larger than those of the U.S. Government. 

On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple. He was replaced by Tim Cook and Jobs became Apple's chairman. Prior to this, Apple did not have a chairman and instead had two co-lead directors, Andrea Jung and Arthur D. Levinson, who continued with those titles until Levinson became Chairman of the Board in November. 

On October 4, 2011, Apple announced the iPhone 4S, which included an improved camera with 1080p video recording, a dual core A5 chip capable of 7 times faster graphics than the A4, an "intelligent software assistant" named Siri, and cloud-sourced data with iCloud. (The iPhone 4S was officially released on October 14, 2011.)

On October 5, 2011, Apple announced that Jobs had died, marking the end of an era for Apple Inc. 

On October 29, 2011, Apple purchased C3 Technologies, a mapping company, for $240 million, becoming the third mapping company Apple has purchased. On January 10, 2012, Apple paid $500 million to acquire Anobit, an Israeli hardware company that developed and supplies a proprietary memory signal processing technology that improves the performance of flash-memory used in iPhones and iPads. "Apple buys Israeli technology firm Anobit". Reuters. January 11, 2012. Retrieved February 7, 2013. 

On January 19, 2012, Apple's Phil Schiller introduced iBooks Textbooks for iOS and iBook Author for Mac OS X in New York City. This was the first major announcement by Apple since the passing of Steve Jobs, who stated in his biography that he wanted to reinvent the textbook and education. The third-generation iPad was announced on March 7, 2012. It includes a Retina display, a new CPU, a five megapixel camera, and 1080p video recording. 

On July 24, 2012, during a conference call with investors, Tim Cook said that he loved India, but that Apple was going to expect larger opportunities outside of India, citing the reason as the 30% sourcing requirement from India. Apple CEO Tim Cook: "I love India, but...", NDTV Gadgets, July 25, 2012. "We love India, just not enough: Apple CEO Tim Cook", Firstpost.com 

On August 20, 2012, Apple's rising stock rose the company's value to a world-record $624 billion. This beat the non-inflation-adjusted record for market capitalization set by Microsoft in 1999. On August 24, 2012, a US jury ruled that Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion (£665m) in damages in an intellectual property lawsuit. Samsung said they will appeal the court ruling. Samsung subsequently prevailed on its motion to vacate this damages award, which the Court reduced by $450 million. The Court further granted Samsung's request for a new trial. 

On September 12, 2012, Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, featuring an enlarged screen, more powerful processors, and running iOS 6. The latter includes a new mapping application (replacing Google Maps) that has attracted some criticism. It was made available on September 21, 2012, and became Apple's biggest iPhone launch, with over 2 million pre-orders pushing back the delivery date to late October. 

On October 23, 2012, Apple unveiled the iPad Mini, which features a 7.9-inch screen in contrast to the iPad's 9.7-inch screen. Apple also released a third-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display; the fourth-generation iPad, featuring a faster processor and a Lightning dock connector; and new iMac and Mac Mini computers. After the launch of Apple's iPad Mini and fourth generation iPad on November 3, 2012, Apple announced that they had sold 3 million iPads in three days of the launch, but it did not mention the sales figures of specific iPad models. "Apple Sells Three Million iPads in Three Days". Apple.com. November 5, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2013. 

On November 10, 2012, Apple confirmed a global settlement that would dismiss all lawsuits between Apple and HTC up to that date, in favor of a ten-year license agreement for current and future patents between the two companies. "HTC and Apple Settle Patent Dispute". Apple.com. November 10, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2013. It is predicted that Apple will make $280 million a year from this deal with HTC. "Apple predicted to generate up to $280 million a year in HTC deal". CNET. November 12, 2012. Retrieved February 7, 2013. 

In December 2012, in a TV interview for NBC's Rock Center and also aired on the Today morning show, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that in 2013 the company will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the United States. "Apple to produce line of Macs in the US next year". The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey). December 6, 2012. Retrieved February 7, 2013. In January 2013, Cook stated that he expected China to overtake the US as Apple's biggest market.

===2013–present: Acquisitions and expansion===

In March 2013, Apple announced a patent for an augmented reality (AR) system that can identify objects in a live video stream and present information corresponding to these objects through a computer-generated information layer overlaid on top of the real-world image. 

At the Worldwide Developer's Conference on June 10, 2013, Apple announced the seventh iOS operating system alongside OS X Mavericks, the tenth version of Mac OS X, and a new Internet radio service called iTunes Radio. iTunes Radio, iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks were released fall 2013. The radio service features more than 200 stations according to company's statement. 

On July 2, 2013, Apple announced the recruitment of Paul Deneve, Belgian President and CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, to Apple's top ranks. A spokesperson for the company stated, "We're thrilled to welcome Paul Deneve to Apple. He'll be working on special projects as a vice president reporting directly to Tim Cook." 

Alongside Google vice-president Vint Cerf and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Cook attended a closed-door summit held by President Obama on August 8, 2013 in regard to government surveillance and the Internet in the wake of the Edward Snowden NSA incident. 

A report on August 22, 2013 confirmed that Apple acquired Embark Inc., a small Silicon Valley-based mapping company. Embark builds free transit apps to help smartphone users navigate public transportation in U.S. cities such as New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Following the confirmation of the acquisition, an Apple spokesperson explained, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." In November 2012, Embark claimed that over 500,000 people used its apps. 

An anonymous Apple employee revealed to the Bloomberg media publication that the opening of a Tokyo, Japan store is planned for 2014. The construction of the store will be completed in February 2014, but as of August 29, 2013, Takashi Takebayashi, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Apple, has not made any comment to the media. A Japanese analyst has stated, "For Apple, the Japanese market is appealing in terms of quantity and price. There is room to expand tablet sales and a possibility the Japanese market expands if Apple’s mobile carrier partners increase. 

On October 1, 2013, Apple India executives unveiled a plan to expand further into the Indian market, following Cook's acknowledgment of the country in July 2013 when sales results showed that iPhone sales in India grew 400% during the second quarter of 2013. In attendance at the confidential meeting were 20 CEOs and senior executives from telecom and electronic retail companies. 

A mid-October 2013 announcement revealed that Burberry executive Angela Ahrendts will commence as a senior vice president at Apple in mid-2014. Ahrendts oversaw Burberry's digital strategy for almost eight years and, during her tenure, sales increased to about US$3.2 billion (2 billion pounds) and shares gained more than threefold. In a company wide memo sent on the morning of October 15, 2013, Cook explained the decision to hire Ahrendts:

She shares our values and our focus on innovation. She places the same strong emphasis as we do on the customer experience. She cares deeply about people and embraces our view that our most important resource and our soul is our people. She believes in enriching the lives of others and she is wicked smart. 

On November 24, 2013, Apple Inc. confirmed the purchase of PrimeSense, an Israeli 3D sensing company based in Tel Aviv. In the following month, Apple Inc. purchased social analytics firm Topsy, one of a small number of firms with real-time access to the messages that appear on Twitter (every tweet published since 2006 is within its scope). Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with EMarketer Inc., explained: “A key point is they are one of the few companies that has access to the Twitter fire hose and can do real-time analysis of the trends and discussions happening on Twitter.” While an exact amount is unknown, the deal was apparently worth more than US$200 million, according to people with knowledge of the secret deal, and Apple spokespeople refused to disclose a purpose at the time of the acquisition. 

On December 6, 2013, Apple Inc. launched iBeacon technology across its 254 U.S. retail stores. Using Bluetooth wireless technology, iBeacon senses the user's exact location within the Apple store and sends the user messages about products, events and other information, tailored to the user's location. iBeacon works as long as the user has downloaded the Apple Store app and has expressly permitted Apple to track them. By Barbara Ortutay, The Associated Press."/ APPLE GUIDES SHOPPERS INSIDE STORES WITH IBEACON."December 6, 2013. Retrieved December 6, 2013. 

On February 4, 2014, Cook met with Abdullah Gül, the President of Turkey, in Ankara to discuss the company's involvement in the Fatih project. Cook also confirmed that Turkey's first Apple Retail Store would be opened in Istanbul in April 2014. 

During the proceedings of the Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. lawsuits, a previously confidential email, written by Jobs a year before his death, was presented and its content became publicly available in early April 2014. With a subject line that reads "Top 100 – A," the email was sent only to the company's 100 most senior employees and outlines Jobs's vision of Apple Inc.'s future under 10 subheadings, including a "2011 Strategy." Notably, Jobs declares a "Holy War with Google" for 2011 and schedules a "new campus" for 2015. 

On May 28, 2014, Apple confirmed its intent to acquire Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's audio company Beats Electronics—producer of the Beats by Dr. Dre line of headphones and speaker products, and operator of the music streaming service Beats Music—for $3 billion. Iovine felt that Beats had always "belonged" with Apple, as the company modeled itself after Apple's "unmatched ability to marry culture and technology." In regards to the deal, Tim Cook stated that "Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple. That's why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world." As a result of the acquisition, Apple plans to offer Beats' products through its retail outlets and resellers, but the company has not made any further indications about how Beats will be integrated into Apple's product line. 

==Products==

===Mac===
MacBook Air

*MacBook Air: Consumer ultra-thin, ultra-portable notebook, introduced in 2008.
*MacBook Pro: Professional notebook, introduced in 2006.
*Mac Mini: Consumer sub-desktop computer and server, introduced in 2005.
*iMac: Consumer all-in one desktop computer, introduced in 1998.
*Mac Pro: Workstation desktop computer, introduced in 2006.

Apple sells a variety of computer accessories for Macs, including Thunderbolt Display, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, Wireless Keyboard, Battery Charger, the AirPort wireless networking products, and Time Capsule.

===iPad===

On January 27, 2010, Apple introduced their much-anticipated media tablet, the iPad, running a modified version of iOS. It offers multi-touch interaction with multimedia formats including newspapers, magazines, ebooks, textbooks, photos, movies, videos of TV shows, music, word processing documents, spreadsheets, videogames, and most existing iPhone apps. It also includes a mobile version of Safari for web browsing, as well as access to the App Store, iTunes Library, iBookstore, contacts, and notepad. Content is downloadable via Wi-Fi and optional 3G service or synced through the user's computer. AT&T was initially the sole US provider of 3G wireless access for the iPad. 

On March 2, 2011, Apple introduced the iPad 2, which had a faster processor and a camera on the front and back. It also added support for optional 3G service provided by Verizon in addition to the existing offering by AT&T. However, the availability of the iPad 2 has been limited as a result of the devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami in Japan in March 2011. 

On March 7, 2012, Apple introduced the third-generation iPad, marketed as "the new iPad". It added LTE service from AT&T or Verizon, the upgraded A5X processor, and the Retina display (2048 by 1536 resolution), originally implemented on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. The dimensions and form factor remained relatively unchanged, with the new iPad being a fraction thicker and heavier than the previous version, and minor positioning changes. The new iPad - View all the technical specifications. Apple Inc. Retrieved February 7, 2013. 

On October 23, 2012, Apple's fourth-generation iPad came out, marketed as the "iPad with Retina display". It added the upgraded A6X processor and replaced the traditional 30-pin dock connector with the all-digital Lightning connector. iPad - Features. Apple Inc. Retrieved February 7, 2013. The iPad Mini was also introduced, with a reduced 7.9-inch display and featuring much of the same internal specifications as the iPad 2. iPad Mini - Features. Apple Inc. Retrieved February 7, 2013. 

On October 22, 2013, Apple introduced the iPad Air. It added the new 64 bit Apple-A7 processor. The iPad mini with Retina Display was also introduced, featuring the Apple-A7 processor as well. 

Since its launch, iPad The iPad's Uncontested Enterprise Run Is Over. Forbes. March 18, 2013. Retrieved April 5, 2013. users have downloaded three billion apps, while the total number of App Store downloads is over 25 billion. Choney, Suzanne. "iPad users download 3 billion apps". MSNBC. January 4, 2012. 

===iPod===

The 2012 iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Classic, and iPod Touch.
On October 23, 2001, Apple introduced the iPod digital music player. Several updated models have since been introduced, and the iPod brand is now the market leader in portable music players by a significant margin, with more than 350 million units shipped . Apple has partnered with Nike to offer the Nike+iPod Sports Kit, enabling runners to synchronize and monitor their runs with iTunes and the Nike+ website.

Apple currently sells four variants of the iPod:
* iPod Shuffle: Ultra-portable digital audio player, currently available in a 2 GB model, introduced in 2005.
* iPod Nano: Portable media player, currently available in a 16 GB model, introduced in 2005. Earlier models featured the traditional iPod click wheel, though the current generation features a multi-touch interface and includes an FM radio and a pedometer.
* iPod Touch: Portable media player than runs iOS, currently available in 16, 32 and 64 GB models, introduced in 2007. The current generation, which released on September 12, 2012 features the Apple A5 processor, a Retina display, and dual cameras on the front (1.2 megapixel sensor) and back (5 megapixel iSight), the latter of which supports HD video recording at 1080p and Siri. 
* iPod Classic: Portable media player, currently available in a 160 GB model, first introduced in 2001. 

===iPhone===
The first-generation iPhone, 3G, 4, 5, 5C and 5S to scale.

At the Macworld Conference & Expo in January 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the long-anticipated Apple's Chief in the Risky Land of the Handhelds The New York Times iPhone, a convergence of an Internet-enabled smartphone and iPod. The first-generation iPhone was released on June 29, 2007 for $499 (4 GB) and $599 (8 GB) with an AT&T contract. On February 5, 2008, it was updated to have 16 GB of memory, in addition to the 8 GB and 4 GB models. It combined a 2.5G quad band GSM and EDGE cellular phone with features found in handheld devices, running scaled-down versions of Apple's Mac OS X (dubbed iPhone OS, later renamed iOS), with various Mac OS X applications such as Safari and Mail. It also includes web-based and Dashboard apps such as Google Maps and Weather. The iPhone features a 3.5 in touchscreen display, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi (both "b" and "g"). 

At Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 9, 2008, Apple announced the iPhone 3G. It was released on July 11, 2008, with a reduced price of $199 for the 8 GB version, and $299 for the 16 GB version. This version added support for 3G networking and assisted-GPS navigation. The flat silver back and large antenna square of the original model were eliminated in favor of a curved glossy black or white back. Software capabilities were improved with the release of the App Store, providing applications for download that were compatible with the iPhone. On April 24, 2009, the App Store Apple’s Game Changer, Downloading Now. The New York Times, December 5, 2009. Retrieved April 5, 2013. surpassed one billion downloads. At WWDC on June 8, 2009, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS. It provided an incremental update to the device, including faster internal components, support for faster 3G speeds, video recording capability, and voice control.

At WWDC on June 7, 2010, Apple announced the redesigned iPhone 4. It features a 960x640 display, the Apple A4 processor also used in the iPad, a gyroscope for enhanced gaming, 5MP camera with LED flash, front-facing VGA camera and FaceTime video calling. Shortly after its release, reception issues were discovered by consumers, due to the stainless steel band around the edge of the device, which also serves as the phone's cellular signal and Wi-Fi antenna. The issue was corrected by a "Bumper Case" distributed by Apple for free to all owners for a few months. In June 2011, Apple overtook Nokia to become the world's biggest smartphone maker by volume. 

On October 4, 2011, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, which was first released on October 14, 2011. It features the Apple A5 processor, and is the first model offered by Sprint (joining AT&T and Verizon Wireless as the United States carriers offering iPhone models). On October 19, 2011, Apple announced an agreement with C Spire Wireless to sell the iPhone 4S with that carrier in the near future, marking the first time the iPhone was officially supported on a regional carrier's network. Another notable feature of the iPhone 4S was Siri voice assistant technology, which Apple had acquired in 2010, as well as other features, including an updated 8MP camera with new optics. Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S phones in the first three days of availability. 

On September 12, 2012, Apple introduced the iPhone 5. Statistics and Facts about the iPhone. Statista, April 2013. It added a 4-inch display, 4G LTE connectivity, and the upgraded Apple A6 chip, among several other improvements. Two million iPhones were sold in the first twenty-four hours of pre-ordering and over five million handsets were sold in the first three days of its launch. 

A patent filed in July 2013 revealed the development of a new iPhone battery system that uses location data in combination with data on the user's habits to moderate the handsets power settings accordingly. Apple is working towards a power management system that will provide features such as the ability of the iPhone to estimate the length of time a user will be away from a power source to modify energy usage and a detection function that adjusts the charging rate to best suit the type of power source that is being used. 

In March 2013, one of the largest cellular phone companies in the United States, T-Mobile, announced that it would begin selling the iPhone 5 on April 12. The announcement of the iPhone came with the announcement that the company would begin implementing 4G cellular service for its users. 

Upon the launch of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, Apple sold over nine million devices in the first three days of its launch, which sets a new record for first-weekend smartphone sales. This was the first time that Apple has simultaneously launched two models and the inclusion of China in the list of markets contributed to the record sales result. 

On October 15, 2013, U.S. Cellular, the United States fifth largest cell phone provider, announced that it would in fact begin to carry the iPhone. It is the last of the five major carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile to acquire the phone. The phone went on sale on November 8 at U.S. Cellular stores around the country. The finalization of a deal between Apple and China Mobile, the world's largest mobile network, was announced in late December 2013. The multi-year agreement provides iPhone access to over 760 million China Mobile subscribers. 

In a March 2014 interview, Ive used the iPhone as an example of Apple's ethos of creating high-quality, life-changing products, explaining that they are comparatively expensive due to the intensive effort that is used to make them:

We don’t take so long and make the way we make for fiscal reasons ... Quite the reverse. The body is made from a single piece of machined aluminium ... The whole thing is polished first to a mirror finish and then is very finely textured, except for the Apple logo. The chamfers edges are cut with diamond-tipped cutters. The cutters don’t usually last very long, so we had to figure out a way of mass-manufacturing long-lasting ones. The camera cover is sapphire crystal. Look at the details around the sim-card slot. It’s extraordinary! 

===Apple TV===

The current generation Apple TV.
At the 2007 Macworld conference, Jobs demonstrated the Apple TV, (previously known as the iTV), a set-top video device intended to bridge the sale of content from iTunes with high-definition televisions. The device links up to a user's TV and syncs, either via Wi-Fi or a wired network, with one computer's iTunes library and streams from an additional four. The Apple TV originally incorporated a 40 GB hard drive for storage, includes outputs for HDMI and component video, and plays video at a maximum resolution of 720p. On May 31, 2007 a 160 GB drive was released alongside the existing 40 GB model and on January 15, 2008 a software update was released, which allowed media to be purchased directly from the Apple TV. 

In September 2009, Apple discontinued the original 40 GB Apple TV and now continues to produce and sell the 160 GB Apple TV. On September 1, 2010, alongside the release of the new line of iPod devices for the year, Apple released a completely redesigned Apple TV. The new device is 1/4 the size, runs quieter, and replaces the need for a hard drive with media streaming from any iTunes library on the network along with 8 GB of flash memory to cache media downloaded. Apple with the Apple TV has added another device to its portfolio that runs on its A4 processor along with the iPad and the iPhone. The memory included in the device is the half of the iPhone 4 at 256 MB; the same as the iPad, iPhone 3GS, third and fourth-generation iPod Touch. 

It has HDMI out as the only video out source. Features include access to the iTunes Store to rent movies and TV shows (purchasing has been discontinued), streaming from internet video sources, including YouTube and Netflix, and media streaming from an iTunes library. Apple also reduced the price of the device to $99. A third generation of the device was introduced at an Apple event on March 7, 2012, with new features such as higher resolution (1080p) and a new user interface.

===Software===

Apple develops its own operating system to run on Macs, OS X, the latest version being OS X Mavericks (version 10.9). Apple also independently develops computer software titles for its OS X operating system. Much of the software Apple develops is bundled with its computers. An example of this is the consumer-oriented iLife software package that bundles iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand. For presentation, page layout and word processing, iWork is available, which includes Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. iTunes, QuickTime media player, and Software Update are available as free downloads for both OS X and Windows.

Apple also offers a range of professional software titles. Their range of server software includes the operating system OS X Server; Apple Remote Desktop, a remote systems management application; and Xsan, a Storage Area Network file system. For the professional creative market, there is Aperture for professional RAW-format photo processing; Final Cut Pro, a video production suite; Logic Pro, a comprehensive music toolkit; and Motion, an advanced effects composition program.

Apple also offers online services with iCloud, which provides cloud storage and syncing for a wide range of data, including email, contacts, calendars, photos and documents. It also offers iOS device backup, and is able to integrate directly with third-party apps for even greater functionality. iCloud is the fourth generation of online services provided by Apple, and was preceded by MobileMe, .Mac and iTools, all which met varying degrees of success.

==Corporate identity==

===Logo===

According to Steve Jobs, Apple was so named because Jobs was coming back from an apple farm, and he was on a fruitarian diet. He thought the name was "fun, spirited and not intimidating". 

Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was almost immediately replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. Janoff presented Jobs with several different monochromatic themes for the "bitten" logo, and Jobs immediately took a liking to it. While Jobs liked the logo, he insisted it be in color to humanize the company. The logo was designed with a bite so that it would not be confused with a cherry. The colored stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and to represent the fact the Apple II could generate graphics in color. This logo is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both Janoff and Apple deny any homage to Turing in the design of the logo. 

On August 27, 1999 (the following year after the iMac G3 was introduced), Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme and began to use monochromatic themes, nearly identical in shape to its previous rainbow incarnation, on various products, packaging and advertising. An Aqua-themed version of the monochrome logo was used from 1999 to 2003, and a Glass-themed version was used from 2007 to 2013. With the release of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks in fall of 2013, the logo appears flat and white with no glossy effects.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were Beatles fans, but Apple Inc. had trademark issues with Apple Corps Ltd., a multimedia company started by the Beatles in 1967, involving their name and logo. This resulted in a series of lawsuits and tension between the two companies. These issues ended with settling of their most recent lawsuit in 2007.

===Advertising===

Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think Different" was used in advertising campaigns, and is still closely associated with Apple. Apple also has slogans for specific product lines — for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements. "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod. IMac: What's in a Design, Anyway?. Wired Magazine. Retrieved February 15, 2010. 

Since the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984 with the 1984 Super Bowl commercial to the more modern 'Get a Mac' adverts, Apple has been recognized in the past for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for its products, though its advertising was criticized for the claims made by some later campaigns, particularly the 2005 Power Mac ads and iPhone ads in Britain.

Apple's product commercials gained fame for launching musicians into stardom as a result of their eye-popping graphics and catchy tunes. Farber, Jim. Apple ad creates recognition for Yael Naim, New York Daily News, March 11, 2008. First, the company popularized Canadian singer Feist's "1234" song in its ad campaign. Later, Apple used the song "New Soul" by French-Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naïm to promote the MacBook Air. The debut single shot to the top of the charts and sold hundreds of thousands of copies in a span of weeks. 

===Brand loyalty===

Apple aficionados wait in line around the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City in anticipation of a new product.

Apple's brand loyalty is considered unusual for any product. At one time, Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company, but this was after the phenomenon was already firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon," while Ive explained in 2014 that "People have an incredibly personal relationship" with Apple's products. 

Apple supports the continuing existence of a network of Mac User Groups in many areas where Mac computers are available. Mac users previously meet at the European Apple Expo and the San Francisco Macworld Conference & Expo trade shows, where Apple traditionally introduced new products each year, to both the industry and public, until Apple pulled out of both events—the conferences continue, but Apple is not officially represented at either event. Mac developers, in turn, continue to gather at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apple Store openings can draw crowds of thousands, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening or flying in from other countries for the event. The New York City Fifth Avenue "Cube" store had a line as long as half a mile; a few Mac fans took the opportunity of the setting to propose marriage. The Ginza opening in Tokyo was estimated in the thousands with a line exceeding eight city blocks. 

John Sculley told The Guardian newspaper in 1997: "People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade." Research in 2002 by NetRatings indicate that the average Apple consumer was usually more affluent and better educated than other PC company consumers. The research indicated that this correlation could stem from the fact that on average Apple Inc. products are more expensive than other PC products. Fried, Ian. Are Mac users smarter?, news.com, July 12, 2002. Retrieved April 24, 2006. 

In response to a query about the devotion of loyal Apple consumers, Ive responded:

What people are responding to is much bigger than the object. They are responding to something rare — a group of people who do more than simply make something work, they make the very best products they possibly can. It’s a demonstration against thoughtlessness and carelessness. 

==Corporate affairs==

During the Mac's early history Apple generally refused to adopt prevailing industry standards for hardware, instead creating their own. This trend was largely reversed in the late 1990s beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the 7500/8500/9500 Power Macs. Apple has since adopted USB, AGP, HyperTransport, Wi-Fi, and other industry standards in its computers and was in some cases a leader in the adoption of standards such as USB. FireWire is an Apple-originated standard that has seen widespread industry adoption after it was standardized as IEEE 1394. 

Ever since the first Apple Store opened, Apple has sold third-party accessories. For instance, at one point Nikon and Canon digital cameras were sold inside the store. Adobe, one of Apple's oldest software partners, also sells its Mac-compatible software, as does Microsoft, who sells Microsoft Office for the Mac. Books from John Wiley & Sons, who publishes the For Dummies series of instructional books, are a notable exception, however. The publisher's line of books were banned from Apple Stores in 2005 because Steve Jobs disagreed with their decision to publish an unauthorized Jobs biography, iCon. Hafner, Katie: Steve Jobs's Review of His Biography: Ban It, The New York Times, April 30, 2005. After the launch of the iBookstore, Apple stopped selling physical books, both online and at the Apple Retail Stores.

===Headquarters===

Apple Inc.'s world corporate headquarters are located in the middle of Silicon Valley, at 1–6 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. This Apple campus has six buildings that total 850000 ft2 and was built in 1993 by Sobrato Development Cos. 

In 2006, Apple announced its intention to build a second campus on 50 acre assembled from various contiguous plots (east of N Wolfe Road between Pruneridge Avenue and Vallco Parkway). Later acquisitions increased this to 175 acres. The new campus, also in Cupertino, will be about 1 mi east of the current campus. The new campus building will be designed by Norman Foster. 

On October 15, 2013 it was announced that the Cupertino City Council has approved the proposed "spaceship" design campus. On June 7, 2011, Steve Jobs gave a presentation to Cupertino City Council, detailing the architectural design of the new building and its environs. The new campus is planned to house up to 13,000 employees in one central four-storied circular building (with a café for 3,000 sitting people integrated) surrounded by extensive landscape (with parking mainly underground and the rest centralized in a parking structure). The new campus will be built on the former HP headquarters, next to Interstate 280. The morning of the announcement, Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted "Our home for innovation and creativity for decades to come. Cupertino City Council Gives Unanimous Approval for Apple's New Campus." The 2.8 million square foot facility, which will include Steve Jobs's original designs for a fitness center and corporate auditorium will be able to house 14,000 employees and will have enough parking to accommodate almost all of them. 

Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland. The facility, which opened in 1980, was Apple's first location outside of the United States. Apple Sales International, which deals with all of Apple's international sales outside of the USA, is located at Apple's campus in Cork along with Apple Distribution International, which similarly deals with Apple's international distribution network. 

On April 20, 2012, Apple announced the addition of 500 new jobs to its European headquarters. This will bring the total workforce from around 2,800 to 3,300 employees. The company will build a new office block on its Hollyhill Campus to accommodate the additional staff. 

===Corporate culture===
Apple was one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of what a corporate culture should look like in organizational hierarchy (flat versus tall, casual versus formal attire, etc.). Other highly successful firms with similar cultural aspects from the same period include Southwest Airlines and Microsoft. Originally, the company stood in opposition to staid competitors like IBM by default, thanks to the influence of its founders; Steve Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple was a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" TV ad, this trait had become a key way the company attempted to differentiate itself from its competitors. According to a 2011 report in Fortune, this has resulted in a corporate culture more akin to a startup rather than a multinational corporation. 

As the company has grown and been led by a series of chief executives, each with his own idea of what Apple should be, some of its original character has arguably been lost, but Apple still has a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably draws talented people into its employ. This was especially after Jobs's return. To recognize the best of its employees, Apple created the Apple Fellows program, awarding individuals who made extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing while at the company. The Apple Fellowship has so far been awarded to a few individuals including Bill Atkinson, Hertzfeld, Andy. Credit Where Due,Folklore.org, January 1983. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Steve Capps, Rod Holt, Alan Kay, Eisenhart, Mary. Fighting Back For Mac, MicroTimes, 1997. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Hertzfeld, Andy. Leave of Absence,Folklore.org, March 1984. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Guy Kawasaki, Kawakami, John. Apple Taps Guy Kawasaki For Apple Fellows Program, MacTech, September 1995. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Al Alcorn, Don Norman, Rich Page, and Steve Wozniak. 

Apple is also known for strictly enforcing accountability. Each project has a "directly responsible individual," or "DRI" in Apple jargon. As an example, when iOS senior vice president Scott Forstall refused to sign Apple's official apology for numerous errors in the redesigned Maps app, he was forced to resign. 

Numerous employees of Apple have cited that projects without Jobs's involvement often took longer than projects with his involvement. 

At Apple, employees are specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. Jobs saw this as a means of having best-in-class employees in every role. For instance, Ron Johnson who was Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011, was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet he had no control of the inventory in his stores (which is done company wide by then-COO and now CEO Tim Cook who has a background in supply-chain management). This is the opposite of General Electric's corporate culture which has created well-rounded managers. 

Under the leadership of Tim Cook who joined the company in 1998 and ascended to his present position as CEO, Apple has developed an extremely efficient and effective supply chain which has been ranked as the world's best for the four years 2007–2010. The company's manufacturing, procurement and logistics enables it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories; Apple's profit margins have been 40 percent compared with 10–20 percent for most other hardware companies in 2011. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational edge is “Nobody wants to buy sour milk”. 

The company previously advertised its products as being made in America up to the late 1990s, however as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s almost all of its manufacturing is now done abroad. According to a report by the New York Times, Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products". 

Unlike other major US companies, Apple has a relatively simple compensation policy for executives, which does not include perks that other CEOs enjoy such as country club fees and private use of company aircraft. The company usually grants stock options to executives every other year. 

A media article published in July 2013 provided details about Apple's "At-Home Apple Advisors" customer support program that serves as the corporation's call center. The advisors are employed within the U.S. and work remotely after undergoing a four-week training program that also serves as a testing period. The advisors earn between US$9 and $12 per hour, and receive intensive management to ensure a high quality of customer support. 

===Litigation===

Apple has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation and, like its competitors and peers, engages in litigation (trying legal cases before the courts) in its normal course of business for a variety of reasons. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests.

Some examples include Apple v. Samsung, Apple v. Microsoft, Motorola v. Apple, Apple Corps v. Apple Computer.

===Finance===
In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues – a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion – and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. Apple achieved these results while losing market share in certain product categories. On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65-per-share dividend beginning in fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by their board of directors. 

On September 2012, Apple reached a record share price of more than $705 and closed at above 700. With 936,596,000 outstanding shares (as of June 30, 2012), Apple Q3 Financial Report (PDF). Shareholder.com. July 25, 2012. Retrieved February 7, 2013. it had a market capitalization of about $660 billion. At the time, this was the highest nominal market capitalization ever reached by a publicly traded company, surpassing a record set by Microsoft in 1999.

===Environmental record===

====Climate change and clean energy====
On April 21, 2011, Greenpeace released a report highlighting the fact that data centers consumed up to 2% of all global electricity and this amount was projected to increase. Phil Radford of Greenpeace said “we are concerned that this new explosion in electricity use could lock us into old, polluting energy sources instead of the clean energy available today.” On April 17, 2012, following a Greenpeace protest of Apple, Apple Inc. released a statement committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% clean energy. In 2013 Apple announced it was using 100% renewable energy to power their data centers, and overall 75% of its power comes from renewable sources. 

In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate conscious consumer". 

====Toxics====
Greenpeace has campaigned against Apple because of various environmental issues, including a global end-of-life take-back plan, non-recyclable hardware components and toxins within iPhone hardware. Since 2003 Greenpeace has campaigned against Apple's use of particular chemicals in its products, more specifically, the inclusion of PVC and BFRs in their devices. On May 2, 2007, Steve Jobs released a report announcing plans to eliminate PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008. Tasty news from Apple!. Greenpeace International. Retrieved August 12, 2008. Apple has since eliminated PVC and BFRs from its product range, becoming the first laptop manufacturer to do so. 

In the first edition of the Greenpeace 'Green Electronics Guide', released in August 2006, Apple only scored 2.7/10. 

The Environmental Protection Agency rates Apple highest amongst producers of notebooks, and fairly well compared to producers of desktop computers and LCD displays. EPA Gives Apple Silver Rating on Environment The Mac Observer. EPA information should make GreenPeace red-faced over Apple targeting, Ars Technica. Retrieved January 8, 2007. 

In June 2007, Apple upgraded the MacBook Pro, replacing cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays with mercury-free LED backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass, and has since done this for all notebooks. Apple has also left out BFRs and PVCs in various internal components. Apple offers information about emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning each product. 

In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, BFRs and had an efficient power adapter. 

In October 2009, Apple upgraded the iMac and MacBook, replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays with mercury-free LED backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass. This means all Apple computers have mercury free LED backlit displays, arsenic-free glass and are without PVC cables. All Apple computers also have EPEAT Gold status. 

In October 2011, Chinese authorities ordered an Apple supplier to close part of its plant in Suzhou after residents living nearby raised significant environmental concerns. 

In November 2011, Apple featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" their products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10 down from 4.9. Greenpeace praises Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. It continues to score well on the products rating with all Apple products now being free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants. However, the guide criticizes Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data and for not setting out any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple announced plans and requested that their cable maker Volex begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables. 

In June 2012, Apple Inc. withdrew its products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) certification system, but reversed this decision in July. 

===Labor practices===

In 2006, the Mail on Sunday reported on the working conditions that existed at factories in China where the contract manufacturers Foxconn and Inventec produced the iPod. The article stated that one complex of factories that assembles the iPod (among other items) had over 200,000 workers that lived and worked in the factory, with employees regularly working more than 60 hours per week. The article also reported that workers made around $100 per month and were required to live pay for rent and food from the company, which generally amounted to a little over half of workers' earnings. 

Apple immediately launched an investigation and worked with their manufacturers to ensure acceptable working conditions. In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of all its suppliers regarding worker's rights, slowly raising standards and pruning suppliers that did not comply. Yearly progress reports have been published since 2008. In 2010, workers in China planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning by a cleaner used to clean LCD screens. One worker claimed that he and his coworkers had not been informed of possible occupational illnesses. After a spate of suicides in a Foxconn facility in China making iPads and iPhones, albeit at a lower rate than in China as a whole, workers were forced to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing that they would not kill themselves. 

In 2011, Apple admitted that its suppliers' child labor practices in China had worsened. 

Workers in factories producing Apple products have also been exposed to n-hexane, a neurotoxin that is a cheaper alternative than alcohol for cleaning the products. Workers poisoned while making iPhones ABC News, October 25, 2010 Dirty Secrets ABC Foreign Correspondent, 2010-Oct-26 Occupational Safety and Health Guideline for n-Hexane, OSHA.gov 

In 2013, China Labor Watch said it found violations of the law and of Apple's pledges about working conditions at facilities operated by Pegatron, including discrimination against ethnic minorities and women, withholding employees' pay, excessive work hours, poor living conditions, health and safety problems and pollution. Apple Supplier Accused Of Labor Abuses By China Watchdog (VIDEO) The Huffington Post. Retrieved July 29, 2013. 

=== Tax practices ===

 Global taxes paid by ASI, 2009-2011 2011 2010 2009 Total 
 Pre-tax earnings US$ 22 billion US$ 12 billion US$ 4 billion US$ 38 billion 
 Global tax US$ 10 million US$ 7 million US$ 4 million US$ 21 million 
 Tax rate 0.05% 0.06% 0.1% 0.06% 

Apple created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to the New York Times, in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich," which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Duhigg, Charles (April 29, 2012)[ "How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes."] New York Times. (Retrieved 4-20-12.) 

British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple Inc., were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporation tax. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and The Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax they pay on their UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax. 

In June 2014 the European Commissioner for Competition launched an investigation of Apple's tax practices in Ireland, as part of a wider probe of multi-national companies' tax arrangements in various European countries. 

===Charitable causes===
As of 2012, Apple is listed as a partner of the Product RED campaign, together with other brands such as Nike, Girl, American Express and Converse. The campaign's mission is to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child by 2015 (its byline is "Fighting For An AIDS Free Generation"). 

In November 2012, Apple donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy. 

==See also==

* Apple Campus
* Apple media events
* Apple Inc. litigation
* iReview
* Pixar

==References==

* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

==Further reading==

* Gil Amelio, William L. Simon (1999), On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple ISBN 978-0-88730-919-9
* Jim Carlton, Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania and Business Blunders ISBN 978-0-88730-965-6
* Alan Deutschman (2000), The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, Broadway, ISBN 978-0-7679-0432-2
* Andy Hertzfeld (2004), Revolution in the Valley, O'Reilly Books ISBN 978-0-596-00719-5
* Paul Kunkel, AppleDesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group ISBN 978-1-888001-25-9
* Steven Levy (1994), Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything ISBN 978-0-14-029177-3
* Owen Linzmayer (2004), Apple Confidential 2.0, No Starch Press ISBN 978-1-59327-010-0
* Michael S. Malone (1999), Infinite Loop ISBN 978-0-385-48684-2
* Frank Rose (1990), West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer, Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-14-009372-8
* John Sculley, John A. Byrne (1987) Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-06-015780-7
* Steve Wozniak, Gina Smith (2006), iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-06143-7
* Jeffrey S. Young (1988). Steve Jobs, The Journey is the Reward, Lynx Books, ISBN 978-1-55802-378-9
* Jeffrey S. Young, William L. Simon (2005), , John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-471-72083-6

==External links==

* 

* 

 



[[Aberdeenshire]]

Blaeu – Atlas of Scotland 1654 – ABERDONIA & BANFIA
Topographic map of Aberdeenshire and Moray
Aberdeenshire () is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area.

The Aberdeenshire council area does not include the City of Aberdeen, a separate council area, from which its name derives. Together, the modern council area and the city form historic Aberdeenshire, one of the counties of Scotland formerly used for local government and still used as a registration county. Land Register Counties & Operational Dates 

Aberdeenshire Council is headquartered at Woodhill House, in Aberdeen, making it the only Scottish council whose headquarters are based outwith its jurisdiction. Aberdeenshire borders Angus and Perth and Kinross to the south, and Highland and Moray to the west.

Traditionally, it has been economically dependent upon the primary sector (agriculture, fishing, and forestry) and related
processing industries. Over the last 40 years, the development of the oil and gas industry and associated service sector has broadened Aberdeenshire's economic base, and contributed to a rapid population growth of some 50%. since 1975, while the land covered represents 8% of Scotland's overall territory. It covers an area of 6313 sqkm. 

==History==
Aberdeenshire has a rich prehistoric and historic heritage. It is the locus of a large number of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, including Longman Hill, Kempstone Hill, Catto Long Barrow and Cairn Lee. The area was settled in the Bronze Age by the Beaker culture, who arrived from the south around 2000-1800 BC. Stone circles and cairns are predominantly from this era. In the Iron Age, hill forts were built. Around the 1st century AD, the Taexali people, which have left little history were believed to have resided along the coast. The Picts were the next documented inhabitants of the area, and were no later than 800-900 AD. The Romans also were in the area during this period, as they left signs at Kintore. Christianity influenced the inhabitants early on, and there were Celtic monasteries at Old Deer and Monymusk. Since medieval times there have been a number of crossings of the Mounth (a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven) through present day Aberdeenshire from the Scottish Lowlands to the Highlands. Some of the most well known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth and Elsick Mounth. W. Douglas Simpson, "The Early Castles of Mar", Proceedings of the Society, 102, 10 December 1928 

Aberdeenshire played an important role in the fighting between the Scottish clans. Clan MacBeth and Clan Canmore were 2 of the larger clans. Lumphanan saw Macbeth fall in 1057. During the Anglo-Norman penetration, other families arrives such as House of Balliol, Clan Bruce, and Clan Cumming (Comyn). When the fighting amongst these newcomers resulted in the Scottish Wars of Independence, the English king Edward I traveled across the area twice, in 1296 and 1303. In 1307, Robert the Bruce was victorious near Inverurie. Along with his victory came new families, namely the Forbeses and the Gordons. These new families set the stage for the upcoming rivalries during the 14th and 15th centuries. This rivalry grew worse when religion became a focal point, as the Gordon family adhered to Catholicism and the Forbes to Protestantism. Three universities were founded in the area prior to the 17th century, King's College in Old Aberdeen (1494), Marischal College in Aberdeen (1593), and the University of Fraserburgh (1597). 

After the end of the Revolution of 1688, there was a peaceful period, interrupted by minor events such as the Rising of 1715 and the Rising of 1745, which in turn lead to the end of the ascendancy of Episcopalianism, and the feudal power of landowners and in turn lead to the era of increased agricultural and industrial progress. During the 17th century, Aberdeenshire was the location of more fighting, centered around the Marquess of Montrose and the English Civil Wars. This period also saw increased wealth due to the increase in trade with Germany, Poland, and the Low Countries. 

The present council area is named after the historic county of Aberdeen, which had different boundaries and was abolished in 1975 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. It was replaced by Grampian Regional Council and five district councils: Banff and Buchan, Gordon, Kincardine and Deeside, Moray and the City of Aberdeen. The current Aberdeenshire consists of all of former Aberdeenshire, former Kincardineshire and the northeast portions of Banffshire. Local government functions were shared between the two levels. In 1996, under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994, the Banff and Buchan district, Gordon district and Kincardine and Deeside district were merged to form the present Aberdeenshire council area, with the other two districts becoming autonomous council areas.

==Demographics==
The population of the council area has risen over 50% since 1971 to approximately 247,600, representing 4.7% of Scotland's total. Aberdeenshire's population has increased by 9.1% since 2001, while Scotland's total population grew by only 3.8%.
The census lists a relatively high proportion of under 16s and slightly less people of working-age compared with the Scottish average. The twelve biggest settlements in Aberdeenshire (with 2011 population estimates) are:

*Peterhead (17,790) 
*Fraserburgh (12,540) 
*Inverurie (11,529) 
*Westhill (11,220) 
*Stonehaven (10,820) 
*Ellon (9,910) 
*Portlethen (7,327) 
*Banchory (7,111) 
*Turriff (4,804) 
*Huntly (4,461) 
*Banff (3,931) 
*Macduff (3,711) 

==Economy==
Aberdeenshire's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated at £3,496m (2011), representing 5.2% of the Scottish total. Aberdeenshire's economy is closely linked to Aberdeen City's (GDP £7,906m) and in 2011 the region as a whole was calculated to contribute 16.8% of Scotland's GDP. Between 2012 and 2014 the combined Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City economic forecast GDP growth rate is 6.8%, the highest growth rate of any local council area and above the Scottish rate of 4.8%. 

A significant proportion of Aberdeenshire's working residents commute to Aberdeen City for work, varying from 11.5% from Fraserburgh to 65% from Westhill.

Average Gross Weekly Earnings (for full-time employees employed in work places in Aberdeenshire in 2011) are £570.60. This is lower than the Scottish average by £4.10 and a fall of 2.6% on the 2010 figure. The average gross weekly pay of people resident in Aberdeenshire is much higher, at £641.90, as many people commute out
of Aberdeenshire, principally into Aberdeen City. 

Total employment (excluding farm data) in Aberdeenshire is estimated at 93,700 employees (Business Register and
Employment Survey 2009). The majority of employees work within the service sector, predominantly in public administration, education and health. Almost 19% of employment is within the public sector. Aberdeenshire's economy remains closely linked to Aberdeen City's and the North Sea oil industry, with many employees in oil related jobs.

The average monthly unemployment (claimant count) rate for Aberdeenshire in 2011 was 1.5%. This is lower than the average rates for Aberdeen City (2.3%), Scotland (4.2%) and the UK (3.8%). 

==Major Industries==
* Energy – There is significant energy related infrastructure, presence and expertise in Aberdeenshire. Peterhead is an important centre for the energy industry. Peterhead Port, which includes an extensive new quay with adjacent lay down area at Smith Quay, is a major support location for North Sea oil and gas exploration and production and the fast growing global sub-sea sector. The Gas Terminal at St Fergus handles around 15% of the UK's natural gas requirements and the Peterhead power station is looking to host the UK's first carbon capture and storage power generation project. 

* Fishing – Aberdeenshire is Scotland's foremost fishing area. In 2010, catches landed at Aberdeenshire's ports accounted for over half the total fish landings of Scotland, and almost 45% in the UK. Peterhead and Fraserburgh ports, alongside Aberdeen City, provide much of the employment in these sectors. 

* Agriculture – Aberdeenshire is rich in arable land, with an estimated 9,000 people employed in the sector, and is best known for rearing livestock. Sheep are important in the higher ground. 

* Tourism – this sector continues to grow, with a range of sights to be seen in the area. From the lively Cairngorm Mountain range, to the bustling fishing ports on the North-east coast, Aberdeenshire samples a bit of everything. Aberdeenshire also has rugged coastline to complete many sandy beaches, and is a hot spot for tourist activity throughout the year. Almost 1.3 million tourists visited the region in 2011 – up 3% on the previous year. 

* Whiskey-distilling is still a practiced art in the area. 

==Governance and politics==
The council has 68 councillors, elected in 19 multi-member wards by Single Transferable Vote. The 2012 elections resulted in the following representation: 

 Ward Members Representation 
 1. Banff and District 3 2 SNP, 1 Con 
 2. Troup 3 1 SNP, 1 Con, 1 Ind 
 3. Fraserburgh and District 4 2 SNP, 2 Ind 
 4. Central Buchan 4 2 SNP, 1 Ind, 1 Con 
 5. Peterhead North and Rattray 4 2 SNP, 2 Ind 
 6. Peterhead South and Cruden 3 2 SNP, 1 Ind 
 7. Turriff and District 3 1 Lib Dem, 1 SNP, 1 Ind 
 8. Mid Formartine 4 2 SNP, 1 Ind, 1 Con 
 9. Ellon and District 4 2 SNP, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Con 
 10. West Garioch 3 1 SNP, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Con 
 11. Inverurie and District 4 2 SNP, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Con 
 12. East Garioch 3 1 SNP, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Green 
 13. Westhill and District 4 2 SNP, 1 Con, 1 Lib Dem 
 14. Huntly, Strathbogie and Howe of Alford 4 1 Con, 1 Ind, 1 Lib Dem, 1 SNP 
 15. Aboyne, Upper Deeside and Donside 3 1 Con, 1 Lib Dem, 1 SNP 
 16. Banchory and Mid Deeside 3 1 Lib Dem, 1 SNP, 1 Con 
 17. North Kincardine 4 1 Con, 1 Lab, 1 Lib Dem, 1 SNP 
 18. Stonehaven and Lower Deeside 4 1 Con, 1 Lab, 1 Lib Dem, 1 SNP 
 19. Mearns 4 1 Con, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Ind, 1 SNP 

Ythan Estuary nature reserve, with tern colonies and dunes in background.

The overall political composition of the council, following subsequent defections Scottish Lib Dems: Aberdeenshire Councillor joins Scottish Liberal Democrats and by-elections, is as follows: 

 Party Councillors 
 Scottish National Party 27 
 Conservative 14 
 Liberal Democrat 13 
 Independent 11 
 Labour Party 2 
 Green Party 1 

The Council's Revenue Budget for 2012/13 totals approx £548 million. The Education, Learning and Leisure Service takes the largest share of budget (52.3%), followed by Housing and Social Work (24.3%), Infrastructure Services (15.9%), Joint Boards (such as Fire and Police) and Misc services (7.9%) and Trading Activities (0.4%).

21.5% of the revenue is raised locally through the Council Tax. Average Band D Council Tax is £1,141 (2012/13), no change on the previous year.
The current chief executive of the Council is Colin D Mackenzie and the elected Council Leader is Jim Gifford. Aberdeenshire also has a Provost, who is Councillor Jill Webster.

The council has devolved power to six area committees: Banff and Buchan; Buchan; Formartine; Garioch; Marr; and Kincardine and Mearns. Each area committee takes decisions on local issues such as planning applications, and the split is meant to reflect the diverse circumstances of each area. (Boundary map)

==Notable features==
The B976 road near Gairnshiel
An old lime kiln at Badenyon

The following significant structures or places are within Aberdeenshire:
*Badenyon
*Balmoral Castle, Scottish Highland residence of the British royal family. 
*Bennachie
*Burn O'Vat
*Cairness House
*Cairngorms National Park
*Corgarff Castle
*Crathes Castle
*Causey Mounth, an ancient road
*Drum Castle
*Dunnottar Castle
*Fetteresso Castle
*Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve
*Haddo House
*Herscha Hill
*Huntly Castle
*Kildrummy Castle
*Loch of Strathbeg
*Lochnagar
*Monboddo House
*Muchalls Castle
*Pitfour estate
*Portlethen Moss
*Raedykes Roman Camp
*River Dee
*River Don
*Sands of Forvie Nature Reserve
*Slains Castle
*Stonehaven Tolbooth
*Ythan Estuary Nature Reserve

==Hydrology and climate==
There are numerous rivers and burns in Aberdeenshire, including Cowie Water, Carron Water, Burn of Muchalls, River Dee, River Don, River Ury, River Ythan, Water of Feugh, Burn of Myrehouse, Laeca Burn and Luther Water. Numerous bays and estuaries are found along the seacoast of Aberdeenshire, including Banff Bay, Ythan Estuary, Stonehaven Bay and Thornyhive Bay. Aberdeenshire is in the rain shadow of the Grampians, therefore it is a generally dry climate, with portions of the coast, receiving 25 in of moisture annually. Summers are mild and winters are typically cold in Aberdeenshire; Coastal temperatures are moderated by the North Sea such that coastal areas are typically cooler in the summer and warmer in winter than inland locations. Coastal areas are also subject to haar, or coastal fog.

==Notable residents==

*John Skinner, (1721–1807) author, poet and ecclesiastic. Penned the famous verse, Tullochgorum.
*Hugh Mercer, (1726–1777), born in the manse of Pitsligo Kirk, near Rosehearty, brigadier general of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. 
*Alexander Garden, (1730–1791), born in Birse, noted naturalist and physician. He moved to North America in 1754, and discovered two species of lizards. He was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War, which led to the confiscation of his property and his banishment in 1782. The gardenia flower is named in his honour. 
*John Kemp, (1763–1812), born in Auchlossan, was a noted educator at Columbia University who is said to have influenced DeWitt Clinton's opinions and policies. 
*Dame Evelyn Glennie, DBE, born and raised in Ellon on 19 July 1965, is a virtuoso percussionist, and the first full-time solo percussionist in 20th-century western society. She is very highly regarded in the Scottish musical community, and has proven that her profound deafness does not inhibit her musical talent or day-to-day life.
*Peter Nicol, MBE, born in Inverurie on 5 April 1973, is a former professional squash player who represented first Scotland and then England in international squash.
*Gordon Duthie (born 1987), alternative music artist whose upbringing in Aberdeenshire was a key inspiration for his debut album Shire and City.

==References==

==External links==

*Aberdeenshire Council
*Aberdeenshire Libraries Service
*Aberdeenshire Museums Service
*Peterhead and Buchan Tourism Web Site
*Aberdeenshire Arts
*Aberdeenshire Sports Council
*

Aberdeenshire

[[Aztlan Underground]]

Aztlan Underground is a fusion band from Los Angeles. Since early 1989, Aztlan Underground has played Rapcore. Indigenous drums, flutes, and rattles are commonplace in its musical compositions.

This unique sound is the backdrop for the band's message of dignity for indigenous people, all of humanity, and Earth. Aztlan Underground has been cultivating a grass roots audience across the country, which has become a large and loyal underground following. Their music includes spoken word pieces and elements of punk, hip hop, rock, funk, jazz, and indigenous music, among others.

The artists are Chenek "DJ Bean" (turntables, samples and percussion), Yaotl (vocals, indigenous percussion), Joe "Peps" (bass, rattles), Alonzo Beas (guitars, synth), Caxo (drums, indigenous percussion), and Bulldog (vocals, flute).

Aztlan Underground appeared on television on Culture Clash on Fox in 1993, was part of Breaking Out, a concert on pay per view in 1998, and was featured in the independent films Algun Dia and Frontierlandia.

The band has been mentioned or featured in various newspapers and magazines: the Vancouver Sun, Northshore News (Vancouver, Canada newspaper), New Times (Los Angeles weekly entertainment newspaper), BLU Magazine (underground hip hop magazine), BAM Magazine (Southern California), La Banda Elastica Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Calendar section. It is also the subject of a chapter in It's Not About A Salary, by Brian Cross. They also opened for Rage Against the Machine in Mexico City.

It was nominated in the New Times 1998 "Best Latin Influenced" category, the BAM Magazine 1999 "Best Rock en Español" category, and the LA Weekly 1999 "Best Hip Hop" category.

Aztlan Underground were signed to a Basque record label in 1999 which enabled them to tour Spain extensively and perform in France and Portugal.

Other parts of the world that Aztlan Underground have performed include Canada, Australia, and Venezuela.

The band completed their third album and released it exclusively digital on August 29, 2009. The band is set to begin writing a new record this year.

Aztlan Underground were nominated for four Native American Music Award categories for the Nammys 2010. See Nammys.com

==Discography==
===Decolonize===

Year:1995

# Teteu Innan
# Killing Season
# Lost Souls
# My Blood Is Red
# Natural Enemy
# Sacred Circle
# Blood On Your Hands
# Interlude
# Aug 2 The 9
# Indigena
# Lyrical Drive By

===Sub-Verses===
Year:1998

# Permiso
# They Move In Silence
# No Soy Animal
# Killing Season
# Blood On Your Hands
# Reality Check
# Lemon Pledge
# Revolution
# Preachers Of The Blind State
# Lyrical Drive-By
# Nahui Ollin
# How To Catch A Bullet
# Ik Otik
# Obsolete Man
# Decolonize
# War Flowers

===Aztlan Underground===
Year:2009

==See also==
*Chicano Rap
*Native American hip hop
*Rapcore
*Chicano rock

==External links==

* Xicano Records and Film
* Myspace link



[[American Civil War]]

The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States or simply the Civil War, was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865, after seven Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the "Confederacy" or the "South", which grew to include eleven states). The states that remained in the Union were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Foreign powers did not intervene. After four years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves began.

In the 1860 presidential election, Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, opposed the expansion of slavery into US territories. Lincoln won, but before his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to secede had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, a total of 48.8% for the six. "Date of Secession Related to 1860 Black Population", America's Civil War Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln's inaugural address declared his administration would not initiate civil war. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy. A peace conference failed to find a compromise, and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King Cotton" that they would intervene; none did and none recognized the new Confederate States of America.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, a key fort held by Union troops in South Carolina. Lincoln called for each state to provide troops to retake the fort; consequently, four more slave states joined the Confederacy, bringing their total to eleven. The Union soon controlled the border states and established a naval blockade that crippled the southern economy. The Eastern Theater was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaign into Maryland (a Union state) ended with Confederate retreat at the Battle of Antietam, dissuading British intervention. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, and the Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. In the Western Theater, William T. Sherman drove east to capture Atlanta and marched to the sea, destroying Confederate infrastructure along the way. The Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, and could afford to fight battles of attrition through the Overland Campaign towards Richmond, the Confederate capital. The defending Confederate army failed, leading to Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. All Confederate generals surrendered by that summer.

The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass-produced weapons were employed extensively. The mobilization of civilian factories, mines, shipyards, banks, transportation and food supplies all foreshadowed World War I. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 750,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. One estimate of the death toll is that ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years old, and 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40 perished.

==Causes of secession==

The causes of the Civil War were complex and have been controversial since the war began. The issue has been further complicated by historical revisionists, who have tried to offer a variety of reasons for the war. James C. Bradford, A companion to American military history (2010) vol. 1, p. 101 Slavery was the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After Lincoln had won without carrying a single Southern state, many Southern whites felt that disunion had become their only option, because they felt as if they were losing representation, which hampered their ability to promote pro-slavery acts and policies. See sections below this introduction, including citations in these four: Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861, pp. 9–24, and Martis, Kenneth C., "The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989", ISBN 0-02-920170-5, p. 111–115, and Foner, Eric. Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War, Oxford U. Press, 1980 ISBN 0-19-502781-7, p. 18–20, 21–24, and Eskridge, Larry (Jan 29, 2011). "After 150 years, we still ask: Why 'this cruel war'?.". Canton Daily Ledger (Canton, Illinois). Retrieved 2011-01-29. 

===Slavery===

The slavery issue was primarily about whether the system of slavery was an anachronistic evil that was incompatible with Republicanism in the United States, or a state-based property system protected by the Constitution. The strategy of the anti-slavery forces was containment—to stop the expansion and thus put slavery on a path to gradual extinction. To slave holding interests in the South, this strategy was perceived as infringing upon their Constitutional rights. Slavery was being phased out of existence in the North and was fading in the border states and urban areas, but was expanding in highly profitable cotton districts of the south.

A 1863 photo of a whipped slave Gordon, distributed in the North during the war.
Despite compromises in 1820 and 1850, the slavery issues exploded in the 1850s. Causes include controversy over admitting Missouri as a slave state in 1820, the acquisition of Texas as a slave state in 1845 and the status of slavery in western territories won as a result of the Mexican–American War and the resulting Compromise of 1850. Gienapp, William E., "The Crisis of American Democracy: The Political System and the Coming of the Civil War." in Boritt ed. Why the Civil War Came 79–123. See also Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (2nd ed. 1995), pp. 311–12. Following the U.S. victory over Mexico, Northerners attempted to exclude slavery from conquered territories in the Wilmot Proviso; although it passed the House, it failed in the Senate. Northern (and British) readers recoiled in anger at the horrors of slavery as described in the novel and play Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. In Gerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, p. 68; See also Stowe, Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1953), p. 39. Irreconcilable disagreements over slavery ended the Whig and Know Nothing political parties, and later split the Democratic Party between North and South, while the new Republican Party angered slavery interests by demanding an end to its expansion. Most observers believed that without expansion slavery would eventually die out; Lincoln argued this in 1845 and 1858.

Meanwhile, the South of the 1850s saw an increasing number of slaves leave the border states through sale, manumission and escape. During this same period, slave-holding border states had more free African-Americans and European immigrants than the lower South, which increased Southern fears that slavery was threatened with rapid extinction in this area. William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861, pp. 9–24. Such fears greatly increased Southern efforts to make Kansas a slave state. By 1860, the number of white border state families owning slaves plunged to only 16 percent of the total. Slaves sold to lower South states were owned by a smaller number of wealthy slave owners as the price of slaves increased. With tobacco and cotton wearing out the soil, the South believed it needed to expand slavery. Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (Wesleyan U.P,. 1988). p. 244 Some advocates for the Southern states argued in favor of reopening the international slave trade to populate territory that was to be newly opened to slavery. Manisha Sinha, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina (2000), pp. 127–8. Failing that, their 1854 Ostend Manifesto was an unsuccessful attempt to annex of Cuba#The 19th century: years of upheaval|Cuba] as a slave state. See Potter, David. The Impending Crisis, pp. 201–204. Southern demands for a slave code to ensure slavery in the territories repeatedly split the Democratic Party between North and South by widening margins.

To settle the dispute over slavery expansion, Abolitionists and proslavery elements sent their partisans into Kansas, both using ballots and bullets. In the 1850s, a miniature civil war in Bleeding Kansas led pro-South Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan to attempt a forced admission of Kansas as a slave state through vote fraud. Vote fraud in Kansas The 1857 Congressional rejection of the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution was the first multi-party solid-North vote, and that solid vote was anti-slavery to support the democratic majority voting in the Kansas Territory. Violence on behalf of Southern honor reached the floor of the Senate in 1856 when a Southern Congressman, Preston Brooks, physically assaulted Republican Senator Charles Sumner when he ridiculed prominent slaveholders as pimps for slavery. See Williamjames Hoffer, The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War (2010), pp. 62, 131–33. 

The earlier political party structure failed to make accommodation among sectional differences. Disagreements over slavery caused the Whig and "Know-Nothing" parties to collapse. In 1860, the last national political party, the Democratic Party, split along sectional lines. Anti-slavery Northerners mobilized in 1860 behind moderate Abraham Lincoln because he was most likely to carry the doubtful western states. In 1857, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ended the Congressional compromise for Popular Sovereignty in Kansas. According to the court, slavery in the territories was a property right of any settler, regardless of the majority there. Chief Justice Taney's decision said that slaves were, "... so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The decision overturned the Missouri Compromise, which banned slavery in territory north of the 36°30' parallel.

Members of slave-owning planter aristocracy dominated society and politics in the South.
Republicans denounced the Dred Scott decision and promised to overturn it; Abraham Lincoln warned that the next Dred Scott decision could threaten the Northern states with slavery. The Republican party platform called slavery "a national evil", and Lincoln believed it would die a natural death if it were contained. The Democrat Stephen A. Douglas developed the Freeport Doctrine to appeal to North and South. Douglas argued, Congress could not decide either for or against slavery before a territory was settled. Nonetheless, the anti-slavery majority in Kansas could stop slavery with its own local laws if their police laws did not protect slavery introduction. Foner, Eric. 'Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (2nd ed. 1995), pp. 311–12. Most 1850 political battles followed the arguments of Lincoln and Douglas, focusing on the issue of slavery expansion in the territories.

But political debate was cut short throughout the South with Northern abolitionist John Brown's 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry Armory in an attempt to incite slave insurrections. The Southern political defense of slavery transformed into widespread expansion of local militias for armed defense of their "peculiar" domestic institution. Lincoln's assessment of the political issue for the 1860 elections was that, "This question of Slavery was more important than any other; indeed, so much more important has it become that no other national question can even get a hearing just at present." The Republicans gained majorities in both House and Senate for the first time since the 1856 elections, they were to be seated in numbers that Lincoln might use to govern, a national parliamentary majority even before pro-slavery House and Senate seats were vacated. Martis, Kenneth C., "The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989", ISBN 0-02-920170-5, p. 111–115. Though elected in November by the Electoral College with a plurality of popular votes, he was certified Constitutionally elected President by Congress in December before the Republican majorities were seated. Both Lincoln and the Republican Platform guaranteed no interference with slavery where it existed, and in his Inaugural Address he supported the proposed Corwin Amendment to Constitutionally restate it. But secessionists claimed that such guarantees were meaningless. They feared that Republicans would use patronage to incite slaves and antislavery Southern whites such as Hinton Rowan Helper. Then they feared slavery in the lower South, like a "scorpion encircled by fire, would sting itself to death." See Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861, pp. 9–24. Besides the loss of Kansas to free soil Northerners, secessionists feared that the loss of slaves in the border states would lead to emancipation, and that upper South slave states might be the next dominoes to fall. Meanwhile, Southern Vice President, Alexander Stephens, in the Cornerstone Speech, declared the new confederate "Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution." The Republican administration enacted the Confiscation Acts that set conditions for emancipation of slaves prior to the official proclamation of emancipation. http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/the-war-of-northern-aggression/ Likewise, Lincoln had previously condemned slavery and called for its "extinction." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1989/jan/19/the-war-of-southern-aggression/ 

Considering the relative weight given to causes of the Civil War by contemporary actors, historians such as Chandra Manning argue that both Union and Confederate fighting soldiers believed that slavery caused the Civil War. Union men mainly believed the war was to emancipate the slaves. Confederates fought to protect southern society, and slavery as an integral part of it. "The power of the federal government to affect the institution of slavery, specifically limiting it in newly added territories." was the primary political debate in Southern states over secession, rather than states' rights in general. Addressing the causes, Eric Foner would relate a historical context with multidimensional political, social and economic variables. The several causes united in the moment by a consolidating nationalism. A social movement that was individualist, egalitarian and perfectionist grew to a political democratic majority attacking slavery, and slavery's defense in the Southern pre-industrial traditional society brought the two sides to war.

===States' rights===

alt=Men lined up along a tree line are shot by men on horseback.

Everyone agreed that states had certain rights—but did those rights carry over when a citizen left that state? The Southern position was that citizens of every state had the right to take their property anywhere in the U.S. and not have it taken away—specifically they could bring their slaves anywhere and they would remain slaves. Northerners rejected this "right" because it would violate the right of a free state to outlaw slavery within its borders. Republicans committed to ending the expansion of slavery were among those opposed to any such right to bring slaves and slavery into the free states and territories. The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857 bolstered the Southern case within territories, and angered the North. 

Secondly, the South argued that each state had the right to secede—leave the Union—at any time, that the Constitution was a "compact" or agreement among the states. Northerners (including President Buchanan) rejected that notion as opposed to the will of the Founding Fathers who said they were setting up a "perpetual union". Historian James McPherson writes concerning states' rights and other non-slavery explanations:

===Sectionalism===
alt=Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories.
Sectionalism refers to the different economies, social structure, customs and political values of the North and South. It increased steadily between 1800 and 1860 as the North, which phased slavery out of existence, industrialized, urbanized and built prosperous farms, while the deep South concentrated on plantation agriculture based on slave labor, together with subsistence farming for the poor whites. The South expanded into rich new lands in the Southwest (from Alabama to Texas). 

However, slavery declined in the border states and could barely survive in cities and industrial areas (it was fading out in cities such as Baltimore, Louisville, and St. Louis), so a South based on slavery was rural and non-industrial. On the other hand, as the demand for cotton grew, the price of slaves soared. Historians have debated whether economic differences between the industrial Northeast and the agricultural South helped cause the war. Most historians now disagree with the economic determinism of historian Charles Beard in the 1920s and emphasize that Northern and Southern economies were largely complementary. 

Fears of slave revolts and abolitionist propaganda made the South militantly hostile to abolitionism. Southerners complained that it was the North that was changing, and was prone to new "isms", while the South remained true to historic republican values of the Founding Fathers (many of whom owned slaves, including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison). Lincoln said that Republicans were following the tradition of the framers of the Constitution (including the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise) by preventing expansion of slavery. 

In the 1840s and 50s, the issue of accepting slavery (in the guise of rejecting slave-owning bishops and missionaries) split the nation's largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches) into separate Northern and Southern denominations. Industrialization meant that seven European immigrants out of eight settled in the North. The movement of twice as many whites leaving the South for the North as vice versa contributed to the South's defensive-aggressive political behavior. 

====Protectionism====

New Orleans the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.

Historically, southern slave-holding states, because of their low cost manual labor, had little perceived need for mechanization, and supported having the right to sell cotton and purchase manufactured goods from any nation. Northern states, which had heavily invested in their still-nascent manufacturing, could not compete with the full-fledged industries of Europe in offering high prices for cotton imported from the South and low prices for manufactured exports in return. For this reason, northern manufacturing interests supported tariffs and protectionism while southern planters demanded free trade.

The Democrats in Congress, controlled by Southerners, wrote the tariff laws in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and kept reducing rates so that the 1857 rates were the lowest since 1816. The South had no complaints but the low rates angered Northern industrialists and factory workers, especially in Pennsylvania, who demanded protection for their growing iron industry. The Whigs and Republicans complained because they favored high tariffs to stimulate industrial growth, and Republicans called for an increase in tariffs in the 1860 election. The increases were finally enacted in 1861 after Southerners resigned their seats in Congress. 

Historians in the 1920s emphasized the tariff issue but since the 1950s they have minimized it, noting that few Southerners in 1860–61 said it was of central importance to them. Some secessionist documents do mention the tariff issue, though not nearly as often as the preservation of slavery.

==== Slave power and free soil ====

"A Ride for Liberty" (1862). An unassisted family of fugitive slaves charges for the safety of Union lines.

Antislavery forces in the North identified the "Slave Power" as a direct threat to republican values. They argued that rich slave owners were using political power to take control of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court, thus threatening the rights of the citizens of the North.

"Free soil" was a Northern demand that the new lands opening up in the west be available to independent yeoman farmers and not be bought out by rich slave owners who would buy up the best land and work it with slaves, forcing the white farmers onto marginal lands. This was the basis of the Free Soil Party of 1848, and a main theme of the Republican Party. Free Soilers and Republicans demanded a homestead law that would give government land to settlers; it was defeated by Southerners who feared it would attract to the west European immigrants and poor Southern whites.

===Territorial crisis===

Between 1803 and 1854, the United States achieved a vast expansion of territory through purchase, negotiation, and conquest. Of the states carved out of these territories by 1845, all had entered the union as slave states: Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas, as well as the southern portions of Alabama and Mississippi. And with the conquest of northern Mexico, including California, in 1848, slaveholding interests looked forward to the institution flourishing in these lands as well. Southerners also anticipated garnering slaves and slave states in Cuba and Central America. Northern free soil interests vigorously sought to curtail any further expansion of slave soil. It was these territorial disputes that the proslavery and antislavery forces collided over.

The existence of slavery in the southern states was far less politically polarizing than the explosive question of the territorial expansion of the institution westward. Moreover, Americans were informed by two well-established readings of the Constitution regarding human bondage: first, that the slave states had complete autonomy over the institution within their boundaries, and second, that the domestic slave trade – trade among the states – was immune to federal interference. The only feasible strategy available to attack slavery was to restrict its expansion into the new territories. Slaveholding interests fully grasped the danger that this strategy posed to them. Both the South and the North drew the same conclusion: "The power to decide the question of slavery for the territories was the power to determine the future of slavery itself."

By 1860, four doctrines had emerged to answer the question of federal control in the territories, and they all claimed they were sanctioned by the Constitution, implicitly or explicitly. Two of the "conservative" doctrines emphasized the written text and historical precedents of the founding document (specifically, the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise), while the other two doctrines developed arguments that transcended the Constitution.

The first of these "conservative" theories, represented by the Constitutional Union Party, argued that the historical designation of free and slave apportionments in territories (as done in the Missouri Compromise) should become a Constitutional mandate. The Crittenden Compromise of 1860 was an expression of this view.

The second doctrine of Congressional preeminence, championed by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, insisted that the Constitution did not bind legislators to a policy of balance – that slavery could be excluded altogether (as done in the Northwest Ordinance) in a territory at the discretion of Congress – with one caveat: the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment must apply. In other words, Congress could restrict human bondage, but never establish it. The Wilmot Proviso announced this position in 1846.

Of the two doctrines that rejected federal authority, one was articulated by northern Democrat of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, and the other by southern Democratic Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and Vice-President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.

Douglas proclaimed the doctrine of territorial or "popular" sovereignty, which declared that the settlers in a territory had the same rights as states in the Union to establish or disestablish slavery – a purely local matter. Congress, having created the territory, was barred, according to Douglas, from exercising any authority in domestic matters. To do so would violate historic traditions of self-government, implicit in the US Constitution. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 legislated this doctrine.

The fourth in this quartet is the theory of state sovereignty ("states' rights"), also known as the "Calhoun doctrine", named after the South Carolinian political theorist and statesman John C. Calhoun. Rejecting the arguments for federal authority or self-government, state sovereignty would empower states to promote the expansion of slavery as part of the Federal Union under the US Constitution – and not merely as an argument for secession. The basic premise was that all authority regarding matters of slavery in the territories resided in each state. The role of the federal government was merely to enable the implementation of state laws when residents of the states entered the territories. The Calhoun doctrine asserted that the federal government in the territories was only the agent of the several sovereign states, and hence incapable of forbidding the bringing into any territory of anything that was legal property in any state. State sovereignty, in other words, gave the laws of the slaveholding states extra-jurisdictional effect.

"States' rights" was an ideology formulated and applied as a means of advancing slave state interests through federal authority. As historian Thomas L. Krannawitter points out, the "Southern demand for federal slave protection represented a demand for an unprecedented expansion of federal power." Gara, 1964, p. 190 

By 1860, these four doctrines comprised the major ideologies presented to the American public on the matters of slavery, the territories and the US Constitution.

===National elections===
Beginning in the American Revolution and accelerating after the War of 1812, the people of the United States grew in their sense of country as an important example to the world of a national republic of political liberty and personal rights. Previous regional independence movements such as the Greek revolt in the Ottoman Empire, division and redivision in the Latin American political map, and the British-French Crimean triumph leading to an interest in redrawing Europe along cultural differences, all conspired to make for a time of upheaval and uncertainty about the basis of the nation-state. In the world of 19th century self-made Americans, growing in prosperity, population and expanding westward, "freedom" could mean personal liberty or property rights. The unresolved difference would cause failure—first in their political institutions, then in their civil life together.

====Nationalism and honor====
alt=Middle-aged man in a beard posed sitting in a suit, vest and bowtie.
Nationalism was a powerful force in the early 19th century, with famous spokesmen such as Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. While practically all Northerners supported the Union, Southerners were split between those loyal to the entire United States (called "unionists") and those loyal primarily to the southern region and then the Confederacy. C. Vann Woodward said of the latter group, "A great slave society ... had grown up and miraculously flourished in the heart of a thoroughly bourgeois and partly puritanical republic. It had renounced its bourgeois origins and elaborated and painfully rationalized its institutional, legal, metaphysical, and religious defenses ... When the crisis came it chose to fight. It proved to be the death struggle of a society, which went down in ruins." Perceived insults to Southern collective honor included the enormous popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) and the actions of abolitionist John Brown in trying to incite a slave rebellion in 1859. 

While the South moved toward a Southern nationalism, leaders in the North were also becoming more nationally minded, and rejected any notion of splitting the Union. The Republican national electoral platform of 1860 warned that Republicans regarded disunion as treason and would not tolerate it: "We denounce those threats of disunion ... as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence." The South ignored the warnings: Southerners did not realize how ardently the North would fight to hold the Union together. 

====Lincoln's election====

The election of Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession. Efforts at compromise, including the "Corwin Amendment" and the "Crittenden Compromise", failed.
Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Before Lincoln took office in March 1861, seven slave states had declared their secession and joined to form the Confederacy.

==Secession and war begins==
===Resolves and developments===
====Secession of South Carolina====

South Carolina did more to advance nullification and secession than any other Southern state. South Carolina adopted the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" on December 24, 1860. It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution.

====Secession winter====
Before Lincoln took office, seven states had declared their secession from the Union. They established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America on February 4, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from outgoing President James Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan said that the Dred Scott decision was proof that the South had no reason for secession, and that the Union "... was intended to be perpetual," but that, "The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union," was not among the "... enumerated powers granted to Congress." One quarter of the U.S. Army—the entire garrison in Texas—was surrendered in February 1861 to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.

As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, Republicans were able to pass bills for projects that had been blocked by Southern Senators before the war, including the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morill Act), a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad (the Pacific Railway Acts), 
the National Banking Act and the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.

===States align===
====Confederate states====

alt=Middle-aged man in a goatee posed standing in a suit, vest and bowtie

Seven Deep South cotton states seceded by February 1861, starting with South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president, and a governmental structure closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution.

Following the attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for a volunteer army from each state. Within two months, an additional four Southern slave states declared their secession and joined the Confederacy: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. The northwestern portion of Virginia subsequently seceded from Virginia, joining the Union as the new state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. By the end of 1861, Missouri and Kentucky were effectively under Union control, with Confederate state governments in exile.

Among the ordinances of secession passed by the individual states, those of three – Texas, Alabama, and Virginia – specifically mentioned the plight of the 'slaveholding states' at the hands of northern abolitionists. The rest make no mention of the slavery issue, and are often brief announcements of the dissolution of ties by the legislatures. Ordinances of Secession by State. Retrieved 2012-11-28. 
However, at least four states – South Carolina, The text of the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. 
Mississippi, The text of A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union. Retrieved 2012-11-28. 
Georgia, The text of Georgia's secession declaration. Retrieved 2012-11-28. 
and Texas The text of A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union. Retrieved 2012-11-28. 
– also passed lengthy and detailed explanations of their causes for secession, all of which laid the blame squarely on the influence over the northern states of the movement to abolish slavery, something regarded as a Constitutional right by the slaveholding states. Declaration of Causes of Secession. Retrieved 2012-11-28. 

====Union states====

Twenty-three states remained loyal to the Union: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. During the war, Nevada and West Virginia joined as new states of the Union. Tennessee and Louisiana were returned to Union military control early in the war.

The territories of Colorado, Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington fought on the Union side. Several slave-holding Native American tribes supported the Confederacy, giving the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) a small, bloody civil war. 

====Border states====

The border states in the Union were West Virginia (which separated from Virginia and became a new state), and four of the five northernmost slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky).

Maryland had numerous pro-Confederate officials who tolerated anti-Union rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges. Lincoln responded with martial law and sent in militia units from the North. Before the Confederate government realized what was happening, Lincoln had seized firm control of Maryland and the District of Columbia, by arresting all the prominent secessionists and holding them without trial (they were later released).

alt=Map of U.S. showing three new states, with two kinds of Confederate territorial control.

In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state. (See also: Missouri secession). In the resulting vacuum, the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri. 

Kentucky did not secede; for a time, it declared itself neutral. When Confederate forces entered the state in September 1861, neutrality ended and the state reaffirmed its Union status, while trying to maintain slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces, Confederate sympathizers organized a secession convention, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy. The rebel government soon went into exile and never controlled Kentucky. 

After Virginia's secession, a Unionist government in Wheeling asked 48 counties to vote on an ordinance to create a new state on October 24, 1861. A voter turnout of 34% approved the statehood bill (96% approving). The inclusion of 24 secessionist counties in the state and the ensuing guerrilla war engaged about 40,000 Federal troops for much of the war. Congress admitted West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. West Virginia provided about 20,000–22,000 soldiers to both the Confederacy and the Union. 

A Unionist secession attempt occurred in East Tennessee, but was suppressed by the Confederacy, which arrested over 3,000 men suspected of being loyal to the Union. They were held without trial.

===Beginning the war===

Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860 triggered South Carolina's declaration of secession from the Union in December, and six more states did so by February 1861. A pre-war February Peace Conference of 1861 met in Washington, Lincoln sneaking into town to stay in the Conference's hotel its last three days. The attempt failed at resolving the crisis, but the remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy following a two-to-one no-vote in Virginia's First Secessionist Convention on April 4, 1861.

====Lincoln's policy====
Since December, secessionists with and without state forces had seized Federal Court Houses, U.S. Treasury mints and post offices. Southern governors ordered militia mobilization, seized most of the federal forts and cannon within their boundaries and U.S. armories of infantry weapons. The governors in big-state Republican strongholds of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania quietly began buying weapons and training militia units themselves. President Buchanan protested seizure of Federal property, but made no military response apart from a failed attempt on January 9, 1861 to resupply Fort Sumter using the ship Star of the West, which was fired upon by South Carolina forces and turned back before it reached the fort.

alt=Merchant steamer, Ft. Sumter center horizon, Confederate battery smoke left and right.

On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void". He had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but said that he would use force to maintain possession of federal property. The government would make no move to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where popular conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of Federal law, U.S. Marshals and Judges would be withdrawn. No mention was made of bullion lost from U.S. mints in Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. In Lincoln's Inaugural, U.S. policy would only collect import duties at its ports, there could be no serious injury to justify revolution in the politics of four years. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union. 

The South sent delegations to Washington and offered to pay for the federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents because he claimed the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government. Secretary of State William Seward who at that time saw himself as the real governor or "prime minister" behind the throne of the inexperienced Lincoln, engaged in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. President Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy, Fort Monroe in Virginia, in Florida, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor, and in the cockpit of secession, Charleston, South Carolina's Fort Sumter.

====Battle of Fort Sumter====

alt=Crowd surrounding an equestrian statue toped by a huge U.S. flag.

Ft. Sumter was located in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, where the U.S. forts garrison had withdrawn to avoid incidents with local militias in the streets of the city. Unlike Buchanan who allowed commanders to relinquish possession to avoid bloodshed, Lincoln required Maj. Anderson to hold on until fired upon. Jefferson Davis ordered the surrender of the fort. Anderson gave a conditional reply that the Confederate government rejected, and Davis ordered P. G. T. Beauregard to attack the fort before a relief expedition could arrive. Troops under Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12–13, forcing its capitulation. On April 15, Lincoln's Secretary of War then called on Governors for 75,000 volunteers to recapture the fort and other federal property. 

Northerners rallied behind Lincoln's call for all the states to send troops to recapture the forts and to preserve the Union, citing presidential powers given by the Militia Acts of 1792. With the scale of the rebellion apparently small so far, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for 90 days. Several Northern governors began to move forces the next day, and Secessionists seized Liberty Arsenal in Liberty, Missouri the next week. Two weeks later, on May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,034 volunteers for a period of three years. 

Four states in the middle and upper South had repeatedly rejected Confederate overtures, but now Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina refused to send forces against their neighbors, declared their secession, and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond. 

==The War==

The Civil War was a contest marked by the ferocity and frequency of battle. Over four years, 237 named battles were fought, and many more minor actions and skirmishes. In the scales of world military history, both sides fighting were characterized by their bitter intensity and high casualties. "The American Civil War was to prove one of the most ferocious wars ever fought". Without geographic objectives, the only target for each side was the enemy's soldier. Keegan, "The American Civil War", p.73. Over 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40% of them in Virginia and Tennessee. See Gabor Boritt, ed. War Comes Again (1995), p. 247. 

===Mobilization===
As the first seven states began organizing a Confederacy in Montgomery, the entire US army numbered 16,000. However, Northern governors had begun to mobilize their militias. "With an actual strength of 1,080 officers and 14,926 enlisted men on June 30, 1860, the Regular Army ..." Civil War Extracts p. 199–221, American Military History. The Confederate Congress authorized the new nation up to 100,000 troops sent by governors as early as February. After Fort Sumter, Lincoln called out 75,000 three-month volunteers, by May Jefferson Davis was pushing for 100,000 men under arms for one year or the duration, and that was answered in kind by the U.S. Congress. E. Merton Coulter, Confederate States of America (1950) p.308. Accounts of historians differ as to the date and the agency of the Confederate 100,000-man call. See also , "Secession, Sumter, and Standing to Arms", "... on March 6 the new Confederate Executive, Jefferson Davis, called for a 100,000-man volunteer force to serve for twelve months ..." . See also Civil War extracts, American Military History Online. Retrieved 2012-11-28. and Nicolay, J.G. and Hay, John. Abraham Lincoln: a history, vol. 4, p.264. Retrieved 2012-11-28. "Since the organization of the Montgomery government in February, some four different calls for Southern volunteers had been made ... In his message of April 29 to the rebel Congress, Jefferson Davis proposed to organize for instant action an army of 100,000 ..." Coulter reports that Alexander Stephens took this to mean Davis wanted unilateral control of a standing army, and from that moment on became an implacable opponent. 

In the first year of the war, both sides had far more volunteers than they could effectively train and equip. After the initial enthusiasm faded, reliance on the cohort of young men who came of age every year and wanted to join was not enough. Both sides used a draft law—conscription—as a device to encourage or force volunteering; relatively few were actually drafted and served. The Confederacy passed a draft law in April 1862 for young men aged 18 to 35; overseers of slaves, government officials, and clergymen were exempt. The U.S. Congress followed in July, authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland. Albert Bernhardt Faust, The German Element in the United States (1909) v. 1, p. 523 online. The railroads and banks grew rapidly. See Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. , pp. 378–430. See also Oberholtzer, A History of the United States Since the Civil War (1926) 3:69–122. 

When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, ex-slaves were energetically recruited by the states, and used to meet the state quotas. States and local communities offered higher and higher cash bonuses for white volunteers. Congress tightened the law in March 1863. Men selected in the draft could provide substitutes or, until mid-1864, pay commutation money. Many eligibles pooled their money to cover the cost of anyone drafted. Families used the substitute provision to select which man should go into the army and which should stay home. There was much evasion and overt resistance to the draft, especially in Catholic areas. The great draft riot in New York City in July 1863 involved Irish immigrants who had been signed up as citizens to swell the vote of the city's Democratic political machine, not realizing it made them liable for the draft. Of the 168,649 men procured for the Union through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who had their personal services conscripted. 

North and South, the draft laws were highly unpopular. An estimated 120,000 men evaded conscription in the North, many of them fleeing to Canada, and another 280,000 Northern soldiers deserted during the war, along with at least 100,000 Southerners, or about 10% all together. However, desertion was a very common event in the 19th century; in the peacetime Army about 15% of the soldiers deserted every year. In the South, many men deserted temporarily to take care of their families, then returned to their units. In the North, "bounty jumpers" enlisted to get the generous bonus, deserted, then went back to a second recruiting station under a different name to sign up again for a second bonus; 141 were caught and executed. 
Rioters attacking a building during the New York anti-draft riots of 1863

From a tiny frontier force in 1860, in a few years the Union and Confederates armies had grown into the "largest and most efficient armies in the world." European observers at the time dismissed them as amateur and unprofessional, but British historian John Keegan's assessment is that each outmatched the French, Prussian and Russian armies of the time, and but for the Atlantic, would have threatened any of them with defeat.

====Motivation====
Perman and Taylor (2010) say that historians are of two minds on why millions of men seemed so eager to fight, suffer and die over four years:
:"Some historians emphasize that Civil War soldiers were driven by political ideology, holding firm beliefs about the importance of liberty, Union, or state rights, or about the need to protect or to destroy slavery. Others point to less overtly political reasons to fight, such as the defense of one's home and family, or the honor and brotherhood to be preserved when fighting alongside other men. Most historians agree that no matter what a soldier thought about when he went into the war, the experience of combat affected him profoundly and sometimes altered his reasons for continuing the fight."

====Prisoners====

At the start of the civil war a system of paroles operated. Captives agreed not to fight until they were officially exchanged. Meanwhile they were held in camps run by their own army where they were paid but not allowed to perform any military duties. The system of exchanges collapsed in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners. After that about 56,000 of the 409,000 POWs died in prisons during the War, accounting for nearly 10% of the conflict's fatalities. 

===Naval war===
The small U.S. Navy of 1861 was rapidly enlarged to 6,000 officers and 45,000 men in 1865, with 671 vessels, having a tonnage of 510,396. Its mission was to blockade Confederate ports, take control of the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy. Meanwhile, the main riverine war was fought in the West, where a series of major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland, if the U.S. Navy could take control. In the East, the Navy supplied and moved army forces about, and occasionally shelled Confederate installations.

====Union blockade====

alt=A cartoon map of the South surrounded by a snake.
By early 1861, General Winfield Scott had devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible. Scott argued that a Union blockade of the main ports would weaken the Confederate economy. Lincoln adopted parts of the plan, but he overruled Scott's caution about 90-day volunteers. Public opinion however demanded an immediate attack by the army to capture Richmond.

In April 1861, Lincoln announced the Union blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance and regular traffic ended. The South blundered in embargoing cotton exports in 1861 before the blockade was effective; by the time they realized the mistake it was too late. "King Cotton" was dead, as the South could export less than 10% of its cotton. The blockade shut down the ten Confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton, especially New Orleans, Mobile, and Charleston. By June 1861, warships were stationed off the principal Southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service.

=====Modern navy evolves=====
The Civil War prompted the industrial revolution and subsequently many naval innovations emerged during this time, most notably the advent of the ironclad warship. It began when the Confederacy, knowing they had to meet or match the Union's naval superiority, responded to the Union blockade by building or converting more than 130 vessels, including twenty-six ironclads and floating batteries. Only half of these saw active service. Many were equipped with ram bows, creating "ram fever" among Union squadrons wherever they threatened. But in the face of overwhelming Union superiority and the Union's own ironclad warships, they were unsuccessful.

The Confederacy experimented with a submarine, which did not work well, Gerald F. Teaster and Linda and James Treaster Ambrose, The Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley (1989) and with building an ironclad ship, the CSS Virginia, which was based on rebuilding a sunken Union ship, the Merrimac. On its first foray on March 8, 1862, the Virginia decimated the Union's wooden fleet, but the next day the first Union ironclad, the USS Monitor, arrived to challenge it. The Battle of the Ironclads was a draw, but it marks the worldwide transition to ironclad warships.

The Confederacy lost the Virginia when the ship was scuttled to prevent capture, and the Union built many copies of the Monitor. Lacking the technology to build effective warships, the Confederacy attempted to obtain warships from Britain.

=====Blockade runners=====

British investors built small, very fast, steam-driven blockade runners that traded arms and luxuries brought in from Britain through Bermuda, Cuba, and the Bahamas in return for high-priced cotton. The ships were so small that only a small amount of cotton went out. When the Union Navy seized a blockade runner, the ship and cargo were condemned as a Prize of war and sold with the proceeds given to the Navy sailors; the captured crewmen were mostly British and they were simply released. Mark E. Neely, Jr. "The Perils of Running the Blockade: The Influence of International Law in an Era of Total War," Civil War History (1986) 32#2, pp. 101–118 in Project MUSE The Southern economy nearly collapsed during the war. There were multiple reasons for this: the severe deterioration of food supplies, especially in cities, the failure of Southern railroads, the loss of control of the main rivers, foraging by Northern armies, and the seizure of animals and crops by Confederate armies. Historians agree that the blockade was a major factor in ruining the Confederate economy. However, Wise argues that they provided just enough of a lifeline to allow Lee to continue fighting for additional months, thanks to fresh supplies of 400,000 rifles, lead, blankets, and boots that the homefront economy could no longer supply. Stephen R. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (1991) 

Gunline of nine Union ironclads. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston. Continuous blockade of all major ports was sustained by North's overwhelming war production

=====Economic impact=====
Surdam argues that the blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the Southern economy, at the cost of very few lives in combat. Practically, the entire Confederate cotton crop was useless (although was sold to Union traders), costing the Confederacy its main source of income. Critical imports were very scarce and the coastal trade was largely ended as well. David G. Surdam, "The Union Navy's blockade reconsidered," Naval War College Review (1998) 51#4, pp. 85–107 The measure of the blockade's success was not the few ships that slipped through, but the thousands that never tried it. Merchant ships owned in Europe could not get insurance and were too slow to evade the blockade; they simply stopped calling at Confederate ports. David G. Surdam, Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War (University of South Carolina Press, 2001) 

To fight an offensive war the Confederacy purchased ships from Britain, converted them to warships, and raided American merchants ships in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Insurance rates skyrocketed and the American flag virtually disappeared from international waters. However, the same ships were reflagged with European flags and continued unmolested. After the war, the U.S. demanded that Britain pay for the damage done, and Britain paid the U.S. $15 million in 1871.

====Rivers====
The 1862 Union strategy called for simultaneous advances along four axes. McClellan would lead the main thrust in Virginia towards Richmond. Ohio forces were to advance through Kentucky into Tennessee, the Missouri Department would drive south along the Mississippi River, and the westernmost attack would originate from Kansas.

Clashes on the rivers were melees of ironclads, cottonclads gunboats and rams, complicated by torpedoes and fire rafts

Ulysses Grant used river transport and Andrew Foote's gunboats of the Western Flotilla to threaten the Confederacy's "Gibraltar of the West" at Columbus, Kentucky. Grant was rebuffed at Belmont, but cut off Columbus. The Confederates, lacking their own gunboats, were forced to retreat and the Union took control of western Kentucky in March 1862. Robert D. Whitsell, "Military and Naval Activity between Cairo and Columbus," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (1963) 62#2, pp. 107–121 

In addition to ocean-going warships coming up the Mississippi, the Union Navy used timberclads, tinclads, and armored gunboats. Shipyards at Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis built new boats or modified steamboats for action. Myron J. Smith, Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862–1865 (2009) They took control of the Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers after victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and supplied Grant's forces as he moved into Tennessee. At Shiloh, (Pittsburg Landing) in Tennessee in April 1862, the Confederates made a surprise attack that pushed Union forces against the river as night fell. Overnight, the Navy landed additional reinforcements, and Grant counter-attacked. Grant and the Union won a decisive victory – the first battle with the high casualty rates that would repeat over and over. Memphis fell to Union forces and became a key base for further advances south along the Mississippi River. In April 1862, US Naval forces under Farragut ran past Confederate defenses south of New Orleans. Confederates abandoned the city, which gave the Union a critical anchor in the deep South.

Naval forces assisted Grant in his long, complex campaign that resulted in the surrender of Vicksburg in July 1863, and full Union control of the Mississippi soon after. Ronald Scott Mangum, "The Vicksburg Campaign: A Study In Joint Operations," Parameters: U.S. Army War College (1991) 21#3, pp. 74–86 online 

===Eastern theater===

Because of the fierce resistance of a few initial Confederate forces at Manassas, Virginia, in July 1861, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas. McDowell's troops were forced back to Washington, D.C., by the Confederates under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard. It was in this battle that Confederate General Thomas Jackson received the nickname of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops.

Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the U.S. Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. Although McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign, Johnston halted his advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, then General Robert E. Lee and top subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat. The Northern Virginia Campaign, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run, ended in yet another victory for the South. McClellan resisted General-in-Chief Halleck's orders to send reinforcements to John Pope's Union Army of Virginia, which made it easier for Lee's Confederates to defeat twice the number of combined enemy troops.

Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North. General Lee led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history. Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.

When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside was soon defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when over 12,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during repeated futile frontal assaults against Marye's Heights. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.

Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Gen. Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by his own men during the battle and subsequently died of complications. Gen. Hooker was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to 3, 1863). This was the bloodiest battle of the war, and has been called the war's turning point. Pickett's Charge on July 3 is often considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy because it signaled the collapse of serious Confederate threats of victory. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000). However, Lincoln was angry that Meade failed to intercept Lee's retreat, and after Meade's inconclusive fall campaign, Lincoln turned to the Western Theater for new leadership. At the same time, the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg surrendered, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River, permanently isolating the western Confederacy, and producing the new leader Lincoln needed, Ulysses S. Grant.

===Western theater===

While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern Theater, they were defeated many times in the West. They were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge. Leonidas Polk's invasion of Columbus, Kentucky ended Kentucky's policy of neutrality and turned that state against the Confederacy. Nashville and central Tennessee fell to the Union early in 1862, leading to attrition of local food supplies and livestock and a breakdown in social organization.

The Mississippi was opened to Union traffic to the southern border of Tennessee with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee. In April 1862, the Union Navy captured New Orleans, which allowed Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, prevented Union control of the entire river.

General Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky ended with a meaningless victory over Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the Battle of Perryville, although Bragg was forced to end his attempt at invading Kentucky and retreat due to lack of support for the Confederacy in that state. Bragg was narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee.

The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged.

The Union's key strategist and tactician in the West was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson (by which the Union seized control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers); the Battle of Shiloh; and the Battle of Vicksburg, which cemented Union control of the Mississippi River and is considered one of the turning points of the war. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.

===Trans-Mississippi===

 
Extensive guerrilla warfare characterized the trans-Mississippi region, as the Confederacy lacked the troops and the logistics to support regular armies that could challenge Union control. James B. Martin, Third War: Irregular Warfare on the Western Border 1861–1865 (Combat Studies Institute Leavenworth Paper series, number 23, 2012). See also, Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the Civil War (1989). Missouri alone was the scene of over 1,000 engagements between regular units, and uncounted numbers of guerrilla attacks and raids by informal pro-Confederate bands, especially in the recently settled western counties. Roving Confederate bands such as Quantrill's Raiders terrorized the countryside, striking both military installations and civilian settlements. Sarah Bohl, "A War on Civilians: Order Number 11 and the Evacuation of Western Missouri," Prologue, (2004) 36#1, pp. 44–51 The "Sons of Liberty" and "Order of the American Knights" attacked pro-Union people, elected officeholders, and unarmed uniformed soldiers. These partisans could not be entirely driven out of the state of Missouri until an entire regular Union infantry division was engaged.

By 1864, these violent activities harmed the nationwide anti-war movement organizing against the re-election of Lincoln. Missouri not only stayed in the Union, Lincoln took 70 percent of the vote for re-election.

Numerous small-scale military actions south and west of Missouri sought to control Indian Territory and New Mexico Territory for the Union. The Union repulsed Confederate incursions into New Mexico in 1862, and the exiled Arizona government withdrew into Texas. In the Indian Territory, civil war broke out inside the tribes. About 12,000 Indian warriors fought for the Confederacy, and smaller numbers for the Union. William H. Graves, "Indian Soldiers for the Gray Army: Confederate Recruitment in Indian Territory," Chronicles of Oklahoma (1991) 69#2, pp. 134–145. The most prominent Cherokee was Brigadier General Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender. J. Frederick Neet, Jr. "Stand Watie: Confederate General in the Cherokee Nation," Great Plains Journal (1996) 6#1 pp 36–51. 

After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, General Kirby Smith in Texas was informed by Jefferson Davis that he could expect no further help from east of the Mississippi River. Although he lacked resources to beat Union armies, he built up a formidable arsenal at Tyler, along with his own Kirby Smithdom economy, a virtual "independent fiefdom" in Texas, including railroad construction and international smuggling. The Union in turn did not directly engage him. Its 1864 Red River Campaign to take Shreveport, Louisiana was a failure and Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war.

===End of war===
====Conquest of Virginia====
At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would end the war. This was total war not in terms of killing civilians but rather in terms of destroying homes, farms, and railroads. Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions. Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond, General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the Shenandoah Valley, General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean), Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama.

Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase ("Grant's Overland Campaign") of the Eastern campaign. Grant's battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor resulted in heavy Union losses, but forced Lee's Confederates to fall back repeatedly. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 65,000 casualties in seven weeks), kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.

Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was initially repelled at the Battle of New Market by former U.S. Vice President and Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge. The Battle of New Market was the Confederacy's last major victory of the war. After redoubling his efforts, Sheridan defeated Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia.

Meanwhile, Sherman maneuvered from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood along the way. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, guaranteed the reelection of Lincoln as president. Hood left the Atlanta area to swing around and menace Sherman's supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood's army.

Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unknown destination, laying waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea". He reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia in December 1864. Sherman's army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the March. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, increasing the pressure on Lee's army.

Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's. Union forces won a decisive victory at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, forcing Lee to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond. The Confederate capital fell to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west and after a defeat at Sayler's Creek, it became clear to Robert E. Lee that continued fighting against the United States was both tactically and logistically impossible.

====Confederacy surrenders====
alt=A map of the U.S. South showing shrinking territory under rebel control.

Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House. 
In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of peacefully restoring Confederate states to the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his sword and his horse, Traveller. On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer. Lincoln died early the next morning, and Andrew Johnson became the president. Meanwhile, Confederate forces across the South surrendered as news of Lee's surrender reached them. President Johnson officially declared a virtual end to the insurrection on May 9, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured the following day. On June 23, 1865, Cherokee leader Stand Watie was the last Confederate General to surrender his forces. Morris, John Wesley, Ghost towns of Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1977, pp. 68–69, ISBN 0-8061-1420-7 

==Diplomacy==

Europe in the 1860s was more fragmented than it had been since before the American Revolution. France was in a weakened state while Britain was still shocked by its own poor performance in the Crimean War. France was unable or unwilling to support either side without Britain, where popular support remained with the Union though elite opinion was more varied. They were further distracted by Germany and Italy, who were experiencing unification troubles, and by Russia, who was almost unflinching in their support for the Union.

Though the Confederacy hoped that Britain and France would join them against the Union, this was never likely, and so they instead tried to bring Britain and France in as mediators. The Union, under Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward worked to block this, and threatened war if any country officially recognized the existence of the Confederate States of America. In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war in order to get cotton, but this did not work. Worse, Europe developed other cotton suppliers, which they found superior, hindering the South's recovery after the war.
alt=A group of twenty-six sailors posing around a rifled naval cannon.
Cotton diplomacy proved a failure as Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860–62 crop failures in Europe made the North's grain exports of critical importance. It also helped to turn European opinion further away from the Confederacy. It was said that "King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton", as U.S. grain went from a quarter of the British import trade to almost half. When Britain did face a cotton shortage, it was temporary, being replaced by increased cultivation in Egypt and India. Meanwhile, the war created employment for arms makers, ironworkers, and British ships to transport weapons. 

Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept as minister to Britain for the U.S. and Britain was reluctant to boldly challenge the blockade. The Confederacy purchased several warships from commercial ship builders in Britain. The most famous, the CSS Alabama, did considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes. However, public opinion against slavery created a political liability for European politicians, especially in Britain (which had abolished slavery in her its colonies in 1834). 

War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent Affair, involving the U.S. Navy's boarding of a British mail steamer to seize two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington were able to smooth over the problem after Lincoln released the two. In 1862, the British considered mediation—though even such an offer would have risked war with the U.S. Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times when deciding on this. 

The Union victory in the Battle of Antietam caused them to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation over time would reinforce the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Despite sympathy for the Confederacy, France's own seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred them from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris. After 1863, the Polish revolt against Russia further distracted the European powers, and ensured that they would remain neutral.

==Victory and aftermath==
===Results===
The causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering contention today. The North and West grew rich while the once-rich South became poor for a century. The national political power of the slaveowners and rich southerners ended. Historians are less sure about the results of the postwar Reconstruction, especially regarding the second class citizenship of the Freedmen and their poverty. The Freedmen did indeed get their freedom, their citizenship, and control of their lives, their families and their churches.

Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war. Most scholars, such as James McPherson, argue that Confederate victory was at least possible. McPherson argues that the North's advantage in population and resources made Northern victory likely but not guaranteed. He also argues that if the Confederacy had fought using unconventional tactics, they would have more easily been able to hold out long enough to exhaust the Union. 

 Comparison of Union and CSA, 1860–1864 Year Union CSA 
 Population 1860 22,100,000 (71%) 9,100,000 (29%) 
 1864 28,800,000 (90%) 3,000,000 (10%) Martis, Kenneth C., \"The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America: 1861–1865\" Simon & Schuster (1994) ISBN 0-13-389115-1 pp.27. At the beginning of 1865, the Confederacy controlled one-third of its congressional districts, which were apportioned by population. The major slave-populations found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama were effectively under Union control by the end of 1864. 
 Free 1860 21,700,000 (81%) 5,600,000 (19%) 
 Slave 1860 400,000 (11%) 3,500,000 (89%) 
 1864 negligible 1,900,000 
 Soldiers 1860–64 2,100,000 (67%) 1,064,000 (33%) 
 Railroad miles 1860 21,800 (71%) 8,800 (29%) 
 1864 29,100 (98%) Digital History Reader, U.S. Railroad Construction, 1860–1880 Virginia Tech, Retrieved 2012-08-21. \"Total Union railroad miles\" aggregates existing track reported 1860 @ 21800 plus new construction 1860–1864 @ 5000, plus southern railroads administered by USMRR @ 2300. negligible 
 Manufactures 1860 90% 10% 
 1864 98% negligible 
 Arms production 1860 97% 3% 
 1864 98% negligible 
 Cotton bales 1860 negligible 4,500,000 
 1864 300,000 negligible 
 Exports 1860 30% 70% 
 1864 98% negligible 

Confederates did not need to invade and hold enemy territory to win, but only needed to fight a defensive war to convince the North that the cost of winning was too high. The North needed to conquer and hold vast stretches of enemy territory and defeat Confederate armies to win. The Confederacy sought to win independence by out-lasting Lincoln; however, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, all hope for a political victory for the South ended. At that point, Lincoln had secured the support of the Republicans, War Democrats, the border states, emancipated slaves, and the neutrality of Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he also defeated the Copperheads and their peace platform.

Many scholars argue that the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in terms of industrial strength and population. Confederate actions, they argue, only delayed defeat. Civil War historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly: "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back ... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War."

A minority view among historians is that the Confederacy lost because, as E. Merton Coulter put it,"people did not will hard enough and long enough to win." E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865 (1950) p. 566 Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones and William N. Still Jr., Why the South Lost the Civil War (1991) ch 1 The black Marxist historian Armstead Robinson agrees, pointing to a class conflict in the Confederates army between the slave owners and the larger number of non-owners. He argues that the non-owner soldiers grew embittered about fighting to preserve slavery, and fought less enthusiastically. He attributes the major Confederate defeats in 1863 at Vicksburg and Missionary Ridge to this class conflict. Armstead Robinson, Bitter Fruits of Bondage: The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861–1865 (University of Virginia Press, 2004) However, most historians reject the argument. see Alan Farmer, History Review (2005) No. 52: 15–20. James M. McPherson, after reading thousands of letters written by Confederate soldiers, found very strong patriotism that continued to the end; they truly believed they were fighting for freedom and liberty. Even as the Confederacy was visibly collapsing in 1864-5, he says most Confederate soldiers were fighting hard. Historian Gary Gallagher cites General Sherman who in early 1864 commented, "The devils seem to have a determination that cannot but be admired." Despite their loss of slaves and wealth, with starvation looming, Sherman continued, "yet I see no sign of let up – some few deserters – plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out."

Also important were Lincoln's eloquence in rationalizing the national purpose and his skill in keeping the border states committed to the Union cause. Although Lincoln's approach to emancipation was slow, the Emancipation Proclamation was an effective use of the President's war powers. The Confederate government failed in its attempt to get Europe involved in the war militarily, particularly Britain and France. Southern leaders needed to get European powers to help break up the blockade the Union had created around the Southern ports and cities.

Lincoln's naval blockade was 95% effective at stopping trade goods; as a result, imports and exports to the South declined significantly. The abundance of European cotton and Britain's hostility to the institution of slavery, along with Lincoln's Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico naval blockades, severely decreased any chance that either Britain or France would enter the war.

===Costs===
The war produced about 1,030,000 casualties (3% of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease, and 50,000 civilians. Binghamton University historian J. David Hacker believes the number of soldier deaths was approximately 750,000, 20% higher than traditionally estimated, and possibly as high as 850,000. The war accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined.

Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and 18% in the South. About 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps during the War. An estimated 60,000 men lost limbs in the war. 

Confederate death toll estimates vary considerably. Union army dead, amounting to 15% of the over two million who served, was broken down as follows: 
* 110,070 killed in action (67,000) or dead of wounds (43,000).
* 199,790 dead of disease (75% of which was due to the war, the remainder would have occurred in civilian life anyway)
* 24,866 dead in Confederate prison camps
* 9,058 killed by accidents or drowning
* 15,741 other/unknown deaths
* 359,528 total dead

Black troops accounted for 10% of the Union death toll, they amounted to 15% of disease deaths but less than 3% of those killed in battle. 

Losses can be viewed as high considering that the defeat of Mexico in 1846–48 resulted in fewer than 2,000 soldiers killed in battle. One reason for the high number of battle deaths during the war was the use of Napoleonic tactics, such as charging. With the advent of more accurate rifled barrels, Minié balls and (near the end of the war for the Union army) repeating firearms such as the Spencer Repeating Rifle and the Henry Repeating Rifle, soldiers were mowed down when standing in lines in the open. This led to the adoption of trench warfare, a style of fighting that defined the better part of World War I.

The wealth amassed in slaves and slavery for the Confederacy's 3.5 million blacks effectively ended when Union armies arrived; they were nearly all freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaves in the border states and those located in some former Confederate territory occupied prior to the Emancipation Proclamation were freed by state action or (on December 18, 1865) by the Thirteenth Amendment.

The war destroyed much of the wealth that had existed in the South. All accumulated investment Confederate bonds was forfeit; most banks and railroads were bankrupt. Income per person in the South dropped to less than 40% of that of the North, a condition that lasted until well into the 20th century. Southern influence in the US federal government, previously considerable, was greatly diminished until the latter half of the 20th century. The full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar era known as Reconstruction.

===Emancipation===
====Issue of Slavery During the War====
While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting to preserve slavery, most of the officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee's army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, in contrast, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. Abraham Lincoln consistently made preserving the Union the central goal of the war, though he increasingly saw slavery as a crucial issue and made ending it an additional goal. Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation angered both Peace Democrats ("Copperheads") and War Democrats, but energized most Republicans. McPherson, pp. 506–8 By warning that free blacks would flood the North, Democrats made gains in the 1862 elections, but they did not gain control of Congress. The Republicans' counterargument that slavery was the mainstay of the enemy steadily gained support, with the Democrats losing decisively in the 1863 elections in the northern state of Ohio when they tried to resurrect anti-black sentiment. McPherson. p. 686 

====Emancipation Proclamation====

The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African-Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery.

During the Civil War, sentiment concerning slaves, enslavement and emancipation in the United States was divided. In 1861, Lincoln worried that premature attempts at emancipation would mean the loss of the border states, and that "to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game." Lincoln's letter to O. H. Browning, September 22, 1861. Sentiment among German Americans was largely anti-slavery especially among Forty-Eighters, resulting in hundreds of thousands of German Americans volunteering to fight for the Union. " ", Christian B. Keller, "Flying Dutchmen and Drunken Irishmen: The Myths and Realities of Ethnic Civil War Soldiers", Journal of Military History, Vol/ 73, No. 1, January 2009, pp. 117–145; for primary sources see Walter D. Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Helbich, eds., Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home (2006). " On the other hand, many of the recent immigrants in the North viewed freed slaves as competition for scarce jobs, and as the reason why the Civil War was being fought. " Baker, Kevin (March 2003). "Violent City" American Heritage. Retrieved 2010-07-29. " Due in large part to this fierce competition with free blacks for labor opportunities, the poor and working class Irish Catholics generally opposed emancipation. When the draft began in the summer of 1863, they launched a major riot in New York City that was suppressed by the military, as well as much smaller protests in other cities. Barnet Schecter, The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2007), ch 6. Many Catholics in the North had volunteered to fight in 1861, sending thousands of soldiers to the front and taking high casualties, especially at Fredericksburg; their volunteering fell off after 1862. Copperheads and some War Democrats opposed emancipation, although the latter eventually accepted it as part of total war needed to save the Union. Baker, Kevin (March 2003). "Violent City" American Heritage. Retrieved 2010-07-29. " 

At first, Lincoln reversed attempts at emancipation by Secretary of War Simon Cameron and Generals John C. Frémont (in Missouri) and David Hunter (in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida) to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats. Lincoln warned the border states that a more radical type of emancipation would happen if his gradual plan based on compensated emancipation and voluntary colonization was rejected. McPherson, James in Gabor S. Boritt, ed. Lincoln, the War President pp. 52–54. But only the District of Columbia accepted Lincoln's gradual plan, which was enacted by Congress. When Lincoln told his cabinet about his proposed emancipation proclamation, Seward advised Lincoln to wait for a victory before issuing it, as to do otherwise would seem like "our last shriek on the retreat". Oates, Stephen B. Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 106. Lincoln laid the groundwork for public support in an open letter published letter to abolitionist Horace Greeley's newspaper. "Lincoln Letter to Greeley, August 22, 1862 " 

In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam provided this opportunity, and the subsequent War Governors' Conference added support for the proclamation. Pulling, Sr. Anne Francis. "Images of America: Altoona, 2001, 10. Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. In his letter to Albert G. Hodges, Lincoln explained his belief that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong ... And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling ... I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Lincoln's Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864. 

Lincoln's moderate approach succeeded in inducing border states, War Democrats and emancipated slaves to fight for the Union. The Union-controlled border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) and Union controlled regions around New Orleans, Norfolk and elsewhere, were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. All abolished slavery on their own, except Kentucky and Delaware. 

Since the Emancipation Proclamation was based on the President's war powers, it only included territory held by Confederates at the time. However, the Proclamation became a symbol of the Union's growing commitment to add emancipation to the Union's definition of liberty. " James McPherson, The War that Never Goes Away" The Emancipation Proclamation greatly reduced the Confederacy's hope of getting aid from Britain or France. By late 1864, Lincoln was playing a leading role in getting Congress to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment, which made emancipation universal and permanent.

===Reconstruction===

Northern teachers traveled into the South to provide education and training for the newly freed population.
Reconstruction began during the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 and continued to 1877. Hans L. Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction (Greenwood, 1991) covers all the main events and leaders. It comprised multiple complex methods to resolve the war, the most important of which were the three "Reconstruction Amendments" to the Constitution, which remain in effect to the present time: the 13th (1865), the 14th (1868) and the 15th (1870). From the Union perspective, the goals of Reconstruction were to guarantee the Union victory on the battlefield by reuniting the Union; to guarantee a "republican form of government for the ex-Confederate states; and to permanently end slavery—and prevent semi-slavery status. Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction (1990) is a brief survey 

President Johnson took a lenient approach and saw the achievement of the main war goals as realized in 1865, when each ex-rebel state repudiated secession and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Radical Republicans demanded strong proof that Confederate nationalism was dead and the slaves were truly free. They came to the fore after the 1866 elections and undid much of Johnson's work. They used the Army to dissolve Southern state governments and hold new elections with Freedmen voting. The result was a Republican coalition that took power in ten states for varying lengths of time, staying in power with the help of U.S. Army units and black voters. Grant was elected president in 1868 and continued the Radical policies. Meanwhile the Freedmen's Bureau, started by Lincoln in 1865 to help the freed slaves, played a major role in helping the blacks and arranging work for them. In opposition paramilitary groups such as the first Ku Klux Klan used violence to thwart these efforts. Hans L Trefousse, Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (2005) pp 161–238 

The "Liberal Republicans" argued the war goals had been achieved and Reconstruction should end. They ran a ticket in 1872 but were decisively defeated as Grant was reelected. In 1874, Democrats took control of Congress and opposed any more reconstruction. The disputed 1876 elections were resolved by the Compromise of 1877, which put Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House. He pulled out the last federal troops and the last Republican state governments in the South collapsed, marking the end of Civil War and Reconstruction. C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (2nd ed. 1991). 

==Memory and historiography==

The Civil War is one of the central events in America's collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war's aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war. The last theme includes moral evaluations of racism and slavery, heroism in combat and behind the lines, and the issues of democracy and minority rights, as well as the notion of an "Empire of Liberty" influencing the world. 

===Lost Cause=== 

Memory of the war in the white South crystallized in the myth of the "Lost Cause", which shaped regional identity and race relations for generations. Alan T. Nolan notes in his chapter “The anatomy of the Myth”, that the Lost Cause was expressly "a rationalization, a cover-up to vindicate the name and fame" of those in rebellion. Some claims revolve around the insignificance of slavery. Some appeals highlight cultural differences North and South. The military conflict by Confederate actors is idealized. In any case, secession was said to be lawful. Nolan, Alan T. in Gallagher, Gary W. and Alan T. Nolan, “The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War history”, (2000) ISBN 0-253-33822-0, p.12-19. The two important political legacies flowed from the adoption of the Lost Cause analysis were that it facilitated the reunification of the North and the South, and it excused the “virulent racism” of the 19th century, sacrificing African-American progress to a white man’s reunification. But the Lost Cause legacy to history is “a caricature of the truth. This caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter” in every instance. Nolan, Alan T., (2000) op. cit., p. 28-29. 

Beginning in 1961 the U.S. Post Office released Commemorative stamps for five famous battles, each issued on the 100th anniversary of the respective battle.

===Beardian historiography===
The most influential interpretation of the Civil War was the Beardian approach presented by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard in The Rise of American Civilization (1927). It was highly influential among historians and the general public until the civil rights era of the 1950s. The Beards downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. They ignored constitutional issues of states' rights and even ignored American nationalism as the force that finally led to victory in the war. Indeed the ferocious combat itself was passed over as merely an ephemeral event. Much more important was the calculus of class conflict. The Beards announced that the Civil War was really a:
:Social cataclysm in which the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the North and West drove from power in the national government the planting aristocracy of the South." Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927), 2:54 

The Beards themselves abandoned their interpretation by the 1940s and it became defunct among historians in the 1950s, when they shifted to an emphasis on slavery. However, Beardian themes still echo among Lost Cause writers. 

===Civil War commemoration===

 
The American Civil War has been commemorated in many capacities ranging from the reenactment of battles, to statues and memorial halls erected, to films being produced, to stamps and coins with Civil War themes being issued, all of which helped to shape public memory. This varied advent occurred in greater proportions on the 100th and 150th anniversary.
 
Hollywood's take on the war has been especially influential in shaping public memory, as seen in such film classics as Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Lincoln (2012).

==See also==

General reference
* Battles of the American Civil War
* Bibliography of the American Civil War
* Corps badges of the American Civil War
* Naval bibliography of the American Civil War
* Uniforms of the Union
* Uniforms of the Confederacy
* Weapons in the American Civil War

Union
* United States
* Union Army
* Union Navy

Confederacy
* Confederate States
* Confederate Army
* Confederate Navy

Ethnic articles
* African Americans in the American Civil War
* German Americans in the American Civil War
* Hispanic Americans in the American Civil War
* Irish Americans in the American Civil War
* Italian Americans in the American Civil War
* Native Americans in the American Civil War

Topical articles
* Blockade runners of the American Civil War
* Blockade, Union – of the American Civil War
* Casualties in the American Civil War
* Commemoration of the American Civil War
* Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
* Nursing in the American Civil War, Dorothea Dix
* Ships captured during the American Civil War
* Slaves and the American Civil War
* Spies in the American Civil War

National articles
* Foreign enlistment in the American Civil War
* Britain in the American Civil War
* Canada in the American Civil War

==References==
;Notes

;Citations

;Bibliography

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* Beringer, Richard E., Archer Jones, and Herman Hattaway, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986) influential analysis of factors; an abridged version is The Elements of Confederate Defeat: Nationalism, War Aims, and Religion (1988)
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* Gara, Larry. 1964. The Fugitive Slave Law: A Double Paradox in Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. (originally published in Civil War History, X, No. 3, Sept 1964)
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* Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union, an 8-volume set (1947–1971). the most detailed political, economic and military narrative; by Pulitzer Prize winner
** 1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852; 2. A House Dividing, 1852–1857; 3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857–1859; 4. Prologue to Civil War, 1859–1861; vol. 5–8 have the series title "War for the Union"; 5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862; 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; 7. The Organized War, 1863–1864; 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865
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==Further reading==
* Gugliotta, Guy. New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll, The New York Times, April 3, 2012, pg. D1 (of the New York edition), and April 2, 2012 on NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2012-04-03 online.
* Bibliography of the American Civil War
* Bibliography of American Civil War naval history

==External links==

* 
* Civil War photos at the National Archives
* View images from the Civil War Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress
* Civil War Trust
* Civil War Era Digital Collection at Gettysburg College This collection contains digital images of political cartoons, personal papers, pamphlets, maps, paintings and photographs from the Civil War Era held in Special Collections at Gettysburg College.
* Civil War 150 Washington Post interactive website on 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War.
* Civil War in the American South – An Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) portal with links to almost 9,000 digitized Civil War-era items—books, pamphlets, broadsides, letters, maps, personal papers, and manuscripts—held at ASERL member libraries
* The Civil War – site with 7,000 pages, including the complete run of Harper's Weekly newspapers from the Civil War
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* Civil War Living History Reenactments (videos)
* West Point Atlas of Civil War Battles

 

Civil War



[[Andy Warhol]]

Andy Warhol (; Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: "Warhol" August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist.

Warhol's art encompassed many forms of media, including hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music. He was also a pioneer in computer-generated art using Amiga computers that were introduced in 1984, two years before his death. He founded Interview Magazine and was the author of numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and . He is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement. His studio, The Factory, was a famous gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)". A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market". Warhol's works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.

==Early life (1928–1949)==
Warhol's childhood home. 3252 Dawson Street, South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Andy Warhol (né Andrej Varhola, Jr.) was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Andrej Varhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola, Sr., 1889–1942) and Júlia (née Zavacká, 1892–1972), whose first child was born in their homeland and died before their move to the U.S. Andy had two older brothers, Paul (June 26, 1922 - January 30, 2014) and John Warhola (May 31, 1925 – December 24, 2010).

His parents were working-class Lemko Paul Robert Magocsi, Ivan Pop, , University of Toronto Press, 2002 Jane Daggett Dillenberger, 22+biography&hl=en&ei=Hdg8TaXvF8WL4ga2g5nnCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Warhol%20%22Rusyn%22%20biography&f=false Religious Art of Andy Warhol, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002, p.7 emigrants from Mikó (now called Miková), located in today's northeastern Slovakia, part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol's father immigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol had two older brothers—Pavol (Paul), the oldest, was born before the family emigrated; Ján was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol's son, James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator. About 1939, he started to collect autographed cards of film stars.

In third grade, Warhol had Sydenham's chorea (also known as St. Vitus' Dance), the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever which causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. He became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. Often bedridden as a child, he became an outcast at school and bonded with his mother. At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident. 

As a teenager, Warhol graduated from Schenley High School in 1945. After graduating from high school, his intentions were to study art education at the University of Pittsburgh in the hope of becoming an art teacher, but his plans changed and he enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. Colacello, Bob (1990), p.19 In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising. In 1949, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design.

==1950s==
During the 1950s, Warhol gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements. These were done in a loose, blotted-ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York. With the concurrent rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials. 

Warhol was an early adopter of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. His earliest silkscreening in painting involved hand-drawn images though this soon progressed to the use of photographically derived silkscreening in paintings. Prior to entering the field of fine art, Warhol's commercial art background also involved innovative techniques for image making that were somewhat related to printmaking techniques. When rendering commercial objects for advertising Warhol devised a technique that resulted in a characteristic image. His imagery used in advertising was often executed by means of applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet. This was akin to a printmaking process on the most rudimentary scale. "The blotted line, a primitive type of printing—literally a "press"—was, when he devised it, a way for Andy ..."; Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol By Tony Scherman, David Dalton 

Warhol's work both as a commercial artist and later a fine artist displays a casual approach to image making, in which chance plays a role and mistakes and unintentional marks are tolerated. The resulting imagery in both Warhol's commercial art and later in his fine art endeavors is often replete with imperfection—smudges and smears can often be found. In his book "POPism" Warhol writes, "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something." 

==1960s==
Warhol (left) and Tennessee Williams (right) talking on the SS France, 1967; in the background: Paul Morrissey.
He began exhibiting his work during the 1950s. He held exhibitions at the Hugo Gallery, Warhol biography, Gagosian Gallery Retrieved March 24, 2011 and the Bodley Gallery Bodley Gallery Warhol exhibition announcement Retrieved March 24, 2011 in New York City and in California his first West Coast gallery exhibition was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles. The exhibition marked his West Coast debut of pop art. 
Andy Warhol's first New York solo pop art exhibition was hosted at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery November 6–24, 1962. The exhibit included the works Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. At the Stable Gallery exhibit, the artist met for the first time poet John Giorno who would star in Warhol's first film, Sleep, in 1963. 

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, Campbell's Soup Cans, Coca-Cola bottles, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali, and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. During these years, he founded his studio, "The Factory" and gathered about him a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca Cola:

New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became increasingly clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.

A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, among them the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.Campbell's Soup I (1968)
As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; this was particularly true in the 1960s. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with the production of silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory," Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations). Colacello, Bob (1990), p.67 

During the 1960s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Nico, Joe Dallesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, and Candy Darling. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time.

===Attempted murder (1968)===
On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol's studio. Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored in 1967 the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film I, a Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script had apparently been misplaced. Jobey, Liz, "Solanas and Son," The Guardian (Manchester, England) August 24, 1996: page T10 and following. 

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived: surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again. He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art. 

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many the "Factory 60s" ended. 

Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television—you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television." 

==1970s==
Andy Warhol and Jimmy Carter in 1977

Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as he became more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Brigitte Bardot. Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, Interview magazine, and published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art." 

Warhol used to socialize at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City; and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square." 

With his longtime friend Stuart Pivar, Warhol founded the New York Academy of Art in 1979. 

==1980s==
Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi.

By this period, Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist". In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. They also criticized his 1980 exhibit of 10 portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Jewish Geniuses, which Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as "They're going to sell." In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s." 

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." 

==Death==
Warhol's grave at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery
left

Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 am on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money. 

Warhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was posed holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono and John Richardson were speakers. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns. After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh.

At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview T-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father. A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol on April 1, 1987, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

==Foundation==

Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate — with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members — would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million.

In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts began. The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature." 

The Artists Rights Society is the U.S. copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The U.S. copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource. 

The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program. The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the U.S. 

== Works ==

=== Paintings ===
By the beginning of the 1960s, Warhol had become a very successful commercial illustrator. His detailed and elegant drawings for I. Miller shoes were particularly popular. They consisted mainly of "blotted ink" drawings (or monoprints), a technique which he applied in much of his early art. Although many artists of this period worked in commercial art, most did so discreetly. Warhol was so successful, however, that his profile as an illustrator seemed to undermine his efforts to be taken seriously as an artist.

Pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Marilyn Monroe was a pop art painting that Warhol had done and it was very popular. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as Willem de Kooning). Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bronwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced. Smith, Patrick S (1986). Andy Warhol's Art and Films. UMI Research Press. p.98. ISBN 0-8357-1733-X. Eventually, Warhol pared his image vocabulary down to the icon itself—to brand names, celebrities, dollar signs—and removed all traces of the artist's "hand" in the production of his paintings.

To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by Lichtenstein, typography by Jasper Johns, and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961 Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter. 
For his first major exhibition Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's Soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life. The work sold for $10,000 at an auction on November 17, 1971, at Sotheby's New York.

He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations. Colacello, Bob (1990), p.28 

In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 4 race version of the then elite supercar BMW M1 for the fourth installment in the BMW Art Car Project. Unlike the three artists before him, Warhol declined the use of a small scale practice model, instead opting to immediately paint directly onto the full scale automobile. It was indicated that Warhol spent only a total of 23 minutes to paint the entire car. 
Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–1963 Death and Disaster series. The Death and Disaster paintings included Red Car Crash, Purple Jumping Man, and Orange Disaster. One of these paintings, the diptych "Silver Car Crash", became the highest priced work of his when it sold at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auction on Wednesday, November 13, 2013 for $105.4 million. 

Some of Warhol's work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Keatonesque. Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface.'" 

His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":

Warhol's first portrait of Basquiat (1982) is a black photosilkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting".

After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand in a series of over 50 large collaborative works done with Jean-Michel Basquiat between 1984 and 1986. Chiappini, Rudi (ed.) Jean-Michel Basquiat. Museo d'Arte Moderna /Skira, 2005. Fairbrother, Trevor. "Double Feature—Collaborative Paintings, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat," Art in America, September 1969. Despite negative criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work. Fretz, Eric. Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-313-38056-3. 

The influence of the large collaborations with Basquiat can be seen in Warhol's The Last Supper cycle, his last and possibly his largest series, seen by some as "arguably his greatest," but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless." Anthony Haden-Guest, "Warhol's Last Supper" ArtNet 1999, http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/haden-guest/haden-guest8-3-99.asp It is also the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist. 

At the time of his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz. 

A self-portrait by Andy Warhol (1963–1964), which sold in New York at the May Post-War and Contemporary evening sale in Christie's, fetched $38.4 million.

On May 9, 2012, his classic painting "Double Elvis (Ferus Type)" sold at auction at Sotheby's in New York for US$33 million. With commission, the sale price totaled US$37,042,500, short of the $50 million that Sotheby's had predicted the painting might bring. The piece (silkscreen ink and spray paint on canvas) shows Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the "Double Elvis," nine of which are held in museums. 

On Wednesday, November 13, 2013 his "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) diptych sold at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auction for $105.4 million, a new record for the famed pop artist (pre-auction estimates at $80 million). Created in 1963, this work has only been seen in public once in the past 26 years. 

=== Films ===
Warhol worked across a wide range of media—painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films, plus some 500 short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors. Schaffner (1999), p.73 One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film Blow Job is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, Empire (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film Eat consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by LaMonte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films including Kiss, Eat, and Sleep (for which Young initially was commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, and who claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance. 

Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico, and Jackie Curtis. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.

His most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.

Other important films include Bike Boy, My Hustler, The Nude Restaurant, and Lonesome Cowboys, a raunchy pseudo-western. These and other titles document gay underground and camp culture, and continue to feature prominently in scholarship about sexuality and art. Blue Movie—a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time—was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.

After his June 3, 1968, shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh, Trash, and Heat. All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred Joe Dallesandro—more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.

In the early 1970s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol's death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.

==== Filmography ====

=== Factory in New York ===

* Factory: 1342 Lexington Avenue (the first Factory)
* The Factory: 231 East 47th street 1963–1967 (the building no longer exists)
* Factory: 33 Union Square 1967–1973 (Decker Building)
* Factory: 860 Broadway (near 33 Union Square) 1973–1984 (the building has now been completely remodeled and was for a time (2000–2001) the headquarters of the dot-com consultancy Scient)
* Factory: 22 East 33rd Street 1984–1987 (the building no longer exists)
* Home: 1342 Lexington Avenue
* Home: 57 East 66th street (Warhol's last home)
* Last personal studio: 158 Madison Avenue

=== Music ===
In the mid-1960s, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). In 1966 he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and their artistic friendship ended. In 1989, after Warhol's death, Reed and John Cale re-united for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album Songs for Drella, a tribute to Warhol.

Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964). He designed the cover art for the Rolling Stones albums Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977), and the John Cale albums The Academy in Peril (1972) and Honi Soit in 1981. One of Warhol's last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album Aretha, which was done in the style of the Reigning Queens series he had completed the year before. 

Warhol strongly influenced the new wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", about Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, and this version was released on the VU album in 1985. Bowie would later play Warhol in the 1996 movie, Basquiat. Bowie recalled how meeting Warhol in real life helped him in the role, and recounted his early meetings with him:

=== Books and print ===
Beginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.

The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy No. 4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover and given to Geraldine Stutz, was used for a facsimile printing in 1987 and the original was auctioned in May 2006 for US $35,000 by Doyle New York. May 3, 2006 auction at Doyle New York. Retrieved August 14, 2006. 

Other self-published books by Warhol include:
* A Gold Book
* Wild Raspberries
* Holy Cats

After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:
* a, A Novel (1968, ISBN 0-8021-3553-6) is a literal transcription—containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling—of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.
* The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4)—according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello.
* (1980, ISBN 0-15-672960-1), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett is a retrospective view of the 1960s and the role of pop art.
* The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ISBN 0-446-39138-7), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations. Colacello, Bob (1990), p.183 

Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published today. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces. Colacello, Bob (1990), pp.22–23 

=== Other media ===
Although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he authored works in many different media.
* Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as Yum, Yum, Yum (about food), Ho, Ho, Ho (about Christmas) and (of course) Shoes, Shoes, Shoes. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably A Gold Book, compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. A Gold Book is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages. In April 2012 a sketch of 1930s singer Rudy Vallee claimed to have been drawn by Andy Warhol was found at a Las Vegas garage sale. The image was said to have been drawn when Andy was 9 or 10. Various authorities have challenged the image's authenticity.
* Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his Brillo Boxes, silkscreened ink on wood replicas of the large, branded cardboard boxes used to hold 24 packages of Brillo soap pads. The original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey. Warhol's sculpture was part of a series of "grocery carton" works that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice cases. Other famous works include the Silver Clouds—helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968–1969) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968). 
* Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his "Invisible Sculpture", a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.
* Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life—correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food—which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum. 
* Television: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television special about a favorite subject of hisNothingthat he would call The Nothing Special. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (based on his famous "fifteen minutes of fame" quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom Happy Days) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae". 
* Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?" One of his most well-known Superstars, Edie Sedgwick, aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend Halston was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject. Warhol himself has been described as a modern dandy, whose authority "rested more on presence than on words". George Walden, Who's a Dandy?—Dandyism and Beau Brummell, Gibson Square, London, 2002. ISBN 1-903933-18-8. Reviewed by Frances Wilson in Uncommon People, The Guardian, October 12, 2006. 
* Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work. 
* Theater: Andy Warhol's Pork opened on May 5, 1971 at LaMama theater in New York for a two-week run and was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigid Berlin and Andy during which Brigid would play for Andy tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. The play featured Jayne County as "Vulva" and Cherry Vanilla as "Amanda Pork". In 1974, Andy Warhol also produced the stage musical Man on the Moon, which was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.
* Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous amount of photographs of Factory visitors, friends.
* Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, including You Are the One, which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model. (video)

=== Producer and product ===
Warhol had assistance in producing his paintings. This is also true of his film-making and commercial enterprises.

He founded the gossip magazine Interview, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.) He adopted the young painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the band The Velvet Underground, presenting them to the public as his latest interest, and collaborating with them. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). He endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from Love Boat to Saturday Night Live and the Richard Pryor movie, Dynamite Chicken).

In this respect Warhol was a fan of "Art Business" and "Business Art"—he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again.

==Personal life==

===Sexuality===
Warhol was gay. See biographers such as Victor Bockris, Bob Colacello, and art historian Richard Meyer When interviewed in 1980, he indicated that he was still a virgin—biographer Bob Colacello who was present at the interview felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use his word abstract". Warhol's assertion of virginity would seem to be contradicted by an incident recounted by one biographer, his hospital treatment in 1960 for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. Scherman, Tony & Dalton, David, POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol, p. 49 HarperCollins, New York, N.Y. 2010 The fact that Warhol's homosexuality influenced his work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications (e.g., Popism: The Warhol 1960s). Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor, and films like Blow Job, My Hustler and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. As has been addressed by a range of scholars, many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters. Thomas Waugh, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male eroticism in Photography and Film from the Beginnings to Stonewall, Columbia University Press, New York, N.Y. 1996 

The first works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay. In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the film maker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then more famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them." In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period—the late 1950s and early 1960s—as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, no" and "Um, yes", and often allowing others to speak for him)—and even the evolution of his pop style—can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world. 

===Religious beliefs===
Images of Jesus from The Last Supper cycle (1986). Warhol made almost 100 variations on the theme, which the Guggenheim felt "indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter." 
Warhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate. 

During his life, Warhol regularly attended Mass, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, although he was not observed taking communion or going to confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back. The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Roman Rite church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse). 

His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship. 

Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because was private". Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood". 

===Collections===
Warhol was an avid collector. His friends referred to his numerous collections, which filled not only his four-story townhouse, but also a nearby storage unit, as "Andy's Stuff." The true extent of his collections was not discovered until after his death, when the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh took in 641 boxes of his "Stuff."

Warhol's collections included airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers, and cookie jars, among other eccentricities. One of his main collections was his wigs. Warhol owned over forty and felt very protective of his hairpieces which were sewn by a New York wig-maker from hair imported from Italy. In 1985 a girl snatched Warhol's wig off his head. It was later discovered in Warhol's diary entry for that day that he wrote "I don't know what held me back from pushing her over the balcony."

Another item found in Warhol's boxes at the museum in Pittsburgh was a mummified human foot from Ancient Egypt. The curator of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History felt that Warhol most likely found it at a flea market. 

== Movies about Warhol ==
Warhol (right) with director Ulli Lommel on the set of 1979's Cocaine Cowboys, in which Warhol appeared as himself

=== Dramatic portrayals ===

In 1979, Warhol appeared as himself in the film Cocaine Cowboys. Lommel, Ulli (director). Cocaine Cowboys 

After his death, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), by David Bowie in Basquiat, a film by Julian Schnabel, and by Jared Harris in the film I Shot Andy Warhol directed by Mary Harron (1996). Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's 1997 opera Jackie O. Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in (1997).

Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Warhol's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the 1998 film 54. Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the 2007 film, Factory Girl, about Edie Sedgwick's life. Hickenlooper, George (director). Factory Girl Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the 2009 film Watchmen. In the 2012 film Men in Black III Andy Warhol turns out to really be undercover MIB Agent W (played by Bill Hader). Warhol is throwing a party at The Factory in 1969, where he is looked up by MIB Agents K and J (J from the future). Agent W is desperate to end his undercover job ( "I'm so out of ideas I'm painting soup cans and bananas, for Christ sakes!" and "You gotta fake my death, okay? I can't listen to sitar music anymore.")

Gus Van Sant was planning a version of Warhol's life with River Phoenix in the lead role just before Phoenix's death in 1993. 

=== Documentaries ===
*The 2001 documentary, Absolut Warhola was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia. 
* is a reverential four-hour 2006 movie by Ric Burns. 
* Andy Warhol: Double Denied is a 52 minute movie by lan Yentob about the difficulties in authenticating Warhol's work. 
* Andy Warhol's People Factory, a three-part 2008 television documentary directed by Catherine Shorr, features interviews with several of Warhol's associates. 

==Honors==
In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at the Andy Warhol Museum, and features Warhol's painting Self-Portrait, 1964. 

==See also==

* Race Riot
* Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board
* Painting the Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000
* Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh.
* Bodley Gallery
* 15 minutes of fame
* Moon Museum
* Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York City

==References==

==Further reading==

* "A symposium on Pop Art". Arts Magazine, April 1963, pp. 36–45. The symposium was held in 1962, at The Museum of Modern Art, and published in this issue the following year.
* 
* Celant, Germano. Andy Warhal: A Fatory. Kunstmuseum Wolfsbug, 1999. isbn 3-7757-0073-5
* 
* 
* 
* Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz eds. (1996). Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Durham: Duke University Press.
* 
* 
* 
* James, James, "Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author", in Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the 1960s (1989), pp. 58–84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
* 
* Krauss, Rosalind E. "Warhol's Abstract Spectacle". In Abstraction, Gesture, Ecriture: Paintings from the Daros Collection. New York: Scalo, 1999, pp. 123–33.
* Lippard, Lucy R., Pop Art, Thames and Hudson, 1970 (1985 reprint), ISBN 0-500-20052-1
* 
* 
* Scherman, Tony & Dalton, David, POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol, HarperCollins, New York, N.Y. 2009
* Suarez, Juan Antonio (1996). Bike Boys, Drag Queens, & Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

==External links==

*Andy Warhol, (1928-1987) - The Carpathian Connection
* Warhol Foundation in New York City
* Andy Warhol Collection in Pittsburgh
* Time Capsules: the Andy Warhol Collection
* Documentation of recent exhibitions of work by Andy Warhol
* The work of Andy Warhol spoken about by David Cronenberg on UbuWeb
* 
* Warholstars: Andy Warhol Films, Art and Superstars
* Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work
* 
* The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art—city of origin
* 
* Warhol & The Computer
* Warhol in Paris—slideshow by The First Post
* Andy Warhol makes a digital painting of Debbie Harry at the Commodore Amiga product launch press conference in 1985
* Andy Warhol: A Documentary film by Ric Burns for PBS
* Andy Warhol
* Designer Peter Jensen takes you on a tour of the early drawings of Andy Warhol. Video by Louisiana Channel, Denmark, 2013.
*Andy Warhol in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection

 



[[Alp Arslan]]

Alp Arslan (Persian: آلپ ارسلان; full name: Diya ad-Dunya wa ad-Din Adud ad-Dawlah Abu Shuja Muhammad Alp Arslan ibn Dawud) (20 January 1029 – 15 December 1072) was the second Sultan of the Seljuq Empire and great-grandson of Seljuq, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. His real name was Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri, and for his military prowess, personal valour, and fighting skills he obtained the name Alp Arslan, which means "Heroic Lion" "Alp Arslan." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (September 5, 2011). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404700163.html in Turkish.

==Career==
Alp Arslan succeeded his father Çağrı Bey as governor of Khorasan in 1059. His uncle Tughril died and was succeeded by Suleiman, Arslan's brother. Arslan and his uncle Kutalmish both contested this succession. Arslan defeated Kutalmish for the throne and succeeded on 27 April 1064 as sultan of Great Seljuq, thus becoming sole monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris.

In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions, Arslan was ably assisted by Nizam al-Mulk, his vizier, and one of the most eminent statesmen in early Muslim history. With peace and security established in his dominions, Arslan convoked an assembly of the states and declared his son Malik Shah I his heir and successor. With the hope of capturing Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkish cavalry, crossed the Euphrates, and entered and invaded the city. Along with Nizam al-Mulk, he then marched into Armenia and Georgia, which he conquered in 1064.

==Byzantine struggle==
Battle of Manzikert

En route to Syria in 1068, Alp Arslan Oush invaded the Byzantine Empire. The Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, assuming command in person, met the invaders in Cilicia. In three arduous campaigns, the Turks were defeated in detail and driven across the Euphrates in 1070. The first two campaigns were conducted by the emperor himself, while the third was directed by Manuel Comnenos, great-uncle of Emperor Manuel Comnenos.

In 1071 Romanos again took the field and advanced into Armenia with possibly 30,000 men, including a contingent of Cuman Turks as well as contingents of Franks and Normans, under Ursel de Baieul. At Manzikert, on the Murat River, north of Lake Van, Diogenes was met by Alp Arslan. The sultan proposed terms of peace, which were rejected by the emperor, and the two forces waged the Battle of Manzikert. The Cuman mercenaries among the Byzantine forces immediately defected to the Turkish side. Seeing this, "the Western mercenaries rode off and took no part in the battle." To be exact, Romanos was betrayed by general Andronikos Doukas, son of the Caesar (Romanos's stepson), who pronounced him dead and rode off with a large part of the Byzantine forces at a critical moment. The Byzantines were totally routed.

Emperor Romanos IV was himself taken prisoner and conducted into the presence of Alp Arslan. After a ritual humiliation, Arslan treated him with generosity. After peace terms were agreed to, Arslan dismissed the Emperor, loaded with presents and respectfully attended by a military guard. The following conversation is said to have taken place after Romanos was brought as a prisoner before the Sultan: 

Alp Arslan humiliating Emperor Romanos IV after the Battle of Manzikert. From a 15th-century illustrated French translation of Boccacio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.

:Alp Arslan: "What would you do if I was brought before you as a prisoner?"
:Romanos: "Perhaps I'd kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople."
:Alp Arslan: "My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free."

Alp Arslan's victories changed the balance in near Asia completely in favour of the Seljuq Turks and Sunni Muslims. While the Byzantine Empire was to continue for nearly four more centuries, and the Crusades would contest the issue for some time, the victory at Manzikert signalled the beginning of Turkish ascendancy in Anatolia. Most historians, including Edward Gibbon, date the defeat at Manzikert as the beginning of the end of the Eastern Roman Empire. Certainly the entry of Turkic farmers following their horsemen ended the themes in Anatolia that had furnished the Empire with men and treasure.

==State organization==
Alp Arslan's strength lay in the military realm. Domestic affairs were handled by his able vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, the founder of the administrative organization that characterized and strengthened the sultanate during the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son, Malik Shah. Military fiefs, governed by Seljuq princes, were established to provide support for the soldiery and to accommodate the nomadic Turks to the established Anatolian agricultural scene. This type of military fiefdom enabled the nomadic Turks to draw on the resources of the sedentary Persians, Turks, and other established cultures within the Seljuq realm, and allowed Alp Arslan to field a huge standing army without depending on tribute from conquest to pay his soldiers. He not only had enough food from his subjects to maintain his military, but the taxes collected from traders and merchants added to his coffers sufficiently to fund his continuous wars.

According to the poet Saadi Shirazi: 

Arslan possessed a fort, which raised at the height of Alwand, from all were those within its walls, for its roads were a labyrinth, like the curls of a bride. From a learned traveler Arslan once inquired: "Didst thou ever, in thy wanderings, see a fort as strong as this?" "Splendid it is," was the travelers reply, "but methinks not it confers much strength. Before thee, did not other kings possess it for a while, then pass away? After thee, will not other kings assume control, and eat the fruits of the tree of thy hope?"

In the estimation of the wise, the world is a false gem that passes each moment from one hand to another. (the fort was sacked by the Mongols led by Hulagu).

Suleiman ibn Kutalmish was the son of the contender for Arslan's throne; he was appointed governor of the north-western provinces and assigned to completing the invasion of Anatolia. An explanation for this choice can only be conjectured from Ibn al-Athir’s account of the battle between Alp-Arslan and Kutalmish, in which he writes that Alp-Arslan wept for the latter's death and greatly mourned the loss of his kinsman.

==Death==
After Manzikert, the dominion of Alp Arslan extended over much of western Asia. He soon prepared to march for the conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of his ancestors. With a powerful army he advanced to the banks of the Oxus. Before he could pass the river with safety, however, it was necessary to subdue certain fortresses, one of which was for several days vigorously defended by the governor, Yussuf el-Harezmi, a Khwarezmian. He was obliged to surrender, however, and was carried as a prisoner before the sultan, who condemned him to death. Yussuf, in desperation, drew his dagger and rushed upon the sultan. Alp Arslan, who took great pride in his reputation as the foremost archer of his time, motioned to his guards not to interfere. He drew his bow, but his foot slipped, the arrow glanced aside, and he received the assassin's dagger in his breast. Alp Arslan died from this wound four days later, on 25 November 1072, in his 42nd year, and he was taken to Merv to be buried next to his father, Chaghri Beg. Upon his tomb lies the following inscription:

:“O those who saw the sky-high grandeur of Alp Arslan, behold! He is under the black soil now...”

As he lay dying, Alp Arslan whispered to his son that his vanity had killed him. "Alas," he is recorded to have said, "surrounded by great warriors devoted to my cause, guarded night and day by them, I should have allowed them to do their job. I had been warned against trying to protect myself, and against letting my courage get in the way of my good sense. I forgot those warnings, and here I lie, dying in agony. Remember well the lessons learned, and do not allow your vanity to overreach your good sense..."

==Legacy==
Alp Arslan's conquest of Anatolia from the Byzantines is also seen as one of the pivotal precursors to the launch of the crusades.

From 2002 to July 2008 under Turkmen calendar reform, the month of August was named after Alp Arslan.

==References==

== Sources ==
* 



[[American Film Institute]]

The American Film Institute (AFI) is a film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the moving picture arts. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership.

The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business and academic communities.  A Board of Trustees chaired by Sir Howard Stringer and a Board of Directors chaired by Robert Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO Bob Gazzale.  Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens, Jr. (from 1967 to 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007).

AFI educational and cultural programs include:
* AFI Catalog of Feature Films and AFI Archive – the written history of all feature films during the first 100 years of the art form – accessible free online; 
* AFI Conservatory – a film school led by master filmmakers in a graduate level program;
* AFI Life Achievement Award – a tradition since 1973, a high honor for a career in film;
* AFI Awards, an honor celebrating the creative ensembles of the most outstanding motion picture and television programs of the year;
* AFI 100 Years... series –  television events and movie reference lists; 
* AFI's two film festivals – in Los Angeles, AFI Fest presented by Audi and in Silver Spring, Maryland, AFI Docs presented by Audi;
* AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center – an historic theater with year-round art house, first-run and classic film programming in Silver Spring, Maryland;
* American Film, an e-magazine that explores the art of new and historic film classics.

==History==
The American Film Institute was founded by a 1965 presidential mandate announced in the Rose Garden of the White House by Lyndon B. Johnson – to establish a national arts organization to preserve the legacy of American film heritage, educate the next generation of filmmakers and honor the artists and their work. Two years later, in 1967, AFI was established, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Ford Foundation.

The original 22-member Board of Trustees included Chair Gregory Peck and Vice Chair Sidney Poitier as well as Francis Ford Coppola, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Jack Valenti and other representatives from the arts and academia.

The institute established a training program for filmmakers known then as the Center for Advanced Film Studies. Also created in the early years were a repertory film exhibition program at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the AFI Catalog of Feature Films — a scholarly source for American film history.

The institute moved to its current eight-acre Hollywood campus in 1981.  The film training program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate school.

AFI moved its presentation of first-run and auteur films from the Kennedy Center to the historic 1938 Art Deco AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, which now hosts two major film festivals – AFI Fest and AFI Docs –making AFI the largest nonprofit film exhibitor in the world.

AFI educates audiences and recognizes artistic excellence through its awards programs and 10 Top 10 Lists.

==AFI Conservatory==
In 1969, the institute established the Center for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone, the Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.  The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Caleb Deschanel and Paul Schrader.  That program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate film school located in the hills above Hollywood, California, providing training in six filmmaking disciplines: cinematography, directing, editing, producing, production design and screenwriting.  Mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year.

In 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment) joined AFI as Artistic Director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program.

Brooks' artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a rich legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr., Robert Wise and Frank Pierson. Award-winning director Bob Mandel serves as Dean of the AFI Conservatory.

===Notable alumni===
AFI Conservatory's alumni have careers in film, television and on the web. They have been recognized with all of the major industry awards – Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, guild awards, and the Tony Award.

Among the alumni of AFI are Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan), Todd Cherniawsky (Oz the Great and Powerful, Avatar), Keith Cunningham (Bridesmaids), Janusz Kamiński (Lincoln, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan), Heidi Levitt (The Artist), Matthew Libatique (Noah, Black Swan), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet), Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life), Wally Pfister (Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception), Robert Richardson (Platoon, JFK, Django Unchained) and many others.

==AFI programs==

===AFI Catalog of Feature Films===
The AFI Catalog, started in 1968, is a web-based filmographic database. A research tool for film historians, the catalog consists of entries on more than 60,000 feature films and 17,000 short films produced from 1893–2011, as well as AFI Awards Outstanding Movies of the Year from 2000 through 2010.

===AFI Life Achievement Award===

===AFI Awards===
Each year the AFI Awards honor the ten outstanding films and the ten outstanding television programs. The Awards are announced in December and a private luncheon for award honorees takes place the following January.

The AFI Awards were first announced in 2000.

===AFI 100 Years… series===
The AFI 100 Years... series, which ran from 1998 to 2008 and created jury-selected lists of America's best movies in categories such as Musicals, Laughs and Thrills, prompted new generations to experience classic American films.  The juries consisted of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics and historians, with movies selected based on the film's popularity over time, historical significance and cultural impact. Citizen Kane was voted the greatest American film twice.

===AFI film festivals===
AFI operates two film festivals: AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and AFI Docs (formally known as Silverdocs) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

====AFI Fest====
AFI Fest is the American Film Institute's annual celebration of artistic excellence.  The festival is a showcase for the best festival films of the year and an opportunity for master filmmakers and emerging artists to come together with audiences in the movie capital of the world.  AFI Fest is the only festival of its stature that is free to the public. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes AFI Fest as a qualifying festival for the Short Films category for the annual Academy Awards.

The festival has paid tribute to numerous influential filmmakers and artists over the years, including Agnès Varda, Pedro Almodóvar and David Lynch as Guest Artistic Directors, and has screened scores of films that have produced Oscar nominations and wins.

The American Film Market (AFM) is the market partner of AFI Fest. Audi is the festival's presenting sponsor.  Additional sponsors include American Airlines and Stella Artois.

====AFI Docs====
Held annually in June, AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) is a documentary festival in Washington, D.C.. The festival attracts over 27,000 documentary enthusiasts.

===AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center===
The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is a moving image exhibition, education and cultural center located in Silver Spring, Maryland. Anchored by the restoration of noted architect John Eberson's historic 1938 Silver Theatre, it features 32,000 square feet of new construction housing two stadium theatres, office and meeting space, and reception and exhibit areas.

The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center presents film and video programming, augmented by filmmaker interviews, panels, discussions,and musical performances.

===The AFI Directing Workshop for Women===
The Directing Workshop for Women is a training program committed to educating and mentoring participants in an effort to increase the number of women working professionally in screen directing. In this tuition-free program, each participant is required to complete a short film by the end of the year-long program. 

Alumnae of the program include Maya Angelou, Anne Bancroft, Dyan Cannon, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Getzinger, Lesli Linka Glatter and Nancy Malone.

==AFI Directors Series==
AFI released a set of hour-long programs reviewing the career of acclaimed directors. The Directors Series content was copyrighted in 1997 by Media Entertainment Inc and The American Film Institute, and the VHS and DVDs were released between 1999 and 2001 on Winstar TV and Video. "WinStar TV and Video (Firm)". WorldCat. 

Directors featured included:

* John McTiernan (WHE73067)
* Ron Howard (WHE73068)
* Sydney Pollack (WHE73071)
* Norman Jewison (WHE73076)
* Lawrence Kasdan (WHE73088)
* Terry Gilliam (WHE73089)
* Spike Lee (WHE73090)
* Barry Levinson (WHE73093)
* Miloš Forman (WHE73094)
* Martin Scorsese (WHE73098)
* Barbra Streisand (WHE73099)
* David Cronenberg (WHE73101)
* Robert Zemeckis (WHE73131)
* Robert Altman
* John Frankenheimer
* Adrian Lyne
* Garry Marshall
* William Friedkin
* Clint Eastwood
* David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker
* Roger Corman
* Michael Mann
* James Cameron
* Rob Reiner
* Joel Schumacher
* Steven Spielberg
* Wes Craven

== See also ==

==References==

==External links==
* 
* 
* AFI Los Angeles Film Festival - history and information

*


[[Akira Kurosawa]]

 was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, producer, and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 films In 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow (Asu o tsukuru hitobito); apparently, he was commanded to make this film by Toho studios, to which he was under contract at the time. (He claimed that the film was shot in only a week.) It was the only film he ever directed for which he did not receive sole credit and the only one that has never been released on home video in any form. The movie was later repudiated by Kurosawa and is often not counted with the 30 other films he made, though it is listed in some filmographies of the director. See Galbraith, pp. 65–67, and Kurosawa's IMDb page. in a career spanning 57 years.

Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936, following a brief stint as a painter. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director in 1943, during World War II, with the popular action film Sanshiro Sugata (a.k.a. Judo Saga). After the war, the critically acclaimed Drunken Angel (1948), in which Kurosawa cast then-unknown actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role, cemented the director's reputation as one of the most important young filmmakers in Japan. The two men would go on to collaborate on another 15 films. His wife Yōko Yaguchi was also an actress in one of his films.

Rashomon, which premiered in Tokyo in August 1950, and which also starred Mifune, became, on September 10, 1951, the surprise winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was subsequently released in Europe and North America. The commercial and critical success of this film opened up Western film markets for the first time to the products of the Japanese film industry, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese filmmakers. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Kurosawa directed approximately a film a year, including a number of highly regarded films such as Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961). After the mid-1960s, he became much less prolific, but his later work—including his final two epics, Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985)—continued to win awards, including the Palme d'Or for Kagemusha, though more often abroad than in Japan.

In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Posthumously, he was named "Asian of the Century" in the "Arts, Literature, and Culture" category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, cited as "one of the people who contributed most to the betterment of Asia in the past 100 years". 

==Life and career==

===Childhood and youth (1910–1935)===
Kurosawa was born on 23 March 1910 in Ōimachi in the Ōmori district of Tokyo. His father Isamu, a member of a former samurai family from Akita Prefecture, worked as the director of the Army's Physical Education Institute's lower secondary school, while his mother Shima came from a merchant's family living in Osaka. Akira was the eighth and youngest child of the moderately wealthy family, with two of his siblings already grown up at the time of his birth and one deceased, leaving Kurosawa to grow up with three sisters and a brother. 

In addition to promoting physical exercise, Isamu Kurosawa was open to western traditions and considered theater and motion pictures to have educational merit. He encouraged his children to watch films; young Akira viewed his first movies at the age of six. An important formative influence was his elementary school teacher Mr Tachikawa, whose progressive educational practices ignited in his young pupil first a love of drawing and then an interest in education in general. During this time, the boy also studied calligraphy and Kendo swordsmanship. 

Another major childhood influence was Heigo Kurosawa, Akira's older brother by four years. In the aftermath of the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, which devastated Tokyo, Heigo took the 13-year-old Akira to view the devastation. When the younger brother wanted to look away from the human corpses and animal carcasses scattered everywhere, Heigo forbade him to do so, instead encouraging Akira to face his fears by confronting them directly. Some commentators have suggested that this incident would influence Kurosawa's later artistic career, as the director was seldom hesitant to confront unpleasant truths in his work. 

Heigo was academically gifted, but soon after failing to secure a place in Tokyo's foremost high school, he began to detach himself from the rest of the family, preferring to concentrate on his interest in foreign literature. In the late 1920s, Heigo became a benshi (silent film narrator) for Tokyo theaters showing foreign films, and quickly made a name for himself. Akira, who at this point planned to become a painter, moved in with him, and the two brothers became inseparable. Through Heigo, Akira devoured not only films but also theater and circus performances, while exhibiting his paintings and working for the left-wing Proletarian Artists' League. However, he was never able to make a living with his art, and, as he began to perceive most of the proletarian movement as "putting unfulfilled political ideals directly onto the canvas", he lost his enthusiasm for painting. 

With the increasing production of talking pictures in the early 1930s, film narrators like Heigo began to lose work, and Akira moved back in with his parents. In July 1933, Heigo committed suicide. Kurosawa has commented on the lasting sense of loss he felt at his brother's death and the chapter of his autobiography (Something Like an Autobiography) that describes it—written nearly half a century after the event—is titled, "A Story I Don't Want to Tell." Only four months later, Kurosawa's eldest brother also died, leaving Akira, at age 23, the only one of the Kurosawa brothers still living, together with his three surviving sisters. 

===Director in training (1935–1941)===
In 1935, the new film studio Photo Chemical Laboratories, known as P.C.L. (which later became the major studio, Toho), advertised for assistant directors. Although he had demonstrated no previous interest in film as a profession, Kurosawa submitted the required essay, which asked applicants to discuss the fundamental deficiencies of Japanese films and find ways to overcome them. His half-mocking view was that if the deficiencies were fundamental, there was no way to correct them. Kurosawa's essay earned him a call to take the follow-up exams, and director Kajirō Yamamoto, who was among the examiners, took a liking to Kurosawa and insisted that the studio hire him. The 25-year-old Kurosawa joined P.C.L. in February 1936. 

During his five years as an assistant director, Kurosawa worked under numerous directors, but by far the most important figure in his development was Kajiro Yamamoto. Of his 24 films as A.D., he worked on 17 under Yamamoto, many of them comedies featuring the popular actor Kenichi Enomoto, known as "Enoken." Yamamoto nurtured Kurosawa's talent, promoting him directly from third assistant director to chief assistant director after a year. Kurosawa's responsibilities increased, and he worked at tasks ranging from stage construction and film development to location scouting, script polishing, rehearsals, lighting, dubbing, editing and second-unit directing. In the last of Kurosawa's films as an assistant director, Horse (Uma, 1941), Kurosawa took over most of the production, as Yamamoto was occupied with the shooting of another film. 

One important piece of advice Yamamoto gave Kurosawa was that a good director needed to master screenwriting. Kurosawa soon realized that the potential earnings from his scripts were much higher than what he was paid as an assistant director. Kurosawa would later write or co-write all of his own films. He also frequently wrote screenplays for other directors such as for Satsuo Yamamoto's film, Tsubasa no gaika. This outside scriptwriting would serve Kurosawa as a lucrative sideline lasting well into the 1960s, long after he became world-famous. 

===Wartime films and marriage (1942–1945)===
In the two years following the release of Horse in 1941, Kurosawa searched for a story he could use to launch his directing career. Towards the end of 1942, about a year after the beginning of Japan's war with the United States, novelist Tsuneo Tomita published his Musashi Miyamoto inspired judo novel, Sanshiro Sugata, the advertisements for which intrigued Kurosawa. He bought the book on its publication day, devoured it in one sitting, and immediately asked Toho to secure the film rights. Kurosawa's initial instinct proved correct as, within a few days, three other major Japanese studios also offered to buy the rights. Toho prevailed, and Kurosawa began pre-production on his debut work as director. 

Shooting of Sanshiro Sugata began on location in Yokohama in December 1942. Production proceeded smoothly, but getting the completed film past the censors was an entirely different matter. The censorship considered the work too "British-American" (an accusation tantamount, at that time, to a charge of treason), and it was only through the intervention of director Yasujirō Ozu, who championed the film, that Sanshiro Sugata was finally accepted for release on March 25, 1943. (Kurosawa had just turned 33.) The movie became both a critical and commercial success. Nevertheless, the censorship office would later decide to cut out some 18 minutes of footage, much of which is now considered lost. 

He next turned to the subject of wartime female factory workers in The Most Beautiful, a propaganda film which he shot in a semi-documentary style in early 1944. In order to coax realistic performances from his actresses, the director had them live in a real factory during the shoot, eat the factory food and call each other by their character names. He would use similar methods with his performers throughout his career. 

During production, the actress playing the leader of the factory workers, Yōko Yaguchi, was chosen by her colleagues to present their demands to the director. She and Kurosawa were constantly at loggerheads, and it was through these arguments that the two, paradoxically, became close. They married on May 21, 1945, with Yaguchi two months pregnant (she never resumed her acting career), and the couple would remain together until her death in 1985. They would have two children: a son, Hisao, born December 20, 1945, who would serve as producer on some of his father's last projects, and Kazuko, born April 29, 1954, who would become a costume designer. 

Shortly before his marriage, Kurosawa was pressured by the studio against his will to direct a sequel to his debut film. The often blatantly propagandistic Sanshiro Sugata Part II, which premiered in May 1945, is generally considered one of his very weakest pictures. 

Kurosawa decided to write the script for a film that would be both censor-friendly and less expensive to produce. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, based on the Kabuki play Kanjinchō and starring the comedian Enoken, with whom Kurosawa had often worked during his assistant director days, was completed in September 1945. By this time, Japan had surrendered and the occupation of Japan had begun. The new American censors interpreted the values allegedly promoted in the picture as overly "feudal" and banned the work. (It would not be released until 1952, the year another Kurosawa film, Ikiru, was also released.) Ironically, while in production, the film had already been savaged by Japanese wartime censors as too Western and "democratic" (they particularly disliked the comic porter played by Enoken), so the movie most probably would not have seen the light of day even if the war had continued beyond its completion. 

===First postwar works (1946–1950)===
The war now ended, Kurosawa, absorbing the democratic ideals of the Occupation, sought to make films that would establish a new respect towards the individual and the self. The first such film, No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), inspired by both the 1933 Takigawa incident and the Hotsumi Ozaki wartime spy case, criticized Japan's prewar regime for its political oppression. Atypically for the director, the heroic central character is a woman, Yukie (Setsuko Hara), born into upper-middle-class privilege, who comes to question her values in a time of political crisis. The original script had to be extensively rewritten and, because of its controversial theme (and because the protagonist was a woman), the completed work divided critics, but it nevertheless managed to win the approval of audiences, who turned variations on the film's title ("No regrets for...") into something of a postwar catchphrase. 

His next film, One Wonderful Sunday premiered in July 1947 to mixed reviews. It is a relatively uncomplicated and sentimental love story dealing with an impoverished postwar couple trying to enjoy, within the devastation of postwar Tokyo, their one weekly day off. The movie bears the influence of Frank Capra, D. W. Griffith and F. W. Murnau. Another film released in 1947 with Kurosawa's involvement was the action-adventure thriller, Snow Trail, directed by Senkichi Taniguchi from Kurosawa's screenplay. It marked the debut of the intense young actor Toshiro Mifune. It was Kurosawa who, with his mentor Yamamoto, had intervened to persuade Toho to sign Mifune, during an audition in which the young man greatly impressed Kurosawa, but managed to alienate most of the other judges. 

alt=Photo of the very young Japanese actor, Toshiro Mifune in the late 1940s, facing left, his hair hanging over his forehead, with an intense and angry look on his face.
Drunken Angel is often considered the director's first major work. Although the script, like all of Kurosawa's occupation-era works, had to go through forced rewrites due to American censorship, Kurosawa felt that this was the first film in which he was able to express himself freely. A grittily realistic story of a doctor who tries to save a gangster (yakuza) with tuberculosis, it was also the director's first film with Toshiro Mifune, who would proceed to play either the main or a major character in all but one (Ikiru) of the director's next 16 films. While Mifune was not cast as the protagonist in Drunken Angel, his explosive performance as the gangster so dominates the drama that he shifted the focus from the title character, the alcoholic doctor played by Takashi Shimura, who had already appeared in several Kurosawa movies. However, Kurosawa did not want to smother the young actor's immense vitality, and Mifune's rebellious character electrified audiences in much the way that Marlon Brando's defiant stance would startle American film audiences a few years later. The film premiered in Tokyo in April 1948 to rave reviews and was chosen by the prestigious Kinema Junpo critics poll as the best film of its year, the first of three Kurosawa movies to be so honored. 

Kurosawa, with producer Sōjirō Motoki and fellow directors and friends Kajiro Yamamoto, Mikio Naruse and Senkichi Taniguchi, formed a new independent production unit called Film Art Association (Eiga Geijutsu Kyōkai). For this organization's debut work, and first film for Daiei studios, Kurosawa turned to a contemporary play by Kazuo Kikuta and, together with Taniguchi, adapted it for the screen. The Quiet Duel starred Toshiro Mifune as an idealistic young doctor struggling with syphilis, a deliberate attempt by Kurosawa to break the actor away from being typecast as gangsters. Released in March 1949, it was a box office success, but is generally considered one of the director's lesser achievements. 

His second film of 1949, also produced by Film Art Association and released by Shintoho, was Stray Dog. The most celebrated of Kurosawa's works from this period, it is a detective movie (perhaps the first important Japanese film in that genre) that explores the mood of Japan during its painful postwar recovery through the story of a young detective, played by Mifune, and his obsession over his handgun, stolen by a penniless young man who proceeds to use it to rob and murder. Adapted from an unpublished novel by Kurosawa in the style of a favorite writer of his, Georges Simenon, it was the director's first collaboration with screenwriter Ryuzo Kikushima, who would later help to script eight other Kurosawa films. A famous, virtually wordless sequence, lasting over eight minutes, shows the detective, disguised as an impoverished veteran, wandering the streets in search of the gun thief; it employed actual documentary footage of war-ravaged Tokyo neighborhoods shot by Kurosawa's friend, Ishirō Honda, the future director of Gojira (aka, Godzilla). The film is considered a precursor to the contemporary police procedural and buddy cop film genres. 

Scandal, released by Shochiku in April 1950, was inspired by the director's personal experiences with, and anger towards, Japanese yellow journalism. The work is an ambitious mixture of courtroom drama and social problem film about free speech and personal responsibility, but even Kurosawa regarded the finished product as dramatically unfocused and unsatisfactory, and almost all critics agree. 

However, it would be Kurosawa's second film of 1950, Rashomon, that would ultimately win him a whole new audience.

===International recognition (1950–1958)===
After finishing Scandal, Kurosawa was approached by Daiei studios, which asked the director to make another film for them. Kurosawa picked a script by an aspiring young screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto. (They would eventually write nine films together.) It was based on Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's experimental short story In a Grove, which recounts the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife from various different and conflicting points-of-view. Kurosawa saw potential in the script, and with Hashimoto's help, polished and expanded it and then pitched it to Daiei, who were happy to accept the project due to its low budget. 

Shooting of Rashomon began on July 7, 1950 and, after extensive location work in the primeval forest of Nara, wrapped on August 17. Just one week was spent in hurried post-production, hampered by a studio fire, and the finished film premiered at Tokyo's Imperial Theatre on August 25, expanding nationwide the following day. The movie was met by lukewarm reviews, with many critics puzzled by its unique theme and treatment, but it was nevertheless a moderate financial success for Daiei. 

Kurosawa's next film, for Shochiku, was The Idiot, an adaptation of the novel by the director's favorite writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The filmmaker relocated the story from Russia to Hokkaido, but it is otherwise very faithful to the original, a fact seen by many critics as detrimental to the work. A studio-mandated edit shortened it from Kurosawa's original cut of 265 minutes (nearly four-and-a-half hours) to just 166 minutes, making the resulting narrative exceedingly difficult to follow. It is widely considered today to be one of the director's least successful works. Contemporary reviews were very negative, but the film was a moderate success at the box office, largely because of the popularity of one of its stars, Setsuko Hara. 

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Kurosawa, Rashomon had been entered in the prestigious Venice Film Festival, due to the efforts of Giuliana Stramigioli, a Japan-based representative of an Italian film company, who had seen and admired the movie and convinced Daiei to submit it. On September 10, 1951, Rashomon was awarded the festival's highest prize, the Golden Lion, shocking not only Daiei but the international film world, which at the time was largely unaware of Japan's decades-old cinematic tradition. 

After Daiei very briefly exhibited a subtitled print of the film in Los Angeles, RKO purchased distribution rights to Rashomon in the United States. The company was taking a considerable gamble. It had put out only one prior subtitled film in the American market, and the only previous Japanese talkie commercially released in New York had been Mikio Naruse's comedy, Wife! Be Like a Rose, in 1937: a critical and box-office flop. However, Rashomons commercial run, greatly helped by strong reviews from critics and even the columnist Ed Sullivan, was very successful. (It earned $35,000 in its first three weeks at a single New York theater, an almost unheard-of sum at the time.) This success in turn led to a vogue in America for Japanese movies throughout the 1950s, replacing the enthusiasm for Italian neorealist cinema. (The film was also released, by other distributors, in France, West Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.) Among the Japanese filmmakers whose work, as a result, began to win festival prizes and commercial release in the West were Kenji Mizoguchi (The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) and, somewhat later, Yasujirō Ozu (Tokyo Story, An Autumn Afternoon)—artists highly respected in Japan but, prior to this period, almost totally unknown in the West. Later generations of Japanese filmmakers who would find acclaim outside Japan—from Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura to Juzo Itami, Takeshi Kitano and Takashi Miike—were able to pass through the door that Kurosawa was the very first to open.

His career boosted by his sudden international fame, Kurosawa, now reunited with his original film studio, Toho (which would go on to produce his next 11 films), set to work on his next project, Ikiru. The movie stars Takashi Shimura as a cancer-ridden Tokyo bureaucrat, Watanabe, on a final quest for meaning before his death. For the screenplay, Kurosawa brought in Hashimoto as well as writer Hideo Oguni, who would go on to co-write 12 Kurosawa films. Despite the work's grim subject matter, the screenwriters took a satirical approach, which some have compared to the work of Brecht, to both the bureaucratic world of its hero and the U.S. cultural colonization of Japan. (American pop songs figure prominently in the film.) Because of this strategy, the filmmakers are usually credited with saving the picture from the kind of sentimentality common to dramas about characters with terminal illnesses. Ikiru opened in October 1952 to rave reviews—it won Kurosawa his second Kinema Junpo "Best Film" award—and enormous box office success. It remains the most acclaimed of all the artist's films set in the modern era. 

In December 1952, Kurosawa took his Ikiru screenwriters, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, for a forty-five day secluded residence at an inn to create the screenplay for his next movie, Seven Samurai. The ensemble work was Kurosawa's first proper samurai film, the genre for which he would become most famous. The simple story, about a poor farming village in Sengoku period Japan that hires a group of samurai to defend it against an impending attack by bandits, was given a full epic treatment, with a huge cast (largely consisting of veterans of previous Kurosawa productions) and meticulously detailed action, stretching out to almost three-and-a-half hours of screen time. 

Three months were spent in pre-production and a month in rehearsals. Shooting took up 148 days spread over almost a year, interrupted by production and financing troubles and Kurosawa's health problems. The film finally opened in April 1954, half a year behind its original release date and about three times over budget, making it at the time the most expensive Japanese film ever made. (However, by Hollywood standards, it was a quite modestly budgeted production, even for that time). The film received positive critical reaction and became a big hit, quickly making back the money invested in it and providing the studio with a product that they could, and did, market internationally—though with extensive edits. Over time—and with the theatrical and home video releases of the uncut version—its reputation has steadily grown. It is now regarded by some commentators as the greatest Japanese film ever made, and in 1979, a poll of Japanese film critics also voted it the best Japanese film ever made. 

In 1954, nuclear tests in the Pacific were causing radioactive rainstorms in Japan and one particular incident in March had exposed a Japanese fishing boat to nuclear fallout, with disastrous results. It is in this anxious atmosphere that Kurosawa's next film, Record of a Living Being, was conceived. The story concerned an elderly factory owner (Toshiro Mifune) so terrified of the prospect of a nuclear attack that he becomes determined to move his entire extended family (both legal and extra-marital) to what he imagines is the safety of a farm in Brazil. Production went much more smoothly than the director's previous film, but a few days before shooting ended, Kurosawa's composer, collaborator and close friend Fumio Hayasaka passed away (of tuberculosis) at the age of only 41. The film's score was finished by Hayasaka's student, Masaru Sato, who would go on to score all of Kurosawa's next eight films. Record of a Living Being opened in November 1955 to mixed reviews and muted audience reaction, becoming the first Kurosawa film to lose money during its original theatrical run. Today, it is considered by many to be among the finest films dealing with the psychological effects of the global nuclear stalemate. 

Kurosawa's next project, Throne of Blood, a lavishly produced adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth—set, like Seven Samurai, in the Sengoku Era—represented an ambitious transposition of the English work into an Asian context. Kurosawa instructed his leading actress, Isuzu Yamada, to regard the work as if it were a cinematic version of a Japanese rather than a European literary classic. Appropriately, the acting of the players, particularly Yamada, draws heavily on the stylized techniques of the Noh theater. It was filmed in 1956 and released in January 1957 to a slightly less negative domestic response than had been the case with the director's previous film. Abroad, Throne of Blood, regardless of the liberties it takes with its source material, quickly earned a place among the most celebrated Shakespeare adaptations. 

Another adaptation of a classic European theatrical work followed almost immediately, with production of The Lower Depths, based on a play by Maxim Gorky, taking place in May and June 1957. In contrast to the gigantic scope and sweep of Throne of Blood, The Lower Depths was shot on only two confined sets, the better to emphasize the restricted nature of the characters' lives. Though faithful to the play, this adaptation of Russian material to a completely Japanese setting—in this case, the late Edo period—unlike his earlier The Idiot, was regarded as artistically successful. The film premiered in September 1957, receiving a mixed response similar to that of Throne of Blood. However, some critics rank it among the director's most underrated works. 

Kurosawa's three consecutive movies after Seven Samurai had not managed to capture Japanese audiences in the way that that film had. The mood of the director's work had been growing increasingly pessimistic and dark, with the possibility of redemption through personal responsibility now very much questioned, particularly in Throne of Blood and The Lower Depths. He recognized this, and deliberately aimed for a more light-hearted and entertaining film for his next production, while switching to the new widescreen format that had been gaining popularity in Japan. The resulting film, The Hidden Fortress, is an action-adventure comedy-drama about a medieval princess, her loyal general and two peasants who all need to travel through enemy lines in order to reach their home region. Released in December 1958, The Hidden Fortress became an enormous box office success in Japan and was warmly received by critics. Today, the film is considered one of Kurosawa's most lightweight efforts, though it remains popular, not least because it is one of several major influences (as George Lucas himself has conceded) on Lucas' hugely popular 1977 space opera, Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Star Wars]. 

===Birth of a company and the end of an era (1959–1965)===
Starting with Rashomon, Kurosawa's productions had become increasingly large in scope and so had the director's budgets. Toho, concerned about this development, suggested that he might help finance his own works, therefore making the studio's potential losses smaller, while in turn allowing himself more artistic freedom as co-producer. Kurosawa agreed, and the Kurosawa Production Company was established in April 1959, with Toho as majority shareholder. 

Despite now risking his own money, Kurosawa chose a story more directly critical of the Japanese business and political elites than any of his previous works. The Bad Sleep Well, based on a script by Kurosawa's nephew Mike Inoue, is a revenge drama about a young man who climbs the hierarchy of a corrupt Japanese company with the intention of exposing the men responsible for his father's death. Its theme proved topical: while the film was in production, mass demonstrations were held against the new U.S.-Japan Security treaty, which was seen by many Japanese, particularly the young, as threatening the country's democracy by giving too much power to corporations and politicians. The film opened in September 1960 to positive critical reaction and modest box office success. The 25-minute opening sequence, depicting a corporate wedding reception interrupted by reporters and police (who arrest an executive for corruption), is widely regarded as one of Kurosawa's most skillfully executed set pieces, but the remainder of the film is often perceived as disappointing by comparison. The movie has also been criticized for employing the conventional Kurosawan hero to combat a social evil that cannot be resolved through the actions of individuals, however courageous or cunning. 

Yojimbo (The Bodyguard), Kurosawa Production's second film, centers on a masterless samurai, Sanjuro, who strolls into a 19th-century town ruled by two opposing violent factions and provokes them into destroying each other. The director used this work to play with many genre conventions, particularly the Western, while at the same time offering an unprecedentedly (for the Japanese screen) graphic portrayal of violence. Some commentators have seen the Sanjuro character in this film as a fantasy figure who magically reverses the historical triumph of the corrupt merchant class over the samurai class. Featuring Tatsuya Nakadai in his first major role in a Kurosawa movie, and with innovative photography by Kazuo Miyagawa (who shot Rashomon) and Takao Saito, the film premiered in April 1961 and was an immense success at the box office, earning more than any previous Kurosawa film. Critical reaction was equally positive, and the film proved a major influence on its genre in Japan, ushering in a new era of violent samurai films, known as "cruel films" (zankoku eiga). The movie and its blackly comic tone were also widely imitated abroad. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars was a virtual (unauthorized) scene-by-scene remake. 

Following the success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa found himself under pressure from Toho to create a sequel. Kurosawa turned to a script he had written before Yojimbo, reworking it to include the hero of his previous film. Sanjuro was the first of three Kurosawa films to be adapted from the work of the writer Shūgorō Yamamoto (the others would be Red Beard and Dodeskaden). It is lighter in tone and closer to a conventional period film than Yojimbo, though its story of a power struggle within a samurai clan is portrayed with strongly comic undertones. The film opened on January 1, 1962, quickly surpassing Yojimbos box office success and garnering positive reviews. 

Kurosawa had meanwhile instructed Toho to purchase the film rights to King's Ransom, a novel about a kidnapping written by American author and screenwriter Evan Hunter, under his pseudonym of Ed McBain, as one of his 87th Precinct series of crime books. The director intended to create a work condemning kidnapping, which he considered one of the very worst crimes. The suspense film, titled High and Low, was shot during the latter half of 1962 and released in March 1963. It broke Kurosawa's box office record (the third film in a row to do so), became the highest grossing Japanese film of the year, and won glowing reviews. However, his triumph was somewhat tarnished when, ironically, the film was blamed for a wave of kidnappings which occurred in Japan about this time (he himself received kidnapping threats directed at his young daughter, Kazuko). High and Low is considered by many commentators to be among the director's strongest works. 

Kurosawa quickly moved on to his next project, Red Beard. Based on a short story collection by Shūgorō Yamamoto and incorporating elements from Dostoyevsky's novel The Insulted and Injured, it is a period film, set in a mid-19th century clinic for the poor, in which Kurosawa's humanist themes receive perhaps their fullest statement. A conceited and materialistic, foreign-trained young doctor, Yasumoto, is forced to become an intern at the clinic under the stern tutelage of Doctor Niide, known as "Akahige" ("Red Beard"), played by Mifune. Although he resists Red Beard initially, Yasumoto comes to admire his wisdom and courage, and to perceive the patients at the clinic, whom he at first despised, as worthy of compassion and dignity. 

Yūzō Kayama, who plays Yasumoto, was an extremely popular film and music star at the time, particularly for his "Young Guy" (Wakadaishō) series of musical comedies, so signing him to appear in the film virtually guaranteed Kurosawa strong box-office. The shoot, the filmmaker's longest ever, lasted well over a year (after five months of pre-production), and wrapped in spring 1965, leaving the director, his crew and his actors exhausted. Red Beard premiered in April 1965, becoming the year's highest-grossing Japanese production and the third (and last) Kurosawa film to top the prestigious Kinema Jumpo yearly critics poll. It remains one of Kurosawa's best-known and most-loved works in his native country. Outside Japan, critics have been much more divided. Most commentators concede its technical merits and some praise it as among Kurosawa's best, while others insist that it lacks complexity and genuine narrative power, with still others claiming that it represents a retreat from the artist's previous commitment to social and political change. 

The film marked something of an end of an era for its creator. The director himself recognized this at the time of its release, telling critic Donald Richie that a cycle of some kind had just come to an end and that his future films and production methods would be different. His prediction proved quite accurate. Beginning in the late 1950s, television began increasingly to dominate the leisure time of the formerly large and loyal Japanese cinema audience. And as film company revenues dropped, so did their appetite for risk—particularly the risk represented by Kurosawa's costly production methods. 

Red Beard also marked the midway point, chronologically, in the artist's career. During his previous twenty-nine years in the film industry (which includes his five years as assistant director), he had directed twenty-three films, while during the remaining twenty-eight years, for many and complex reasons, he would complete only seven more. Also, for reasons never adequately explained, Red Beard would be his final film starring Toshiro Mifune. Yu Fujiki, an actor who worked on The Lower Depths, observed, regarding the closeness of the two men on the set, "Mr. Kurosawa's heart was in Mr. Mifune's body." Donald Richie has described the rapport between them as a unique "symbiosis." Virtually all critics agree that the strongest period of Kurosawa's career was the one between 1950 and 1965—bookended by Rashomon and Red Beard—and that it is not a coincidence that this phase corresponds almost exactly to the time that he and Mifune worked together.

===Hollywood detour (1966–1968)===
When Kurosawa's exclusive contract with Toho came to an end in 1966, the 56-year-old director was seriously contemplating change. Observing the troubled state of the domestic film industry, and having already received dozens of offers from abroad, the idea of working outside Japan appealed to him as never before. 

For his first foreign project, Kurosawa chose a story based on a Life magazine article. The Embassy Pictures action thriller, to be filmed in English and called simply Runaway Train, would have been his first in color. But the language barrier proved a major problem, and the English version of the screenplay was not even finished by the time filming was to begin in autumn 1966. The shoot, which required snow, was moved to autumn 1967, then canceled in 1968. Almost twenty years later, another foreigner working in Hollywood, Andrei Konchalovsky, would finally make Runaway Train, though from a script totally different from Kurosawa's. 

The director meanwhile had become involved in a much more ambitious Hollywood project. Tora! Tora! Tora!, produced by 20th Century Fox and Kurosawa Production, would be a portrayal of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor from both the American and the Japanese points-of-view, with Kurosawa helming the Japanese half and an English-speaking filmmaker directing the American half. He spent several months working on the script with Ryuzo Kikushima and Hideo Oguni, but very soon the project began to unravel. The director chosen to film the American sequences turned out not to be the prestigious English filmmaker David Lean, as the producers had led Kurosawa to believe, but the much less celebrated special effects expert, Richard Fleischer. The budget was also cut, and the screen time allocated for the Japanese segment would now be no longer than 90 minutes—a major problem, considering that Kurosawa's script ran over four hours. After numerous revisions, a more or less finalized cut screenplay was agreed upon in May 1968. Shooting began in early December, but Kurosawa would last only a little over three weeks as director. He struggled to work with an unfamiliar crew and the requirements of a Hollywood production, while his working methods puzzled his American producers, who ultimately concluded that the director must be mentally ill. On Christmas Eve 1968, the Americans announced that Kurosawa had left the production due to "fatigue", effectively firing him. (He was ultimately replaced, for the film's Japanese sequences, with two directors, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda.) 

Tora! Tora! Tora!, finally released to unenthusiastic reviews in September 1970, was, as Donald Richie put it, an "almost unmitigated tragedy" in Kurosawa's career. He had spent years of his life on a logistically nightmarish project to which he ultimately did not contribute a foot of film shot by himself. (He had his name removed from the credits, though the script used for the Japanese half was still his and his co-writers'.) He became estranged from his longtime collaborator, writer Ryuzo Kikushima, and never worked with him again. The project had inadvertently exposed corruption in his own production company (a situation reminiscent of his own movie, The Bad Sleep Well). His very sanity had been called into question. Worst of all, the Japanese film industry—and perhaps the man himself—began to suspect that he would never make another film. 

===A difficult decade (1969–1977)===
Knowing that his reputation was at stake following the much publicised Tora! Tora! Tora! debacle, Kurosawa moved quickly to a new project to prove he was still viable. To his aid came friends and famed directors Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and Kon Ichikawa, who together with Kurosawa established in July 1969 a production company called the Club of the Four Knights (Yonki no kai). Although the plan was for the four directors to create a film each, it has been suggested that the real motivation for the other three directors was to make it easier for Kurosawa to successfully complete a film, and therefore find his way back into the business. 

The first project proposed and worked on was a period film to be called Dora-Heita, but when this was deemed too expensive, attention shifted to Dodesukaden, an adaptation of yet another Shūgorō Yamamoto work, again about the poor and destitute. The film was shot quickly (by Kurosawa's standards) in about nine weeks, with Kurosawa determined to show he was still capable of working quickly and efficiently within a limited budget. For his first work in color, the dynamic editing and complex compositions of his earlier pictures were set aside, with the artist focusing on the creation of a bold, almost surreal palette of primary colors, in order to reveal the toxic environment in which the characters live. It was released in Japan in October 1970, but though a minor critical success, it was greeted with audience indifference. The picture lost money and caused the Club of the Four Knights to dissolve. Initial reception abroad was somewhat more favorable, but Dodesukaden has since been typically considered an interesting experiment not comparable to the director's best work. 

Unable to secure funding for further work and allegedly suffering from health problems, Kurosawa apparently reached the breaking point: on December 22, 1971, he slit his wrists and throat multiple times. The suicide attempt proved unsuccessful and the director's health recovered fairly quickly, with Kurosawa now taking refuge in domestic life, uncertain if he would ever direct another film. 

In early 1973, the Soviet studio Mosfilm approached the filmmaker to ask if he would be interested in working with them. Kurosawa proposed an adaptation of Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev's autobiographical work Dersu Uzala. The book, about a Goldi hunter who lives in harmony with nature until destroyed by encroaching civilization, was one that he had wanted to make since the 1930s. In December 1973, the 63-year-old Kurosawa set off for the Soviet Union with four of his closest aides, beginning a year-and-a-half stay in the country. Shooting began in May 1974 in Siberia, with filming in exceedingly harsh natural conditions proving very difficult and demanding. The picture wrapped in April 1975, with a thoroughly exhausted and homesick Kurosawa returning to Japan and his family in June. Dersu Uzala had its world premiere in Japan on August 2, 1975, and did well at the box office. While critical reception in Japan was muted, the film was better reviewed abroad, winning the Golden Prize at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival, as well as an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Today, critics remain divided over the film: some see it as an example of Kurosawa's alleged artistic decline, while others count it among his finest works. 

Although proposals for television projects were submitted to him, he had no interest in working outside the film world. Nevertheless, the hard-drinking director did agree to appear in a series of television ads for Suntory whiskey, which aired in 1976. While fearing that he might never be able to make another film, the director nevertheless continued working on various projects, writing scripts and creating detailed illustrations, intending to leave behind a visual record of his plans in case he would never be able to film his stories. 

===Two epics (1978–1986)===
In 1977, American director George Lucas had released Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Star Wars], a wildly successful science fiction film influenced by Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, among other works. Lucas, like many other New Hollywood directors, revered Kurosawa and considered him a role model, and was shocked to discover that the Japanese filmmaker was unable to secure financing for any new work. The two met in San Francisco in July 1978 to discuss the project Kurosawa considered most financially viable: Kagemusha, the epic story of a thief hired as the double of a medieval Japanese lord of a great clan. Lucas, enthralled by the screenplay and Kurosawa's illustrations, leveraged his influence over 20th Century Fox to coerce the studio that had fired Kurosawa just ten years earlier to produce Kagemusha, then recruited fellow fan Francis Ford Coppola as co-producer. 

Production began the following April, with Kurosawa in high spirits. Shooting lasted from June 1979 through March 1980 and was plagued with problems, not the least of which was the firing of the original lead actor, Shintaro Katsu—creator of the very popular Zatoichi character—due to an incident in which the actor insisted, against the director's wishes, on videotaping his own performance. (He was replaced by Tatsuya Nakadai, in his first of two consecutive leading roles in a Kurosawa movie.) The film was completed only a few weeks behind schedule and opened in Tokyo in April 1980. It quickly became a massive hit in Japan. The film was also a critical and box office success abroad, winning the coveted Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival in May, though some critics, then and now, have faulted the film for its alleged coldness. Kurosawa spent much of the rest of the year in Europe and America promoting Kagemusha, collecting awards and accolades, and exhibiting as art the drawings he had made to serve as storyboards for the film. 

alt=A storyboard image painted by Kurosawa for the movie, Ran: it depicts what appears to be a gate, behind which is a long flight of steps, around which are depicted various large structures in the style of 16th Century Japan.
The international success of Kagemusha allowed Kurosawa to proceed with his next project, Ran, another epic in a similar vein. The script, partly based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, depicted a ruthless, bloodthirsty daimyo (warlord), played by Tatsuya Nakadai, who, after foolishly banishing his one loyal son, surrenders his kingdom to his other two sons, who then betray him, thus plunging the entire kingdom into war. As Japanese studios still felt wary about producing another film that would rank among the most expensive ever made in the country, international help was again needed. This time it came from French producer Serge Silberman, who had produced Luis Buñuel's final movies. Filming did not begin until December 1983 and lasted more than a year. 

In January 1985, production of Ran was halted as Kurosawa's 64-year-old wife Yōko fell ill. She died on February 1. Kurosawa returned to finish his film and Ran premiered at the Tokyo Film Festival on May 31, with a wide release the next day. The film was a moderate financial success in Japan, but a larger one abroad and, as he had done with Kagemusha, Kurosawa embarked on a trip to Europe and America, where he attended the film's premieres in September and October. 

Ran won several awards in Japan, but was not quite as honored there as many of the director's best films of the 1950s and 1960s had been. The film world was shocked, however, when Japan passed over the film in favor of another as its official entry to compete for an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category. Both the producer and Kurosawa himself attributed this to a misunderstanding: because of the Academy's arcane rules, no one was sure whether Ran qualified as a Japanese film, a French film (due to its financing), or both, so it was not submitted at all. In response to what at least appeared to be a blatant snub by his own countrymen, the director Sidney Lumet led a successful campaign to have Kurosawa receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director that year (Sydney Pollack ultimately won the award for directing Out of Africa). Rans costume designer, Emi Wada, won the movie's only Oscar. 

Kagemusha and Ran, particularly the latter, are often considered to be among Kurosawa's finest works. After Rans release, Kurosawa would point to it as his best film, a major change of attitude for the director who, when asked which of his works was his best, had always previously answered "my next one." 

===Final works and last years (1987–1998)===
For his next movie, Kurosawa chose a subject very different from any that he had ever filmed before. While some of his previous pictures (for example, Drunken Angel and Kagemusha) had included brief dream sequences, Dreams was to be entirely based upon the director's own dreams. Significantly, for the first time in over forty years, Kurosawa, for this deeply personal project, wrote the screenplay alone. Although its estimated budget was lower than the films immediately preceding it, Japanese studios were still unwilling to back one of his productions, so Kurosawa turned to another famous American fan, Steven Spielberg, who convinced Warner Bros. to buy the international rights to the completed film. This made it easier for Kurosawa's son, Hisao, as co-producer and soon-to-be head of Kurosawa Production, to negotiate a loan in Japan that would cover the film's production costs. Shooting took more than eight months to complete, and Dreams premiered at Cannes in May 1990 to a polite but muted reception, similar to the reaction the picture would generate elsewhere in the world. 

Kurosawa now turned to a more conventional story with Rhapsody in August—the director's first film fully produced in Japan since Dodeskaden over twenty years before—which explored the scars of the nuclear bombing which destroyed Nagasaki at the very end of World War II. It was adapted from a Kiyoko Murata novel, but the film's references to the Nagasaki bombing came from the director rather than from the book. This was his only movie to include a role for an American movie star: Richard Gere, who plays a small role as the nephew of the elderly heroine. Shooting took place in early 1991, with the film opening on May 25 that year to a largely negative critical reaction, especially in the United States, where the director was accused of promulgating naïvely anti-American sentiments. 

alt=A poster for Kurosawa's last film, Madadayo, hand-drawn by Kurosawa himself: the image shows the figure of an elderly man in a business suit, apparently dancing on a table, with a fan in each hand, surrounded by similarly attired men observing his dance; below this image are childish Japanese characters spelling out the title of the film.
Kurosawa wasted no time moving onto his next project: Madadayo, or Not Yet. Based on autobiographical essays by Hyakken Uchida, the film follows the life of a Japanese professor of German through the Second World War and beyond. The narrative centers on yearly birthday celebrations with his former students, during which the protagonist declares his unwillingness to die just yet—a theme that was becoming increasingly relevant for the film's 81-year-old creator. Filming began in February 1992 and wrapped by the end of September. Its release on April 17, 1993, was greeted by an even more disappointed reaction than had been the case with his two preceding works. 

Kurosawa nevertheless continued to work. He wrote the original screenplays The Sea is Watching in 1993 and After the Rain in 1995. While putting finishing touches on the latter work in 1995, Kurosawa slipped and broke the base of his spine. Following the accident, he would use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, putting an end to any hopes of him directing another film. His longtime wish—to die on the set while shooting a movie —was never to be fulfilled.

===Death and posthumous works===
Following his accident in 1995, Kurosawa's health began to deteriorate. While his mind remained sharp and lively, his body was giving up, and for the last half year of his life, the director was largely confined to bed, listening to music and watching television at home. On September 6, 1998, Kurosawa died of a stroke in Setagaya, Tokyo, at the age of 88. Kurosawa was survived by his two children and four grandchildren, three from son Hisao's marriage to Hiroko Hayashi Kurosawa grandchildren and one grandson, actor Takayuki Kato, from his daughter Kazuko Kurosawa. grandson by Kazuko 

Following Kurosawa's death, several posthumous works based on his unfilmed screenplays have been produced. After the Rain, directed by Takashi Koizumi, was released in 1998, and The Sea is Watching, directed by Kei Kumai, premiered in 2002. A script created by the Yonki no Kai ("Club of the Four Knights") (Kurosawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, and Kon Ichikawa), around the time that Dodeskaden was made, finally was filmed and released (in 2000) as Dora-Heita, by the only surviving founding member of the club, Kon Ichikawa. 

==Working methods, style and themes==

===Working methods===
All biographical sources, as well as the filmmaker's own comments, indicate that Kurosawa was a completely "hands-on" director, passionately involved in every aspect of the filmmaking process. As one interviewer summarized, "he (co-)writes his scripts, oversees the design, rehearses the actors, sets up all the shots and then does the editing." His active participation extended from the initial concept to the editing and scoring of the final product.

====Script====
Kurosawa emphasized time and again that the screenplay was the absolute foundation of a successful film and that, though a mediocre director can sometimes make a passable film out of a good script, even an excellent director can never make a good film out of a bad script. During the postwar period, he began the practice of collaborating with a rotating group of five screenwriters: Eijirō Hisaita, Ryuzo Kikushima, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, and Masato Ide. Whichever members of this group happened to be working on a particular film would gather around a table, often at a hot-springs resort, where they would not be distracted by the outside world. (Seven Samurai, for example, was written in this fashion.) Often they all (except Oguni, who acted as "referee") would work on exactly the same pages of the script, and Kurosawa would choose the best-written version from the different drafts of each particular scene. This method was adopted "so that each contributor might function as a kind of foil, checking the dominance of any one person's point-of-view." 

In addition to the actual script, Kurosawa at this stage often produced extensive, fantastically detailed notes to elaborate his vision. For example, for Seven Samurai, he created six notebooks in which he created (among many other things) detailed biographies of the samurai, including what they wore and ate, how they walked, talked and behaved when greeted, and even how each tied his shoes. For the 101 peasant characters in the film, he created a registry consisting of 23 families and instructed the performers playing these roles to live and work as these "families" for the duration of shooting. 

====Shooting====
For his early films, although they were consistently well photographed, Kurosawa generally used standard lenses and deep-focus photography. Beginning with Seven Samurai (1954), however, Kurosawa's cinematic technique changed drastically with his extensive use of long lens and multiple cameras. The director claimed that he used these lenses and several cameras rolling at once to help the actors—allowing them to be photographed at some distance from the lens, and without any knowledge of which particular camera's image would be utilized in the final cut—making their performances much more natural. (In fact, Tatsuya Nakadai agreed that the multiple cameras greatly helped his performances with the director.) But these changes had a powerful effect as well on the look of the action scenes in that film, particularly the final battle in the rain. Says Stephen Prince: "He can use the telephoto lenses to get under the horses, in between their hooves, to plunge us into the chaos of that battle in a visual way that is really quite unprecedented, both in Kurosawa's own work and in the samurai genre as a whole." 

With The Hidden Fortress, Kurosawa began to utilize the widescreen (anamorphic) process for the first time in his work. These three techniques—long lenses, multiple cameras and widescreen—were in later works fully exploited, even in sequences with little or no overt action, such as the early scenes of High and Low that take place in the central character's home, in which they are employed to dramatize tensions and power relationships between the characters within a highly confined space. 

For all his films, but particularly for his jidaigeki, Kurosawa insisted on absolute authenticity of sets, costumes and props. Numerous instances of his fanatical devotion to detail have been recorded, of which the following are only a few examples.

For Throne of Blood, in the scene where Washizu (Mifune) is attacked with arrows by his own men, the director had archers shoot real arrows, hollowed out and running along wires, toward Toshiro Mifune from a distance of about ten feet, with the actor carefully following chalk marks on the ground to avoid being hit. (Some of the arrows missed him by an inch; the actor, who admitted that he was not merely acting terrified in the film, suffered nightmares afterward). 

For Red Beard, to construct the gate for the clinic set, Kurosawa had his assistants dismantle rotten wood from old sets and then create the prop from scratch with this old wood, so the gate would look properly ravaged by time. For the same film, for teacups that appeared in the movie, he ordered his crew to pour fifty years' worth of tea into the cups so they would appear appropriately stained. 

For Ran, art director Yoshirō Muraki, constructing the "third castle" set under the director's supervision, created the "stones" of that castle by having photographs taken of actual stones from a celebrated castle, then painting Styrofoam blocks to exactly resemble those stones and gluing them to the castle "wall" through a process known as "rough-stone piling", which required months of work. Later, before shooting the famous scene in which the castle is attacked and set on fire, in order to prevent the Styrofoam "stones" from melting in the heat, the art department coated the surface with four layers of cement, then painted the colors of the ancient stones onto the cement. 

====Editing====
Kurosawa both directed and edited most of his films, which is nearly unique among prominent filmmakers. See List of film director and editor collaborations. The Coen Brothers are perhaps the best known contemporary filmmakers who both direct and edit their films. Kurosawa often remarked that he shot a film simply in order to have material to edit, because the editing of a picture was the most important and creatively interesting part of the process for him. Kurosawa's creative team believed that the director's skill with editing was his greatest talent. Hiroshi Nezu, a longtime production supervisor on his films, said, "Among ourselves, we think that he is Toho's best director, that he is Japan's best scenarist, and that he is the best editor in the world. He is most concerned with the flowing quality which a film must have ... The Kurosawa film flows over the cut, as it were." 

The director's frequent crew member Teruyo Nogami confirms this view. "Akira Kurosawa's editing was exceptional, the inimitable work of a genius ... No one was a match for him." She claimed that Kurosawa carried in his head all the information about all shots filmed, and if, in the editing room, he asked for a piece of film and she handed him the wrong one, he would immediately recognize the error, though she had taken detailed notes on each shot and he had not. She compared his mind to a computer, which could do with edited segments of film what computers do today. 

Kurosawa's habitual method was to edit a film daily, bit by bit, during production. This helped particularly when he started using multiple cameras, which resulted in a large amount of film to assemble. "I always edit in the evening if we have a fair amount of footage in the can. After watching the rushes, I usually go to the editing room and work." Because of this practice of editing as he went along, the post-production period for a Kurosawa film could be startlingly brief: Yojimbo had its Japanese premiere on April 20, 1961, four days after shooting concluded on April 16. 

===="Kurosawa-gumi"====
Throughout his career, Kurosawa worked constantly with people drawn from the same pool of creative technicians, crew members and actors, popularly known as the "Kurosawa-gumi" (Kurosawa group). The following is a partial list of this group, divided by profession. This information is derived from the IMDB pages for Kurosawa's films and Stuart Galbraith IV's filmography: 

Composers: Fumio Hayasaka (Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, Scandal, Rashomon, The Idiot, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Record of a Living Being); Masaru Sato (Throne of Blood, The Lower Depths, The Hidden Fortress, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, High and Low, Red Beard); Tōru Takemitsu (Dodeskaden, Ran); Shin-ichirō Ikebe (Kagemusha, Dreams, Rhapsody in August, Madadayo).

Cinematographers: Asakazu Nakai (No Regrets for Our Youth, One Wonderful Sunday, Stray Dog, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Record of a Living Being, Throne of Blood, High and Low, Red Beard, Dersu Uzala, Ran); Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Yojimbo); Miyagawa was hired as cinematographer for Kagemusha, but about one month into shooting, eye problems caused by diabetes forced him to drop out of the project. See Galbraith, pp. 548–549. Takao Saitō (Sanjuro, High and Low, Red Beard, Dodeskaden, Kagemusha, Ran, Dreams, Rhapsody in August, Madadayo).

Art Department: Yoshirō Muraki served as either assistant art director, art director or production designer for all Kurosawa's films (except for Dersu Uzala) from Drunken Angel until the end of the director's career.

Production Crew: Teruyo Nogami served as script supervisor, production manager, associate director or assistant to the producer on all Kurosawa's films from Rashomon to the end of the director's career. Hiroshi Nezu was production supervisor or unit production manager on all the films from Seven Samurai to Dodeskaden, except Sanjuro. After retiring as a director, Ishirō Honda returned more than 30 years later to work again for his friend and former mentor as a directorial advisor, production coordinator and creative consultant on Kurosawa's last five films (Kagemusha, Ran, Dreams, Rhapsody in August and Madadayo). Allegedly one segment of Dreams was actually directed by Honda following Kurosawa's detailed storyboards.

Actors: Leading actors: Takashi Shimura (21 films); Toshiro Mifune (16 films), Susumu Fujita (8 films), Tatsuya Nakadai (6 films) and Masayuki Mori (5 films).
Supporting performers (in alphabetical order): Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Bokuzen Hidari, Fumiko Homma, Hisashi Igawa, Yunosuke Ito, Kyoko Kagawa, Daisuke Kato, Isao Kimura, Kokuten Kodo, Akitake Kono, Yoshio Kosugi, Koji Mitsui, Seiji Miyaguchi, Eiko Miyoshi, Nobuo Nakamura, Akemi Negishi, Denjiro Okochi, Noriko Sengoku, Gen Shimizu, Ichiro Sugai, Haruo Tanaka, Akira Terao, Eijiro Tono, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kichijiro Ueda, Atsushi Watanabe, Isuzu Yamada, Tsutomu Yamazaki and Yoshitaka Zushi.

===Style===
Virtually all commentators have noted Kurosawa's bold, dynamic style, which many have compared to the traditional Hollywood style of narrative moviemaking, one that emphasizes, in the words of one such scholar, "chronological, causal, linear and historical thinking." But it has also been claimed that, from his very first film, the director displayed a technique quite distinct from the seamless style of classic Hollywood. This technique involved a disruptive depiction of screen space through the use of numerous unrepeated camera setups, a disregard for the traditional 180-degree axis of action around which Hollywood scenes have usually been constructed, and an approach in which "narrative time becomes spatialized", with fluid camera movement often replacing conventional editing. The following are some idiosyncratic aspects of the artist's style.

====Axial cut====
In his films of the 1940s and 1950s, Kurosawa frequently employs the "axial cut," in which the camera moves closer to, or further away from, the subject, not through the use of tracking shots or dissolves, but through a series of matched jump cuts. For example, in Sanshiro Sugata II, the hero takes leave of the woman he loves, but then, after walking away a short distance, turns and bows to her, and then, after walking further, turns and bows once more. This sequence of shots is illustrated on film scholar David Bordwell's blog. The three shots are not connected in the film by camera movements or dissolves, but by a series of two jump cuts. The effect is to stress the duration of Sanshiro's departure.

In the opening sequence of Seven Samurai in the peasant village, the axial cut is used twice. When the villagers are outdoors, gathered in a circle, weeping and lamenting the imminent arrival of the bandits, they are glimpsed from above in extreme long shot, then, after the cut, in a much closer shot, then in an even closer shot at ground level as the dialogue begins. A few minutes later, when the villagers go to the mill to ask the village elder's advice, there is a long shot of the mill, with a slowly turning wheel in the river, then a closer shot of this wheel, and then a still closer shot of it. (As the mill is where the elder lives, these shots forge a mental association in the viewer's mind between that character and the mill.) 

====Cutting on motion====
A number of scholars have pointed out Kurosawa's tendency to "cut on motion": that is, to edit a sequence of a character or characters in motion so that an action is depicted in two or more separate shots, rather than one uninterrupted shot. One scholar, as an example, describes a tense scene in Seven Samurai in which the samurai Shichirôji, who is standing, wishes to console the peasant Manzo, who is sitting on the ground, and he gets down on one knee to talk to him. Kurosawa chooses to film this simple action in two shots rather than one (cutting between the two only after the action of kneeling has begun) to fully convey Shichirôji's humility. Numerous other instances of this device are evident in the movie. "Kurosawa breaks up the action, fragments it, in order to create an emotional effect." 

====Wipe====
A form of cinematic punctuation very strongly identified with Kurosawa is the wipe. This is an effect created through an optical printer, in which, when a scene ends, a line or bar appears to move across the screen, "wiping" away the image while simultaneously revealing the first image of the subsequent scene. As a transitional device, it is used as a substitute for the straight cut or the dissolve (though Kurosawa, of course, often used both of those devices as well). In his mature work, Kurosawa employed the wipe so frequently that it became a kind of signature. For example, one blogger has counted no fewer than 12 instances of the wipe in Drunken Angel. 

There are a number of theories concerning the purpose of this device, which, as James Goodwin notes, was common in silent cinema but became considerably rarer in the more "realistic" sound cinema. Goodwin claims that the wipes in Rashomon, for instance, fulfill one of three purposes: emphasizing motion in traveling shots, marking narrative shifts in the courtyard scenes and marking temporal ellipses between actions (e.g., between the end of one character's testimony and the beginning of another's). He also points out that in The Lower Depths, in which Kurosawa completely avoided the use of wipes, the director cleverly manipulated people and props "in order to slide new visual images in and out of view much as a wipe cut does." 

An instance of the wipe used as a satirical device can be seen in Ikiru. A group of women visit the local government office to petition the bureaucrats to turn a waste area into a children's playground. The viewer is then shown a series of point of view shots of various bureaucrats, connected by wipe transitions, each of whom refers the group to another department. Nora Tennessen comments in her blog (which shows one example) that "the wipe technique makes sequence funnier—images of bureaucrats are stacked like cards, each more punctilious than the last." 

====Image-sound counterpoint====
Kurosawa by all accounts always gave great attention to the soundtracks of his films (Teruyo Nogami's memoir gives many such examples). In the late 1940s, he began to employ music for what he called "counterpoint" to the emotional content of a scene, rather than merely to reinforce the emotion, as Hollywood traditionally did (and still does). The inspiration for this innovation came from a family tragedy. When news reached Kurosawa of his father's death in 1948, he wandered aimlessly through the streets of Tokyo. His sorrow was magnified rather than diminished when he suddenly heard the cheerful, vapid song "The Cuckoo Waltz", and he hurried to escape from this "awful music." He then told his composer, Fumio Hayasaka, with whom he was working on Drunken Angel, to use "The Cuckoo Waltz" as ironic accompaniment to the scene in which the dying gangster, Matsunaga, sinks to his lowest point in the narrative. 

This ironic approach to music can also be found in Stray Dog, a film released a year after Drunken Angel. In the climactic scene, the detective Murakami is fighting furiously with the murderer Yusa in a muddy field. The sound of a Mozart piece is suddenly heard, played on the piano by a woman in a nearby house. As one commentator notes, "In contrast to this scene of primitive violence, the serenity of the Mozart is, literally, other-worldly" and "the power of this elemental encounter is heightened by the music." Nor was Kurosawa's "ironic" use of the soundtrack limited to music. One critic observes that, in Seven Samurai, "During episodes of murder and mayhem, birds chirp in the background, as they do in the first scene when the farmers lament their seemingly hopeless fate." 

===Recurring themes===

====Master–disciple relationship====
Many commentators have noted the frequent occurrence in Kurosawa's work of the complex relationship between an older and a younger man, who serve each other as master and disciple, respectively. This theme was clearly an expression of the director's life experience. "Kurosawa revered his teachers, in particular Kajiro Yamamoto, his mentor at Toho", according to Joan Mellen. "The salutary image of an older person instructing the young evokes always in Kurosawa's films high moments of pathos." The critic Tadao Sato considers the recurring character of the "master" to be a type of surrogate father, whose role it is to witness the young protagonist's moral growth and approve of it. 

In his very first film, Sanshiro Sugata, after the Judo master Yano becomes the title character's teacher and spiritual guide, "the narrative cast in the form of a chronicle studying the stages of the hero's growing mastery and maturity." The master-pupil relationship in the films of the postwar era—as depicted in such works as Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, Seven Samurai, Red Beard and Dersu Uzala—involves very little direct instruction, but much learning through experience and example; Stephen Prince relates this tendency to the private and nonverbal nature of the concept of Zen enlightenment. 

By the time of Kagemusha, however, according to Prince, the meaning of this relationship has changed. A thief chosen to act as the double of a great lord continues his impersonation even after his master's death: "the relationship has become spectral and is generated from beyond the grave with the master maintaining a ghostly presence. Its end is death, not the renewal of commitment to the living that typified its outcome in earlier films." However, according to the director's biographer, in his final film, Madadayo—which deals with a teacher and his relationship with an entire group of ex-pupils—a sunnier vision of the theme emerges. "The students hold an annual party for their professor, attended by dozens of former students, now adults of varying age ... This extended sequence ... expresses, as only Kurosawa can, the simple joys of student-teacher relationships, of kinship, of being alive." 

====Heroic champion====
Kurosawa's is a heroic cinema, a series of dramas (mostly) concerned with the deeds and fates of larger-than-life heroes. Stephen Prince has identified the emergence of the unique Kurosawa protagonist with the immediate post-World War II period. The goal of the American Occupation to replace Japanese feudalism with individualism coincided with the director's artistic and social agenda: "Kurosawa welcomed the changed political climate and sought to fashion his own mature cinematic voice." The Japanese critic Tadao Sato concurs: "With defeat in World War II, many Japanese ... were dumbfounded to find that the government had lied to them and was neither just nor dependable. During this uncertain time Akira Kurosawa, in a series of first-rate films, sustained the people by his consistent assertion that the meaning of life is not dictated by the nation but something each individual should discover for himself through suffering." The filmmaker himself remarked that, during this period, "I felt that without the establishment of the self as a positive value there could be no freedom and no democracy." 

The first such postwar hero was, atypically for the artist, a heroine—Yukie, played by Setsuko Hara, in No Regrets for Our Youth. According to Prince, her "desertion of family and class background to assist a poor village, her perseverance in the face of enormous obstacles, her assumption of responsibility for her own life and for the well-being of others, and her existential loneliness ... are essential to Kurosawan heroism and make of Yukie the first coherent ... example." This "existential loneliness" is also exemplified by Dr. Sanada (Takashi Shimura) in Drunken Angel: "Kurosawa insists that his heroes take their stand, alone, against tradition and battle for a better world, even if the path there is not clear. Separation from a corrupt social system in order to alleviate human suffering, as Sanada does, is the only honorable course." 

Many commentators regard Seven Samurai as the ultimate expression of the artist's heroic ideal. Joan Mellen's comments are typical of this view: "Seven Samurai is above all a homage to the samurai class at its most noble ... Samurai for Kurosawa represent the best of Japanese tradition and integrity." Ironically, it is because of, not in spite of, the chaotic times of civil war depicted in the film that the seven rise to greatness. "Kurosawa locates the unexpected benefits no less than the tragedy of this historical moment. The upheaval forces samurai to channel the selflessness of their credo of loyal service into working for peasants." However, this heroism is futile because "there was already rising ... a merchant class which would supplant the warrior aristocracy." So the courage and supreme skill of the central characters will not prevent the ultimate destruction of themselves or their class.

As Kurosawa's career progressed he seemed to find it increasingly difficult to sustain the heroic ideal. As Prince notes, "Kurosawa's is an essentially tragic vision of life, and this sensibility ... impedes his efforts to realize a socially committed mode of filmmaking." Furthermore, the director's ideal of heroism is subverted by history itself: "When history is articulated as it is in Throne of Blood, as a blind force ... heroism ceases to be a problem or a reality." According to Prince, the filmmaker's vision eventually became so bleak that he would come to view history merely as eternally recurring patterns of violence, within which the individual is depicted as not only unheroic, but utterly helpless (see "Cycles of violence" below).

====Nature and weather====
Nature is a crucial element in Kurosawa's films. According to Stephen Prince, "Kurosawa's sensibility, like that of many Japanese artists, is keenly sensitive to the subtleties and beauties of season and scenery." He has never hesitated to exploit climate and weather as plot elements, to the point where they become "active participants in the drama ... The oppressive heat in Stray Dog and Record of a Living Being is omnipresent and becomes thematized as a signifier of a world disjointed by economic collapse and the atomic threat." The director himself once said, "I like hot summers, cold winters, heavy rains and snows, and I think most of my pictures show this. I like extremes because I find them most alive." 

Wind is also a powerful symbol: "The persistent metaphor of Kurosawa's work is that of wind, the winds of change, of fortune and adversity." "The visually flamboyant battle Yojimbo takes place in the main street, as huge clouds of dust swirl around the combatants ... The winds that stir the dust ... have brought firearms to the town along with the culture of the West, which will end the warrior tradition." 

It is also difficult not to notice the importance of rain to Kurosawa: "Rain in Kurosawa's films is never treated neutrally. When it occurs ... it is never a drizzle or a light mist but always a frenzied downpour, a driving storm." "The final battle Seven Samurai is a supreme spiritual and physical struggle, and it is fought in a blinding rainstorm, which enables Kurosawa to visualize an ultimate fusion of social groups ... but this climactic vision of classlessness, with typical Kurosawan ambivalence, has become a vision of horror. The battle is a vortex of swirling rain and mud ... The ultimate fusion of social identity emerges as an expression of hellish chaos." 

====Cycles of violence====
Beginning with Throne of Blood (1957), an obsession with historical cycles of inexorable savage violence—what Stephen Prince calls "the countertradition to the committed, heroic mode of Kurosawa's cinema" —first appears. According to Donald Richie, within the world of that film, "Cause and effect is the only law. Freedom does not exist." and Prince claims that its events "are inscribed in a cycle of time that infinitely repeats." (He uses as evidence the fact that Washizu's lord, unlike the kindly King Duncan of Shakespeare's play, had murdered his own lord years before to seize power, and is then murdered in turn by Washizu (the Macbeth character) for the same reason.) "The fated quality to the action of Macbeth ... was transposed by Kurosawa with a sharpened emphasis upon predetermined action and the crushing of human freedom beneath the laws of karma." 

Prince claims that Kurosawa's last epics, Kagemusha and particularly Ran, mark a major turning point in the director's vision of the world. In Kagemusha, "where once the world of his films the individual could grasp events tightly and demand that they conform to his or her impulses, now the self is but the epiphenomenon of a ruthless and bloody temporal process, ground to dust beneath the weight and force of history." The following epic, Ran, is "a relentless chronicle of base lust for power, betrayal of the father by his sons, and pervasive wars and murders." The historical setting of the film is used as "a commentary on what Kurosawa now perceives as the timelessness of human impulses toward violence and self-destruction." "History has given way to a perception of life as a wheel of endless suffering, ever turning, ever repeating", which is compared in many instances in the screenplay with hell. "Kurosawa has found hell to be both the inevitable outcome of human behavior and the appropriate visualization of his own bitterness and disappointment." 

==Criticisms==

Despite the extraordinary acclaim that Kurosawa's work has received in Japan and abroad, his films, as well as Kurosawa as an individual, have also been subject to considerable criticism, much of it harsh. Below are summarized some of the more common criticisms of the director, both those made generally and those that are primarily voiced in Japan.

===In general===
In the early to mid-1950s, a number of critics belonging to the French New Wave championed the films of the older Japanese master, Kenji Mizoguchi, at the expense of Kurosawa's work. New Wave critic-filmmaker Jacques Rivette, said: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough ... seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual." According to such French commentators, Mizoguchi seemed, of the two artists, the more authentically Japanese. But at least one film scholar has questioned the validity of this dichotomy between "Japanese" Mizoguchi and "Western" Kurosawa by pointing out that "Mizo" had been as influenced by Western cinema and Western culture in general as Kurosawa, and that this is reflected in his work. 

A criticism frequently directed at Kurosawa's films is that the director's preoccupation with ethical and moral themes led him at times to create what some commentators regard as sentimental or naïve work. Speaking of the postwar "slice of life" drama One Wonderful Sunday, for example, film scholar (and future politician) Audie Bock claimed that not even Kurosawa's celebrated prowess as an editor could save one particular scene from bathos: "The last sequence ... is an excruciating twelve minutes of the boy conducting an imaginary orchestra in an empty amphitheater while his girlfriend appeals directly to the camera for the viewer to join in. Angles and focal lengths change, details of leaves scattering in the wind are intercut, but nothing makes the scene go any faster." 

Some controversy exists about the extent to which Kurosawa's films of the Second World War period could be considered propaganda. The cultural historian Peter B. High sees Kurosawa's wartime cinema as part of the propagandistic trend of Japan at war and as an example of many of these wartime conventions. High refers to his second film, The Most Beautiful, as a "dark and gloomy rendition of the standard formulas of the front genre." Another controversy centers on his alleged refusal to acknowledge Japan's wartime guilt. In one of Kurosawa's last films, Rhapsody in August, an elderly survivor of the atomic attack on Nagasaki is visited by her half-Japanese, half-American nephew, Clark (Richard Gere), who appears (at least to some viewers) to apologize, as an American, for the city's wartime destruction. The New York Times critic Vincent Canby wrote about this film: "A lot of people at Cannes were outraged that the film makes no mention of Pearl Harbor and Japan's atrocities in China ... If Clark can apologize for bombing Nagasaki, why can't Granny apologize for the raid on Pearl Harbor?" 

A number of critics have reacted negatively to the female characters in Kurosawa's movies. Joan Mellen, in her examination of this subject, has maintained that, by the time of Red Beard (1965), "women in Kurosawa have become not only unreal and incapable of kindness, but totally bereft of autonomy, whether physical, intellectual, or emotional ... Women at their best may only imitate the truths men discover." Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince concurs with Mellen's view, though less censoriously: "Unlike a male-oriented director like Sam Peckinpah, Kurosawa is not hostile to women, but his general lack of interest in them should be regarded as a major limitation of his work." 

===In Japan===
In Japan, both critics and other filmmakers have sometimes accused his work of elitism, because of his focus on exceptional, heroic individuals and groups of men. In her commentary on the deluxe DVD edition of Seven Samurai, Joan Mellen maintains that certain shots of the samurai characters Kambei and Kyuzo, which to her reveal Kurosawa "privileging" these samurai, "support the argument voiced by several Japanese critics that Kurosawa was an elitist ... Kurosawa was hardly a progressive director, they argued, since his peasants could not discover among their own ranks leaders who might rescue the village. Instead, justifying the inequitable class structure of their society and ours, the peasants must rely on the aristocracy, the upper class, and in particular samurai, to ensure their survival ... Kurosawa defended himself against this charge in his interview with me. 'I wanted to say that after everything the peasants were the stronger, closely clinging to the earth ... It was the samurai who were weak because they were being blown by the winds of time.'" 

Because of Kurosawa's popularity with European and American audiences from the early 1950s onward, he has not escaped the charge of deliberately catering to the tastes of Westerners to achieve or maintain that popularity. Joan Mellen, recording the violently negative reaction (in the 1970s) of the left-wing director Nagisa Oshima to Kurosawa and his work, states: "That Kurosawa had brought Japanese film to a Western audience meant Oshima that he must be pandering to Western values and politics." Kurosawa always strongly denied pandering to Western tastes: "He has never catered to a foreign audience" writes Audie Bock, "and has condemned those who do." 

Kurosawa was often criticized by his countrymen for perceived "arrogant" behavior. It was in Japan that the (initially) disparaging nickname "Kurosawa Tennō"—"The Emperor Kurosawa"—was coined. "Like tennō", Yoshimoto claimed, "Kurosawa is said to cloister himself in his own small world, which is completely cut off from the everyday reality of the majority of Japanese. The nickname tennō is used in this sense to create an image of Kurosawa as a director who abuses his power solely for the purpose of self-indulgence." 

==Worldwide impact==

===Reputation among filmmakers===
Many celebrated directors have been influenced by Kurosawa and/or have expressed admiration for his work. The filmmakers cited below are grouped according to three categories: a) those who, like Kurosawa himself, established international critical reputations in the 1950s and early 1960s; b) the so-called "New Hollywood" directors, that is, American moviemakers who, for the most part, established their reputations in the early to mid-1970s; and c) other Asian directors.

alt=Photo of the director Robert Altman in his mid-60s, wearing a goatee, glasses, a wide-brimmed white hat and a jacket and looking directly into the camera.
Ingmar Bergman called his own film The Virgin Spring "touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa", and added, "At that time my admiration for the Japanese cinema was at its height. I was almost a samurai myself!" Federico Fellini in an interview declared the director "the greatest living example of all that an author of the cinema should be"—despite admitting to having seen only one of his films, Seven Samurai. Roman Polanski in 1965 cited Kurosawa as one of his three favorite filmmakers (with Fellini and Orson Welles), singling out Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and The Hidden Fortress for praise. Bernardo Bertolucci considered the Japanese master's influence to be seminal: "Kurosawa's movies and La Dolce Vita of Fellini are the things that pushed me, sucked me into being a film director." 

Kurosawa's "New Hollywood" admirers have included Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, and John Milius. Robert Altman, when he first saw Rashomon (during the period when he worked regularly in television rather than feature films), was so impressed by its cinematographer's achievement of shooting several shots with the camera aimed directly at the sun—allegedly it was the first film in which this was done successfully—that he claims he was inspired the very next day to begin incorporating shots of the sun into his television work. It was Coppola who said of Kurosawa, "One thing that distinguishes is that he didn't make one masterpiece or two masterpieces. He made, you know, eight masterpieces." Both Spielberg and Scorsese have praised the older man's role as teacher and role model—as a sensei, to use the Japanese term. Spielberg has declared, "I have learned more from him than from almost any other filmmaker on the face of the earth", while Scorsese remarked, "Let me say it simply: Akira Kurosawa was my master, and ... the master of so many other filmmakers over the years." As already noted above, several of these moviemakers were also instrumental in helping Kurosawa obtain financing for his late films: Lucas and Coppola served as co-producers on Kagemusha, while the Spielberg name, lent to the 1990 production, Dreams, helped bring that picture to fruition. 

As the first Asian filmmaker to achieve international prominence, Kurosawa has naturally served as an inspiration for other Asian auteurs. Of Rashomon, the most famous director of India, Satyajit Ray, said: "The effect of the film on me first seeing it in Calcutta in 1952 was electric. I saw it three times on consecutive days, and wondered each time if there was another film anywhere which gave such sustained and dazzling proof of a director's command over every aspect of film making." Other Asian admirers include the Japanese actor and director Takeshi Kitano, Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo and mainland Chinese director Zhang Yimou, who called Kurosawa "the quintessential Asian director." 

===Remakes===

===Awards and honors===

==Legacy==
Kurosawa Production Co., established in 1959, continues to oversee much of Kurosawa's legacy. The director's son, Hisao Kurosawa, is the current head of the company. Its American subsidiary, Kurosawa Enterprises, is located in Los Angeles. Rights to Kurosawa's works are held by Kurosawa Production and the film studios under which he worked, most notably Toho. Kurosawa Production works closely with the Akira Kurosawa Foundation, established in December 2003 and also run by Hisao Kurosawa. The foundation organizes an annual short film competition and spearheads Kurosawa-related projects, including a recently shelved one to build a memorial museum for the director. 

In 1981, the Kurosawa Film Studio was opened in Yokohama; two additional locations have since been launched in Japan. A large collection of archive material, including scanned screenplays, photos and news articles, has been made available through the Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive, a Japanese website maintained by Ryukoku University Digital Archives Research Center in collaboration with Kurosawa Production. Anaheim University's Akira Kurosawa School of Film was launched in spring 2009 with the backing of Kurosawa Production. It offers online programs in digital film making, with headquarters in Anaheim and a learning center in Tokyo. 

Two film awards have also been named in Kurosawa's honor. The Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film Directing is awarded during the San Francisco International Film Festival, while the Akira Kurosawa Award is given during the Tokyo International Film Festival. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Kurosawa's birth in 2010, a project called AK100 was launched in 2008. The AK100 Project aims to "expose young people who are the representatives of the next generation, and all people everywhere, to the light and spirit of Akira Kurosawa and the wonderful world he created." 

Anaheim University in cooperation with the Kurosawa Family established the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film to offer online and blended learning programs on Akira Kurosawa and filmmaking.

==Filmography==

===On home video===
All thirty films directed by Kurosawa are available on DVD worldwide, most of them from more than one distributor and in more than one region code. His films have begun to be released on Blu-ray. 

===As Writer===
Work with Akira Kurosawa credited as writer, by year:

* 1941 Uma (Horse) as writer
* 1942 Seishun no kiryu (Wind Currents of Youth)
* 1942 Tsubasa no gaika (The Triumphant Song of the Wings)
* 1944 Dohyosai (Wrestling-Ring Festival)
* 1945 Appare Ishin Tasuke (Bravo! Ishin Tasuke)
* 1947 Yottsu no koi no monogatari (Four Love Stories) segment
* 1947 Ginrei no hate (To the End of the Snow-Capped Mountains; aka Snow Trail)
* 1948 Shozo (The Portrait)
* 1949 Jigoku no kifujin (The Lady from Hell)
* 1949 Jyakoman to Tetsu (Jakoman and Tetsu)
* 1950 Akatsuki no dasso (Escape at Dawn)
* 1950 Jiruba no Tetsu (Tetsu of Jilba)
* 1950 Tateshi danpei (Fencing Master)
* 1951 Ai to nikushimi no kanata e (Beyond Love and Hate)
* 1951 Kedamono no yado (The Den of Beasts)
* 1952 Araki Sauemon – Ketto kagiya no tsuji (Sauemon Araki – Duel at Key-Maker’s Corner; aka Vendetta for a Samurai)
* 1952 Sengoku burai (Vagabonds in a Country at War; aka Sword for Hire)
* 1953 Fukeyo harukaze (Blow! Spring Wind; aka My Wonderful Yellow Car)
* 1955 Kieta chutai (Vanished Enlisted Man)
* 1955 Asunaro monogatari (Hiba Arborvitae Story; aka Tomorrow I’ll Be a Fire Tree)
* 1957 Nichiro senso shori no hishi – Tekichu odan sanbyaku ri (Three Hundred Miles Through Enemy Lines; aka Advance Patrol)
* 1959 Sengoku gunto-den (The Story of Robbers of the Civil Wars; aka Saga of the Vagabonds)
* 1985 Runaway Train
* 2000 Ame Agaru (After the Rain)
* 2000 Dora-Heita (Alley Cat)
* 2002 Umi wa miteita (The Sea is Watching)

==See also==

*Gendai-geki
*List of Japanese actors
*List of Japanese actresses
*List of Japanese film directors
*Samurai cinema

==References==

===Notes===

===Citations===

===Sources===

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==Further reading==
* Buchanan, Judith (2005). Shakespeare on Film. Pearson Longman. ISBN 0-582-43716-4.
* Burch, Nöel (1979). To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03605-0. Available online at the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan
* Cowie, Peter (2010). Akira Kurosawa: Master of Cinema. Rizzoli Publications. ISBN 0-8478-3319-4.
* Davies, Anthony (1990). Filming Shakespeare's Plays: The Adaptions of Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39913-0.
* Desser, David (1983). The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa (Studies in Cinema No. 23). UMI Research Press. ISBN 0-8357-1924-3.
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* Leonard, Kendra Preston (2009). Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations. Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-6946-2.
* Sorensen, Lars-Martin (2009). Censorship of Japanese Films During the U.S. Occupation of Japan: The Cases of Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0-7734-4673-7.

==External links==

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*Akira Kurosawa at the Criterion Collection
*Akira Kurosawa: News, Information and Discussion
*Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
*Great Performances: Kurosawa (PBS)
*CineFiles: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Kurosawa search)
*Akira Kurosawa at Japanese celebrity's grave guide 
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*Several trailers
*Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film



[[Ancient Egypt]]

The Great Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza are among the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt.
 
 

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations globally to arise independently. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh. Dodson (2004) p. 46 The history of ancient Egypt occurred in a series of stable Kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.

Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power during the New Kingdom, in the Ramesside period where it rivalled the Hittite Empire, Assyrian Empire and Mitanni Empire, after which it entered a period of slow decline. Egypt was invaded or conquered by a succession of foreign powers (such as the Canaanites/Hyksos, Libyans, Nubians, Assyria, Babylonia, Achaemenids and Macedonian Greece) in the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt and Late Period. In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established himself as the new ruler of Egypt. This Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. Clayton (1994) p. 217 

The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to defeat foreign enemies and assert Egyptian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs. James (2005) p. 8 Manuelian (1998) pp. 6–7 

The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that supported the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known ships, Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty, made with Hittites. Clayton (1994) p. 153 Egypt left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. A new-found respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period by Europeans and Egyptians led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy. James (2005) p. 84 

==History==
Map of ancient Egypt, showing major cities and sites of the Dynastic period (c. 3150 BC to 30 BC)

The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history. Shaw (2002) pp. 17, 67–69 The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization. Shaw (2002) p. 17 Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120 thousand years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the river region.

===Predynastic period===

A typical Naqada II jar decorated with gazelles. (Predynastic Period)
In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. 

By about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper (Southern) Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert; it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper. Hayes (1964) p. 220 

The Badari was followed by the Amratian (Naqada I) and Gerzeh (Naqada II) cultures, Childe, V. Gordon (1953), New Light on the Most Ancient Near East, (Praeger Publications) which brought a number of technological improvements. As early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. Barbara G. Aston, James A. Harrell, Ian Shaw (2000). Paul T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw editors. "Stone," in Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge, 5–77, pp. 46–47. Also note: Barbara G. Aston (1994). "Ancient Egyptian Stone Vessels," Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 5, Heidelberg, pp. 23–26. (See on-line posts: and .) In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan and the Byblos coast. Patai, Raphael (1998), 'Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times (Princeton Uni Press) Over a period of about 1,000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. Establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. Shaw (2002) p. 61 They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East to the east. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the white crown of Egypt and falcon. 

The Naqada culture manufactured a diverse selection of material goods, reflective of the increasing power and wealth of the elite, as well as societal personal-use items, which included combs, small statuary, painted pottery, high quality decorative stone vases, cosmetic palettes, and jewelry made of gold, lapis, and ivory. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. Allen (2000) p. 1 

===Early Dynastic Period (c. 3050–2686 BC)===
 The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia and of ancient Elam. The third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today. Clayton (1994) p. 6 He chose to begin his official history with the king named "Meni" (or Menes in Greek) who was believed to have united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt (around 3100 BC). Shaw (2002) pp. 78–80 

The transition to a unified state happened more gradually than ancient Egyptian writers represented, and there is no contemporary record of Menes. Some scholars now believe, however, that the mythical Menes may have been the pharaoh Narmer, who is depicted wearing royal regalia on the ceremonial Narmer Palette, in a symbolic act of unification. Clayton (1994) pp. 12–13 In the Early Dynastic Period about 3150 BC, the first of the Dynastic pharaohs solidified control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which he could control the labour force and agriculture of the fertile delta region, as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant. The increasing power and wealth of the pharaohs during the early dynastic period was reflected in their elaborate mastaba tombs and mortuary cult structures at Abydos, which were used to celebrate the deified pharaoh after his death. Shaw (2002) p. 70 The strong institution of kingship developed by the pharaohs served to legitimize state control over the land, labour, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Egyptian civilization. 
The Narmer Palette depicts the unification
of the Two Lands. Robins (1997) p. 32 

===Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC)===

The Giza PyramidsMajor advances in architecture, art, and technology were made during the Old Kingdom, fueled by the increased agricultural productivity and resulting population, made possible by a well-developed central administration. James (2005) p. 40 Some of ancient Egypt's crowning achievements, the Giza pyramids and Great Sphinx, were constructed during the Old Kingdom. Under the direction of the vizier, state officials collected taxes, coordinated irrigation projects to improve crop yield, drafted peasants to work on construction projects, and established a justice system to maintain peace and order. Shaw (2002) p. 102 Khafre Enthroned

Along with the rising importance of a central administration arose a new class of educated scribes and officials who were granted estates by the pharaoh in payment for their services. Pharaohs also made land grants to their mortuary cults and local temples, to ensure that these institutions had the resources to worship the pharaoh after his death. Scholars believe that five centuries of these practices slowly eroded the economic power of the pharaoh, and that the economy could no longer afford to support a large centralized administration. Shaw (2002) pp. 116–7 As the power of the pharaoh diminished, regional governors called nomarchs began to challenge the supremacy of the pharaoh. This, coupled with severe droughts between 2200 and 2150 BC, is assumed to have caused the country to enter the 140-year period of famine and strife known as the First Intermediate Period. Clayton (1994) p. 69 

===First Intermediate Period (2181–1991 BC)===

After Egypt's central government collapsed at the end of the Old Kingdom, the administration could no longer support or stabilize the country's economy. Regional governors could not rely on the king for help in times of crisis, and the ensuing food shortages and political disputes escalated into famines and small-scale civil wars. Yet despite difficult problems, local leaders, owing no tribute to the pharaoh, used their new-found independence to establish a thriving culture in the provinces. Once in control of their own resources, the provinces became economically richer—which was demonstrated by larger and better burials among all social classes. Shaw (2002) p. 120 In bursts of creativity, provincial artisans adopted and adapted cultural motifs formerly restricted to the royalty of the Old Kingdom, and scribes developed literary styles that expressed the optimism and originality of the period. Shaw (2002) p. 146 

Free from their loyalties to the pharaoh, local rulers began competing with each other for territorial control and political power. By 2160 BC, rulers in Herakleopolis controlled Lower Egypt in the north, while a rival clan based in Thebes, the Intef family, took control of Upper Egypt in the south. As the Intefs grew in power and expanded their control northward, a clash between the two rival dynasties became inevitable. Around 2055 BC the northern Theban forces under Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II finally defeated the Herakleopolitan rulers, reuniting the Two Lands. They inaugurated a period of economic and cultural renaissance known as the Middle Kingdom. Clayton (1994) p. 29 

===Middle Kingdom (2134–1690 BC)===

Amenemhat III, the last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom

The pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom restored the country's prosperity and stability, thereby stimulating a resurgence of art, literature, and monumental building projects. Shaw (2002) p. 148 Mentuhotep II and his Eleventh Dynasty successors ruled from Thebes, but the vizier Amenemhat I, upon assuming kingship at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty around 1985 BC, shifted the nation's capital to the city of Itjtawy, located in Faiyum. Clayton (1994) p. 79 From Itjtawy, the pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty undertook a far-sighted land reclamation and irrigation scheme to increase agricultural output in the region. Moreover, the military reconquered territory in Nubia that was rich in quarries and gold mines, while laborers built a defensive structure in the Eastern Delta, called the "Walls-of-the-Ruler", to defend against foreign attack. Shaw (2002) p. 158 

With the pharaohs' having secured military and political security and vast agricultural and mineral wealth, the nation's population, arts, and religion flourished. In contrast to elitist Old Kingdom attitudes towards the gods, the Middle Kingdom experienced an increase in expressions of personal piety and what could be called a democratization of the afterlife, in which all people possessed a soul and could be welcomed into the company of the gods after death. Shaw (2002) pp. 179–82 Middle Kingdom literature featured sophisticated themes and characters written in a confident, eloquent style. The relief and portrait sculpture of the period captured
subtle, individual details that reached new heights of technical perfection. Robins (1997) p. 90 

The last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat III, allowed Semitic-speaking Canaanite settlers from the Near East into the delta region to provide a sufficient labour force for his especially active mining and building campaigns. These ambitious building and mining activities, however, combined with severe Nile floods later in his reign, strained the economy and precipitated the slow decline into the Second Intermediate Period during the later Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties. During this decline, the Canaanite settlers began to seize control of the delta region, eventually coming to power in Egypt as the Hyksos. Shaw (2002) p. 188 

===Second Intermediate Period (1674–1549 BC) and the Hyksos===

Around 1785 BC, as the power of the Middle Kingdom pharaohs weakened, a Semitic Canaanite people called the Hyksos had already settled in the Eastern Delta town of Avaris, seized control of Egypt, and forced the central government to retreat to Thebes. The pharaoh was treated as a vassal and expected to pay tribute. Ryholt (1997) p. 310 The Hyksos ("foreign rulers") retained Egyptian models of government and identified as pharaohs, thus integrating Egyptian elements into their culture. They and other Semitic invaders introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot. Shaw (2002) p. 189 

After their retreat, the native Theban kings found themselves trapped between the Canaanite Hyksos ruling the north and the Hyksos' Nubian allies, the Kushites, to the south of Egypt. After years of vassalage, Thebes gathered enough strength to challenge the Hyksos in a conflict that lasted more than 30 years, until 1555 BC The pharaohs Seqenenre Tao II and Kamose were ultimately able to defeat the Nubians to the south of Egypt, but failed to defeat the Hyksos. That task fell to Kamose's successor, Ahmose I, who successfully waged a series of campaigns that permanently eradicated the Hyksos' presence in Egypt. He established a new dynasty. In the New Kingdom that followed, the military became a central priority for the pharaohs seeking to expand Egypt's borders and attempting to gain mastery of the Near East. Shaw (2002) p. 224 

The maximum territorial extent of ancient Egypt (15th century BC)

===New Kingdom (1549–1069 BC)===

The New Kingdom pharaohs established a period of unprecedented prosperity by securing their borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with their neighbours, including the Mitanni Empire, Assyria, and Canaan. Military campaigns waged under Tuthmosis I and his grandson Tuthmosis III extended the influence of the pharaohs to the largest empire Egypt had ever seen. Between their reigns, Hatshepsut generally promoted peace and restored trade routes lost during the Hyksos occupation, as well as expanding to new regions. When Tuthmosis III died in 1425 BC, Egypt had an empire extending from Niya in north west Syria to the fourth waterfall of the Nile in Nubia, cementing loyalties and opening access to critical imports such as bronze and wood. James (2005) p. 48 

Djeser-Djeseru is the main building of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri, the building is an example of perfect symmetry that predates the Parthenon by a thousand years
The New Kingdom pharaohs began a large-scale building campaign to promote the god Amun, whose growing cult was based in Karnak. They also constructed monuments to glorify their own achievements, both real and imagined. The pharaoh Hatshepsut used such hyperbole and grandeur during her reign of almost twenty-two years. Her reign was very successful, marked by an extended period of peace and wealth-building, trading expeditions to Punt, restoration of foreign trade networks, and great building projects, including an elegant mortuary temple that rivaled the Greek architecture of a thousand years later, a colossal pair of obelisks, and a chapel at Karnak. Despite her achievements, Amenhotep II, the heir to Hatshepsut's nephew-stepson Tuthmosis III, sought to erase her legacy near the end of his father's reign and throughout his, touting many of her accomplishments as his. Clayton (1994) p. 108 He also tried to change many established traditions that had developed over the centuries, which some suggest was a futile attempt to prevent other women from becoming pharaoh and to curb their influence in the kingdom.

Around 1350 BC, the stability of the New Kingdom seemed threatened further when Amenhotep IV ascended the throne and instituted a series of radical and chaotic reforms. Changing his name to Akhenaten, he touted the previously obscure sun deity Aten as the supreme deity, suppressed the worship of most other deities, and attacked the power of the temple that had become dominated by the priests of Amun in Thebes, whom he saw as corrupt. Aldred (1988) p. 259 Moving the capital to the new city of Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna), Akhenaten turned a deaf ear to events in the Near East (where the Hittites, Mitanni, and Assyrians were vying for control). He was devoted to his new religion and artistic style. After his death, the cult of the Aten was quickly abandoned, the priests of Amun soon regained power and returned the capital to Thebes. Under their influence the subsequent pharaohs Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb worked to erase all mention of Akhenaten's heresy, now known as the Amarna Period. Cline (2001) p. 273 

Four colossal statues of Ramesses II flank the entrance of his temple Abu Simbel
Around 1279 BC, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, ascended the throne, and went on to build more temples, erect more statues and obelisks, and sire more children than any other pharaoh in history. With his two principal wives and large harem, Ramesses II sired more than 100 children. Clayton (1994) p. 146 A bold military leader, Ramesses II led his army against the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh (in modern Syria) and, after fighting to a stalemate, finally agreed to the first recorded peace treaty, around 1258 BC. Tyldesley (2001) pp. 76–7 With both the Egyptians and Hittite Empire proving unable to gain the upper hand over one another, and both powers also fearful of the expanding Middle Assyrian Empire, Egypt withdraw from much of the Near East. The Hittites were thus left to compete unsuccessfully with the powerful Assyrians and the newly arrived Phrygians.

Egypt's wealth, however, made it a tempting target for invasion, particularly by the Libyan Berbers to the west, and the Sea Peoples, a powerful confederation of largely Greek, Luwian and Phoenician/Caananite pirates from the Aegean. Initially, the military was able to repel these invasions, but Egypt eventually lost control of its remaining territories in southern Caanan, much of it falling to the Assyrians. The effects of external threats were exacerbated by internal problems such as corruption, tomb robbery, and civil unrest. After regaining their power, the high priests at the temple of Amun in Thebes accumulated vast tracts of land and wealth, and their expanded power splintered the country during the Third Intermediate Period. James (2005) p. 54 

===Third Intermediate Period (1069–653 BC)===

Following the death of Ramesses XI in 1078 BC, Smendes assumed authority over the northern part of Egypt, ruling from the city of Tanis. The south was effectively controlled by the High Priests of Amun at Thebes, who recognized Smendes in name only. Cerny (1975) p. 645 During this time, Berber tribes from what was later to be called Libya had been settling in the western delta, and the chieftains of these settlers began increasing their autonomy. Libyan princes took control of the delta under Shoshenq I in 945 BC, founding the so-called Libyan Berber, or Bubastite, dynasty that ruled for some 200 years. Shoshenq also gained control of southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions.

In the mid-ninth century BC, Egypt made a failed attempt to once more gain a foothold in Western Asia. Osorkon II of Egypt, along with a large alliance of nations and peoples, including; Israel, Hamath, Phoenicia/Caanan, the Arabs, Arameans, and neo Hittites among others, engaged in the Battle of Karkar against the powerful Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BC. However, this coalition of powers failed and the Assyrian Empire continued to dominate Western Asia.

Libyan Berber control began to erode as a rival native dynasty in the delta arose under Leontopolis. Also, the Nubians of the Kushites threatened Egypt from the lands to the south. 

Around 730 BC Libyans from the west fractured the political unity of the country

Drawing on millennia of interaction (trade, acculturation, occupation, assimilation, and war ) with Egypt, the Kushite king Piye left his Nubian capital of Napata and invaded Egypt around 727 BC. Piye easily seized control of Thebes and eventually the Nile Delta. Shaw (2002) p. 345 He recorded the episode on his stela of victory. Piye set the stage for subsequent Twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs, such as Taharqa, to reunite the "Two lands" of Northern and Southern Egypt. The Nile valley empire was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom.

The Twenty-fifth dynasty ushered in a renaissance period for ancient Egypt. Religion, the arts, and architecture were restored to their glorious Old, Middle, and New Kingdom forms. Pharaohs, such as Taharqa, built or restored temples and monuments throughout the Nile valley, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, Jebel Barkal, etc. It was during the Twenty-fifth dynasty that there was the first widespread construction of pyramids (many in modern Sudan) in the Nile Valley since the Middle Kingdom. 

Piye made various unsuccessful attempts to extend Egyptian influence in the Near East, then controlled by Assyria. In 720 BC, he sent an army in support a rebellion against Assyria, which was taking place in Philistia and Gaza. However, Piye was defeated by Sargon II and the rebellion failed. In 711 BC, Piye again supported a revolt against the Assyrians by the Israelites of Ashdod and was once again defeated by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Subsequently, Piye was forced from the Near East. F Leo Oppenheim - Ancient Mesopotamia 

From the 10th century BC onwards, Assyria fought for control of the southern Levant. Frequently, cities and kingdoms of the southern Levant appealed to Egypt for aide in their struggles against the powerful Assyrian army. Taharqa enjoyed some initial success in his attempts to regain a foothold in the Near East. Taharqa aided the Judean King Hezekiah when Hezekiah and Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrian king, Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:9; Isaiah 37:9). Scholars disagree on the primary reason for Assyria's abandonment of their siege on Jerusalem. Reasons for the Assyrian withdrawal range from conflict with the Egyptian/Kushite army to divine intervention to surrender to disease. Henry Aubin argues that the Kushite/Egyptian army saved Jerusalem from the Assyrians and prevented the Assyrians from returning to capture Jerusalem for the remainder of Sennacherib's life (20 years). Some argue that disease was the primary reason for failing to actually take the city and Senacherib's annals claim Judah was forced into tribute regardless. George Roux - Ancient Iraq 

The Assyrians began their invasion of Egypt under king Esarhaddon, successor of Sennacherib. Sennacherib had been murdered by his own sons for destroying the rebellious city of Babylon. In 674 BC, Taharqa defeated Esarhaddon and the Assyrian army outright on Egyptian soil. In 671 BC, Esarhaddon drove the Kushites from Northern Egypt and back to their Nubian homeland. However, the native Egyptian rulers installed by Esarhaddon were unable to retain full control of the whole country for long. Two years later, Taharqa returned from Nubia and seized control of a section of southern Egypt as far north as Memphis. Esarhaddon prepared to return to Egypt and once more eject Taharqa, however he fell ill and died in his capital, Nineveh, before he left Assyria. His successor, Ashurbanipal, sent a general with a small, but well trained army, which defeated Taharqa at Memphis and once more drove him from Egypt. Taharqa died in Nubia two years later.

His successor, Tanutamun, also made a failed attempt to regain Egypt for Nubia. He successfully defeated Necho, the puppet ruler installed by Ashurbanipal, taking Thebes in the process. The Assyrians then sent a large army southwards. Tantamani (Tanutamun) was heavily routed and fled back to Nubia. The Assyrian army sacked Thebes to such an extent it never truly recovered. A native ruler, Psammetichus I was placed on the throne, as a vassal of Ashurbanipal, and the Nubians were never again to pose a threat. Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq p 330–332 
Twenty-fifth Dynasty

===Late Period (672–332 BC)===

With no permanent plans for conquest, the Assyrians left control of Egypt to a series of vassals who became known as the Saite kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. By 653 BC, the Saite king Psamtik I (taking advantage of the fact that Assyria was involved in a fierce war conquering Elam and that few Assyrian troops were stationed in Egypt) was able to free Egypt relatively peacefully from Assyrian vassalage with the help of Lydian and Greek mercenaries, the latter of whom were recruited to form Egypt's first navy. Psamtik and his successors however were careful to maintain peaceful relations with Assyria. Greek influence expanded greatly as the city of Naukratis became the home of Greeks in the delta.

In 609 BC Necho II went to war with Babylonia, the Chaldeans, the Medians and the Scythians in an attempt to save Assyria, which after a brutal civil war was being ovverrun by this coalition of powers. However, the attempt to save Egypts former masters failed. The Egyptians delayed intervening too long, and Nineveh had already fallen and King Sin-shar-ishkun was dead by the time Necho II sent his armies northwards. However Necho easily brushed aside the Israelite army under King Josiah but he and the Assyrians then lost a battle at Harran to the Babylonians, Medes and Scythians. Necho II and Ashur-uballit II of Assyria were finally defeated at Carchemish in Aramea (modern Syria) in 605 BC. The Egyptians remained in the area for some decades, struggling with the Babylonian kings Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II for control of portions of the former Assyrian Empire in The Levant. However, they were eventually driven back into Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar II even briefly invaded Egypt itself in 567 BC. The Saite kings based in the new capital of Sais witnessed a brief but spirited resurgence in the economy and culture, but in 525 BC, the powerful Persians, led by Cambyses II, began their conquest of Egypt, eventually capturing the pharaoh Psamtik III at the battle of Pelusium. Cambyses II then assumed the formal title of pharaoh, but ruled Egypt from his home of Susa in Persia (modern Iran), leaving Egypt under the control of a satrapy. A few temporarily successful revolts against the Persians marked the fifth century BC, but Egypt was never able to permanently overthrow the Persians. Shaw (2002) p. 383 

Following its annexation by Persia, Egypt was joined with Cyprus and Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) in the sixth satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. This first period of Persian rule over Egypt, also known as the Twenty-seventh dynasty, ended in 402 BC, and from 380–343 BC the Thirtieth Dynasty ruled as the last native royal house of dynastic Egypt, which ended with the kingship of Nectanebo II. A brief restoration of Persian rule, sometimes known as the Thirty-first Dynasty, began in 343 BC, but shortly after, in 332 BC, the Persian ruler Mazaces handed Egypt over to the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great without a fight. Shaw (2002) p. 385 

===Ptolemaic dynasty===

In 332 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians and was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer. The administration established by Alexander's successors, the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty, was based on an Egyptian model and based in the new capital city of Alexandria. The city showcased the power and prestige of Hellenistic rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria. Shaw (2002) p. 405 The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships that kept trade flowing through the city—as the Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority. Shaw (2002) p. 411 

Hellenistic culture did not supplant native Egyptian culture, as the Ptolemies supported time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty of the populace. They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs. Some traditions merged, as Greek and Egyptian gods were syncretized into composite deities, such as Serapis, and classical Greek forms of sculpture influenced traditional Egyptian motifs. Despite their efforts to appease the Egyptians, the Ptolemies were challenged by native rebellion, bitter family rivalries, and the powerful mob of Alexandria that formed after the death of Ptolemy IV. Shaw (2002) p. 418 In addition, as Rome relied more heavily on imports of grain from Egypt, the Romans took great interest in the political situation in the country. Continued Egyptian revolts, ambitious politicians, and powerful Syriac opponents from the Near East made this situation unstable, leading Rome to send forces to secure the country as a province of its empire. James (2005) p. 62 

===Roman Period===

The Fayum mummy portraits epitomize the meeting of Egyptian and Roman cultures.

Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, following the defeat of Marc Antony and Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII by Octavian (later Emperor Augustus) in the Battle of Actium. The Romans relied heavily on grain shipments from Egypt, and the Roman army, under the control of a prefect appointed by the Emperor, quelled rebellions, strictly enforced the collection of heavy taxes, and prevented attacks by bandits, which had become a notorious problem during the period. James (2005) p. 63 Alexandria became an increasingly important center on the trade route with the orient, as exotic luxuries were in high demand in Rome. Shaw (2002) p. 426 

Although the Romans had a more hostile attitude than the Greeks towards the Egyptians, some traditions such as mummification and worship of the traditional gods continued. Shaw (2002) p. 422 The art of mummy portraiture flourished, and some of the Roman emperors had themselves depicted as pharaohs, though not to the extent that the Ptolemies had. The former lived outside Egypt and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship. Local administration became Roman in style and closed to native Egyptians. 

From the mid-first century AD, Christianity took root in Egypt as it was seen as another cult that could be accepted. However, it was an uncompromising religion that sought to win converts from Egyptian Religion and Greco-Roman religion and threatened the popular religious traditions. This led to persecution of converts to Christianity, culminating in the great purges of Diocletian starting in 303, but eventually Christianity won out. Shaw (2003) p. 431 In 391 the Christian Emperor Theodosius introduced legislation that banned pagan rites and closed temples. "The Church in Ancient Society", Henry Chadwick, p. 373, Oxford University Press US, 2001, ISBN 0-19-924695-5 Alexandria became the scene of great anti-pagan riots with public and private religious imagery destroyed. "Christianizing the Roman Empire A.D 100–400", Ramsay MacMullen, p. 63, Yale University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-300-03216-1 As a consequence, Egypt's native religious culture was continually in decline. While the native population certainly continued to speak their language, the ability to read hieroglyphic writing slowly disappeared as the role of the Egyptian temple priests and priestesses diminished. The temples themselves were sometimes converted to churches or abandoned to the desert. Shaw (2002) p. 445 

In the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire split into two, and Egypt became part of the Eastern Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. The Eastern Empire became increasingly "oriental" and "Eastern" in style, as its links with the old Greco-Roman world faded. The Greek system of local government by citizens had now entirely disappeared.

The Sassanid Persians who were involved in a long running and draining war with Byzantium for control of the Near East, Asia Minor, North Africa and the east Mediterranean, briefly recaptured Egypt under King Khosrow II in 618 AD, but were ejected by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 628 AD.

===Arab Muslim Period===
An army of 4,000 Arabs led by Amr Ibn Al-Aas was sent by the Caliph Umar, successor to Muhammad, to spread Islamic rule to the west. The Arabs crossed into Egypt from Palestine in December 639 AD, and advanced rapidly into the Nile Delta. The Imperial garrisons, exhausted by constant war with the Persians, retreated into the walled towns, where they successfully held out for a year or more. But the Arabs sent for reinforcements, and in April 641 they captured Alexandria. The Byzantines did assemble a fleet with the aim of recapturing Egypt, and won back Alexandria in 645, but the Muslims retook the city in 646, completing the Arab Muslim conquest of Egypt. Thus ended 975 years of Græco-Roman rule over Egypt.

Local resistance by the native Egyptian Copts however, began to materialize shortly thereafter and would last until at least the ninth century. The Arabs imposed a special tax, known as Jizya, on the Egyptians, who were by this time Coptic Christians. They acquired the status of dhimmis, and all native Egyptians were prohibited from joining the army. The Arabs in the seventh century used the term quft to describe the indigenous people of Egypt. Thus, Egyptians became known as Copts, and the non-Chalcedonian Egyptian Church became known as the Coptic Church. The indigenous population of Egypt was gradually and largely Arabized and Islamicized over the following centuries, However, native Egyptian identity and language survived among the Copts, who spoke the Coptic language, a direct descendant of the Demotic Egyptian (which itself was an evolution of Ancient Egyptian) spoken in the Roman era. Since the eighteenth century, Coptic has mostly been limited to liturgical use and today Coptic is extinct as a primary language. Copts still to this day espouse an Egyptian rather than Arab ethnic identity.

==Government and economy==

===Administration and commerce===

150px

The pharaoh was the absolute monarch of the country and, at least in theory, wielded complete control of the land and its resources. The king was the supreme military commander and head of the government, who relied on a bureaucracy of officials to manage his affairs. In charge of the administration was his second in command, the vizier, who acted as the king's representative and coordinated land surveys, the treasury, building projects, the legal system, and the archives. Manuelian (1998) p. 358 At a regional level, the country was divided into as many as 42 administrative regions called nomes each governed by a nomarch, who was accountable to the vizier for his jurisdiction. The temples formed the backbone of the economy. Not only were they houses of worship, but were also responsible for collecting and storing the nation's wealth in a system of granaries and treasuries administered by overseers, who redistributed grain and goods. Manuelian (1998) p. 363 

Much of the economy was centrally organized and strictly controlled. Although the ancient Egyptians did not use coinage until the Late period, they did use a type of money-barter system, Meskell (2004) p. 23 with standard sacks of grain and the deben, a weight of roughly 91 g of copper or silver, forming a common denominator. Manuelian (1998) p. 372 Workers were paid in grain; a simple laborer might earn 5½ sacks (200 kg or 400 lb) of grain per month, while a foreman might earn 7½ sacks (250 kg or 550 lb). Prices were fixed across the country and recorded in lists to facilitate trading; for example a shirt cost five copper deben, while a cow cost 140 deben. Grain could be traded for other goods, according to the fixed price list. During the fifth century BC coined money was introduced into Egypt from abroad. At first the coins were used as standardized pieces of precious metal rather than true money, but in the following centuries international traders came to rely on coinage. Walbank (1984) p. 125 

===Social status===
Egyptian society was highly stratified, and social status was expressly displayed. Farmers made up the bulk of the population, but agricultural produce was owned directly by the state, temple, or noble family that owned the land. Manuelian (1998) p. 383 Farmers were also subject to a labor tax and were required to work on irrigation or construction projects in a corvée system. James (2005) p. 136 Artists and craftsmen were of higher status than farmers, but they were also under state control, working in the shops attached to the temples and paid directly from the state treasury. Scribes and officials formed the upper class in ancient Egypt, the so-called "white kilt class" in reference to the bleached linen garments that served as a mark of their rank. Billard (1978) p. 109 The upper class prominently displayed their social status in art and literature. Below the nobility were the priests, physicians, and engineers with specialized training in their field. Slavery was known in ancient Egypt, but the extent and prevalence of its practice are unclear. 
Punishment in ancient Egypt.
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The ancient Egyptians viewed men and women, including people from all social classes except slaves, as essentially equal under the law, and even the lowliest peasant was entitled to petition the vizier and his court for redress. Although, slaves were mostly used as indentured servants. They were able to buy and sell, or work their way to freedom or nobility, and usually were treated by doctors in the workplace. Slavery in Ancient Egyptfrom http://www.reshafim.org.il. Retrieved August 28, 2012. Both men and women had the right to own and sell property, make contracts, marry and divorce, receive inheritance, and pursue legal disputes in court. Married couples could own property jointly and protect themselves from divorce by agreeing to marriage contracts, which stipulated the financial obligations of the husband to his wife and children should the marriage end. Compared with their counterparts in ancient Greece, Rome, and even more modern places around the world, ancient Egyptian women had a greater range of personal choices and opportunities for achievement. Women such as Hatshepsut and Cleopatra VI even became pharaohs, while others wielded power as Divine Wives of Amun. Despite these freedoms, ancient Egyptian women did not often take part in official roles in the administration, served only secondary roles in the temples, and were not as likely to be as educated as men. 

Scribes were elite and well educated. They assessed taxes, kept records, and were responsible for administration.

===Legal system===
The head of the legal system was officially the pharaoh, who was responsible for enacting laws, delivering justice, and maintaining law and order, a concept the ancient Egyptians referred to as Ma'at. Although no legal codes from ancient Egypt survive, court documents show that Egyptian law was based on a common-sense view of right and wrong that emphasized reaching agreements and resolving conflicts rather than strictly adhering to a complicated set of statutes. Local councils of elders, known as Kenbet in the New Kingdom, were responsible for ruling in court cases involving small claims and minor disputes. More serious cases involving murder, major land transactions, and tomb robbery were referred to the Great Kenbet, over which the vizier or pharaoh presided. Plaintiffs and defendants were expected to represent themselves and were required to swear an oath that they had told the truth. In some cases, the state took on both the role of prosecutor and judge, and it could torture the accused with beatings to obtain a confession and the names of any co-conspirators. Whether the charges were trivial or serious, court scribes documented the complaint, testimony, and verdict of the case for future reference. Oakes (2003) p. 472 

Punishment for minor crimes involved either imposition of fines, beatings, facial mutilation, or exile, depending on the severity of the offense. Serious crimes such as murder and tomb robbery were punished by execution, carried out by decapitation, drowning, or impaling the criminal on a stake. Punishment could also be extended to the criminal's family. Beginning in the New Kingdom, oracles played a major role in the legal system, dispensing justice in both civil and criminal cases. The procedure was to ask the god a "yes" or "no" question concerning the right or wrong of an issue. The god, carried by a number of priests, rendered judgment by choosing one or the other, moving forward or backward, or pointing to one of the answers written on a piece of papyrus or an ostracon. McDowell (1999) p. 168 

===Agriculture===

A tomb relief depicts workers plowing the fields, harvesting the crops, and threshing the grain under the direction of an overseer, painting in the tomb of Nakht.
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A combination of favorable geographical features contributed to the success of ancient Egyptian culture, the most important of which was the rich fertile soil resulting from annual inundations of the Nile River. The ancient Egyptians were thus able to produce an abundance of food, allowing the population to devote more time and resources to cultural, technological, and artistic pursuits. Land management was crucial in ancient Egypt because taxes were assessed based on the amount of land a person owned. Manuelian (1998) p. 361 

Farming in Egypt was dependent on the cycle of the Nile River. The Egyptians recognized three seasons: Akhet (flooding), Peret (planting), and Shemu (harvesting). The flooding season lasted from June to September, depositing on the river's banks a layer of mineral-rich silt ideal for growing crops. After the floodwaters had receded, the growing season lasted from October to February. Farmers plowed and planted seeds in the fields, which were irrigated with ditches and canals. Egypt received little rainfall, so farmers relied on the Nile to water their crops. Nicholson (2000) p. 514 From March to May, farmers used sickles to harvest their crops, which were then threshed with a flail to separate the straw from the grain. Winnowing removed the chaff from the grain, and the grain was then ground into flour, brewed to make beer, or stored for later use. Nicholson (2000) p. 506 

The ancient Egyptians cultivated emmer and barley, and several other cereal grains, all of which were used to make the two main food staples of bread and beer. Nicholson (2000) p. 510 Flax plants, uprooted before they started flowering, were grown for the fibers of their stems. These fibers were split along their length and spun into thread, which was used to weave sheets of linen and to make clothing. Papyrus growing on the banks of the Nile River was used to make paper. Vegetables and fruits were grown in garden plots, close to habitations and on higher ground, and had to be watered by hand. Vegetables included leeks, garlic, melons, squashes, pulses, lettuce, and other crops, in addition to grapes that were made into wine. Nicholson (2000) pp. 577 and 630 

Sennedjem plows his fields with a pair of oxen, used as beasts of burden and a source of food.

====Animals====

The Egyptians believed that a balanced relationship between people and animals was an essential element of the cosmic order; thus humans, animals and plants were believed to be members of a single whole. Strouhal (1989) p. 117 Animals, both domesticated and wild, were therefore a critical source of spirituality, companionship, and sustenance to the ancient Egyptians. Cattle were the most important livestock; the administration collected taxes on livestock in regular censuses, and the size of a herd reflected the prestige and importance of the estate or temple that owned them. In addition to cattle, the ancient Egyptians kept sheep, goats, and pigs. Poultry such as ducks, geese, and pigeons were captured in nets and bred on farms, where they were force-fed with dough to fatten them. Manuelian (1998) p. 381 The Nile provided a plentiful source of fish. Bees were also domesticated from at least the Old Kingdom, and they provided both honey and wax. Nicholson (2000) p. 409 

The ancient Egyptians used donkeys and oxen as beasts of burden, and they were responsible for plowing the fields and trampling seed into the soil. The slaughter of a fattened ox was also a central part of an offering ritual. Horses were introduced by the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period, and the camel, although known from the New Kingdom, was not used as a beast of burden until the Late Period. There is also evidence to suggest that elephants were briefly utilized in the Late Period, but largely abandoned due to lack of grazing land. Dogs, cats and monkeys were common family pets, while more exotic pets imported from the heart of Africa, such as lions, were reserved for royalty. Herodotus observed that the Egyptians were the only people to keep their animals with them in their houses. During the Predynastic and Late periods, the worship of the gods in their animal form was extremely popular, such as the cat goddess Bastet and the ibis god Thoth, and these animals were bred in large numbers on farms for the purpose of ritual sacrifice. Oakes (2003) p. 229 

===Natural resources===

Egypt is rich in building and decorative stone, copper and lead ores, gold, and semiprecious stones. These natural resources allowed the ancient Egyptians to build monuments, sculpt statues, make tools, and fashion jewelry. Greaves (1929) p. 123 Embalmers used salts from the Wadi Natrun for mummification, which also provided the gypsum needed to make plaster. Lucas (1962) p. 413 Ore-bearing rock formations were found in distant, inhospitable wadis in the eastern desert and the Sinai, requiring large, state-controlled expeditions to obtain natural resources found there. There were extensive gold mines in Nubia, and one of the first maps known is of a gold mine in this region. The Wadi Hammamat was a notable source of granite, greywacke, and gold. Flint was the first mineral collected and used to make tools, and flint handaxes are the earliest pieces of evidence of habitation in the Nile valley. Nodules of the mineral were carefully flaked to make blades and arrowheads of moderate hardness and durability even after copper was adopted for this purpose. Nicholson (2000) p. 28 Ancient Egyptians were among the first to use minerals such as sulfur as cosmetic substances. C.Michael Hogan. 2011. Sulfur. Encyclopedia of Earth, eds. A. Jorgensen and C.J. Cleveland, National Council for Science and the environment, Washington DC 

The Egyptians worked deposits of the lead ore galena at Gebel Rosas to make net sinkers, plumb bobs, and small figurines. Copper was the most important metal for toolmaking in ancient Egypt and was smelted in furnaces from malachite ore mined in the Sinai. Scheel (1989) p. 14 Workers collected gold by washing the nuggets out of sediment in alluvial deposits, or by the more labor-intensive process of grinding and washing gold-bearing quartzite. Iron deposits found in upper Egypt were utilized in the Late Period. Nicholson (2000) p. 166 High-quality building stones were abundant in Egypt; the ancient Egyptians quarried limestone all along the Nile valley, granite from Aswan, and basalt and sandstone from the wadis of the eastern desert. Deposits of decorative stones such as porphyry, greywacke, alabaster, and carnelian dotted the eastern desert and were collected even before the First Dynasty. In the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, miners worked deposits of emeralds in Wadi Sikait and amethyst in Wadi el-Hudi. Nicholson (2000) p. 51 

===Trade===

Hatshepsut's trading expedition to the Land of Punt.
The ancient Egyptians engaged in trade with their foreign neighbors to obtain rare, exotic goods not found in Egypt. In the Predynastic Period, they established trade with Nubia to obtain gold and incense. They also established trade with Palestine, as evidenced by Palestinian-style oil jugs found in the burials of the First Dynasty pharaohs. Shaw (2002) p. 72 An Egyptian colony stationed in southern Canaan dates to slightly before the First Dynasty. Naomi Porat and Edwin van den Brink (editor), "An Egyptian Colony in Southern Palestine During the Late Predynastic to Early Dynastic," in The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th to 3rd Millennium BC (1992), pp. 433–440. Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in Canaan and exported back to Egypt. Naomi Porat, "Local Industry of Egyptian Pottery in Southern Palestine During the Early Bronze I Period," in Bulletin of the Egyptological, Seminar 8 (1986/1987), pp. 109–129. See also University College London web post, 2000. 

By the Second Dynasty at latest, ancient Egyptian trade with Byblos yielded a critical source of quality timber not found in Egypt. By the Fifth Dynasty, trade with Punt provided gold, aromatic resins, ebony, ivory, and wild animals such as monkeys and baboons. Shaw (2002) p. 322 Egypt relied on trade with Anatolia for essential quantities of tin as well as supplementary supplies of copper, both metals being necessary for the manufacture of bronze. The ancient Egyptians prized the blue stone lapis lazuli, which had to be imported from far-away Afghanistan. Egypt's Mediterranean trade partners also included Greece and Crete, which provided, among other goods, supplies of olive oil. Manuelian (1998) p. 145 In exchange for its luxury imports and raw materials, Egypt mainly exported grain, gold, linen, and papyrus, in addition to other finished goods including glass and stone objects. Harris (1990) p. 13 

==Language==

===Historical development===

The Egyptian language is a northern Afro-Asiatic language closely related to the Berber and Semitic languages. Loprieno (1995b) p. 2137 It has the second longest history of any language (after Sumerian), having been written from c. 3200 BC to the Middle Ages and remaining as a spoken language for longer. The phases of ancient Egyptian are Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian (Classical Egyptian), Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic. Loprieno (2004) p. 161 Egyptian writings do not show dialect differences before Coptic, but it was probably spoken in regional dialects around Memphis and later Thebes. Loprieno (2004) p. 162 

Ancient Egyptian was a synthetic language, but it became more analytic later on. Late Egyptian develops prefixal definite and indefinite articles, which replace the older inflectional suffixes. There is a change from the older verb–subject–object word order to subject–verb–object. Loprieno (1995b) p. 2137–38 The Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts were eventually replaced by the more phonetic Coptic alphabet. Coptic is still used in the liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, and traces of it are found in modern Egyptian Arabic. Vittman (1991) pp. 197–227 

===Sounds and grammar===

Ancient Egyptian has 25 consonants similar to those of other Afro-Asiatic languages. These include pharyngeal and emphatic consonants, voiced and voiceless stops, voiceless fricatives and voiced and voiceless affricates. It has three long and three short vowels, which expanded in Later Egyptian to about nine. Loprieno (1995a) p. 46 The basic word in Egyptian, similar to Semitic and Berber, is a triliteral or biliteral root of consonants and semiconsonants. Suffixes are added to form words. The verb conjugation corresponds to the person. For example, the triconsonantal skeleton is the semantic core of the word 'hear'; its basic conjugation is , 'he hears'. If the subject is a noun, suffixes are not added to the verb: Loprieno (1995a) p. 74 , 'the woman hears'.

Adjectives are derived from nouns through a process that Egyptologists call nisbation because of its similarity with Arabic. Loprieno (2004) p. 175 The word order is in verbal and adjectival sentences, and in nominal and adverbial sentences. Allen (2000) pp. 67, 70, 109 The subject can be moved to the beginning of sentences if it is long and is followed by a resumptive pronoun. Loprieno (2005) p. 2147 Verbs and nouns are negated by the particle n, but nn is used for adverbial and adjectival sentences. Stress falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, which can be open (CV) or closed (CVC). Loprieno (2004) p. 173 

===Writing===

The Rosetta stone (ca 196 BC) enabled linguists to begin the process of hieroglyph decipherment. Allen (2000) p. 13 

Hieroglyphic writing dates from c. 3000 BC, and is composed of hundreds of symbols. A hieroglyph can represent a word, a sound, or a silent determinative; and the same symbol can serve different purposes in different contexts. Hieroglyphs were a formal script, used on stone monuments and in tombs, that could be as detailed as individual works of art. In day-to-day writing, scribes used a cursive form of writing, called hieratic, which was quicker and easier. While formal hieroglyphs may be read in rows or columns in either direction (though typically written from right to left), hieratic was always written from right to left, usually in horizontal rows. A new form of writing, Demotic, became the prevalent writing style, and it is this form of writing—along with formal hieroglyphs—that accompany the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone. Loprieno (1995a) pp. 10–26 

Around the first century AD, the Coptic alphabet started to be used alongside the Demotic script. Coptic is a modified Greek alphabet with the addition of some Demotic signs. Allen (2000) p. 7 Although formal hieroglyphs were used in a ceremonial role until the fourth century, towards the end only a small handful of priests could still read them. As the traditional religious establishments were disbanded, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was mostly lost. Attempts to decipher them date to the Byzantine Loprieno (2004) p. 166 and Islamic periods in Egypt, El-Daly (2005) p. 164 but only in 1822, after the discovery of the Rosetta stone and years of research by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, were hieroglyphs almost fully deciphered. Allen (2000) p. 8 

===Literature===

The Edwin Smith surgical papyrus (c. 16th century BC) describes anatomy and medical treatments and is written in hieratic.

Writing first appeared in association with kingship on labels and tags for items found in royal tombs. It was primarily an occupation of the scribes, who worked out of the Per Ankh institution or the House of Life. The latter comprised offices, libraries (called House of Books), laboratories and observatories. Strouhal (1989) p. 235 Some of the best-known pieces of ancient Egyptian literature, such as the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, were written in Classical Egyptian, which continued to be the language of writing until about 1300 BC. Later Egyptian was spoken from the New Kingdom onward and is represented in Ramesside administrative documents, love poetry and tales, as well as in Demotic and Coptic texts. During this period, the tradition of writing had evolved into the tomb autobiography, such as those of Harkhuf and Weni. The genre known as Sebayt ("instructions") was developed to communicate teachings and guidance from famous nobles; the Ipuwer papyrus, a poem of lamentations describing natural disasters and social upheaval, is a famous example.

The Story of Sinuhe, written in Middle Egyptian, might be the classic of Egyptian literature. Lichtheim (1975) p. 11 Also written at this time was the Westcar Papyrus, a set of stories told to Khufu by his sons relating the marvels performed by priests. Lichtheim (1975) p. 215 The Instruction of Amenemope is considered a masterpiece of near-eastern literature. "Wisdom in Ancient Israel", John Day,/John Adney Emerton,/Robert P. Gordon/ Hugh Godfrey/Maturin Williamson, p23, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-62489-4 Towards the end of the New Kingdom, the vernacular language was more often employed to write popular pieces like the Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any. The former tells the story of a noble who is robbed on his way to buy cedar from Lebanon and of his struggle to return to Egypt. From about 700 BC, narrative stories and instructions, such as the popular Instructions of Onchsheshonqy, as well as personal and business documents were written in the demotic script and phase of Egyptian. Many stories written in demotic during the Graeco-Roman period were set in previous historical eras, when Egypt was an independent nation ruled by great pharaohs such as Ramesses II. Lichtheim (1980) p. 159 

==Culture==

===Daily life===
 Ostraca of hunting a lion with a spear, aided by a dog.
 Statues depicting lower-class ancient Egyptian occupations.
 A painted depiction of Senet (in the tomb of Queen Nefertari, Valley of the Queens, Thebes, Egypt), one of the world's earliest known board games.
Most ancient Egyptians were farmers tied to the land. Their dwellings were restricted to immediate family members, and were constructed of mud-brick designed to remain cool in the heat of the day. Each home had a kitchen with an open roof, which contained a grindstone for milling grain and a small oven for baking the bread. Manuelian (1998) p. 401 Walls were painted white and could be covered with dyed linen wall hangings. Floors were covered with reed mats, while wooden stools, beds raised from the floor and individual tables comprised the furniture. Manuelian (1998) p. 403 

The ancient Egyptians placed a great value on hygiene and appearance. Most bathed in the Nile and used a pasty soap made from animal fat and chalk. Men shaved their entire bodies for cleanliness; perfumes and aromatic ointments covered bad odors and soothed skin. Manuelian (1998) p. 405 Clothing was made from simple linen sheets that were bleached white, and both men and women of the upper classes wore wigs, jewelry, and cosmetics. Children went without clothing until maturity, at about age 12, and at this age males were circumcised and had their heads shaved. Mothers were responsible for taking care of the children, while the father provided the family's income. Manuelian (1998) pp. 406–7 
The ancient Egyptians maintained a rich cultural heritage complete with feasts and festivals accompanied by music and dance.
Music and dance were popular entertainments for those who could afford them. Early instruments included flutes and harps, while instruments similar to trumpets, oboes, and pipes developed later and became popular. In the New Kingdom, the Egyptians played on bells, cymbals, tambourines, drums, and imported lutes and lyres from Asia. The sistrum was a rattle-like musical instrument that was especially important in religious ceremonies.

The ancient Egyptians enjoyed a variety of leisure activities, including games and music. Senet, a board game where pieces moved according to random chance, was particularly popular from the earliest times; another similar game was mehen, which had a circular gaming board. Juggling and ball games were popular with children, and wrestling is also documented in a tomb at Beni Hasan. Manuelian (1998) p. 126 The wealthy members of ancient Egyptian society enjoyed hunting and boating as well.

The excavation of the workers' village of Deir el-Madinah has resulted in one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world that spans almost four hundred years. There is no comparable site in which the organisation, social interactions, working and living conditions of a community were studied in such detail. "The Cambridge Ancient History: II Part I, The Middle East and the Aegean Region, c.1800-13380 B.C", Edited I.E.S Edwards–C.JGadd–N.G.L Hammond-E.Sollberger, Cambridge at the University Press, p. 380, 1973, ISBN 0-521-08230-7 

===Cuisine===

Egyptian cuisine remained remarkably stable over time; indeed, the cuisine of modern Egypt retains some striking similarities to the cuisine of the ancients. The staple diet consisted of bread and beer, supplemented with vegetables such as onions and garlic, and fruit such as dates and figs. Wine and meat were enjoyed by all on feast days while the upper classes indulged on a more regular basis. Fish, meat, and fowl could be salted or dried, and could be cooked in stews or roasted on a grill. Manuelian (1998) pp. 399–400 

Karnak temple's hypostyle halls are constructed with rows of thick columns supporting the roof beams.

===Architecture===

The well preserved Temple of Horus at Edfu is an exemplar of Egyptian architecture.
The architecture of ancient Egypt includes some of the most famous structures in the world: the Great Pyramids of Giza and the temples at Thebes. Building projects were organized and funded by the state for religious and commemorative purposes, but also to reinforce the power of the pharaoh. The ancient Egyptians were skilled builders; using simple but effective tools and sighting instruments, architects could build large stone structures with accuracy and precision. Clarke (1990) pp. 94–7 

The domestic dwellings of elite and ordinary Egyptians alike were constructed from perishable materials such as mud bricks and wood, and have not survived. Peasants lived in simple homes, while the palaces of the elite were more elaborate structures. A few surviving New Kingdom palaces, such as those in Malkata and Amarna, show richly decorated walls and floors with scenes of people, birds, water pools, deities and geometric designs. Badawy (1968) p. 50 Important structures such as temples and tombs that were intended to last forever were constructed of stone instead of bricks. The architectural elements used in the world's first large-scale stone building, Djoser's mortuary complex, include post and lintel supports in the papyrus and lotus motif.

The earliest preserved ancient Egyptian temples, such as those at Giza, consist of single, enclosed halls with roof slabs supported by columns. In the New Kingdom, architects added the pylon, the open courtyard, and the enclosed hypostyle hall to the front of the temple's sanctuary, a style that was standard until the Graeco-Roman period. The earliest and most popular tomb architecture in the Old Kingdom was the mastaba, a flat-roofed rectangular structure of mudbrick or stone built over an underground burial chamber. The step pyramid of Djoser is a series of stone mastabas stacked on top of each other. Pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, but most later rulers abandoned them in favor of less conspicuous rock-cut tombs. Dodson (1991) p. 23 The Twenty-fifth dynasty was a notable exception, as all Twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs constructed pyramids. 

===Art===

The Bust of Nefertiti, by the sculptor Thutmose, is one of the most famous masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art.

The ancient Egyptians produced art to serve functional purposes. For over 3500 years, artists adhered to artistic forms and iconography that were developed during the Old Kingdom, following a strict set of principles that resisted foreign influence and internal change. Robins (1997) p. 29 These artistic standards—simple lines, shapes, and flat areas of color combined with the characteristic flat projection of figures with no indication of spatial depth—created a sense of order and balance within a composition. Images and text were intimately interwoven on tomb and temple walls, coffins, stelae, and even statues. The Narmer Palette, for example, displays figures that can also be read as hieroglyphs. Robins (1997) p. 21 Because of the rigid rules that governed its highly stylized and symbolic appearance, ancient Egyptian art served its political and religious purposes with precision and clarity. Robins (2001) p. 12 

Ancient Egyptian artisans used stone to carve statues and fine reliefs, but used wood as a cheap and easily carved substitute. Paints were obtained from minerals such as iron ores (red and yellow ochres), copper ores (blue and green), soot or charcoal (black), and limestone (white). Paints could be mixed with gum arabic as a binder and pressed into cakes, which could be moistened with water when needed. Nicholson (2000) p. 105 

Hathor-Menkaure-Bat triad of the Fourth Dynasty – the deities flank the pharaoh and provide the authority to rule – Cairo Museum
Pharaohs used reliefs to record victories in battle, royal decrees, and religious scenes. Common citizens had access to pieces of funerary art, such as shabti statues and books of the dead, which they believed would protect them in the afterlife. James (2005) p. 122 During the Middle Kingdom, wooden or clay models depicting scenes from everyday life became popular additions to the tomb. In an attempt to duplicate the activities of the living in the afterlife, these models show laborers, houses, boats, and even military formations that are scale representations of the ideal ancient Egyptian afterlife. Robins (1998) p. 74 

Despite the homogeneity of ancient Egyptian art, the styles of particular times and places sometimes reflected changing cultural or political attitudes. After the invasion of the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period, Minoan-style frescoes were found in Avaris. Shaw (2002) p. 216 The most striking example of a politically driven change in artistic forms comes from the Amarna period, where figures were radically altered to conform to Akhenaten's revolutionary religious ideas. Robins (1998) p. 149 This style, known as Amarna art, was quickly and thoroughly erased after Akhenaten's death and replaced by the traditional forms. Robins (1998) p. 158 

===Religious beliefs===

The Book of the Dead was a guide to the deceased's journey in the afterlife.

Beliefs in the divine and in the afterlife were ingrained in ancient Egyptian civilization from its inception; pharaonic rule was based on the divine right of kings. The Egyptian pantheon was populated by gods who had supernatural powers and were called on for help or protection. However, the gods were not always viewed as benevolent, and Egyptians believed they had to be appeased with offerings and prayers. The structure of this pantheon changed continually as new deities were promoted in the hierarchy, but priests made no effort to organize the diverse and sometimes conflicting myths and stories into a coherent system. James (2005) p. 102 These various conceptions of divinity were not considered contradictory but rather layers in the multiple facets of reality. "The Oxford Guide: Essential Guide to Egyptian Mythology", edited by Donald B. Redford, p. 106, Berkley, 2003, ISBN 0-425-19096-X 

The Ka statue provided a physical place for the Ka to manifest.

Gods were worshiped in cult temples administered by priests acting on the king's behalf. At the center of the temple was the cult statue in a shrine. Temples were not places of public worship or congregation, and only on select feast days and celebrations was a shrine carrying the statue of the god brought out for public worship. Normally, the god's domain was sealed off from the outside world and was only accessible to temple officials. Common citizens could worship private statues in their homes, and amulets offered protection against the forces of chaos. James (2005) p. 117 After the New Kingdom, the pharaoh's role as a spiritual intermediary was de-emphasized as religious customs shifted to direct worship of the gods. As a result, priests developed a system of oracles to communicate the will of the gods directly to the people. Shaw (2002) p. 313 

The Egyptians believed that every human being was composed of physical and spiritual parts or aspects. In addition to the body, each person had a šwt (shadow), a ba (personality or soul), a ka (life-force), and a name. Allen (2000) pp. 79, 94–5 The heart, rather than the brain, was considered the seat of thoughts and emotions. After death, the spiritual aspects were released from the body and could move at will, but they required the physical remains (or a substitute, such as a statue) as a permanent home. The ultimate goal of the deceased was to rejoin his ka and ba and become one of the "blessed dead", living on as an akh, or "effective one". For this to happen, the deceased had to be judged worthy in a trial, in which the heart was weighed against a "feather of truth". If deemed worthy, the deceased could continue their existence on earth in spiritual form. Wasserman, et al. (1994) pp. 150–3 

Pharaohs' tombs were provided with vast quantities of wealth, such as this golden mask from the mummy of Tutankhamun.

===Burial customs===

The ancient Egyptians maintained an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure immortality after death. These customs involved preserving the body by mummification, performing burial ceremonies, and interring with the body goods the deceased would use in the afterlife. Before the Old Kingdom, bodies buried in desert pits were naturally preserved by desiccation. The arid, desert conditions were a boon throughout the history of ancient Egypt for burials of the poor, who could not afford the elaborate burial preparations available to the elite. Wealthier Egyptians began to bury their dead in stone tombs and use artificial mummification, which involved removing the internal organs, wrapping the body in linen, and burying it in a rectangular stone sarcophagus or wooden coffin. Beginning in the Fourth Dynasty, some parts were preserved separately in canopic jars. 

Anubis was the ancient Egyptian god associated with mummification and burial rituals; here, he attends to a mummy.

By the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had perfected the art of mummification; the best technique took 70 days and involved removing the internal organs, removing the brain through the nose, and desiccating the body in a mixture of salts called natron. The body was then wrapped in linen with protective amulets inserted between layers and placed in a decorated anthropoid coffin. Mummies of the Late Period were also placed in painted cartonnage mummy cases. Actual preservation practices declined during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, while greater emphasis was placed on the outer appearance of the mummy, which was decorated. 

Wealthy Egyptians were buried with larger quantities of luxury items, but all burials, regardless of social status, included goods for the deceased. Beginning in the New Kingdom, books of the dead were included in the grave, along with shabti statues that were believed to perform manual labor for them in the afterlife. Rituals in which the deceased was magically re-animated accompanied burials. After burial, living relatives were expected to occasionally bring food to the tomb and recite prayers on behalf of the deceased. James (2005) p. 124 

==Military==

An Egyptian chariot.
The ancient Egyptian military was responsible for defending Egypt against foreign invasion, and for maintaining Egypt's domination in the ancient Near East. The military protected mining expeditions to the Sinai during the Old Kingdom and fought civil wars during the First and Second Intermediate Periods. The military was responsible for maintaining fortifications along important trade routes, such as those found at the city of Buhen on the way to Nubia. Forts also were constructed to serve as military bases, such as the fortress at Sile, which was a base of operations for expeditions to the Levant. In the New Kingdom, a series of pharaohs used the standing Egyptian army to attack and conquer Kush and parts of the Levant. Shaw (2002) p. 245 

Typical military equipment included bows and arrows, spears, and round-topped shields made by stretching animal skin over a wooden frame. In the New Kingdom, the military began using chariots that had earlier been introduced by the Hyksos invaders. Weapons and armor continued to improve after the adoption of bronze: shields were now made from solid wood with a bronze buckle, spears were tipped with a bronze point, and the Khopesh was adopted from Asiatic soldiers. Manuelian (1998) pp. 366–67 The pharaoh was usually depicted in art and literature riding at the head of the army, it has been suggested that at least a few pharaohs, such as Seqenenre Tao II and his sons, did do so. Clayton (1994) p. 96 although it has also been argued that "kings of this period did not personally act as frontline war leaders, fighting alongside their troops." Soldiers were recruited from the general population, but during, and especially after, the New Kingdom, mercenaries from Nubia, Kush, and Libya were hired to fight for Egypt. Shaw (2002) p. 400 

==Technology, medicine, and mathematics==

===Technology===

In technology, medicine and mathematics, ancient Egypt achieved a relatively high standard of productivity and sophistication. Traditional empiricism, as evidenced by the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri (c. 1600 BC), is first credited to Egypt. The Egyptians created their own alphabet and decimal system.
Glassmaking was a highly developed art.

===Faience and glass===
Even before the Old Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had developed a glassy material known as faience, which they treated as a type of artificial semi-precious stone. Faience is a non-clay ceramic made of silica, small amounts of lime and soda, and a colorant, typically copper. Nicholson (2000) p. 177 The material was used to make beads, tiles, figurines, and small wares. Several methods can be used to create faience, but typically production involved application of the powdered materials in the form of a paste over a clay core, which was then fired. By a related technique, the ancient Egyptians produced a pigment known as Egyptian Blue, also called blue frit, which is produced by fusing (or sintering) silica, copper, lime, and an alkali such as natron. The product can be ground up and used as a pigment. Nicholson (2000) p. 109 

The ancient Egyptians could fabricate a wide variety of objects from glass with great skill, but it is not clear whether they developed the process independently. Nicholson (2000) p. 195 It is also unclear whether they made their own raw glass or merely imported pre-made ingots, which they melted and finished. However, they did have technical expertise in making objects, as well as adding trace elements to control the color of the finished glass. A range of colors could be produced, including yellow, red, green, blue, purple, and white, and the glass could be made either transparent or opaque. Nicholson (2000) p. 215 

===Medicine===

Ancient Egyptian medical instruments depicted in a Ptolemaic period inscription on the temple at Kom Ombo.
The medical problems of the ancient Egyptians stemmed directly from their environment. Living and working close to the Nile brought hazards from malaria and debilitating schistosomiasis parasites, which caused liver and intestinal damage. Dangerous wildlife such as crocodiles and hippos were also a common threat. The lifelong labors of farming and building put stress on the spine and joints, and traumatic injuries from construction and warfare all took a significant toll on the body. The grit and sand from stone-ground flour abraded teeth, leaving them susceptible to abscesses (though caries were rare). Filer (1995) p. 94 

The diets of the wealthy were rich in sugars, which promoted periodontal disease. Filer (1995) pp. 78–80 Despite the flattering physiques portrayed on tomb walls, the overweight mummies of many of the upper class show the effects of a life of overindulgence. Filer (1995) p. 21 Adult life expectancy was about 35 for men and 30 for women, but reaching adulthood was difficult as about one-third of the population died in infancy. Figures are given for adult life expectancy and do not reflect life expectancy at birth. Filer (1995) p. 25 

Ancient Egyptian physicians were renowned in the ancient Near East for their healing skills, and some, such as Imhotep, remained famous long after their deaths. Filer (1995) p. 39 Herodotus remarked that there was a high degree of specialization among Egyptian physicians, with some treating only the head or the stomach, while others were eye-doctors and dentists. Strouhal (1989) p. 243 Training of physicians took place at the Per Ankh or "House of Life" institution, most notably those headquartered in Per-Bastet during the New Kingdom and at Abydos and Saïs in the Late period. Medical papyri show empirical knowledge of anatomy, injuries, and practical treatments. Stroual (1989) pp. 244–46 

Wounds were treated by bandaging with raw meat, white linen, sutures, nets, pads, and swabs soaked with honey to prevent infection, Stroual (1989) p. 250 while opium thyme and belladona were used to relieve pain. The earliest records of burn treatment describe burn dressings that use the milk from mothers of male babies. Prayers were made to the goddess Isis. Moldy bread, honey and copper salts were also used to prevent infection from dirt in burns. Garlic and onions were used regularly to promote good health and were thought to relieve asthma symptoms. Ancient Egyptian surgeons stitched wounds, set broken bones, and amputated diseased limbs, but they recognized that some injuries were so serious that they could only make the patient comfortable until death occurred. Filer (1995) p. 38 

===Shipbuilding===
Seagoing ship from Hateshepsut's Deir el-Bahari temple relief of a Punt Expedition

Documented extent of Ancient Egyptian geographic knowledgeEarly Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull and had mastered advanced forms of shipbuilding as early as 3000 BC. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that some of the oldest ships yet unearthed are known as the Abydos boats. Ward, Cheryl. "World's Oldest Planked Boats", inArchaeology (Volume 54, Number 3, May/June 2001). Archaeological Institute of America. These are a group of 14 discovered ships in Abydos that were constructed of wooden planks "sewn" together. Discovered by Egyptologist David O'Connor of New York University, Schuster, Angela M.H. "This Old Boat", 11 December 2000. Archaeological Institute of America. woven straps were found to have been used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy, originally they were all thought to have belonged to him, but one of the 14 ships dates to 3000 BC, and the associated pottery jars buried with the vessels also suggest earlier dating. The ship dating to 3000 BC was 75 ft long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. According to professor O'Connor, the 5,000-year-old ship may have even belonged to Pharaoh Aha. 

Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, using pitch for caulking the seams. The "Khufu ship", a 43.6-meter vessel sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty around 2500 BC, is a full-size surviving example that may have filled the symbolic function of a solar barque. Early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints. 

Large seagoing ships are known to have been heavily used by the Egyptians in their trade with the city states of the eastern Mediterranean, especially Byblos (on the coast of modern day Lebanon), and in several expeditions down the Red Sea to the Land of Punt. Shelley Wachsmann, Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant (Texas A&M University Press, 2009), p. 19. In fact one of the earliest Egyptian words for a seagoing ship is a "Byblos Ship" which originally defined a class of Egyptian seagoing ships used on the Byblos run;however, by the end of the Old Kingdom, the term had come to include large seagoing ships, whatever their destination. Shelley Wachsmann , Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant (Texas A&M University Press, 2009), p. 19. 

In 2011 archaeologists from Italy, the United States, and Egypt excavating a dried-up lagoon known as Mersa Gawasis have unearthed traces of an ancient harbor that once launched early voyages like Hatshepsut’s Punt expedition onto the open ocean. Egypt's Ancient Fleet: Lost for Thousands of Years, Discovered in a Desolate Cave Some of the site’s most evocative evidence for the ancient Egyptians’ seafaring prowess include large ship timbers and hundreds of feet of ropes, made from papyrus, coiled in huge bundles. Egypt's Ancient Fleet: Lost for Thousands of Years, Discovered in a Desolate Cave 
And in 2013 a team of Franco-Egyptian archaeologists discovered what is believed to be the world's oldest port, dating back about 4500 years, from the time of King Cheops on the Red Sea coast near Wadi el-Jarf (about 110 miles south of Suez) Most Ancient Port, Hieroglyphic Papyri Found, Discovery News 

===Mathematics===

chart in Senemut's tomb, 18th dynasty Full version at [http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/100000870#fullscreen Met Museum ]]

The earliest attested examples of mathematical calculations date to the predynastic Naqada period, and show a fully developed numeral system. Understanding of Egyptian mathematics is incomplete due to paucity of available material and lack of exhaustive study of the texts that have been uncovered. Imhausen et al. (2007) p. 13 The importance of mathematics to an educated Egyptian is suggested by a New Kingdom fictional letter in which the writer proposes a scholarly competition between himself and another scribe regarding everyday calculation tasks such as accounting of land, labor, and grain. Imhausen et al. (2007) p. 11 Texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus show that the ancient Egyptians could perform the four basic mathematical operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—use fractions, compute the volumes of boxes and pyramids, and calculate the surface areas of rectangles, triangles, and circles. They understood basic concepts of algebra and geometry, and could solve simple sets of simultaneous equations. Clarke (1990) p. 222 

Mathematical notation was decimal, and based on hieroglyphic signs for each power of ten up to one million. Each of these could be written as many times as necessary to add up to the desired number; so to write the number eighty or eight hundred, the symbol for ten or one hundred was written eight times respectively. Clarke (1990) p. 217 Because their methods of calculation could not handle most fractions with a numerator greater than one, they had to write fractions as the sum of several fractions. For example, they resolved the fraction two-fifths into the sum of one-third + one-fifteenth. Standard tables of values facilitated this. Clarke (1990) p. 218 Some common fractions, however, were written with a special glyph—the equivalent of the modern two-thirds is shown on the right. Gardiner (1957) p. 197 

Ancient Egyptian mathematicians had a grasp of the principles underlying the Pythagorean theorem, knowing, for example, that a triangle had a right angle opposite the hypotenuse when its sides were in a 3–4–5 ratio. Strouhal (1989) p. 241 They were able to estimate the area of a circle by subtracting one-ninth from its diameter and squaring the result:

:Area ≈ 2 = ()r 2 ≈ 3.16r 2,

a reasonable approximation of the formula πr 2. Imhausen et al. (2007) p. 31 

The golden ratio seems to be reflected in many Egyptian constructions, including the pyramids, but its use may have been an unintended consequence of the ancient Egyptian practice of combining the use of knotted ropes with an intuitive sense of proportion and harmony. Kemp (1989) p. 138 

==Legacy==

Tourists riding a camel in front of Giza pyramids
Frontispiece of Description de l'Égypte, published in 38 volumes between 1809 and 1829.

The culture and monuments of ancient Egypt have left a lasting legacy on the world. The cult of the goddess Isis, for example, became popular in the Roman Empire, as obelisks and other relics were transported back to Rome. Siliotti (1998) p. 8 The Romans also imported building materials from Egypt to erect Egyptian style structures. Early historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus studied and wrote about the land, which Romans came to view as a place of mystery. Siliotti (1998) p. 10 

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Egyptian pagan culture was in decline after the rise of Christianity and later Islam, but interest in Egyptian antiquity continued in the writings of medieval scholars such as Dhul-Nun al-Misri and al-Maqrizi. El-Daly (2005) p. 112 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European travelers and tourists brought back antiquities and wrote stories of their journeys, leading to a wave of Egyptomania across Europe. This renewed interest sent collectors to Egypt, who took, purchased, or were given many important antiquities. Siliotti (1998) p. 13 

Although the European colonial occupation of Egypt destroyed a significant portion of the country's historical legacy, some foreigners had more positive results. Napoleon, for example, arranged the first studies in Egyptology when he brought some 150 scientists and artists to study and document Egypt's natural history, which was published in the Description de l'Ėgypte. Siliotti (1998) p. 100 

In the 20th century, the Egyptian Government and archaeologists alike recognized the importance of cultural respect and integrity in excavations. The Supreme Council of Antiquities now approves and oversees all excavations, which are aimed at finding information rather than treasure. The council also supervises museums and monument reconstruction programs designed to preserve the historical legacy of Egypt.

==See also==
* Outline of ancient Egypt
* Glossary of ancient Egypt artifacts
* Index of ancient Egypt-related articles
* Toynbee's law of challenge and response

==Notes==

==References==

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==External links==

* BBC History: Egyptians—provides a reliable general overview and further links
* Ancient History Encyclopedia on Egypt
* Ancient Egyptian Science: A Source Book Door Marshall Clagett, 1989
* Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy A site that shows the history of Egyptian metalworking
* Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt, Art History.
* Ancient Egypt—maintained by the British Museum, this site provides a useful introduction to Ancient Egypt for older children and young adolescents
* Digital Egypt for Universities. Outstanding scholarly treatment with broad coverage and cross references (internal and external). Artifacts used extensively to illustrate topics.
* Priests of Ancient Egypt In-depth-information about Ancient Egypt's priests, religious services and temples. Much picture material and bibliography. In English and German.
* Ancient Egypt
* UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology
* Ancient Egypt and the Role of Women by Dr Joann Fletcher

 



[[Analog Brothers]]

Analog Brothers is an experimental hip-hop crew featuring Ice Oscillator also known as Ice-T (keyboards, drums, vocals), Keith Korg also known as Kool Keith (bass, strings, vocals), Mark Moog also known as Marc Live (drums, violyns and vocals), Silver Synth also known as Black Silver (synthesizer, lazar bell and vocals), and Rex Roland also known as Pimp Rex (keyboards, vocals, production). Its album Pimp to Eat featured guest appearances by various members of Rhyme Syndicate, Odd Oberheim, Jacky jasper (who appears as Jacky Jasper on the song "We Sleep Days" and H-Bomb on "War"), D.J. Cisco from S.M., the Synth-a-Size Sisters and Teflon.

While the group only recorded one album together as the Analog Brothers, a few bootlegs of its live concert performances, including freestyles with original lyrics, have occasionally surfaced online. After Pimp to Eat, the Analog Brothers continued performing together in various line ups. Kool Keith and Marc Live joined with Jacky jasper to release two albums as KHM. Marc Live rapped with Ice T's group SMG. Marc also formed a group with Black Silver called Live Black, but while five of their tracks were released on a demo CD sold at concerts, Live Black's first album has yet to be released.

In 2008, Ice-T and Black Silver toured together as Black Ice, and released an album together called Urban Legends.

In addition to all this, the Analog Brothers continue to make frequent appearances on each other's solo albums.

==Discography==
* 2005. A.D. (single) (2000)
* Pimp to Eat (Ground Control/Nu Gruv) (2000)

==External links==
*Kool Keith's Site
*Ultrakeith
*
*Analog Brothers at Discogs



[[Motor neuron disease]]

The motor neuron diseases (MND) are a group of neurological disorders that selectively affect motor neurons, the cells that control voluntary muscle activity including speaking, walking, swallowing, and general movement of the body. They are generally progressive in nature, and cause increasing disability and, eventually, death.

==Terminology==
Terms used to describe the motor neuron diseases can be confusing. In the United Kingdom, motor neuron disease (sometimes spelt as motor neurone disease) refers both to the group of motor neuron diseases which includes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and to ALS itself as motor neuron disease - this is simply because ALS is the most common form. The other four motor neuron diseases are primary lateral sclerosis, progressive muscular atrophy, progressive bulbar palsy and pseudobulbar palsy. In the United States, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is commonly used both for the specific disorder (sometimes referred to there as Lou Gehrig's disease) and as a umbrella term for the group of MNDs. To avoid confusion, the annual scientific research conference dedicated to the study of MND is called the "International ALS/MND Symposium".

Although MND refers to a specific subset of pathologically similar diseases, there are numerous other afflictions of motor neurons that are pathologically distinct from MND, have a different clinical course and should not be confused with MND, such as spinal muscular atrophy, spinobulbar muscular atrophy, Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, Guillain–Barré syndrome, and many others.

==Classification==
In the most common classification, the term "motor neuron disease" applies to the following five disorders which affect either upper motor neurons (UMN) or lower motor neurons (LMN), or both:

 Type UMN degeneration LMN degeneration 
 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) yes yes 
 Primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) yes no 
 Progressive muscular atrophy (PMA) no yes 
 Progressive bulbar palsy (PBP) no yes – bulbar region 
 Pseudobulbar palsy yes – bulbar region no 

Even though diseases known as spinal muscular atrophies, including the most common spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), affect motor neurons and are classified as MND by the disease terminology classification system Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), they are not classified as such by the tenth International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) published in 1992 and thus are not discussed in this article.

==References==

==External links==

* 

 



[[Abjad]]

An abjad is a type of writing system where each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel.
It is a term suggested by Peter T. Daniels to replace the common terms "consonantary", "consonantal alphabet" or "syllabary" to refer to the family of scripts called West Semitic.

Abjad is thought to be based on the first letters (a, b, g, d) found in all Semitic language such as Phoenician, Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic. In Arabic, "A" (), "B" (), "" (), "D" () make the word "abjad" which means "alphabet". The modern Arabic word for "alphabet" and "abjad" is interchangeably either "" or "". The word "alphabet" in English has a source in Greek language in which the first two letters were "A" (alpha) and "B" (beta), hence "alphabeta" (in Spanish and Italian, "alfabeto", but also called "abecedario", from "a" "b" "c" "d"). In Hebrew the first two letters are "A" (aleph), "B" (bet) hence "alephbet." It is also used to enumerate a list in the same manner that "a, b, c, d" (etc.) are used in the English language.

==Etymology==
The name "abjad" ( ) is derived from pronouncing the first letters of the Arabic alphabet in order. The ordering () of Arabic letters used to match that of the older Hebrew, Phoenician and Semitic alphabets; (read from right to left: ) or .

The word is also used as a synonym for alphabet in Malay as Malay has many loanwords from Arabic.

==Terminology==
According to the formulations of Daniels, abjads differ from alphabets in that only consonants, not vowels, are represented among the basic graphemes. Abjads differ from abugidas, another category invented by Daniels, in that in abjads, the vowel sound is implied by phonology, and where vowel marks exist for the system, such as nikkud for Hebrew and ḥarakāt for Arabic, their use is optional and not the dominant (or literate) form. Abugidas mark the vowels (other than the "inherent" vowel) with a diacritic, a minor attachment to the letter, or a standalone glyph. Some abugidas use a special symbol to suppress the inherent vowel so that the consonant alone can be properly represented. In a syllabary, a grapheme denotes a complete syllable, that is, either a lone vowel sound or a combination of a vowel sound with one or more consonant sounds.

The antagonism of abjad versus alphabet, as it was formulated by Daniels, has been rejected by other scholars because abjad is also used as a term not only for the Arabic numeral system but, which is most important in terms of historical grammatology, als as term for the alphabetic device (i.e. letter order) of ancient Northwest Semitic scripts in opposition to the 'south Arabian‘ order. This caused fatal effects on terminology in general and especially in (ancient) Semitic philology. Also, it suggests that consonantal alphabets, in opposition to for instance the Greek alphabet, were not yet true alphabets and not yet entirely complete, lacking something important to be a fully working script system. It has also been objected that, as a set of letters, an alphabet is not the mirror of what should be there in a language from a phonemic or even phonological point of view, rather, it is the data stock of what provides maximum efficiency with least effort from a semantic point of view.
 Reinhard G. Lehmann: "27-30-22-26. How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic", in: The idea of writing: Writing across borders / edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack, Leiden: Brill 2012, p. 11-52, esp. p. 22-27 

==Values table==
The Abjad gadol (see below) values are:

 Decimal Hebrew Glyph 1 Aleph 2 Bet 3 Gimel 4 Daled 5 He 6 Vav 7 Zayin 8 Heth 9 Teth 

 Decimal Hebrew Glyph 10 Yud 20 Kaph 30 Lamed 40 Mem 50 Nun 60 Samech 70 Ayin 80 Pe 90 Tsade 

 Decimal Hebrew Glyph 100 Qoph 200 Reish 300 Shin 400 Taw 500 Kaph (final) 600 Mem (final) 700 Nun (final) 800 Pe (final) 900 Tsade (final) 

==Origins==
A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script containing a phrase which may mean 'to Baalat'. The line running from the upper left to lower right reads mt l bclt.

All known abjads belong to the Semitic family of scripts. These scripts are thought to derive from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet (dated to about 1500 BC), which is thought to derive from Egyptian hieroglyphs. The abjad was significantly simpler than the earlier hieroglyphs. The number of distinct glyphs was reduced tremendously at the cost of increased ambiguity.

The first abjad to gain widespread usage was the Phoenician abjad. Unlike other contemporary scripts, such as Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Phoenician script consisted of only about two dozen symbols. This made the script easy to learn, and Phoenician seafaring merchants took the script wherever they went. Phoenician gave way to a number of new writing systems, including the Greek alphabet and Aramaic, a widely used abjad. The Greek alphabet evolved into the modern western alphabets, such as Latin and Cyrillic, while Aramaic became the ancestor of many modern abjads and abugidas of Asia.

Aramaic spread across Asia, reaching as far as India and may become Brahmi, the ancestral abugida to most modern Indian and Southeast Asian scripts. In the Middle East, Aramaic gave rise to the Hebrew and Nabataean abjads, which retained many of the Aramaic letter forms. The Syriac script was a cursive variation of Aramaic. It is unclear whether the Arabic abjad was derived from Nabatean or Syriac.

==Impure abjads==
"Al-'Arabiyya", lit. "Arabic." An example of the Arabic script, which is an impure abjad.

"Impure" abjads have characters for some vowels, optional vowel diacritics, or both. The term "pure" abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators. However, most modern abjads, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Avestan, are "impure" abjads, that is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes. An example of a "pure" abjad is ancient Phoenician.

===Addition of vowels===

In the 9th century BC, the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. The phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when the vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the guttural sounds represented by aleph, he, heth or ayin, so these symbols were assigned vocalic values. The letters waw and yod were also used. The Greek alphabet thus became the world's first to have symbols representing vowel sounds.

Abugidas developed along a slightly different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent "a" vowel sound. Hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the South Arabian alphabet evolved into the Ge'ez alphabet between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Similarly, around the 3rd century BC, the Brāhmī script developed (from the Aramaic abjad, it has been hypothesized).

The other major family of abugidas, Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, was initially developed in the 1840s by missionary and linguist James Evans for the Cree and Ojibwe languages. Evans used features of Devanagari script and Pitman shorthand to create his initial abugida. Later in the 19th century, other missionaries adapted Evans' system to other Canadian aboriginal languages. Canadian syllabics differ from other abugidas in that the vowel is indicated by rotation of the consonantal symbol, with each vowel having a consistent orientation.

==Abjads and the structure of Semitic languages==
The abjad form of writing is well-adapted to the morphological structure of the Semitic languages it was developed to write. This is because words in Semitic languages are formed from a root consisting of (usually) three consonants, the vowels being used to indicate inflectional or derived forms. For instance, according to Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, the Arabic root (to sacrifice) can be derived the forms (he sacrificed), (you (masculine singular) sacrificed), (he slaughtered), (he slaughters), and (slaughterhouse). In each case, the absence of full glyphs for vowels makes the common root clearer, improving word recognition while reading.

==Comparative chart of Abjads, extinct and extant==

 ID Name In use Cursive Direction # of letters Area of origin Used by Languages Time period (age) Influenced by Writing systems influenced 
 1 Syriac yes yes right-left 22 consonants Middle-East Syrian Church Aramaic, Syriac, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic ~ 700 BCE , http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alphabetic.htm. Nabatean, Palmyran, Mandaic, Parthian, Pahlavi, Sogdian, Avestan and Manichean 
 2 Hebrew yes no right-left 22 consonants + 5 final letters Middle-East Israelis, Some Jewish diaspora communities, Ancient Hebrew Tribes Hebrew, Ladino, Bukhari, Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic > 1100 BCE Proto-Hebrew, Early Aramaic 
 3 Arabic yes yes right-left 28 Middle-East and North Africa Over 200 million people Arabic, Bosnian, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Kyrghyz, Malay, Persian/Farsi, Pashto, Balochi, Turkish, Urdu, Uyghur, others ~ 500 CE Nabataean Aramaic 
 4 Aramaic (Imperial) no no right-left 22 Middle-East Archaemenid, Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires Imperial Aramaic, Hebrew ~ 500 BCE Phoenician Late Hebrew, Nabataean, Syriac 
 5 Aramaic (Early) no no right-left 22 Middle-East Various Semitic Peoples ~ 1000-900 BCE Phoenician Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic. 
 6 Ancient Berber no no top-bottom, right-left 22 (right-left) 25 (up-down) , http://www.ancientscripts.com/berber.html. North Africa Women in Tuareg Society Tifinagh 600 BCE Punic, South Arabian Tifinagh 
 7 Nabataean no no right-left 22 Middle-East Nabataean Kingdom Nabataean 200 BCE Aramaic Arabic 
 8 Middle Persian, (Pahlavi) no no right-left 22 Middle-East Sassanian Empire Pahlavi, Middle Persian Aramaic Psalter, Avestan 
 9 Mandaic no yes right-left 24 Iraq, Iran Ahvāz, Iran Mandaic ~ 200 CE Aramaic Neo-Mandaic 
 10 Psalter no yes right-left 21 Northwestern China Persian Script for Paper Writing ~ 400 CE , Encyclopædia Iranica. Syriac 
 11 Phoenician no no right-left, Boustrophedon 22 Byblos Canaanites Phoenician, Punic ~ 1000-1500 BCE Proto- Canaanite Alphabet Punic(variant), Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew 
 12 Parthian no no right-left 22 Parthia (modern-day equivalent of Northeastern Iran) Parthian & Sassanian periods of Persian Empire Parthian ~200 BCE Aramaic 
 13 Sabaean no no system right-left, boustrophedon 29 Southern Arabia (Sheba) Southern Arabians Sabaean ~ 500 BCE Byblos Ethiopic (Eritrea & Ethiopia) 
 14 Punic no no right-left 22 Carthage (Tunisia), North Africa, Mediterranean Punic Culture Punic, Neo-Punic Phoenician 
 15 Proto-Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite no no left-right 30 Egypt, Sinai, Canaan Canaanites Canaanite ~ 1900-1700 BCE In conjunction with Egyptian Hieroglyphs Phoenician, Hebrew 
 16 Ugaritic no yes left-right 30 Ugarit (modern-day Northern Syria) Ugarites Ugaritic, Hurrian ~ 1400 BCE 
 17 South Arabian yes (Zabūr - cursive form of the South Arabian script) no right-left, left-right (reversed letters) 29 South-Arabia (Yemen) D'mt Kingdom Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Semitic, Chushitic, Nilo-Saharan 900 BCE Proto-Sinaitic Ge'ez ((Ethiopia)(Eritrea)) 
 18 Sogdian no no (yes in later versions) right-left, left-right(vertical) 20 parts of China (Xinjiang), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan Buddhists, Manichaens Sogdian ~ 400 CE Syriac Old Uyghur alphabet, Yaqnabi (Tajikistan dialect) 
 19 Samaritan yes (700 people) no right-left 22 Mesopatamia or Levant (Disputed) Samaritans (Nablus and Holon) Samaritan Aramaic, Samaritan Hebrew ~ 100-0 BCE Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet 

==See also==
* Abjad numerals
* Abugida
* Gematria (Hebrew system of mystical numerology)
* Numerology
* Shorthand (constructed writing systems that are structurally abjads)

==References==

; Sources
* 

 


[[Abugida]]

An inscription of Swampy Cree using Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, an abugida developed by Christian missionaries for Aboriginal Canadian languages

An abugida (from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida), also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent or optional. (In less formal contexts, all three types of script may commonly be termed as alphabets.) Abugidas include the extensive Brahmic family of scripts of South and Southeast Asia.

Abugida as a term in linguistics was proposed by Peter T. Daniels in his 1990 typology of writing systems. ’Abugida is an Ethiopian name for the Ge‘ez script, taken from four letters of that script, ’ä bu gi da, in much the same way that abecedary is derived from Latin a be ce de, and alphabet is derived from the names of the two first letters in the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. As Daniels used the word, an abugida is in contrast with a syllabary, where letters with shared consonants or vowels show no particular resemblance to one another, and also with an alphabet proper, where independent letters are used to denote both consonants and vowels. The term alphasyllabary was suggested for the Indic scripts in 1997 by William Bright, following South Asian linguistic usage, to convey the idea that "they share features of both alphabet and syllabary". He describes this term as "formal", i.e., more concerned with graphic arrangement of symbols, whereas abugida was "functional", putting the focus on sound–symbol correspondence. However, this is not a distinction made in the literature. William Bright (2000:65–66): A Matter of Typology: Alphasyllabaries and Abugidas. In: Studies in the Linguistic Sciences. Volume 30, Number 1, pages 63–71 

Abugidas were long considered to be syllabaries, or intermediate between syllabaries and alphabets, and the term syllabics is retained in the name of Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. Other terms that have been used include neosyllabary (Février 1959), pseudo-alphabet (Householder 1959), semisyllabary (Diringer 1968; a word that has other uses) and syllabic alphabet (Coulmas 1996; this term is also a synonym for syllabary). 

==Description==
In general, a letter of an abugida transcribes a consonant. Letters are written as a linear sequence, in most cases left to right. Vowels are written through modification of these consonantal letters, either by means of diacritics (which may not follow the direction of writing the letters), or by changes in the form of the letter itself.

Vowels not preceded by a consonant may be represented with a zero consonant letter, modified to indicate the vowel, or separate letters for each vowel, that are distinct from the corresponding dependent vowel signs. Consonants not followed by a vowel may be represented with:
*a modification that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel (virama),
*a lack of vowel marking (often with ambiguity between no vowel and a default inherent vowel),
*vowel marking for a short or neutral vowel such as schwa (with ambiguity between no vowel and that short or neutral vowel),
*conjunct consonant letters, where two or more letters are graphically joined in a ligature, or
*dependent consonant signs, which may be smaller or differently placed versions of the full consonant letters, or may be distinct signs altogether.

There are three principal families of abugidas, depending on whether vowels are indicated by modifying consonants by diacritics, distortion, or orientation. John D. Berry (2002:19) Language Culture Type 
*The oldest and largest is the Brahmic family of India and Southeast Asia, in which vowels are marked with diacritics and syllable-final consonants, when they occur, are indicated with ligatures, diacritics, or with a special vowel-canceling mark.
*In the Ethiopic family, vowels are marked by modifying the shapes of the consonants, and one of the vowel-forms serves additionally to indicate final consonants.
*In the Cree family, vowels are marked by rotating or flipping the consonants, and final consonants are indicated with either special diacritics or superscript forms of the main initial consonants.

Tāna of the Maldives has dependent vowels and a zero vowel sign, but no inherent vowel.

Feature North Indic South Indic Tāna Ethiopic Canadian 
 Vowel representationafter consonant Dependent sign (diacritic)in distinct position per vowel Fused diacritic Rotate/reflect 
 Initial vowelrepresentation Distinct inlineletter per vowel Zero consonant plusdependent vowel in SEA Glottal stopplus dependent Zero consonantplus dependent 
 Inherent vowel(value of no vowel sign) ] No N/A 
 Zero vowel sign(sign for no value) Often Always used whenno final vowel No 
 Consonant cluster Conjunct Stack or separate Separate 
 Final consonant Inline except Inline Dependent 
 Distinct final sign Only for No Only in Western 
 Final sign position Inline but ṃ top Inline Raised or inline 

===Indic (Brahmic)===

Indic scripts originated in India and spread to Southeast Asia. All surviving Indic scripts are descendants of the Brahmi alphabet. Today they are used in most languages of South Asia (although replaced by Perso-Arabic in Urdu, Kashmiri and some other languages of Pakistan and India) and mainland Southeast Asia (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia; but not Malaysia or Vietnam). The primary division is into North Indic scripts used in Northern India, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, and Southern Indic scripts used in South India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.
South Indic letter forms are very rounded; North Indic less so, though Oriya, Golmol and Litumol of Nepal script are rounded.

Most North Indic scripts' full letters incorporate a horizontal line at the top, with Gujarati and Oriya script as exceptions; South Indic scripts do not.

Indic scripts indicate vowels through dependent vowel signs (diacritics) around the consonants, often including a sign that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel. If a consonant has no vowel sign, this indicates a default vowel. Vowel diacritics may appear above, below, to the left, to the right, or around the consonant.

The most widely used Indic script is Devanagari, shared by Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, Nepali, and often Sanskrit. A basic letter such as क in Hindi represents a syllable with the default vowel, in this case ka (). In some languages, including Hindi, it becomes a final closing consonant at the end of a word, in this case k. The inherent vowel may be changed by adding vowel mark (diacritics), producing syllables such as कि ki, कु ku, के ke, को ko. The mora a consonant letter represents, either with or without a marked vowel, is called an akshara.

A 19th-century manuscript in the Devanagari script

 Diacritic placement in Brahmic abugidas position syllable pronunciation base form script 
 above के क Devanagari 
 below कु 
 left कि 
 right को 
 around கௌ க Tamil 
 surround កៀ ក Khmer 
 within ಕಿ ಕ Kannada 

In many of the Brahmic scripts, a syllable beginning with a cluster is treated as a single character for purposes of vowel marking, so a vowel marker like -i, falling before the character it modifies, may appear several positions before the place where it is pronounced. For example, the game cricket in Hindi is क्रिकेट krikeţ; the diacritic for appears before the consonant cluster , not before the . A more unusual example is seen in the Batak alphabet: Here the syllable bim is written ba-ma-i-(virama). That is, the vowel diacritic and virama are both written after the consonants for the whole syllable.

In many abugidas, there is also a diacritic to suppress the inherent vowel, yielding the bare consonant. In Devanagari, क् is k, and ल् is l. This is called the virāma or halantam in Sanskrit. It may be used to form consonant clusters, or to indicate that a consonant occurs at the end of a word. Thus in Sanskrit, a default vowel consonant such as क does not take on a final consonant sound. Instead, it keeps its vowel. For writing two consonants without a vowel in between, instead of using diacritics on the first consonant to remove its vowel, another popular method of special conjunct forms is used in which two or more consonant characters are merged to express a cluster, such as Devanagari: क्ल kla. (Note that some fonts display this as क् followed by ल, rather than forming a conjunct. This expedient is used by ISCII and South Asian scripts of Unicode.) Thus a closed syllable such as kal requires two aksharas to write.

The Róng script used for the Lepcha language goes further than other Indic abugidas, in that a single akshara can represent a closed syllable: Not only the vowel, but any final consonant is indicated by a diacritic. For example, the syllable would be written as something like , here with an underring representing and an overcross representing the diacritic for final . Most other Indic abugidas can only indicate a very limited set of final consonants with diacritics, such as or , if they can indicate any at all.

===Ethiopic===
The Ge'ez script, an abugida of Eritrea and Ethiopia
In Ethiopic, where the term abugida originates, the diacritics have been fused to the consonants to the point that they must be considered modifications of the form of the letters. Children learn each modification separately, as in a syllabary; nonetheless, the graphic similarities between syllables with the same consonant is readily apparent, unlike the case in a true syllabary.

Though now an abugida, the Ge'ez alphabet, until the advent of Christianity (ca. AD 350), had originally been what would now be termed an abjad. In the Ge'ez abugida (or fidel), the base form of the letter (also known as fidel) may be altered. For example, ሀ hä (base form), ሁ hu (with a right-side diacritic that doesn't alter the letter), ሂ hi (with a subdiacritic that compresses the consonant, so it is the same height), ህ hə or (where the letter is modified with a kink in the left arm).

===Canadian Aboriginal syllabics===

In the family known as Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, which was inspired by the Devanagari script of India, vowels are indicated by changing the orientation of the syllabogram. Each vowel has a consistent orientation; for example, Inuktitut ᐱ pi, ᐳ pu, ᐸ pa; ᑎ ti, ᑐ tu, ᑕ ta. Although there is a vowel inherent in each, all rotations have equal status and none can be identified as basic. Bare consonants are indicated either by separate diacritics, or by superscript versions of the aksharas; there is no vowel-killer mark.

==Borderline cases==

===Vowelled abjads===
Consonantal scripts ("abjads") are normally written without indication of many vowels. However in some contexts like teaching materials or scriptures, Arabic and Hebrew are written with full indication of vowels via diacritic marks (harakat, niqqud) making them effectively abugidas. The Brahmic and Ethiopic families are thought to have originated from the Semitic abjads by the addition of vowel marks.

The Arabic scripts used for Kurdish in Iraq and for Uighur in Xinjiang (People's Republic of China), as well as the Hebrew script of Yiddish, are fully vowelled, but because the vowels are written with full letters rather than diacritics and there are no inherent vowels, these are considered alphabets, not abugidas.

===Phagspa===
The imperial Mongol script called Phagspa was derived from the Tibetan abugida, but all vowels are written in-line rather than as diacritics. However, it retains the features of having an inherent vowel /a/ and having distinct initial vowel letters.

===Pahawh===
Pahawh Hmong is a non-segmental script that indicates syllable onsets and rimes, such as consonant clusters and vowels with final consonants. Thus it is not segmental and cannot be considered an abugida. However, it superficially resembles an abugida with the roles of consonant and vowel reversed. Most syllables are written with two letters in the order rime–onset (typically vowel-consonant), even though they are pronounced as onset-rime (consonant-vowel), rather like the position of the vowel in Devanagari, which is written before the consonant. Pahawh is also unusual in that, while an inherent rime (with mid tone) is unwritten, it also has an inherent onset . For the syllable , which requires one or the other of the inherent sounds to be overt, it is that is written. Thus it is the rime (vowel) which is basic to the system.

===Meroitic===
It is difficult to draw a dividing line between abugidas and other segmental scripts. For example, the Meroitic script of ancient Sudan did not indicate an inherent a (one symbol stood for both m and ma, for example), and is thus similar to Brahmic family of abugidas. However, the other vowels were indicated with full letters, not diacritics or modification, so the system was essentially an alphabet that did not bother to write the most common vowel.

===Shorthand===
Several systems of shorthand use diacritics for vowels, but they do not have an inherent vowel, and are thus more similar to Thaana and Kurdish script than to the Brahmic scripts. The Gabelsberger shorthand system and its derivatives modify the following consonant to represent vowels. The Pollard script, which was based on shorthand, also uses diacritics for vowels; the placements of the vowel relative to the consonant indicates tone. Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle marks in different orientations as the principal "alphabet" of consonants; vowels are shown as light and heavy dots, dashes and other marks in one of 3 possible positions to indicate the various vowel-sounds. However, to increase writing-speed Pitman has rules for "vowel indication" using the positioning or choice of consonant signs so that writing vowel-marks can be dispensed with.

==Development==
As the term alphasyllabary suggests, abugidas have been considered an intermediate step between alphabets and syllabaries. Historically, abugidas appear to have evolved from abjads (vowelless alphabets). They contrast with syllabaries, where there is a distinct symbol for each syllable or consonant-vowel combination, and where these have no systematic similarity to each other, and typically develop directly from logographic scripts. Compare the Devanagari examples above to sets of syllables in the Japanese hiragana syllabary: か ka, き ki, く ku, け ke, こ ko have nothing in common to indicate k; while ら ra, り ri, る ru, れ re, ろ ro have neither anything in common for r, nor anything to indicate that they have the same vowels as the k set.

Most Indian and Indochinese abugidas appear to have first been developed from abjads with the and Brāhmī scripts; the abjad in question is usually considered to be the Aramaic one, but while the link between Aramaic and Kharosthi is more or less undisputed, this is not the case with Brahmi. The Kharosthi family does not survive today, but Brahmi's descendants include most of the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia. Ge'ez derived from a different abjad, the Sabean script of Yemen; the advent of vowels coincided with the introduction of Christianity about AD 350;. Getatchew Haile, "Ethiopic Writing". In Daniels & Bright (1996) The World's Writing Systems 

" is encumbered with the drawback of an excessively awkward and cumbrous written character. ... At first glance, an book seems to be all curves, and it takes a second look to notice that there is something inside each." (G.A. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, 1903)

Development of Oriyan scripts
Development of ancient numerals in Oriya

==Other types of writing systems==
* Featural alphabet
* Abjad
* Alphabet
* Logogram
* Syllabary

==Partial list of abugidas==

Comparison of various abugidas descended from Brahmi script. May Śiva protect those who take delight in the language of the gods. (Kalidasa)

*Brahmic family, descended from Brāhmī (c. 6th century BC)
**Assamese
**Balinese
**Balti
**Batak
**Baybayin, pre-Hispanic script of Tagalog and other Philippine languages
**Kulitan 
**Bengali
**Bhujimol
**Box-head a script in India
**Buginese also known as Lontara
**Buhid, used by Mangyans in Mindoro, Philippines
**Burmese
**Chalukya
**Cham
**Chola
**Devanagari (used to write Nepali, Sanskrit, Pali, modern Hindi, Marathi etc.)
**Dehong Dai
**Golmol
**Goykanadi
**Grantha
**Gujarati
**Gurmukhi
**Hanuno'o, a script used by Mangyans in Mindoro, Philippines
**Javanese
**Kadamba
**Kaithi
**Kannada
**Kawi script used by ancient Javanese, Malays, and pre-Hispanic Filipinos
**Khmer
**Lampung also known as Had Lampung
**Lanna
**Lepcha
**Limbu
**Lao (before spelling reforms)
**Malayalam
**Manipuri (also known as Meitei Mayek script)
**Modi used to write Marathi
**Oriya
**Old Kawi progenitor of Indonesian and Philippine scripts
**Pachumol
**Phags-Pa created for Kublai Khan's Yuan China
**Prachalit Nepal
**Ranjana
**Redjang
**Sharada
**Siddham used to write Sanskrit
**Sinhala
**Sorang Sompeng
**Sourashtra
**Soyombo script
**Sundanese
**Syloti Nagri
**Tagbanwa in Palawan, Philippines
**Tai Dam
**Tamil
**Telugu
**Thai
**Tibetan
**Tirhuta used to write Maithili
**Tocharian – extinct
**Tulu
**Varang Kshiti
**Vatteluttu aka round script
* (extinct), from the 3rd century BC
*Ge'ez (Ethiopic), from the 4th century AD
*Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
**Cree-Ojibwe syllabics
**Inuktitut syllabics
**Blackfoot syllabics
**Carrier syllabics

*Thaana
*Pollard script
*Pitman shorthand
*Tengwar (fictional)

===Abugida-like scripts===
*Meroitic (extinct) (an alphabet with an inherent vowel)

==References==

==External links==
*Syllabic alphabets – Omniglot's list of abugidas, including examples of various writing systems
*Alphabets – list of abugidas and other scripts (in Spanish)
*Comparing Devanagari with Burmese, Khmer, Thai, and Tai Tham scripts

 


[[ABBA]]

ABBA were a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972, comprising Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. ABBA is an acronym of the first letters of the band members' first names (Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid) and is sometimes stylized as the registered trademark ᗅᗺᗷᗅ. They became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1975 to 1982. They are also known for winning in the Eurovision Song Contest 1974, giving Sweden its first victory in the history of the contest and being the most successful group ever to take part in the competition.

ABBA have sold over 380 million albums and singles worldwide, which makes them one of the best-selling music artists of all time, and the second best selling music group of all time. ABBA was the first group to come from a non-English-speaking country that enjoyed consistent success in the charts of English-speaking countries, including the UK, Ireland, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The group also enjoyed significant success in Latin American markets, and recorded a collection of their hit songs in Spanish.

During the band's active years, Fältskog and Ulvaeus were very much in love, and married, as were Lyngstad and Andersson, although both couples later divorced. At the height of their popularity, both relationships were suffering strain which ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Ulvaeus-Fältskog marriage in 1979 and the Andersson-Lyngstad marriage in 1981. These relationship changes were reflected in the group's music, with later compositions including more introspective, brooding, dark lyrics. Comments about this period start around time 1:10 on tract. Youtube.com (30 July 2013). Retrieved on 19 April 2014. 

After ABBA broke up in late 1982, Andersson and Ulvaeus achieved success writing music for the stage while Lyngstad and Fältskog pursued solo careers with mixed success. ABBA's music declined in popularity until several films, notably Muriel's Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, revived interest in the group, spawning several tribute bands. In 1999, ABBA's music was adapted into the successful musical Mamma Mia! that toured worldwide. A film of the same name, released in 2008, became the highest-grossing film in the United Kingdom that year. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 15 March 2010. 

ABBA were honored at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005, when their hit "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the competition's history. 

==History==

===Before ABBA (1960s)===

Benny Andersson (born 16 December 1946 in Stockholm, Sweden) became (at age 18) a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group the Hep Stars that performed covers, amongst other things, of international hits. The Hep Stars were known as "the Swedish Beatles". 10 Things You Never Knew About Abba. Virginmedia.com. Retrieved on 19 April 2014. They also set up Hep House, their equivalent of Apple Corps. Andersson played the keyboard and eventually started writing original songs for his band, many of which became major hits, including "No Response" that hit number 3 in 1965, "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", and "Consolation", all of which hit number 1 in 1966. Andersson also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote his first Svensktoppen entry "Sagan om lilla Sofie" ("The Story of Little Sophie") in 1968.

Björn Ulvaeus (born 25 April 1945 in Gothenburg/Göteborg, Sweden) also began his musical career at 18 (as a singer and guitarist), when he fronted The Hootenanny Singers, a popular Swedish folk-skiffle group. Ulvaeus started writing English-language songs for his group, and even had a brief solo career alongside. The Hootenanny Singers and The Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring. In June 1966, Ulvaeus and Andersson decided to write a song together. Their first attempt was "Isn't It Easy to Say", a song later recorded by The Hep Stars. Stig Anderson was the manager of The Hootenanny Singers and founder of the Polar Music label. He saw potential in the collaboration, and encouraged them to write more. Both also began playing occasionally with the other's bands on stage and on record, although it was not until 1969 that the pair wrote and produced some of their first real hits together: "Ljuva sextital" ("Merry Sixties"), recorded by Brita Borg, and The Hep Stars' 1969 hit "Speleman" ("Fiddler").

Andersson wrote and submitted the song "Hej, Clown" for the 1969 Melodifestivalen, the national festival to select the Swedish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The song tied for first place, but re-voting relegated Andersson's song to second place. On that occasion Andersson briefly met his future spouse, singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who also participated in the contest. A month later, the two had become a couple. As their respective bands began to break up during 1969, Andersson and Ulvaeus teamed up and recorded their first album together in 1970, called Lycka ("Happiness"), which included original songs sung by both men. Their spouses were often present in the recording studio, and sometimes added backing vocals; Fältskog even co-wrote a song with the two. Ulvaeus still occasionally recorded and performed with The Hootenanny Singers until the summer of 1974, and Andersson took part in producing their records.

Agnetha Fältskog (born 5 April 1950 in Jönköping, Sweden) sang with a local dance band headed by Bernt Enghardt who sent a demo recording of the band to Karl Gerhard Lundkvist. The demo tape featured a song written and sung by Agnetha: "Jag var så kär". Lundkvist was so impressed with her voice that he was convinced she would be a star. After going through considerable effort to locate the singer, he arranged for Agnetha to come to Stockholm and to record two of her own songs. This led to Agnetha having a number 1 record in Sweden with a self-composed song and selling more than 80,000 copies while she was still only 17. She was soon noticed by the critics and songwriters as a talented singer/songwriter of schlager style songs. Fältskog's main inspiration in her early years were singers such as Connie Francis. Along with her own compositions, she recorded covers of foreign hits and performed them on tours in Swedish folkparks. Most of her biggest hits were self-composed, which was quite unusual for a female singer in the 1960s. Agnetha released four solo LPs between 1968 and 1971. She had many successful singles in the Swedish charts.

During filming of a Swedish TV special in May 1969, Fältskog met Ulvaeus, and they married on 6 July 1971. Fältskog and Ulvaeus eventually were involved in each other's recording sessions, and soon even Andersson and Lyngstad added backing vocals to her third studio album Som jag är (As I Am) (1970). In 1972, Fältskog starred as Mary Magdalene in the original Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar and attracted favourable reviews. Between 1967 and 1975, Fältskog released five studio albums. 

Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad (born 15 November 1945 in Bjørkåsen in Ballangen, Norway) sang from the age of 13 with various dance bands, and worked mainly in a jazz-oriented cabaret style. She also formed her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. In the summer of 1967, she won a national talent competition with "En ledig dag" ("A Day Off") a Swedish version of the bossa nova song "A Day in Portofino", which is included in the EMI compilation Frida 1967–1972. The first prize was a recording contract with EMI Sweden and to perform live on the most popular TV shows in the country. This TV performance, amongst many others, is included in the 3½ hour documentary Frida – The DVD. Lyngstad released several schlager style singles on EMI without much success. When Benny Andersson started to produce her recordings in 1971, she had her first number 1 single, "Min egen stad" ("My Own Town") written by Benny featuring all the future ABBA members on backing vocals. Lyngstad toured and performed regularly in the folkpark circuit and made appearances on radio and TV. She met Ulvaeus briefly in 1963 during a talent contest, and Fältskog during a TV show in early 1968.

Lyngstad finally linked up with her future bandmates in 1969. On 1 March 1969, she participated in the Melodifestivalen, where she met Andersson for the first time. A few weeks later they met again during a concert tour in southern Sweden and they soon became a couple. Andersson produced her single "Peter Pan" in September 1969 — her first collaboration with Benny & Björn, as they had written the song. Andersson would then produce Lyngstad's debut studio album, Frida, which was released in March 1971. Lyngstad also played in several revues and cabaret shows in Stockholm between 1969 and 1973. After ABBA formed, she recorded another successful album in 1975, Frida ensam, which included a Swedish rendition of "Fernando", a hit on the Swedish radio charts before the English version was released. 

====First live performance and the start of "Festfolket"====
An attempt at combining their talents occurred in April 1970 when the two couples went on holiday together to the island of Cyprus. What started as singing for fun on the beach ended up as an improvised live performance in front of the United Nations soldiers stationed on the island. Andersson and Ulvaeus were at this time recording their first album together, Lycka, which was to be released in September 1970. Fältskog and Lyngstad added backing vocals on several tracks during June, and the idea of them working together saw them launch a stage act, "Festfolket" (which translates from Swedish to mean both "Party People" and "Engaged Couples") on 1 November 1970 in Gothenburg.

The cabaret show attracted generally negative reviews, except for the performance of the Andersson and Ulvaeus hit "Hej, gamle man" ("Hello, Old Man"); the first Björn and Benny recording to feature all four. They also performed solo numbers from respective albums, but the lukewarm reception convinced the foursome to shelve plans for working together for the time being, and each soon concentrated on individual projects again.

====First record together "Hej, gamle man"====
"Hej, gamle man", a song about an old Salvation Army soldier, became the quartet's first hit. The record was credited to Björn & Benny and reached number 5 on the sales charts and number 1 on Svensktoppen, staying there for 15 weeks.

It was during 1971 that the four artists began working together more, adding vocals to the others' recordings. Fältskog, Andersson and Ulvaeus toured together in May, while Lyngstad toured on her own. Frequent recording sessions brought the foursome closer together during the summer. 

===Forming the group (1970 till 1973)===
After the 1970 release of Lycka, two more singles credited to 'Björn & Benny' were released in Sweden, "Det kan ingen doktor hjälpa" ("No Doctor Can Help with That") and "Tänk om jorden vore ung" ("Imagine If the Earth Were Young"), with more prominent vocals by Fältskog and Lyngstad–and moderate chart success.

Fältskog and Ulvaeus, now married, started performing together with Andersson on a regular basis at the Swedish folkparks during the summer of 1971.

Stig Anderson, founder and owner of Polar Music, was determined to break into the mainstream international market with music by Andersson and Ulvaeus. "One day the pair of you will write a song that becomes a worldwide hit", he predicted. Stig Anderson encouraged Ulvaeus and Andersson to write a song for Melodifestivalen, and after two rejected entries in 1971, Andersson and Ulvaeus submitted their new song "Säg det med en sång" ("Say It with a Song") for the 1972 contest, choosing newcomer Lena Anderson to perform. The song came in third place, encouraging Stig Anderson, and became a hit in Sweden. 

The first signs of foreign success came as a surprise, as the Andersson and Ulvaeus single "She's My Kind of Girl" was released through Epic Records in Japan in March 1972, giving the duo a Top 10 hit. Two more singles were released in Japan, "En Carousel" ("En Karusell" in Scandinavia, an earlier version of "Merry-Go-Round") and "Love Has Its Ways" (a song they wrote with Kōichi Morita). 

====First hit as Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny & Björn====
Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements. "People Need Love" was released in June 1972, featuring guest vocals by the women, who were now given much greater prominence. Stig Anderson released it as a single, credited to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song peaked at number 17 in the Swedish combined single and album charts, enough to convince them they were on to something. The single also became the first record to chart for the quartet in the United States, where it peaked at number 114 on the Cashbox singles chart and number 117 on the Record World singles chart. Labeled as Björn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka), it was released there through Playboy Records. However, according to Stig Anderson, "People Need Love" could have been a much bigger American hit, but a small label like Playboy Records did not have the distribution resources to meet the demand for the single from retailers and radio programmers. Interview with Songwriter magazine, 6, 1981, pp.23–25. 

The foursome decided to record their first album together in the autumn of 1972, and sessions began on 26 September 1972. The women shared lead vocals on "Nina, Pretty Ballerina" (a top ten hit in Austria) that day, and their voices in harmony for the first time gave the foursome an idea of the quality of their combined talents.

===="Ring Ring"====
In 1973, the band and their manager Stig Anderson decided to have another try at Melodifestivalen, this time with the song "Ring Ring". The studio sessions were handled by Michael B. Tretow, who experimented with a "wall of sound" production technique that became the wholly new sound. Stig Anderson arranged an English translation of the lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody and they thought this would be a surefire winner. However, on 10 February 1973, the song came third in Melodifestivalen, thus it never reached the Eurovision Song Contest itself. Nevertheless, the group released their debut studio album, also called Ring Ring. The album did well and the "Ring Ring" single was a hit in many parts of Europe and also in South Africa. However, Stig Anderson felt that the true breakthrough could only come with a UK or US hit. 

Though Agnetha Fältskog gave birth to her first child in 1973 she was for a shorter period replaced by Inger Brundin on a trip to West Germany.

====Official naming====
In early 1973, Stig Anderson, tired of unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA. At first, this was a play on words, as Abba is also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden, and itself an acronym. However, since the fish-canners were unknown outside Sweden, Anderson came to believe the name would work in international markets. A competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper. The group was impressed with the names "Alibaba", "FABB", and "Baba", but in the end all the entries were ignored and it was officially announced in the summer that the group were to be known as "ABBA". The group negotiated with the canners for the rights to the name. "ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's first name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid. During a promotional photo, Benny flipped his "B" horizontally for fun, and from 1976 onwards the first 'B' in the logo version of the name was "mirror-image" reversed on the band's promotional material and ᗅᗺᗷᗅ became the group's registered trademark.

The first time "ABBA" is found written on paper is on a recording session sheet from the Metronome Studio in Stockholm, dated 16 October 1973. This was first written as "Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida", but was subsequently crossed out with "ABBA" written in large letters on top.

The official logo, using the bold version of the News Gothic typeface, was designed by Rune Söderqvist, and appeared for the first time on the "Dancing Queen" single in August 1976, and subsequently on all later original albums and singles. But the idea for the official logo was made by the German photographer Wolfgang Heilemann on a "Dancing Queen" shoot for the teenage magazine Bravo. On the photo, the ABBA members held a giant initial letter of his/her name. After the pictures were made, Heilemann found out that one of the men held his letter backwards as in ᗅᗺᗷᗅ®. They discussed it and the members of ABBA liked it. Following their acquisition of the group's catalogue, Polygram began using variations of the ABBA logo, using a different font and adding a crown emblem to it in 1992 for the first release of the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits compilation. When Universal Music purchased Polygram (and, thus, ABBA's label Polar Music International), control of the group's catalogue was returned to Stockholm. Since then, the original logo has been reinstated on all official products. ABBA Logo 25th Anniversary Retrieved from Internet Archive 10 January 2014. 

===Breakthrough (1973–1976)===
ABBA making an appearance on Dutch TV in April 1974: Clockwise from left Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad

====Eurovision Song Contest 1974====
As the group entered the Melodifestivalen with "Ring Ring" but failed to qualify as the 1973 Swedish entry, Stig Anderson immediately started planning for the 1974 contest.

Ulvaeus, Andersson and Stig Anderson believed in the possibilities of using the Eurovision Song Contest as a way to make the music business aware of them as songwriters, as well as the band itself. In late 1973, they were invited by Swedish television to contribute a song for the Melodifestivalen 1974 and from a number of new songs, the upbeat number "Waterloo" was chosen; the group was now inspired by the growing glam rock scene in England.

ABBA won their national heats on Swedish television on 9 February 1974, and with this third attempt were far more experienced and better prepared for the Eurovision Song Contest. Winning the 1974 Contest on 6 April 1974 gave ABBA the chance to tour Europe and perform on major television shows; thus the band saw the "Waterloo" single chart in many European countries. "Waterloo" was ABBA's first number one single in big markets such as the UK and Germany. In the United States, the song peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, paving the way for their first album and their first trip as a group there. Albeit a short promotional visit, it included their first performance on American television, The Mike Douglas Show. The album Waterloo only peaked at number 145 on the Billboard 200 chart, but received unanimous high praise from the US critics: Los Angeles Times called it "a compelling and fascinating debut album that captures the spirit of mainstream pop quite effectively … an immensely enjoyable and pleasant project", while Creem characterized it as "a perfect blend of exceptional, lovable compositions".

ABBA's follow-up single, "Honey, Honey", peaked at number 27 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and was a number 2 hit in Germany. However, in the United Kingdom, ABBA's British record label, Epic, decided to re-release a remixed version of "Ring Ring" instead of "Honey, Honey", and a cover version of the latter by Sweet Dreams peaked at number 10. Both records debuted on the UK chart within one week of each other. "Ring Ring" failed to reach the Top 30 in the United Kingdom, increasing growing speculation that the group was simply a Eurovision one-hit wonder.

====Post-Eurovision====
In November 1974, ABBA embarked on their first European tour, playing dates in Denmark, West Germany and Austria. It was not as successful as the band had hoped, since most of the venues did not sell out. Due to a lack of demand, they were even forced to cancel a few shows, including a sole concert scheduled in Switzerland. The second leg of the tour, which took them through Scandinavia in January 1975, was very different. They played to full houses everywhere and finally got the reception they had aimed for. Live performances continued during the summer of 1975 when ABBA embarked on a fourteen open-air date tour of Sweden and Finland. Their Stockholm show at the Gröna Lund amusement park had an estimated audience of 19,200. Björn Ulvaeus later said that "If you look at the singles we released straight after Waterloo, we were trying to be more like the Sweet, a semi-glam rock group, which was stupid because we were always a pop group." 

In late 1974, "So Long" was released as a single in the United Kingdom but it received no airplay from Radio 1 and failed to chart. In the summer of 1975 ABBA released "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", which again received little airplay on Radio 1 but managed to climb the charts, to number 38. Later in 1975, the release of their self-titled third studio album ABBA and single "SOS" brought back their chart presence in the UK, where the single hit number 6 and the album peaked at number 13. "SOS" also became ABBA's second number 1 single in Germany and their third in Australia. Success was further solidified with "Mamma Mia" reaching number 1 in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. In the United States, "SOS" peaked at number 10 on the Record World Top 100 singles chart and number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, picking up the BMI Award along the way as one of the most played songs on American radio in 1975.

The success of the group in the United States had until that time been limited to single releases. By early 1976, the group already had four Top 30 singles on the US charts, but the album market proved to be tough to crack. The eponymous ABBA album generated three American hits, but it only peaked at number 165 on the Cashbox album chart and number 174 on the Billboard 200 chart. Opinions were voiced, by Creem in particular, that in the US ABBA had endured "a very sloppy promotional campaign". Nevertheless, the group enjoyed warm reviews from the American press. Cashbox went as far as saying that "there is a recurrent thread of taste and artistry inherent in Abba's marketing, creativity and presentation that makes it almost embarrassing to critique their efforts", while Creem wrote: "SOS is surrounded on this LP by so many good tunes that the mind boggles".

In Australia, the airing of the music videos for "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" and "Mamma Mia" on the nationally-broadcast TV pop show Countdown (which premiered in August 1975) saw the band rapidly gain enormous popularity, and Countdown become a key promoter of the group via their distinctive music videos. This started an immense interest for ABBA in Australia, resulting in both the single and album holding down the No. 1 positions on the charts for months.

===Superstardom (1976–1981)===
In March 1976, the band released the compilation album Greatest Hits, despite having had only six top 40 hits in the United Kingdom and the United States. Nevertheless, it became their first UK number 1 album, and also took ABBA into the Top 50 on the US album charts for the first time, eventually selling more than a million copies there. At the same time, Germany released a compilation named The Very Best of ABBA, also becoming a number 1 album there whereas the Greatest Hits compilation followed a few months later to number 2 on the German charts, despite all similarities with The Very Best album. Also included on Greatest Hits was a new single, "Fernando", which went to number 1 in at least thirteen countries worldwide, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, and the single went on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide. In Australia, the song occupied the top position for 14 weeks (and stayed in the chart for 40 weeks), tying with The Beatles' "Hey Jude" for longest-running number one, and making "Fernando" one of the best-selling singles of all time in Australia. That same year, the group received its first international prize, with "Fernando" being chosen as the "Best Studio Recording of 1975". In the United States, "Fernando" reached the Top 10 of the Cashbox Top 100 singles chart and number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, ABBA's first American number one single on any chart.
left
The group's fourth studio album, Arrival, a number 1 bestseller in Europe and Australia, represented a new level of accomplishment in both songwriting and studio work, prompting rave reviews from more rock-oriented UK music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express, and mostly appreciative notices from US critics. Hit after hit flowed from Arrival: "Money, Money, Money", another number 1 in Germany and Australia, and "Knowing Me, Knowing You", ABBA's sixth consecutive German number 1 as well as another UK number 1. The real sensation was "Dancing Queen", not only topping the charts in loyal markets the UK, Germany and Australia, but also reaching number 1 in the United States. In South Africa, ABBA had astounding success with "Fernando", "Dancing Queen" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" being among the top 20 best-selling singles for 1976–77. In 1977, Arrival was nominated for the inaugural BRIT Award in the category "Best International Album of the Year". By this time ABBA were popular in the United Kingdom, most of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In Frida – The DVD, Lyngstad explains how she and Fältskog developed as singers, as ABBA's recordings grew more complex over the years.

The band's popularity in the United States would remain on a comparatively smaller scale, and "Dancing Queen" became the only Billboard Hot 100 number 1 single ABBA had there (they did, however, get three more singles to the number 1 position on other Billboard charts, including Billboard Adult Contemporary and Hot Dance Club Play). Nevertheless, Arrival finally became a true breakthrough release for ABBA on the US album market where it peaked at number 20 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified gold by RIAA.

====European and Australian tour====
In January 1977, ABBA embarked on their first major tour. The group's status had changed dramatically and they were clearly regarded as superstars. They opened their much anticipated tour in Oslo, Norway on 28 January, and mounted a lavishly produced spectacle that included a few scenes from their self-written mini-operetta The Girl with the Golden Hair. The concert attracted immense media attention from across Europe and Australia. They continued the tour through Western Europe visiting Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Essen, Hanover, Hamburg, ending with shows in the United Kingdom in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. Tickets for these two shows were available only by mail application and it was later revealed that the box-office received 3.5 million requests for tickets, enough to fill the venue 580 times. Along with praise ("ABBA turn out to be amazingly successful at reproducing their records", wrote Creem), there were complaints that "ABBA performed slickly...but with a zero personality coming across from a total of 16 people on stage" (Melody Maker). One of the Royal Albert Hall concerts was filmed as a reference for the filming of the Australian tour for what became , though it is not exactly known how much of the concert was filmed.

Agnetha Fältskog at the opening concert of ABBA's European and Australian Tour in Oslo, 28 January 1977.
After the European leg of the tour, in March 1977, ABBA played 11 dates in Australia before a total of 160,000 people. The opening concert in Sydney at the Sydney Showground on 3 March to an audience of 20,000 was marred by torrential rain with Lyngstad slipping on the wet stage during the concert. However all four members would later recall this concert as most memorable of their career. Upon their arrival in Melbourne, a civic reception was held at the Melbourne Town Hall and ABBA appeared on the balcony to greet an enthusiastic crowd of 6,000. In Melbourne, the group played three concerts at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl with 14,500 at each including the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his family. At the first Melbourne concert, an additional 16,000 people gathered outside the fenced-off area to listen to the concert. In Adelaide, the group performed one concert at West Lakes Football Stadium before 20,000 people with another 10,000 listening outside. During the first of five concerts in Perth, there was a bomb scare with everyone having to evacuate the Entertainment Centre. The trip was accompanied by mass hysteria and unprecedented media attention ("Swedish ABBA stirs box-office in Down Under tour...and the media coverage of the quartet rivals that set to cover the upcoming Royal tour of Australia", wrote Variety), and is captured on film in , directed by Lasse Hallström.

The Australian tour and its subsequent ABBA: The Movie produced some ABBA lore, as well. Fältskog's blonde good looks had long made her the band's "pin-up girl", a role she disdained. During the Australian tour, she performed in a skin-tight white jumpsuit, causing one Australian newspaper to use the headline "Agnetha's bottom tops dull show". When asked about this at a news conference, she replied: "Don't they have bottoms in Australia?" DVD documentaries: The Winner Takes It All (2002) and Super Troupers (2004) 

In December 1977, ABBA followed up Arrival with the more ambitious fifth album , released to coincide with the debut of ABBA: The Movie. Although the album was less well received by UK reviewers, it did spawn more worldwide hits: "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me", which both topped the UK charts, and peaked at number 12 and number 3 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US. Although "Take a Chance on Me" did not top the American charts, it proved to be ABBA's biggest hit single there, selling more copies than "Dancing Queen". The Album also included "Thank You for the Music", the B-side of "Eagle" in countries where the latter had been released as a single, and was belatedly released as an A-side single in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1983. "Thank You for the Music" has become one of the best loved and best known ABBA songs without being released as a single during the group's lifetime.

====Polar Music Studio formation====
Polar Music Studios was situated in this building at 58 Sankt Eriksgatan in Stockholm until 2004

By 1978 ABBA were one of the biggest bands in the world. They converted a vacant movie theatre into the Polar Music Studio, a state-of-the-art studio in Stockholm. The studio was used by several other bands; notably Genesis' Duke and Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door were recorded there. During May, the group went to the United States for a promotional campaign, performing alongside Andy Gibb on Olivia Newton-John's TV show. Recording sessions for the single "Summer Night City" were an uphill struggle, but upon release the song became another hit for the group. The track would set the stage for ABBA's foray into disco with their next album. 

On 9 January 1979, the group performed "Chiquitita" at the Music for UNICEF Concert held at the United Nations General Assembly to celebrate UNICEF's Year of the Child. ABBA donated the copyright of this worldwide hit to the UNICEF; see Music for UNICEF Concert. "Bee Gees, Olivia were a hit with the VIPs" (11 January 1979). Courier Mail (Brisbane); p. 30. The single was released the following week, and reached number 1 in ten countries.

====North American and European tours====
In mid-January 1979, Ulvaeus and Fältskog announced they were getting divorced. The news caused interest from the media, and led to speculation about the band's future. ABBA assured the press and their fan base they were continuing their work as a group, and that the divorce would not affect them. "ABBA divorce – Agnetha moves out" (17 January 1979). The Sun (Sydney); p. 1. Nonetheless, the media continued to confront them with this in interviews. To escape the media swirl and concentrate on their writing, Andersson and Ulvaeus secretly travelled to Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, where for two weeks they prepared their next album's songs in relative quiet.

The group's sixth studio album, Voulez-Vous, was released in April 1979, the title track of which was recorded at the famous Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, with the assistance of recording engineer Tom Dowd amongst others. The album topped the charts across Europe and in Japan and Mexico, hit the Top 10 in Canada and Australia and the Top 20 in the United States. None of the singles from the album reached number 1 on the UK charts, but "Chiquitita", "Does Your Mother Know", "Angeleyes" (with "Voulez-Vous", released as a double A-side) and "I Have a Dream" were all UK Top 5 hits. In Canada, "I Have a Dream" became ABBA's second number 1 on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart (after "Fernando" hit the top previously). Also in 1979, the group released their second compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which featured a brand new track: "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", another number 3 hit in both the UK and Germany. In Russia during the late 1970s, the group was paid in oil commodities because of an embargo on the ruble. Rodgers, Peter (16 March 1980). "Pop goes ABBA's $2m oil gamble: ABBA may lose enormous amount of money following venture into oil market. " The Sunday Times; Business News, p 53 

On 13 September 1979, ABBA began their at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, Canada, with a full house of 14,000. "The voices of the band, Agnetha's high sauciness combined with round, rich lower tones of Anni-Frid, were excellent...Technically perfect, melodically correct and always in perfect pitch...The soft lower voice of Anni-Frid and the high, edgy vocals of Agnetha were stunning", raved Edmonton Journal.

During the next four weeks they played a total of 17 sold-out dates, 13 in the United States and four in Canada. The last scheduled ABBA concert in the United States in Washington, D.C. was cancelled due to Fältskog's emotional distress suffered during the flight from New York to Boston, when the group's private plane was subjected to extreme weather conditions and was unable to land for an extended period. They appeared at the Boston Music Hall for the performance 90 minutes late. The tour ended with a show in Toronto, Canada at Maple Leaf Gardens before a capacity crowd of 18,000. "ABBA plays with surprising power and volume; but although they are loud, they're also clear, which does justice to the signature vocal sound...Anyone who's been waiting five years to see Abba will be well satisfied", wrote Record World.

On 19 October 1979, the tour resumed in Western Europe where the band played 23 sold-out gigs, including six sold-out nights at London's Wembley Arena.

====Progression====
Super Trouper, seventh studio album released by the group in 1980
In March 1980, ABBA travelled to Japan where upon their arrival at Narita International Airport, they were besieged by thousands of fans. The group played eleven concerts to full houses, including six shows at Tokyo's Budokan. This tour was the last "on the road" adventure of their career.
In the summer of 1980, the group released the single "The Winner Takes It All" the group's eighth UK chart topper (and their first since 1978). The song is widely misunderstood as being written about Ulvaeus and Fältskog's marital tribulations; Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics, but has stated they were not about his own divorce; Fältskog has repeatedly stated she was not the loser in their divorce. In the United States, the single peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became ABBA's second Billboard Adult Contemporary number 1. It was also re-recorded by Andersson and Ulvaeus with a slightly different backing track, by French chanteuse Mireille Mathieu at the end of 1980 – as "Bravo Tu As Gagné", with French lyrics by Alain Boublil. November the same year saw the release of ABBA's seventh album Super Trouper, which reflected a certain change in ABBA's style with more prominent use of synthesizers and increasingly personal lyrics. It set a record for the most pre-orders ever received for a UK album after one million copies were ordered before release. The 2nd single from the album, "Super Trouper", also hit number 1 in the UK, becoming the group's ninth and final UK chart-topper. Another track from the Super Trouper album, "Lay All Your Love on Me", released in 1981 as a 12-inch single only in selected territories, managed to top the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart and peaked at number 7 on the UK singles chart becoming, at the time, the highest ever charting 12-inch release in UK chart history.

Also in 1980, ABBA recorded a compilation of Spanish-language versions of their hits called Gracias Por La Música. This was released in Spanish-speaking countries as well as in Japan and Australia. The album became a major success, and along with the Spanish version of "Chiquitita", this signalled the group's breakthrough in Latin America. ABBA Oro: Grandes Éxitos, the Spanish equivalent of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, was released in 1999.

===Final album and performances (1981–1982)===
 ABBA during a TV special Dick Cavett Meets ABBA in April 1981

In January 1981, Ulvaeus married Lena Källersjö, and manager Stig Anderson celebrated his 50th birthday with a party. For this occasion, ABBA recorded the track "Hovas Vittne" (a pun on the Swedish name for Jehovah's Witness and Anderson's birthplace, Hova) as a tribute to him, and released it only on 200 red vinyl copies, to be distributed to the guests attending the party. This single has become a sought-after collectible. In mid-February 1981, Andersson and Lyngstad announced they were filing for divorce. Information surfaced that their marriage had been an uphill struggle for years, and Benny had already met another woman, Mona Nörklit, whom he married in November 1981.

Andersson and Ulvaeus had songwriting sessions during the spring of 1981, and recording sessions began in mid-March. At the end of April, the group recorded a TV special, Dick Cavett Meets ABBA with the US talk show host Dick Cavett. The Visitors, ABBA's eighth and final studio album, showed a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling distinctly lacking from their earlier recordings but still placing the band squarely in the pop genre, with catchy tunes and harmonies. Although not revealed at the time of its release, the album's title track, according to Ulvaeus, refers to the secret meetings held against the approval of totalitarian governments in Soviet-dominated states, while other tracks address topics like failed relationships, the threat of war, ageing, and loss of innocence. The album's only major single release, "One of Us", proved to be the last of ABBA's nine number 1 singles in Germany in December 1981; and the swansong of their sixteen Top 5 singles on the South African chart. "One of Us" was also ABBA's final Top 10 hit in the UK.

Although it topped the album charts across most of Europe, including the UK and Germany, The Visitors was not as commercially successful as its predecessors, showing a commercial decline in previously loyal markets such as France, Australia and Japan. A track from the album, "When All Is Said and Done", was released as a single in North America, Australia and New Zealand, and fittingly became ABBA's final Top 40 hit in the US (debuting on the US charts on 31 December 1981), while also reaching the US Adult Contemporary Top 10, and number 4 on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart in Canada. The song's lyrics, as with "The Winner Takes It All" and "One of Us", dealt with the painful experience of separating from a long-term partner, though it looked at the trauma more optimistically. With the now publicised story of Andersson and Lyngstad's divorce, speculation increased of tension within the band. Also released in the United States was the title track of The Visitors, which hit the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.

====Final recording sessions====
In the spring of 1982, songwriting sessions had started and the group came together for more recordings. Plans were not completely clear, but a new album, tentatively named Opus 10, was discussed and the prospect of a small tour suggested. The recording sessions in May and June 1982 were a struggle, and only three songs were eventually recorded: "You Owe Me One", "I Am the City" and "Just Like That". Andersson and Ulvaeus were not satisfied with the outcome, so the tapes were shelved and the group took a break for the summer. 

Back in the studio again in early August, the group had changed plans for the rest of the year: they settled for a Christmas release of a double album compilation of all their past single releases to be named . New songwriting and recording sessions took place, and during October and November, they released the singles "The Day Before You Came"/"Cassandra" and "Under Attack"/"You Owe Me One", the A-sides of which were included on the compilation album. Neither single made the Top 20 in the United Kingdom, though "The Day Before You Came" became a Top 5 hit in many European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The album went to number 1 in the UK and Belgium, Top 5 in the Netherlands and Germany and Top 20 in many other countries. "Under Attack", the group's final release before disbanding, was a Top 5 hit in the Netherlands and Belgium.

"I Am the City" and "Just Like That" were left unreleased on The Singles: The First Ten Years for possible inclusion on the next projected studio album, though this never came to fruition. "I Am the City" was eventually released on the compilation album Gold: More Hits|More ABBA Gold] in 1993, while "Just Like That" has been recycled in new songs with other artists produced by Andersson and Ulvaeus. A reworked version of the verses ended up in the musical Chess. The chorus section of "Just Like That" was eventually released on a retrospective box set in 1994. Despite a number of requests from fans, Ulvaeus and Andersson are still refusing to release ABBA's version of "Just Like That" in its entirety, even though the complete version surfaced on bootlegs.

The group travelled to London to promote The Singles: The First Ten Years in the first week of November 1982, appearing on Saturday Superstore and The Late, Late Breakfast Show, and also to West Germany in the second week, to perform on Show Express. On 19 November 1982, ABBA appeared for the last time in Sweden on the TV programme Nöjesmaskinen, and on 11 December 1982, they made their last performance ever, transmitted to the UK on Noel Edmonds' The Late, Late Breakfast Show, through a live link from a TV studio in Stockholm.

====Final performances====
Andersson and Ulvaeus began collaborating with Tim Rice in early 1983 on writing songs for the musical project Chess, while Fältskog and Lyngstad both concentrated on international solo careers. While Andersson and Ulvaeus were working on the musical, a further co-operation among the three of them came with the musical Abbacadabra that was produced in France for television. It was a children's musical utilising 14 ABBA songs. Alain and Daniel Boublil, who wrote Les Misérables, had been in touch with Stig Anderson about the project, and the TV musical was aired over Christmas on French TV and later a Dutch version was also broadcast. Boublil previously also wrote the French lyric for Mireille Mathieu's version of "The Winner Takes It All".

Lyngstad, who had recently moved to Paris, participated in the French version, and recorded a single, "Belle", a duet with French singer Daniel Balavoine. The song was a cover of ABBA's 1976 instrumental track "Arrival". As the single "Belle" sold well in France, Cameron Mackintosh wanted to stage an English-language version of the show in London, with the French lyrics translated by David Wood and Don Black; Andersson and Ulvaeus got involved in the project, and contributed with one new song, "The Seeker". "Abbacadabra" premièred on 8 December 1983 at The Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in London, to mixed reviews and full houses for eight weeks, closing on 21 January 1984. Lyngstad was also involved in this production, recording "Belle" in English as "Time", a duet with actor and singer B. A. Robertson: the single sold well, and was produced and recorded by Andersson and Ulvaeus.

Anni-Frid lyngstad performed "I Have A Dream" with a children's choir on French television in 1984 -solo-.

All four members made their final public appearance, as four friends more than as ABBA, in January 1986, when they recorded a video of themselves performing an acoustic version of "Tivedshambo", which was the first song written by their manager, Stig Anderson, for a Swedish TV show honouring Anderson on his 55th birthday. The four had not seen each other for more than two years. That same year they also performed privately at another friend's 40th birthday: their old tour manager, Claes af Geijerstam. They sang a self-written song titled "Der Kleine Franz" that was later to resurface in Chess. Also in 1986, ABBA Live was released, featuring selections of live performances from the group's 1977 and 1979 tours. The four members were guests at the 50th birthday of Görel Hanser in 1999. Hanser was a long-time friend of all four, and also former secretary of Stig Anderson. Honouring Görel, ABBA performed a Swedish birthday song "Med En Enkel Tulipan" a cappella. Björn Ulvaeus. raffem.com – ABBA's last known appearance (1999) 

Benny Andersson has on several occasions performed old ABBA songs. In June 1992, he and Ulvaeus appeared with U2 at a Stockholm concert, singing the chorus of "Dancing Queen", and a few years later during the final performance of the B & B in Concert in Stockholm, Andersson joined the cast for an encore at the piano. Andersson frequently adds an ABBA song to the playlist when he performs with his BAO band. He also played the piano during new recordings of the ABBA songs "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room" with opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, and "When All Is Said and Done" with Swede Viktoria Tolstoy. In 2002, Andersson and Ulvaeus both performed an a cappella rendition of the first verse of "Fernando" as they accepted their Ivor Novello award in London. Lyngstad performed and recorded an a cappella version of "Dancing Queen" with the Swedish group The Real Group in 1993, and has also re-recorded "I Have a Dream" with Swiss singer Dan Daniell in 2003.

===Breaking up===
ABBA has never officially announced the end of the group, but it has long been considered dissolved. Their final public performance together as ABBA was on the British TV programme The Late, Late Breakfast Show (live from Stockholm) on 11 December 1982. In January 1983, Fältskog started recording sessions for a solo album, as Lyngstad had successfully released her album Something's Going On some months earlier. Ulvaeus and Andersson, meanwhile, started songwriting sessions for the musical Chess. In interviews at the time, Björn and Benny denied the split of ABBA ("Who are we without our ladies? Initials of Brigitte Bardot?"), and Lyngstad and Fältskog kept claiming in interviews that ABBA would come together for a new album repeatedly during 1983 and 1984. Internal strife between the group and their manager escalated and the band members sold their shares in Polar Music during 1983. Except for a TV appearance in 1986, the foursome did not come together publicly again until they were reunited at the Swedish premiere of the Mamma Mia! movie on 4 July 2008.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, following the premiere, Ulvaeus and Andersson confirmed that there was nothing that could entice them back on stage again. Ulvaeus said: "We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were. Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition. I remember Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin were a cover band now because they cover all their own stuff. I think that hit the nail on the head." 
However, on 3 January 2011, Fältskog, who has been long considered to be the most reclusive member of the group and possibly also the major obstacle to any reunion, raised the possibility of reuniting for a one-off engagement. She admitted that she has not yet brought the idea up to the other three members. In April 2013, she reiterated her hopes for reunion during an interview with Die Zeit, stating: "If they ask me, I'll say yes." 

In a May 2013 interview, Faltskog, aged 63 at the time, confirmed that an Abba reunion will never eventuate: "I think we have to accept that it will not happen, because we are too old and each one of us has their own life. Too many years have gone by since we stopped, and there’s really no meaning in putting us together again." Faltskog further explained that the band members remained on amenable terms: "It’s always nice to see each other now and then and to talk a little and to be a little nostalgic." In an April 2014 interview, Faltskog, when asked about whether the band might reunite for a new recording said "It's difficult to talk about this because then all the news stories will be: 'Abba is going to record another song!' But as long as we can sing and play, then why not? I would love to, but it's up to Björn and Benny." 

===After ABBA===

====Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus====

In October 1984, Ulvaeus and Andersson together with lyricist Tim Rice released the musical concept double album Chess. The singles "One Night in Bangkok" (with vocals by Murray Head and Anders Glenmark ) and "I Know Him So Well" (a duet by Barbara Dickson and Elaine Paige, and later also recorded by both Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston) were both hugely successful. The former reached number 1 in Australia, Germany, Spain and Switzerland; number 2 in Austria, France and New Zealand; number 3 in Canada, Norway, Sweden and the US, as well as reaching the top 10 in a few other countries. In May 1986, the musical premièred in London's West End, and ran for almost three years. Chess also opened on Broadway in April 1988, but closed within two months due to bad reviews. In Stockholm, the composers staged Chess på svenska (Chess in Swedish) in 2003, with some new material, including the musical numbers "Han är en man, han är ett barn" ("He's a Man, He's a Child") and "Glöm mig om du kan" ("Forget Me If You Can"). In 2008, the musical was again revived for a successful staging at London's Royal Albert Hall which was subsequently released on DVD, and then in two successful separate touring productions in the United States and United Kingdom, in 2010.

Benny Andersson during a performance in Minnesota 2006

Andersson and Ulvaeus' next project, Kristina från Duvemåla, an epic Swedish musical, premiered in Malmö, in southern Sweden in October 1995. The musical ran for five years in Stockholm, and an English version has been in development for some considerable time. It has been reported that a Broadway production is in its earliest stages of pre-production. In the meantime, following some earlier workshops, a full presentation of the English translation of the musical in concert, now with the shortened name of "Kristina", took place to capacity crowds in September 2009 at New York's Carnegie Hall, and in April 2010 at London's Royal Albert Hall, followed by a CD release of the New York recordings.

Since 1983, besides Chess and Kristina från Duvemåla, Benny Andersson has continued writing songs with Ulvaeus. The pair produced two English-language pop albums with Swedish duo Gemini in 1985 and 1987. In 1987, Andersson also released his first solo album on his own label, Mono Music, called "Klinga mina klockor" ("Ring My Bells"), all new material inspired by Swedish folk music – and followed it with his second album titled November 1989.

In the 1990s, Andersson wrote music for the popular Swedish cabaret quartet Ainbusk Singers, giving them two hits: "Lassie" and "Älska mig" ("Love me"), and later produced Shapes, an English-language album by the group's Josefin Nilsson with all-new material by Andersson and Ulvaeus. Andersson has also regularly written music for films (most notably to Roy Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor). In 2001, Andersson formed his own band, Benny Anderssons Orkester (BAO), which released three successful albums in 2001, 2004 and 2007 respectively. Andersson has the distinction of remaining the longest in the Swedish Radio Svensktoppen charts; the song "Du är min man" ("You Are My Man"), sung by Helen Sjöholm, spent 278 weeks there between 2004 and 2009. Andersson released his third album BAO 3 in October 2007, of new material with his band BAO and vocalists Helen Sjöholm and Tommy Körberg, as well as playing to full houses at two of Sweden's largest concert venues in October and November 2007, with an audience of 14,000.

Björn Ulvaeus at Gothenburg Book Fair 2007 Ulvaeus has not appeared on stage performing music since ABBA, but had a reunion with his co-members of the Hootenanny Singers on 16 July 2005 at a music festival in his hometown of Västervik, singing their 1966 hit "Marianne".

Andersson and Ulvaeus have been highly involved in the worldwide productions of the musical Mamma Mia!, alongside Lyngstad who attends premieres. They were also involved in the production of the successful film version of the musical, which opened in July 2008. Andersson produced the soundtrack utilising many of the musicians ABBA used on their albums and tours. Andersson made a cameo appearance in the movie as a 'fisherman' piano player in the "Dancing Queen" scene, while Ulvaeus is seen as a Greek god playing a lyre during the closing credits.

Andersson and Ulvaeus have continuously been writing new material; most recently the two wrote 7 songs for Anderssons 'BAO' 2011 album 'O Klang Och Jubeltid', performed as usual by vocalists Sjöholm, Körberg and Moreus. In July 2009, 'BAO' released their first international release, now named The Benny Andersson Band, with the album The Story of a Heart. The album was a compilation of 14 tracks from Andersson's five Swedish-language releases between 1987 and 2007, including five songs now recorded with lyrics by Ulvaeus in English, and the new title song premiered on BBC2's Ken Bruce Show. A Swedish-language version of the title track, "Sommaren Du Fick" ("The Summer You Got"), was released as a single in Sweden prior to the English version, with vocals by Helen Sjöholm.
In the spring of 2009, Andersson also released a single recorded by the staff at his privately owned Stockholm hotel Hotel Rival, titled "2nd Best to None", accompanied by a video showing the staff at work. In 2008, Andersson and Ulvaeus wrote a song for Swedish singer Sissela Kyle, titled "Jag vill bli gammal" ("I Wanna Grow Old"), for her Stockholm stage show "Your Days Are Numbered", which was never recorded and released, but did get a TV performance. Ulvaeus also contributed lyrics to ABBA's 1976 instrumental track "Arrival" for Sarah Brightman's cover version recorded for her 2008 album Winter Symphony. New English lyrics have also been written for Andersson's 1999 song "Innan Gryningen" (then also named "Millennium Hymn"), with the new title "The Silence of the Dawn" for Barbara Dickson (performed live, but not yet recorded and released). In 2007, they wrote the new song "Han som har vunnit allt" ("He Who's Won It All") for actor/singer Anders Ekborg. Björn wrote English lyrics for two older songs from Benny's solo albums: "I Walk with You Mama" ("Stockholm by Night", 1989) and "After the Rain" ("Efter regnet", 1987) for opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, for her Andersson tribute album I Let the Music Speak. Barbara Dickson recorded (but not yet released) a Björn & Benny song called 'The Day The Wall Came Tumbling Down'; the song eventually was released by Australian 'Mamma Mia!' musical star Anne Wood 201 album of ABBA covers, Divine Discontent. As of October 2012, Björn Ulvaeus has mentioned writing new material with Benny for a 'BAO' Christmas release (also mentioned as a BAO 'box'), and Benny is busy writing music for a Swedish language obscure musical, 'Hjälp Sökes' ('Help is Wanted') together with Kristina Lugn and Lars Rudolfsson, premiering 8 February 2013.
Andersson has also written music for a documentary film about Olof Palme, re-recording the track 'Sorgmarch' from his last album throughout the film.

====Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad====

Both female members of ABBA pursued solo careers on the international scene after their work with the group. In 1982, Lyngstad chose Genesis drummer and vocalist Phil Collins to produce the album Something's Going On and unveiled the hit single and video "I Know There's Something Going On" in the autumn of that year. The single became a number 1 hit in France (where it spent five weeks at the top), Belgium, Switzerland and Costa Rica. The track reached number 3 in Austria, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Poland, and was also a Top 10 hit in Germany, Italy, Finland, South Africa and Australia. Sveriges Television documented this historical event, by filming the whole recording process. The result became a one-hour TV documentary, including interviews with Lyngstad, Collins, Ulvaeus and Andersson as well as all the musicians. This documentary and the promotion videos from the album are included in Frida - The DVD.

Lyngstad's second solo album after ABBA was called Shine, produced by Steve Lillywhite. Shine was recorded in Paris and released in 1984.Shine was Lyngstad's final studio album release for twelve years. It featured "Slowly", the last known Andersson-Ulvaeus composition to have been recorded by one of the former female ABBA vocalists to date. The promotion videos and clips for "Shine" are included in Frida – The DVD.

In 1980, Agnetha Fältskog recorded Nu tändas tusen juleljus (Now a thousand Christmas candles are lit) a Swedish Christmas album along with her 7 year old daughter Linda. The album was released in 1981. Nu tändas tusen julejus, which was Fältskog's first Swedish language recording for the Polar Music label after having left CBS-Cupol, peaked at No. 6 on the Swedish album chart in January 1982, has been re-released on CD by Polar Music/PolyGram/Universal Music all through the 1990s and 2000s and is one of the best-selling Swedish Christmas albums of all time. The album name is derived from one of Scandinavia's best-known Christmas carols.

In 1983, Fältskog released the solo album Wrap Your Arms Around Me which achieved platinum sales in Sweden. This included the single "The Heat Is On", which was a hit all over Europe and Scandinavia. It reached number one in Sweden and Norway and number two in the Netherlands and Belgium. In the United States, Fältskog earned a Billboard Top 30 hit with "Can't Shake Loose". In Europe, the single "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" was another successful hit, topping the charts in Belgium and Denmark, reaching the Top 5 in Sweden, the Netherlands and South Africa, and the Top 20 in Germany and France. The album sold 1,2 million copies worldwide. The album was produced by the highly successful producer and songwriter Mike Chapman, also known for his work with The Sweet, Mud, Suzi Quatro, Blondie, Pat Benatar and The Knack.

"It's So Nice to be Rich" was Agnetha's fourth top ten hit in Sweden in 1983. Her duet with Tomas Ledin, "Never Again" was the first one.

Fältskog's second English-language solo album, Eyes of a Woman, was released in March 1985, peaking at number 2 in Sweden and another platinum seller and performing reasonably well in Europe. The album was produced by Eric Stewart of 10cc. The first single from the album was her self-penned "I Won't Let You Go". Agnetha's duet with Ola Håkansson "The Way You Are" was a number one hit in Sweden in 1986 and was awarded double platinum.

In early 1987, Agnetha recorded an album "Kom följ med I vår karusell" ('Come ride with me on my carousell') with her son Christian. The album contained songs for children and was sung in Swedish. For the album Agnetha recorded duets with her son and with a choir of children. She also recorded a few solo songs. The production was modern and fresh. The single 'Pa Sondag' was much played at the radio and even made the Swedish top 10, unique for a song made for kids to enjoy.

Also in November 1987, Fältskog released her third post-ABBA solo album, the Peter Cetera-produced I Stand Alone, which also included the Billboard Adult Contemporary duet with Cetera, "I Wasn't the One (Who Said Goodbye)", as well as the European charting singles "The Last Time" and "Let It Shine". The album was extremely successful in Sweden, where it spent eight weeks at number 1 and was awarded double-platinum. Shortly after some minor European promotion for the album in early 1988, Fältskog withdrew from public life and halted her music career. In 1996, she released her autobiography, As I Am, and a compilation album featuring her solo hits alongside some ABBA classics.

In 2004, she made a successful comeback, releasing the critically acclaimed album My Colouring Book, which debuted at number 1 in Sweden (achieving triple-platinum status), number 6 in Germany, and number 12 in the UK, winning a silver award, and achieving gold status in Finland. The single "If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind" (a cover of the Cilla Black 1960s song) became Fältskog's biggest solo hit in the United Kingdom, reaching number 11. The single peaked at number 2 in Sweden and was a hit throughout Scandinavia and Europe. A further single, "When You Walk in the Room", was released but met with less success, only peaking at number 34 in the United Kingdom. In January 2007, she sang a live duet on stage with Swedish singer Tommy Körberg at the after party for the final performance of the musical, Mamma Mia!, in Stockholm, at which Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus were also present.

In 1992, Lyngstad had been asked and chosen to be the chairperson for the environmental organisation "Artister för miljön" (Artists for the Environment) in Sweden. She became chairwoman for this organisation from 1992 to 1995. To mark her interests for the environment, she recorded the Julian Lennon song "Saltwater" and performed it live in Stockholm. She arranged and financed summer camps for poor children in Sweden, focusing on environmental and ecological issues. Her environmental work for this organisation led up to the decision to record again. The album Djupa andetag (Deep Breaths) was released towards the end of 1996 and became a success in Sweden, where it reached number 1. The lyrics for the single from this album, "Även en blomma" ("Even a Flower"), deal with environmental issues. In 2004, Lyngstad recorded a song called "The Sun Will Shine Again", written especially for her and released with former Deep Purple member Jon Lord. The couple made several TV performances with this song in Germany. Lyngstad lives a relatively low-profile life but occasionally appears at a party or charity function. On 26 August 1992, she married Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen, of the German Reuss family. Von Plauen died of lymphoma in 1999 at the age of 49. In addition to losing her husband, Lyngstad had also lost her daughter Lise-Lotte in a car crash a year earlier.

On 15 November 2005, Lyngstad's 60th birthday, Universal released the Frida Box Set, consisting of the solo albums she recorded for the Polar Label. Also included is the 3-hour documentary Frida – The DVD. On this DVD, which covers her entire singing career, the viewer is guided by Lyngstad herself through the years from her TV debut in Sweden in 1967 to the TV performances she made in Germany in 2004. Many rare clips are included in the set and each performance is explained by Lyngstad herself. The interview with Lyngstad was filmed in the Swiss Alps in summer 2005.

Lyngstad returned to the recording studio in 2010 to record vocals for the Cat Stevens song "Morning Has Broken", for Swedish guitarist Georg Wadenius's October 2010 album Reconnections. The album, which featured other guest vocalists, reached number 17 in the Swedish charts.

In May 2013, Fältskog released a solo album entitled A through the Verve music label. In a promotional interview, Fältskog explained that the album was unplanned and it was after she heard the first three songs that she felt that she "had to do this the album". She also revealed that she completed singing lessons prior to recording A, as she felt a "a bit rusty" in her throat. Fältskog stated that she would not be undertaking any tours or live performances in support of the album, explaining: "I'm not that young anymore. I don’t have the energy to do that, and also I don’t want to travel too much." The title of the album was conceived of by the studio production team. 
In 2004 she recorded an album of 1960s covers who had the most impact on her teenage years as a music contender. "A" has been very successful, earning her 4 Gold Records in UK where it peaked at # 6, Australia, Germany and Sweden. In both UK and Australia it was in the top 100 albums of 2013.

===Revival===
The same year the members of ABBA went their separate ways, the French production of a "tribute" show (a children's TV musical named Abbacadabra using 14 ABBA songs) spawned new interest in the group's music.

After receiving little attention during the mid-to-late-1980s, ABBA's music experienced a resurgence in the early 1990s due to the UK synth-pop duo Erasure, who released a cover extended play featuring versions of ABBA songs which topped the charts in 1992. As U2 arrived in Stockholm for a concert in June of that year, the band paid homage to ABBA by inviting Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson to join them on stage for a rendition of "Dancing Queen", playing guitar and keyboards. September 1992 saw the release of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, a new compilation album. The single "Dancing Queen" received radio airplay in the UK in summer 1992 to promote the album. The song returned to the Top 20 of the UK singles chart in August that year, this time peaking at number 16.

The enormous interest in the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits compilation saw the release of in 1993.

In 1994, two Australian cult films caught the attention of the world's media, both focusing on admiration for ABBA: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding. The same year, Thank You for the Music, a four-disc box set comprising all the group's hits and stand-out album tracks, was released with the involvement of all four members. "By the end of the twentieth century", American critic Chuck Klosterman wrote a decade later, "it was far more contrarian to hate ABBA than to love them." (online copy) 

ABBA were soon recognised and embraced by other acts: Evan Dando of The Lemonheads recorded a cover version of "Knowing Me, Knowing You"; Sinéad O'Connor and Boyzone's Stephen Gately have recorded "Chiquitita"; Tanita Tikaram, Blancmange and Steven Wilson paid tribute to "The Day Before You Came". Cliff Richard covered "Lay All Your Love on Me", while Dionne Warwick, Peter Cetera, and Celebrity Skin recorded their versions of "SOS". U.S. alternative-rock musician Marshall Crenshaw has also been known to play a version of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" in concert appearances, while legendary English Latin pop songwriter Richard Daniel Roman has recognized ABBA as a major influence. Swedish metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen covered "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" with slightly altered lyrics.

Two different compilation albums of ABBA songs have been released. ABBA: A Tribute coincided with the 25th anniversary celebration and featured 17 songs, some of which were recorded especially for this release. Notable tracks include Go West's "One of Us", Army of Lovers "Hasta Mañana", Information Society's "Lay All Your Love on Me", Erasure's "Take a Chance on Me" (with MC Kinky), and Lyngstad's a cappella duet with The Real Group of "Dancing Queen". A second 12-track album was released in 1999, entitled ABBAMANIA, with proceeds going to the Youth Music charity in England. It featured all new cover versions: notable tracks were by Madness ("Money, Money, Money"), Culture Club ("Voulez-Vous"), The Corrs ("The Winner Takes It All"), Steps ("Lay All Your Love on Me", "I Know Him So Well"), and a medley entitled "Thank ABBA for the Music" performed by several artists and as featured on the Brits Awards that same year.

In 1997, an ABBA tribute group was formed, the ABBA Teens, which was subsequently renamed the A-Teens to allow the group some independence. The group's first album, "The ABBA Generation", consisting solely of ABBA covers reimagined as 1990s pop songs, was a worldwide success and so were subsequent albums. The group disbanded in 2004 due to a grueling schedule and intentions to go solo.

In Sweden, the growing recognition of the legacy of Andersson and Ulvaeus resulted in the 1998 B & B Concerts: a tribute concert (with Swedish singers who had worked with the songwriters through the years) showcasing not only their ABBA years, but hits both before and after ABBA. The concert was a success, and was ultimately released on CD. It later toured Scandinavia and even went to Beijing in the People's Republic of China for two concerts.

In 2000, ABBA was reported to have turned down an offer of approximately US$1,000,000,000 (one billion US dollars) to do a reunion tour consisting of 100 concerts. Basham, David (2 February 2000) "ABBA Nixes Billion-Dollar Offer To Reunite". MTV News. 

For the 2004 semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, staged in Istanbul 30 years after ABBA had won the contest in Brighton, all four members made cameo appearances in a special comedy video made for the interval act, entitled "Our Last Video Ever". Others well-known stars such as Rik Mayall, Cher and Iron Maiden's Eddie also made appearances in the video. It was not included in the official DVD release of the Eurovision Contest, but was issued as a separate DVD release, retitled The Last Video at the request of the former ABBA members.

In 2005, all four members of ABBA appeared at the Stockholm premiere of the musical Mamma Mia!. 

On 22 October 2005, at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest, "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the competition's history. 

On 4 July 2008, all four ABBA members were reunited at the Swedish premiere of the film Mamma Mia!. It was only the second time all of them had appeared together in public since 1986. During the appearance, they re-emphasized that they intended never to officially reunite, citing the opinion of Robert Plant that the re-formed Led Zeppelin was more like a cover band of itself than the original band. Ulvaeus stated that he wanted the band to be remembered as they were during the peak years of their success. 
Posing together with the actors from the motion picture Mamma Mia! The Movie on 4 July 2008, are the original ABBA members. Far left, Benny Andersson. Fifth from left, Agnetha Fältskog, with her hand on Anni-Frid Lyngstad's shoulder. Second from right, Björn Ulvaeus.
The compilation album , originally released in 1992, returned to number one in the UK album charts for the fifth time on 3 August 2008. On 14 August 2008, the Mamma Mia! The Movie film soundtrack went to number 1 on the US Billboard charts, ABBA's first US chart-topping album. During the band's heyday the highest album chart position they had ever achieved in America was number 14.

In November 2008, all eight studio albums, together with a ninth of rare tracks, was released as The Albums. Thomas, Stephen. (11-24-2008) The Albums – ABBA. AllMusic. Retrieved on 30 April 2012. It hit several charts, peaking at number 4 in Sweden and reaching the Top 10 in several other European territories.

In 2008, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, in collaboration with Universal Music Group Sweden AB, released SingStar ABBA on both the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 games consoles, as part of the SingStar music video games. The PS2 version features 20 ABBA songs, while 25 songs feature on the PS3 version.

On 22 January 2009, Fältskog and Lyngstad appeared together on stage to receive the Swedish music award "Rockbjörnen" (for "lifetime achievement"). In an interview, the two women expressed their gratitude for the honorary award and thanked their fans.

On 25 November 2009, PRS for Music announced that the British public voted ABBA as the band they would most like to see re-form. 

On 27 January 2010, ABBAWORLD, a 25-room touring exhibition featuring interactive and audiovisual activities, debuted at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London. According to the exhibition's website, ABBAWORLD is "approved and fully supported" by the band members. 

"Mamma Mia" was released as one of the first few non-premium song selections for the online RPG game Bandmaster. On 17 May 2011, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" was added as a non-premium song selection for the Bandmaster Philippines server. On 15 November 2011, Ubisoft released a dancing game called for the Wii.

In January 2012, Universal Music announced the re-release of ABBA's final album The Visitors, featuring a previously unheard track "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel". 

A book entitled Abba: The Official Photo Book was published in early 2014 to mark the 40-year anniversary of the band's Eurovision victory. The book reveals that part of the reason for the band's outrageous costumes were the Swedish tax laws at the time that allowed the cost of brazen outfits that were not suitable for public display to be deducted against tax. 

==Recording process==
Abba were perfectionists in the studio and would work on tracks tirelessly until they got them right, rather than leaving them and coming back to them later. ABBA – In Their Own Words, compiled by Rosemary York, 1981, pp 57–65. Omnibus Press ISBN 0-86001-950-0 
 
The band would create the basic rhythm track with a drummer, guitarist and bass player. All the other arrangements – vocals, other instruments – would be overlaid onto this basic track. The vocals would then be added, and orchestra overdubs were usually left till last. 

The women of the band would contribute ideas at the studio stage. Benny and Bjorn would play them the backing tracks and they would make comments and suggestions. According to Agnetha, the women had the final say in how the lyrics were shaped. Frida says: "When we gather around the piano to get our voices tuned up, we often come up with things we can use in the backing vocals." 

After all the vocals and overdubs had been done, the band would take up to five days to mix a song. 

==Awards and nominations==

==The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame==
On 15 March 2010, ABBA was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bee Gees members Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb. The ceremony was held at The Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The group was represented by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson. 

==Success in the United States==
During their active career, from 1972 to 1982, ABBA placed twenty singles on the Billboard Hot 100 fourteen of which made the top 40 (13 on the Cashbox Top 100) and ten of which made the Top 20 on both charts. A total of four of those singles reached the Top 10, including "Dancing Queen" which reached number 1 in April 1977.
While "Fernando" and "SOS" did not break the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, reaching #13 and #15 respectively, they did reach the Top 10 on Cashbox ("Fernando") and Record World ("SOS") charts. Both "Dancing Queen" and "Take A Chance On Me" were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies each. Gold & Platinum Searchable Database – April 19, 2014. RIAA. Retrieved on 19 April 2014. 

The group also had 12 Top 20 singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with two of them, "Fernando" and "The Winner Takes It All", reaching number 1. "Lay All Your Love on Me" was ABBA's fourth number 1 single on a Billboard chart, topping the Hot Dance Club Play chart. The singles "Dancing Queen" and "Take a Chance on Me" were certified gold (more than 1 million copies sold) by the RIAA.

Nine ABBA albums made their way into the top half of the Billboard 200 album chart, with seven of them reaching the Top 50 and four reaching the Top 20. ABBA: The Album was the highest-charting album of the group's career, peaking at No. 14. Five albums received RIAA gold certification (more than 500,000 copies sold), while three acquired platinum status (selling more than one million copies). In 1993, the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits collection was released in the United States and has since become a seven-time platinum best-seller. It also topped the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart (it also peaked at number 11 on a Billboard Comprehensive Albums chart).

==Fashion, style, videos, advertising campaigns==
ABBA was widely noted for the colourful and trend-setting costumes its members wore. Aftonbladet 4 February 2000: "The clothes were a part of making us popular." The reason for the wild costumes was Swedish tax law. The clothes could be deductible only if they could not be worn other than for performances. Choreography by Graham Tainton also contributed to their performance style.

The videos that accompanied some of the band's biggest hits are often cited as being among the earliest examples of the genre. Most of ABBA's videos (and ABBA: The Movie) were directed by Lasse Hallström, who would later direct the films My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat. ABBA: Bang a Boomerang. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, January 2013 (documentary, 57 mins), see 6:00–12:00 min (IMDB entry) 

ABBA made videos because their songs were hits in many different countries and personal appearances were not always possible. This was also done in an effort to minimize travelling, particularly to countries that would have required extremely long flights. Fältskog and Ulvaeus had two young children and Fältskog, who was also afraid of flying, was very reluctant to leave her children for such a long time. ABBA's manager, Stig Anderson, realized the potential of showing a simple video clip on television to publicize a single or album, thereby allowing easier and quicker exposure than a concert tour. Some of these videos became classics because of the 1970s-era costumes and early video effects, such as the grouping of the band members in different combinations of pairs, overlapping one singer's profile with the other's full face, and the contrasting of one member against another.

In 1976, ABBA participated in a high-profile advertising campaign by the Matsushita Electric Industrial (today's Panasonic), which was designed to promote the brand National. This campaign was designed initially for Australia, where "National" was still the primary brand used by Matsushita, who had not introduced the "Panasonic" brand to Australia yet despite its widespread use in other parts of the world such as the United States. However, the campaign was also aired in Japan. Five commercials, each approximately one minute long, were produced, each using the "National Song" sung by ABBA, which used the melody and instrumental arrangement of "Fernando", adapted with new lyrics promoting National, and working in several slogans used by National in their advertising. 

==Political controversy==
In September 2010, band members Andersson and Ulvaeus criticized the right-wing Danish People's Party (DF) for using the ABBA song "Mamma Mia" (with modified lyrics) at rallies. The band had threatened to file a lawsuit against the DF, saying they never allowed their music to be used politically and that they had absolutely no interest in supporting the party. Their record label Universal Music later said that no legal action would be taken because an agreement had been reached. 

==Discography==

* Ring Ring (1973)
* Waterloo (1974)
* ABBA (1975)
* Arrival (1976)
* The Album (1977)
* Voulez-Vous (1979)
* Super Trouper (1980)
* The Visitors (1981)

==Tours==
* European Tour (1974–1975)
* European & Australian Tour (1977)
* (1979–1980)

==ABBA-related tributes==
* Abbacadabra — A French children's musical based on songs from ABBA
* Abbacadabra — A tribute band
* Abbaesque — An Irish ABBA tribute band
* Abba-esque — Erasure's 1992 EP
* ABBAmania — An ITV programme and tribute album to Swedish pop band ABBA released in 1999
* Abbasalutely — A compilation album released in 1995 as a tribute album to ABBA
* adbacadabra — An American ABBA tribute band
* Arrival From Sweden — A Swedish ABBA tribute band, formed in 1995
* A*Teens — A pop music group from Stockholm, Sweden
* Björn Again — The earliest-formed ABBA tribute band (1988)
* Generation Abba — Live ABBA tribute concerts on tour in Canada, Europe and Middle-East
* Mamma Mia! — Musical stage show based on the songs of ABBA
* Mamma Mia! The Movie — Film adaption of the musical stage show
* Gabba — An ABBA/Ramones tribute band that covers the former in the style of the latter, the name being a pun on "Gabba Gabba Hey".
* Babba — Australian tribute band
* The Abba's/Supertroopers — A Dutch rock group, a spin-off from Hallo Venray, performing ABBA covers as well as Dutch traditionals
* Abba feeling-Hungarian tribute band
* AbbaShow – Double Italian ABBA tribute band.

==See also==

* 
* ABBAMAIL
* List of ABBA tribute albums
* List of best-selling music artists
* List of Swedes in music
* List of unreleased ABBA songs
* Music of Sweden
* Swedish popular music
* ABBA City Walks – Stockholm City Museum

==References==
Notes

Bibliography
* 

Further reading
*Carl Magnus Palm. ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions (1994)
* Oldham, Andrew, Calder, Tony & Irvin, Colin (1995) "ABBA: The Name of the Game", ISBN 0-283-06232-0
* Potiez, Jean-Marie (2000). ABBA – The Book ISBN 1-85410-928-6
* Palm, Carl Joslin (2004). From "ABBA" to "Mamma Mia!" ISBN 1-85227-864-1

==External links==

* 
* 
* ABBAinter.net TV-performances archive
* 
* ABBA Stars – funpage Czech revival ABBA Stars.
* ABBA Songs – ABBA Album and Song details.

 



[[Allegiance]]

An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed by a subject or a citizen to his/her state or sovereign.

==Etymology==
From Middle English ligeaunce (see medieval Latin ligeantia, "a liegance"). The al- prefix was probably added through confusion with another legal term, allegeance, an "allegation" (the French allegeance comes from the English). Allegiance is formed from "liege," from Old French liege, "liege, free", of Germanic origin. The connection with Latin ligare, "to bind," is erroneous.

==Usage==
The term allegiance was traditionally often used by English legal commentators in a larger sense, divided by them into natural and local, the latter applying to the deference which even a foreigner must pay to the institutions of the country in which he happens to live. However it is in its proper sense, in which it indicates national character and the subjection due to that character, that the word is more important.

In that sense it represents the feudal liege homage, which could be due only to one lord, while simple homage might be due to every lord under whom the person in question held land.

==United Kingdom==
The English doctrine, which was at one time adopted in the United States, asserted that allegiance was indelible: "Nemo potest exuere patriam". Accordingly, as the law stood before 1870, every person who by birth or naturalisation satisfied the conditions set forth, though he should be removed in infancy to another country where his family resided, owed an allegiance to the British crown which he could never resign or lose, except by act of parliament or by the recognition of the independence or the cession of the portion of British territory in which he resided. 

This refusal to accept any renunciation of allegiance to the Crown led to conflict with the United States over impressment, and then led to further conflicts even during the War of 1812, when thirteen Irish American prisoners of war were executed as traitors after the Battle of Queenston Heights; Winfield Scott urged American reprisal, but none was carried out. John Eisenhower (1997), Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of Winfield Scott, New York: Free Press. 

Allegiance is the tie which binds the subject to the Sovereign in return for that protection which the Sovereign affords the subject. It was the mutual bond and obligation between monarch and subjects, whereby subjects are called his liege subjects, because they are bound to obey and serve him; and he is called their liege lord, because he should maintain and defend them (Ex parte Anderson (1861) 3 El & El 487; 121 ER 525; China Navigation Co v Attorney-General (1932) 48 TLR 375; Attorney-General v Nissan 1 All ER 629; Oppenheimer v Cattermole 3 All ER 1106). The duty of the Crown towards its subjects is to govern and protect. The reciprocal duty of the subject towards the Crown is that of allegiance. 

At common law allegiance is a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to his Sovereign. As the subject owes to his king his true and faithful allegiance and obedience, so the Sovereign 

* duplex et reciprocum ligamen; quia sicut subditus regi tenetur ad obedientiam, ita rex subdito tenetur ad protectionem; merito igitur ligeantia dicitur a ligando, quia continet in se duplex ligamen (Calvin's Case (1608) 7 Co Rep 1a; Jenk 306; 2 State Tr 559; 77 ER 377).

Natural allegiance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every subject, for parte Anderson (1861) 3 El & El 487; 121 ER 525). Natural-born subjects owe allegiance wherever they may be. Where territory is occupied in the course of hostilities by an enemy's force, even if the annexation of the occupied country is proclaimed by the enemy, there can be no change of allegiance during the progress of hostilities on the part of a citizen of the occupied country (R v Vermaak (1900) 21 NLR 204 (South Africa)). 

Allegiance is owed both to the Sovereign as a natural person and to the Sovereign in the political capacity (Re Stepney Election Petition, Isaacson v Durant (1886) 17 QBD 54 (per Lord Coleridge CJ)). Attachment to the person of the reigning Sovereign is not sufficient. Loyalty requires affection also to the office of the Sovereign, attachment to royalty, attachment to the law and to the constitution of the realm, and he who would, by force or by fraud, endeavour to prostrate that law and constitution, though he may retain his affection for its head, can boast but an imperfect and spurious species of loyalty (R v O'Connell (1844) 7 ILR 261). 

There were four kinds of allegiances (Rittson v Stordy (1855) 3 Sm & G 230; De Geer v Stone (1882) 22 Ch D 243; Isaacson v Durant (1886) 54 LT 684; Gibson, Gavin v Gibson 3 KB 379; Joyce v DPP AC 347; Collingwood v Pace (1661) O Bridg 410; Lane v Bennett (1836) 1 M & W 70; Lyons Corp v East India Co (1836) 1 Moo PCC 175; Birtwhistle v Vardill (1840) 7 Cl & Fin 895; R v Lopez, R v Sattler (1858) Dears & B 525; Ex p Brown (1864) 5 B & S 280); 

(a) Ligeantia naturalis, absoluta, pura et indefinita, and this originally is due by nature and birthright, and is called alta ligeantia, and those that owe this are called subditus natus;

(b) Ligeantia acquisita, not by nature but by acquisition or denization, being called a denizen, or rather denizon, because they are subditus datus; 

(c) Ligeantia localis, by operation of law, when a friendly alien enters the country, because so long as they are in the country they are within the Sovereign's protection, therefore they owe the Sovereign a local obedience or allegiance (R v Cowle (1759) 2 Burr 834; Low v Routledge (1865) 1 Ch App 42; Re Johnson, Roberts v Attorney-General 1 Ch 821; Tingley v Muller 2 Ch 144; Rodriguez v Speyer AC 59; Johnstone v Pedlar 2 AC 262; R v Tucker (1694) Show Parl Cas 186; R v Keyn (1876) 2 Ex D 63; Re Stepney Election Petn, Isaacson v Durant (1886) 17 QBD 54);

(d) A legal obedience, where a particular law requires the taking of an oath of allegiance by subject or alien alike.

Natural allegiance was acquired by birth within the Sovereign's dominions (except for the issue of diplomats or of invading forces or of an alien in enemy occupied territory). The natural allegiance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every subject, for as soon as they are born they owe by birthright allegiance and obedience to the Sovereign (Ex p. Anderson (1861) 3 E & E 487). A natural-born subject owes allegiance wherever they may be, so that where territory is occupied in the course of hostilities by an enemy's force, even if the annexation of the occupied country is proclaimed by the enemy, there can be no change of allegiance during the progress of hostilities on the part of a citizen of the occupied country (R v Vermaak (1900) 21 NLR 204 (South Africa)). 

Acquired allegiance was acquired by naturalisation or denization. Denization, or ligeantia acquisita, appears to be threefold (Thomas v Sorrel (1673) 3 Keb 143); 

* (a) absolute, as the common denization, without any limitation or restraint;
* (b) limited, as when the Sovereign grants letters of denization to an alien, and the alien's male heirs, or to an alien for the term of their life;
* (c) It may be granted upon condition, cujus est dare, ejus est disponere, and this denization of an alien may come about three ways: by Parliament; by letters patent, which was the usual manner; and by conquest.

Local allegiance was due by an alien while in the protection of the Crown. All friendly resident aliens incurred all the obligations of subjects (The Angelique (1801) 3 Ch Rob App 7). An alien, coming into a colony also became, temporarily a subject of the Crown, and acquired rights both within and beyond the colony, and these latter rights could not be affected by the laws of that colony (Routledge v Low (1868) LR 3 HL 100; 37 LJ Ch 454; 18 LT 874; 16 WR 1081, HL; Reid v Maxwell (1886) 2 TLR 790; Falcon v Famous Players Film Co 2 KB 474). 

A resident alien owed allegiance even when the protection of the Crown was withdrawn owing to the occupation of an enemy, because the absence of the Crown's protection was temporary and involuntary (de Jager v Attorney-Geneneral of Natal AC 326). 

Legal allegiance was due when an alien took an oath of allegiance required for a particular office under the Crown. 

By the Naturalisation Act 1870, it was made possible for British subjects to renounce their nationality and allegiance, and the ways in which that nationality is lost are defined. So British subjects voluntarily naturalized in a foreign state are deemed aliens from the time of such naturalization, unless, in the case of persons naturalized before the passing of the act, they have declared their desire to remain British subjects within two years from the passing of the act. Persons who from having been born within British territory are British subjects, but who at birth became under the law of any foreign state subjects of such state, and also persons who though born abroad are British subjects by reason of parentage, may by declarations of alienage get rid of British nationality. Emigration to an uncivilized country leaves British nationality unaffected: indeed the right claimed by all states to follow with their authority their subjects so emigrating is one of the usual and recognized means of colonial expansion.

==United States==
The doctrine that no man can cast off his native allegiance without the consent of his sovereign was early abandoned in the United States, and Chief Justice John Rutledge also declared in Talbot v. Janson, "a man may, at the same time, enjoy the rights of citizenship under two governments." 3 U.S. 133, www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0003_Z04.html . On July 27, 1868, the day before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, U.S. Congress declared in the preamble of the Expatriation Act that "the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and (Section I) one of "the fundamental principles of this government" (United States Revised Statutes, sec. 1999). Every natural-born citizen of a foreign state who is also an American citizen and every natural-born American citizen who is a citizen of a foreign land owes a double allegiance, one to the United States, and one to his homeland (in the event of an immigrant becoming a citizen of the US), or to his adopted land (in the event of an emigrant natural born citizen of the US becoming a citizen of another nation). If these allegiances come into conflict, he or she may be guilty of treason against one or both. If the demands of these two sovereigns upon his duty of allegiance come into conflict, those of the United States have the paramouont authority in American law; likewise, those of the foreign land have paramount authority in their legal system. In such a situation, it may be incumbent on the individual to renounce one of his citizenships to avoid possibly being forced into situations where countervailing duties are required of him, such as might occur in the event of war.

==Oath of allegiance==

The oath of allegiance is an oath of fidelity to the sovereign taken by all persons holding important public office and as a condition of naturalization. By ancient common law it might be required of all persons above the age of 12, and it was repeatedly used as a test for the disaffected. In England it was first imposed by statute in the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558) and its form has more than once been altered since. Up to the time of the revolution the promise was, "to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him therefrom." This was thought to favour the doctrine of absolute non-resistance, and accordingly the convention parliament enacted the form that has been in use since that time – "I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty ..."

==In Islam==

The word used in the Arabic language for allegiance is bay'at (Arabic: بيعة), which means "taking hand". The practice is sanctioned in the Qur'an by Surah 48:10: "Verily, those who give thee their allegiance, they give it but to Allah Himself". The word is used for the oath of allegiance to an emir. It is also used for the initiation ceremony specific to many Sufi orders.

==See also==

* Impressment
* Legitimacy (political)
* Mandate of Heaven
* Pledge of Allegiance
* Renunciation of citizenship
* Treason
* Usurpation
* War of 1812
* Winfield Scott

==References==

;Attribution
* footnotes:
** See also Salmond on "Citizenship and Allegiance," in the Law Quarterly Review (July 1901, January 1902).

 



[[Altenberg]]

Altenberg (German for "old mountain") may refer to:

==Places==
===Germany===
* Altenberg, Saxony, a town in the Free State of Saxony
** Altenberg bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track, a venue for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton located in Altenberg, Saxony
* Altenberg (Bergisches Land), an area in Odenthal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
** Altenberg Abbey, Cistercian monastery in Altenberg (Bergisches Land)
** "Altenberg Cathedral", the former church of this Cistercian monastery
* Altenberg, part of Oberasbach, Bavaria
* Altenberg, part of Denkendorf, Bavaria
* Altenberg, part of Syrgenstein, Bavaria
* Altenberg is also a lost town and archaeological site in the Kreis Siegen-Wittgenstein, North Rhine-Westphalia
* Altenberga, municipality in the Saale-Holzfeld district, Thuringia
* Altenberg Abbey, Hesse, a former Premonstratensian nunnery near Wetzlar in Hesse
* Altenberg, a former zinc factory in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, now the Rheinische Industriemuseum
* Grube Altenberg, a derelict mine near Müsen in the Siegerland

===Austria===
* Altenberg in Tulln near Vienna, part of Sankt Andrä-Wördern in Lower Austria
* Altenberg bei Linz, in Upper Austria
* Altenberg an der Rax, in Styria

===Switzerland===
* Altenberg, a district in the city of Bern

===Belgium===
* Altenberg, the German name for Moresnet and Neutral Moresnet
** Altenberg, the German name for Vieille Montagne ("old mountain" in French), the former zinc mine in Kelmis, Moresnet

==People==
Any place called Altenberg may have given rise to Altenberg as a family name, such as:
* Jakob Altenberg (1875-1944), Austrian businessman
* Peter Altenberg (1859-1919), Austrian writer and poet
* Altenberg Publishing (1880-1934), a family business in Poland

==See also==
* Altenberg Lieder, Five Orchestral Songs by Alban Berg
* Altenburg (disambiguation)

__NOTOC__



[[MessagePad]]

The MessagePad is the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Computer for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was undertaken in Japan by the Sharp Corporation. The devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting recognition software and were developed and marketed by Apple. The devices ran the Newton OS.

==Details==
=== Screen and input ===
With the MessagePad 120 with Newton OS 2.0, the Newton Keyboard by Apple became available, which can also be used via the dongle on Newton devices with a Newton InterConnect port, most notably the Apple MessagePad 2000/2100 series, as well as the Apple eMate 300.

Newton devices featuring Newton OS 2.1 or higher can be used with the screen turned horizontally ("landscape") as well as vertically ("portrait"). A change of a setting rotates the contents of the display by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Handwriting recognition still works properly with the display rotated, although display calibration is needed when rotation in any direction is used for the first time or when the Newton device is reset.

eMate 300
MP2000

====Handwriting recognition====

In initial versions (Newton OS 1.x) the handwriting recognition gave extremely mixed results for users and was sometimes inaccurate. The original handwriting recognition engine was called Calligrapher, and was licensed from a Russian company called Paragraph International. Calligrapher's design was quite sophisticated; it attempted to learn the user's natural handwriting, using a database of known words to make guesses as to what the user was writing, and could interpret writing anywhere on the screen, whether hand-printed, in cursive, or a mix of the two. By contrast, Palm Pilot's Graffiti had a less sophisticated design than Calligrapher, but was sometimes found to be more accurate and precise due to its reliance on a fixed, predefined stroke alphabet. The stroke alphabet used letter shapes which resembled standard handwriting, but which were modified to be both simple and very easy to differentiate. Graffiti Accuracy Palm Computing also released two versions of Graffiti for Newton devices. Ironically, the Newton version sometimes performed better and could also show strokes as they were being written as input was done on the display itself, rather than on a silkscreen area.

For editing text, Newton had a very intuitive system for handwritten editing, such as scratching out words to be deleted, circling text to be selected, or using written carets to mark inserts. Read about HWR, ink text, Sketches, & Shapes in Apple's MessagePad Handbook available in Apple's Newton Manuals collection 

Later releases of the Newton operating system retained the original recognizer for compatibility, but added a hand-printed-text-only (not cursive) recognizer, called "Rosetta", which was developed by Apple, included in version 2.0 of the Newton operating system, and refined in Newton 2.1. Rosetta is generally considered a significant improvement and many reviewers, testers, and most users consider the Newton 2.1 handwriting recognition software better than any of the alternatives even 10 years after it was introduced. HWR accuracy:
*See comments in Wired's Apple Newton Just Won't Drop (4 yrs later)
*See text under "Handwriting Recognition" in Pen Computing's First Look at Newton OS 2.0
*See "Opportunity Squandered" in Pen Computing's Why did Apple kill the Newton?
*See comments under "Software" in MacTech's MessagePad 2000 review
*Comments by Pen Computing's editor
*See user testing results discussed in part 6 of this A.I. Magazine article on Newton HWR
*MessagePad 2000 review at Small Dog Electronics
*See comments under "Note-taking" in MessagePad 2000 review at "The History and Macintosh Society"
*What's Right With The Newton: HWR
*A very large number of references on slashdot.org, here are a few: "leaps and bounds ahead of what anyone was doing then or is doing now", "recognition is out of this world" in thread attached to Newton Won't Die, "still isn't a handwriting recognition system available that's as good" in thread attached to NewtonOS Running on Linux PDA, "recognition of 3 years ago is better than anything else on the market today" in thread attached to "Inkwell No Longer From the Newton?", "excellent handwriting recognition", "awesome recognition", ""great handwriting recognition" in thread attached to The Newton O.S. Creeps Toward New Hardware, "best I've ever seen" in thread attached to Apple Newton vs Samsung Q1 UMPC
*Assessment by Apple developer
*Prof. Warden's MessagePad 130 review
 Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas such as "1 + 2 =" was also under development but never released. 'Random historical thoughts...' - MARC. Marc.info (November 6, 2006). Retrieved on August 2, 2013. However, users wrote similar programs which could evaluate mathematical formulas using the Newton OS Intelligent Assistant, a unique part of every Newton device.

The handwriting recognition and parts of the user interface for the Newton are best understood in the context of the broad history of Pen computing, which is quite extensive. [http://users.erols.com/rwservices/pens/penhist.html Notes on the (relatively unknown) History of Pen-based Computing 

A vital feature of the Newton handwriting recognition system is the modeless error correction. That is, correction done in situ without using a separate window or widget, using a minimum of gestures. If a word is recognized improperly, the user could double-tap the word and a list of alternatives would pop up in a menu under the stylus. Most of the time, the correct word will be in the list. If not, a button at the bottom of the list allows the user to edit individual characters in that word. Other pen gestures could do such things as transpose letters (also in situ). The correction popup also allowed the user to revert to the original, un-recognized letter shapes - this would be useful in note-taking scenarios if there was insufficient time to make corrections immediately. To conserve memory and storage space, alternative recognition hypotheses would not be saved indefinitely. If the user returned to a note a week later, for example, they would only see the best match. Error correction in many current handwriting systems provides such functionality but adds more steps to the process, greatly increasing the interruption to a user's workflow that a given correction requires.

====User interface====

Text could also be entered by tapping with the stylus on a small on-screen pop-up QWERTY virtual keyboard, although more layouts were developed by users. Newton devices could also accept free-hand "Sketches", "Shapes", and "Ink Text", much like a desktop computer graphics tablet. With "Shapes", Newton could recognize that the user was attempting to draw a circle, a line, a polygon, etc., and it would clean them up into perfect vector representations (with modifiable control points and defined vertices) of what the user was attempting to draw. "Shapes" and "Sketches" could be scaled or deformed once drawn. "Ink text" captured the user's free-hand writing but allowed it to be treated somewhat like recognized text when manipulating for later editing purposes ("ink text" supported word wrap, could be formatted to be bold, italic, etc.). Pen Computing's First Look at Newton OS 2.0 At any time a user could also direct their Newton device to recognize selected "ink text" and turn it into recognized text (deferred recognition). A Newton note (or the notes attached to each contact in Names and each Dates calendar or to-do event) could contain any mix of interleaved text, Ink Text, Shapes, and Sketches.

===Connectivity===
The MessagePad 100 series of devices used Macintosh's proprietary serial ports&mdash;round Mini-DIN 8 connectors. The MessagePad 2000/2100 models (as well as the eMate 300) have a small, proprietary Newton InterConnect port. However, the development of the Newton hardware/software platform was canceled by Steve Jobs on February 27, 1998, so the InterConnect port, while itself very advanced, can only be used to connect a serial dongle. A prototype multi-purpose InterConnect device containing serial, audio in, audio out, and other ports was also discovered. In addition, all Newton devices have infrared connectivity, initially only the Sharp ASK protocol, but later also IrDA, though the Sharp ASK protocol was kept in for compatibility reasons. Unlike the Palm Pilot, all Newton devices are equipped with a standard PC Card expansion slot (two on the 2000/2100). This allows native modem and even Ethernet connectivity; Newton users have also written drivers for 802.11b wireless networking cards and ATA-type flash memory cards (including the popular CompactFlash format), as well as for Bluetooth cards. Newton can also dial a phone number through the built-in speaker of the Newton device by simply holding a telephone handset up to the speaker and transmitting the appropriate tones. Fax and printing support is also built in at the operating system level, although it requires peripherals such as parallel adapters, PCMCIA cards, or serial modems, the most notable of which is the lightweight Newton Fax Modem released by Apple in 1993. It is powered by 2 AA batteries, and can also be used with a power adapter. It provides data transfer at 2400 bit/s, and can also send and receive fax messages at 9600 and 4800 bit/s respectively.

===Power options===
The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 used four AAA batteries. They were eventually replaced by AA batteries with the release of the Apple MessagePad 110.

The use of 4 AA NiCd (MessagePad 110, 120 and 130) and 4x AA NiMH cells (MP2x00 series, eMate 300) give a runtime of up to 30 hours (MP2100 with two 20 MB Linear Flash memory PC Cards, no backlight usage) and up to 24 hours with backlight on. While adding more weight to the handheld Newton devices than AAA batteries or custom battery packs, the choice of an easily replaceable/rechargeable cell format gives the user a still unsurpassed runtime and flexibility of power supply. This, together with the flash memory used as internal storage starting with the Apple MessagePad 120 (if all cells lost their power, no data was lost due to the non-volatility of this storage), gave birth to the slogan "Newton never dies, it only gets new batteries".

===Later efforts and improvements===
The Apple MessagePad 2000/2100, with a vastly improved handwriting recognition system, 162 MHz StrongARM SA-110 RISC processor, Newton OS 2.1, and a better, clearer, backlit screen, attracted critical plaudits. 

===Cases===
Apple and third parties marketed several "wallets" (cases) for the handheld Newton devices, which would hold them securely along with the owner's credit cards, driver's license, business cards, and cash. Most also protected the LCD screen. 

==Market reception==
The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 were limited by the very short lifetime of their inadequate AAA batteries.

The Original Apple Newton's handwriting recognition was made light of in The Simpsons episode "Lisa on Ice".
Critics also panned the handwriting recognition that was available in the debut models, which had been trumpeted in the Newton's marketing campaign. It was this problem that was skewered in the Doonesbury comic strips Egg freckles comic strip in which a written text entry is (erroneously) translated as "Egg Freckles?", as well as in the animated television series The Simpsons. However, the word 'freckles' was not included in the Newton dictionary, although a user could add it themselves. Difficulties were in part caused by the long time requirements for the Calligrapher handwriting recognition software to "learn" the user's handwriting; this process could take anywhere from two weeks to two months.

Another factor which limited the early Newton devices' appeal was that desktop connectivity was not included in the basic retail package, a problem that was later solved with 2.x Newton devices - these were bundled with a serial cable and the appropriate Newton Connection Utilities software.

Later versions of Newton OS offered improved handwriting recognition, quite possibly a leading reason for the continued popularity of the devices among Newton users. Even given the age of the hardware and software, Newtons still demand a sale price on the used market far greater than that of comparatively aged PDAs produced by other companies. In 2006 CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to a Samsung Q1, and the Newton was declared better. Apple Newton vs Samsung Q1 UMPC, Special Features at CNET.co.uk In 2009, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to an iPhone, and the Newton was still declared better. Apple Newton vs iPhone 

A chain of dedicated Newton only stores called Newton Source existed from 1994 through 1998. Locations included NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. The Westwood Village, California, near U.C.L.A. featured the trademark red and yellow lightbulb Newton logo in neon. The stores provided an informative educational venue to learn about the Newton platform in a hands on relaxed fashion. The stores had no traditional computer retail counters and featured oval desktops where interested users could become intimately involved with the Newton product range. The stores were a model for the later Apple Stores. 

==Newton device models==

 Device Model No. Processor Memory Display Newton OS Version Newton OS languages Ports PCMCIA Power Weight & Dimensions Introduced Discontinued Code Name 
 OMP (Original Newton MessagePad) H1000 ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB ROM, 640kB RAM 336 x 240 (B&W) 1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11 English or German RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AAA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 0.41 kg, 18.42 cm H x 11.43 cm W x 1.91 cm D August 3, 1993 in the US, December 1993 in Germany March 1994 Junior 
 Sharp ExpertPad PI-7000 ? ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB ROM, 640kB RAM 336 x 240 (B&W) 1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11 English or Japanese RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AAA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 182mm x 112mm x 28mm (with screen lid open) August 3, 1993 in the US, ? in Japan March 1994 ? 
 Apple MessagePad 100 H1000 ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB ROM, 640kB RAM 336 x 240 (B&W) 1.3 English, German or French RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AAA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 0.41 kg, 18.42 cm H x 11.43 cm W x 1.91 cm D March 1994 April 1995 ? 
 Apple MessagePad 110 H0059 ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB ROM, 1 MB RAM 320 x 240 (B&W) 1.2 or 1.3 English or French RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 0.45 kg, 20.32 cm H x 10.16 cm W x 3 cm D March 1994 April 1995 Lindy 
 Sharp ExpertPad PI-7100 ? ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB ROM, 640kB RAM 336 x 240 (B&W) 1.3 English or Japanese RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AAA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 182mm x 112mm x 28mm (with screen lid open) April 1994 late 1994 ? 
 Apple MessagePad 120 H0131 ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB (OS 1.3) or 8 MB (OS 2.0) ROM, 1.0 MB, or 2.0 MB RAM 320 x 240 (B&W) 1.3 or 2.0 English, German or French RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 0.45 kg, 20.32 cm H x 10.16 cm W x 3 cm D October 1994 in Germany, January 1995 in the US June 1996 Gelato 
 Digital Ocean Tarpon ? ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB (OS 1.3) or 8 MB (OS 2.0) ROM, 687kB RAM, Flash memory 320 x 240 (B&W) 1.3 or 2.0 English RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 10\" x 4.5\" x 2.5\" (3 lb. 3 oz.) January 1995 in the US ? ? 
 Motorola Marco ? ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB (OS 1.3) ROM, 687kB RAM, Flash memory 320 x 240 (B&W) 1.3 English RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply ? January 1995 in the US ? ? 
 Harris SuperTech 2000 ? ARM 610 (20 MHz) 4 MB (OS 1.3) ROM, 687kB RAM, Flash memory 320 x 240 (B&W) 1.3 English RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply ? August 1995 in the US ? ? 
 Digital Ocean Seahorse ? ARM 610 (20 MHz) 8 MB (OS 2.0) ROM, 687kB RAM, Flash memory 320 x 240 (B&W) 2.0 English RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 9.5\" x 4.5\" x 2.5\" (48 oz.) January 1996 in the US ? ? 
 Apple MessagePad 130 H0196 ARM 610 (20 MHz) 8 MB ROM, 2.5 MB RAM 320 x 240 (B&W) w/ backlight 2.0 English or German RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared 1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply 0.45 kg, 20.32 cm H x 10.16 cm W x 3 cm D March 1996 April 1997 Dante 
 Apple eMate 300 H0208 ARM 710a (25 MHz) 8 MB ROM, 1 MB RAM, 2 MB Flash Memory, Expandable Internally to 2 MB Random Access Memory and 4 MB Flash Memory 480 x 320 greyscale (16 shades) w/ backlight 2.1 (2.2) English IrDA, headphone port, Interconnect port, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock 1 PCMCIA-slot I/II/III, 5v NiMH battery pack (built-in) or external power supply 1.81 kg, 30.5 cm H x 29 cm W x 5.33 cm D March 1997 February 1998 ? 
 Apple MessagePad 2000 H0136 StrongARM SA-110 (162 MHz) 8 MB ROM, 1 MB RAM, 4 MB Flash memory 480 x 320 greyscale (16 shades) w/ backlight 2.1 English Dual-mode IR; IrDA & SHARP ASK Infrared, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock, Phone I/O 2 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiMH rechargeable or external power supply 0.64 kg, 21.1 cm H x 11.94 cm W x 2.79 cm D March 1997 February 1998 Q 
 Apple MessagePad 2100 H0149 StrongARM SA-110 (162 MHz) 8 MB ROM, 4 MB RAM, 4 MB Flash memory 480 x 320 greyscale (16 shades) w/ backlight 2.1 English or German Dual-mode IR; IrDA & SHARP ASK Infrared, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock 2 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v 4 AA or NiMH rechargeable or external power supply 0.64 kg, 21.1 cm H x 11.94 cm W x 2.79 cm D November 1997 February 1998 ? 

Notes: The eMate 300 actually has ROM chips silk screened with 2.2 on them. Stephanie Mak on her website discusses this: Other Homebrew eMate Hacks 
If one removes all patches to the eMate 300 (by replacing the ROM chip, and then putting in the original one again, as the eMate and the MessagePad 2000/2100 devices erase their memory completely after replacing the chip), the result will be the Newton OS saying that this is version 2.2.00. Also, the Original MessagePad and the MessagePad 100 share the same model number, as they only differ in the ROM chip version. (The OMP has OS versions 1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11, while the MP100 has 1.3 that can be upgraded with various patches.)

 

==Other uses==
Petrosains uses Newton technology.
There were a number of projects that used the Newton as a portable information device in cultural settings such as museums. For example, Visible Interactive created a walking tour in San Francisco's Chinatown but the most significant effort took place in Malaysia at the Petronas Discovery Center, known as Petrosains. Petrosains 

In 1995, an exhibit design firm, DMCD Inc., was awarded the contract to design a new 100,000 sqft science museum in the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. A major factor in the award was the concept that visitors would use a Newton device to access additional information, find out where they were in the museum, listen to audio, see animations, control robots and other media, and to bookmark information for printout at the end of the exhibit.

The device became known as the ARIF, a Malay word for "wise man" or "seer" and it was also an acronym for A Resourceful Informative Friend. Some 400 ARIFS were installed and over 300 are still in use today. The development of the ARIF system was extremely complex and required a team of hardware and software engineers, designers, and writers. ARIF is an ancestor of the PDA systems used in museums today and it boasted features that have not been attempted since.

The Newton was also used in healthcare applications, for example in collecting data directly from patients. Newtons were used as electronic diaries, with patients entering their symptoms and other information concerning their health status on a daily basis. The compact size of the device and its ease of use made it possible for the electronic diaries to be carried around and used in the patients' everyday life setting. This was an early example of electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) 

==See also==
* Newton (platform)
* Newton OS
* eMate 300
* NewtonScript
* Orphaned technology
* Pen computing

==References==

==Bibliography==
* Apple's MessagePad 2100 description
* Apple's MessagePad 2100 technical specs
* A selection of PDFs of Apple's Newton manuals
* Apple's press release on the debut of the MessagePad 2100
* Apple's overview of features & limitations of Newton Connection Utilities
* Newton overview at Newton Source archived from Apple
* Newton FAQ
* Pen Computing's First Look at Newton OS 2.0
* Newton Gallery
* Birth of the Newton
* The Newton Hall of Fame: People behind the Newton
* Pen Computing's Why did Apple kill the Newton?
* Pen Computing's Newton Notes column archive
* A.I. Magazine article by Yaeger on Newton HWR design, algorithms, & quality and associated slides
* Info on Newton HWR from Apple's HWR Technical Lead
* Notes on the History of Pen-based Computing (YouTube)

==External links==

===Additional Resources & Information===
*Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton, by Kounalakis & Menuez (Hardcover)
**Hardcover: 192 pages
**Publisher: Beyond Words Publishing (October 1993)
**ISBN 0941831949
**ISBN 978-0941831949
*
*Complete Developer's manual for the StrongARM SA-110
*Beginner's overview of the StrongARM SA-110 Microprocessor

===Reviews===
*MessagePad 2000 review at "The History and Macintosh Society"
*Prof. Wittmann's collection of Newton & MessagePad reviews



[[A. E. van Vogt]]

Alfred Elton van Vogt (; April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded as one of the most popular and complex "Although Vogt catered for the pulps, he intensified the emotional impact and complexity of the stories they would bear" science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century: the "Golden Age" of the genre.

==Early life and writings==

Van Vogt was born on a farm in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba, Canada. Until he was four years old, van Vogt and his family spoke only a dialect of Low German in the home. Panshin, Alexei "Man Beyond Man. The Early Stories of A. E. van Vogt" (page 1). Retrieved 2010-08-29. Van Vogt's father, a lawyer, moved his family several times and his son found these moves difficult, remarking in later life:

After starting his writing career by writing for "true confession" style pulp magazines like True Story, van Vogt decided to switch to writing something he enjoyed, science fiction. Elliot, Jeffery: “An Interview with A. E. Van Vogt”, Science Fiction Review #23, 1977. Available online http://www.angelfire.com/art/megathink/vanvogt/vanvogt_interview.html Retrieved on 2010-08-29 This happened after he casually picked up the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction from a newsstand, and found the story "Who Goes There?". The story inspired him to write "Vault of the Beast", which he would send to the same magazine. It was rejected, but the rejection letter encouraged him to try again. He would then send in a new story called "The Black Destroyer", which was accepted, while a rewritten version of "Vault of the Beast" would be published in 1940.

Van Vogt's first SF publication was inspired by The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. Drake, H. L., A. E. van Vogt: Science Fantasy's Icon, Booklocker.com Inc, 2001, page 36. "The Black Destroyer" was published by John W. Campbell in Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939, the centennial year of Darwin's journal. It featured a fierce, carnivorous alien, the coeurl, stalking the crew of an exploration spaceship. The second Space Beagle story appeared in December, "Discord in Scarlet". Each was the cover story "The Voyage of the Space Beagle" (cover images for numerous editions and adaptations of "The Black Destroyer" and its series). The Weird Worlds of A. E. van Vogt. Magnus Axelsson (pre-2000 to 2009). Now hosted by icshi.net. Retrieved 2013-04-04. and was accompanied by interior illustrations, created by Frank Kramer and Paul Orban. Panshin, Alexei (1994). "Introduction to Slan". Connecticut: The Easton Press. Quote: "His first published SF story was "Black Destroyer" in the July 1939 Astounding. Not only was "Black Destroyer" pictured on the cover of the magazine, but it would be recognized as one of the most significant stories published in Astounding that year". (Van Vogt and Kramer thus debuted in the issue of Astounding that is sometimes singled out for ushering in the "Golden Age" of science fiction. For example, Peter Nicholls () says "The beginning of Campbell's particular Golden Age of SF can be pinpointed as the summer of 1939" and goes on to begin the discussion with the July 1939 issue. Lester del Rey () comments that "July was the turning point". ) The former story served as the inspiration for a number of science fiction movies.
In 1950, the two were combined with two other stories as a fix-up novel, The Voyage of the Space Beagle (Simon & Schuster), which was published in at least five European languages by 1955. Positing the need for exobiologists who will appreciate the differences between the inhabitants of other planets and ourselves, it stresses the importance of the civilian rather than military in exploration of other cultures.

Van Vogt's first completed novel, and one of his most famous, is Slan (Arkham House, 1946), which Campbell serialized in Astounding September to December 1940. Using what became one of van Vogt's recurring themes, it told the story of a 9-year-old superman living in a world in which his kind are slain by Homo sapiens.

In 1941, van Vogt decided to become a full-time writer, quitting his job at the Canadian Department of National Defence. Extremely prolific for a few years, van Vogt wrote a large number of short stories. In the 1950s, many of them were retrospectively patched together into novels, or "fixups" as he called them, a term which entered the vocabulary of science fiction criticism. When the original stories were related (e.g., The War against the Rull) this was often successful. When not (e.g., Quest for the Future) the disparate stories thrown together generally made for a less coherent plot.

==Post-war philosophy==

In 1944, van Vogt moved to Hollywood, California, where his writing took on new dimensions after World War II. Van Vogt was always interested in the idea of all-encompassing systems of knowledge (akin to modern meta-systems)—the characters in his very first story used a system called "Nexialism" to analyze the alien's behaviour, and he became interested in the general semantics of Alfred Korzybski.

He subsequently wrote three novels merging these overarching themes, The World of Null-A and The Pawns of Null-A in the late 1940s, and Null-A Three in the early 1980s. Null-A, or non-Aristotelian logic, refers to the capacity for, and practice of, using intuitive, inductive reasoning (compare fuzzy logic), rather than reflexive, or conditioned, deductive reasoning.

Van Vogt was also profoundly affected by revelations of totalitarian police states that emerged after World War II. He wrote a mainstream novel that was set in Communist China, The Violent Man (1962); he said that to research this book he had read 100 books about China. Into this book he incorporated his view of "the violent male type", which he described as a "man who had to be right", a man who "instantly attracts women" and who he said were the men who "run the world". 

At the same time, in his fiction, van Vogt was consistently sympathetic to absolute monarchy as a form of government. This was the case, for instance, in the Weapon Shop series, the Mixed Men series, and in single stories such as "Heir Apparent" (1945), whose protagonist was described as a "benevolent dictator".

Van Vogt systematized his writing method, using scenes of 800 words or so where a new complication was added or something resolved. Several of his stories hinge on temporal conundra, a favorite theme. He stated that he acquired many of his writing techniques from three books: Narrative Technique by Thomas Uzzell, The Only Two Ways to Write a Story by John Gallishaw, and Twenty Problems of the Short-Story Writer by Gallishaw. 

He also claimed many of his ideas came from dreams; throughout his writing life he arranged to be awakened every 90 minutes during his sleep period so he could write down his dreams. Platt, Charles, "A. E. van Vogt – A Profile". From Who Writes Science Fiction? (London: Savoy Books, 1980); Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction (Berkeley Books, 1980). 

In 1950, van Vogt was briefly appointed as head of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics operation in California. Dianetics was the secular precursor to Hubbard's Church of Scientology. The operation went broke nine months later, but never went bankrupt, due to van Vogt's arrangements with creditors. Van Vogt and his wife opened their own Dianetics centre, partly financed by his writings, until he "signed off" around 1961. At the time of his interview with Charles Platt, van Vogt was still president of the Californian Association of Dianetic Auditors.

In 1951, he published "The Weapon Shops of Isher", a true science fiction classic with strong political overtones. Between 1950 and 1960, van Vogt produced collections, notable fixups such as: The Mixed Men (1952) and The War Against the Rull (1959), and the two "Clane" novels, Empire of the Atom (1957) and The Wizard of Linn (1962), which were inspired (like Asimov's Foundation series) by the fall of the Roman Empire, specifically Claudius. He resumed writing again in the 1960s, mainly at Frederik Pohl's invitation. His later novels included fixups such as The Beast (aka Moonbeast) (1963), Rogue Ship (1965), Quest for the Future (1970) and Supermind (1977); expanded short stories (The Darkness on Diamondia (1972), Future Glitter (aka Tyranopolis) (1973); original novels such as Children of Tomorrow (1970), The Battle of Forever (1971) and The Anarchistic Colossus (1977); plus sequels to his classic works, many of which were promised, but only one of which appeared, Null-A Three (1984; originally published in French). Several later books were original in Europe, and at least one novel has only ever appeared in Italian, no English version yet published.
On January 26, 2000, van Vogt died in Los Angeles, USA from Alzheimer's disease and was survived by his second wife, the former Lydia Bereginsky.

==Critical reception==

Critical opinion about the quality of van Vogt's work has been sharply divided.

One early and articulate critic was Damon Knight. In a chapter-long essay reprinted in In Search of Wonder, entitled "Cosmic Jerrybuilder: A. E. van Vogt", Knight famously remarked that van Vogt "is no giant; he is a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter". Knight described The World of Null-A as "one of the worst allegedly-adult science fiction stories ever published". About van Vogt's writing, Knight said:

About Empire of the Atom Knight wrote:

Knight also expressed misgivings about van Vogt's politics, noting that his stories almost invariably present absolute monarchy in a favorable light.

On the other hand, when science fiction author Philip K. Dick was asked "Vertex Interviews Philip K. Dick". Vertex, Vol. 1, no. 6, February 1974. which science fiction writers had influenced his work the most, he replied:

Dick also defended van Vogt against Damon Knight’s criticisms:

In a review of Transfinite: The Essential A.E. van Vogt, science fiction writer Paul Di Filippo said:

In The John W. Campbell Letters, Campbell says, "The son-of-a-gun gets hold of you in the first paragraph, ties a knot around you, and keeps it tied in every paragraph thereafter—including the ultimate last one". 

Harlan Ellison (who began reading van Vogt as a teenager) Ellison, Harlan (June 1999), "Van is Here, But Van is Gone". Introduction to Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A.E. van Vogt (Kilimanjaro Corp., 1999). Reprinted in "A. E. van Vogt, 1912-2000" (SFRevu 2001-01-28). Retrieved 2001-08-31. Quote: "Van is still with us, as I write this, in June of 1999, slightly less than fifty years since I first encountered van Vogt prose in a January 1950 issue of Startling Stories ...." wrote, "Van was the first writer to shine light on the restricted ways in which I had been taught to view the universe and the human condition". 

Writing in 1984 David Hartwell said: Hartwell, David (1984), Age of Wonders: Exploring the Worlds of Science Fiction, New York, Walker, pages 131-32. ISBN 978-0-89366-163-2. 

The literary critic Leslie A. Fiedler said something similar: Fiedler, Leslie A. (1983), "The Criticism of Science Fiction", Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy, ed. George E. Slusser, Eric S. Rabkin, and Robert Scholes (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press), pages 10-11. ISBN 978-0-8093-1105-7. 

The American literary critic Fredric Jameson says of van Vogt:

Nevertheless, van Vogt still has his critics. For example Darrell Schweitzer writing to The New York Review of Science Fiction in 1999 Schweitzer, Darrell (1999), "Letters of Comment", The New York Review of Science Fiction, May 1999, Number 129, Vol. 11, No. 9. quoted a passage from the original van Vogt novelette "The Mixed Men", which he was then reading, and remarked:

==Recognition==

In 1946, van Vogt and his first wife, Edna Mayne Hull, were Guests of Honor at the fourth World Science Fiction Convention. 

In 1980, van Vogt received a "Casper Award" (precursor to the Canadian Prix Aurora Awards) for Lifetime Achievement. 

The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 14th Grand Master in 1995 (presented 1996). 
There had been great controversy within SFWA regarding its long wait in bestowing its highest honor (limited to living writers, no more than one annually ). Writing an obituary of van Vogt, Robert J. Sawyer, a fellow Canadian writer of science fiction remarked:

It is generally held that the "damnable SFWA politics" concerns Damon Knight, the founder of the SFWA, who abhorred van Vogt's style and politics and thoroughly demolished his literary reputation in the 1950s. Hartwell, David: "The Way We Were: A. E. van Vogt, 1912-2000", The New York Review of Science Fiction, March 2000, Number 139, Vol. 12, No. 7, page 24. 

Harlan Ellison was more explicit in 1999 introduction to Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A. E. van Vogt: 

In 1996, van Vogt received a Special Award from the World Science Fiction Convention "for six decades of golden age science fiction". That same year, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in its inaugural class of two deceased and two living persons, along with writer Jack Williamson (also living) and editors Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell. 

The works of van Vogt were translated into French by the surrealist Boris Vian (The World of Null-A as Le Monde des Å in 1958), and van Vogt's works were "viewed as great literature of the surrealist school". Watson, Ian (1999), "Science Fiction, Surrealism, and Shamanism", The New York Review of Science Fiction, June 1999, Number 130, Vol. 11, No. 10, page 9. 

==Quotes==
Concerning Theodore Sturgeon's death, van Vogt commented: 

==Works==

===Novels===
Primary dates represent first publication in book form.
* Slan (1946) serial
* The Weapon Makers (1947) (serial 1943, revised 1952) (also published as One Against Eternity (1964))
* The Book of Ptath (1947) (in Unknown Worlds, 1947) (later as Two Hundred Million A.D. and Ptath )
* The World of Null-A (1948) (revised from 1945 serial, and again 1970)
* The House That Stood Still (1950), also published as The Mating Cry and The Undercover Aliens. The sexual interludes anonymously added to The Mating Cry for its Galaxy Beacon edition have been retained in many later editions.
* The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) shorts
* The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951) up
* The Mixed Men (1952), also published as Mission to the Stars up
* The Universe Maker (1953) (revised from 1950 story, 'The Shadow Men')
* Planets for Sale (1954), with Edna Mayne Hull shorts
* The Pawns of Null-A (1956), also published as The Players of Null-A
* The Mind Cage (1957) from short, 'The Great Judge', 1948
* Empire of the Atom (1957) shorts
* Siege of the Unseen (1959) 'The Chronicler' (1946) published as The Three Eyes of Evil
* The War against the Rull (1959) 
* Earth's Last Fortress (1960), first stand-alone publication, previously titled Recruiting Station and Masters of Time
* The Wizard of Linn (1962) (serial, 1950)
* The Violent Man (1962), political thriller set in China
* The Beast (1963), also published as Moonbeast 
* Rogue Ship (1965) 
* The Winged Man (1966), with Edna Mayne Hull
* The Changeling (1967) stand-alone publication of story first published in 1942 and 1944 in Astounding Stories
* The Silkie (1969) short stories
* Children of Tomorrow (1970)
* Quest for the Future (1970) 
* The Battle of Forever (1971)
* The Darkness on Diamondia (1972) short story
* Future Glitter (1973), also published as Tyranopolis
* The Man with a Thousand Names (1974)
* The Secret Galactics (1974), also published as Earth Factor X
* Supermind (1977) short stories; including a collaboration with James H. Schmitz and Edna Mayne Hull
* The Anarchistic Colossus (1977)
* The Enchanted Village (1979), chapbook
* Renaissance (1979)
* Cosmic Encounter (1979)
* Computerworld (1983), also published as Computer Eye
* Null-A Three (1984)
* To Conquer Kiber (1985) published in English
* Slan Hunter (2007), with Kevin J. Anderson

===Collections===
* Out of the Unknown (1948), with Edna Mayne Hull
* Masters of Time (1950) (aka Recruiting Station) includes The Changeling, both works were later published separately
* Triad (1951) omnibus of The World of Null A, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, Slan.
* Away and Beyond (1952) (abridged in paperback in 1959; abridged (differently) in paperback in 1963)
* (1952)
* The Twisted Men (1964)
* Monsters (1965) (later as SF Monsters (1967)) abridged as The Blal (1976)
* A Van Vogt Omnibus (1967), omnibus of Planets for Sale (with Edna Mayne Hull), The Beast, The Book of Ptath
* The Far Out Worlds of Van Vogt (1968)
* The Sea Thing and Other Stories (1970) (expanded from Out of the Unknown by adding an original story by Hull; later abridged in paperback as Out of the Unknown by removing 2 of the stories)
* M33 in Andromeda (1971)
* More Than Superhuman (1971)
* The Proxy Intelligence and Other Mind Benders, ), with Edna Mayne Hull (1971), revised as The Gryb (1976)
* Van Vogt Omnibus 2 (1971), omnibus of The Mind Cage, The Winged Man (with Edna Mayne Hull), Slan.
* The Book of Van Vogt (1972), also published as Lost: Fifty Suns (1979)
* The Three Eyes of Evil Including Earth's Last Fortress (1973)
* The Best of A. E. van Vogt (1974) later split into 2 volumes
* The Worlds of A. E. van Vogt (1974) (expanded from The Far Out Worlds of Van Vogt by adding 3 stories)
* The Best of A. E. van Vogt (1976) to 1974 edition
* Away and Beyond (1977)
* Pendulum (1978) (almost all original stories and articles)
* Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A.E. Van Vogt (1999)
* Transfinite: The Essential A.E. van Vogt (2002)
* Transgalactic (2006)

===Nonfiction===
* The Hypnotism Handbook (1956, Griffin Publishing Company, with Charles Edward Cooke)
* The Money Personality (1972, Parker Publishing Company Inc, West Nyack, NY, ISBN 978-0-13-600676-3)
* Reflections of A. E. Van Vogt: The Autobiography of a Science Fiction Giant (1979, Fictioneer Books Ltd, Lakemont, GA)
* A Report on the Violent Male (1992, Paupers' Press, UK, ISBN 978-0-946650-40-8)

==See also==
 

==Notes==

==References==

==External links==
* 
* Sevagram, the A.E. van Vogt information site
* Obituary at LocusOnline (Locus Publications)
* "Writers: A. E. van Vogt (1912–2000, Canada)" – bibliography at SciFan
* 
* A. E. van Vogt's fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
* 



[[Anna Kournikova]]

Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova (; born 7 June 1981) is a Russian American retired professional tennis player. Her appearance and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide, despite her never winning a WTA singles title. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on Google Search. 

Despite her lack of a title, she reached No. 8 in the world in 2000. She achieved greater success playing doubles, where she was at times the World No. 1 player. With Martina Hingis as her partner, she won Grand Slam titles in Australia in 1999 and 2002. They referred to themselves as the "Spice Girls of Tennis". 

Kournikova's professional tennis career ended prematurely at the age of 21 due to serious back and spinal problems, including a herniated disk. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida, and plays in occasional exhibitions and in doubles for the St. Louis Aces of World Team Tennis. She was a new trainer for season 12 of the television show The Biggest Loser, replacing Jillian Michaels, but did not return for season 13. In addition to her tennis and television work, Kournikova serves as a Global Ambassador for Population Services International's "Five & Alive" program, which addresses health crises facing children under the age of five and their families. 

== Early life ==
Anna Kournikova was born in Moscow, Soviet Union, on 7 June 1981. Her father, Sergei Kournikov (born 1961), a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion, eventually earned a PhD and was a professor at the University of Physical Culture and Sport in Moscow. As of 2001, he was still a part-time martial arts instructor there. Her mother Alla (born 1963) had been a 400-metre runner. 

Sergei Kournikov has said, "We were young and we liked the clean, physical life, so Anna was in a good environment for sport from the beginning". 

Kournikova received her first tennis racquet as a New Year gift in 1986 at age 5. Describing her early regimen, she said, "I played two times a week from age six. It was a children's program. And it was just for fun; my parents didn't know I was going to play professionally, they just wanted me to do something because I had lots of energy. It was only when I started playing well at seven that I went to a professional academy. I would go to school, and then my parents would take me to the club, and I'd spend the rest of the day there just having fun with the kids." In 1986, Kournikova became a member of the Spartak Tennis Club, coached by Larissa Preobrazhenskaya. In 1989, at the age of eight, Kournikova began appearing in junior tournaments, and by the following year, was attracting attention from tennis scouts across the world. Kournikova signed a management deal at age ten and went to Bradenton, Florida, to train at Nick Bollettieri's celebrated tennis academy. 

== Tennis career ==

=== 1989–1997: Early years and breakthrough ===
Following her arrival in the United States, Kournikova became prominent on the tennis scene. At 14, she won the European Championships and the Italian Open Junior tournament. She became the youngest player to win the 18-and-under division of the Junior Orange Bowl tennis tournament. By the end of the year, Kournikova was crowned the ITF Junior World Champion U-18 and Junior European Champion U-18. 

In 1994, Kournikova received a wild card into ITF tournament in Moscow qualifications, but lost to third seeded Sabine Appelmans. She debuted in professional tennis at 14 in the Fed Cup for Russia, the youngest player ever to participate and win. In 1995, she turned pro, and won two ITF titles, in Midland, Michigan and Rockford, Illinois. The same year Kournikova reached her first WTA Tour doubles final at the Kremlin Cup. Partnering with 1995 Wimbledon girls' champion in both singles and doubles Aleksandra Olsza, they lost to Meredith McGrath and Larisa Neiland.

In 1996, she started playing under a new coach, Ed Nagel. Her six-year tenure with Ed would produce terrific results. At 15, she made her grand slam debut, when she reached the fourth round of the 1996 US Open, only to be stopped by then-top ranked player Steffi Graf, the eventual champion. After this tournament, Kournikova's ranking jumped from No. 144 to debut in the Top 100 at No. 69. Kournikova was a member of the Russian delegation to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1996, she was named WTA Newcomer of the Year, and she was ranked No. 57 in the end of the season. 

Kournikova entered the 1997 Australian Open as World No. 67, where she lost in the first round to World No. 12 Amanda Coetzer. At the Italian Open, Kournikova lost to Amanda Coetzer in the second round. However, she reached the semifinals in the doubles partnering with Elena Likhovtseva, before losing to the sixth seeds Mary Joe Fernández and Patricia Tarabini. 

At the 1997 French Open, Kournikova made it to the third round before losing to World No. 1 Martina Hingis. She also reached the third round in doubles with Likhovtseva. At the 1997 Wimbledon Championships, Kournikova became only the second woman in the open era to reach the semifinals in her Wimbledon debut, the first being Chris Evert in 1972. There she lost to eventual champion Martina Hingis.

At the 1997 US Open, she lost in the second round to the eleventh seed Irina Spîrlea. Partnering with Likhovtseva, she reached the third round of the women's doubles event. Kournikova played her last WTA Tour event of 1997 at Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt, losing to Amanda Coetzer in the second round of singles, and in the first round of doubles to Lindsay Davenport and Jana Novotná partnering with Likhovtseva. She broke into the top 50 on 19 May, and was ranked No. 32 in singles and No. 41 in doubles at the end of the season. 

=== 1998–2000: Success and stardom ===
In 1998, Kournikova broke into the WTA's top 20 rankings for the first time, when she was ranked No. 16. At the 1998 Australian Open, Kournikova lost in the third round to World No. 1 player Martina Hingis. She also partnered with Larisa Neiland in women's doubles, and they lost to eventual champions Hingis and Mirjana Lučić in the second round. Although she lost in the second round of the Paris Open to Anke Huber in singles, Kournikova reached her second doubles WTA Tour final, partnering with Larisa Neiland. They lost to Sabine Appelmans and Miriam Oremans. Kournikova and Neiland reached their second consecutive final at the Linz Open, losing to Alexandra Fusai and Nathalie Tauziat. At the Miami Open, Kournikova reached her first WTA Tour singles final, before losing to Venus Williams in the final. 

 Anna Kournikova practices her backhand for a match at the Family Circle Cup Tennis Tournament on Daniel Island in Charleston, South Carolina.
Kournikova then reached two consecutive quarterfinals, at Amelia Island and the Italian Open, losing respectively to Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis. At the German Open, she reached the semifinals in both singles and doubles, partnering with Larisa Neiland. At the 1998 French Open Kournikova had her best result at this tournament, making it to the fourth round before losing to Jana Novotná. She also reached her first Grand Slam doubles semifinals, losing with Neiland to Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva. During her quarterfinals match at the grass-court Eastbourne Open versus Steffi Graf, Kournikova injured her thumb, which would eventually force her to withdraw from the 1998 Wimbledon Championships. However, she won that match, but then withdraw from her semifinals match against Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Kournikova returned for the Du Maurier Open and made it to the third round, before losing to Conchita Martínez. At the 1998 US Open Kournikova reached the fourth round before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Her strong year qualified her for the year-end 1998 WTA Tour Championships, but she lost to Monica Seles in the first round. However, with Seles, she won her first WTA doubles title, in Tokyo, beating Mary Joe Fernández and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final. At the end of the season, she was ranked No. 10 in doubles. 

At the start of the 1999 season, Kournikova advanced to the fourth round in singles before losing to Mary Pierce. However, Kournikova won her first doubles Grand Slam title, partnering Martina Hingis. The two defeated Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva in the final. At the Tier I Family Circle Cup, Kournikova reached her second WTA Tour final, but lost to Martina Hingis. She then defeated Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and Patty Schnyder on her route to the Bausch & Lomb Championships semifinals, losing to Ruxandra Dragomir. At The French Open, Kournikova reached the fourth round before losing to eventual champion Steffi Graf. Once the grass-court season commenced in England, Kournikova lost to Nathalie Tauziat in the semifinals in Eastbourne. At Wimbledon, Kournikova lost to Venus Williams in the fourth round. She also reached the final in mixed doubles, partnering with Jonas Björkman, but they lost to Leander Paes and Lisa Raymond. Kournikova again qualified for year-end WTA Tour Championships, but lost to Mary Pierce in the first round, and ended the season as World No. 12. 

Kournikova (left) with doubles partner Martina Hingis.
While Kournikova had a successful singles season, she was even more successful in doubles. After their victory at the Australian Open, she and Martina Hingis won tournaments in Indian Wells, Rome, Eastbourne and the WTA Tour Championshiops, and reached the final of The French Open where they lost to Serena and Venus Williams. Partnering with Elena Likhovtseva, Kournikova also reached the final in Stanford. On 22 November 1999 she reached the World No. 1 ranking in doubles, and ended the season at this ranking. Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis were presented with the WTA Award for Doubles Team of the Year.

Kournikova opened her 2000 season winning the Gold Coast Open doubles tournament partnering with Julie Halard. She then reached the singles semifinals at the Medibank International Sydney, losing to Lindsay Davenport. At the 2000 Australian Open, she reached the fourth round in singles and the semifinals in doubles. That season, Kournikova reached eight semifinals (Sydney, Scottsdale, Stanford, San Diego, Luxembourg, Leipzig and 2000 WTA Tour Championships), seven quarterfinals (Gold Coast, Tokyo, Amelia Island, Hamburg, Eastbourne, Zürich and Philadelphia) and one final. On 20 November 2000 she broke into top 10 for the first time, reaching No. 8. She was also ranked No. 4 in doubles at the end of the season. Kournikova was once again, more successful in doubles. She reached the final of the 2000 US Open in mixed doubles, partnering with Max Mirnyi, but they lost to Jared Palmer and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. She also won six doubles titles – Gold Coast (with Julie Halard), Hamburg (with Natasha Zvereva), Filderstadt, Zürich, Philadelphia and the 2000 WTA Tour Championships (with Martina Hingis).

=== 2001–2003: Injuries and final years ===
Her 2001 season was dominated by injury, including a left foot stress fracture which forced her withdrawal from twelve tournaments, including the French Open and Wimbledon. She underwent surgery in April. She reached her second career grand slam quarterfinals, at the Australian Open. Kournikova then withdrew from several events due to continuing problems with her left foot and did not return until Leipzig. With Barbara Schett, she won the doubles title in Sydney. She then lost in the finals in Tokyo, partnering with Iroda Tulyaganova, and at San Diego, partnering with Martina Hingis. Hingis and Kournikova also won the Kremlin Cup. At the end of the 2001 season, she was ranked No. 74 in singles and No. 26 in doubles. 

At the Medibank International Sydney in 2002
Kournikova was quite successful in 2002. She reached the semifinals of Auckland, Tokyo, Acapulco and San Diego, and the final of the China Open, losing to Anna Smashnova. This was Kournikova's last singles final. With Martina Hingis, she lost in the final at Sydney, but they won their second grand slam title together, the Australian Open. They also lost in the quarterfinals of the US Open. With Chanda Rubin, Kournikova played the semifinals of Wimbledon, but they lost to Serena and Venus Williams. Partnering Janet Lee, she won the Shanghai title. At the end of 2002 season, she was ranked No. 35 in singles and No. 11 in doubles. 

In 2003, Anna Kournikova collected her first grand slam match victory in two years at the Australian Open. She defeated Henrieta Nagyová in the 1st round, and then lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne in the 2nd round. She withdrew from Tokyo due to a sprained back suffered at the Australian Open and did not return to Tour until Miami. On 9 April, in what would be the final WTA match of her career, Kournikova retired in the 1st round of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina, due to a left adductor strain. Her singles world ranking was 67. She reached the semifinals at the ITF tournament in Sea Island, before withdrawing from a match versus Maria Sharapova due to the adductor injury. She lost in the 1st round of the ITF tournament in Charlottesville. She did not compete for the rest of the season due to a continuing back injury. At the end of the 2003 season and her professional career, she was ranked No. 305 in singles and No. 176 in doubles. 

Kournikova's two Grand Slam doubles titles came in 1999 and 2002, both at the Australian Open in the Women's Doubles event with partner Martina Hingis. Kournikova proved a successful doubles player on the professional circuit, winning 16 tournament doubles titles, including two Australian Opens and being a finalist in mixed doubles at the US Open and at Wimbledon, and reaching the No. 1 ranking in doubles in the Women's Tennis Association tour rankings. Her pro career doubles record was 200–71. However, her singles career plateaued after 1999. For the most part, she managed to retain her ranking between 10 and 15 (her career high singles ranking was No.8), but her expected finals breakthrough failed to occur; she only reached four finals out of 130 singles tournaments, never in a Grand Slam event, and never won one.

Her singles record is 209–129. Her final playing years were marred by a string of injuries, especially back injuries, which caused her ranking to erode gradually. As a personality Kournikova was among the most common search strings for both articles and images in her prime. 

=== 2004–present: Exhibitions and World Team Tennis ===
Kournikova at a USO-sponsored tour at Forward Operating Base Sharana on 15 December 2009

Kournikova has not played on the WTA Tour since 2003, but still plays exhibition matches for charitable causes. In late 2004, she participated in three events organized by Elton John and by fellow tennis players Serena Williams and Andy Roddick. In January 2005, she played in a doubles charity event for the Indian Ocean tsunami with John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, and Chris Evert. In November 2005, she teamed up with Martina Hingis, playing against Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur in the WTT finals for charity. Kournikova is also a member of the St. Louis Aces in the World Team Tennis (WTT), playing doubles only.

In September 2008, Kournikova showed up for the 2008 Nautica Malibu Triathlon held at Zuma Beach in Malibu, California. Anna Kournikova showed up yesterday for the 2008 Nautica Malibu Triathlon Sportsmates The Race raised funds for children's Hospital Los Angeles. She won that race for women's K-Swiss team. On 27 September 2008, Kournikova played exhibition mixed doubles matches in Charlotte, North Carolina, partnering with Tim Wilkison and Karel Nováček. Sport Mates Gallery: Mixed Doubles Exhibition in Charlotte, North Carolina Sportsmates Kournikova and Wilkison defeated Jimmy Arias and Chanda Rubin, and then Kournikova and Novacek defeated Rubin and Wilkison. 

On 12 October 2008, Anna Kournikova played one exhibition match for the annual charity event, hosted by Billie Jean King and Elton John, and raised more than $400,000 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund. The annual charity event raised more than $400,000 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund Sportsmates She played doubles with Andy Roddick (they were coached by David Chang) versus Martina Navratilova and Jesse Levine (coached by Billie Jean King); Kournikova and Roddick won. 

Kournikova competed alongside John McEnroe, Tracy Austin and Jim Courier at the "Legendary Night", which was held on 2 May 2009, at the Turning Stone Event Center in Verona, New York. Big Time Tennis Names to CNY CNY Central, 17 March 2009 The exhibition included a mixed doubles match of McEnroe and Austin against Courier and Kournikova.

In 2008, she was named a spokesperson for K-Swiss. In 2005, Kournikova stated that if she were 100% fit, she would like to come back and compete again. Elle July 2005, page #? 

In June 2010, Kournikova reunited with her doubles partner Martina Hingis to participate in competitive tennis for the first time in seven years in the Invitational Ladies Doubles event at Wimbledon. On 29 June 2010 they defeated the British pair Samantha Smith and Anne Hobbs. 
 

== Playing style ==
As a player, Kournikova was noted for her footspeed and aggressive baseline play, and excellent angles and dropshots; however, her relatively flat, high-risk groundstrokes tended to produce frequent errors, and her serve was sometimes unreliable in singles.

Kournikova plays right-handed with a two-handed backhand. She is a great player at the net. She can hit forceful groundstrokes and also drop shots. 

Her playing style fits the profile for a doubles player, and is complemented by her height. She has been compared to such doubles specialists as Pam Shriver and Peter Fleming. 

== Personal life ==
Kournikova was in a relationship with fellow Russian Pavel Bure, an NHL ice hockey player. The two met in 1999 when Kournikova was still linked to Bure's former Russian teammate Sergei Fedorov. Bure and Kournikova were reported to have been engaged in 2000 after a reporter took a photo of them together in a Florida restaurant where Bure supposedly asked Kournikova to marry him. As the story made headlines in Russia, where they were both heavily followed in the media as celebrities, Bure and Kournikova both denied any engagement. Kournikova, 10 years younger than Bure, was 18 years old at the time. 

The following year, Kournikova and Fedorov were married in Moscow. Fedorov claimed he and Kournikova were married in 2001, and divorced in 2003. Kournikova's representatives deny any marriage to Fedorov; however, Fedorov's agent Pat Brisson claims that although he does not know when they got married, he knew "Fedorov was married". 

Kournikova started dating pop star Enrique Iglesias in late 2001 (she appeared in his video, "Escape"). Moss, Corey. "Enrique Iglesias Serves Up...". Retrieved 8 December 2013 Kournikova has consistently refused to directly confirm or deny the status of her personal relationships. In June 2008, Iglesias was quoted by the Daily Star as having married Kournikova the previous year and subsequently separated. The couple have invested in a $20 million home to be built on a private island in Miami. 

Kournikova resides in Miami Beach, Florida.

== Media publicity ==
Kournikova preparing to serve
Most of Kournikova's fame has come from the publicity surrounding her looks and her personal life. During her debut at the 1996 US Open at the age of 15, the western world noticed her beauty, and soon pictures of her appeared in numerous magazines worldwide.

In 2000, Kournikova became the new face for Berlei's shock absorber sports bras, and appeared in the "only the ball should bounce" billboard campaign. Following that, she was cast by the Farrelly brothers for a minor role in the 2000 film Me, Myself & Irene starring Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger. Photographs of her scantily clad form have appeared in various men's magazines, including one in the much-publicized 2004 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, where she posed in bikinis and swimsuits, and in other men's publications such as FHM and Maxim. Kournikova was named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1998 and was voted "hottest female athlete" on ESPN.com. In 2002 she also placed first in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World in US and UK editions. By contrast, ESPN—citing the degree of hype as compared to actual accomplishments as a singles player—ranked Kournikova 18th in its "25 Biggest Sports Flops of the Past 25 Years". Kournikova was also ranked No. 1 in the ESPN Classic series "Who's number 1?" when the series featured sport's most overrated athletes.

She continued to be the most searched athlete on the Internet through 2008 even though she had retired from the professional tennis circuit years earlier. After slipping from first to sixth among athletes in 2009, she moved back up to third place among athletes in terms of search popularity in 2010. 

In October 2010, Kournikova headed to NBC's The Biggest Loser where she led the contestants in a tennis-workout challenge. Anna Kournikova Making Appearance on 'The Biggest Loser' , peoplestar.co.uk, Retrieved on 1 October 2010. In May 2011, it was announced that Kournikova would join The Biggest Loser as a regular celebrity trainer in season 12. She did not return for season 13. 

In November 2010, she became an American citizen. In 2011, Men's Health named her one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time", ranking her at No. 29. 

== Influences on popular culture ==
A variation of a White Russian made with skim milk is known as an Anna Kournikova. In the lingo of the poker variation Texas Hold 'em, the hole cards Ace–King (unsuited) are sometimes referred to as an "Anna Kournikova", a term introduced by the poker commentator Vince van Patten during a WPT tournament because it "looks great but never wins". A video game featuring Kournikova's licensed appearance, titled Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis, was developed by Namco and released for the PlayStation in Japan and Europe in November 1998. http://www.giantbomb.com/anna-kournikovas-smash-court-tennis/3030-15769/ A computer virus named the Anna Kournikova virus arose on 12 February 2001. 

== Career statistics and awards ==

* 1996: WTA Newcomer of the Year
* 1999: WTA Doubles Team of the Year (with Martina Hingis)

== See also ==
* World TeamTennis, currently playing for the St. Louis Aces.

== Books ==
* Anna Kournikova by Susan Holden (2001) (ISBN 978-1-84222-416-8 / ISBN 978-1-84222-416-8)
* Anna Kournikova (Women Who Win) by Connie Berman (2001) (ISBN 978-0-7910-6529-7 / ISBN 978-0-7910-6529-7)

== References ==

==External links==

*Official Site
*
*
*
*
*

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 



[[Alfons Maria Jakob]]

Alfons Maria Jakob (2 July 1884, Aschaffenburg/Bavaria&ndash;17 October 1931, Hamburg) was a German neurologist who worked in the field of neuropathology.

He was born in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria and educated in medicine at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Strasbourg, where obtained his doctorate in 1908. In 1909 he commenced clinical work under the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin and did laboratory work with Franz Nissl and Alois Alzheimer in Munich.

In 1911 he went to Hamburg to work with Theodor Kaes and became head of the laboratory of anatomical pathology at the psychiatric State Hospital Hamburg-Friedrichsberg. Following the death of Kaes in 1913, Jakob succeeded him as prosector. After serving in the German army in World War I, he returned to Hamburg and climbed the academic ladder. He was habilitated in neurology in 1919 and in 1924 became professor of neurology. Under Jakob's guidance the department grew rapidly. He made notable contributions to knowledge on concussion and secondary nerve degeneration and became a doyen of neuropathology.

Jakob published five monographs and more than 75 papers. His neuropathological studies contributed greatly to the delineation of several diseases, including multiple sclerosis and Friedreich's ataxia. He first recognised and described Alper's disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the latter with Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt). He accumulated experience in neurosyphilis, having a 200-bedded ward devoted exclusively to that disorder. Jakob made a lecture tour of the United States and South America where he wrote a paper on the neuropathology of yellow fever.

He suffered from chronic osteomyelitis for the last 7 years of his life. This eventually caused a retroperitoneal abscess and paralytic ileus from which he died following operation.

==Associated eponym==
* Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: A very rare and incurable degenerative neurological disease. It is the most common form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies caused by prions.

==Bibliography==
* Die extrapyramidalen Erkrankungen. In: Monographien aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Neurologie und Psychiatry, Berlin, 1923
* Normale und pathologische Anatomie und Histologie des Grosshirns. Separate printing of Handbuch der Psychiatry. Leipzig, 1927–1928
* Das Kleinhirn. In: Handbuch der mikroskopischen Anatomie, Berlin, 1928
* Die Syphilis des Gehirns und seiner Häute. In: Oswald Bumke (edit.): Handbuch der Geisteskrankheiten, Berlin, 1930



[[Agnosticism]]

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition)
 

 

 
According to the philosopher William L. Rowe, in the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively. 

Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word agnostic in 1869. However, earlier thinkers have written works that promoted agnostic points of view. These thinkers include Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife, 
 Bhaskar (1972). 
 
Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher was agnostic about the gods. 
 
The Nasadiya Sukta in the Rigveda is agnostic about the origin of the universe. Patri, Umesh and Prativa Devi. "Progress of Atheism in India: A Historical Perspective". Atheist Centre 1940–1990 Golden Jubilee. Vijayawada, February 1990. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
 

 
 

Since the time that Huxley coined the term, many other thinkers have extensively written about agnosticism. 

==Defining agnosticism==
Thomas Henry Huxley said: Wikisource has the full text of the article here.
 
 

According to philosopher William L. Rowe, in the strict sense, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist. 

===Etymology===
Agnostic () was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869 to describe his philosophy, which rejects all claims of spiritual or mystical knowledge. 
 
 

Early Christian church leaders used the Greek word gnosis (knowledge) to describe "spiritual knowledge". Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular; Huxley used the term in a broader, more abstract sense. 
 
Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, evidence-based inquiry. 

In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean "not knowable". Oxford English Dictionary, Additions Series, 1993 
In technical and marketing literature, "agnostic" can also mean independence from some parameters—for example, "platform agnostic" 
 
or "hardware agnostic" 

===Qualifying agnosticism===
Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt. He asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (i.e. tautologies such as "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three corners"). Hume, David, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" (1748) 

===Types of agnosticism===
A person calling oneself 'agnostic' is stating that he or she has no opinion on the existence of God, as there is no definitive evidence for or against. Agnosticism has, however, more recently been subdivided into several categories. Variations include:
;Agnostic atheism: The view of those who do not believe in the existence of any deity, but do not claim to know if a deity does or does not exist. 
 

 

 
;Agnostic theism: The view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but still believe in such an existence. 
;Apathetic or pragmatic agnosticism: The view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of any deity, but since any deity that may exist appears unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic. Therefore, their existence has little to no impact on personal human affairs and should be of little theological interest. 
 

 
;Strong agnosticism (also called "hard", "closed", "strict", or "permanent agnosticism"): The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you." 
 

 

 
;Weak agnosticism (also called "soft", "open", "empirical", or "temporal agnosticism"): The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable; therefore, one will withhold judgment until evidence, if any, becomes available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out." 

==History==

===Hindu philosophy===

Throughout the history of Hinduism there has been a strong tradition of philosophic speculation and skepticism. 
 
 

The Rig Veda takes an agnostic view on the fundamental question of how the universe and the gods were created. Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) in the tenth chapter of the Rig Veda says: 
 

 
 

===Greek philosophy===
Agnostic thought, in the form of skepticism, emerged as a formal philosophical position in ancient Greece. Its proponents included Protagoras, Pyrrho, Carneades, Sextus Empiricus 
 
and, to some degree, Socrates, who was a strong advocate for a skeptical approach to epistemology. 

Pyrrho said that we should refrain from making judgement as we can can never know the true reality. According to Pyrrho, having opinion was possible, but certainty and knowledge are impossible. 
 
Carneades was also a skeptic in relation to all knowledge claims. He proposed a probability theory, however, according to him, certainty could never be attained. Protagoras rejected the conventional accounts of the gods. He said: 

===Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard===
Aristotle, 
 
Anselm, 
 Williams, Thomas, "Saint Anselm", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
 
Aquinas, 
 

 
and Descartes 
 
presented arguments attempting to rationally prove the existence of God. The skeptical empiricism of David Hume, the antinomies of Immanuel Kant, and the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard convinced many later philosophers to abandon these attempts, regarding it impossible to construct any unassailable proof for the existence or non-existence of God. 

In his 1844 book, Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard writes: Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments. Ch. 3
 

===Thomas Henry Huxley===
Thomas Henry Huxley
Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms agnostic and agnosticism were created by Huxley to sum up his thoughts on contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer). Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter of September 23, 1860, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley discussed his views extensively: 
 
 

And again, to the same correspondent, May 6, 1863: 

Of the origin of the name agnostic to describe this attitude, Huxley gave the following account: 

===William Stewart Ross===
William Stewart Ross wrote under the name of Saladin. He championed agnosticism in opposition to the atheism of Charles Bradlaugh as an open-ended spiritual exploration. Alastair Bonnett 'The Agnostic Saladin' History Today, 2013, 63,2, pp. 47–52
 
In Why I am an Agnostic (c. 1889) he claims that agnosticism is "the very reverse of atheism". 

===Robert G. Ingersoll===
Robert G. Ingersoll
Robert G. Ingersoll, an Illinois lawyer and politician who evolved into a well-known and sought-after orator in 19th-century America, has been referred to as the "Great Agnostic". 

In an 1896 lecture titled Why I Am An Agnostic, Ingersoll related why he was an agnostic: 

In the conclusion of the speech he simply sums up the agnostic position as: 

===Bertrand Russell===
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell's pamphlet, Why I Am Not a Christian, based on a speech delivered in 1927 and later included in a book of the same title, is considered a classic statement of agnosticism. 

 
He calls upon his readers to "stand on their own two feet and look fair and square at the world with a fearless attitude and a free intelligence". 

In 1939, Russell gave a lecture on The existence and nature of God, in which he characterized himself as an atheist. He said: 

However, later in the same lecture, discussing modern non-anthropomorphic concepts of God, Russell states: Collected Papers, Vol. 10, p.258 

In Russell's 1947 pamphlet, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? (subtitled A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas), he ruminates on the problem of what to call himself: 
 
 

In his 1953 essay, What Is An Agnostic? Russell states: 
 
 

Later in the essay, Russell adds: 

===Leslie Weatherhead===

In 1965 Christian theologian Leslie Weatherhead published The Christian Agnostic, in which he argues: 
 
 

Although radical and unpalatable to conventional theologians, Weatherhead's agnosticism falls far short of Huxley's, and short even of weak agnosticism: 

===Charles Darwin===
 Charles Darwin

Raised in a religious environment, Charles Darwin studied to be an Anglican clergyman. While eventually doubting parts of his faith, Darwin continued to help in church affairs, even while avoiding church attendance. Darwin stated that it would be "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist". Letter 12041 – Darwin, C. R. to Fordyce, John, 7 May 1879 Darwin's Complex loss of Faith The Guardian 17 September 2009 Although reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind." 

==Demographics==
Percentage of people in various European countries who said: "I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force." (2005) 

Demographic research services normally do not differentiate between various types of non-religious respondents, so agnostics are often classified in the same category as atheists or other non-religious people. 

A 2010 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious people or the agnostics made up about 9.6% of the world's population. 
 
A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The rates of agnosticism in the United States were at 14%, while the rates of agnosticism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (20%), Spain (30%), Great Britain (35%), Germany (25%), and France (32%). 

A study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that about 16% of the world's people, the third largest group after Christianity and Islam, have no religious affiliation. 
 
According to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center, agnostics made up 3.3% of the US adult population. 
 
In the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center, 55% of agnostic respondents expressed "a belief in God or a universal spirit", 
 
whereas 41% stated that they thought that they felt a tension "being non-religious in a society where most people are religious". 

Proportion of atheists and agnostics around the world.

Other studies have placed the estimated percentage of atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers in a personal god as low as single digits in Poland, Romania, Cyprus, and some other European countries. in 
 
According to the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 22% of Australians have "no religion", a category that includes agnostics. 

 
Between 64% and 65% 
 
of Japanese and up to 81% 
 
of Vietnamese are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in a god. An official European Union survey reported that 3% of the EU population is unsure about their belief in a god or spirit. 

==Criticism==
Agnosticism is criticized from a variety of standpoints. Some religious thinkers see agnosticism as limiting the mind's capacity to know reality to materialism. Some atheists criticize the use of the term agnosticism as functionally indistinguishable from atheism; this results in frequent criticisms of those who adopt the term as avoiding the 'atheist label'. 

Some thinkers and philosophers deny the validity of agnosticism, seeing it as a limitation of man's capacity to know the reality, by asserting that human intelligence has a non-material, spiritual element. They affirm that "not being able to see or hold some specific thing does not necessarily negate its existence," using gravity, entropy, reason and thought as examples. 

===Theistic===
Theistic critics claim that agnosticism is impossible in practice, since a person can live only either as if God did not exist (etsi deus non daretur), or as if God did exist (etsi deus daretur). 

 

 
 

Religious scholars such as Laurence B. Brown criticize the misuse of the word Agnosticism, claiming that it has become one of the most misapplied terms in metaphysics. Brown raises the question, "You claim that nothing can be known with certainty ... how, then, can you be so sure?" 
 
 

====Christian====
According to Joseph Ratzinger, strong agnosticism in particular limits contradicts itself in affirming the power of reason to know scientific truth. He blames the exclusion of reasoning from religion and ethics for dangerous pathologies such as crimes against humanity and ecological disasters. 
 

 
Benedict XVI, Address at the University of Regensburg 2006
 
"Agnosticism", said Ratzinger, "is always the fruit of a refusal of that knowledge which is in fact offered to man ... The knowledge of God has always existed". He asserted that agnosticism is a choice of comfort, pride, dominion, and utility over truth, and is opposed by the following attitudes: the keenest self-criticism, humble listening to the whole of existence, the persistent patience and self-correction of the scientific method, a readiness to be purified by the truth. 

The Catholic Church sees merit in examining what it calls Partial Agnosticism, specifically those systems that "do not aim at constructing a complete philosophy of the unknowable, but at excluding special kinds of truth, notably religious, from the domain of knowledge". 
 
However, the Church is historically opposed to a full denial of the capacity of human reason to know God. The Council of the Vatican, relying on biblical scripture, declares, "God, the beginning and end of all, can, by the natural light of human reason, be known with certainty from the works of creation` 

Christian Philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that even if there were truly no evidence for God, agnostics should consider what is now known as Pascal's Wager: the infinite expected value of acknowledging God is always greater than the finite expected value of not acknowledging his existence, and thus it is a safer "bet" to choose God. 

Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli cited 20 arguments for God's existence, Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God, from the Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli, SJ, Intervarsity Press, 1994.
 
asserting that any 'demand' for evidence testable in a laboratory is in effect asking God, the supreme being, to become man's servant. 

===Atheistic===
According to Richard Dawkins, a distinction between agnosticism and atheism is unwieldy and depends on how close to zero a person is willing to rate the probability of existence for any given god-like entity. About himself, Dawkins continues, "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." The God Delusion p. 74 
Dawkins also identifies two categories of agnostics: Temporary Agnostics in Practice (TAPs), and Permanent Agnostics in Principle (PAPs). Dawkins considers temporary agnosticism an entirely reasonable position, but views permanent agnosticism as "fence-sitting, intellectual cowardice". The God Delusion p. 70 

==Related concepts==
Ignosticism is the view that a coherent definition of a deity must be put forward before the question of the existence of a deity can be meaningfully discussed. If the chosen definition is not coherent, the ignostic holds the noncognitivist view that the existence of a deity is meaningless or empirically untestable. 

A.J. Ayer, Theodore Drange, and other philosophers see both atheism and agnosticism as incompatible with ignosticism on the grounds that atheism and agnosticism accept "a deity exists" as a meaningful proposition that can be argued for or against. Ayer, Language, 115: "There can be no way of proving that the existence of a God ... is even probable. ... For if the existence of such a god were probable, then the proposition that he existed would be an empirical hypothesis. And in that case it would be possible to deduce from it, and other empirical hypotheses, certain experimental propositions which were not deducible from those other hypotheses alone. But in fact this is not possible." Drange, Atheism 

==See also==

==References==
Notes

Bibliography

* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 

==External links==

* Albert Einstein on Religion Shapell Manuscript Foundation
* Why I Am An Agnostic by Robert G. Ingersoll, .
* Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Agnosticism
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
* Agnosticism from INTERS – Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science
* Agnosticism – from ReligiousTolerance.org
* What do Agnostics Believe? – A Jewish perspective
* Fides et Ratio – the relationship between faith and reason Karol Wojtyla 
* For a utilitarian analysis of religion, see The (F)Utility of Religion: Who Needs God(s)?–A Prospective Bible for Non-Believers at http://bradmusil.kramernet.org
* The Natural Religion by Dr Brendan Connolly, 2008
* 
* 
* 
* 

 



[[Argon]]

Argon is a chemical element with symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. In older versions of the periodic table, the noble gases were identified as Group VIIIA or as Group 0. See Group (periodic table). Argon is the third most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere, at 0.93% (9,300 ppm), making it approximately 23.8 times as abundant as the next most common atmospheric gas, carbon dioxide (390 ppm), and more than 500 times as abundant as the next most common noble gas, neon (18 ppm). Nearly all of this argon is radiogenic argon-40 derived from the decay of potassium-40 in the Earth's crust. In the universe, argon-36 is by far the most common argon isotope, being the preferred argon isotope produced by stellar nucleosynthesis in supernovas.

The name "argon" is derived from the Greek word αργον, neuter singular form of αργος meaning "lazy" or "inactive", as a reference to the fact that the element undergoes almost no chemical reactions. The complete octet (eight electrons) in the outer atomic shell makes argon stable and resistant to bonding with other elements. Its triple point temperature of 83.8058 K is a defining fixed point in the International Temperature Scale of 1990.

Argon is produced industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air. Argon is mostly used as an inert shielding gas in welding and other high-temperature industrial processes where ordinarily non-reactive substances become reactive; for example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning. Argon gas also has uses in incandescent and fluorescent lighting, and other types of gas discharge tubes. Argon makes a distinctive blue-green gas laser.

==Characteristics==
A small piece of rapidly melting solid argon.
Argon has approximately the same solubility in water as oxygen, and is 2.5 times more soluble in water than nitrogen. Argon is colorless, odorless, nonflammable and nontoxic as a solid, liquid, and gas. Material Safety Data Sheet Gaseous Argon, Universal Industrial Gases, Inc. Retrieved 14 October 2013. Argon is chemically inert under most conditions and forms no confirmed stable compounds at room temperature.

Although argon is a noble gas, it has been found to have the capability of forming some compounds. For example, the creation of argon fluorohydride (HArF), a marginally stable compound of argon with fluorine and hydrogen, was reported by researchers at the University of Helsinki in 2000 
 .
Although the neutral ground-state chemical compounds of argon are presently limited to HArF, argon can form clathrates with water when atoms of it are trapped in a lattice of the water molecules 
 .
Argon-containing ions and excited state complexes, such as and ArF, respectively, are known to exist. Theoretical calculations have predicted several argon compounds that should be stable 
 , but for which no synthesis routes are currently known.

==History==
Lord Rayleigh's method for the isolation of argon, based on an experiment of Henry Cavendish's. The gases are contained in a test-tube (A) standing over a large quantity of weak alkali (B), and the current is conveyed in wires insulated by U-shaped glass tubes (CC) passing through the liquid and round the mouth of the test-tube. The inner platinum ends (DD) of the wire receive a current from a battery of five Grove cells and a Ruhmkorff coil of medium size.
Argon (αργον, neuter singular form of αργος, Greek meaning "inactive", in reference to its chemical inactivity) 
 
 was suspected to be present in air by Henry Cavendish in 1785 but was not isolated until 1894 by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay at University College London in an experiment in which they removed all of the oxygen, carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen from a sample of clean air. 
 
 
 They had determined that nitrogen produced from chemical compounds was one-half percent lighter than nitrogen from the atmosphere. The difference seemed insignificant, but it was important enough to attract their attention for many months. They concluded that there was another gas in the air mixed in with the nitrogen. 
 Argon was also encountered in 1882 through independent research of H. F. Newall and W. N. Hartley. Each observed new lines in the color spectrum of air but were unable to identify the element responsible for the lines. Argon became the first member of the noble gases to be discovered. The symbol for argon is now "Ar", but up until 1957 it was "A". 
 

== Occurrence ==
Argon constitutes 0.934% by volume and 1.288% by mass of the Earth's atmosphere, 
 and air is the primary raw material used by industry to produce purified argon products. Argon is isolated from air by fractionation, most commonly by cryogenic fractional distillation, a process that also produces purified nitrogen, oxygen, neon, krypton and xenon. 
 The Earth's crust and seawater contain 1.2 ppm and 0.45 ppm of argon, respectively. 

== Isotopes ==

The main isotopes of argon found on Earth are (99.6%), (0.34%), and (0.06%). Naturally occurring , with a half-life of 1.25 years, decays to stable (11.2%) by electron capture or positron emission, and also to stable (88.8%) via beta decay. These properties and ratios are used to determine the age of rocks by the method of K-Ar dating. 
 

In the Earth's atmosphere, is made by cosmic ray activity, primarily with . In the subsurface environment, it is also produced through neutron capture by or alpha emission by calcium. is created from the neutron spallation of as a result of subsurface nuclear explosions. It has a half-life of 35 days. 

Argon is notable in that its isotopic composition varies greatly between different locations in the solar system. Where the major source of argon is the decay of [[potassium-40|]] in rocks, will be the dominant isotope, as it is on Earth. Argon produced directly by stellar nucleosynthesis, in contrast, is dominated by the alpha process nuclide, . Correspondingly, solar argon contains 84.6% based on solar wind measurements, 
 
and the ratio of the three isotopes 36Ar : 38Ar : 40Ar in the atmospheres of the outer planets is measured to be 8400 : 1600 : 1. This contrasts with the abundance of primordial in Earth's atmosphere: only 31.5 ppmv (= 9340 ppmv × 0.337%), comparable to that of neon (18.18 ppmv); and with measurements by interplanetary probes.

The Martian atmosphere contains 1.6% of and 5 ppm of . The Mariner probe fly-by of the planet Mercury in 1973 found that Mercury has a very thin atmosphere with 70% argon, believed to result from releases of the gas as a decay product from radioactive materials on the planet. In 2005, the Huygens probe discovered the presence of exclusively on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. 
 

The predominance of radiogenic is responsible for the standard atomic weight of terrestrial argon being greater than that of the next element, potassium, which was puzzling at the time when argon was discovered. Mendeleev had placed the elements in his periodic table in order of atomic weight, but the inertness of argon suggested a placement before the reactive alkali metal. Henry Moseley later solved this problem by showing that the periodic table is actually arranged in order of atomic number. (See History of the periodic table).

==Compounds==

Space-filling model of argon fluorohydride.
Argon's complete octet of electrons indicates full s and p subshells. This full outer energy level makes argon very stable and extremely resistant to bonding with other elements. Before 1962, argon and the other noble gases were considered to be chemically inert and unable to form compounds; however, compounds of the heavier noble gases have since been synthesized. In August 2000, the first argon compound was formed by researchers at the University of Helsinki. By shining ultraviolet light onto frozen argon containing a small amount of hydrogen fluoride with caesium iodide, argon fluorohydride (HArF) was formed. 
 It is stable up to 40 kelvin (−233 °C). The metastable dication, which is valence isoelectronic with carbonyl fluoride, was observed in 2010. 
 Argon-36, in the form of argon hydride ions, has been detected in cosmic dust associated with the Crab Nebula supernova; this was the first noble-gas molecule detected in outer space. 
 

==Production==

===Industrial===
Argon is produced industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air in a cryogenic air separation unit; a process that separates liquid nitrogen, which boils at 77.3 K, from argon, which boils at 87.3 K, and liquid oxygen, which boils at 90.2 K. About 700,000 tonnes of argon are produced worldwide every year. 
 

===In radioactive decays===
40Ar, the most abundant isotope of argon, is produced by the decay of 40K with a half-life of 1.25 years by electron capture or positron emission. Because of this, it is used in potassium-argon dating to determine the age of rocks.

==Applications==
Cylinders containing argon gas for use in extinguishing fire without damaging server equipment
There are several different reasons argon is used in particular applications:
* An inert gas is needed. In particular, argon is the cheapest alternative when nitrogen is not sufficiently inert.
* Low thermal conductivity is required.
* The electronic properties (ionization and/or the emission spectrum) are necessary.

Other noble gases would probably work as well in most of these applications, but argon is by far the cheapest. Argon is inexpensive since it occurs naturally in air, and is readily obtained as a byproduct of cryogenic air separation in the production of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen: the primary constituents of air are used on a large industrial scale. The other noble gases (except helium) are produced this way as well, but argon is the most plentiful by far. The bulk of argon applications arise simply because it is inert and relatively cheap.

===Industrial processes===
Argon is used in some high-temperature industrial processes, where ordinarily non-reactive substances become reactive. For example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning.

For some of these processes, the presence of nitrogen or oxygen gases might cause defects within the material. Argon is used in various types of arc welding such as gas metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding, as well as in the processing of titanium and other reactive elements. An argon atmosphere is also used for growing crystals of silicon and germanium.

Argon is used in the poultry industry to asphyxiate birds, either for mass culling following disease outbreaks, or as a means of slaughter more humane than the electric bath. Argon's relatively high density causes it to remain close to the ground during gassing. Its non-reactive nature makes it suitable in a food product, and since it replaces oxygen within the dead bird, argon also enhances shelf life. 
 

Argon is sometimes used for extinguishing fires where damage to equipment is to be avoided.

===Scientific research===
Liquid argon is used as the target for neutrino experiments and direct dark matter searches. The interaction of a hypothetical WIMP particle with the argon nucleus produces scintillation light that is detected by photomultiplier tubes. Two-phase detectors also use argon gas to detect the ionized electrons produced during the WIMP-nucleus scattering. As with most other liquefied noble gases, argon has a high scintillation lightyield (~ 51 photons/keV 
 ), is transparent to its own scintillation light, and is relatively easy to purify. Compared to xenon, argon is cheaper and has a distinct scintillation time profile which allows the separation of electronic recoils from nuclear recoils. On the other hand, its intrinsic gamma-ray background is larger due to contamination, unless one uses underground argon sources with a low level of radioactivity. Dark matter detectors currently operating with liquid argon include WArP, ArDM, microCLEAN and DEAP-I. Neutrino experiments include Icarus and MicroBooNE both of which use high purity liquid argon in a time projection chamber for fine grained three-dimensional imaging of neutrino interactions.

===Preservative===
A sample of caesium is packed under argon to avoid reactions with air
Argon is used to displace oxygen- and moisture-containing air in packaging material to extend the shelf-lives of the contents (argon has the European food additive code of E938). Aerial oxidation, hydrolysis, and other chemical reactions which degrade the products are retarded or prevented entirely. Bottles of high-purity chemicals and certain pharmaceutical products are available in sealed bottles or ampoules packed in argon. In wine making, argon is used to top-off barrels to avoid the aerial oxidation of ethanol to acetic acid during the aging process.

Argon is also available in aerosol-type cans, which may be used to preserve compounds such as varnish, polyurethane, paint, etc. for storage after opening. Zawalick, Steven Scott "Method for preserving an oxygen sensitive liquid product" Issue date: 7 October 2003 

Since 2002, the American National Archives stores important national documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution within argon-filled cases to retard their degradation. Using argon reduces gas leakage, compared with the helium used in the preceding five decades. 
 

===Laboratory equipment===
Gloveboxes are often filled with argon, which recirculates over scrubbers to maintain an oxygen-, nitrogen-, and moisture-free atmosphere

Argon may be used as the inert gas within Schlenk lines and gloveboxes. The use of argon over comparatively less expensive nitrogen is preferred where nitrogen may react with the experimental reagents or apparatus.

Argon may be used as the carrier gas in gas chromatography and in electrospray ionization mass spectrometry; it is the gas of choice for the plasma used in ICP spectroscopy. Argon is preferred for the sputter coating of specimens for scanning electron microscopy. Argon gas is also commonly used for sputter deposition of thin films as in microelectronics and for wafer cleaning in microfabrication.

===Medical use===
Cryosurgery procedures such as cryoablation use liquefied argon to destroy cancer cells. In surgery it is used in a procedure called "argon enhanced coagulation" which is a form of argon plasma beam electrosurgery. The procedure carries a risk of producing gas embolism in the patient and has resulted in the death of one person via this type of accident. 
 

Blue argon lasers are used in surgery to weld arteries, destroy tumors, and to correct eye defects. 

Argon has also been used experimentally to replace nitrogen in the breathing or decompression mix known as Argox, to speed the elimination of dissolved nitrogen from the blood. 
 

===Lighting===
Argon gas-discharge lamp forming the symbol for argon "Ar".

Incandescent lights are filled with argon, to preserve the filaments at high temperature from oxidation. It is used for the specific way it ionizes and emits light, such as in plasma globes and calorimetry in experimental particle physics. Gas-discharge lamps filled with argon provide blue light. Argon is also used for the creation of blue and green laser light.

===Miscellaneous uses===
Argon is used for thermal insulation in energy efficient windows. 
 Argon is also used in technical scuba diving to inflate a dry suit, because it is inert and has low thermal conductivity. 
 
Argon is being used as a propellant in the development of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR).
Compressed argon gas is allowed to expand, to cool the seeker heads of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, and other missiles that use cooled thermal seeker heads. The gas is stored at high pressure. 
 

Argon-39, with a half-life of 269 years, has been used for a number of applications, primarily ice core and ground water dating. Also, potassium-argon dating is used in dating igneous rocks. 

==Safety==
Although argon is non-toxic, it is 38% denser than air and is therefore considered a dangerous asphyxiant in closed areas. It is also difficult to detect because it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. A 1994 incident in which a man was asphyxiated after entering an argon filled section of oil pipe under construction in Alaska highlights the dangers of argon tank leakage in confined spaces, and emphasizes the need for proper use, storage and handling. 
 

==See also==
*Industrial gas

==References==

==Further reading==
* 
* Triple point temperature: 83.8058 K – 
* Triple point pressure: 69 kPa – 

==External links==
* Silicon at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
* USGS Periodic Table – Argon
* Diving applications: Why Argon?

 



[[Arsenic]]

Arsenic is a chemical element with symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250. Arsenic is a metalloid. It can exist in various allotropes, although only the gray form has important use in industry.

The main use of metallic arsenic is for strengthening alloys of copper and especially lead (for example, in car batteries). Arsenic is a common n-type dopant in semiconductor electronic devices, and the optoelectronic compound gallium arsenide is the most common semiconductor in use after doped silicon. Arsenic and its compounds, especially the trioxide, are used in the production of pesticides, treated wood products, herbicides, and insecticides. These applications are declining, however. 

Arsenic is notoriously poisonous to multicellular life, although a few species of bacteria are able to use arsenic compounds as respiratory metabolites. Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a problem that affects millions of people across the world.

==Characteristics==

===Physical characteristics===
Crystal structure common to Sb, AsSb and gray As
The three most common arsenic allotropes are metallic gray, yellow and black arsenic, with gray being the most common. Gray arsenic (α-As, space group Rm No. 166) adopts a double-layered structure consisting of many interlocked ruffled six-membered rings. Because of weak bonding between the layers, gray arsenic is brittle and has a relatively low Mohs hardness of 3.5. Nearest and next-nearest neighbors form a distorted octahedral complex, with the three atoms in the same double-layer being slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a high density of 5.73 g/cm3. Gray arsenic is a semimetal, but becomes a semiconductor with a bandgap of 1.2–1.4 eV if amorphized. Gray arsenic is also the most stable form. Yellow arsenic is soft and waxy, and somewhat similar to tetraphosphorus (). Both have four atoms arranged in a tetrahedral structure in which each atom is bound to each of the other three atoms by a single bond. This unstable allotrope, being molecular, is the most volatile, least dense and most toxic. Solid yellow arsenic is produced by rapid cooling of arsenic vapor, . It is rapidly transformed into the gray arsenic by light. The yellow form has a density of 1.97 g/cm3. Black arsenic is similar in structure to red phosphorus. 
Black arsenic can also be formed by cooling vapor at around 100–220 °C. It is glassy and brittle. It is also a poor electrical conductor. "http://www.chemicool.com/elements/arsenic.html 

===Isotopes===

Naturally occurring arsenic is composed of one stable isotope, 75As. This makes it a monoisotopic element. As of 2003, at least 33 radioisotopes have also been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 60 to 92. The most stable of these is 73As with a half-life of 80.30 days. All other isotopes have half-lives of under one day, with the exception of 71As (t½=65.30 hours), 72As (t½=26.0 hours), 74As (t½=17.77 days), 76As (t½=1.0942 days), and 77As (t½=38.83 hours). Isotopes that are lighter than the stable 75As tend to decay by β+ decay, and those that are heavier tend to decay by β− decay, with some exceptions.

At least 10 nuclear isomers have been described, ranging in atomic mass from 66 to 84. The most stable of arsenic's isomers is 68mAs with a half-life of 111 seconds. 

===Chemistry===
When heated in air, arsenic oxidizes to arsenic trioxide; the fumes from this reaction have an odor resembling garlic. This odor can be detected on striking arsenide minerals such as arsenopyrite with a hammer. Arsenic (and some arsenic compounds) sublimes upon heating at atmospheric pressure, converting directly to a gaseous form without an intervening liquid state at 887 K. The triple point is 3.63 MPa and 1090 K. Arsenic makes arsenic acid with concentrated nitric acid, arsenious acid with dilute nitric acid, and arsenic trioxide with concentrated sulfuric acid. 

==Compounds==

Arsenic compounds resemble in some respects those of phosphorus which occupies the same group (column) of the periodic table. Arsenic is less commonly observed in the pentavalent state, however. The most common oxidation states for arsenic are: −3 in the arsenides, such as alloy-like intermetallic compounds; and +3 in the arsenites, arsenates(III), and most organoarsenic compounds. Arsenic also bonds readily to itself as seen in the square As ions in the mineral skutterudite. In the +3 oxidation state, arsenic is typically pyramidal owing to the influence of the lone pair of electrons. 

===Inorganic compounds===
Arsenic forms colorless, odorless, crystalline oxides As2O3 ("white arsenic") and As2O5 which are hygroscopic and readily soluble in water to form acidic solutions. Arsenic(V) acid is a weak acid. Its salts are called arsenates which are the basis of arsenic contamination of groundwater, a problem that affects many people. Synthetic arsenates include Paris Green (copper(II) acetoarsenite), calcium arsenate, and lead hydrogen arsenate. These three have been used as agricultural insecticides and poisons.

The protonation steps between the arsenate and arsenic acid are similar to those between phosphate and phosphoric acid. Unlike phosphorous acid, arsenous acid is genuinely tribasic, with the formula As(OH)3.

A broad variety of sulfur compounds of arsenic are known. Orpiment (As2S3) and realgar (As4S4) are somewhat abundant and were formerly used as painting pigments. In As4S10, arsenic has a formal oxidation state of +2 in As4S4 which features As-As bonds so that the total covalency of As is still 3. 

All trihalides of arsenic(III) are well known except the astatide which is unknown. Arsenic pentafluoride (AsF5) is the only important pentahalide, reflecting the lower stability of the 5+ oxidation state. (pentachloride is stable only below −50 °C. )

====Alloys====
Arsenic is used as the group 5 element in the III-V semiconductors gallium arsenide, indium arsenide, and aluminium arsenide. The valence electron count of GaAs is the same as a pair of Si atoms, but the band structure is completely different which results distinct bulk properties. Other arsenic alloys include the II-IV semiconductor cadmium arsenide. 

===Organoarsenic compounds===

Trimethylarsine
A large variety of organoarsenic compounds are known. Several were developed as chemical warfare agents during World War I, including vesicants such as lewisite and vomiting agents such as adamsite. Cacodylic acid, which is of historic and practical interest, arises from the methylation of arsenic trioxide, a reaction that has no analogy in phosphorus chemistry.

==Occurrence and production==

A large sample of native arsenic

Arsenic makes up about 1.5 ppm (0.00015%) of the Earth's crust, making it the 53rd most abundant element. Soil contains 1–10 ppm of arsenic. Seawater has only 1.6 ppb arsenic. 

Minerals with the formula MAsS and MAs2 (M = Fe, Ni, Co) are the dominant commercial sources of arsenic, together with realgar (an arsenic sulfide mineral) and native arsenic. An illustrative mineral is arsenopyrite (FeAsS), which is structurally related to iron pyrite. Many minor As-containing minerals are known. Arsenic also occurs in various organic forms in the environment. 

Arsenic output in 2006 
In 2005, China was the top producer of white arsenic with almost 50% world share, followed by Chile, Peru, and Morocco, according to the British Geological Survey and the United States Geological Survey. Most operations in the US and Europe have closed for environmental reasons. The arsenic is recovered mainly as a side product from the purification of copper. Arsenic is part of the smelter dust from copper, gold, and lead smelters. 

On roasting in air of arsenopyrite, arsenic sublimes as arsenic(III) oxide leaving iron oxides, while roasting without air results in the production of metallic arsenic. Further purification from sulfur and other chalcogens is achieved by sublimation in vacuum or in a hydrogen atmosphere or by distillation from molten lead-arsenic mixture. 

 Country 2012 AsO3 Production 
 Belgium 1,000 T 
 Chile 10,000 T 
 China 25,000 T 
 Morocco 6,000 T 
 Russia 1,500 T 
 Other Countries 300 T 
 World Total 44,000 T 

==History==
Realgar
Alchemical symbol for arsenic
The word arsenic has its origin in the Syriac word ܠܐ ܙܐܦܢܝܐ (al) zarniqa, from the Persian word zarnikh, meaning "yellow" (literally "gold-colored") and hence "(yellow) orpiment". It was adopted into Greek as arsenikon (ἀρσενικόν), a form that is folk etymology, being the neuter form of the Greek word arsenikos (ἀρσενικός), meaning "male", "virile". The Greek word was adopted in Latin as arsenicum, which in French became arsenic, from which the English word arsenic is taken. Arsenic sulfides (orpiment, realgar) and oxides have been known and used since ancient times. Zosimos (circa 300 AD) describes roasting sandarach (realgar) to obtain cloud of arsenic (arsenious oxide), which he then reduces to metallic arsenic. As the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were somewhat ill-defined, it was frequently used for murder until the advent of the Marsh test, a sensitive chemical test for its presence. (Another less sensitive but more general test is the Reinsch test.) Owing to its use by the ruling class to murder one another and its potency and discreetness, arsenic has been called the Poison of Kings and the King of Poisons. 
The arsenic labyrinth, part of Botallack Mine, Cornwall.

During the Bronze Age, arsenic was often included in bronze, which made the alloy harder (so-called "arsenical bronze"). 
Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great, 1193–1280) is believed to have been the first to isolate the element from a compound in 1250, by heating soap together with arsenic trisulfide. In 1649, Johann Schröder published two ways of preparing arsenic. Crystals of elemental (native) arsenic are found in nature, although rare.

Cadet's fuming liquid (impure cacodyl), often claimed as the first synthetic organometallic compound, was synthesized in 1760 by Louis Claude Cadet de Gassicourt by the reaction of potassium acetate with arsenic trioxide. 

In the Victorian era, "arsenic" ("white arsenic" or arsenic trioxide) was mixed with vinegar and chalk and eaten by women to improve the complexion of their faces, making their skin paler to show they did not work in the fields. Arsenic was also rubbed into the faces and arms of women to "improve their complexion". The accidental use of arsenic in the adulteration of foodstuffs led to the Bradford sweet poisoning in 1858, which resulted in approximately 20 deaths. 

Two pigments based on arsenic have been widely used since their discovery – Paris Green and Scheele's Green. After arsenic's toxicity became widely known, they were less often used as pigments, so these compounds were more often used as insecticides. In the 1860s an arsenic by-product of dye production, London Purple – a solid consisting of a mixture of arsenic trioxide, aniline, lime and ferrous oxide, which is insoluble in water and very toxic by inhalation and ingestion "London purple.(8012-74-6)", Chemical Book – was widely used, but Paris Green, another arsenic based dye, was later substituted for it. With better understanding of the toxicology mechanism, two other compounds were used starting in the 1890s. Arsenite of lime and arsenate of lead were used widely as insecticides until the discovery of DDT in 1942. 

==Applications==

===Agricultural===
Roxarsone is a controversial arsenic compound used as a nutritional supplement for chickens
The toxicity of arsenic to insects, bacteria and fungi led to its use as a wood preservative. In the 1950s a process of treating wood with chromated copper arsenate (also known as CCA or Tanalith) was invented, and for decades this treatment was the most extensive industrial use of arsenic. An increased appreciation of the toxicity of arsenic resulted in a ban for the use of CCA in consumer products; the European Union and United States initiated this process in 2004. CCA remains in heavy use in other countries however, e.g. Malaysian rubber plantations. 

Arsenic was also used in various agricultural insecticides and poisons. For example, lead hydrogen arsenate was a common insecticide on fruit trees, but contact with the compound sometimes resulted in brain damage among those working the sprayers. In the second half of the 20th century, monosodium methyl arsenate (MSMA) and disodium methyl arsenate (DSMA) – less toxic organic forms of arsenic – have replaced lead arsenate in agriculture. With the exception of cotton farming the use of the organic arsenicals was phased out until 2013. 

Arsenic is used as a feed additive in poultry and swine production, in particular in the U.S. to increase weight gain, improve feed efficiency, and to prevent disease. An example is roxarsone, which had been used as a broiler starter by about 70% of U.S. broiler growers. The Poison-Free Poultry Act of 2009 proposes to ban the use of roxarsone in industrial swine and poultry production. Alpharma, a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., which produces Roxarsone, voluntarily suspended sales of the drug in response to studies showing elevated levels of inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen, in treated chickens. A successor to Alpharma, Zoetis, continues to sell nitarsone, primarily for use in turkeys. 

===Medical use===
During the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, a number of arsenic compounds were used as medicines, including arsphenamine (by Paul Ehrlich) and arsenic trioxide (by Thomas Fowler). Arsphenamine as well as neosalvarsan was indicated for syphilis and trypanosomiasis, but has been superseded by modern antibiotics. Arsenic trioxide has been used in a variety of ways over the past 500 years, but most commonly in the treatment of cancer. The US Food and Drug Administration in 2000 approved this compound for the treatment of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia that is resistant to ATRA. It was also used as Fowler's solution in psoriasis. Recently new research has been done in locating tumors using arsenic-74 (a positron emitter). The advantages of using this isotope instead of the previously used iodine-124 is that the signal in the PET scan is clearer as the body tends to transport iodine to the thyroid gland producing a lot of noise. 

In subtoxic doses, soluble arsenic compounds act as stimulants, and were once popular in small doses as medicine by people in the mid-18th century. 

===Alloys===
The main use of metallic arsenic is for alloying with lead. Lead components in car batteries are strengthened by the presence of a few percent of arsenic. Dezincification can be strongly reduced by adding arsenic to brass, a copper-zinc alloy. "Phosphorus Deoxidized Arsenical Copper" with an arsenic content of 0.3% has an increased corrosion stability in certain environments. Gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor material, used in integrated circuits. Circuits made from GaAs are much faster (but also much more expensive) than those made in silicon. Unlike silicon it has a direct bandgap, and so can be used in laser diodes and LEDs to directly convert electricity into light. 

===Military===
After World War I, the United States built up a stockpile of 20,000 tonnes of lewisite (ClCH=CHAsCl2), a chemical weapon that is a vesicant (blister agent) and lung irritant. The stockpile was neutralized with bleach and dumped into the Gulf of Mexico after the 1950s. During the Vietnam War the United States used Agent Blue, a mixture of sodium cacodylate and its acid form, as one of the rainbow herbicides to deprive invading North Vietnamese soldiers of foliage cover and rice. 

===Other uses===
* Copper acetoarsenite was used as a green pigment known under many names, including 'Paris Green' and 'Emerald Green'. It caused numerous arsenic poisonings. Scheele's Green, a copper arsenate, was used in the 19th century as a coloring agent in sweets. 
* Also used in bronzing 
 and pyrotechnics.
* Up to 2% of arsenic is used in lead alloys for lead shots and bullets. 
* Arsenic is added in small quantities to alpha-brass to make it dezincification resistant. This grade of brass is used to make plumbing fittings or other items that are in constant contact with water. 
* Arsenic is also used for taxonomic sample preservation.
* Until recently arsenic was used in optical glass. Modern glass manufacturers, under pressure from environmentalists, have removed it, along with lead. 

==Biological role==

===Bacteria===
 Arsenobetaine
Some species of bacteria obtain their energy by oxidizing various fuels while reducing arsenate to arsenite. Under oxidative environmental conditions some bacteria use arsenite, which is oxidized to arsenate as fuel for their metabolism. The enzymes involved are known as arsenate reductases (Arr). 

In 2008, bacteria were discovered that employ a version of photosynthesis in the absence of oxygen with arsenites as electron donors, producing arsenates (just as ordinary photosynthesis uses water as electron donor, producing molecular oxygen). Researchers conjecture that, over the course of history, these photosynthesizing organisms produced the arsenates that allowed the arsenate-reducing bacteria to thrive. One strain PHS-1 has been isolated and is related to the gammaproteobacterium Ectothiorhodospira shaposhnikovii. The mechanism is unknown, but an encoded Arr enzyme may function in reverse to its known homologues. 

Although the arsenate and phosphate anions are similar structurally, no evidence exists for the replacement of phosphate in ATP or nucleic acids by arsenic. 

===Heredity===
Arsenic has been linked to epigenetic changes, heritable changes in gene expression that occur without changes in DNA sequence. These include DNA methylation, histone modification, and RNA interference. Toxic levels of arsenic cause significant DNA hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes p16 and p53, thus increasing risk of carcinogenesis. These epigenetic events have been studied in vitro using human kidney cells and in vivo using rat liver cells and peripheral blood leukocytes in humans. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is used to detect precise levels of intracellular arsenic and its other bases involved in epigenetic modification of DNA. Studies investigating arsenic as an epigenetic factor will help in developing precise biomarkers of exposure and susceptibility.

The Chinese brake fern (Pteris vittata) hyperaccumulates arsenic present in the soil into its leaves and has a proposed use in phytoremediation. 

===Biomethylation===

Inorganic arsenic and its compounds, upon entering the food chain, are progressively metabolized through a process of methylation. For example, the mold Scopulariopsis brevicaulis produces significant amounts of trimethylarsine if inorganic arsenic is present. The organic compound arsenobetaine is found in some marine foods such as fish and algae, and also in mushrooms in larger concentrations. The average person's intake is about 10–50 µg/day. Values about 1000 µg are not unusual following consumption of fish or mushrooms, but there is little danger in eating fish because this arsenic compound is nearly non-toxic. 

==Environmental issues==

===Exposure===
Other naturally occurring pathways of exposure include volcanic ash, weathering of arsenic-containing minerals and ores, and dissolved in groundwater. It is also found in food, water, soil, and air. Arsenic is absorbed by all plants, but is more concentrated in leafy vegetables, rice, apple and grape juice, and seafood. An additional route of exposure is through inhalation. Arsenic. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (2009). 

===Occurrence in drinking water===

Widespread arsenic contamination of groundwater has led to a massive epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh and neighboring countries. It is estimated that approximately 57 million people in the Bengal basin are drinking groundwater with arsenic concentrations elevated above the World Health Organization's standard of 10 parts per billion (ppb). However, a study of cancer rates in Taiwan suggested that significant increases in cancer mortality appear only at levels above 150 ppb. The arsenic in the groundwater is of natural origin, and is released from the sediment into the groundwater, owing to the anoxic conditions of the subsurface. This groundwater began to be used after local and western NGOs and the Bangladeshi government undertook a massive shallow tube well drinking-water program in the late twentieth century. This program was designed to prevent drinking of bacteria-contaminated surface waters, but failed to test for arsenic in the groundwater. Many other countries and districts in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam and Cambodia have geological environments conducive to generation of high-arsenic groundwaters. poisoning#Arsenicosis: chronic arsenic poisoning from drinking water|Arsenicosis] was reported in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand in 1987, and the Chao Phraya River is suspected of containing high levels of naturally occurring dissolved arsenic, but has not been a public health problem owing to the use of bottled water. 

In the United States, arsenic is most commonly found in the ground waters of the southwest. Parts of New England, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas are also known to have significant concentrations of arsenic in ground water. Increased levels of skin cancer have been associated with arsenic exposure in Wisconsin, even at levels below the 10 part per billion drinking water standard. According to a recent film funded by the US Superfund, millions of private wells have unknown arsenic levels, and in some areas of the US, over 20% of wells may contain levels that exceed established limits. 

Low-level exposure to arsenic at concentrations of 100 parts per billion (i.e., above the 10 parts per billion drinking water standard) compromises the initial immune response to H1N1 or swine flu infection according to NIEHS-supported scientists. The study, conducted in laboratory mice, suggests that people exposed to arsenic in their drinking water may be at increased risk for more serious illness or death in response to infection from the virus. 

Some Canadians are drinking water that contains inorganic arsenic. Private dug well waters are most at risk for containing inorganic arsenic. Preliminary well water analyses typically does not test for arsenic. Researchers at the Geological Survey of Canada have modelled relative variation in natural arsenic hazard potential for the province of New Brunswick. This study has important implications for potable water and health concerns relating to inorganic arsenic. 

Epidemiological evidence from Chile shows a dose-dependent connection between chronic arsenic exposure and various forms of cancer, in particular when other risk factors, such as cigarette smoking, are present. These effects have been demonstrated to persist below 50 ppb. 

Analyzing multiple epidemiological studies on inorganic arsenic exposure suggests a small but measurable risk increase for bladder cancer at 10 ppb. According to Peter Ravenscroft of the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge, roughly 80 million people worldwide consume between 10 and 50 ppb arsenic in their drinking water. If they all consumed exactly 10 ppb arsenic in their drinking water, the previously cited multiple epidemiological study analysis would predict an additional 2,000 cases of bladder cancer alone. This represents a clear underestimate of the overall impact, since it does not include lung or skin cancer, and explicitly underestimates the exposure. Those exposed to levels of arsenic above the current WHO standard should weigh the costs and benefits of arsenic remediation.

Early (1973) evaluations of the removal of dissolved arsenic by drinking water treatment processes demonstrated that arsenic is very effectively removed by co-precipitation with either iron or aluminum oxides. The use of iron as a coagulant, in particular, was found to remove arsenic with efficiencies exceeding 90%. Several adsorptive media systems have been approved for point-of-service use in a study funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). A team of European and Indian scientists and engineers have set up six arsenic treatment plants in West Bengal based on in-situ remediation method (SAR Technology). This technology does not use any chemicals and arsenic is left as an insoluble form (+5 state) in the subterranean zone by recharging aerated water into the aquifer and thus developing an oxidation zone to support arsenic oxidizing micro-organisms. This process does not produce any waste stream or sludge and is relatively cheap. 

Another effective and inexpensive method to remove arsenic from contaminated well water is to sink wells 500 feet or deeper to reach purer waters. A recent 2011 study funded by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Superfund Research Program shows that deep sediments can remove arsenic and take it out of circulation. Through this process called adsorption in which arsenic sticks to the surfaces of deep sediment particles, arsenic can be naturally removed from well water. 

Magnetic separations of arsenic at very low magnetic field gradients have been demonstrated in point-of-use water purification with high-surface-area and monodisperse magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals. Using the high specific surface area of Fe3O4 nanocrystals the mass of waste associated with arsenic removal from water has been dramatically reduced. 

Epidemiological studies have suggested a correlation between chronic consumption of drinking water contaminated with arsenic and the incidence of all leading causes of mortality. The literature provides reason to believe arsenic exposure is causative in the pathogenesis of diabetes. 

Hungarian engineer László Schremmer has recently discovered that by the use of chaff-based filters it is possible to reduce the arsenic content of water to 3 µg/L. This is especially important in areas where the potable water is provided by filtering the water extracted from the underground aquifer. Newspaper article (in Hungarian) published by Magyar Nemzet on 15 April 2012. 

====San Pedro de Atacama====
For several centuries, the people of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile have been drinking water that is contaminated with arsenic, and it is believed that they may have developed some immunity to the ill effects of consuming it. 

===Wood preservation in the US===
As of 2002, US-based industries consumed 19,600 metric tons of arsenic. Ninety percent of this was used for treatment of wood with chromated copper arsenate (CCA). In 2007, 50% of the 5,280 metric tons of consumption was still used for this purpose. In the United States, the voluntary phasing-out of arsenic in production of consumer products and residential and general consumer construction products began on 31 December 2003, and alternative chemicals are now used, such as Alkaline Copper Quaternary, borates, copper azole, cyproconazole, and propiconazole. 

Although discontinued, this application is also one of the most concern to the general public. The vast majority of older pressure-treated wood was treated with CCA. CCA lumber is still in widespread use in many countries, and was heavily used during the latter half of the 20th century as a structural and outdoor building material. Although the use of CCA lumber was banned in many areas after studies showed that arsenic could leach out of the wood into the surrounding soil (from playground equipment, for instance), a risk is also presented by the burning of older CCA timber. The direct or indirect ingestion of wood ash from burnt CCA lumber has caused fatalities in animals and serious poisonings in humans; the lethal human dose is approximately 20 grams of ash. Scrap CCA lumber from construction and demolition sites may be inadvertently used in commercial and domestic fires. Protocols for safe disposal of CCA lumber do not exist evenly throughout the world; there is also concern in some quarters about the widespread landfill disposal of such timber.

===Mapping of industrial releases in the US===
One tool that maps releases of arsenic to particular locations in the United States and also provides additional information about such releases is TOXMAP. TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from the Division of Specialized Information Services of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory and Superfund Basic Research Programs. TOXMAP is a resource funded by the US Federal Government. TOXMAP's chemical and environmental health information is taken from NLM's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET) TOXNET – Databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases. Toxnet.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2011-10-24. and PubMed, and from other authoritative sources.

==Toxicity and precautions==

Arsenic and many of its compounds are especially potent poisons. Many water supplies close to mines are contaminated by these poisons.

===Classification===
Elemental arsenic and arsenic compounds are classified as "toxic" and "dangerous for the environment" in the European Union under directive 67/548/EEC.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recognizes arsenic and arsenic compounds as group 1 carcinogens, and the EU lists arsenic trioxide, arsenic pentoxide and arsenate salts as category 1 carcinogens.

Arsenic is known to cause poisoning#Arsenicosis: chronic arsenic poisoning from drinking water|arsenicosis] owing to its manifestation in drinking water, "the most common species being arsenate As(V) and arsenite As(III)".

===Legal limits, food, and drink===

In the United States, since 2006, the maximum concentration in drinking water allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is 10 ppb Adopted 22 January 2001; effective 23 January 2006. http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/arsenic/regulations.cfm and the FDA set the same standard in 2005 for bottled water. The Department of Environmental Protection for New Jersey set a drinking water limit of 5 ppb in 2006. 

In 2008, based on its ongoing testing of a wide variety of American foods for toxic chemicals, Total Diet Study and Toxic Elements Program the U.S. Food and Drug Administration set 23 ppb as the "level of concern" for inorganic arsenic apple and pear juices based on non-carcinogenic effects, and began refusing imports and demanding recalls for domestic products exceeding this level. In 2011, the national Dr. Oz television show broadcast a program highlighting tests performed by an independent lab hired by the producers. Though the methodology was disputed (it did not distinguish between organic and inorganic arsenic) the tests showed levels of arsenic up to 36 ppb. In response, FDA testing of the worst brand from the Oz show showed much lower levels, and its ongoing testing found 95% of apple juice samples were below the level of concern. Later testing by Consumer Reports showed inorganic arsenic at levels slightly above 10 ppb, with the organization urging parents to reduce consumption. In July 2013, after taking into account consumption by children, chronic exposure, and carcinogenic effect, the FDA established an "action level" of 10 ppb for apple juice, the same as the drinking water standard. 

Concern about arsenic in rice in Bangladesh was raised in 2002, but at the time only Australia had a legal limit for the level found in food (one milligram per kilogram). The People's Republic of China has a food standard of 150 ppb for arsenic, as of 2011. Further concern was raised about people who were eating U.S. rice exceeding WHO standards for personal arsenic intake in 2005. 

In the United States in 2012, testing by separate groups of researchers at the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth College (early in the year, focusing on urinary levels in children) and Consumer Reports (in November) found levels of arsenic in rice which resulted in calls for the FDA to set limits. Lawmakers Urge FDA to Act on Arsenic Standards. Foodsafetynews.com (2012-02-24). Retrieved 2012-05-23. The FDA released some testing results in September 2012, and as of July 2013 is still collecting data in support of a new potential regulation. It has not recommended any changes in consumer behavior. Consumer Reports recommended that the EPA and FDA eliminate arsenic-containing fertilizer, drugs, and pesticides in food production; that the FDA establish a legal limit for food; that industry change production practices to lower arsenic levels, especially in food for children; and that consumers test home water supplies, eat a varied diet, and cook rice with excess water which is drained off (reducing inorganic arsenic by about one third along with a slight reduction in vitamin content). 

A 2014 World Health Organization advisory conference will consider limits of 200–300 ppb for rice. 

===Biological mechanism===
The high affinity of arsenic(III) oxides for thiols is usually assigned as the cause of the high toxicity. Thiols, usually in the form of cysteine residues, but also in cofactors such as lipoic acid and coenzyme A, are situated at the active sites of many important enzymes. 

Arsenic disrupts ATP production through several mechanisms. At the level of the citric acid cycle, arsenic inhibits lipoic acid, which is a cofactor for pyruvate dehydrogenase. In addition, by competing with phosphate, arsenate uncouples oxidative phosphorylation, thus inhibiting energy-linked reduction of NAD+, mitochondrial respiration and ATP synthesis. Hydrogen peroxide production is also increased, which, it is speculated, has potential to form reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. These metabolic interferences lead to death from multi-system organ failure. The organ failure is presumed to be from necrotic cell death, not apoptosis, since energy reserves have been too depleted for apoptosis to occur. 

Although arsenic causes toxicity, it can also play a protective role. 

===Exposure risks and remediation===
Occupational exposure and arsenic poisoning may occur in persons working in industries involving the use of inorganic arsenic and its compounds, such as wood preservation, glass production, nonferrous metal alloys, and electronic semiconductor manufacturing. Inorganic arsenic is also found in coke oven emissions associated with the smelter industry. 

The ability of arsenic to undergo redox conversion between As(III) and As(V) makes its availability in the environment more abundant. According to Croal, Gralnick, Malasarn and Newman, " understanding what stimulates As(III) oxidation and/or limits As(V) reduction is relevant for bioremediation of contaminated sites (Croal). The study of chemolithoautotrophic As(III) oxidizers and the heterotrophic As(V) reducers can help the understanding of the oxidation and/or reduction of arsenic. It has been proposed that As (III) which is more toxic than Arsenic (V) can be removed from the ground water using baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. 

===Treatment===
Treatment of chronic arsenic poisoning is easily accomplished. British anti-lewisite (dimercaprol) is prescribed in doses of 5 mg/kg up to 300 mg every 4 hours for the first day, then every 6 hours for the second day, and finally every 8 hours for 8 additional days. However the USA's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) states that the long-term effects of arsenic exposure cannot be predicted. Blood, urine, hair, and nails may be tested for arsenic; however, these tests cannot foresee possible health outcomes from the exposure. Excretion occurs in the urine and long-term exposure to arsenic has been linked to bladder and kidney cancer in addition to cancer of the liver, prostate, skin, lungs, and nasal cavity. The Tox Guide for Arsenic (2007). The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 

==See also==

* Aqua Tofana
* Arsenic biochemistry
* Arsenic compounds
* Arsenic poisoning
* Arsenic toxicity
* Arsenic trioxide
* Fowler's solution
* GFAJ-1
* Grainger challenge
* Hypothetical types of biochemistry
* Organoarsenic chemistry
* White arsenic

==References==

==Bibliography==
* 

==Further reading==
* 

==External links==

* CTD's Arsenic page and CTD's Arsenicals page from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database
* A Small Dose of Toxicology
* Arsenic in groundwater Book on arsenic in groundwater by IAH's Netherlands Chapter and the Netherlands Hydrological Society
* Contaminant Focus: Arsenic by the EPA.
* Environmental Health Criteria for Arsenic and Arsenic Compounds, 2001 by the WHO.
* Evaluation of the carcinogenicity of arsenic and arsenic compounds by the IARC.
* National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health – Arsenic Page
* Arsenic at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)

 



[[Antimony]]

Antimony is a chemical element with symbol Sb (from ) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were used for cosmetics; metallic antimony was also known, but it was erroneously identified as lead. It was first isolated by Vannoccio Biringuccio and described in 1540.

For some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan. The industrial methods to produce antimony are roasting and subsequent carbothermal reduction or direct reduction of stibnite with iron.

The largest applications for metallic antimony are as alloying material for lead and tin and for lead antimony plates in lead-acid batteries. Alloying lead and tin with antimony improves the properties of the alloys which are used in solders, bullets and plain bearings. Antimony compounds are prominent additives for chlorine- and bromine-containing fire retardants found in many commercial and domestic products. An emerging application is the use of antimony in microelectronics.

==Characteristics==

===Properties===
A vial containing the black allotrope of antimony
Native antimony with oxidation products
Crystal structure common to Sb, AsSb and gray As
Antimony is in the nitrogen group (group 15) and has an electronegativity of 2.05. As expected from periodic trends, it is more electronegative than tin or bismuth, and less electronegative than tellurium or arsenic. Antimony is stable in air at room temperature, but reacts with oxygen if heated, to form antimony trioxide, Sb2O3. 

Antimony is a silvery, lustrous gray metal that has a Mohs scale hardness of 3. Thus pure antimony is too soft to make hard objects; coins made of antimony were issued in China's Guizhou province in 1931, but because of their rapid wear, their minting was discontinued. Antimony is resistant to attack by acids.

Four allotropes of antimony are known: a stable metallic form and three metastable forms (explosive, black and yellow). Metallic antimony is a brittle, silver-white shiny metal. When slowly cooled, molten antimony crystallizes in a trigonal cell, isomorphic with the gray allotrope of arsenic. A rare explosive form of antimony can be formed from the electrolysis of antimony trichloride. When scratched with a sharp implement, an exothermic reaction occurs and white fumes are given off as metallic antimony is formed; when rubbed with a pestle in a mortar, a strong detonation occurs. Black antimony is formed upon rapid cooling of vapor derived from metallic antimony. It has the same crystal structure as red phosphorus and black arsenic, it oxidizes in air and may ignite spontaneously. At 100°C, it gradually transforms into the stable form. The yellow allotrope of antimony is the most unstable. It has only been generated by oxidation of stibine (SbH3) at −90°C. Above this temperature and in ambient light, this metastable allotrope transforms into the more stable black allotrope. 

Metallic antimony adopts a layered structure (space group Rm No. 166) in which layers consist of fused ruffled six-membered rings. The nearest and next-nearest neighbors form an irregular octahedral complex, with the three atoms in the same double layer being slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a high density of 6.697 g/cm3, but the weak bonding between the layers leads to the low hardness and brittleness of antimony. 

===Isotopes===

Antimony has two stable isotopes: 121Sb with a natural abundance of 57.36% and 123Sb with a natural abundance of 42.64%. It also has 35 radioisotopes, of which the longest-lived is 125Sb with a half-life of 2.75 years. In addition, 29 metastable states have been characterized. The most stable of these is 120m1Sb with a half-life of 5.76 days. Isotopes that are lighter than the stable 123Sb tend to decay by β+ decay, and those that are heavier tend to decay by β- decay, with some exceptions. 

===Occurrence===

Stibnite
The abundance of antimony in the Earth's crust is estimated at 0.2 to 0.5 parts per million, comparable to thallium at 0.5 parts per million and silver at 0.07 ppm. Even though this element is not abundant, it is found in over 100 mineral species. Antimony is sometimes found natively, but more frequently it is found in the sulfide stibnite (Sb2S3) which is the predominant ore mineral. 

==Compounds==

Antimony compounds are often classified according to their oxidation state: Sb(III) and Sb(V). Relative to its congener arsenic, the +5 oxidation state is more stable.

===Oxides and hydroxides===
Antimony trioxide () is formed when antimony is burnt in air. In the gas phase, this compound exists as , but it polymerizes upon condensing. Antimony pentoxide () can only be formed by oxidation by concentrated nitric acid. Antimony also forms a mixed-valence oxide, antimony tetroxide (), which features both Sb(III) and Sb(V). Unlike phosphorus and arsenic, these various oxides are amphoteric, do not form well-defined oxoacids and react with acids to form antimony salts.

Antimonous acid is unknown, but the conjugate base sodium antimonite () forms upon fusing sodium oxide and . Transition metal antimonites are also known. Antimonic acid exists only as the hydrate , forming salts containing the antimonate anion . Dehydrating metal salts containing this anion yields mixed oxides. 

Many antimony ores are sulfides, including stibnite (), pyrargyrite (), zinkenite, jamesonite, and boulangerite. Antimony pentasulfide is non-stoichiometric and features antimony in the +3 oxidation state and S-S bonds. Several thioantimonides are known, such as and . 

===Halides===
Antimony forms two series of halides: and . The trihalides trifluoride|], trichloride|], tribromide|], and triiodide|] are all molecular compounds having trigonal pyramidal molecular geometry.

The trifluoride trifluoride|] is prepared by the reaction of trioxide|] with HF: 
: + 6 HF → 2 + 3 

It is Lewis acidic and readily accepts fluoride ions to form the complex anions and . Molten trifluoride|] is a weak electrical conductor. The trichloride trichloride|] is prepared by dissolving [[stibnite|]] in hydrochloric acid:
: + 6 HCl → 2 + 3 
Structure of gaseous SbF5

The pentahalides pentafluoride|] and pentachloride|] have trigonal bipyramidal molecular geometry in the gas phase, but in the liquid phase, pentafluoride|] is polymeric, whereas pentachloride|] is monomeric. pentafluoride|] is a powerful Lewis acid used to make the superacid fluoroantimonic acid ("H2SbF7").

Oxyhalides are more common for antimony than arsenic and phosphorus. Antimony trioxide dissolves in concentrated acid to form oxoantimonyl compounds such as SbOCl and . 

===Antimonides, hydrides, and organoantimony compounds===
Compounds in this class generally are described as derivatives of Sb3-. Antimony forms antimonides with metals, such as indium antimonide (InSb) and silver antimonide (). The alkali metal and zinc antimonides, such as Na3Sb and Zn3Sb2, are more reactive. Treating these antimonides with acid produces the unstable gas stibine, : 
: + 3 → 
Stibine can also be produced by treating salts with hydride reagents such as sodium borohydride.Stibine decomposes spontaneously at room temperature. Because stibine has a positive heat of formation, it is thermodynamically unstable and thus antimony does not react with hydrogen directly. Greenwood, N. N.; & Earnshaw, A. (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd Edn.), Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0-7506-3365-4. 

Organoantimony compounds are typically prepared by alkylation of antimony halides with Grignard reagents. Elschenbroich, C. "Organometallics" (2006) Wiley-VCH: Weinheim. ISBN 3-527-29390-6 A large variety of compounds are known with both Sb(III) and Sb(V) centers, including mixed chloro-organic derivatives, anions, and cations. Examples include Sb(C6H5)3 (triphenylstibine), Sb2(C6H5)4 (with an Sb-Sb bond), and cyclic n. Pentacoordinated organoantimony compounds are common, examples being Sb(C6H5)5 and several related halides.

==History==
One of the alchemical symbols for antimony
Antimony(III) sulfide, Sb2S3, was recognized in predynastic Egypt as an eye cosmetic (kohl) as early as about 3100 BC, when the cosmetic palette was invented. 

An artifact, said to be part of a vase, made of antimony dating to about 3000 BC was found at Telloh, Chaldea (part of present-day Iraq), and a copper object plated with antimony dating between 2500 BC and 2200 BC has been found in Egypt. Austen, at a lecture by Herbert Gladstone in 1892 commented that "we only know of antimony at the present day as a highly brittle and crystalline metal, which could hardly be fashioned into a useful vase, and therefore this remarkable 'find' (artifact mentioned above) must represent the lost art of rendering antimony malleable." 

Moorey was unconvinced the artifact was indeed a vase, mentioning that Selimkhanov, after his analysis of the Tello object (published in 1975), "attempted to relate the metal to Transcaucasian natural antimony" (i.e. native metal) and that "the antimony objects from Transcaucasia are all small personal ornaments." This weakens the evidence for a lost art "of rendering antimony malleable." 

The Greek scholar Pliny the Elder described several ways of preparing antimony sulfide for medical purposes in his treatise Natural history. Pliny the Elder also made a distinction between 'male' and 'female' forms of antimony; the male form is probably the sulfide, while the female form, which is superior, heavier, and less friable, has been suspected to be native metallic antimony. Pliny, Natural history, 33.33; W.H.S. Jones, the Loeb Classical Library translator, supplies a note suggesting the identifications. 

The Roman naturalist Pedanius Dioscorides mentioned that antimony sulfide could be roasted by heating by a current of air. It is thought that this produced metallic antimony. 

The italian metallurgist Vannoccio Biringuccio described the first procedure of how to isolate antimony.

The first description of a procedure for isolating antimony is in the book De la pirotechnia of 1540 by Vannoccio Biringuccio; this predates the more famous 1556 book by Agricola, De re metallica. In this context Agricola has been often incorrectly credited with the discovery of metallic antimony. The book Currus Triumphalis Antimonii (The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony), describing the preparation of metallic antimony, was published in Germany in 1604. It was purported to have been written by a Benedictine monk, writing under the name Basilius Valentinus, in the 15th century; if it were authentic, which it is not, it would predate Biringuccio. s.v. "Basilius Valentinus." Harold Jantz was perhaps the only modern scholar to deny Thölde's authorship, but he too agrees the work dates from after 1550: see his catalogue of German Baroque literature. 

The metal antimony was known to German chemist Andreas Libavius in 1615 who obtained it by adding iron to a molten mixture of antimony sulfide, salt and potassium tartrate. This procedure produced antimony with a crystalline or starred surface. 

With the advent of challenges to phlogiston theory it was recognized that antimony is an element forming sulfides, oxides etc as is the case of other metals. 

The first natural occurrence of pure antimony in the Earth's crust was described by the Swedish scientist and local mine district engineer Anton von Swab in 1783; the type-sample was collected from the Sala Silver Mine in the Bergslagen mining district of Sala, Västmanland, Sweden. 

===Etymology===
The ancient words for antimony mostly have, as their chief meaning, kohl, the sulfide of antimony. 

The Egyptians called antimony mśdmt; in hieroglyphs, the vowels are uncertain, but there is an Arabic tradition that the word is ميسديميت mesdemet. quotes Meyerhof, the translator of the book he is reviewing. The Greek word, στίμμι stimmi, is probably a loan word from Arabic or Egyptian sdm O34:D46-G17-F21:D4 and is used by Attic tragic poets of the 5th century BC; later Greeks also used στἰβι stibi, as did Celsus and Pliny, writing in Latin, in the first century AD. Pliny also gives the names stimi , larbaris, alabaster, and the "very common" platyophthalmos, "wide-eye" (from the effect of the cosmetic). Later Latin authors adapted the word to Latin as stibium. The Arabic word for the substance, as opposed to the cosmetic, can appear as إثمد ithmid, athmoud, othmod, or uthmod. Littré suggests the first form, which is the earliest, derives from stimmida, an accusative for stimmi. LSJ, s.v., vocalisation, spelling, and declension vary; Endlich, p. 28; Celsus, 6.6.6 ff; Pliny Natural History 33.33; Lewis and Short: Latin Dictionary. OED, s. "antimony". 

The use of Sb as the standard chemical symbol for antimony is due to Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who used this abbreviation of the name stibium. In his long article on chemical reactions and nomenclature – Jöns Jacob Berzelius, "Essay on the cause of chemical proportions, and on some circumstances relating to them: together with a short and easy method of expressing them," Annals of Philosophy, vol. 2, pages 443–454 (1813) and vol. 3, pages 51–62, 93–106, 244–255, 353–364 (1814) – on page 52, Berzelius lists the symbol for antimony as "St"; however, starting on page 248, Berzelius subsequently uses the symbol "Sb" for antimony. The medieval Latin form, from which the modern languages and late Byzantine Greek take their names for antimony, is antimonium. The origin of this is uncertain; all suggestions have some difficulty either of form or interpretation. The popular etymology, from ἀντίμοναχός anti-monachos or French antimoine, still has adherents; this would mean "monk-killer", and is explained by many early alchemists being monks, and antimony being poisonous. The use of a symbol resembling an upside down "female" symbol for antimony could also hint at a satirical pun in this origin 

Another popular etymology is the hypothetical Greek word ἀντίμόνος antimonos, "against aloneness", explained as "not found as metal", or "not found unalloyed". Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 5th ed. 2004. Entry for antimony. Fernando even derives it from the story of how "Basil Valentine" and his fellow monastic alchemists poisoned themselves by working with antimony; antimonium is found two centuries before his time. "Popular etymology" from OED; as for antimonos, the pure negative would be more naturally expressed by a- "not". Lippmann conjectured a hypothetical Greek word ανθήμόνιον anthemonion, which would mean "floret", and cites several examples of related Greek words (but not that one) which describe chemical or biological efflorescence. Lippman, pp. 643–5 

The early uses of antimonium include the translations, in 1050–1100, by Constantine the African of Arabic medical treatises. Lippman, p. 642, writing in 1919, says "zuerst". Several authorities believe antimonium is a scribal corruption of some Arabic form; Meyerhof derives it from ithmid; Meyerhof as quoted in Sarton, asserts that ithmid or athmoud became corrupted in the medieval "traductions barbaro-latines".; the OED asserts some Arabic form is the origin, and if ithmid is the root, posits athimodium, atimodium, atimonium, as intermediate forms. other possibilities include athimar, the Arabic name of the metalloid, and a hypothetical as-stimmi, derived from or parallel to the Greek. Endlich, p. 28; one of the advantages of as-stimmi would be that it has a whole syllable in common with antimonium. 

==Production==
World antimony output in 2010. 
World production trend of antimony.

===Top producers and production volumes===
The British Geological Survey reported that in 2005, the People's Republic of China was the top producer of antimony with an approximately 84% world share, followed at a distance by South Africa, Bolivia and Tajikistan. Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan province has the largest deposits in China with an estimated deposit of 2.1 million metric tons. 

In 2010, according to the US Geological Survey, China accounted for 88.9% of total antimony production with South Africa, Bolivia and Russia sharing the second place.

+Antimony production in 2010 Country Tonnes % of total 
 People's Republic of China 120,000 88.9 
 South Africa 3,000 2.2 
 Bolivia 3,000 2.2 
 Russia 3,000 2.2 
 Tajikistan 2,000 1.5 
 Top 5 131,000 97.0 
 Total world 135,000 100.0 

However, Roskill Consulting estimates for primary production show that in 2010 China held a 76.75% share of world's supply with 120,462 tonnes (90,000 tonnes of reported and 30,464 tonnes of un-reported production), followed by Russia (4.14% share, 6,500 tonnes of production), Myanmar (3.76% share, 5,897 tonnes), Canada (3.61% share, 5,660 tonnes), Tajikistan (3.42% share, 5,370 tonnes) and Bolivia (3.17% share, 4,980 tonnes). 

Roskill estimates that secondary production globally in 2010 was 39,540 tonnes. 

Antimony was ranked first in a Risk List published by the British Geological Survey in the second half 2011. The list provides an indication of the relative risk to the supply of chemical elements or element groups required to maintain the current British economy and lifestyle. 

Also, antimony was identified as one of 12 critical raw materials for the EU in a report published in 2011, primarily due to the lack of supply outside China. 

Reported production of antimony in China fell in 2010 and is unlikely to increase in the coming years, according to the Roskill report. No significant antimony deposits in China have been developed for about ten years, and the remaining economic reserves are being rapidly depleted. 

The world's largest antimony producers, according to Roskill, are listed below:

+Largest antimony producers in 2010. Antimony Uses, Production and Prices Primer. tri-starresources.com Country Company Capacity (tonnes per year) 
 Australia Mandalay Resources 2,750 
 Bolivia various 5,460 
 Canada Beaver Brook 6,000 
 China Hsikwangshan Twinkling Star 55,000 
 China Hunan Chenzhou Mining 20,000 
 China China Tin Group 20,000 
 China Shenyang Huachang Antimony 15,000 
 Kazakhstan Kazzinc 1,000 
 Kyrgyzstan Kadamdzhai 500 
 Laos SRS 500 
 Mexico US Antimony 70 
 Myanmar various 6,000 
 Russia GeoProMining 6,500 
 South Africa Consolidated Murchison 6,000 
 Tajikistan Unzob 5,500 
 Thailand unknown 600 
 Turkey Cengiz & Özdemir Antimuan Madenleri 2,400 

===Reserves===
According to statistics from the US Geological Survey (USGS), current global reserves of antimony will be depleted in 13 years. However, the United States Geological Survey expects more resources will be found.

+World antimony reserves in 2010 Country Reserves (tonnes of antimony content) % of total 
 People's Republic of China 950,000 51.88 
 Russia 350,000 19.12 
 Bolivia 310,000 16.93 
 Tajikistan 50,000 2.73 
 South Africa 21,000 1.15 
 Other countries 150,000 8.19 
 Total world 1,831,000 100.0 

===Production process===
The extraction of antimony from ores depends on the quality of the ore and composition of the ore. Most antimony is mined as the sulfide; lower grade ores are concentrated by froth flotation, while higher grade ores are heated to 500–600 °C, the temperature at which stibnite melts and is separated from the gangue minerals. Antimony can be isolated from the crude antimony sulfide by a reduction with scrap iron: 

: + 3 Fe → 2 Sb + 3 FeS

The sulfide is converted to an oxide and advantage is often taken of the volatility of antimony(III) oxide, which is recovered from roasting. This material is often used directly for the main applications, impurities being arsenic and sulfide. 
Isolating antimony from its oxide is performed by a carbothermal reduction: 

:2 + 3 C → 4 Sb + 3 

The lower grade ores are reduced in blast furnaces while the higher grade ores are reduced in reverberatory furnaces. 

==Applications==
About 60% of antimony is consumed in flame retardants, and 20% is used in alloys for batteries, plain bearings and solders. 

===Flame retardants===
Antimony is mainly used as its trioxide in making flame-proofing compounds. It is nearly always used in combination with halogenated flame retardants, with the only exception being in halogen-containing polymers. The formation of halogenated antimony compounds is the cause for the flame retarding effect of antimony trioxide, due to reaction of these compounds with hydrogen atoms and probably also with oxygen atoms and OH radicals, thus inhibiting fire. Markets for these flame-retardant applications include children's clothing, toys, aircraft and automobile seat covers. It is also used in the fiberglass composites industry as an additive to polyester resins for such items as light aircraft engine covers. The resin will burn while a flame is held to it but will extinguish itself as soon as the flame is removed. Grund, Sabina C.; Hanusch, Kunibert; Breunig, Hans J.; Wolf, Hans Uwe (2006) "Antimony and Antimony Compounds" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. 

===Alloys===
Antimony forms a highly useful alloy with lead, increasing its hardness and mechanical strength. For most applications involving lead, varying amounts of antimony are used as alloying metal. In lead–acid batteries, this addition improves the charging characteristics and reduces generation of unwanted hydrogen during charging. It is used in antifriction alloys (such as Babbitt metal), in bullets and lead shot, cable sheathing, type metal (for example, for linotype printing machines ), solder (some "lead-free" solders contain 5% Sb), in pewter, and in hardening alloys with low tin content in the manufacturing of organ pipes.

===Other applications===
Three other applications make up nearly all the rest of the consumption. One of these uses is as a stabilizer and a catalyst for the production of polyethyleneterephthalate. Another application is to serve as a fining agent to remove microscopic bubbles in glass, mostly for TV screens; this is achieved by the interaction of antimony ions with oxygen, interfering the latter from forming bubbles. The third major application is the use as pigment. 

Antimony is being increasingly used in the semiconductor industry as a dopant for heavily doped n-type silicon wafers in the production of diodes, infrared detectors, and Hall-effect devices. In the 1950s, tiny beads of a lead-antimony alloy were used to dope the emitters and collectors of n-p-n alloy junction transistors with antimony. Indium antimonide is used as a material for mid-infrared detectors. 

Few biological or medical applications exist for antimony. Treatments principally containing antimony are known as antimonials and are used as emetics. Antimony compounds are used as antiprotozoan drugs. Potassium antimonyl tartrate, or tartar emetic, was once used as an anti-schistosomal drug from 1919 on. It was subsequently replaced by praziquantel. Antimony and its compounds are used in several veterinary preparations like anthiomaline or lithium antimony thiomalate, which is used as a skin conditioner in ruminants. Antimony has a nourishing or conditioning effect on keratinized tissues, at least in animals.

Antimony-based drugs, such as meglumine antimoniate, are also considered the drugs of choice for treatment of leishmaniasis in domestic animals. Unfortunately, as well as having low therapeutic indices, the drugs are poor at penetrating the bone marrow, where some of the Leishmania amastigotes reside, and so cure of the disease – especially the visceral form – is very difficult. Elemental antimony as an antimony pill was once used as a medicine. It could be reused by others after ingestion and elimination. 

In the heads of some safety matches, antimony(III) sulfide is used. Antimony-124 is used together with beryllium in neutron sources; the gamma rays emitted by antimony-124 initiate the photodisintegration of beryllium. The emitted neutrons have an average energy of 24 keV. Antimony sulfides have been shown to help stabilize the friction coefficient in automotive brake pad materials. 

Antimony also is used in the making of bullets and bullet tracers. This element is also used in traditional cosmetics, event paint and glass art crafts. An application as an opacifier in enamel declined in use after the 1930s, after several intoxications were reported. 

==Precautions==
Antimony and many of its compounds are toxic, and the effects of antimony poisoning are similar to arsenic poisoning. The toxicity of antimony is far lower than that of arsenic; this might be caused by the significant differences of uptake, metabolism and excretion between arsenic and antimony. The uptake of antimony(III) or antimony(V) in the gastrointestinal tract is at most 20%. Antimony(V) is not quantitatively reduced to antimony(III) in the cell (in fact antimony(III) is oxidised to antimony(V) instead ).

Since methylation of antimony does not occur, the excretion of antimony(V) in urine is the main way of elimination. Like arsenic, the most serious effect of acute antimony poisoning is cardiotoxicity and the resulted myocarditis, however it can also manifest as Adams–Stokes syndrome which arsenic doesn't. Reported cases of intoxication by antimony equivalent to 90 mg antimony potassium tartrate dissolved from enamel has been reported to show only short term effects. An intoxication with 6 g of antimony potassium tartrate was reported to result in death after 3 days. 

Inhalation of antimony dust is harmful and in certain cases may be fatal; in small doses, antimony causes headaches, dizziness, and depression. Larger doses such as prolonged skin contact may cause dermatitis, or damage the kidneys and the liver, causing violent and frequent vomiting, leading to death in a few days. 

Antimony is incompatible with strong oxidizing agents, strong acids, halogen acids, chlorine, or fluorine. It should be kept away from heat. Antimony MSDS. Baker 

Antimony leaches from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into liquids. While levels observed for bottled water are below drinking water guidelines, fruit juice concentrates (for which no guidelines are established) produced in the UK were found to contain up to 44.7 µg/L of antimony, well above the EU limits for tap water of 5 µg/L. The guidelines are:
* World Health Organization: 20 µg/L
* Japan: 15 µg/L Wakayama, Hiroshi, "Revision of Drinking Water Standards in Japan", Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (Japan), 2003; Table 2, p. 84 
* United States Environmental Protection Agency, Health Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Environment: 6 µg/L
* German Federal Ministry of Environment: 5 µg/L 

==See also==

* Phase change memory

==Notes==

==References==

==Bibliography==
* 
* Edmund Oscar von Lippmann (1919) Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie, teil 1. Berlin: Julius Springer (in German).
* Public Health Statement for Antimony

==External links==

* Chemistry in its element podcast (MP3) from the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World: Antimony
* Antimony at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
* National Pollutant Inventory – Antimony and compounds
* CDC - NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards - Antimony

*



[[Actinium]]

Actinium is a radioactive chemical element with symbol Ac (not to be confused with the abbreviation for an acetyl group) and atomic number 89, which was discovered in 1899. It was the first non-primordial radioactive element to be isolated. Polonium, radium and radon were observed before actinium, but they were not isolated until 1902. Actinium gave the name to the actinide series, a group of 15 similar elements between actinium and lawrencium in the periodic table.

A soft, silvery-white radioactive metal, actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that prevents further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and actinides, actinium assumes oxidation state +3 in nearly all its chemical compounds. Actinium is found only in traces in uranium ores as the isotope 227Ac, which decays with a half-life of 21.772 years, predominantly emitting beta particles. One tonne of uranium ore contains about 0.2 milligrams of actinium. The close similarity of physical and chemical properties of actinium and lanthanum makes separation of actinium from the ore impractical. Instead, the element is prepared, in milligram amounts, by the neutron irradiation of 226 in a nuclear reactor. Owing to its scarcity, high price and radioactivity, actinium has no significant industrial use. Its current applications include a neutron source and an agent for radiation therapy targeting cancer cells in the body.

==History==
André-Louis Debierne, a French chemist, announced the discovery of a new element in 1899. He separated it from pitchblende residues left by Marie and Pierre Curie after they had extracted radium. In 1899, Debierne described the substance as similar to titanium and (in 1900) as similar to thorium. Friedrich Oskar Giesel independently discovered actinium in 1902 as a substance being similar to lanthanum and called it "emanium" in 1904. After a comparison of the substances half-lives determined by Debierne, Hariett Brooks in 1904, and Otto Hahn and Otto Sackur in 1905, Debierne's chosen name for the new element was retained because it had seniority. 

Articles published in the 1970s and later suggest that Debierne's results published in 1904 conflict with those reported in 1899 and 1900. This has led some authors to advocate that Giesel alone should be credited with the discovery. A less confrontational vision of scientific discovery is proposed by Adloff. He suggests that hindsight criticism of the early publications should be mitigated by the nascent state of radiochemistry: highlighting the prudence of Debierne's claims in the original papers, he notes that nobody can contend that Debierne's substance did not contain actinium. Debierne, who is now considered by the vast majority of historians as the discoverer, lost interest in the element and left the topic. Giesel, on the other hand, can rightfully be credited with the first preparation of radiochemically pure actinium and with the identification of its atomic number 89.

The name actinium originates from the Ancient Greek aktis, aktinos (ακτίς, ακτίνος), meaning beam or ray. Its symbol Ac is also used in abbreviations of other compounds that have nothing to do with actinium, such as acetyl, acetate and sometimes acetaldehyde. 

==Properties==
Actinium is a soft, silvery-white, Actinium, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, 1995, p. 70 radioactive, metallic element. Its estimated shear modulus is similar to that of lead. Frederick Seitz, David Turnbull Solid state physics: advances in research and applications, Academic Press, 1964 ISBN 0-12-607716-9 pp. 289–291 Owing to its strong radioactivity, actinium glows in the dark with a pale blue light, which originates from the surrounding air ionized by the emitted energetic particles. Actinium has similar chemical properties as lanthanum and other lanthanides, and therefore these elements are difficult to separate when extracting from uranium ores. Solvent extraction and ion chromatography are commonly used for the separation. 

The first element of the actinides, actinium gave the group its name, much as lanthanum had done for the lanthanides. The group of elements is more diverse than the lanthanides and therefore it was not until 1945 that Glenn T. Seaborg proposed the most significant change to Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table, by introducing the actinides. 

Actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that prevents further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and actinides, actinium exists in the oxidation state +3, and the Ac3+ ions are colorless in solutions. The oxidation state +3 originates from the 6d17s2 electronic configuration of actinium, that is it easily donates 3 electrons assuming a stable closed-shell structure of the noble gas radon. The rare oxidation state +2 is only known for actinium dihydride (AcH2). 

==Chemical compounds==
Only a limited number of actinium compounds are known including AcF3, AcCl3, AcBr3, AcOF, AcOCl, AcOBr, Ac2S3, Ac2O3 and AcPO4. Except for AcPO4, they are all similar to the corresponding lanthanum compounds and contain actinium in the oxidation state +3. In particular, the lattice constants of the analogous lanthanum and actinium compounds differ by only a few percent. 

 Formula color symmetry space group No Pearson symbol a (pm) b (pm) c (pm) Z density, g/cm3 
 Ac silvery fcc Fmm 225 cF4 531.1 531.1 531.1 4 10.07 
 AcH2 cubic Fmm 225 cF12 567 567 567 4 8.35 
 Ac2O3 white trigonal Pm1 164 hP5 408 408 630 1 9.18 
 Ac2S3 cubic I3d 220 cI28 778.56 778.56 778.56 4 6.71 
 AcF3 white Meyer, p. 71 hexagonal Pc1 165 hP24 741 741 755 6 7.88 
 AcCl3 hexagonal P63/m 165 hP8 764 764 456 2 4.8 
 AcBr3 white hexagonal P63/m 165 hP8 764 764 456 2 5.85 
 AcOF white cubic Fmm 593.1 8.28 
 AcOCl tetragonal 424 424 707 7.23 
 AcOBr tetragonal 427 427 740 7.89 
 AcPO4·0.5H2O hexagonal 721 721 664 5.48 

Here a, b and c are lattice constants, No is space group number and Z is the number of formula units per unit cell. Density was not measured directly but calculated from the lattice parameters.

===Oxides===
Actinium oxide (Ac2O3) can be obtained by heating the hydroxide at 500 °C or the oxalate at 1100 °C, in vacuum. It crystal lattice is isotypic with the oxides of most trivalent rare-earth metals. 

===Halides===
Actinium trifluoride can be produced either in solution or in solid reaction. The former reaction is carried out at room temperature, by adding hydrofluoric acid to a solution containing actinium ions. In the latter method, actinium metal is treated with hydrogen fluoride vapors at 700 °C in an all-platinum setup. Treating actinium trifluoride with ammonium hydroxide at 900–1000 °C yields oxyfluoride AcOF. Whereas lanthanum oxyfluoride can be easily obtained by burning lanthanum trifluoride in air at 800 °C for an hour, similar treatment of actinium trifluoride yields no AcOF and only results in melting of the initial product. Meyer, pp. 87–88 

:AcF3 + 2 NH3 + H2O → AcOF + 2 NH4F

Actinium trichloride is obtained by reacting actinium hydroxide or oxalate with carbon tetrachloride vapors at temperatures above 960 °C. Similar to oxyfluoride, actinium oxychloride can be prepared by hydrolyzing actinium trichloride with ammonium hydroxide at 1000 °C. However, in contrast to the oxyfluoride, the oxychloride could well be synthesized by igniting a solution of actinium trichloride in hydrochloric acid with ammonia. 

Reaction of aluminium bromide and actinium oxide yields actinium tribromide:
:Ac2O3 + 2 AlBr3 → 2 AcBr3 + Al2O3

and treating it with ammonium hydroxide at 500 °C results in the oxybromide AcOBr. 

===Other compounds===
Actinium hydride was obtained by reduction of actinium trichloride with potassium at 300 °C, and its structure was deduced by analogy with the corresponding LaH2 hydride. The source of hydrogen in the reaction was uncertain. Meyer, p. 43 

Mixing monosodium phosphate (NaH2PO4) with a solution of actinium in hydrochloric acid yields white-colored actinium phosphate hemihydrate (AcPO4·0.5H2O), and heating actinium oxalate with hydrogen sulfide vapors at 1400 °C for a few minutes results in a black actinium sulfide Ac2S3. It may possibly be produced by acting with a mixture of hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide on actinium oxide at 1000 °C. 

==Isotopes==

Naturally occurring actinium is composed of one radioactive isotope; . Thirty-six radioisotopes have been identified, the most stable being with a half-life of 21.772 years, with a half-life of 10.0 days and with a half-life of 29.37 hours. All remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 10 hours and the majority of them have half-lives shorter than one minute. The shortest-lived known isotope of actinium is (half-life of 69 nanoseconds) which decays through alpha decay and electron capture. Actinium also has two meta states. 

Purified comes into equilibrium with its decay products at the end of 185 days. It decays according to its 21.772-year half-life emitting mostly beta (98.8%) and some alpha particles (1.2%); Actinium, Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in Russian) the successive decay products are part of the actinium series. Owing to the low available amounts, low energy of its beta particles (46 keV) and low intensity of alpha radiation, is difficult to detect directly by its emission and it is therefore traced via its decay products. The isotopes of actinium range in atomic weight from 206 u () to 236 u (). 

Isotope Production Decay Half-life 
 221Ac 232Th(d,9n)225Pa(α)→221Ac α 52 ms 
 222Ac 232Th(d,8n)226Pa(α)→222Ac α 5.0 s 
 223Ac 232Th(d,7n)227Pa(α)→223Ac α 2.1 min 
 224Ac 232Th(d,6n)228Pa(α)→224Ac α 2.78 hours 
 225Ac 232Th(n,γ)233Th(β−)→233Pa(β−)→233U(α)→229Th(α)→225Ra(β−)225Ac α 10 days 
 226Ac 226Ra(d,2n)226Ac α, β− electron capture 29.37 hours 
 227Ac 235U(α)→231Th(β−)→231Pa(α)→227Ac α, β− 21.77 years 
 228Ac 232Th(α)→228Ra(β−)→228Ac β− 6.15 hours 
 229Ac 228Ra(n,γ)229Ra(β−)→229Ac β− 62.7 min 
 230Ac 232Th(d,α)230Ac β− 122 s 
 231Ac 232Th(γ,p)231Ac β− 7.5 min 
 232Ac 232Th(n,p)232Ac β− 119 s 

==Occurrence and synthesis==
Uraninite ores have elevated concentrations of actinium.
Actinium is found only in traces in uranium ores as 227Ac – one tonne of ore contains about 0.2 milligrams of actinium. The actinium isotope 227Ac is a transient member of the actinium series decay chain, which begins with the parent isotope 235U (or 239Pu) and ends with the stable lead isotope 207Pb. Another actinium isotope (225Ac) is transiently present in the neptunium series decay chain, beginning with 237Np (or 233U) and ending with thallium (205Tl) and near-stable bismuth (209Bi).

The low natural concentration, and the close similarity of physical and chemical properties to those of lanthanum and other lanthanides, which are always abundant in actinium-bearing ores, render separation of actinium from the ore impractical, and complete separation was never achieved. Instead, actinium is prepared, in milligram amounts, by the neutron irradiation of 226 in a nuclear reactor. 

:

The reaction yield is about 2% of the radium weight. 227Ac can further capture neutrons resulting in small amounts of 228Ac. After the synthesis, actinium is separated from radium and from the products of decay and nuclear fusion, such as thorium, polonium, lead and bismuth. The extraction can be performed with thenoyltrifluoroacetone-benzene solution from an aqueous solution of the radiation products, and the selectivity to a certain element is achieved by adjusting the pH (to about 6.0 for actinium). An alternative procedure is anion exchange with an appropriate resin in nitric acid, which can result in a separation factor of 1,000,000 for radium and actinium vs. thorium in a two-stage process. Actinium can then be separated from radium, with a ratio of about 100, using a low cross-linking cation exchange resin and nitric acid as eluant. 

225Ac was first produced artificially at the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU) in Germany using a cyclotron and at St George Hospital in Sydney using a linac in 2000. This rare isotope has potential applications in radiation therapy and is most efficiently produced by bombarding a radium-226 target with 20–30 MeV deuterium ions. This reaction also yields 226Ac which however decays with a half-life of 29 hours and thus does not contaminate 225Ac. Russell, Pamela J.; Jackson, Paul and Kingsley, Elizabeth Anne Prostate cancer methods and protocols, Humana Press, 2003, ISBN 0-89603-978-1, p. 336 

Actinium metal has been prepared by the reduction of actinium fluoride with lithium vapor in vacuum at a temperature between 1100 and 1300 °C. Higher temperatures resulted in evaporation of the product and lower ones lead to an incomplete transformation. Lithium was chosen among other alkali metals because its fluoride is most volatile. Hammond, C. R. The Elements in 

==Applications==
Owing to its scarcity, high price and radioactivity, actinium currently has no significant industrial use. 

227Ac is highly radioactive and was therefore studied for use as an active element of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, for example in spacecraft. The oxide of 227Ac pressed with beryllium is also an efficient neutron source with the activity exceeding that of the standard americium-beryllium and radium-beryllium pairs. Russell, Alan M. and Lee, Kok Loong Structure-property relations in nonferrous metals, Wiley, 2005, ISBN 0-471-64952-X, pp. 470–471 In all those applications, 227Ac (a beta source) is merely a progenitor which generates alpha-emitting isotopes upon its decay. Beryllium captures alpha particles and emits neutrons owing to its large cross-section for the (α,n) nuclear reaction:

: 

The 227AcBe neutron sources can be applied in a neutron probe – a standard device for measuring the quantity of water present in soil, as well as moisture/density for quality control in highway construction. Majumdar, D. K. Irrigation Water Management: Principles and Practice, 2004 ISBN 81-203-1729-7 p. 108 Chandrasekharan, H. and Gupta, Navindu Fundamentals of Nuclear Science – Application in Agriculture, 2006 ISBN 81-7211-200-9 pp. 202 ff Such probes are also used in well logging applications, in neutron radiography, tomography and other radiochemical investigations. 

Chemical structure of the DOTA carrier for 225Ac in radiation therapy.
225Ac is applied in medicine to produce 213 in a reusable generator or can be used alone as an agent for radiation therapy, in particular targeted alpha therapy (TAT). This isotope has a half-life of 10 days that makes it much more suitable for radiation therapy than 213Bi (half-life 46 minutes). Not only 225Ac itself, but also its decay products emit alpha particles which kill cancer cells in the body. The major difficulty with application of 225Ac was that intravenous injection of simple actinium complexes resulted in their accumulation in the bones and liver for a period of tens of years. As a result, after the cancer cells were quickly killed by alpha particles from 225Ac, the radiation from the actinium and its decay products might induce new mutations. To solve this problem, 225Ac was bound to a chelating agent, such as citrate, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA). This reduced actinium accumulation in the bones, but the excretion from the body remained slow. Much better results were obtained with such chelating agents as HEHA(1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaazacyclohexadecane-N,N',N'`,N'``,N'``',N'``'`-hexaacetic acid) or DOTA (1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid) coupled to trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that interferes with the HER2/neu receptor. The latter delivery combination was tested on mice and proved to be effective against leukemia, lymphoma, breast, ovarian, neuroblastoma and prostate cancers. 

The medium half-life of 227Ac (21.77 years) makes it very convenient radioactive isotope in modeling the slow vertical mixing of oceanic waters. The associated processes cannot be studied with the required accuracy by direct measurements of current velocities (of the order 50 meters per year). However, evaluation of the concentration depth-profiles for different isotopes allows estimating the mixing rates. The physics behind this method is as follows: oceanic waters contain homogeneously dispersed 235U. Its decay product, 231Pa, gradually precipitates to the bottom, so that its concentration first increases with depth and then stays nearly constant. 231Pa decays to 227Ac; however, the concentration of the latter isotope does not follow the 231Pa depth profile, but instead increases toward the sea bottom. This occurs because of the mixing processes which raise some additional 227Ac from the sea bottom. Thus analysis of both 231Pa and 227Ac depth profiles allows to model the mixing behavior. 

==Precautions==
227Ac is highly radioactive and experiments with it are carried out in a specially designed laboratory equipped with a glove box. When actinium trichloride is administered intravenously to rats, about 33% of actinium is deposited into the bones and 50% into the liver. Its toxicity is comparable to, but slightly lower than that of americium and plutonium. 

==See also==
* Actinium series

==References==

==Bibliography==
* Meyer, Gerd and Morss, Lester R. Synthesis of lanthanide and actinide compounds, Springer, 1991, ISBN 0-7923-1018-7

==External links==
* Actinium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
* NLM Hazardous Substances Databank – Actinium, Radioactive
* Actinium in 



[[Americium]]

Americium (pronounced ) is a transuranic radioactive chemical element that has the symbol Am and atomic number 95. This transuranic element of the actinide series is located in the periodic table below the lanthanide element europium, and thus by analogy was named after another continent, America. 

Americium was first produced in 1944 by the group of Glenn T. Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley. Although it is the third element in the transuranic series, it was discovered fourth, after the heavier curium. The discovery was kept secret and only released to the public in November 1945. Most americium is produced by bombarding uranium or plutonium with neutrons in nuclear reactors – one tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of americium. It is widely used in commercial ionization chamber smoke detectors, as well as in neutron sources and industrial gauges. Several unusual applications, such as a nuclear battery or fuel for space ships with nuclear propulsion, have been proposed for the isotope 242mAm, but they are as yet hindered by the scarcity and high price of this nuclear isomer.

Americium is a relatively soft radioactive metal with silvery appearance. Its most common isotopes are 241Am and 243Am. In chemical compounds, they usually assume the oxidation state +3, especially in solutions. Several other oxidation states are known, which range from +2 to +7 and can be identified by their characteristic optical absorption spectra. The crystal lattice of solid americium and its compounds contains intrinsic defects, which are induced by self-irradiation with alpha particles and accumulate with time; this results in a drift of some material properties.

==History==
The 60-inch cyclotron at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, in August 1939.
The triangle in the glass tube contains the first sample of americium (as the hydroxide), produced in 1944. LBL NEWS Magazine, Vol.6, No.3, Fall 1981, p. 49 

Although americium was likely produced in previous nuclear experiments, it was first intentionally synthesized, isolated and identified in late autumn 1944, at the University of California, Berkeley, by Glenn T. Seaborg, Leon O. Morgan, Ralph A. James, and Albert Ghiorso. They used a 60-inch cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. Obituary of Dr. Leon Owen (Tom) Morgan (1919–2002), Retrieved 28 November 2010 The element was chemically identified at the Metallurgical Laboratory (now Argonne National Laboratory) of the University of Chicago. Following the lighter neptunium, plutonium, and heavier curium, americium was the fourth transuranium element to be discovered. At the time, the periodic table had been restructured by Seaborg to its present layout, containing the actinide row below the lanthanide one. This led to americium being located right below its twin lanthanide element europium; it was thus by analogy named after another continent, America: "The name americium (after the Americas) and the symbol Am are suggested for the element on the basis of its position as the sixth member of the actinide rare-earth series, analogous to europium, Eu, of the lanthanide series." Seaborg, G. T.; James, R.A. and Morgan, L. O.: "The New Element Americium (Atomic Number 95)", THIN PPR (National Nuclear Energy Series, Plutonium Project Record), Vol 14 B The Transuranium Elements: Research Papers, Paper No. 22.1, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, 1949. Abstract; Full text (January 1948), Retrieved 28 November 2010 Greenwood, p. 1252 

The new element was isolated from its oxides in a complex, multi-step process. First plutonium-239 nitrate (239PuNO3) solution was coated on a platinum foil of about 0.5 cm2 area, the solution was evaporated and the residue was converted into plutonium dioxide (PuO2) by annealing. After cyclotron irradiation, the coating was dissolved with nitric acid, and then precipitated as the hydroxide using concentrated aqueous ammonia solution. The residue was dissolved in perchloric acid. Further separation was carried out by ion exchange, yielding a certain isotope of curium. The separation of curium and americium was so painstaking that those elements were initially called by the Berkeley group as pandemonium (from Greek for all demons or hell) and delirium (from Latin for madness). 

Initial experiments yielded four americium isotopes: 241Am, 242Am, 239Am and 238Am. Americium-241 was directly obtained from plutonium upon absorption of one neutron. It decays by emission of a α-particle to 237Np; the half-life of this decay was first determined as 510 ± 20 years but then corrected to 432.2 years. 

:

: The times are half-lives

The second isotope 242Am was produced upon neutron bombardment of the already-created 241Am. Upon rapid β-decay, 242Am converts into the isotope of curium 242Cm (which had been discovered previously). The half-life of this decay was initially determined at 17 hours, which was close to the presently accepted value of 16.02 h. 

: 

The discovery of americium and curium in 1944 was closely related to the Manhattan Project; the results were confidential and declassified only in 1945. Seaborg leaked the synthesis of the elements 95 and 96 on the U.S. radio show for children, the Quiz Kids, five days before the official presentation at an American Chemical Society meeting on 11 November 1945, when one of the listeners asked whether any new transuranium element beside plutonium and neptunium had been discovered during the war. After the discovery of americium isotopes 241Am and 242Am, their production and compounds were patented listing only Seaborg as the inventor. Seaborg, Glenn T. "Element", Filing date: 23 August 1946, Issue date: 10 November 1964 The initial americium samples weighed a few micrograms; they were barely visible and were identified by their radioactivity. The first substantial amounts of metallic americium weighing 40–200 micrograms were not prepared until 1951 by reduction of americium(III) fluoride with barium metal in high vacuum at 1100 °C. 

==Occurrence==

Americium was detected in the fallout from the Ivy Mike nuclear test.
The longest-lived and most common isotopes of americium, 241Am and 243Am, have half-lives of 432.2 and 7,370 years, respectively. Therefore, all primordial americium (americium that was present on Earth during its formation) should have decayed by now.

Existing americium is concentrated in the areas used for the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted between 1945 and 1980, as well as at the sites of nuclear incidents, such as the Chernobyl disaster. For example, the analysis of the debris at the testing site of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb, Ivy Mike, (1 November 1952, Enewetak Atoll), revealed high concentrations of various actinides including americium; due to military secrecy, this result was published only in 1956. Trinitite, the glassy residue left on the desert floor near Alamogordo, New Mexico, after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on 16 July 1945, contains traces of americium-241. Elevated levels of americium were also detected at the crash site of a US B-52 bomber, which carried four hydrogen bombs, in 1968 in Greenland. 

In other regions, the average radioactivity of surface soil due to residual americium is only about 0.01 picocuries/g (0.37 mBq/g). Atmospheric americium compounds are poorly soluble in common solvents and mostly adhere to soil particles. Soil analysis revealed about 1,900 times higher concentration of americium inside sandy soil particles than in the water present in the soil pores; an even higher ratio was measured in loam soils. Human Health Fact Sheet on Americium, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Retrieved 28 November 2010 

Americium is produced mostly artificially in small quantities, for research purposes. A tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of various americium isotopes, mostly 241Am and 243Am. Hoffmann, Klaus Kann man Gold machen? Gauner, Gaukler und Gelehrte. Aus der Geschichte der chemischen Elemente (Can you make gold? Crooks, clowns and scholars. From the history of the chemical elements), Urania-Verlag, Leipzig, Jena, Berlin 1979, no ISBN, p. 233 Their prolonged radioactivity is undesirable for the disposal, and therefore americium, together with other long-lived actinides, have to be neutralized. The associated procedure may involve several steps, where americium is first separated and then converted by neutron bombardment in special reactors to short-lived nuclides. This procedure is well known as nuclear transmutation, but it is still being developed for americium. Baetslé, L. Application of Partitioning/Transmutation of Radioactive Materials in Radioactive Waste Management, Nuclear Research Centre of Belgium Sck/Cen, Mol, Belgium, September 2001, Retrieved 28 November 2010 Fioni, Gabriele; Cribier, Michel and Marie, Frédéric Can the minor actinide, americium-241, be transmuted by thermal neutrons?, Department of Astrophysics, CEA/Saclay, Retrieved 28 November 2010 

A few atoms of americium can be produced by neutron capture reactions and beta decay in very highly concentrated uranium-bearing deposits. 

==Synthesis and extraction==

===Isotope nucleosyntheses===
Chromatographic elution curves revealing the similarity between the lanthanides Tb, Gd, and Eu and the corresponding actinides Bk, Cm, and Am.

Americium has been produced in small quantities in nuclear reactors for decades, and kilograms of its 241Am and 243Am isotopes have been accumulated by now. Greenwood, p. 1262 Nevertheless, since it was first offered for sale in 1962, its price, about 1,500 USD per gram of 241Am, remains almost unchanged owing to the very complex separation procedure. Smoke detectors and americium, World Nuclear Association, January 2009, Retrieved 28 November 2010 The heavier isotope 243Am is produced in much smaller amounts; it is thus more difficult to separate, resulting in a higher cost of the order 100,000–160,000 USD/g. Hammond C. R. "The elements" in 

Americium is not synthesized directly from uranium – the most common reactor material – but from the plutonium isotope 239Pu. The latter needs to be produced first, according to the following nuclear process:

: 

The capture of two neutrons by 239Pu (a so-called (n,γ) reaction), followed by a β-decay, results in 241Am:

: 

The plutonium present in spent nuclear fuel contains about 12% of 241Pu. Because it spontaneously converts to 241Am, 241Pu can be extracted and may be used to generate further 241Am. However, this process is rather slow: half of the original amount of 241Pu decays to 241Am after about 15 years, and the 241Am amount reaches a maximum after 70 years. BREDL Southern Anti-Plutonium Campaign, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Retrieved 28 November 2010 

The obtained 241Am can be used for generating heavier americium isotopes by further neutron capture inside a nuclear reactor. In a light water reactor (LWR), 79% of 241Am converts to 242Am and 10% to its nuclear isomer 242mAm: The "metastable" state is marked by the letter m. article/200410/000020041004A0333355.php Abstract 

:79%: 

:10%: 

Americium-242 has a half-life of only 16 hours, which makes its further up-conversion to 243Am, extremely inefficient. The latter isotope is produced instead in a process where 239Pu captures four neutrons under high neutron flux:

: 

=== Metal generation ===
Most synthesis routines yield a mixture of different actinide isotopes in oxide forms, from which isotopes of americium need to be separated. In a typical procedure, the spent reactor fuel (e.g. MOX fuel) is dissolved in nitric acid, and the bulk of uranium and plutonium is removed using a PUREX-type extraction (Plutonium –URanium EXtraction) with tributyl phosphate in a hydrocarbon. The lanthanides and remaining actinides are then separated from the aqueous residue (raffinate) by a diamide-based extraction, to give, after stripping, a mixture of trivalent actinides and lanthanides. Americium compounds are then selectively extracted using multi-step chromatographic and centrifugation techniques Penneman, pp. 34–48 with an appropriate reagent. A large amount of work has been done on the solvent extraction of americium. For example, a recent EU funded project codenamed "EUROPART" studied triazines and other compounds as potential extraction agents. Bis-triazinyl bipyridine complex has been recently proposed as such reagent as highly selective to americium (and curium). Separation of americium from the highly similar curium can be achieved by treating a slurry of their hydroxides in aqueous sodium bicarbonate with ozone, at elevated temperatures. Both Am and Cm are mostly present in solutions in the +3 valence state; whereas curium remains unchanged, americium oxidizes to soluble Am(IV) complexes which can be washed away. Penneman, p. 25 

Metallic americium is obtained by reduction from its compounds. Americium(III) fluoride was first used for this purpose. The reaction was conducted using elemental barium as reducing agent in a water- and oxygen-free environment inside an apparatus made of tantalum and tungsten. Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry, System No. 71, transuranics, Part B 1, pp. 57–67. Penneman, p. 3 

: 

An alternative is the reduction of americium dioxide by metallic lanthanum or thorium: 

: 

==Physical properties==
Double-hexagonal close packing with the layer sequence ABAC in the crystal structure of α-americium (A: green, B: blue, C: red).

In the periodic table, americium is located to the right of plutonium, to the left of curium, and below the lanthanide europium, with which it shares many similarities in physical and chemical properties. Americium is a highly radioactive element. When freshly prepared, it has a silvery-white metallic lustre, but then slowly tarnishes in air. With a density of 12 g/cm3, americium is less dense than both curium (13.52 g/cm3) and plutonium (19.8 g/cm3); but has a higher density than europium (5.264 g/cm3)—mostly because of its higher atomic mass. Americium is relatively soft and easily deformable and has a significantly lower bulk modulus than the actinides before it: Th, Pa, U, Np and Pu. Its melting point of 1173 °C is significantly higher than that of plutonium (639 °C) and europium (826 °C), but lower than for curium (1340 °C). 

At ambient conditions, americium is present in its most stable α form which has a hexagonal crystal symmetry, and a space group P63/mmc with lattice parameters a = 346.8 pm and c = 1124 pm, and four atoms per unit cell. The crystal consists of a double-hexagonal close packing with the layer sequence ABAC and so is isotypic with α-lanthanum and several actinides such as α-curium. The crystal structure of americium changes with pressure and temperature. When compressed at room temperature to 5 GPa, α-Am transforms to the β modification, which has a face-centered cubic (fcc) symmetry, space group Fmm and lattice constant a = 489 pm. This fcc structure is equivalent to the closest packing with the sequence ABC. Upon further compression to 23 GPa, americium transforms to an orthorhombic γ-Am structure similar to that of α-uranium. There are no further transitions observed up to 52 GPa, except for an appearance of a monoclinic phase at pressures between 10 and 15 GPa. There is no consistency on the status of this phase in the literature, which also sometimes lists the α, β and γ phases as I, II and III. The β-γ transition is accompanied by a 6% decrease in the crystal volume; although theory also predicts a significant volume change for the α-β transition, it is not observed experimentally. The pressure of the α-β transition decreases with increasing temperature, and when α-americium is heated at ambient pressure, at 770 °C it changes into an fcc phase which is different from β-Am, and at 1075 °C it converts to a body-centered cubic structure. The pressure-temperature phase diagram of americium is thus rather similar to those of lanthanum, praseodymium and neodymium. 

As with many other actinides, self-damage of the crystal lattice due to alpha-particle irradiation is intrinsic to americium. It is especially noticeable at low temperatures, where the mobility of the produced lattice defects is relatively low, by broadening of X-ray diffraction peaks. This effect makes somewhat uncertain the temperature of americium and some of its properties, such as electrical resistivity. So for americium-241, the resistivity at 4.2 K increases with time from about 2 µOhm·cm to 10 µOhm·cm after 40 hours, and saturates at about 16 µOhm·cm after 140 hours. This effect is less pronounced at room temperature, due to annihilation of radiation defects; also heating to room temperature the sample which was kept for hours at low temperatures restores its resistivity. In fresh samples, the resistivity gradually increases with temperature from about 2 µOhm·cm at liquid helium to 69 µOhm·cm at room temperature; this behavior is similar to that of neptunium, uranium, thorium and protactinium, but is different from plutonium and curium which show a rapid rise up to 60 K followed by saturation. The room temperature value for americium is lower than that of neptunium, plutonium and curium, but higher than for uranium, thorium and protactinium. 

Americium is paramagnetic in a wide temperature range, from that of liquid helium, to room temperature, and above. This behavior is markedly different from that of its neighbor curium which exhibit antiferromagnetic transition at 52 K. The thermal expansion coefficient of americium is slightly anisotropic and amounts to (7.5 ± 0.2)/°C along the shorter a axis and (6.2 ± 0.4)/°C for the longer c hexagonal axis. The enthalpy of dissolution of americium metal in hydrochloric acid at standard conditions is −620.6 ± 1.3 kJ/mol, from which the standard enthalpy change of formation (ΔfH°) of aqueous Am3+ ion is −621.2 ± 2.0 kJ/mol−1. The standard potential Am3+/Am0 is −2.08 ± 0.01 V. 

==Chemical properties==
Americium ions in solution: Am3+ (left) and Am4+ (right). Am3+ is colorless at low and reddish at higher concentrations.
Americium readily reacts with oxygen and dissolves well in acids. The most common oxidation state for americium is +3, Penneman, p. 4 in which americium compounds are rather stable against oxidation and reduction. In this sense, americium is chemically similar to most lanthanides. The trivalent americium forms insoluble fluoride, oxalate, iodate, hydroxide, phosphate and other salts. Other oxidation states have been observed between +2 and +7, which is the widest range among the actinide elements. Their color in aqueous solutions varies as follows: Am3+ (colorless to yellow-reddish), Am4+ (yellow-reddish), AmV; (yellow), AmVI (brown) and AmVII (dark green). Americium, Das Periodensystem der Elemente für den Schulgebrauch (The periodic table of elements for schools) chemie-master.de (in German), Retrieved 28 November 2010 Greenwood, p. 1265 All oxidation states have their characteristic optical absorption spectra, with a few sharp peaks in the visible and mid-infrared regions, and the position and intensity of these peaks can be converted into the concentrations of the corresponding oxidation states. Penneman, pp. 10–14 For example, Am(III) has two sharp peaks at 504 and 811 nm, Am(V) at 514 and 715 nm, and Am(VI) at 666 and 992 nm. 

Americium compounds with oxidation state +4 and higher are strong oxidizing agents, comparable in strength to the permanganate ion () in acidic solutions. Holleman, p. 1956 Whereas the Am4+ ions are unstable in solutions and readily convert to Am3+, the +4 oxidation state occurs well in solids, such as americium dioxide (AmO2) and americium(IV) fluoride (AmF4).

All pentavalent and hexavalent americium compounds are complex salts such as KAmO2F2, Li3AmO4 and Li6AmO6, Ba3AmO6, AmO2F2. These high oxidation states Am(IV), Am(V) and Am(VI) can be prepared from Am(III) by oxidation with ammonium persulfate in dilute nitric acid, with silver(I) oxide in perchloric acid, or with ozone or sodium persulfate in sodium carbonate solutions. The pentavalent oxidation state of americium was first observed in 1951. It is present in aqueous solution in the form of ions (acidic) or ions (alkaline) which are however unstable and subject to several rapid disproportionation reactions: Greenwood, p. 1275 

: 

: 

==Chemical compounds==

===Oxygen compounds===
Two americium oxides are known, with the oxidation states +3 (Am2O3) and +4 (AmO2). Americium(III) oxide is a red-brown solid with a melting point of 2205 °C. Holleman, p. 1972 Americium(IV) oxide is the main form of solid americium which is used in nearly all its applications. As most other actinide dioxides, it is a black solid with a cubic (fluorite) crystal structure. Greenwood, p. 1267 

The oxalate of americium(III), vacuum dried at room temperature, has the chemical formula Am2(C2O4)3·7H2O. Upon heating in vacuum, it loses water at 240 °C and starts decomposing into AmO2 at 300 °C, the decomposition completes at about 470 °C. The initial oxalate dissolves in nitric acid with the maximum solubility of 0.25 g/L. Penneman, p. 5 

===Halides===
Halides of americium are known for the oxidation states +2, +3 and +4, Holleman, p. 1969 where the +3 is most stable, especially in solutions. 

 Oxidation state F Cl Br I 
 +4 Americium(IV) fluoride AmF4 pale pink 
 +3 Americium(III) fluoride AmF3 pink Americium(III) chloride AmCl3 pink Americium(III) bromide AmBr3 light yellow Americium(III) iodide AmI3 light yellow 
 +2 Americium(II) chloride AmCl2 black Americium(II) bromide AmBr2 black Americium(II) iodide AmI2 black 

Reduction of Am(III) compounds with sodium amalgam yields Am(II) salts – the black halides AmCl2, AmBr2 and AmI2. They are very sensitive to oxygen and oxidize in water, releasing hydrogen and converting back to the Am(III) state. Specific lattice constants are:
* Orthorhombic AmCl2: a = 896.3 ± 0.8 pm, b = 757.3 ± 0.8 pm and c = 453.2 ± 0.6 pm
* Tetragonal AmBr2: a = 1159.2 ± 0.4 and c = 712.1 ± 0.3 pm. 
They can also be prepared by reacting metallic americium with an appropriate mercury halide HgX2, where X = Cl, Br or I: Greenwood, p. 1272 
: 

Americium(III) fluoride (AmF3) is poorly soluble and precipitates upon reaction of Am3+ and fluoride ions in weak acidic solutions:

: 

The tetravalent americium(IV) fluoride (AmF4) is obtained by reacting solid americium(III) fluoride with molecular fluorine: Greenwood, p. 1271 

: 

Another known form of solid tetravalent americium chloride is KAmF5. Penneman, p. 6 Tetravalent americium has also been observed in the aqueous phase. For this purpose, black Am(OH)4 was dissolved in 15-M NH3F with the americium concentration of 0.01 M. The resulting reddish solution had a characteristic optical absorption spectrum which is similar to that of AmF4 but differed from other oxidation states of americium. Heating the Am(IV) solution to 90 °C did not result in its disproportionation or reduction, however a slow reduction was observed to Am(III) and assigned to self-irradiation of americium by alpha particles. 

Most americium(III) halides form hexagonal crystals with slight variation of the color and exact structure between the halogens. So, chloride (AmCl3) is reddish and has a structure isotypic to uranium(III) chloride (space group P63/m) and the melting point of 715 °C. The fluoride is isotypic to LaF3 (space group P63/mmc) and the iodide to BiI3 (space group R). The bromide is an exception with the orthorhombic PuBr3-type structure and space group Cmcm. Crystals of americium hexahydrate (AmCl3·6H2O) can be prepared by dissolving americium dioxide in hydrochloric acid and evaporating the liquid. Those crystals are hygroscopic and have yellow-reddish color and a monoclinic crystal structure. 

Oxyhalides of americium in the form AmVIO2X2, AmVO2X, AmIVOX2 and AmIIIOX can be obtained by reacting the corresponding americium halide with oxygen or Sb2O3, and AmOCl can also be produced by vapor phase hydrolysis: 
: 

===Chalcogenides and pnictides===
The known chalcogenides of americium include the sulfide AmS2, selenides AmSe2 and Am3Se4, and tellurides Am2Te3 and AmTe2. The pnictides of americium (243Am) of the AmX type are known for the elements phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth. They crystallize in the rock-salt lattice. 

===Silicides and borides===
Americium monosilicide (AmSi) and "disilicide" (nominally AmSix with: 1.87 < x < 2.0) were obtained by reduction of americium(III) fluoride with elementary silicon in vacuum at 1050 °C (AmSi) and 1150−1200 °C (AmSix). AmSi is a black solid isomorphic with LaSi, it has an orthorhombic crystal symmetry. AmSix has a bright silvery lustre and a tetragonal crystal lattice (space group I41/amd), it is isomorphic with PuSi2 and ThSi2. Borides of americium include AmB4 and AmB6. The tetraboride can be obtained by heating an oxide or halide of americium with magnesium diboride in vacuum or inert atmosphere. Lupinetti, A. J. et al. "Low-temperature synthesis of actinide tetraborides by solid-state metathesis reactions", Filed 4 Apr 2002, Issued 14 Dec 2004 

===Organoamericium compounds===
(η8-C8H8)2Am structure
Analogous to uranocene, americium forms an organometallic compound with two cyclooctatetraene ligands, that is (η8-C8H8)2Am. It also makes trigonal (η5-C5H5)3Am complexes with three cyclopentadienyl rings. 

Formation of the complexes of the type Am(n-C3H7-BTP)3, where BTP stands for 2,6-di(1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)pyridine, in solutions containing n-C3H7-BTP and Am3+ ions has been confirmed by EXAFS. Some of these BTP-type complexes selectively interact with americium and therefore are useful in its selective separation from lanthanides and another actinides. 

==Biological aspects==
Americium is an artificial element, and thus a biological function involving the element would be impossible. Toeniskoetter, Steve; Dommer, Jennifer and Dodge, Tony The Biochemical Periodic Tables – Americium, University of Minnesota, Retrieved 28 November 2010 It has been proposed to use bacteria for removal of americium and other heavy metals from rivers and streams. Thus, Enterobacteriaceae of the genus Citrobacter precipitate americium ions from aqueous solutions, binding them into a metal-phosphate complex at their cell walls. Several studies have been reported on the biosorption and bioaccumulation of americium by bacteria and fungi. 

==Fission==
The isotope 242m1Am (half-life 141 years) has the largest cross sections for absorption of thermal neutrons (5,700 barns), Pfennig, G.; Klewe-Nebenius, H and Seelmann Eggebert, W. (Eds.): Karlsruhe nuclide, 7 Edition 2006. that results in a small critical mass for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass for a bare 242m1Am sphere is about 9–14 kg (the uncertainty results from insufficient knowledge of its material properties). It can be lowered to 3–5 kg with a metal reflector and should become even smaller with a water reflector. Abstract Such small critical mass is favorable for portable nuclear weapons, but those based on 242m1Am are not known yet, probably because of its scarcity and high price. The critical masses of two other readily available isotopes, 241Am and 243Am, are relatively high – 57.6 to 75.6 kg for 241Am and 209 kg for 243Am. Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, "Evaluation of nuclear criticality safety data and limits for actinides in transport", p. 16. Scarcity and high price yet hinder application of americium as a nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. 

There are proposals of very compact 10-kW high-flux reactors using as little as 20 grams of 242m1Am. Such low-power reactors would be relatively safe to use as neutron sources for radiation therapy in hospitals. 

==Isotopes==

About 19 isotopes and 8 nuclear isomers are known for americium. There are two long-lived alpha-emitters, 241Am and 243Am with half-lives of 432.2 and 7,370 years, respectively, and the nuclear isomer 242m1Am has a long half-life of 141 years. The half-lives of other isotopes and isomers range from 0.64 microseconds for 245m1Am to 50.8 hours for 240Am. As with most other actinides, the isotopes of americium with odd number of neutrons have relatively high rate of nuclear fission and low critical mass. 

Americium-241 decays to 237Np emitting alpha particles of 5 different energies, mostly at 5.486 MeV (85.2%) and 5.443 MeV (12.8%). Because many of the resulting states are metastable, they also emit gamma rays with the discrete energies between 26.3 and 158.5 keV. 

Americium-242 is a short-lived isotope with a half-life of 16.02 h. It mostly (82.7%) converts by β-decay to 242Cm, but also by electron capture to 242Pu (17.3%). Both 242Cm and 242Pu transform via nearly the same decay chain through 238Pu down to 234U.

Nearly all (99.541%) of 242m1Am decays by internal conversion to 242Am and the remaining 0.459% by α-decay to 238Np. The latter breaks down to 238Pu and then to 234U. 

Americium-243 transforms by α-emission into 239Np, which converts by β-decay to 239Pu, and the 239Pu changes into 235U by emitting an α-particle.

==Applications==

===Ionization detectors===

Americium is the only synthetic element to have found its way into the household, where one common type of smoke detector uses 241Am in the form of americium dioxide as its source of ionizing radiation. Smoke Detectors and Americium, Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 35, May 2002. (Internet Archive), Retrieved 28 November 2010 This isotope is preferred over 226Ra because it emits 5 times more alpha particles and relatively little harmful gamma radiation. The amount of americium in a typical new smoke detector is 1 microcurie (37 kBq) or 0.28 microgram. This amount declines slowly as the americium decays into neptunium-237, a different transuranic element with a much longer half-life (about 2.14 million years). With its half-life of 432.2 years, the americium in a smoke detector includes about 3% neptunium after 19 years, and about 5% after 32 years. The radiation passes through an ionization chamber, an air-filled space between two electrodes, and permits a small, constant current between the electrodes. Any smoke that enters the chamber absorbs the alpha particles, which reduces the ionization and affects this current, triggering the alarm. Compared to the alternative optical smoke detector, the ionization smoke detector is cheaper and can detect particles which are too small to produce significant light scattering; however, it is more prone to false alarms. Residential Smoke Alarm Performance, Thomas Cleary. Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology; UL Smoke and Fire Dynamics Seminar. November 2007 Bukowski, R. W. et al. (2007) Performance of Home Smoke Alarms Analysis of the Response of Several Available Technologies in Residential Fire Settings, NIST Technical Note 1455-1 

===Radionuclide===
As 241Am has a significantly longer half-life than 238Pu (432.2 years vs. 87 years), it has been proposed as an active element of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, for example in spacecraft. Basic elements of static RTGs, G.L. Kulcinski, NEEP 602 Course Notes (Spring 2000), Nuclear Power in Space, University of Wisconsin Fusion Technology Institute (see last page) Although americium produces less heat and electricity – the power yield is 114.7 mW/g for 241Am and 6.31 mW/g for 243Am (cf. 390 mW/g for 238Pu) – and its radiation poses more threat to humans owing to neutron emission, the European Space Agency is planning to use americium for its space probes. Space agencies tackle waning plutonium stockpiles, Spaceflight now, 9 July 2010 

Another proposed space-related application of americium is a fuel for space ships with nuclear propulsion. It relies on the very high rate of nuclear fission of 242mAm, which can be maintained even in a micrometer-thick foil. Small thickness avoids the problem of self-absorption of emitted radiation. This problem is pertinent to uranium or plutonium rods, in which only surface layers provide alpha-particles. The fission products of 242mAm can either directly propel the spaceship or they can heat up a thrusting gas; they can also transfer their energy to a fluid and generate electricity through a magnetohydrodynamic generator. 

One more proposal which utilizes the high nuclear fission rate of 242mAm is a nuclear battery. Its design relies not on the energy of the emitted by americium alpha particles, but on their charge, that is the americium acts as the self-sustaining "cathode". A single 3.2 kg 242mAm charge of such battery could provide about 140 kW of power over a period of 80 days. Genuth, Iddo Americium Power Source, The Future of Things, 3 October 2006, Retrieved 28 November 2010 With all the potential benefits, the current applications of 242mAm are as yet hindered by the scarcity and high price of this nuclear isomer. 

===Neutron source===
The oxide of 241Am pressed with beryllium is an efficient neutron source. Here americium acts as the alpha source, and beryllium produces neutrons owing to its large cross-section for the (α,n) nuclear reaction:

: 

: 

The most widespread use of 241AmBe neutron sources is a neutron probe – a device used to measure the quantity of water present in soil, as well as moisture/density for quality control in highway construction. 241Am neutron sources are also used in well logging applications, as well as in neutron radiography, tomography and other radiochemical investigations. 

===Production of other elements===
Americium is a starting material for the production of other transuranic elements and transactinides – for example, 82.7% of 242Am decays to 242Cm and 17.3% to 242Pu. In the nuclear reactor, 242Am is also up-converted by neutron capture to 243Am and 244Am, which transforms by β-decay to 244Cm:

: 

Irradiation of 241Am by 12C or 22Ne ions yields the isotopes 247Es (einsteinium) or 260Db (dubnium), respectively. Furthermore, the element berkelium (243Bk isotope) had been first intentionally produced and identified by bombarding 241Am with alpha particles, in 1949, by the same Berkeley group, using the same 60-inch cyclotron. Similarly, nobelium was produced at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia, in 1965 in several reactions, one of which included irradiation of 243Am with 15N ions. Besides, one of the synthesis reactions for lawrencium, discovered by scientists at Berkeley and Dubna, included bombardment of 243Am with 18O. 

===Spectrometer===
Americium-241 has been used as a portable source of both gamma rays and alpha particles for a number of medical and industrial uses. The 60-keV gamma ray emissions from 241Am in such sources can be used for indirect analysis of materials in radiography and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, as well as for quality control in fixed nuclear density gauges and nuclear densometers. For example, the element has been employed to gauge glass thickness to help create flat glass. Americium-241 is also suitable for calibration of gamma-ray spectrometers in the low-energy range, since its spectrum consists of nearly a single peak and negligible Compton continuum (at least three orders of magnitude lower intensity). Nuclear Data Viewer 2.4, NNDC Americium-241 gamma rays were also used to provide passive diagnosis of thyroid function. This medical application is however obsolete.

==Health concerns==
As a highly radioactive element, americium and its compounds must be handled only in an appropriate laboratory under special arrangements. Although most americium isotopes predominantly emit alpha particles which can be blocked by thin layers of common materials, many of the daughter products emit gamma-rays and neutrons which have a long penetration depth. Public Health Statement for Americium Section 1.5., Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, April 2004, Retrieved 28 November 2010 

If consumed, americium is excreted within a few days and only 0.05% is absorbed in the blood. From there, roughly 45% of it goes to the liver and 45% to the bones, and the remaining 10% is excreted. The uptake to the liver depends on the individual and increases with age. In the bones, americium is first deposited over cortical and trabecular surfaces and slowly redistributes over the bone with time. The biological half-life of 241Am is 50 years in the bones and 20 years in the liver, whereas in the gonads (testicles and ovaries) it remains permanently; in all these organs, americium promotes formation of cancer cells as a result of its radioactivity. Frisch, Franz Crystal Clear, 100 x energy, Bibliographisches Institut AG, Mannheim 1977, ISBN 3-411-01704-X, p. 184 

Americium often enters landfills from discarded smoke detectors. The rules associated with the disposal of smoke detectors are relaxed in most jurisdictions. In the U.S., the "Radioactive Boy Scout" David Hahn was able to concentrate americium from smoke detectors after managing to buy a hundred of them at remainder prices and also stealing a few. Ken Silverstein, The Radioactive Boy Scout: When a teenager attempts to build a breeder reactor. Harper's Magazine, November 1998 There have been cases of humans being contaminated with americium, the worst case being that of Harold McCluskey, who at the age of 64 was exposed to 500 times the occupational standard for americium-241 as a result of an explosion in his lab. McCluskey died at the age of 75, not as a result of exposure, but of a heart disease which he had before the accident. 

==See also==

* Actinides in the environment
* compounds]

==Notes==

==References==

==Bibliography==
* 
* 
* Penneman, R. A. and Keenan T. K. The radiochemistry of americium and curium, University of California, Los Alamos, California, 1960

==Further reading==
* Nuclides and Isotopes – 14th Edition, GE Nuclear Energy, 1989.
* 
* 

==External links==

* Americium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
* ATSDR – Public Health Statement: Americium
* World Nuclear Association – Smoke Detectors and Americium 



[[Astatine]]

Astatine is a radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol At and atomic number 85. It occurs on Earth only as the result of the radioactive decay of certain heavier elements. All of its isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours. Accordingly, much less is known about astatine than most other elements. The observed properties are consistent with it being a heavier analog of iodine; many other properties have been estimated based on this resemblance.

Elemental astatine has never been viewed, because a mass large enough to be seen (by the naked human eye) would be immediately vaporized by the heat generated by its own radioactivity. Astatine may be dark, or it may have a metallic appearance and be a semiconductor, or it may even be a metal. It is likely to have a much higher melting point than iodine, on par with those of bismuth and polonium. Chemically, astatine behaves more or less as a halogen (the group including chlorine and fluorine), being expected to form ionic astatides with alkali or alkaline earth metals; it is known to form covalent compounds with nonmetals, including other halogens. It does, however, also have a notable cationic chemistry that distinguishes it from the lighter halogens. The second longest-lived isotope of astatine, astatine-211, is the only one currently having any commercial application, being employed in medicine to diagnose and treat some diseases via its emission of alpha particles (helium-4 nuclei). Only extremely small quantities are used, however, due to its intense radioactivity.

The element was first produced by Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè at the University of California, Berkeley in 1940. They named the element "astatine", a name coming from the great instability of the synthesized matter (the source Greek word αστατος (astatos) means "unstable"). Three years later it was found in nature, although it is the least abundant element in the Earth's crust among the non-transuranic elements, with a total existing amount of much less than one gram at any given time. Six astatine isotopes, with mass numbers of 214 to 219, are present in nature as the products of various decay routes of heavier elements, but neither the most stable isotope of astatine (with mass number 210) nor astatine-211 (which is used in medicine) is produced naturally.

==Characteristics==
Astatine is an extremely radioactive element; all its isotopes have half-lives of less than 12 hours, decaying into bismuth, polonium, radon, or other astatine isotopes. Among the first 101 elements in the periodic table, only francium is less stable. 

The bulk properties of astatine are not known with any great degree of certainty. Research is limited by its short half-life, which prevents the creation of weighable quantities. A visible piece of astatine would be immediately and completely vaporized due to the heat generated by its intense radioactivity. Astatine is usually classified as either a nonmetal or a metalloid. However, metal formation for condensed-phase astatine has also been suggested. 

===Physical===
Most of the physical properties of astatine have been estimated (by interpolation or extrapolation), using various theoretically-grounded or empirically-derived methods. As an example, heavier halogens are darker than are halogens of lesser atomic weight – fluorine is nearly colorless, chlorine is bright green, bromine is brown, and iodine is dark gray/violet. Astatine is sometimes described as being a black solid (assuming that it follows this trend), or as having a metallic appearance (if it is a metalloid or a metal). The melting and boiling points of astatine are also expected to follow the trend seen in the halogen series, increasing with atomic number. On this basis, the melting and boiling points are estimated to be 575 and, respectively. However, some experimental evidence suggests astatine may have lower melting and boiling points than those implied by the halogen trend. Astatine sublimes less readily than does iodine, having a lower vapor pressure. Even so, half of a given amount of astatine will vaporize in an hour if put on a clean glass surface at room temperature.

The crystalline structure of solid astatine is unknown. Evidence for (or against) the existence of diatomic astatine (At2) is sparse and inconclusive. Some sources state that At2 does not exist, or at least has never been observed, while other sources assert or imply its existence. Despite this controversy, many properties of diatomic astatine have been predicted; for example, its density would be 6.2–6.5 g/cm3. 

===Chemical===
Many chemical properties of astatine have been determined using tracer studies on extremely dilute astatine solutions. Most known properties – such as anion formation – are in line with other halogens. However, astatine has a few metallic characteristics as well, such as plating out on a cathode, coprecipitating with metal sulfides in hydrochloric acid, and forming a cation in strong acidic solutions.

Astatine has an electronegativity of 2.2 on the revised Pauling scale. This is lower than that of iodine (2.66) and the same as that of hydrogen. However, in hydrogen astatide (HAt) the negative charge is predicted to be on the hydrogen atom, implying that this compound should instead be referred to as astatine hydride because the electronegativity of astatine on the Allred-Rochow scale (1.9) is less than that of hydrogen (2.2). 

==Compounds==
Astatine is the least reactive of the halogens, being less reactive than iodine; however, multiple compounds of astatine have been synthesized in microscopic amounts and studied as intensively as possible before their inevitable radioactive disintegration. The reactions involved are normally tested with dilute solutions of astatine mixed with larger amounts of iodine. The iodine acts as a carrier, ensuring that there is sufficient material for laboratory techniques (such as filtration and precipitation) to work. 

Hydrogen astatide space-filling model

The formation of an astatine compound with hydrogen – usually referred to as hydrogen astatide – was noted by the pioneers of astatine chemistry. As mentioned earlier, there are grounds for referring to this compound as astatine hydride instead – astatine is easily oxidized, acidification by (dilute) nitric acid gives the At0 or At+ forms, and the addition of silver(I) then precipitates astatine, only partially as silver(I) astatide (AgAt) (or not at all). Iodine, in contrast, is not oxidized, and precipitates readily as silver(I) iodide. 

Only a few metal astatides have been reported, including those of sodium, palladium, silver, and lead. Some characteristic properties of silver astatide, and the known and hypothetical alkali and alkaline earth astatides, have been estimated by extrapolation from other silver or alkali or alkaline earth halides.

Structure of astatine monoiodide, one of the astatine interhalogens and the heaviest known diatomic interhalogen.

Astatine is known to react with its lighter homologues iodine, bromine, and chlorine in the vapor state; these reactions produce diatomic interhalogen compounds with formulas AtI, AtBr, and AtCl. The first two compounds may also be produced in water – astatine reacts with iodine/iodide solution to form AtI, whereas AtBr requires (aside from astatine) an iodine/iodine monobromide/bromide solution. The excess of iodides or bromides may lead to and ions, or in a chloride solution, they may produce species like or via equilibrium-balanced reactions with the chlorides. Oxidation of the element with dichromate (in nitric acid solution) showed that adding chloride turned the astatine into a molecule likely to be either AtCl or AtOCl. Similarly, or may be produced. In a plasma ion source mass spectrometer, the similar ions +, +, and + have been formed by introducing lighter halogen vapors into a helium-filled cell containing astatine, supporting the existence of stable neutral molecules in the plasma ion state. No astatine fluorides have been discovered as yet. Their absence has been speculatively attributed to the extreme reactivity of such compounds, including the reaction of an initially-formed fluoride with the walls of the glass container to form a non-volatile product. Thus, although the synthesis of an astatine fluoride is thought to be possible, it may require a liquid halogen fluoride solvent, as has already been used for the characterization of radon fluorides.

With oxygen, there is evidence for the existence of the species AtO–, , and AtO+ in aqueous solution, formed by the reaction of astatine with an oxidant such as elemental bromine or (in the last case) by sodium persulfate in a solution of perchloric acid. The well characterized anion can be obtained by, for example, the oxidation of astatine with potassium hypochlorite in a solution of potassium hydroxide. Further oxidation, such as by xenon difluoride (in a hot alkaline solution) or periodate (in a neutral or alkaline solution), yields the perastatate ion ; however, this is only stable in neutral or alkaline solutions. Astatine is also thought to be capable of forming cationic salts with oxyanions such as iodate or dichromate; this is based on the observation that, in acidic solutions, monovalent or intermediate positive states of astatine coprecipitate with the insoluble salts of metal cations such as silver(I) iodate or thallium(I) dichromate.

Astatine may form bonds to the other chalcogens; these include S7At+ and with sulfur, a coordination selenourea compound with selenium, and an astatine–tellurium colloid with tellurium. Additionally, astatine is known to bind to nitrogen, lead, and boron under the proper conditions.

Carbon tetraastatide (CAt4) is known. Astatine can replace a hydrogen atom in benzene to form C6H5At; this may be oxidized to C6H5AtCl2 by chlorine. By treating this compound with an alkaline solution of hypochlorite, C6H5AtO2 can be produced.

==History==
Mendeleev's table of 1871, with an empty space at the eka-iodine position
In 1869, when Dmitri Mendeleev published his periodic table, the space under iodine was empty; after Niels Bohr established the physical basis of the classification of chemical elements, it was suggested that the fifth halogen belonged there. Before its officially recognized discovery, it was called "eka-iodine" (from Sanskrit eka – "one") to imply it was one space under iodine (in the same manner as eka-silicon, eka-boron, and others). Scientists tried to find it in nature; given its rarity, these attempts resulted in a number of false discoveries.

The first claimed discovery of eka-iodine was made by Fred Allison and his associates at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) in 1931. The discoverers named element 85 "alabamine", and assigned it the symbol Ab, designations that were used for a few years afterward. In 1934, however, H. G. MacPherson of University of California, Berkeley disproved Allison's method and the validity of his discovery. This erroneous discovery was followed by another claim in 1937, by the chemist Rajendralal De. Working in Dacca in British India (now Dhaka in Bangladesh), he chose the name "dakin" for element 85, which he claimed to have isolated as the thorium series equivalent of Radium F (polonium-210) in the radium series. The properties he reported for dakin do not correspond to those of astatine, and the true identity of dakin is not known. 

Emilio Segrè, one of the discoverers of astatine

In 1940, the Swiss chemist Walter Minder announced the discovery of element 85 as the beta decay product of Radium A (polonium-218), choosing the name "helvetium" (from , "Switzerland"). However, Berta Karlik and Traude Bernert were unsuccessful in reproducing his experiments, and subsequently attributed Minder's results to contamination of his radon stream (radon-222 is the parent isotope of polonium-218). In 1942, Minder, in collaboration with the English scientist Alice Leigh-Smith, announced the discovery of another isotope of element 85, presumed to be the product of Thorium A (polonium-216) beta decay. They named this substance "anglo-helvetium", but Karlik and Bernert were again unable to reproduce these results. 

In 1940, Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè finally isolated the element at the University of California, Berkeley. Instead of searching for the element in nature, the scientists created it by bombarding bismuth-209 with alpha particles in a cyclotron (particle accelerator) to produce, after emission of two neutrons, astatine-211. The name "astatine" comes from the Greek word ἄστατος (ástatos, meaning "unstable"), due to its propensity for radioactive decay (later, all isotopes of the element were shown to be unstable), together with the ending "-ine", found in the names of the four previously discovered halogens. Three years later, astatine was found as a product of naturally occurring decay chains by Karlik and Bernert. Since then, astatine has been determined to be in three out of the four natural decay chains. 

==Isotopes==

There are 32 known isotopes of astatine, with atomic masses (mass numbers) of 191 and 193–223. No stable or even long-lived astatine isotope is known, and no such isotope is expected to exist.

:

 Alpha decay characteristics for sample astatine isotopes Mass number Mass excess Mass excess of daughter Average energy of alpha decay Half-life Probability of alpha decay Alpha half-life 
 207 −13.243 MeV −19.116 MeV 5.873 MeV 1.80 h 8.6% 20.9 h 
 208 −12.491 MeV −18.243 MeV 5.752 MeV 1.63 h 0.55% 12.3 d 
 209 −12.880 MeV −18.638 MeV 5.758 MeV 5.41 h 4.1% 5.5 d 
 210 −11.972 MeV −17.604 MeV 5.632 MeV 8.1 h 0.175% 193 d 
 211 −11.647 MeV −17.630 MeV 5.983 MeV 7.21 h 41.8% 17.2 h 
 212 −8.621 MeV −16.436 MeV 7.825 MeV 0.31 s ≈100% 0.31 s 
 213 −6.579 MeV −15.834 MeV 9.255 MeV 125 ns 100% 125 ns 
 214 −3.380 MeV −12.366 MeV 8.986 MeV 558 ns 100% 558 ns 
 219 10.397 MeV 4.073 MeV 6.324 MeV 56 s 97% 58 s 
 220 14.350 MeV 8.298 MeV 6.052 MeV 3.71 min 8% 46.4 min 
 221 16.810 MeV 11.244 MeV 5.566 MeV 2.3 min experimentally alpha stable ∞ 

Astatine has 23 nuclear isomers, which are nuclei with one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) in an excited state. A nuclear isomer may also be called a "meta-state", meaning the system has more internal energy than the "ground state" (the state with the lowest possible internal energy), making the former likely to decay into the latter. There may be more than one isomer for each isotope. The most stable of these nuclear isomers is astatine-202m1, which has a half-life of about 3 minutes, longer than those of all the ground states except for those of isotopes 203–211 and 220. The least stable one is astatine-214m1; its half-life of 265 nanoseconds is shorter than those of all ground states except that of astatine-213. 

Astatine's alpha decay energies follow the same trend as for other heavy elements. Lighter astatine isotopes have quite high energies of alpha decay, which become lower as the nuclei become heavier. Astatine-211, however, has a significantly higher energy than the previous isotope, because it has a nucleus with 126 neutrons, and 126 is a magic number corresponding to a filled neutron shell. Despite having a similar half-life to the previous isotope (8.1 hours for astatine-210 and 7.2 hours for astatine-211), the alpha decay probability is much higher for the latter: 41.81% against only 0.18%. The two following isotopes release even more energy, with astatine-213 releasing the highest amount of energy of all astatine isotopes. For this reason, it is the shortest-lived astatine isotope. Even though heavier astatine isotopes release less energy, no long-lived astatine isotope exists, due to the increasing role of beta decay (electron emission). This decay mode is especially important for astatine; as early as 1950 it was postulated that the element has no beta-stable isotopes (i.e., ones that do not beta decay at all). Beta decay modes have been found for all astatine isotopes except astatine-213, astatine-214, astatine-215, and astatine-216m. Astatine-210 and lighter isotopes exhibit beta plus decay (positron emission), astatine-216 and heavier isotopes exhibit beta (minus) decay, and astatine-212 decays via both modes, while astatine-211 undergoes electron capture instead. 

The most stable isotope is astatine-210, which has a half-life of 8.1 hours. This isotope's primary decay mode is beta plus decay to the relatively long-lived (in comparison to astatine isotopes) alpha emitter polonium-210. In total, only five isotopes have half-lives exceeding one hour (those with mass numbers between 207 and 211). The least stable ground state isotope is astatine-213, with a half-life of 125 nanoseconds. It alpha decays to the extremely long-lived (in practice, stable) bismuth-209. 

==Natural occurrence==
Astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element that is not a transuranic element, with the total amount in Earth's crust estimated to be less than one gram at any given time. Any astatine that was present at the Earth's formation has long since decayed, and the minute amounts of astatine existing currently have formed through the decay of heavier elements. While it was previously thought to be the rarest element occurring on the Earth, astatine has lost this status to berkelium, atoms of which can be produced by neutron capture reactions and beta decay in very highly concentrated uranium-bearing deposits. 

Six astatine isotopes occur naturally (astatine-214 to astatine-219). Because of their short half-lives, they are found only in trace amounts. There is no data indicating that astatine occurs in stars.

Neptunium series, showing the decay products, including astatine-217, formed from neptunium-237

Four out of these isotopes (astatine-215, astatine-217, astatine-218, and astatine-219) are found due to their production in major natural decay chains. Francium-223, the father isotope of astatine-219, alpha decays with a probability of only 0.006%, making this astatine isotope extremely rare even compared to the other astatine isotopes; this is in spite of its half-life being the longest of the natural astatine isotopes (56 seconds). Astatine-219 decays to polonium-215, which itself beta decays to astatine-215 with an even smaller probability of 0.00023%. The entirety of North and South America combined, considered to a depth of 16 kilometers (10 miles), contain only about one trillion astatine-215 atoms at any given time. Astatine-218 is found in nature as a result of polonium-218 beta decay; as with francium-223 and polonium-215, decay to an astatine isotope is not the primary decay mode. However, the astatine-217 isotope has a straight chain leading directly to astatine; its father isotope (francium-221) decays exclusively to this nuclide. Given that its fathers, grandfathers, and so on each decay exclusively to only one nuclide, this gives only one possible way for the starting nuclide in the neptunium series (neptunium-237) to decay – via eventual production of astatine-217. 

The isotopes with mass numbers 214 through 216 are found as the result of triple alpha decay of the naturally present protactinium isotopes protactinium-226, protactinium-227, and protactinium-228. However, these isotopes are extremely rare, so much so that they are often not cited as natural astatine isotopes. 

==Synthesis==

===Formation===

:

 Possible reactions after bombarding bismuth-209 with alpha particles Reaction Energy of alpha particle 
 + → + 2 26 MeV 
 + → + 3 40 MeV 
 + → + 4 60 MeV 

Astatine was first produced by bombarding bismuth-209 with energetic alpha particles, and this is still the major route used to create the relatively long-lived isotopes astatine-209 through astatine-211. Astatine is only produced in microscopic quantities, with modern techniques allowing production runs of 2 terabecquerels (about 25 micrograms). 

The most important isotope is astatine-211, the only one to currently have a commercial use. To produce the bismuth target, the metal is sputtered onto a gold, copper, or aluminium surface at 50 to 100 milligrams per square centimeter. The bismuth layer, or alternatively bismuth oxide, is forcibly fused with a copper plate. The target is kept under a chemically neutral nitrogen atmosphere, and is cooled with water to prevent premature astatine vaporization. In a particle accelerator, such as a cyclotron, alpha particles (helium-4 nuclei) are collided with the bismuth. Even though there is only one bismuth isotope used (bismuth-209), the reaction may occur in three possible ways, producing astatine-209, astatine-210, or astatine-211. In order to eliminate undesired nuclides, the maximum energy of the particle accelerator is set to any value (such as 30 MeV) above that for the reaction producing astatine-211 (to produce the desired isotope) and below the one producing astatine-210 (to avoid producing other astatine isotopes).

===Separation===

Since the element is the main product of the synthesis, after its formation it must only be separated from the target and traces of other radioisotopes. The astatine-containing target is heated to 270 °C to vaporize away volatile traces of radioisotopes, after which the temperature is raised to 800 °C. Although 80% of astatine may vaporize at this temperature, bismuth begins to vaporize as well. Astatine's vaporization does not occur at an adequate rate at temperatures below 600 °C, but at temperatures above 800 °C, astatine's volatility from a bismuth surface increases significantly. The condensed vapor (distillate) is collected on a water-cooled platinum surface, which is later moved into a U-like quartz vessel. The quartz container vessel is heated to 130 °C to remove further traces of impurities (typically polonium) and then to 500 °C to remove astatine, which is collected on a cold finger. The purified element is then washed off the cold finger with a weak nitric acid solution. Using this technique, yields of astatine of up to 30% may be achieved.

==Uses and precautions==

:

 Several 211At-containing molecules and their uses Agent Applications 
 astatine-tellurium colloids Compartmental tumors 
 6-astato-2-methyl-1,4-naphtaquinol diphosphate Adenocarcinomas 
 211At-labeled methylene blue Melanomas 
 Meta-astatobenzyl guanidine Neuroendocrine tumors 
 5-astato-2'-deoxyuridine Various 
 211At-labeled biotin conjugates Various pretargeting 
 211At-labeled octreotide Somatostatin receptor 
 211At-labeled mAbs and fragments Various 
 211At-labeled bisphosphonates Bone metastases 

The newly formed astatine-211 is important in nuclear medicine. Once produced, astatine must be used quickly, as it decays with a half-life of 7.2 hours; this is, however, long enough to permit multi-step labeling strategies. Astatine-211 can be used for targeted alpha particle radiotherapy, since it decays either via emission of an alpha particle (to bismuth-207), or via electron capture (to an extremely short-lived nuclide of polonium-211, which itself undergoes further alpha decay). 

In a manner similar to iodine, astatine is preferentially concentrated in the thyroid gland, although to a lesser extent. However, it tends to concentrate in the liver in the form of a radiocolloid if it is released into the systemic circulation. The principal medicinal difference between astatine-211 and iodine-131 (a radioactive iodine isotope also used in medicine) is that astatine does not emit high energy beta particles (electrons), as does iodine-131. Beta particles have considerably greater penetrating power through tissues than do the much heavier alpha particles. While an average energy alpha particle released by decay of astatine-211 can travel up to 70 µm through the surrounding tissues, an average energy beta particle emitted by iodine-131 can travel nearly 30 times as far, to about 2 mm. Thus, using astatine-211 instead of iodine-131 enables the thyroid to be dosed appropriately, while the neighboring parathyroid gland is spared. The short half-life and limited penetrating power of its radiation through tissues renders astatine generally preferable to iodine-131 when used in diagnosis as well.

Experiments in rats and monkeys, however, suggest that astatine causes much greater damage to the thyroid gland than does iodine-131, with repetitive injection of the nuclide resulting in necrosis and cell dysplasia within the gland. These experiments also suggest that astatine could cause damage to the thyroid of any organism. Early research suggested that injection of lethal quantities of astatine caused morphological changes in breast tissue (although not other tissues); however, this conclusion currently remains controversial. 

==See also==

==Notes==

==References==

==Bibliography==
* 
* 
* 

==External links==
* Astatine at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)

 



[[Atom]]

The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (except in the case of hydrogen-1, which is the only stable nuclide with no neutrons). The electrons of an atom are bound to the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. Likewise, a group of atoms can remain bound to each other by chemical bonds based on the same force, forming a molecule. An atom containing an equal number of protons and electrons is electrically neutral, otherwise it is positively or negatively charged and is known as an ion. An atom is classified according to the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus: the number of protons determines the chemical element, and the number of neutrons determines the isotope of the element. 

Chemical atoms, which in science now carry the simple name of "atom," are minuscule objects with diameters of a few tenths of a nanometer and tiny masses proportional to the volume implied by these dimensions. Atoms can only be observed individually using special instruments such as the scanning tunneling microscope. Over 99.94% of an atom's mass is concentrated in the nucleus, In the case of hydrogen-1, with a single electron and nucleon, the proton is , or 99.946% of the total atomic mass. All other nuclides (isotopes of hydrogen and all other elements) have more nucleons than electrons, so the fraction of mass taken by the nucleus is significantly closer to 100% for all of these types of atoms, than for hydrogen-1. with protons and neutrons having roughly equal mass. Each element has at least one isotope with an unstable nucleus that can undergo radioactive decay. This can result in a transmutation that changes the number of protons or neutrons in a nucleus. Electrons that are bound to atoms possess a set of stable energy levels, or orbitals, and can undergo transitions between them by absorbing or emitting photons that match the energy differences between the levels. The electrons determine the chemical properties of an element, and strongly influence an atom's magnetic properties. The principles of quantum mechanics have been successfully used to model the observed properties of the atom.

==Etymology==
The name atom comes from the Greek ἄτομος (atomos, "indivisible") from ἀ- (a-, "not") and τέμνω (temnō, "I cut"), which means uncuttable, or indivisible, something that cannot be divided further. 

==History of atomic theory==

===Atoms in philosophy===

The idea that matter is made up of discrete units is a very old one, appearing in many ancient cultures such as Greece and India. The word "atom", in fact, was coined by ancient Greek philosophers. However, these ideas were founded in philosophical and theological reasoning rather than evidence and experimentation. As a result, their views on what atoms look like and how they behave were very incorrect. They also couldn't convince everybody, so atomism was but one of a number of competing theories on the nature of matter. It wasn't until the 19th century that the idea was embraced and refined by scientists, when the blossoming science of chemistry produced discoveries that only the concept of atoms could explain.

===First evidence-based theory===
Various atoms and molecules as depicted in John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808).
In the early 1800s, John Dalton used the concept of atoms to explain why elements always react in ratios of small whole numbers (the law of multiple proportions). For instance: there are two types of tin oxide—one is 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen and the other is 78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen (tin(II) oxide and tin dioxide respectively). This means that 100g of tin will combine either with 13.5g or 27g of oxygen. 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1:2. This common pattern in chemistry suggested to Dalton that elements react in whole number multiples of discrete units—in other words, atoms. In the case of tin oxides, one tin atom will combine with either one or two oxygen atoms. 

Dalton also believed atomic theory could explain why water absorbs different gases in different proportions. For example, he found that water absorbs carbon dioxide far better than it absorbs nitrogen. Dalton, John. "On the Absorption of Gases by Water and Other Liquids", in Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. 1803. Retrieved on August 29, 2007. Dalton hypothesized this was due to the differences in mass and complexity of the gases' respective particles. Indeed, carbon dioxide molecules (CO2) are heavier and larger than nitrogen molecules (N2).

In 1827, botanist Robert Brown used a microscope to look at dust grains floating in water and discovered that they moved about erratically, a phenomenon that became known as "Brownian motion". This was thought to be caused by water molecules knocking the grains about. In 1905 Albert Einstein produced the first mathematical analysis of the motion. French physicist Jean Perrin used Einstein's work to experimentally determine the mass and dimensions of atoms, thereby conclusively verifying Dalton's atomic theory. 

===The structure of atoms===
The gold foil experiment Top: Expected results: alpha particles passing through the plum pudding model of the atom with negligible deflection. Bottom: Observed results: a small portion of the particles were deflected by the concentrated positive charge of the nucleus.
The physicist J. J. Thomson, through his work on cathode rays in 1897, discovered the electron, and concluded that they were a component of every atom. Thus he overturned the belief that atoms are the indivisible, ultimate particles of matter. Thomson postulated that the low mass, negatively charged electrons were distributed throughout the atom in a uniform sea of positive charge. This became known as the plum pudding model.

In 1909, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Ernest Rutherford, bombarded a metal foil with alpha particles to observe how they scattered. Going by Thomson's plum pudding model, all the alpha particles should have passed straight through the foil with little deflection, because the positive charge of its atoms should have been too dilute to affect them much. They instead observed a small fraction of alpha particles being deflected by angles greater than 90°. To explain this, Rutherford proposed that each atom has a nucleus where the positive charge and most of the mass are concentrated, and these were what were deflecting those alpha particles so strongly. 

While experimenting with the products of radioactive decay, in 1913 radiochemist Frederick Soddy discovered that there appeared to be more than one type of atom at each position on the periodic table. The term isotope was coined by Margaret Todd as a suitable name for different atoms that belong to the same element. J.J. Thomson created a technique for separating atom types through his work on ionized gases, which subsequently led to the discovery of stable isotopes. 

The Bohr model of the atom, with an electron making instantaneous "quantum leaps" from one orbit to another. This model is obsolete.

Meanwhile, in 1913, physicist Niels Bohr suggested that the electrons were confined into clearly defined, quantized orbits, and could jump between these, but could not freely spiral inward or outward in intermediate states like satellites orbiting a planet. An electron must absorb or emit specific amounts of energy to transition between these fixed orbits. This explained why the electrons don't spiral down into the nucleus, and why elements absorb and emit light in discrete spectra. 

Later in the same year Henry Moseley provided additional experimental evidence in favor of Niels Bohr's theory. These results refined Ernest Rutherford's and Antonius Van den Broek's model, which proposed that the atom contains in its nucleus a number of positive nuclear charges that is equal to its (atomic) number in the periodic table. Until these experiments, atomic number was not known to be a physical and experimental quantity. That it is equal to the atomic nuclear charge remains the accepted atomic model today.

Chemical bonds between atoms were now explained, by Gilbert Newton Lewis in 1916, as the interactions between their constituent electrons. As the chemical properties of the elements were known to largely repeat themselves according to the periodic law, in 1919 the American chemist Irving Langmuir suggested that this could be explained if the electrons in an atom were connected or clustered in some manner. Groups of electrons were thought to occupy a set of electron shells about the nucleus. 

The Stern–Gerlach experiment of 1922 provided further evidence of the quantum nature of the atom. When a beam of silver atoms was passed through a specially shaped magnetic field, the beam was split based on the direction of an atom's angular momentum, or spin. As this direction is random, the beam could be expected to spread into a line. Instead, the beam was split into two parts, depending on whether the atomic spin was oriented up or down. 

In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed that all particles behave to an extent like waves. In 1926, Erwin Schrödinger used this idea to develop a mathematical model of the atom that described the electrons as three-dimensional waveforms rather than point particles. A consequence of using waveforms to describe particles is that it is mathematically impossible to obtain precise values for both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time; this became known as the uncertainty principle, formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1926. In this concept, for a given accuracy in measuring a position one could only obtain a range of probable values for momentum, and vice versa. This model was able to explain observations of atomic behavior that previous models could not, such as certain structural and spectral patterns of atoms larger than hydrogen. Thus, the planetary model of the atom was discarded in favor of one that described atomic orbital zones around the nucleus where a given electron is most likely to be observed. 

The development of the mass spectrometer allowed the exact mass of atoms to be measured. The device uses a magnet to bend the trajectory of a beam of ions, and the amount of deflection is determined by the ratio of an atom's mass to its charge. The chemist Francis William Aston used this instrument to show that isotopes had different masses. The atomic mass of these isotopes varied by integer amounts, called the whole number rule. The explanation for these different isotopes awaited the discovery of the neutron, a neutral-charged particle with a mass similar to the proton, by the physicist James Chadwick in 1932. Isotopes were then explained as elements with the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutrons within the nucleus. 

===Fission, high-energy physics and condensed matter===
In 1938, the German chemist Otto Hahn, a student of Rutherford, directed neutrons onto uranium atoms expecting to get transuranium elements. Instead, his chemical experiments showed barium as a product. A year later, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch verified that Hahn's result were the first experimental nuclear fission. In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel prize in chemistry. Despite Hahn's efforts, the contributions of Meitner and Frisch were not recognized. 

In the 1950s, the development of improved particle accelerators and particle detectors allowed scientists to study the impacts of atoms moving at high energies. Neutrons and protons were found to be hadrons, or composites of smaller particles called quarks. The standard model of particle physics was developed that so far has successfully explained the properties of the nucleus in terms of these sub-atomic particles and the forces that govern their interactions. 

==Structure==
===Subatomic particles===

Though the word atom originally denoted a particle that cannot be cut into smaller particles, in modern scientific usage the atom is composed of various subatomic particles. The constituent particles of an atom are the electron, the proton and the neutron; all three are fermions. However, the hydrogen-1 atom has no neutrons and the hydron ion has no electrons.

The electron is by far the least massive of these particles at , with a negative electrical charge and a size that is too small to be measured using available techniques. It is the lightest particle with a positive rest mass measured. Under ordinary conditions, electrons are bound to the positively charged nucleus by the attraction created from opposite electric charges. If an atom have more or fewer electrons than its atomic number, then is become respectively negatively or positively charged as a whole; a charged atom is called ion. Electrons are known since the late 19th century, mostly thanks to J.J. Thomson; see history of subatomic physics for details.

Protons have a positive charge and a mass 1,836 times that of the electron, at . The number of protons in an atom is called its atomic number. Ernest Rutherford (1919) observed that nitrogen under alpha-particle bombardment ejects what appeared to be hydrogen nuclei. By 1920 he had accepted that the hydrogen nucleus is a distinct particle within the atom and named it proton.

Neutrons have no electrical charge and have a free mass of 1,839 times the mass of the electron, or , the heaviest of the three constituent particles, but it can be reduced by the nuclear binding energy. Neutrons and protons (collectively known as nucleons) have comparable dimensions—on the order of —although the 'surface' of these particles is not sharply defined. The neutron was discovered in 1932 by the English physicist James Chadwick.

In the Standard Model of physics, electrons are truly elementary particles with no internal structure. However, both protons and neutrons are composite particles composed of elementary particles called quarks. There are two types of quarks in atoms, each having a fractional electric charge. Protons are composed of two up quarks (each with charge +) and one down quark (with a charge of −). Neutrons consist of one up quark and two down quarks. This distinction accounts for the difference in mass and charge between the two particles. 

The quarks are held together by the strong interaction (or strong force), which is mediated by gluons. The protons and neutrons, in turn, are held to each other in the nucleus by the nuclear force, which is a residuum of the strong force that has somewhat different range-properties (see the article on the nuclear force for more). The gluon is a member of the family of gauge bosons, which are elementary particles that mediate physical forces. 

===Nucleus===

The binding energy needed for a nucleon to escape the nucleus, for various isotopes

All the bound protons and neutrons in an atom make up a tiny atomic nucleus, and are collectively called nucleons. The radius of a nucleus is approximately equal to 1.07 fm, where A is the total number of nucleons. This is much smaller than the radius of the atom, which is on the order of 105 fm. The nucleons are bound together by a short-ranged attractive potential called the residual strong force. At distances smaller than 2.5 fm this force is much more powerful than the electrostatic force that causes positively charged protons to repel each other.

Atoms of the same element have the same number of protons, called the atomic number. Within a single element, the number of neutrons may vary, determining the isotope of that element. The total number of protons and neutrons determine the nuclide. The number of neutrons relative to the protons determines the stability of the nucleus, with certain isotopes undergoing radioactive decay. 

The proton, the electron, and the neutron are classified as fermions. Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle which prohibits identical fermions, such as multiple protons, from occupying the same quantum state at the same time. Thus, every proton in the nucleus must occupy a quantum state different from all other protons, and the same applies to all neutrons of the nucleus and to all electrons of the electron cloud. However, a proton and a neutron are allowed to occupy the same quantum state. 

For atoms with low atomic numbers, a nucleus that has more neutrons than protons tends to drop to a lower energy state through radioactive decay so that the neutron-proton ratio is closer to one. However, as the atomic number increases, a higher proportion of neutrons is required to offset the mutual repulsion of the protons. Thus, there are no stable nuclei with equal proton and neutron numbers above atomic number Z = 20 (calcium) and as Z increases, the neutron-proton ratio of stable isotopes increases. The stable isotope with the highest proton-neutron ration is lead-208 (about 1.5).

Illustration of a nuclear fusion process that forms a deuterium nucleus, consisting of a proton and a neutron, from two protons. A positron (e+)—an antimatter electron—is emitted along with an electron neutrino.

The number of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus can be modified, although this can require very high energies because of the strong force. Nuclear fusion occurs when multiple atomic particles join to form a heavier nucleus, such as through the energetic collision of two nuclei. For example, at the core of the Sun protons require energies of 3–10 keV to overcome their mutual repulsion—the coulomb barrier—and fuse together into a single nucleus. Nuclear fission is the opposite process, causing a nucleus to split into two smaller nuclei—usually through radioactive decay. The nucleus can also be modified through bombardment by high energy subatomic particles or photons. If this modifies the number of protons in a nucleus, the atom changes to a different chemical element. 

If the mass of the nucleus following a fusion reaction is less than the sum of the masses of the separate particles, then the difference between these two values can be emitted as a type of usable energy (such as a gamma ray, or the kinetic energy of a beta particle), as described by Albert Einstein's mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc2, where m is the mass loss and c is the speed of light. This deficit is part of the binding energy of the new nucleus, and it is the non-recoverable loss of the energy that causes the fused particles to remain together in a state that requires this energy to separate.

The fusion of two nuclei that create larger nuclei with lower atomic numbers than iron and nickel—a total nucleon number of about 60—is usually an exothermic process that releases more energy than is required to bring them together. It is this energy-releasing process that makes nuclear fusion in stars a self-sustaining reaction. For heavier nuclei, the binding energy per nucleon in the nucleus begins to decrease. That means fusion processes producing nuclei that have atomic numbers higher than about 26, and atomic masses higher than about 60, is an endothermic process. These more massive nuclei can not undergo an energy-producing fusion reaction that can sustain the hydrostatic equilibrium of a star. 

===Electron cloud===

A potential well, showing, according to classical mechanics, the minimum energy V(x) needed to reach each position x. Classically, a particle with energy E is constrained to a range of positions between x1 and x2.
The electrons in an atom are attracted to the protons in the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. This force binds the electrons inside an electrostatic potential well surrounding the smaller nucleus, which means that an external source of energy is needed for the electron to escape. The closer an electron is to the nucleus, the greater the attractive force. Hence electrons bound near the center of the potential well require more energy to escape than those at greater separations.

Electrons, like other particles, have properties of both a particle and a wave. The electron cloud is a region inside the potential well where each electron forms a type of three-dimensional standing wave—a wave form that does not move relative to the nucleus. This behavior is defined by an atomic orbital, a mathematical function that characterises the probability that an electron appears to be at a particular location when its position is measured. Only a discrete (or quantized) set of these orbitals exist around the nucleus, as other possible wave patterns rapidly decay into a more stable form. Orbitals can have one or more ring or node structures, and they differ from each other in size, shape and orientation. 

Wave functions of the first five atomic orbitals. The three 2p orbitals each display a single angular node that has an orientation and a minimum at the center. How atoms are constructed from electron orbitals and link to the periodic table

Each atomic orbital corresponds to a particular energy level of the electron. The electron can change its state to a higher energy level by absorbing a photon with sufficient energy to boost it into the new quantum state. Likewise, through spontaneous emission, an electron in a higher energy state can drop to a lower energy state while radiating the excess energy as a photon. These characteristic energy values, defined by the differences in the energies of the quantum states, are responsible for atomic spectral lines. 

The amount of energy needed to remove or add an electron—the electron binding energy—is far less than the binding energy of nucleons. For example, it requires only 13.6 eV to strip a ground-state electron from a hydrogen atom, compared to 2.23 million eV for splitting a deuterium nucleus. Atoms are electrically neutral if they have an equal number of protons and electrons. Atoms that have either a deficit or a surplus of electrons are called ions. Electrons that are farthest from the nucleus may be transferred to other nearby atoms or shared between atoms. By this mechanism, atoms are able to bond into molecules and other types of chemical compounds like ionic and covalent network crystals.

==Properties==

===Nuclear properties===

By definition, any two atoms with an identical number of protons in their nuclei belong to the same chemical element. Atoms with equal numbers of protons but a different number of neutrons are different isotopes of the same element. For example, all hydrogen atoms admit exactly one proton, but isotopes exist with no neutrons (hydrogen-1, by far the most common form, also called protium), one neutron (deuterium), two neutrons (tritium) and more than two neutrons. The known elements form a set of atomic numbers, from the single proton element hydrogen up to the 118-proton element ununoctium. All known isotopes of elements with atomic numbers greater than 82 are radioactive. 

About 339 nuclides occur naturally on Earth, of which 254 (about 75%) have not been observed to decay, and are referred to as "stable isotopes". However, only 90 of these nuclides are stable to all decay, even in theory. Another 164 (bringing the total to 254) have not been observed to decay, even though in theory it is energetically possible. These are also formally classified as "stable". An additional 34 radioactive nuclides have half-lives longer than 80 million years, and are long-lived enough to be present from the birth of the solar system. This collection of 288 nuclides are known as primordial nuclides. Finally, an additional 51 short-lived nuclides are known to occur naturally, as daughter products of primordial nuclide decay (such as radium from uranium), or else as products of natural energetic processes on Earth, such as cosmic ray bombardment (for example, carbon-14). For more recent updates see Interactive Chart of Nuclides (Brookhaven National Laboratory). 

For 80 of the chemical elements, at least one stable isotope exists. As a rule, there is only a handful of stable isotopes for each of these elements, the average being 3.2 stable isotopes per element. Twenty-six elements have only a single stable isotope, while the largest number of stable isotopes observed for any element is ten, for the element tin. Elements 43, 61, and all elements numbered 83 or higher have no stable isotopes. CRC Handbook (2002). 

Stability of isotopes is affected by the ratio of protons to neutrons, and also by the presence of certain "magic numbers" of neutrons or protons that represent closed and filled quantum shells. These quantum shells correspond to a set of energy levels within the shell model of the nucleus; filled shells, such as the filled shell of 50 protons for tin, confers unusual stability on the nuclide. Of the 254 known stable nuclides, only four have both an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons: hydrogen-2 (deuterium), lithium-6, boron-10 and nitrogen-14. Also, only four naturally occurring, radioactive odd-odd nuclides have a half-life over a billion years: potassium-40, vanadium-50, lanthanum-138 and tantalum-180m. Most odd-odd nuclei are highly unstable with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even-even, and are therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects. 

===Mass===

The large majority of an atom's mass comes from the protons and neutrons that make it up. The total number of these particles (called "nucleons") in a given atom is called the mass number. The mass number is a simple whole number, and has units of "nucleons." An example of use of a mass number is "carbon-12," which has 12 nucleons (six protons and six neutrons).

The actual mass of an atom at rest is often expressed using the unified atomic mass unit (u), which is also called a dalton (Da). This unit is defined as a twelfth of the mass of a free neutral atom of carbon-12, which is approximately . Hydrogen-1, the lightest isotope of hydrogen and the atom with the lowest mass, has an atomic weight of 1.007825 u. The value of this number is called the atomic mass. A given atom has an atomic mass approximately equal (within 1%) to its mass number times the mass of the atomic mass unit. However, this number will not be an exact whole number except in the case of carbon-12 (see below). The heaviest stable atom is lead-208, with a mass of . 

As even the most massive atoms are far too light to work with directly, chemists instead use the unit of moles. One mole of atoms of any element always has the same number of atoms (about constant|]). This number was chosen so that if an element has an atomic mass of 1 u, a mole of atoms of that element has a mass close to one gram. Because of the definition of the unified atomic mass unit, each carbon-12 atom has an atomic mass of exactly 12 u, and so a mole of carbon-12 atoms weighs exactly 0.012 kg. Mills et al. (1993). 

===Shape and size===

Atoms lack a well-defined outer boundary, so their dimensions are usually described in terms of an atomic radius. This is a measure of the distance out to which the electron cloud extends from the nucleus. However, this assumes the atom to exhibit a spherical shape, which is only obeyed for atoms in vacuum or free space. Atomic radii may be derived from the distances between two nuclei when the two atoms are joined in a chemical bond. The radius varies with the location of an atom on the atomic chart, the type of chemical bond, the number of neighboring atoms (coordination number) and a quantum mechanical property known as spin. On the periodic table of the elements, atom size tends to increase when moving down columns, but decrease when moving across rows (left to right). Consequently, the smallest atom is helium with a radius of 32 pm, while one of the largest is caesium at 225 pm. Zumdahl (2002). 

When subjected to external fields, like an electrical field, the shape of an atom may deviate from spherical symmetry. The deformation depends on the field magnitude and the orbital type of outer shell electrons, as shown by group-theoretical considerations. Aspherical deviations might be elicited for instance in crystals, where large crystal-electrical fields may occur at low-symmetry lattice sites. Significant ellipsoidal deformations have recently been shown to occur for sulfur ions in pyrite-type compounds. 

Atomic dimensions are thousands of times smaller than the wavelengths of light (400–700 nm) so they can not be viewed using an optical microscope. However, individual atoms can be observed using a scanning tunneling microscope. To visualize the minuteness of the atom, consider that a typical human hair is about 1 million carbon atoms in width. A single drop of water contains about 2 sextillion () atoms of oxygen, and twice the number of hydrogen atoms. Padilla et al. (2002:32)—"There are 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 2 sextillion) atoms of oxygen in one drop of water—and twice as many atoms of hydrogen." A single carat diamond with a mass of contains about 10 sextillion (1022) atoms of carbon. A carat is 200 milligrams. By definition, carbon-12 has 0.012 kg per mole. The Avogadro constant defines atoms per mole. If an apple were magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple.

===Radioactive decay===

This diagram shows the half-life (T½) of various isotopes with Z protons and N neutrons.

Every element has one or more isotopes that have unstable nuclei that are subject to radioactive decay, causing the nucleus to emit particles or electromagnetic radiation. Radioactivity can occur when the radius of a nucleus is large compared with the radius of the strong force, which only acts over distances on the order of 1 fm. 

The most common forms of radioactive decay are: 
* Alpha decay: this process is caused when the nucleus emits an alpha particle, which is a helium nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons. The result of the emission is a new element with a lower atomic number.
* Beta decay (and electron capture): these processes are regulated by the weak force, and result from a transformation of a neutron into a proton, or a proton into a neutron. The neutron to proton transition is accompanied by the emission of an electron and an antineutrino, while proton to neutron transition (except in electron capture) causes the emission of a positron and a neutrino. The electron or positron emissions are called beta particles. Beta decay either increases or decreases the atomic number of the nucleus by one. Electron capture is more common than positron emission, because it requires less energy. In this type of decay, an electron is absorbed by the nucleus, rather than a positron emitted from the nucleus. A neutrino is still emitted in this process, and a proton changes to a neutron.
* Gamma decay: this process results from a change in the energy level of the nucleus to a lower state, resulting in the emission of electromagnetic radiation. The excited state of a nucleus which results in gamma emission usually occurs following the emission of an alpha or a beta particle. Thus, gamma decay usually follows alpha or beta decay.

Other more rare types of radioactive decay include ejection of neutrons or protons or clusters of nucleons from a nucleus, or more than one beta particle. An analog of gamma emission which allows excited nuclei to lose energy in a different way, is internal conversion— a process that produces high-speed electrons that are not beta rays, followed by production of high-energy photons that are not gamma rays. A few large nuclei explode into two or more charged fragments of varying masses plus several neutrons, in a decay called spontaneous nuclear fission.

Each radioactive isotope has a characteristic decay time period—the half-life—that is determined by the amount of time needed for half of a sample to decay. This is an exponential decay process that steadily decreases the proportion of the remaining isotope by 50% every half-life. Hence after two half-lives have passed only 25% of the isotope is present, and so forth. 

===Magnetic moment===

Elementary particles possess an intrinsic quantum mechanical property known as spin. This is analogous to the angular momentum of an object that is spinning around its center of mass, although strictly speaking these particles are believed to be point-like and cannot be said to be rotating. Spin is measured in units of the reduced Planck constant (ħ), with electrons, protons and neutrons all having spin ½ ħ, or "spin-½". In an atom, electrons in motion around the nucleus possess orbital angular momentum in addition to their spin, while the nucleus itself possesses angular momentum due to its nuclear spin. 

The magnetic field produced by an atom—its magnetic moment—is determined by these various forms of angular momentum, just as a rotating charged object classically produces a magnetic field. However, the most dominant contribution comes from spin. Due to the nature of electrons to obey the Pauli exclusion principle, in which no two electrons may be found in the same quantum state, bound electrons pair up with each other, with one member of each pair in a spin up state and the other in the opposite, spin down state. Thus these spins cancel each other out, reducing the total magnetic dipole moment to zero in some atoms with even number of electrons. 

In ferromagnetic elements such as iron, an odd number of electrons leads to an unpaired electron and a net overall magnetic moment. The orbitals of neighboring atoms overlap and a lower energy state is achieved when the spins of unpaired electrons are aligned with each other, a process known as an exchange interaction. When the magnetic moments of ferromagnetic atoms are lined up, the material can produce a measurable macroscopic field. Paramagnetic materials have atoms with magnetic moments that line up in random directions when no magnetic field is present, but the magnetic moments of the individual atoms line up in the presence of a field. 

The nucleus of an atom can also have a net spin. Normally these nuclei are aligned in random directions because of thermal equilibrium. However, for certain elements (such as xenon-129) it is possible to polarize a significant proportion of the nuclear spin states so that they are aligned in the same direction—a condition called hyperpolarization. This has important applications in magnetic resonance imaging. 

===Energy levels===
These electron's energy levels (not to scale) are sufficient for ground states of atoms up to cadmium (5s2 4d10) inclusively. Do not forget that even the top of the diagram is lower than an unbound electron state.
The potential energy of an electron in an atom is negative, its dependence of its position reaches the minimum (the most absolute value) inside the nucleus, and vanishes when the distance from the nucleus goes to infinity, roughly in an inverse proportion to the distance. In the quantum-mechanical model, a bound electron can only occupy a set of states centered on the nucleus, and each state corresponds to a specific energy level; see time-independent Schrödinger equation for theoretical explanation. An energy level can be measured by the amount of energy needed to unbind the electron from the atom, and is usually given in units of electronvolts (eV). The lowest energy state of a bound electron is called the ground state, i.e. stationary state, while an electron transition to a higher level results in an excited state. The electron's energy raises when n increases because the (average) distance to the nucleus increases. Dependence of the energy on quantum number|] is caused not by electrostatic potential of the nucleus, but by interaction between electrons.

For an electron to transition between two different states, e.g. grounded state to first excited level (ionization), it must absorb or emit a photon at an energy matching the difference in the potential energy of those levels, according to Niels Bohr model, what can be precisely calculated by the Schrödinger equation.
Electrons jump between orbitals in a particle-like fashion. For example, if a single photon strikes the electrons, only a single electron changes states in response to the photon; see Electron properties.

The energy of an emitted photon is proportional to its frequency, so these specific energy levels appear as distinct bands in the electromagnetic spectrum. Fowles (1989:227–233). Each element has a characteristic spectrum that can depend on the nuclear charge, subshells filled by electrons, the electromagnetic interactions between the electrons and other factors. 

An example of absorption lines in a spectrum

When a continuous spectrum of energy is passed through a gas or plasma, some of the photons are absorbed by atoms, causing electrons to change their energy level. Those excited electrons that remain bound to their atom spontaneously emit this energy as a photon, traveling in a random direction, and so drop back to lower energy levels. Thus the atoms behave like a filter that forms a series of dark absorption bands in the energy output. (An observer viewing the atoms from a view that does not include the continuous spectrum in the background, instead sees a series of emission lines from the photons emitted by the atoms.) Spectroscopic measurements of the strength and width of atomic spectral lines allow the composition and physical properties of a substance to be determined. 

Close examination of the spectral lines reveals that some display a fine structure splitting. This occurs because of spin–orbit coupling, which is an interaction between the spin and motion of the outermost electron. When an atom is in an external magnetic field, spectral lines become split into three or more components; a phenomenon called the Zeeman effect. This is caused by the interaction of the magnetic field with the magnetic moment of the atom and its electrons. Some atoms can have multiple electron configurations with the same energy level, which thus appear as a single spectral line. The interaction of the magnetic field with the atom shifts these electron configurations to slightly different energy levels, resulting in multiple spectral lines. The presence of an external electric field can cause a comparable splitting and shifting of spectral lines by modifying the electron energy levels, a phenomenon called the Stark effect.

If a bound electron is in an excited state, an interacting photon with the proper energy can cause stimulated emission of a photon with a matching energy level. For this to occur, the electron must drop to a lower energy state that has an energy difference matching the energy of the interacting photon. The emitted photon and the interacting photon then move off in parallel and with matching phases. That is, the wave patterns of the two photons are synchronized. This physical property is used to make lasers, which can emit a coherent beam of light energy in a narrow frequency band. 

===Valence and bonding behavior===

The outermost electron shell of an atom in its uncombined state is known as the valence shell, and the electrons in
that shell are called valence electrons. The number of valence electrons determines the bonding
behavior with other atoms. Atoms tend to chemically react with each other in a manner that fills (or empties) their outer valence shells. For example, a transfer of a single electron between atoms is a useful approximation for bonds that form between atoms with one-electron more than a filled shell, and others that are one-electron short of a full shell, such as occurs in the compound sodium chloride and other chemical ionic salts. However, many elements display multiple valences, or tendencies to share differing numbers of electrons in different compounds. Thus, chemical bonding between these elements takes many forms of electron-sharing that are more than simple electron transfers. Examples include the element carbon and the organic compounds. 

The chemical elements are often displayed in a periodic table that is laid out to display recurring chemical properties, and elements with the same number of valence electrons form a group that is aligned in the same column of the table. (The horizontal rows correspond to the filling of a quantum shell of electrons.) The elements at the far right of the table have their outer shell completely filled with electrons, which results in chemically inert elements known as the noble gases. 

===States===

Snapshots illustrating the formation of a Bose–Einstein condensate
Quantities of atoms are found in different states of matter that depend on the physical conditions, such as temperature and pressure. By varying the conditions, materials can transition between solids, liquids, gases and plasmas.
 Within a state, a material can also exist in different allotropes. An example of this is solid carbon, which can exist as graphite or diamond. Gaseous allotropes exist as well, such as dioxygen and ozone.

At temperatures close to absolute zero, atoms can form a Bose–Einstein condensate, at which point quantum mechanical effects, which are normally only observed at the atomic scale, become apparent on a macroscopic scale. This super-cooled collection of atoms
then behaves as a single super atom, which may allow fundamental checks of quantum mechanical behavior. 

==Identification==
Scanning tunneling microscope image showing the individual atoms making up this gold (100) surface. Reconstruction causes the surface atoms to deviate from the bulk crystal structure and arrange in columns several atoms wide with pits between them.
The scanning tunneling microscope is a device for viewing surfaces at the atomic level. It uses the quantum tunneling phenomenon, which allows particles to pass through a barrier that would normally be insurmountable. Electrons tunnel through the vacuum between two planar metal electrodes, on each of which is an adsorbed atom, providing a tunneling-current density that can be measured. Scanning one atom (taken as the tip) as it moves past the other (the sample) permits plotting of tip displacement versus lateral separation for a constant current. The calculation shows the extent to which scanning-tunneling-microscope images of an individual atom are visible. It confirms that for low bias, the microscope images the space-averaged dimensions of the electron orbitals across closely packed energy levels—the Fermi level local density of states. 

An atom can be ionized by removing one of its electrons. The electric charge causes the trajectory of an atom to bend when it passes through a magnetic field. The radius by which the trajectory of a moving ion is turned by the magnetic field is determined by the mass of the atom. The mass spectrometer uses this principle to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. If a sample contains multiple isotopes, the mass spectrometer can determine the proportion of each isotope in the sample by measuring the intensity of the different beams of ions. Techniques to vaporize atoms include inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, both of which use a plasma to vaporize samples for analysis. 

A more area-selective method is electron energy loss spectroscopy, which measures the energy loss of an electron beam within a transmission electron microscope when it interacts with a portion of a sample. The atom-probe tomograph has sub-nanometer resolution in 3-D and can chemically identify individual atoms using time-of-flight mass spectrometry. 

Spectra of excited states can be used to analyze the atomic composition of distant stars. Specific light wavelengths contained in the observed light from stars can be separated out and related to the quantized transitions in free gas atoms. These colors can be replicated using a gas-discharge lamp containing the same element. Helium was discovered in this way in the spectrum of the Sun 23 years before it was found on Earth. 

==Origin and current state==
Atoms form about 4% of the total energy density of the observable Universe, with an average density of about 0.25 atoms/m3. Within a galaxy such as the Milky Way, atoms have a much higher concentration, with the density of matter in the interstellar medium (ISM) ranging from 105 to 109 atoms/m3. The Sun is believed to be inside the Local Bubble, a region of highly ionized gas, so the density in the solar neighborhood is only about 103 atoms/m3. Stars form from dense clouds in the ISM, and the evolutionary processes of stars result in the steady enrichment of the ISM with elements more massive than hydrogen and helium. Up to 95% of the Milky Way's atoms are concentrated inside stars and the total mass of atoms forms about 10% of the mass of the galaxy. (The remainder of the mass is an unknown dark matter.) 

===Formation===
Electrons are thought to exist in the Universe since early stages of the Big Bang. Atomic nuclei forms in nucleosynthesis reactions. In about three minutes Big Bang nucleosynthesis produced most of the helium, lithium, and deuterium in the Universe, and perhaps some of the beryllium and boron. 

Ubiquitousness and stability of atoms relies on their binding energy, which means that an atom has a lower energy than an unbound system of the nucleus and electrons. Where the temperature is much higher than ionization potential, the matter exists in the form of plasma – a gas of positively-charged ions (possibly, bare nuclei) and electrons. When the temperature drops below the ionization potential, atoms become statistically favorable. Atoms (complete with bound electrons) became to dominate over charged particles 380,000 years after the Big Bang—an epoch called recombination, when the expanding Universe cooled enough to allow electrons to become attached to nuclei. 

Since the Big Bang, which produced no carbon or heavier elements, atomic nuclei have been combined in stars through the process of nuclear fusion to produce more of the element helium, and (via the triple alpha process) the sequence of elements from carbon up to iron; see stellar nucleosynthesis for details.

Isotopes such as lithium-6, as well as some beryllium and boron are generated in space through cosmic ray spallation. This occurs when a high-energy proton strikes an atomic nucleus, causing large numbers of nucleons to be ejected.

Elements heavier than iron were produced in supernovae through the r-process and in AGB stars through the s-process, both of which involve the capture of neutrons by atomic nuclei. Elements such as lead formed largely through the radioactive decay of heavier elements. 

===Earth===
Most of the atoms that make up the Earth and its inhabitants were present in their current form in the nebula that collapsed out of a molecular cloud to form the Solar System. The rest are the result of radioactive decay, and their relative proportion can be used to determine the age of the Earth through radiometric dating. Most of the helium in the crust of the Earth (about 99% of the helium from gas wells, as shown by its lower abundance of helium-3) is a product of alpha decay. 

There are a few trace atoms on Earth that were not present at the beginning (i.e., not "primordial"), nor are results of radioactive decay. Carbon-14 is continuously generated by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Some atoms on Earth have been artificially generated either deliberately or as by-products of nuclear reactors or explosions. Of the transuranic elements—those with atomic numbers greater than 92—only plutonium and neptunium occur naturally on Earth. Transuranic elements have radioactive lifetimes shorter than the current age of the Earth and thus identifiable quantities of these elements have long since decayed, with the exception of traces of plutonium-244 possibly deposited by cosmic dust. Natural deposits of plutonium and neptunium are produced by neutron capture in uranium ore. 

The Earth contains approximately atoms. Although small numbers of independent atoms of noble gases exist, such as argon, neon, and helium, 99% of the atmosphere is bound in the form of molecules, including carbon dioxide and diatomic oxygen and nitrogen. At the surface of the Earth, an overwhelming majority of atoms combine to form various compounds, including water, salt, silicates and oxides. Atoms can also combine to create materials that do not consist of discrete molecules, including crystals and liquid or solid metals. This atomic matter forms networked arrangements that lack the particular type of small-scale interrupted order associated with molecular matter.

===Rare and theoretical forms===

====Superheavy elements====

While isotopes with atomic numbers higher than lead (82) are known to be radioactive, an "island of stability" has been proposed for some elements with atomic numbers above 103. These superheavy elements may have a nucleus that is relatively stable against radioactive decay. The most likely candidate for a stable superheavy atom, unbihexium, has 126 protons and 184 neutrons. 

==== Exotic matter ====

Each particle of matter has a corresponding antimatter particle with the opposite electrical charge. Thus, the positron is a positively charged antielectron and the antiproton is a negatively charged equivalent of a proton. When a matter and corresponding antimatter particle meet, they annihilate each other. Because of this, along with an imbalance between the number of matter and antimatter particles, the latter are rare in the universe. The first causes of this imbalance are not yet fully understood, although theories of baryogenesis may offer an explanation. As a result, no antimatter atoms have been discovered in nature. However, in 1996 the antimatter counterpart of the hydrogen atom (antihydrogen) was synthesized at the CERN laboratory in Geneva. 

Other exotic atoms have been created by replacing one of the protons, neutrons or electrons with other particles that have the same charge. For example, an electron can be replaced by a more massive muon, forming a muonic atom. These types of atoms can be used to test the fundamental predictions of physics. 

==See also==

* History of quantum mechanics
* Infinite divisibility
* List of basic chemistry topics
* Timeline of atomic and subatomic physics

* Vector model of the atom
* Nuclear model
* Radioactive isotope

==Notes==

==References==

Encyclopædia Britannica

===Book references===

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==External links==

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* —a guide to the atom for teens.
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[[Arable land]]

Modern arable agriculture typically uses large fields like this one in Dorset, England

In geography and agriculture, arable land (from Latin arāre; “To plough, To farm”) is land ploughed or tilled regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation. 

According to definitions and survey recommendations by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), used by for example Eurostat and the World Bank, arable land is agricultural land occupied by crops both sown and harvested during the same agricultural year, sometimes more than once. Land is also considered arable if used as temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, market and kitchen gardens; as well as temporarily fallow land — not seeded for one or more growing seasons, yet not left idle for more than five years. 

Permanent crops that occupy the land for a number of years, and don't need replanting after each annual harvest — like coffee, rubber, flowering shrubs, fruit, nut trees and vines — are not counted as existing on arable land, but as existing on permanent cropland. 

Permanent pastures and meadows used for grazing, land mowed for hay or silage not included in a crop rotation scheme, and abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is also not counted as arable, along with lands with built-on and barren areas, forests and woodlands. 

==Arable land area==

Although constrained by land mass and topography, the amount of arable land, both regionally and globally, fluctuates due to human and climatic factors such as irrigation, deforestation, desertification, terracing, land reclamation and urban sprawl. In 2008, the world's arable land amounted to 1,386 M ha, out of a total 4,883 M ha land used for agriculture. 

 Arable land area ('000 km2) Country or region 2008 2009 2010 2011 USA 1,631 1,605 1,598 1,602 India 1,579 1,578 1,575 1,574 Russia 1,216 1,218 1,200 1,215 China 1,086 1,100 1,114 1,116 Brazil 702 704 703 719 Australia 440 471 426 477 Canada 443 438 434 430 Argentina 351 338 372 380 Nigeria 370 340 360 360 Ukraine 325 325 325 325 EU 1,091 1,089 1,074 1,074 World 13,866 13,873 13,880 13,962 World map of arable land, percentage by country 

==Non-arable land==

Water Buffalo ploughing rice fields near Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia

Land which is unsuitable for arable farming usually has at least one of the following deficiencies: no source of fresh water; too hot (desert); too cold (Arctic); too rocky; too mountainous; too salty; too rainy; too snowy; too polluted; or too nutrient poor. Clouds may block the sunlight plants need for photosynthesis, reducing productivity. Starvation and nomadism often exists on marginally arable land. Non-arable land is sometimes called wasteland, badlands, worthless or no man's land.

However, non-arable land can sometimes be converted into arable land. New arable land makes more food, and can reduce starvation. This outcome also makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. Making non-arable land arable often involves digging new irrigation canals and new wells, aqueducts, desalination plants, planting trees for shade in the desert, hydroponics, fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides, reverse osmosis water processors, PET film insulation or other insulation against heat and cold, digging ditches and hills for protection against the wind, and greenhouses with internal light and heat for protection against the cold outside and to provide light in cloudy areas. This process is often extremely expensive. An alternative is the Seawater Greenhouse which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the only energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on desert land close to the sea.

Some examples of infertile non-arable land being turned into fertile arable land are:
* Aran Islands: These islands off the west coast of Ireland, (not to be confused with the Isle of Arran in Scotland's Firth of Clyde), were unsuitable for arable farming because they were too rocky. The people covered the islands with a shallow layer of seaweed and sand from the ocean. This made it arable. Today, crops are grown there.
* Israel: Israel's land primarily consisted of desert until the construction of desalination plants along the country's coast. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from ocean water, have created a new source of water for farming, drinking, and washing.
* Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients in wood ash, but these expire within a few years

* Terra preta, fertile tropical soils created by adding charcoal.

Some examples of fertile arable land being turned into infertile land are:
* Droughts like the 'dust bowl' of the Great Depression in the U.S. turned farmland into desert.
* Rainforest Deforestation: The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land. For example, Madagascar's central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren (about ten percent of the country), as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of shifting cultivation practiced by many natives.
* Each year, arable land is lost due to desertification and human-induced erosion. Improper irrigation of farm land can wick the sodium, calcium, and magnesium from the soil and water to the surface. This process steadily concentrates salt in the root zone, decreasing productivity for crops that are not salt-tolerant.

==See also==
* Soil fertility
* Land use statistics by country
* List of environment topics

==References==

==External links==
* Surface area of the Earth
* Article from Technorati on Shrinking Arable Farmland in the world



[[Aluminium]]

Aluminium (or aluminum; see spelling differences) is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery white, soft, ductile metal. Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth's solid surface. Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals. 
 The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite.

Aluminium is remarkable for the metal's low density and for its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. The most useful compounds of aluminium, at least on a weight basis, are the oxides and sulfates.

Despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically. In keeping with its pervasiveness, aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Owing to their prevalence, potential beneficial (or otherwise) biological roles of aluminium compounds are of continuing interest.

==Characteristics==
Etched surface from a high purity (99.9998%) aluminium bar, size 55×37 mm

===Physical===
Aluminium is a relatively soft, durable, lightweight, ductile and malleable metal with appearance ranging from silvery to dull gray, depending on the surface roughness. It is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite. A fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector (approximately 92%) of visible light and an excellent reflector (as much as 98%) of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of pure aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. 
 Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel. It is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded.

Aluminium atoms are arranged in a face-centered cubic (fcc) structure. Aluminium has a stacking-fault energy of approximately 200 mJ/m2. 
 

Aluminium is a good thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper, both thermal and electrical, while having only 30% of copper's density. Aluminium is capable of being a superconductor, with a superconducting critical temperature of 1.2 Kelvin and a critical magnetic field of about 100 gauss (10 milliteslas). 
 

===Chemical===
Corrosion resistance can be excellent due to a thin surface layer of aluminium oxide that forms when the metal is exposed to air, effectively preventing further oxidation. The strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is also often greatly reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals.

Owing to its resistance to corrosion, aluminium is one of the few metals that retain silvery reflectance in finely powdered form, making it an important component of silver-colored paints. Aluminium mirror finish has the highest reflectance of any metal in the 200–400 nm (UV) and the 3,000–10,000 nm (far IR) regions; in the 400–700 nm visible range it is slightly outperformed by tin and silver and in the 700–3000 (near IR) by silver, gold, and copper. 
 

Aluminium is oxidized by water to produce hydrogen and heat:
:2 Al + 3 H2O → Al2O3 + 3 H2
This conversion is of interest for the production of hydrogen. Challenges include circumventing the formed oxide layer, which inhibits the reaction and the expenses associated with the storage of energy by regeneration of the Al metal. 

===Isotopes===

Aluminium has many known isotopes, whose mass numbers range from 21 to 42; however, only 27Al (stable isotope) and 26Al (radioactive isotope, t1/2 = 7.2×105 y) occur naturally. 27Al has a natural abundance above 99.9%. 26Al is produced from argon in the atmosphere by spallation caused by cosmic-ray protons. Aluminium isotopes have found practical application in dating marine sediments, manganese nodules, glacial ice, quartz in rock exposures, and meteorites. The ratio of 26Al to 10Be has been used to study the role of transport, deposition, sediment storage, burial times, and erosion on 105 to 106 year time scales. 
 Cosmogenic 26Al was first applied in studies of the Moon and meteorites. Meteoroid fragments, after departure from their parent bodies, are exposed to intense cosmic-ray bombardment during their travel through space, causing substantial 26Al production. After falling to Earth, atmospheric shielding drastically reduces 26Al production, and its decay can then be used to determine the meteorite's terrestrial age. Meteorite research has also shown that 26Al was relatively abundant at the time of formation of our planetary system. Most meteorite scientists believe that the energy released by the decay of 26Al was responsible for the melting and differentiation of some asteroids after their formation 4.55 billion years ago. 
 

===Natural occurrence===

Stable aluminium is created when hydrogen fuses with magnesium either in large stars or in supernovae. 
 

In the Earth's crust, aluminium is the most abundant (8.3% by weight) metallic element and the third most abundant of all elements (after oxygen and silicon). Because of its strong affinity to oxygen, it is almost never found in the elemental state; instead it is found in oxides or silicates. Feldspars, the most common group of minerals in the Earth's crust, are aluminosilicates. Native aluminium metal can only be found as a minor phase in low oxygen fugacity environments, such as the interiors of certain volcanoes. 
 Native aluminium has been reported in cold seeps in the northeastern continental slope of the South China Sea and Chen et al. (2011) have proposed a theory of its origin as resulting by reduction from tetrahydroxoaluminate Al(OH)4– to metallic aluminium by bacteria. 
 

It also occurs in the minerals beryl, cryolite, garnet, spinel and turquoise. Impurities in Al2O3, such as chromium or iron yield the gemstones ruby and sapphire, respectively.

Although aluminium is an extremely common and widespread element, the common aluminium minerals are not economic sources of the metal. Almost all metallic aluminium is produced from the ore bauxite (AlOx(OH)3–2x). Bauxite occurs as a weathering product of low iron and silica bedrock in tropical climatic conditions. 
 Large deposits of bauxite occur in Australia, Brazil, Guinea and Jamaica and the primary mining areas for the ore are in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Guinea, Indonesia, Jamaica, Russia and Suriname.

==Production and refinement==

Bauxite, a major aluminium ore. The red-brown colour is due to the presence of iron minerals.

Aluminium forms strong chemical bonds with oxygen. Compared to most other metals, it is difficult to extract from ore, such as bauxite, due to the high reactivity of aluminium and the high melting point of most of its ores. For example, direct reduction with carbon, as is used to produce iron, is not chemically possible because aluminium is a stronger reducing agent than carbon. Indirect carbothermic reduction can be carried out using carbon and Al2O3, which forms an intermediate Al4C3 and this can further yield aluminium metal at a temperature of 1900–2000 °C. This process is still under development; it requires less energy and yields less CO2 than the Hall-Héroult process, the major industrial process for aluminium extraction. 
 Electrolytic smelting of alumina was originally cost-prohibitive in part because of the high melting point of alumina, or aluminium oxide, (about 2000 °C). Many minerals, however, dissolve into a second already molten mineral, even if the temperature of the melt is significantly lower than the melting point of the first mineral. Molten cryolite was discovered to dissolve alumina at temperatures significantly lower than the melting point of pure alumina without interfering in the smelting process. In the Hall-Héroult process, alumina is first dissolved into molten cryolite with calcium fluoride and then electrolytically reduced to aluminium at a temperature between 950 and. Cryolite is a chemical compound of aluminium and sodium fluorides: (Na3AlF6). Although cryolite is found as a mineral in Greenland, its synthetic form is used in the industry. The aluminium oxide itself is obtained by refining bauxite in the Bayer process.

The electrolytic process replaced the Wöhler process, which involved the reduction of anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium. Both of the electrodes used in the electrolysis of aluminium oxide are carbon. Once the refined alumina is dissolved in the electrolyte, it disassociates and its ions are free to move around. The reaction at the cathode is:

: Al3+ + 3 e− → Al

Here the aluminium ion is being reduced. The aluminium metal then sinks to the bottom and is tapped off, usually cast into large blocks called aluminium billets for further processing.

At the anode, oxygen is formed:
: 2 O2− → O2 + 4 e−

To some extent, the carbon anode is consumed by subsequent reaction with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. The anodes in a reduction cell must therefore be replaced regularly, since they are consumed in the process. The cathodes do erode, mainly due to electrochemical processes and metal movement. After five to ten years, depending on the current used in the electrolysis, a cell must be rebuilt because of cathode wear.

World production trend of aluminium

Aluminium electrolysis with the Hall-Héroult process consumes a lot of energy, but alternative processes were always less viable economically or ecologically. The worldwide average specific energy consumption is approximately 15±0.5 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of aluminium produced (52 to 56 MJ/kg). The most modern smelters achieve approximately 12.8 kW·h/kg (46.1 MJ/kg). (Compare this to the heat of reaction, 31 MJ/kg, and the Gibbs free energy of reaction, 29 MJ/kg.) Reduction line currents for older technologies are typically 100 to 200 kiloamperes; state-of-the-art smelters operate at about 350 kA. Trials have been reported with 500 kA cells.

The Hall-Heroult process produces aluminium with a purity of above 99%. Further purification can be done by the Hoopes process. The process involves the electrolysis of molten aluminium with a sodium, barium and aluminium fluoride electrolyte. The resulting aluminium has a purity of 99.99%. 
 
 

Electric power represents about 20% to 40% of the cost of producing aluminium, depending on the location of the smelter. Aluminium production consumes roughly 5% of electricity generated in the U.S. Aluminium producers tend to locate smelters in places where electric power is both plentiful and inexpensive—such as the United Arab Emirates with its large natural gas supplies, and Iceland and Norway with energy generated from renewable sources. The world's largest smelters of alumina are People's Republic of China, Russia, and Quebec and British Columbia in Canada. 
 
 
 

Aluminium spot price 1987–2012
In 2005, the People's Republic of China was the top producer of aluminium with almost a one-fifth world share, followed by Russia, Canada, and the USA, reports the British Geological Survey.

Over the last 50 years, Australia has become the world's top producer of bauxite ore and a major producer and exporter of alumina (before being overtaken by China in 2007). 
 Australia produced 77 million tonnes of bauxite in 2013. 
 The Australian deposits have some refining problems, some being high in silica, but have the advantage of being shallow and relatively easy to mine. 
 

===Recycling===
Aluminium recycling code

Aluminium is theoretically 100% recyclable without any loss of its natural qualities. According to the International Resource Panel's Metal Stocks in Society report, the global per capita stock of aluminium in use in society (i.e. in cars, buildings, electronics etc.) is 80 kg. Much of this is in more-developed countries (350–500 kg per capita) rather than less-developed countries (35 kg per capita). Knowing the per capita stocks and their approximate lifespans is important for planning recycling.

Recovery of the metal via recycling has become an important use of the aluminium industry. Recycling was a low-profile activity until the late 1960s, when the growing use of aluminium beverage cans brought it to the public awareness.

Recycling involves melting the scrap, a process that requires only 5% of the energy used to produce aluminium from ore, though a significant part (up to 15% of the input material) is lost as dross (ash-like oxide). 
 An aluminium stack melter produces significantly less dross, with values reported below 1%. 
 The dross can undergo a further process to extract aluminium.

In Europe aluminium experiences high rates of recycling, ranging from 42% of beverage cans, 85% of construction materials and 95% of transport vehicles. 
 

Recycled aluminium is known as secondary aluminium, but maintains the same physical properties as primary aluminium. Secondary aluminium is produced in a wide range of formats and is employed in 80% of alloy injections. Another important use is for extrusion.

White dross from primary aluminium production and from secondary recycling operations still contains useful quantities of aluminium that can be extracted industrially. 
 The process produces aluminium billets, together with a highly complex waste material. This waste is difficult to manage. It reacts with water, releasing a mixture of gases (including, among others, hydrogen, acetylene, and ammonia), which spontaneously ignites on contact with air; 
 contact with damp air results in the release of copious quantities of ammonia gas. Despite these difficulties, the waste has found use as a filler in asphalt and concrete. 
 

==Compounds==

===Oxidation state +3===
The vast majority of compounds, including all Al-containing minerals and all commercially significant aluminium compounds, feature aluminium in the oxidation state 3+. The coordination number of such compounds varies, but generally Al3+ is six-coordinate or tetracoordinate. Almost all compounds of aluminium(III) are colorless. 

====Halides====
All four trihalides are well known. Unlike the structures of the three heavier trihalides, aluminium fluoride (AlF3) features six-coordinate Al. The octahedral coordination environment for AlF3 is related to the compactness of fluoride ion, six of which can fit around the small Al3+ centre. AlF3 sublimes (with cracking) at 1291 °C. With heavier halides, the coordination numbers are lower. The other trihalides are dimeric or polymeric with tetrahedral Al centers. These materials are prepared by treating aluminium metal with the halogen, although other methods exist. Acidification of the oxides or hydroxides affords hydrates. In aqueous solution, the halides often form mixtures, generally containing six-coordinate Al centres, which are feature both halide and aquo ligands. When aluminium and fluoride are together in aqueous solution, they readily form complex ions such as , , and . In the case of chloride, polyaluminium clusters are formed such as 7+.

====Oxide and hydroxides====
Aluminium forms one stable oxide, known by its mineral name corundum. Sapphire and ruby are impure corundum contaminated with trace amounts of other metals. The two oxide-hydroxides, AlO(OH), are boehmite and diaspore. There are three trihydroxides: bayerite, gibbsite, and nordstrandite, which differ in their crystalline structure (polymorphs). Most are produced from ores by a variety of wet processes using acid and base. Heating the hydroxides leads to formation of corundum. These materials are of central importance to the production of aluminium and are themselves extremely useful.

====Carbide, nitride, and related materials====
Aluminium carbide (Al4C3) is made by heating a mixture of the elements above 1000 °C. The pale yellow crystals consist of tetrahedral aluminium centres. It reacts with water or dilute acids to give methane. The acetylide, Al2(C2)3, is made by passing acetylene over heated aluminium.

Aluminium nitride (AlN) is the only nitride known for aluminium. Unlike the oxides it features tetrahedral Al centres. It can be made from the elements at 800 °C. It is air-stable material with a usefully high thermal conductivity. Aluminium phosphide (AlP) is made similarly, and hydrolyses to give phosphine:

: AlP + 3 H2O → Al(OH)3 + PH3

===Organoaluminium compounds and related hydrides===

Structure of trimethylaluminium, a compound that features five-coordinate carbon.

A variety of compounds of empirical formula AlR3 and AlR1.5Cl1.5 exist. 
 These species usually feature tetrahedral Al centers, e.g. "trimethylaluminium" has the formula Al2(CH3)6 (see figure). With large organic groups, triorganoaluminium exist as three-coordinate monomers, such as triisobutylaluminium. Such compounds are widely used in industrial chemistry, despite the fact that they are often highly pyrophoric. Few analogues exist between organoaluminium and organoboron compounds except for large organic groups.

The important aluminium hydride is lithium aluminium hydride (LiAlH4), which is used in as a reducing agent in organic chemistry. It can be produced from lithium hydride and aluminium trichloride:

: 4 LiH + AlCl3 → LiAlH4 + 3 LiCl

Several useful derivatives of LiAlH4 are known, e.g. sodium bis(2-methoxyethoxy)dihydridoaluminate. The simplest hydride, aluminium hydride or alane, remains a laboratory curiosity. It is a polymer with the formula (AlH3)n, in contrast to the corresponding boron hydride with the formula (BH3)2.

===Oxidation states +1 and +2===
Although the great majority of aluminium compounds feature Al3+ centers, compounds with lower oxidation states are known and sometime of significance as precursors to the Al3+ species.

====Aluminium(I)====
AlF, AlCl and AlBr exist in the gaseous phase when the trihalide is heated with aluminium. The composition AlI is unstable at room temperature with respect to the triiodide: 

: 3 AlI → AlI3 + 2 Al

A stable derivative of aluminium monoiodide is the cyclic adduct formed with triethylamine, Al4I4(NEt3)4. Also of theoretical interest but only of fleeting existence are Al2O and Al2S. Al2O is made by heating the normal oxide, Al2O3, with silicon at 1800 °C in a vacuum. 
 Such materials quickly disproportionates to the starting materials.

====Aluminium(II)====
Very simple Al(II) compounds are invoked or observed in the reactions of Al metal with oxidants. For example, aluminium monoxide, AlO, has been detected in the gas phase after explosion 
 and in stellar absorption spectra. 
 More thoroughly investigated are compounds of the formula R4Al2 where R is a large organic ligand. 
 

===Analysis===
The presence of aluminium can be detected in qualitative analysis using aluminon.

==Applications==

===General use===
Aluminium is the most widely used non-ferrous metal. 
 Global production of aluminium in 2005 was 31.9 million tonnes. It exceeded that of any other metal except iron (837.5 million tonnes). 
 Forecast for 2012 is 42–45 million tonnes, driven by rising Chinese output. 
 

Aluminium is almost always alloyed, which markedly improves its mechanical properties, especially when tempered. For example, the common aluminium foils and beverage cans are alloys of 92% to 99% aluminium. 
 The main alloying agents are copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and silicon (e.g., duralumin) and the levels of these other metals are in the range of a few percent by weight. 
 

Household aluminium foil
Aluminium-bodied Austin "A40 Sports" (c. 1951)
Aluminium slabs being transported from a smelter

Some of the many uses for aluminium metal are in:
* Transportation (automobiles, aircraft, trucks, railway cars, marine vessels, bicycles, etc.) as sheet, tube, castings, etc.
* Packaging (cans, foil, frame of etc.)
* Construction (windows, doors, siding, building wire, etc.). 
 
* A wide range of household items, from cooking utensils to baseball bats, watches. 
 
* Street lighting poles, sailing ship masts, walking poles, etc.
* Outer shells of consumer electronics, also cases for equipment e.g. photographic equipment, MacBook Pro's casing
* Electrical transmission lines for power distribution
* MKM steel and Alnico magnets
* Super purity aluminium (SPA, 99.980% to 99.999% Al), used in electronics and CDs.
* Heat sinks for electronic appliances such as transistors and CPUs.
* Substrate material of metal-core copper clad laminates used in high brightness LED lighting.
* Powdered aluminium is used in paint, and in pyrotechnics such as solid rocket fuels and thermite.
* Aluminium can be reacted with hydrochloric acid or with sodium hydroxide to produce hydrogen gas.
* A variety of countries, including France, Italy, Poland, Finland, Romania, Israel, and the former Yugoslavia, have issued coins struck in aluminium or aluminium-copper alloys. 
 
 
* Some guitar models sport aluminium diamond plates on the surface of the instruments, usually either chrome or black. Kramer Guitars and Travis Bean are both known for having produced guitars with necks made of aluminium, which gives the instrument a very distinct sound.

Aluminium is usually alloyed – it is used as pure metal only when corrosion resistance and/or workability is more important than strength or hardness. A thin layer of aluminium can be deposited onto a flat surface by physical vapour deposition or (very infrequently) chemical vapour deposition or other chemical means to form optical coatings and mirrors.

===Aluminium compounds===
Because aluminium is abundant and most of its derivatives exhibit low toxicity, the compounds of aluminium enjoy wide and sometimes large-scale applications.

====Alumina====

Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) and the associated oxy-hydroxides and trihydroxides are produced or extracted from minerals on a large scale. The great majority of this material is converted to metallic aluminium. About 10% of the production capacity is used for other applications. A major use is as an absorbent. For example, alumina removes water from hydrocarbons, which enables subsequent processes that are poisoned by moisture. Aluminium oxides are common catalysts for industrial processes, e.g. the Claus process for converting hydrogen sulfide to sulfur in refineries and for the alkylation of amines. Many industrial catalysts are "supported", meaning generally that an expensive catalyst (e.g., platinum) is dispersed over a high surface area material such as alumina. Being a very hard material (Mohs hardness 9), alumina is widely used as an abrasive and the production of applications that exploit its inertness, e.g., in high pressure sodium lamps.

====Sulfates====
Several sulfates of aluminium find applications. Aluminium sulfate (Al2(SO4)3(H2O)18) is produced on the annual scale of several billions of kilograms. About half of the production is consumed in water treatment. The next major application is in the manufacture of paper. It is also used as a mordant, in fire extinguisher, as a food additive, in fireproofing, and in leather tanning. Aluminium ammonium sulfate, which is also called ammonium alum, (NH4)Al(SO4)2·12H2O, is used as a mordant and in leather tanning. 
 Aluminium potassium sulfate ((SO4)2)(H2O)12 is used similarly. The consumption of both alums is declining.

====Chlorides====
Aluminium chloride (AlCl3) is used in petroleum refining and in the production of synthetic rubber and polymers. Although it has a similar name, aluminium chlorohydrate has fewer and very different applications, e.g. as a hardening agent and an antiperspirant. It is an intermediate in the production of aluminium metal.

====Niche compounds====
Given the scale of aluminium compounds, a small scale application could still involve thousands of tonnes. One of the many compounds used at this intermediate level include aluminium acetate, a salt used in solution as an astringent. Aluminium borate (Al2O3·B2O3) is used in the production of glass and ceramics. Aluminium fluorosilicate (Al2(SiF6)3) is used in the production of synthetic gemstones, glass and ceramic. Aluminium phosphate (AlPO4) is used in the manufacture: of glass and ceramic, pulp and paper products, cosmetics, paints and varnishes and in making dental cement. Aluminium hydroxide (Al(OH)3) is used as an antacid, as a mordant, in water purification, in the manufacture of glass and ceramic and in the waterproofing of fabrics. Lithium aluminium hydride is a powerful reducing agent used in organic chemistry. Organoaluminiums are used as Lewis acids and cocatalysts. For example, methylaluminoxane is a cocatalyst for Ziegler-Natta olefin polymerization to produce vinyl polymers such as polyethene.

===Aluminium alloys in structural applications===

Aluminium foam

Aluminium alloys with a wide range of properties are used in engineering structures. Alloy systems are classified by a number system (ANSI) or by names indicating their main alloying constituents (DIN and ISO).

The strength and durability of aluminium alloys vary widely, not only as a result of the components of the specific alloy, but also as a result of heat treatments and manufacturing processes. A lack of knowledge of these aspects has from time to time led to improperly designed structures and gained aluminium a bad reputation.

One important structural limitation of aluminium alloys is their fatigue strength. Unlike steels, aluminium alloys have no well-defined fatigue limit, meaning that fatigue failure eventually occurs, under even very small cyclic loadings. This implies that engineers must assess these loads and design for a fixed life rather than an infinite life.

Another important property of aluminium alloys is their sensitivity to heat. Workshop procedures involving heating are complicated by the fact that aluminium, unlike steel, melts without first glowing red. Forming operations where a blow torch is used therefore require some expertise, since no visual signs reveal how close the material is to melting. Aluminium alloys, like all structural alloys, also are subject to internal stresses following heating operations such as welding and casting. The problem with aluminium alloys in this regard is their low melting point, which make them more susceptible to distortions from thermally induced stress relief. Controlled stress relief can be done during manufacturing by heat-treating the parts in an oven, followed by gradual cooling—in effect annealing the stresses.

The low melting point of aluminium alloys has not precluded their use in rocketry; even for use in constructing combustion chambers where gases can reach 3500 K. The Agena upper stage engine used a regeneratively cooled aluminium design for some parts of the nozzle, including the thermally critical throat region.

Another alloy of some value is aluminium bronze (Cu-Al alloy).

==History==
The statue of the Anteros (commonly mistaken for either The Angel of Christian Charity or Eros) in Piccadilly Circus, London, was made in 1893 and is one of the first statues cast in aluminium.

Ancient Greeks and Romans used aluminium salts as dyeing mordants and as astringents for dressing wounds; alum is still used as a styptic.

In 1761, Guyton de Morveau suggested calling the base alum alumine. In 1808, Humphry Davy identified the existence of a metal base of alum, which he at first termed alumium and later aluminum (see etymology section, below).

The metal was first produced in 1825 in an impure form by Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted. He reacted anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium amalgam, yielding a lump of metal looking similar to tin. 
 Friedrich Wöhler was aware of these experiments and cited them, but after redoing the experiments of Ørsted he concluded that this metal was pure potassium. He conducted a similar experiment in 1827 by mixing anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium and yielded aluminium. Wöhler is generally credited with isolating aluminium (Latin alumen, alum). Further, Pierre Berthier discovered aluminium in bauxite ore and successfully extracted it. 
 Frenchman Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville improved Wöhler's method in 1846, and described his improvements in a book in 1859, chief among these being the substitution of sodium for the considerably more expensive potassium. 
 Deville likely also conceived the idea of the electrolysis of aluminium oxide dissolved in cryolite; Charles Martin Hall and Paul Héroult might have developed the more practical process after Deville.

Prior to commercial electrical generation in the early 1880s, and the Hall-Héroult process in the mid 1880s, aluminium was exceedingly difficult to extract from its various ores. This made pure aluminium more valuable than gold. 
 Bars of aluminium were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. 
 Napoleon III of France is reputed to have given a banquet where the most honoured guests were given aluminium utensils, while the others made do with gold. 
 
 

Aluminium was selected as the material to use for the 100 oz capstone of the Washington Monument in 1884, a time when one ounce (30 grams) cost the daily wage of a common worker on the project. 
 The capstone, which was set in place on 6 December 1884, in an elaborate dedication ceremony, was the largest single piece of aluminium cast at the time, when aluminium was as expensive as silver. 

The Cowles companies supplied aluminium alloy in quantity in the United States and England using smelters like the furnace of Carl Wilhelm Siemens by 1886. 
 
 
 Charles Martin Hall of Ohio in the U.S. and Paul Héroult of France independently developed the Hall-Héroult electrolytic process that made extracting aluminium from minerals cheaper and is now the principal method used worldwide. Hall's process, 
 in 1888 with the financial backing of Alfred E. Hunt, started the Pittsburgh Reduction Company today known as Alcoa. Héroult's process was in production by 1889 in Switzerland at Aluminium Industrie, now Alcan, and at British Aluminium, now Luxfer Group and Alcoa, by 1896 in Scotland. 
 

By 1895, the metal was being used as a building material as far away as Sydney, Australia in the dome of the Chief Secretary's Building.

With the explosive expansion of the airplane industry during World War I (1914-1917), major governments demanded large shipments of aluminium for light, strong airframes. They often subsidized factories and the necessary electrical supply systems. Mats Ingulstad, “‘We Want Aluminum, No Excuses’: Business-Government Relations in the American Aluminum Industry, 1917–1957,” in From Warfare to Welfare: Business-Government Relations in the Aluminium Industry, ed. Mats Ingulstad and Hans Otto Frøland, 33–68. (Oslo: Tapir Academic Press, 2012.) 

Many navies have used an aluminium superstructure for their vessels; the 1975 fire aboard USS Belknap that gutted her aluminium superstructure, as well as observation of battle damage to British ships during the Falklands War, led to many navies switching to all steel superstructures.

Aluminium wire was once widely used for domestic electrical wiring. Owing to corrosion-induced failures, a number of fires resulted.

==Etymology==
Two variants of the metal's name are in current use, aluminium () and aluminum ()&mdash;besides the obsolete alumium. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990 but, three years later, recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both. IUPAC Periodic Table of the Elements. iupac.org IUPAC prefers the use of aluminium in its internal publications, although nearly as many IUPAC publications use the spelling aluminum. IUPAC Web site publication search for 'aluminum'. 

Most countries use the spelling aluminium. In the United States and Canada, the spelling aluminum predominates. Bremner, John Words on Words: A Dictionary for Writers and Others Who Care about Words, pp. 22–23. ISBN 0-231-04493-3. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary prefers aluminum, whereas the Australian Macquarie Dictionary prefers aluminium. In 1926, the American Chemical Society officially decided to use aluminum in its publications; American dictionaries typically label the spelling aluminium as "chiefly British". 

 

The various names all derive from its status as a base of alum. It is borrowed from Old French; its ultimate source, alumen, in turn is a Latin word that literally means "bitter salt". 

The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: "Had I been so fortunate as to have obtained more certain evidences on this subject, and to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium." "alumium", Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, second edition Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. OED Online Oxford University Press. Accessed 29 October 2006. Citation is listed as "1808 SIR H. DAVY in Phil. Trans. XCVIII. 353". The ellipsis in the quotation is as it appears in the OED citation. 
 

Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy: "This substance appears to contain a peculiar metal, but as yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free state, though alloys of it with other metalline substances have been procured sufficiently distinct to indicate the probable nature of alumina." 
 But the same year, an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound." 
 

The -ium suffix conformed to the precedent set in other newly discovered elements of the time: potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and strontium (all of which Davy isolated himself). Nevertheless, -um spellings for elements were not unknown at the time, as for example platinum, known to Europeans since the 16th century, molybdenum, discovered in 1778, and tantalum, discovered in 1802. The -um suffix is consistent with the universal spelling alumina for the oxide (as opposed to aluminia), as lanthana is the oxide of lanthanum, and magnesia, ceria, and thoria are the oxides of magnesium, cerium, and thorium respectively.

The spelling used throughout the 19th century by most U.S. chemists was aluminium, but common usage is less clear. , "In the USA, the position was more complicated. Noah Webster's Dictionary of 1828 has only aluminum, though the standard spelling among US chemists throughout most of the 19th century was aluminium; it was the preferred version in The Century Dictionary of 1889 and is the only spelling given in the Webster Unabridged Dictionary of 1913." The aluminum spelling is used in the Webster's Dictionary of 1828. In his advertising handbill for his new electrolytic method of producing the metal in 1892, Charles Martin Hall used the -um spelling, despite his constant use of the -ium spelling in all the patents he filed between 1886 and 1903. It has consequently been suggested that the spelling reflects an easier-to-pronounce word with one fewer syllable, or that the spelling on the flyer was a mistake. Hall's domination of production of the metal ensured that the spelling aluminum became the standard in North America.

==Health concerns==
Schematic of Al absorption by human skin. 
There are five major Al forms absorbed by human body: the free solvated trivalent cation (Al3+(aq)); low-molecular-weight, neutral, soluble complexes (LMW-Al0(aq)); high-molecular-weight, neutral, soluble complexes (HMW-Al0(aq)); low-molecular-weight, charged, soluble complexes (LMW-Al(L)n+/−(aq)); nano and micro-particulates (Al(L)n(s)). They are transported across cell membranes or cell epi-/endothelia through five major routes: (1) paracellular; (2) transcellular; (3) active transport; (4) channels; (5) adsorptive or receptor-mediated endocytosis. 

Despite its natural abundance, aluminium has no known function in biology. It is remarkably nontoxic, aluminium sulfate having an LD50 of 6207 mg/kg (oral, mouse), which corresponds to 500 grams for an 80 kg person. The extremely low acute toxicity notwithstanding, the health effects of aluminium are of interest in view of the widespread occurrence of the element in the environment and in commerce.

Some toxicity can be traced to deposition in bone and the central nervous system, which is particularly increased in patients with reduced renal function. Because aluminium competes with calcium for absorption, increased amounts of dietary aluminium may contribute to the reduced skeletal mineralization (osteopenia) observed in preterm infants and infants with growth retardation. In very high doses, aluminium can cause neurotoxicity, and is associated with altered function of the blood–brain barrier. A small percentage of people are allergic to aluminium and experience contact dermatitis, digestive disorders, vomiting or other symptoms upon contact or ingestion of products containing aluminium, such as antipersperants or antacids. In those without allergies, aluminium is not as toxic as heavy metals, but there is evidence of some toxicity if it is consumed in excessive amounts. Although the use of aluminium cookware has not been shown to lead to aluminium toxicity in general, excessive consumption of antacids containing aluminium compounds and excessive use of aluminium-containing antiperspirants provide more significant exposure levels. Studies have shown that consumption of acidic foods or liquids with aluminium significantly increases aluminium absorption, and maltol has been shown to increase the accumulation of aluminium in nervous and osseus tissue. Furthermore, aluminium increases estrogen-related gene expression in human breast cancer cells cultured in the laboratory. The estrogen-like effects of these salts have led to their classification as a metalloestrogen.

The effects of aluminium in antiperspirants have been examined over the course of decades with little evidence of skin irritation. Nonetheless, its occurrence in antiperspirants, dyes (such as aluminium lake), and food additives has caused concern. Although there is little evidence that normal exposure to aluminium presents a risk to healthy adults, Gitelman, H. J. "Physiology of Aluminum in Man", in Aluminum and Health, CRC Press, 1988, ISBN 0-8247-8026-4, p. 90 some studies point to risks associated with increased exposure to the metal. Aluminium in food may be absorbed more than aluminium from water. Some researchers have expressed concerns that the aluminium in antiperspirants may increase the risk of breast cancer, and aluminium has controversially been implicated as a factor in Alzheimer's disease. The Camelford water pollution incident involved a number of people consuming aluminium sulfate. Investigations of the long-term health effects are still ongoing, but elevated brain aluminium concentrations have been found in post-mortem examinations of victims, and further research to determine if there is a link with cerebral amyloid angiopathy has been commissioned. 

According to the Alzheimer's Society, the medical and scientific opinion is that studies have not convincingly demonstrated a causal relationship between aluminium and Alzheimer's disease. Aluminium and Alzheimer's disease, The Alzheimer's Society. Retrieved 30 January 2009. Nevertheless, some studies, such as those on the PAQUID cohort, cite aluminium exposure as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Some brain plaques have been found to contain increased levels of the metal. Research in this area has been inconclusive; aluminium accumulation may be a consequence of the disease rather than a causal agent. In any event, if there is any toxicity of aluminium, it must be via a very specific mechanism, since total human exposure to the element in the form of naturally occurring clay in soil and dust is enormously large over a lifetime. Scientific consensus does not yet exist about whether aluminium exposure could directly increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease. 

In case of suspected sudden intake of large amount of aluminium, deferoxamine mesylate may be given to help eliminate it from the body by chelation. Aluminum Toxicity from NYU Langone Medical Center. Last reviewed November 2012 by Igor Puzanov, MD 

==Effect on plants==

Aluminium is primary among the factors that reduce plant growth on acid soils. Although it is generally harmless to plant growth in pH-neutral soils, the concentration in acid soils of toxic Al3+ cations increases and disturbs root growth and function. 

Most acid soils are saturated with aluminium rather than hydrogen ions. The acidity of the soil is therefore a result of hydrolysis of aluminium compounds. This concept of "corrected lime potential" to define the degree of base saturation in soils became the basis for procedures now used in soil testing laboratories to determine the "lime requirement" of soils. Applying lime to soils reduces the Aluminum toxicity to plants.

 

Wheat's adaptation to allow aluminium tolerance is such that the aluminium induces a release of organic compounds that bind to the harmful aluminium cations. Sorghum is believed to have the same tolerance mechanism. The first gene for aluminium tolerance has been identified in wheat. It was shown that sorghum's aluminium tolerance is controlled by a single gene, as for wheat. This is not the case in all plants.

== Biodegradation ==

The fungi Geotrichum candidum has been found to consume the aluminium in compact discs. The bacteria Ps. Acruginosa and the fungi C. resinae are commonly detected in aircraft engines, and can degrade aluminium in cultures. 

==See also==

* 
* Aluminium–air battery
* Aluminium alloy
* Aluminium foil
* Aluminium granules
* Aluminium hydroxide
* Aluminium in Russia
* Beverage can
* Institute for the History of Aluminium
* Panel edge staining
* The Aluminum Association
* Quantum clock
* List of countries by aluminium production

==References==

==External links==

* Aluminium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
* CDC - NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards - Aluminum
* Electrolytic production
* World production of primary aluminium, by country
* Price history of aluminum, according to the IMF
* History of Aluminium – from the website of the International Aluminium Institute
* Emedicine – Aluminium
* 

 
Aluminium



[[Advanced Chemistry]]

Advanced Chemistry is a German hip hop group from Heidelberg, a scenic city in Baden-Württemberg, South Germany. Advanced Chemistry was founded in 1987 by Toni L, Linguist, Gee-One, DJ Mike MD (Mike Dippon) and MC Torch. Each member of the group holds German citizenshhip, and Toni L, Linguist, and Torch are of Italian, Ghanaian, and Haitian backgrounds, respectively. Pennay, Mark "Rap in Germinay" in Mitchell, Tony ed. Global Noise. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2001. 

Influenced by North American socially conscious rap and the Native tongues movement, Advanced Chemistry is regarded as one of the main pioneers in German hip hop. They were one of the first groups to rap in German (although their name is in English). Furthermore, their songs tackled controversial social and political issues, distinguishing them from early German hip hop group "Die Fantastischen Vier" (The Fantastic Four), which had a more light-hearted, playful, party image. 

The rivalry between Advanced Chemistry and Die Fantastischen Vier has served to highlight a dichotomy in the routes that hip hop has taken in becoming a part of the German soundscape. While Die Fantastischen Vier may be said to view hip hop primarily as an aesthetic art form, Advanced Chemistry understand hip hop as being inextricably linked to the social and political circumstances under which it is created. For Advanced Chemistry, hip hop is a “vehicle of general human emancipation,”. Brown, Timothy S. "'Keeping it Real' in a Different 'Hood:(African-) Americanization and Hip-hop in Germany." In The Vinyl Ain'tFinal: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 137-50. London In their undertaking of social and political issues, the band introduced the term "Afro-German" into the context of German hip hop, and the theme of race is highlighted in much of their music. projekt migration 

With the release of the single “Fremd im eigenen Land”, Advanced Chemistry separated itself from the rest of the rap being produced in Germany. This single was the first of its kind to go beyond simply imitating US rap and addressed the current issues of the time. Fremd im eigenen Land which translates to “foreign in my own country” dealt with the widespread racism that non-white German citizens faced. This change from simple imitation to political commentary was the start of German identification with rap. Hip hop in Germany : Nomadic Wax The sound of “Fremd im eigenen Land” was influenced by the 'wall of noise' created by Public Enemy's producers, The Bomb Squad. The Bomb Squad 

After the reunification of Germany, an abundance of anti-immigrant sentiment emerged, as well as attacks on the homes of refugees in the early 90's. Advanced Chemistry came to prominence in the wake of these actions because of their pro-multicultural society stance in their music. Advanced Chemistry's attitudes revolve around their attempts to create a distinct "Germanness" in hip hop, as opposed to imitating American hip hop as other groups had done. Torch has said, "What the Americans do is exotic for us because we don't live like they do. What they do seems to be more interesting and newer. But not for me. For me it's more exciting to experience my fellow Germans in new contexts...For me, it's interesting to see what the kids try to do that's different from what I know." Brown, Timothy S. “‘Keeping it Real’ in a Different ‘Hood: (African-) Americanization and Hip-hop in Germany.” In The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 137-50. London; A Advanced Chemistry were the first to use the term "Afro-German" in a hip hop context. This was part of the pro-immigrant political message they sent via their music. deutschrap.com: Classic German Hip-Hop 

While Advanced Chemistry's use of the German language in their rap allows them to make claims to authenticity and true German heritage, bolstering pro-immigration sentiment, their style can also be problematic for immigrant notions of any real ethnic roots. Indeed, part of the Turkish ethnic minority of Frankfurt views Advanced Chemistry's appeal to the German image as a "symbolic betrayal of the right of ethnic minorities to 'roots' or to any expression of cultural heritage." In this sense, their rap represents a complex social discourse internal to the German soundscape in which they attempt to negotiate immigrant assimilation into a xenophobic German culture with the maintenance of their own separate cultural traditions. It is quite possibly the feelings of alienation from the pure-blooded German demographic that drive Advanced Chemistry to attack nationalistic ideologies by asserting their "Germanness" as a group composed primarily of ethnic others. The response to this pseudo-German authenticity can be seen in what Andy Bennett refers to as "alternative forms of local hip hop culture which actively seek to rediscover and, in many cases, reconstruct notions of identity tied to cultural roots." Bennett, Andy. "Hip-Hop am Main, Rappin' on the Tyne: Hip-hop Culture as a Local Construct in Two European Cities." In That's the Joint!: The Hip-hop Studies Reader, 177-200. New York; London: Routledge, 2004. These alternative local hip hop cultures include Oriental hip hop, the members of which cling to their Turkish heritage and are confused by Advanced Chemistry's elicitation of a German identity politics to which they technically do not belong. This cultural binary illustrates that rap has taken different routes in Germany and that, even among an already isolated immigrant population, there is still disunity and, especially, disagreement on the relative importance of assimilation versus cultural defiance. According to German hip hop enthusiast 9@home, Advanced Chemistry is part of a "hip-hop movement took a clear stance for the minorities and against the of immigrants who...might be German on paper, but not in real life," 9@home. "German Hip Hop 1: Advanced Chemistry." Leave Your Nine at Home. 13 Oct. 2007. Vanila Mist. 27 Mar. 2008 which speaks to the group's hope of actually being recognized as German citizens and not foreigners, despite their various other ethnic and cultural ties.

==Market conditions for rap==
One of the first issues that confronts us when we move outside the English-speaking market for recorded music is to establish whether or not the discrete musical genres we know from that market are fully congruent with similar divisions in other pop worlds. This is important in two ways. First, although no single country comes close to matching the amounts spent on recorded music in the United States, these markets are nonetheless economically significant. Germany, for instance, is the largest single market in western Europe, with estimated annual sales of U.S. $3.74 billion in 1996. This represents around 30 percent of reported U.S. sales and makes Germany the third biggest music market in the world. Michell, Tony Global Noise (Rap and Hip-Hop outside the USA) Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown CT. 06549 (C)2001 

Advanced Chemistry frequently rapped about their lives and experiences as children of immigrants, The Atlantic Times :: Archive exposing the marginalization experienced by most ethnic minorities in Germany, and the feelings of frustration and resentment that being denied a German identity can cause. Bennett, Andy. "Hip-Hop am Main, Rappin' on the Tyne: Hip-hop Culture as a Local Construct in Two European Cities." In That's the Joint!: The Hip-hop Studies Reader, 177-200. New York; London: Routledge, 2004, p. 183-184 The song "Fremd im eigenem Land" (Foreign in your own nation) was released by Advanced Chemistry in November 1992. Advanced Chemistry Discography The single became a staple in the German hip hop scene. It made a strong statement about the status of immigrants throughout Germany, as the group was composed of multi-national and multi-racial members. The video shows several members brandishing their German passports as a demonstration of their German citizenship to skeptical and unaccepting 'ethnic' Germans. 

This idea of national identity is important, as many rap artists in Germany have been of foreign origin. These so-called Gastarbeiter (guest workers) children saw breakdance, graffiti, rap music, and hip hop culture as a means of expressing themselves. Schmidt, Johannes. Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German>Vol. 36, No. 1. (Spring, 2003) pp. 1-14. Since the release of "Fremd im eigenen Land", many other German-language rappers have also tried to confront anti-immigrant ideas and develop themes of citizenship. However, though many ethnic minority youth in Germany find the these German identity themes appealing, others view the desire of immigrants to be seen as German negatively, and they have actively sought to revive and recreate concepts of identity in connection to traditional ethnic origins. 

Advanced Chemistry helped to found the German chapter of the Zulu nation. http://leaveyournineathome.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/german-hip-hop-1-advanced-chemistry/. Accessed March 26. Last updated October 13, 2007. 

==Discography==
* 1992 - "Fremd im eigenen Land" (12"/MCD, MZEE)
* 1993 - "Welcher Pfad führt zur Geschichte" (12"/MCD, MZEE)
* 1994 - "Operation § 3" (12"/MCD)
* 1994 - "Dir fehlt der Funk!" (12"/MCD)
* 1995 - Advanced Chemistry (2xLP/CD)

==External links==
*Official Website of MC Torch
*Website of Toni L.
*Official Website of Linguist
*Official Website DJ Mike MD (Mike Dippon)
*Website of 360° Records

==Bibliography==
El-Tayeb, Fatima “‘If You Cannot Pronounce My Name, You Can Just Call Me 
Pride.’ Afro-German Activism, Gender, and Hip Hop,” Gender & History15/3(2003):459-485.

Felbert, Oliver von. “Die Unbestechlichen.” Spex (March 1993): 50-53.

Weheliye, Alexander G. Phonographies:Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity, Duke University Press, 2005.

==References==



[[Anglican Communion]]

The Anglican Communion is an international association of churches consisting of the Church of England and of national and regional Anglican churches in full communion with it. The status of full communion means, ideally, that there is mutual agreement on essential doctrines and that full participation in the sacramental life of each church is available to all communicant Anglicans.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, has a precedence of honour over the other archbishops of the Anglican Communion. He is recognized as primus inter pares, or first among equals. The archbishop does not exercise direct authority in the provinces outside England, but instead acts as a focus of unity.

The Anglican Communion considers itself to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and to be both Catholic and Reformed. For some adherents it represents a non-papal Catholicism, for others a form of Protestantism though without a dominant guiding figure such as Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli or Wesley. For others, their self-identity represents some combination of the two. The communion encompasses a wide spectrum of belief and practice including evangelical, liberal, and Catholic.

With a membership currently estimated at around 80 million members worldwide, the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Some of these churches are known as Anglican, such as the Anglican Church of Canada, due to their historical link to England (Ecclesia Anglicana means "English Church"). Some, for example the Church of Ireland, the Scottish and American Episcopal churches, and some other associated churches have a separate name. Each church has its own doctrine and liturgy, based in most cases on that of the Church of England; and each church has its own legislative process and overall episcopal polity, under the leadership of a local primate.

==Ecclesiology, polity and ethos==

The Anglican Communion has no official legal existence nor any governing structure which might exercise authority over the member churches. There is an Anglican Communion Office in London, under the aegis of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but it only serves in a supporting and organisational role. The Communion is held together by a shared history, expressed in its ecclesiology, polity and ethos and also by participation in international consultative bodies.

Three elements have been important in holding the Communion together: first, the shared ecclesial structure of the component churches, manifested in an episcopal polity maintained through the apostolic succession of bishops and synodical government; second, the principle of belief expressed in worship, investing importance in approved prayer books and their rubrics; and third, the historical documents and the writings of early Anglican divines that have influenced the ethos of the Communion.

Originally, the Church of England was self-contained and relied for its unity and identity on its own history, its traditional legal and episcopal structure and its status as an established church of the state. As such Anglicanism was, from the outset, a movement with an explicitly episcopal polity, a characteristic which has been vital in maintaining the unity of the Communion by conveying the episcopate's role in manifesting visible catholicity and ecumenism.

Early in its development, Anglicanism developed a vernacular prayer book, called the Book of Common Prayer. Unlike other traditions, Anglicanism has never been governed by a magisterium nor by appeal to one founding theologian, nor by an extra-credal summary of doctrine (such as the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian Church). Instead, Anglicans have typically appealed to the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and its offshoots as a guide to Anglican theology and practice. This had the effect of inculcating the principle of Lex orandi, lex credendi (Latin loosely translated as "the law of praying the law of believing") as the foundation of Anglican identity and confession.

Protracted conflict through the seventeenth century with more radical Protestants on the one hand and Roman Catholics who still recognised the primacy of the Pope on the other, resulted in an association of churches that were both deliberately vague about doctrinal principles, yet bold in developing parameters of acceptable deviation. These parameters were most clearly articulated in the various rubrics of the successive prayer books, as well as the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. These Articles (though no longer binding) have had an influence on the ethos of the Communion, an ethos reinforced by their interpretation and expansion by such influential early theologians as Richard Hooker, Lancelot Andrewes, John Cosin, and others.

With the expansion of the British Empire, and hence the growth of Anglicanism outside Great Britain and Ireland, the Communion sought to establish new vehicles of unity. The first major expression of this were the Lambeth Conferences of the communion's bishops, first convened by Archbishop of Canterbury Charles Longley in 1869. From the beginning, these were not intended to displace the autonomy of the emerging provinces of the Communion, but to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action."

==Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral==
One of the enduringly influential early resolutions of the conference was the so-called Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888. Its intent was to provide the basis for discussions of reunion with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but it had the ancillary effect of establishing parameters of Anglican identity. It establishes four principles with these words:

:That, in the opinion of this Conference, the following Articles supply a basis on which approach may be by God's blessing made towards Home Reunion:

:(a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as "containing all things necessary to salvation," and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
:(b) The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.
:(c) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with unfailing use of Christ's Words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.
:(d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church. The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, Seabury Press, 1979, p. 877 

==Instruments of communion==

As mentioned above, the Anglican Communion has no international juridical organisation. The Archbishop of Canterbury's role is strictly symbolic and unifying and the Communion's three international bodies are consultative and collaborative, their resolutions having no legal effect on the autonomous provinces of the Communion. Taken together, however, the four do function as "instruments of communion", since all churches of the communion participate in them. In order of antiquity, they are:

The Chair of St Augustine (the episcopal throne in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent), seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury in his role as head of the Anglican Communion The Chair of St Augustine is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury in his role as head of the Anglican Communion. Archbishops of Canterbury are enthroned twice: firstly as diocesan Ordinary (and Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of England) in the archbishop's throne, by the Archdeacon of Canterbury; and secondly as leader of the worldwide church in the Chair of St Augustine by the senior (by length of service) Archbishop of the Anglican Communion. The stone chair is therefore of symbolic significance throughout Anglicanism. 
# The Archbishop of Canterbury (ab origine) functions as the spiritual head of the Communion. He is the focus of unity, since no church claims membership in the Communion without being in communion with him. The present incumbent is Justin Welby.
# The Lambeth Conference (first held in 1867) is the oldest international consultation. It is a forum for bishops of the Communion to reinforce unity and collegiality through manifesting the episcopate, to discuss matters of mutual concern, and to pass resolutions intended to act as guideposts. It is held roughly every ten years and invitation is by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
# The Anglican Consultative Council (first met in 1971) was created by a 1968 Lambeth Conference resolution, and meets usually at three-yearly intervals. The council consists of representative bishops, clergy, and laity chosen by the thirty-eight provinces. The body has a permanent secretariat, the Anglican Communion Office, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is president.
# The Primates' Meeting (first met in 1979) is the most recent manifestation of international consultation and deliberation, having been first convened by Archbishop Donald Coggan as a forum for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation".

Since there is no binding authority in the Communion, these international bodies are a vehicle for consultation and persuasion. In recent years, persuasion has tipped over into debates over conformity in certain areas of doctrine, discipline, worship, and ethics. The most notable example has been the objection of many provinces of the Communion (particularly in Africa and Asia) to the changing role of homosexuals in the North American churches (e.g., by blessing same-sex unions and ordaining and consecrating gays and lesbians in same-sex relationships), and to the process by which changes were undertaken.

Those who objected condemned these actions as unscriptural, unilateral, and without the agreement of the Communion prior to these steps being taken. In response, the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada answered that the actions had been undertaken after lengthy scriptural and theological reflection, legally in accordance with their own canons and constitutions and after extensive consultation with the provinces of the Communion.

The Primates' Meeting voted to request the two churches to withdraw their delegates from the 2005 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Canada and the United States decided to attend the meeting but without exercising their right to vote. They have not been expelled or suspended, since there is no mechanism in this voluntary association to suspend or expel an independent province of the Communion. Since membership is based on a province's communion with Canterbury, expulsion would require the Archbishop of Canterbury's refusal to be in communion with the affected jurisdiction(s). In line with the suggestion of the Windsor Report, Rowan Williams (the previous Archbishop of Canterbury) recently established a working group to examine the feasibility of an Anglican covenant which would articulate the conditions for communion in some fashion. Archbishop of Canterbury: address to General Synod on the Anglican Communion, ACNS 4164, 7 July 2006 

==Provinces==
}
Note that the Church of Ireland serves both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the Episcopal Church of the Sudan serves both Sudan and South Sudan and the Anglican Church of Korea serves South Korea and, theoretically, North Korea. India is divided into a Church of North India and a Church of South India. The diocese of Gibraltar is also present in Portugal and Spain. The Episcopal Church, USA affiliated Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe has affiliates in France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Kazakhstan.

All 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion are autonomous, each with its own primate and governing structure. These provinces may take the form of national churches (such as in Canada, Uganda, or Japan) or a collection of nations (such as the West Indies, Central Africa, or Southeast Asia). They are, in alphabetical order:

In addition, there are six extraprovincial churches, five of which are under the metropolitical authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
* Anglican Church of Bermuda (extraprovincial to the Archbishop of Canterbury)
* Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba (Episcopal Church of Cuba) (under a metropolitan council)
* Parish of the Falkland Islands (extraprovincial to the Archbishop of Canterbury)
* Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church (extraprovincial to the Archbishop of Canterbury)
* Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church (extraprovincial to the Archbishop of Canterbury)
* Church of Ceylon (extraprovincial to the Archbishop of Canterbury)

In addition to other member churches, the churches of the Anglican Communion are in full communion with the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Scandinavian Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion in Europe, the India-based Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian and Malabar Independent Syrian churches and the Philippine Independent Church, also known as the Aglipayan Church.

==History==

The Anglican Communion traces much of its growth to the older mission organisations of the Church of England such as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (founded 1698), the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (founded 1701) and the Church Missionary Society (founded 1799). "The Church Missionary Society, originally called the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, was founded in 1799... Though later in date than the S.P.C.K. and the S.P.G. it became the first effective organ of the C. of E. for missions to the heathen... Its theology has been consistently Evangelical."--Cross, F. L., ed. (1957) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. London: Oxford University Press; p. 305 The Church of England (which until the 20th century included the Church in Wales) initially separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1538 in the reign of King Henry VIII, reunited in 1555 under Queen Mary I and then separated again in 1570 under Queen Elizabeth I (the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Elizabeth I in 1570 in response to the Act of Supremacy 1559).

The Church of England has always thought of itself not as a new foundation but rather as a reformed continuation of the ancient "English Church" (Ecclesia Anglicana) and a reassertion of that church's rights. As such it was a distinctly national phenomenon. The Church of Scotland separated from the Roman Catholic Church with the Scottish Reformation in 1560 and the split from it of the Scottish Episcopal Church began in 1582 in the reign of James VI of Scotland over disagreements about the role of bishops.

The oldest-surviving Anglican church outside of the British Isles (Britain and Ireland) is St Peter's Church in St. George's, Bermuda, established in 1612 (though the actual building had to be rebuilt several times over the following century). This is also the oldest surviving non-Roman Catholic church in the New World. It remained part of the Church of England until 1978 when the Anglican Church of Bermuda separated. The Church of England was the established church not only in England, but in its trans-Oceanic colonies.

Thus the only member churches of the present Anglican Communion existing by the mid-18th century were the Church of England, its closely linked sister church, the Church of Ireland (which also separated from Roman Catholicism under Henry VIII) and the Scottish Episcopal Church which for parts of the 17th and 18th centuries was partially underground (it was suspected of Jacobite sympathies).

=== Global spread of Anglicanism ===
The enormous expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries of the British Empire brought Anglicanism along with it. At first all these colonial churches were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. After the American Revolution, the parishes in the newly independent country found it necessary to break formally from a church whose Supreme Governor was (and remains) the British monarch. Thus they formed their own dioceses and national church, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in a mostly amicable separation.

At about the same time, in the colonies which remained linked to the crown, the Church of England began to appoint colonial bishops. In 1787 a bishop of Nova Scotia was appointed with a jurisdiction over all of British North America; in time several more colleagues were appointed to other cities in present-day Canada. In 1814 a bishop of Calcutta was made; in 1824 the first bishop was sent to the West Indies and in 1836 to Australia. By 1840 there were still only ten colonial bishops for the Church of England; but even this small beginning greatly facilitated the growth of Anglicanism around the world. In 1841 a "Colonial Bishoprics Council" was set up and soon many more dioceses were created.

In time, it became natural to group these into provinces and a metropolitan was appointed for each province. Although it had at first been somewhat established in many colonies, in 1861 it was ruled that, except where specifically established, the Church of England had just the same legal position as any other church. Thus a colonial bishop and colonial diocese was by nature quite a different thing from their counterparts back home. In time bishops came to be appointed locally rather than from England and eventually national synods began to pass ecclesiastical legislation independent of England.

A crucial step in the development of the modern communion was the idea of the Lambeth Conferences (discussed above). These conferences demonstrated that the bishops of disparate churches could manifest the unity of the church in their episcopal collegiality despite the absence of universal legal ties. Some bishops were initially reluctant to attend, fearing that the meeting would declare itself a council with power to legislate for the church; but it agreed to pass only advisory resolutions. These Lambeth Conferences have been held roughly every 10 years since 1878 (the second such conference) and remain the most visible coming-together of the whole Communion.

==Ecumenical relations==

==Historic episcopate==
The churches of the Anglican Communion have traditionally held that ordination in the historic episcopate is a core element in the validity of clerical ordinations. The Roman Catholic Church does not recognise most Anglican orders (see Apostolicae Curae). Some Eastern Orthodox Churches have issued statements to the effect that Anglican orders could be accepted, yet have still reordained former Anglican clergy; other Orthodox churches have rejected Anglican orders altogether. Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware explains this apparent discrepancy as follows:

Anglican clergy who join the Orthodox Church are reordained; but Orthodox Churches hold that if Anglicanism and Orthodoxy were to reach full unity in the faith, perhaps such reordination might not be found necessary. It should be added, however, that a number of individual Orthodox theologians hold that under no circumstances would it be possible to recognise the validity of Anglican Orders. 

==Controversies==

One effect of the Communion's dispersed authority has been that conflict and controversy can arise over the effect divergent practices and doctrines in one part of the Communion have on others. McKinnon, A.; Trzebiatowska, M. & Brittain, C. (2011). 'Bourdieu, Capital and Conflict in a Religious Field: The Case of the Anglican Communion'. Journal of Contemporary Religion; vol 26, no. 3, pp. 355-370. Disputes that had been confined to the Church of England could be dealt with legislatively in that realm, but as the Communion spread out into new nations and disparate cultures, such controversies multiplied and intensified. These controversies have generally been of two types: liturgical and social. Chapman, M. Anglicanism: a very short introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2006) 

;Anglo-Catholicism
The first such controversy of note concerned that of the growing influence of the Catholic Revival manifested in the tractarian and so-called ritualism controversies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Pickering, W. S. F. (1989) Anglo-Catholicism: a study in religious ambiguity. London: Routledge This controversy produced the Free Church of England and, in the United States and Canada, the Reformed Episcopal Church.

;Social changes
Later, rapid social change and the dissipation of British cultural hegemony over its former colonies contributed to disputes over the role of women, the parameters of marriage and divorce, and the practices of contraception and abortion. In the late 1970s, the Continuing Anglican movement produced a number of new church bodies in opposition to women's ordination, prayer book changes, and the new understandings concerning marriage.

More recently, disagreements over homosexuality have strained the unity of the Communion as well as its relationships with other Christian denominations, leading to another round of withdrawals from the Anglican Communion. "Homosexuality and the Construction of ‘Anglican Orthodoxy’: The Symbolic Politics of the Anglican Communion", C. Brittain and A. McKinnon, Sociology of Religion, vol. 72, no.3, pp. 351-373 (2011). Some churches founded outside the Anglican Communion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, largely in opposition to the ordination of openly homosexual bishops and other clergy are usually referred to as belonging to the Anglican realignment movement, or else as "orthodox" Anglicans. 

In some ways they represent a stronger opposition because they have the backing of many member provinces of the Anglican Communion and, in some cases, are or have been missionary jurisdictions of such provinces of the Communion as the Churches of Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and the Southern Cone of America. Such debates about social theology and ethics, have occurred at the same time as debates on prayer book revision and the acceptable grounds for achieving full communion with non-Anglican churches. Ward, Keith A Global History of Anglicanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2006). 

==See also==
* Affirming Catholicism
* Anglican Communion Network
* Anglican ministry
* Anglican sacraments
* Anglicans online
* Anglo-Catholicism
* Church Mission Society
* Church's Ministry Among Jewish People
* Compasrose Flag of the Anglican Communion
* Continuing Anglican movement
* Historical development of Church of England dioceses
* Liberal Anglo-Catholicism
* Reform (Anglican)

==Further reading==
*D'Arcy, Charles F., Abp., et al. Anglican Essays: a Collective Review of the Principles and Special Opportunities of the Anglican Communion as Catholic and Reformed. London: Macmillan and Co., 1923.
*Hebert, A.G. The Form of the Church. London: Faber and Faber, 1944.
*Staples, Peter. "Anglican Communion." In The Encyclopedia of Christianity, edited by Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley, 57-59. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999. ISBN 0802824137
*Wild, John. What is the Anglican Communion?, in series, The Advent Papers. Cincinnati, Ohio: Forward Movement Publications, . Note.: Expresses the "Anglo-Catholic" viewpoint.

==References==

==External links==
* Official website
* Anglicans Online
* Decentralised nature of worldwide Anglicanism
* Project Canterbury Anglican historical documents from around the world



[[Arne Kaijser]]

Arne Kaijser (born 1950) is a professor of History of Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and the head of the university's department of History of science and technology. Eurocrit: Arne Kaijser, accessed on 2010-05-07 

Kaijser has published two books in Swedish: Stadens ljus. Etableringen av de första svenska gasverken and I fädrens spår. Den svenska infrastrukturens historiska utveckling och framtida utmaningar, and has co-edited several anthologies. Kaijser is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences since 2007 and also a member of the editorial board of two scientific journals: Journal of Urban Technology and Centaurus. Lately, he has been occupied with the history of Large Technical Systems.

== References ==

== External links ==
* Homepage
* Extended homepage



[[Archipelago]]

The Mergui Archipelago in Burma (Myanmar).
The Ksamil Archipelago in Albania.
The archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in Brazil.

An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster or collection of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- ("chief") and πέλαγος – pélagos ("sea") through the Italian arcipelago. In Italian, possibly following a tradition of antiquity, the Arcipelago (from medieval Greek *ἀρχιπέλαγος) was the proper name for the Aegean Sea and, later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands (since the sea is remarkable for its large number of islands). It is now used to refer to any island group or, sometimes, to a sea containing a large number of scattered islands.

== Types ==
Archipelagos may be found isolated in bodies of water or neighboring a large land mass. For example, Scotland has more than 700 islands surrounding its mainland which constitute an archipelago. Archipelagos are often volcanic, forming along island arcs generated by subduction zones or hotspots, but may also be the result of erosion, deposition, and land elevation.
It really means a broad area of water containing several islands.
Depending on their geological origin, islands forming archipelagos can be referred to as oceanic islands, continental fragments, and continental islands. Whittaker R. J. & Fernández-Palacios J. M. (2007) Island Biogeography: Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation. New York, Oxford University Press Oceanic islands are mainly of volcanic origin. Continental fragments correspond to land masses that have separated from a continental mass due to tectonic displacement. Finally, sets of islands formed close to the coast of a continent are considered continental archipelagos when they form part of the same continental shelf so islands are just exposed continental shelf.

The five main archipelagos are Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, and the British Isles. The largest archipelagic state in the world, by area and population, is Indonesia. The archipelago with the most islands is the Archipelago Sea in Finland.

== See also ==

* Island arc
* Geography
* Earth science
* Geomorphology
* List of landforms
* Plate tectonics
* Island country
* Earthsea
* The World (archipelago)
* List of archipelagos by number of islands
* List of archipelagos
* List of islands

== References ==

== External links ==

* 
* 30 Most Incredible Island Archipelagos

 



[[Author]]

Toni Morrison is a prominent American author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 for her vivid representation of American culture, particularly the cultures of African Americans. Authors often have both political and social impacts through their works, placing their work into the public sphere as a testament to their ideas.
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work and can also be described as a writer. compilation of the bibliographies and short biographies of notable authors up to 1974. 

==Author of a written or legally copied work==

===Legal significance===
A copyright certificate certifying the authorship for a proof of the Fermat theorem, issued by the State Department of Intellectual Property of Ukraine.
In copyright law, there is a necessity for little flexibility as to what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office defines copyright as "a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to authors of "original works of authorship". Holding the title of "author" over any "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, certain other intellectual works" give rights to this person, the owner of the copyright, exclusive right to do or authorize any production or distribution of their work. Any person or entity wishing to use intellectual property held under copyright must receive permission from the copyright holder to use this work, and often will be asked to pay for the use of copyrighted material. After a fixed amount of time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, where it can be used without limit. Copyright law has been amended time and time again since the inception of the law to extend the length of this fixed period where the work is exclusively controlled by the copyright holder. However, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time it's created. An interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that it can be passed down to another upon one's death. The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, but enjoys the same legal benefits.

Questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the complex issue of fan fiction? If the media agency responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music, and other considerations, come into play? As well, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books? What powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even stopping the fan fiction?

===Literary significance===
Mark Twain was a prominent American author in multiple genres including fiction and journalism during the 19th century.
In literary theory, critics find complications in the term "author" beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting. In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text.

Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author. He writes, in his essay "Death of the Author" (1968), that "it is language which speaks, not the author". The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production. Every line of written text is a mere reflection of references from any of a multitude of traditions, or, as Barthes puts it, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture"; it is never original. With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us". The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a written work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak, rather than author.

Michel Foucault argues in his essay "What is an author?" (1969), that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that "a private letter may have a signatory&mdash;it does not have an author". For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to attribute certain standards upon the text which, for Foucault, are working in conjunction with the idea of "the author function". Foucault's author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a written work, a part of its structure, but not necessarily part of the interpretive process. The author's name "indicates the status of the discourse within a society and culture", and at one time was used as an anchor for interpreting a text, a practice which Barthes would argue is not a particularly relevant or valid endeavor. 

Expanding upon Foucault's position, Alexander Nehamas writes that Foucault suggests "an author is whoever can be understood to have produced a particular text as we interpret it", not necessarily who penned the text. It is this distinction between producing a written work and producing the interpretation or meaning in a written work that both Barthes and Foucault are interested in. Foucault warns of the risks of keeping the author's name in mind during interpretation, because it could affect the value and meaning with which one handles an interpretation.

Literary critics Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not rely on or look for the notion of one overarching voice when interpreting a written work, because of the complications inherent with a writer's title of "author." They warn of the dangers interpretations could suffer from when associating the subject of inherently meaningful words and language with the personality of one authorial voice. Instead, readers should allow a text to be interpreted in terms of the language as "author."

==Relationship between author and publisher==
The publisher of a work might receive a percentage calculated on a wholesale or a specific price and or a fixed amount on each book that is sold. Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain amount of copies had sold. In Canada this practice occurred during the 1890s, but was not commonplace until the 1920s.

*Commissioned: Publishers made publication arrangements, and authors covered all expenses (today the practice of authors self-publishing or paying for their publications is sometimes called vanity publishing, and is looked down upon by many publishers, even though it may have been a common and accepted practice in the past). Publishers would receive a percentage on the sale of every copy of a book, and the author would receive the rest of the money made.

==Relationship between author and editor==
Ezra Pound (pictured as a young man in 1913) made significant editing suggestions to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," helping transform the original drafts into the work known today for its representation of postmodernity.
The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach his or her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act.

Pierre Bourdieu's essay "The Field of Cultural Production" depicts the publishing industry as a "space of literary or artistic position-takings," also called the "field of struggles," which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field. Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed." The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 30. Bourdieu claims that the "field of position-takings is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus," meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality. Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed." The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 34 In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has "the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the writer". Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed." The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 42 As "cultural investors," publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in "cultural capital" which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions. Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed." The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 68 

According to the studies of James Curran, the system of shared values among editors in Britain has generated a pressure among authors to write to fit the editors' expectations, removing the focus from the reader-audience and putting a strain on the relationship between authors and editors and on writing as a social act. Even the book review by the editors has more significance than the readership's reception. Curran, James. "Literary Editors, Social Networks and Cultural Tradition." Media Organizations in Society. James Curran, ed. London: Arnold, 2000, 230 

== Compensation ==
A standard contract for an author will usually include provision for payment in the form of an advance and royalties. An advance is a lump sum paid in advance of publication. An advance must be earned out before royalties are payable. An advance may be paid in two lump sums: the first payment on contract signing, and the second on delivery of the completed manuscript or on publication.

An author's contract may specify, for example, that they will earn 10% of the retail price of each book sold. Some contracts specify a scale of royalties payable (for example, where royalties start at 10% for the first 10,000 sales, but then increase to a higher percentage rate at higher sale thresholds).

An author's book must earn out their advance before any further royalties are paid. For example, if an author is paid a modest advance of $2000, and their royalty rate is 10% of a book priced at $20 - that is, $2 per book - the book will need to sell 1000 copies before any further payment will be made. Publishers typically withhold payment of a percentage of royalties earned against returns.

In some countries, authors also earn income from a government scheme such as the ELR (Educational Lending Right) and PLR (Public Lending Right) schemes in Australia. Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.

These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.

Ghostwriters, technical writers, and textbooks writers are typically paid in a different way: usually a set fee or a per word rate rather than on a percentage of sales.

==See also==
*Academic authorship
*Auteur
*Lead author
*Authors' editor
*Novelist
*Lists of poets
*List of novelists
*Lists of writers
*Professional writing

==References==



[[Andrey Markov]]

Andrey (Andrei) Andreyevich Markov (, in older works also spelled Markoff E.g. ) (14 June 1856 N.S. – 20 July 1922) was a Russian mathematician. He is best known for his work on stochastic processes. A primary subject of his research later became known as Markov chains and Markov processes.

Markov and his younger brother Vladimir Andreevich Markov (1871–1897) proved Markov brothers' inequality.
His son, another Andrei Andreevich Markov (1903–1979), was also a notable mathematician, making contributions to constructive mathematics and recursive function theory.

== Biography ==
Andrey Andreyevich Markov was born in Ryazan as the son of the secretary of the public forest management of Ryazan, Andrey Grigorevich Markov, and his first wife Nadezhda Petrovna Markova.

In the beginning of the 1860s Andrey Grigorevich moved to St. Petersburg to become an asset manager of Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Valvatyeva.

In 1866, Andrey Andreevich's school life began with his entrance into St. Petersburg's fifth grammar school. Already during his school time Andrey was intensely engaged in higher mathematics. As a 17-year-old grammar school student, he informed Viktor Bunyakovsky, Aleksandr Korkin, and Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev about an apparently new method to solve linear ordinary differential equations, and he was invited to the so-called Korkin Saturdays, where Korkin's students regularly met. In 1874, he finished the school and began his studies at the physico-mathematical department of St. Petersburg University.

Among his teachers were Yulian Sokhotski (differential calculus, higher algebra), Konstantin Posse (analytic geometry), Yegor Zolotarev (integral calculus), Pafnuty Chebyshev (number theory and probability theory), Aleksandr Korkin (ordinary and partial differential equations), Mikhail Okatov (mechanism theory), Osip Somov (mechanics), and Nikolai Budaev (descriptive and higher geometry).

In 1877, Markov was awarded a gold medal for his outstanding solution of the problem

About Integration of Differential Equations by Continuous Fractions with an Application to the Equation .

During the following year, he passed the candidate's examinations, and he remained at the university to prepare for a lecturer's position.

In April 1880, Markov defended his master's thesis "About Binary Quadratic Forms with Positive Determinant", which was encouraged by Aleksandr Korkin and Yegor Zolotarev.

Five years later, in January 1885, there followed his doctoral thesis "About Some Applications of Algebraic Continuous Fractions".

His pedagogical work began after the defense of his master's thesis in autumn 1880. As a privatdozent he lectured on differential and integral calculus. Later he lectured alternately on "introduction to analysis", probability theory (succeeding Chebyshev, who had left the university in 1882) and the calculus of differences. From 1895 through 1905 he also lectured in differential calculus.

Markov in 1886
One year after the defense of his doctoral thesis, Markov was appointed extraordinary professor (1886) and in the same year he was elected adjunct to the Academy of Sciences. In 1890, after the death of Viktor Bunyakovsky, Markov became an extraordinary member of the academy. His promotion to an ordinary professor of St. Petersburg University followed in the fall of 1894.

In 1896, Markov was elected an ordinary member of the academy as the successor of Chebyshev. In 1905, he was appointed merited professor and was granted the right to retire, which he did immediately. Until 1910, however, he continued to lecture in the calculus of differences.

In connection with student riots in 1908, professors and lecturers of St. Petersburg University were ordered to monitor their students. Markov refused to accept this decree, and he wrote an explanation in which he declined to be an "agent of the governance". Markov was removed from further teaching duties at St. Petersburg University, and hence he decided to retire from the university.

Markov was an atheist. In 1912 he protested Leo Tolstoy's excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church by requesting his own excommunication. The Church complied with his request. "Of course, Markov, an atheist and eventual excommunicate of the Church quarreled endlessly with his equally outspoken counterpart Nekrasov. The disputes between Markov and Nekrasov were not limited to mathematics and religion, they quarreled over political and philosophical issues as well." Gely P. Basharin, Amy N. Langville, Valeriy A. Naumov, The Life and Work of A. A. Markov, page 6. 

Markov's headstone
In 1913, the council of St. Petersburg elected nine scientists honorary members of the university. Markov was among them, but his election was not affirmed by the minister of education. The affirmation only occurred four years later, after the February Revolution in 1917. Markov then resumed his teaching activities and lectured on probability theory and the calculus of differences until his death in 1922.

== See also ==

* Chebyshev–Markov–Stieltjes inequalities
* Gauss–Markov theorem
* Gauss–Markov process
* Hidden Markov model
* Markov blanket
* Markov chain Monte Carlo
* Markov decision process
* Markov's inequality
* Markov information source
* Markov network
* Markov number
* Markov property
* Markov process
* Subjunctive possibility

== Notes ==

== References ==
* А. А. Марков. "Распространение закона больших чисел на величины, зависящие друг от друга". "Известия Физико-математического общества при Казанском университете", 2-я серия, том 15, ст. 135–156, 1906.
* A.A. Markov. "Extension of the limit theorems of probability theory to a sum of variables connected in a chain". reprinted in Appendix B of: R. Howard. Dynamic Probabilistic Systems, volume 1: Markov Chains. John Wiley and Sons, 1971.

== External links ==

*
*
* Biography of A.A. Markov by his son, A.A. Markov-jnr 
*

Markov, Andrei Andreevich
Markov, Andrei Andreevich



[[Angst]]

Edvard Munch tried to represent "an infinite scream passing through nature" in The Scream (1893)

Angst means fear or anxiety (anguish is its Latinate equivalent, and anxious, anxiety are of similar origin). The word angst was introduced into English from the Danish and Dutch word angst and the German word Angst. It is attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Kierkegaard and Freud. merriam-webster.com, "angst" dictionary.com "angst" Online Etymology Dictionary, "angst" It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil.
In other languages such as Danish, Dutch and German the word angst is not a loanword as it is in English, but has been in existence long, and is used regularly to express fear.

In German, the technical terminology of psychology and philosophy distinguishes between Angst and Furcht in that Furcht is a negative anticipation regarding a concrete threat, while Angst is a non-directional and unmotivated emotion. In common language, however, Angst is the normal word for "fear", while Furcht is an elevated synonym. "Furcht" and "Angst" in the DUDEN 

In other languages having the meaning of the Latin word pavor, the derived words differ in meaning, e.g. as in the French anxiété and peur. The word Angst has existed since the 8th century, from the Proto-Indo-European root *anghu-, "restraint" from which Old High German angust developed. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/angst It is pre-cognate with the Latin angustia, "tensity, tightness" and angor, "choking, clogging"; compare to the Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ankho) "strangle".

== Existentialism ==
In Existentialist philosophy the term angst carries a specific conceptual meaning. The use of the term was first attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813&ndash;1855). In The Concept of Anxiety (also known as The Concept of Dread, depending on the translation), Kierkegaard used the word Angest (in common Danish, angst, meaning "dread" or "anxiety") to describe a profound and deep-seated condition. Where animals are guided solely by instinct, said Kierkegaard, human beings enjoy a freedom of choice that we find both appealing and terrifying. Kierkegaard's concept of angst reappeared in the works of existentialist philosophers who followed, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, each of whom developed the idea further in individual ways. While Kierkegaard's angst referred mainly to ambiguous feelings about moral freedom within a religious personal belief system, later existentialists discussed conflicts of personal principles, cultural norms, and existential despair.
Ludger Gerdes, Angst, 1989

== Music ==
Existential angst makes its appearance in classical musical composition in the early twentieth century as a result of both philosophical developments and as a reflection of the war-torn times. Notable composers whose works are often linked with the concept include Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss (operas Elektra and Salome), Claude-Achille Debussy (opera Pelleas et Melisande, ballet Jeux, other works), Jean Sibelius (especially the Fourth Symphony), Arnold Schoenberg (A Survivor from Warsaw, other works), Alban Berg, Francis Poulenc (opera Dialogues of the Carmelites), Dmitri Shostakovich (opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, symphonies and chamber music), Béla Bartók (opera Bluebeard's Castle, other works), and Krzysztof Penderecki (especially Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima).
 
Angst began to be discussed in reference to popular music in the mid- to late 1950s amid widespread concerns over international tensions and nuclear proliferation. Jeff Nuttall's book Bomb Culture (1968) traced angst in popular culture to Hiroshima. Dread was expressed in works of folk rock such as Bob Dylan's Masters of War (1963) and A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall. The term often makes an appearance in reference to heavy metal, punk rock, grunge, nu metal, emo, and works of alternative rock where expressions of melancholy, existential despair or nihilism predominate.

== See also ==

*Anger
*Anguish
*Anxiety
*Byronic hero
*Emotion
*Existentialism
*Kafkaesque
*List of emotions
*Fear of death
*Sehnsucht
*Alienation
*Sturm und Drang
*Terror management theory
*The Mean Reds
*Weltschmerz

==References==
 

==External links==
*



[[Anxiety]]

Anxiety is an unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behavior, such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints and rumination. It is the subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over something unlikely to happen, such as the feeling of imminent death. Anxiety is not the same as fear, which is a response to a real or perceived immediate threat; whereas anxiety is the expectation of future threat. Anxiety is a feeling of fear, worry, and uneasiness, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is only subjectively seen as menacing. It is often accompanied by muscular tension, restlessness, fatigue, and problems in concentration. Anxiety can be appropriate, but when it is too much and continues too long, the individual may suffer from an anxiety disorder. 

==Descriptions==
A job applicant with a worried facial expression
Anxiety is distinguished from fear, which is an appropriate cognitive and emotional response to a perceived threat and is related to the specific behaviors of fight-or-flight responses, defensive behavior or escape. Anxiety occurs in situations only perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable, but not realistically so. David Barlow defines anxiety as "a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events," and that it is a distinction between future and present dangers which divides anxiety and fear. Another description of anxiety is agony, dread, terror, or even apprehension. In positive psychology, anxiety is described as the mental state that results from a difficult challenge for which the subject has insufficient coping skills. 

Fear and anxiety can be differentiated in four domains: (1) duration of emotional experience, (2) temporal focus, (3) specificity of the threat, and (4) motivated direction. Fear is defined as short lived, present focused, geared towards a specific threat, and facilitating escape from threat; while anxiety is defined as long acting, future focused, broadly focused towards a diffuse threat, and promoting excessive caution while approaching a potential threat and interferes with constructive coping. 
Symptoms of anxiety can range in number, intensity, and frequency, depending on the person. While almost everyone has experienced anxiety at some point in their lives, most do not develop long-term problems with anxiety.

Nervous habits such as biting fingernails
The behavioral effects of anxiety may include withdrawal from situations which have provoked anxiety in the past. Anxiety can also be experienced in ways which include changes in sleeping patterns, nervous habits, and increased motor tension like foot tapping. 

The emotional effects of anxiety may include "feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching (and waiting) for signs (and occurrences) of danger, and, feeling like your mind's gone blank" Smith, Melinda (2008, June). Anxiety attacks and disorders: Guide to the signs, symptoms, and treatment options. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from Helpguide Web site: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/anxiety_types_symptoms_treatment.htm as well as "nightmares/bad dreams, obsessions about sensations, deja vu, a trapped in your mind feeling, and feeling like everything is scary." (1987–2008). Anxiety Symptoms, Anxiety Attack Symptoms (Panic Attack Symptoms), Symptoms of Anxiety. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from Anxiety Centre Web site: http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml 
 
The cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about suspected dangers, such as fear of dying. "You may ... fear that the chest pains are a deadly heart attack or that the shooting pains in your head are the result of a tumor or aneurysm. You feel an intense fear when you think of dying, or you may think of it more often than normal, or can't get it out of your mind." (1987–2008). Anxiety symptoms - Fear of dying. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from Anxiety Centre Web site: http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms/fear-of-dying.shtml 

==Types==

===Existential===

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in The Concept of Anxiety, described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In Art and Artist (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation and differentiation.

The theologian Paul Tillich characterized existential anxiety as "the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing" and he listed three categories for the nonbeing and resulting anxiety: ontic (fate and death), moral (guilt and condemnation), and spiritual (emptiness and meaninglessness). According to Tillich, the last of these three types of existential anxiety, i.e. spiritual anxiety, is predominant in modern times while the others were predominant in earlier periods. Tillich argues that this anxiety can be accepted as part of the human condition or it can be resisted but with negative consequences. In its pathological form, spiritual anxiety may tend to "drive the person toward the creation of certitude in systems of meaning which are supported by tradition and authority" even though such "undoubted certitude is not built on the rock of reality". 

According to Viktor Frankl, the author of Man's Search for Meaning, when a person is faced with extreme mortal dangers, the most basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat the "trauma of nonbeing" as death is near.

===Test and performance===

According to Yerkes-Dodson law, an optimal level of arousal is necessary to best complete a task such as an exam, performance, or competitive event. However, when the anxiety or level of arousal exceeds that optimum, the result is a decline in performance. 

Test anxiety is the uneasiness, apprehension, or nervousness felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam. Students who have test anxiety may experience any of the following: the association of grades with personal worth; fear of embarrassment by a teacher; fear of alienation from parents or friends; time pressures; or feeling a loss of control. Sweating, dizziness, headaches, racing heartbeats, nausea, fidgeting, uncontrollable crying or laughing and drumming on a desk are all common. Because test anxiety hinges on fear of negative evaluation, debate exists as to whether test anxiety is itself a unique anxiety disorder or whether it is a specific type of social phobia. The DSM-IV classifies test anxiety as a type of social phobia. 

While the term "test anxiety" refers specifically to students, many workers share the same experience with regard to their career or profession. The fear of failing at a task and being negatively evaluated for failure can have a similarly negative effect on the adult. Management of test anxiety focuses on achieving relaxation and developing mechanisms to manage anxiety. 

===Stranger, social, and intergroup===

Humans generally require social acceptance and thus sometimes dread the disapproval of others. Apprehension of being judged by others may cause anxiety in social environments. 

Anxiety during social interactions, particularly between strangers, is common among young people. It may persist into adulthood and become social anxiety or social phobia. "Stranger anxiety" in small children is not considered a phobia. In adults, an excessive fear of other people is not a developmentally common stage; it is called social anxiety. According to Cutting, social phobics do not fear the crowd but the fact that they may be judged negatively.

Social anxiety varies in degree and severity. For some people it is characterized by experiencing discomfort or awkwardness during physical social contact (e.g. embracing, shaking hands, etc.), while in other cases it can lead to a fear of interacting with unfamiliar people altogether. Those suffering from this condition may restrict their lifestyles to accommodate the anxiety, minimizing social interaction whenever possible. Social anxiety also forms a core aspect of certain personality disorders, including Avoidant Personality Disorder. 

To the extent that a person is fearful of social encounters with unfamiliar others, some people may experience anxiety particularly during interactions with outgroup members, or people who share different group memberships (i.e., by race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.). Depending on the nature of the antecedent relations, cognitions, and situational factors, intergroup contact may stressful, and lead to feelings of anxiety. This apprehension or fear of contact with outgroup members is often called interracial or intergroup anxiety. 

As is the case in the more generalized forms of social anxiety, intergroup anxiety has behavioral, cognitive, and affective effects. For instance, increases in schematic processing and simplified information processing can occur when anxiety is high. Indeed, such is consistent with related work on attentional bias in implicit memory. Additionally recent research has found that implicit racial evaluations (i.e. automatic prejudiced attitudes) can be amplified during intergroup interaction. Negative experiences have been illustrated in producing not only negative expectations, but also avoidant, or otherwise antagonistic, behavior such as hostility. Furthermore, when compared to anxiety levels and cognitive effort (e.g., impression management and self-presentation) in intragroup contexts, levels and depletion of resources may be exacerbated in the intergroup situation.

===Trait===
Anxiety can be either a short term 'state' or a long term "trait". Trait anxiety reflects a stable tendency to respond with state anxiety in the anticipation of threatening situations. It is closely related to the personality trait of neuroticism. Such anxiety may be conscious or unconscious. 

===Choice or decision===
Anxiety induced by the need to choose between similar options is increasingly being recognized as a problem for individuals and for organizations. "Today we're all faced with greater choice, more competition and less time to consider our options or seek out the right advice." Is choice anxiety costing british 'blue chip' business?, Capgemini, Aug 16, 2004 

In a decision context, unpredictability or uncertainty may trigger emotional responses in anxious individuals that systematically alter decision-making. There are primarily two forms of this anxiety type. The first form refers to a choice in which there are multiple potential outcomes with known or calculable probabilities. The second form refers to the uncertainty and ambiguity related to a decision context in which there are multiple possible outcomes with unknown probabilities. 

In some Buddhist meditation literature, this effect is described as something which arises naturally and should be turned toward and mindfully explored in order to gain insight into the nature of emotion, and more profoundly, the nature of self. 

===Psychiatric===
Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by feelings of anxiety and fear, where anxiety is a worry about future events and fear is a reaction to current events. These feelings may cause physical symptoms, such as a racing heart and shakiness. There are various forms of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, phobic disorder, and panic disorder. While each has its own characteristics and symptoms, they all include symptoms of anxiety. Psychiatry, Michael Gelder, Richard Mayou, John Geddes 3rd ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, c 2005 p. 75 

Anxiety disorders are partly genetic but may also be due to drug use including alcohol and caffeine, as well as withdrawal from certain drugs. They often occur with other mental disorders, particularly major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, certain personality disorders, and eating disorders. The term anxiety covers four aspects of experiences that an individual may have: mental apprehension, physical tension, physical symptoms and dissociative anxiety. David Healy, Drugs Explained, Section 5: Management of Anxiety, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2008, pp. 136–137 The emotions present in anxiety disorders range from simple nervousness to bouts of terror. There are other psychiatric and medical problems that may mimic the symptoms of an anxiety disorder, such as hyperthyroidism.

Common treatment options include lifestyle changes, therapy, and medications. Medications are typically recommended only if other measures are not effective. Anxiety disorders occur about twice as often in females as males, and generally begin during childhood. As many as 18% of Americans and 14% of Europeans may be affected by one or more anxiety disorders. 

==Causes==

===Early life experiences===
Anxiety risk factors include family history (e.g. of anxiety) and parenting factors including parental rejection, lack of parental warmth, high hostility, harsh discipline, high maternal negative affect, anxious childrearing, modelling of dysfunctional and drug-abusing behaviour, and child abuse (emotional, physical and sexual). 

===Biological vulnerabilities===
Research upon adolescents who as infants had been highly apprehensive, vigilant, and fearful finds that their nucleus accumbens is more sensitive than that in other people when deciding to make an action that determined whether they received a reward. This suggests a link between circuits responsible for fear and also reward in anxious people. As researchers note, "a sense of 'responsibility', or self agency, in a context of uncertainty (probabilistic outcomes) drives the neural system underlying appetitive motivation (i.e., nucleus accumbens) more strongly in temperamentally inhibited than noninhibited adolescents". Anxiety is also linked and perpetuated by the person's own pessimistic outcome expectancy and how they cope with feedback negativity. Temperament and attitudes (e.g. pessimism) have been found to be risk factors for anxiety. 

Some writers believe that excessive anxiety can lead to an overpotentiation of the limbic system, giving increased future anxiety, but this does not appear to have been proven. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Iz_kWnfcExoC&pg=PA172&lpg=PA172&dq=overpotentiated+amygdala&source=bl&ots=GCXrq8Q52E&sig=tHPXH0lGImXHYxn1HDu0S-3-ZIo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LpdSU_v-KoOwOfbEgJgK&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=overpotentiated%20amygdala&f=false http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ErU92jetUTMC&pg=PA284&lpg=PA284&dq=overpotentiated+amygdala&source=bl&ots=1ug7hyct_j&sig=Xz4xmE6g41MamEzW8DKPszobaAM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LpdSU_v-KoOwOfbEgJgK&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ 

===Social issues - gender===
Contextual factors that are thought to contribute to anxiety include gender socialization and learning experiences. In particular, learning mastery (the degree to which people perceive their lives to be under their own control) and instrumentality, which includes such traits as self-confidence, independence, and competitiveness fully mediate the relation between gender and anxiety. That is, though gender differences in anxiety exist, with higher levels of anxiety in women compared to men, gender socialization and learning mastery explain these gender differences. Research has demonstrated the ways in which facial prominence in photographic images differs between men and women. More specifically, in official online photographs of politicians around the world, women's faces are less prominent than men's. Interestingly enough, the difference in these images actually tended to be greater in cultures with greater institutional gender equality. 

===Evolutionary psychology===
An evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance regarding potential threats in the environment as well as increased tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. This may cause false positive reactions but an individual suffering from anxiety may also avoid real threats. This may explain why anxious people are less likely to die due to accidents. 

Neural circuitry involving the amygdala and hippocampus is thought to underlie anxiety. When people are confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show increased bloodflow in the amygdala. In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors.

===Genes===
Although single genes have little effect on complex traits and interact heavily both between themselves and with the external factors, research is under-way to unravel possible molecular mechanisms underlying anxiety and comorbid conditions. One candidate gene with polymorphisms that influence anxiety is PLXNA2. 

===Medical===
Anxiety can be a symptom of an underlying health problems such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, or heart arrythmia. 

==See also==

==References==

==External links==
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[[A. A. Milne]]

Alan Alexander Milne (; 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was a British author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.

==Biography==
A. A. Milne was born in Hampstead, London "Births search results". to parents John Vince Milne, who was Scottish, and Sarah Marie Milne (née Heginbotham) and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, a small public school run by his father. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells, who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he studied on a mathematics scholarship, graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1903. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.

Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. He was recruited into Military Intelligence to write propaganda articles for MI 7b between 1916 and 1918. He was discharged on 14 February 1919, and settled in Mallord Street, Chelsea. 

After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour. Capitalization as in the British Library Catalogue During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English writer P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the light-hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend (e.g., in The Mating Season) by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff." 

Milne married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920. In 1925, A. A. Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex. 

During World War II, A. A. Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain "Mr. Milne" to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid, and by August 1953 "he seemed very old and disenchanted". Milne died in January 1956, aged 74.

==Literary career==

===1903 to 1925===
After graduating from Cambridge in 1903, A. A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to Punch, joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor. 

During this period he published 18 plays and 3 novels, including the murder mystery The Red House Mystery (1922). His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems When We Were Very Young, which were illustrated by Punch staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard. A collection of short stories for children Gallery of Children, and other stories that became part of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, were first published in 1925.

Milne was an early screenwriter for the nascent British film industry, writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films (founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel). These were The Bump, starring Aubrey Smith; Twice Two; Five Pound Reward; and Bookworms Some of these films survive in the archives of the British Film Institute. Milne had met Howard when the actor starred in Milne’s play Mr Pim Passes By in London. 

Looking back on this period (in 1926), Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story, he was told that what the country wanted from a "Punch humorist" was a humorous story; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another two years, he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books. He concluded that "the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory con amore as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others." 

==1926 to 1928==
Milne with his son Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear, at Cotchford Farm, their home in Sussex. Photo by Howard Coster, 1926.
The real stuffed toys owned by Christopher Robin Milne and featured in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. They are on display in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (formerly the New York Public Library Main Branch) in New York.
Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin Milne, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named "Edward", Winnie-the-Pooh at the New York Public Library was renamed "Winnie-the-Pooh" after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The pooh" comes from a swan called "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy, Growler ("a magnificent bear"), as the model. The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into A. A. Milne's stories, two more characters - Rabbit and Owl - were created by Milne's imagination. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now under glass in New York.

The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, South East England, where the Pooh stories were set. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest at Cotchford Farm, , and took his son walking there. E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books. The adult Christopher Robin commented: "Pooh's Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical". The wooden Pooh Bridge in Ashdown Forest, where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks, is a tourist attraction. Plans to improve access to Pooh Bridge unveiled BBC. Retrieved 15 October 2011 

Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in the British magazine Punch in February 1924. Pooh first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called "The Wrong Sort Of Bees". "Pooh celebrates his 80th birthday". BBC. Retrieved 11 November 2012 Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All three books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milne also published four plays in this period. He also "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P. G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress. His book The World of Pooh won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.

===1929 onwards===
The success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war Punch from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot). But once Milne had, in his own words, "said goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of his four principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.

His reception remained warmer in America than Britain, and he continued to publish novels and short stories, but by the late 1930s, the audience for Milne's grown-up writing had largely vanished: he observed bitterly in his autobiography that a critic had said that the hero of his latest play (God help it) was simply "Christopher Robin grown up...what an obsession with me children are become!".

Even his old literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, was ultimately to reject him, as Christopher Milne details in his autobiography The Enchanted Places, although Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem 'The Norman Church' and an assembly of articles entitled Year In, Year Out (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author).

He also adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel The Wind in the Willows for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall. The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", could not survive translation to the theatre. A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel.

==Legacy and commemoration==
A. A. Milne memorial plaque at Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, England, the setting for Winnie the Pooh, shared with E.H. Shepard
The rights to A. A. Milne's Pooh books were left to four beneficiaries: his family, the Royal Literary Fund, Westminster School and the Garrick Club. After Milne's death in 1956, his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger, whose widow sold the rights after Slesinger's death to the Walt Disney Company, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, as well as Pooh-related merchandise. In 2001, the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the estate to the Disney Corporation for $350m. Previously Disney had been paying twice-yearly royalties to these beneficiaries. The estate of E. H. Shepard also received a sum in the deal. The copyright on Pooh expires in 2026. In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2 million at auction in Sotheby's, London. "Pooh pictures sell for £1.2m at auction". Metro (London). 18 December 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2012 Forbes magazine ranks Winnie the Pooh the most valuable fictional character; in 2002 Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone had annual sales of more than $5.9 billion. "Top-Earning Fictional Characters". Forbes (New York). 25 September 2003. Retrieved 11 November 2012. 

A memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest, unveiled by Christopher Robin in 1979, commemorates the work of A. A. Milne and Shepard in creating the world of Pooh. Milne once wrote of Ashdown Forest: "In that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing". Ford, Rebecca (28 February 2007) "Happy Birthday Pooh", Daily Express. Retrieved 15 October 2011 In 2003, Winnie the Pooh was listed at number 7 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. "The Big Read", BBC, April 2003. Retrieved 18 October 2012. 

Several of Milne's children's poems were set to music by the composer Harold Fraser-Simson. 

His poems have been parodied many times, including with the books When We Were Rather Older and Now We Are Sixty.

==Religious views==
Milne did not speak out much on the subject of religion, although he used religious terms to explain his decision, while remaining a pacifist, to join the army: "In fighting Hitler", he wrote, "we are truly fighting the Devil, the Anti-Christ ... Hitler was a crusader against God." 

His best known comment on the subject was recalled on his death:

He also wrote the poem "Explained":
::Elizabeth Ann
::Said to her Nan:
::"Please will you tell me how God began?
::Somebody must have made Him. So
::Who could it be, 'cos I want to know?" 

==Works==

===Novels===
* Lovers in London (1905. Some consider this more of a short story collection; Milne did not like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.)
* Once on a Time (1917)
* Mr. Pim (1921) (A novelisation of his play Mr. Pim Passes By (1919))
* The Red House Mystery (1922)
* Two People (1931) (Inside jacket claims this is Milne's first attempt at a novel.)
* Four Days' Wonder (1933)
* Chloe Marr (1946)

===Non-fiction===
* Peace With Honour (1934)
* It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer (1939)
* War With Honour (1940)
* War Aims Unlimited (1941)
* Year In, Year Out (1952) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)

====Punch articles====
* The Day's Play (1910)
* Once A Week (1914)
* The Holiday Round (1912)
* The Sunny Side (1921)
* Those Were the Days (1929) four volumes above, compiled

===Newspaper articles and book introductions===
* The Chronicles of Clovis by "Saki" (1911) to
* Not That It Matters (1920)
* By Way of Introduction (1929)

===Story collections for children===
* A Gallery of Children (1925)
* Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) (illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard)
* The House at Pooh Corner (1928) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
* Short Stories

===Poetry collections for children===
* When We Were Very Young (1924)
* Now We Are Six (1927)

===Story collections===
* The Secret and other stories (1929)
* The Birthday Party (1948)
* A Table Near the Band (1950)

===Poetry===
* For the Luncheon Interval from Punch
* When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
* Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
* Behind the Lines (1940)
* The Norman Church (1948)

===Screenplays and Plays===
* Wurzel-Flummery (1917)
* Belinda (1918)
* The Boy Comes Home (1918)
* Make-Believe (1918) (children's play)
* The Camberley Triangle (1919)
* Mr. Pim Passes By (1919)
* The Red Feathers (1920)
* The Bump (1920, Minerva Films), starring Aubrey Smith
* Twice Two (1920, Minerva Films)
* Five Pound Reward (1920, Minerva Films)
* Bookworms (1920, Minerva Films)
* The Dover Road (1921)
* The Lucky One (1922)
* The Artist: A Duologue (1923)
* Give Me Yesterday (1923) (a.k.a. Success in the UK)
* Ariadne (1924)
* The Man in the Bowler Hat: A Terribly Exciting Affair (1924)
* To Have the Honour (1924)
* Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926)
* Success (1926)
* Miss Marlow at Play (1927)
* The Fourth Wall or The Perfect Alibi (1928)
* The Ivory Door (1929)
* Toad of Toad Hall (1929) (adaptation of The Wind in the Willows)
* Michael and Mary (1930)
* Other People's Lives (1933) (a.k.a. They Don't Mean Any Harm)
* Miss Elizabeth Bennet (1936) on Pride and Prejudice
* Sarah Simple (1937)
* Gentleman Unknown (1938)
* The General Takes Off His Helmet (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross
* The Ugly Duckling (1941)
* Before the Flood (1951)

==Films==
Michael and Mary was adapted to cinema in 1931.

The 1963 film The King's Breakfast was based on Milne's poem of the same name.

==References==

==Further reading==
* 

==External links==

* 
* Portraits of A. A. Milne in the National Portrait Gallery
* Essays by Milne at Quotidiana.org
* Milne extract in The Guardian
* 
* Profile at Just-Pooh.com



[[Asociación Alumni]]

Asociación Alumni, usually just Alumni, is a rugby union and former football club located in Tortuguitas, Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina.

==History==

===The beginning===

The club was originally founded as a football team in 1891, with the name "English High School" (the school where they came from) although it was obliged to change its name to "Alumni Athletic Club" (the name was proposed by a former student of the English High School) in 1901.

Alumni was the most successful team in the amateur era of Argentine football, winning 10 of the 14 league championships contested, being considered the first great football team. "En el nombre del fútbol", Clarín newspaper, 2003-04-24 Alumni was reorganised in 1908, "in order to encourage people to practise all kind of sports, specially football". This was the last try to develop itself as a sports club rather than just a football team, such as Lomas, Belgrano and Quilmes had successfully done in the past, but the efforts were not enough. Alumni played its last game in 1911 and was definitely dissolved on April 24, 1913.

===Rebirth through rugby===
In 1951 a group of English High School alumni asked the school for permission to re-establish the name "Alumni" for a rugby team. This request was immediately approved in a meeting presided by Carlos Bowers, who had proposed the name "Alumni" to the original football team 50 years before. "Los comienzos de Alumni" - club's official website 

The team achieved good results and in 1960 the club presented a team that won the third division of the Buenos Aires league, reaching the second division. Since then, Alumni has played at the highest level of Argentinian rugby and its rivalry with Belgrano Athletic Club is one of the fiercest local derbies in Buenos Aires. Alumni would later climb up to first division winning 5 titles: 4 consecutive between 1989 and 1992, and the other in 2001.

In 2002, Alumni won its first Nacional de Clubes title, defeating Jockey Club de Rosario 23-21 in the final.

==Honours==
*Nacional de Clubes (1): 2002
*Torneo de la URBA (5): 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2001

==References==

==External links==
*Official website



[[Axiom]]

An axiom, or postulate, is a premise or starting point of reasoning. As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy. 
"A proposition that commends itself to general acceptance; a well-established or universally conceded principle; a maxim, rule, law" axiom, n., definition 1a. Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 2012-04-28. Cf. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I.2.72a18-b4. 
The word comes from the Greek ἀξίωμα (āxīoma) 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident.' Cf. axiom, n., etymology. Oxford English Dictionary, accessed 2012-04-28. Oxford American College Dictionary: "n. a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true. ORIGIN: late 15th cent.: ultimately from Greek axiōma 'what is thought fitting,' from axios 'worthy.' http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O997-axiom.html 
As used in modern logic, an axiom is simply a premise or starting point for reasoning. "A proposition (whether true or false)" axiom, n., definition 2. Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 2012-04-28. Axioms define and delimit the realm of analysis; the relative truth of an axiom is taken for granted within the particular domain of analysis, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other relative truths. No explicit view regarding the absolute truth of axioms is ever taken in the context of modern mathematics, as such a thing is considered to be an irrelevant and impossible contradiction in terms.

In mathematics, the term axiom is used in two related but distinguishable senses: "logical axioms" and "non-logical axioms". Logical axioms are usually statements that are taken to be true within the system of logic they define (e.g., (A and B) implies A), while non-logical axioms (e.g., 1= a + b = b + a) are actually defining properties for the domain of a specific mathematical theory (such as arithmetic). When used in the latter sense, "axiom," "postulate", and "assumption" may be used interchangeably. In general, a non-logical axiom is not a self-evident truth, but rather a formal logical expression used in deduction to build a mathematical theory. As modern mathematics admits multiple, equally "true" systems of logic, precisely the same thing must be said for logical axioms - they both define and are specific to the particular system of logic that is being invoked. To axiomatize a system of knowledge is to show that its claims can be derived from a small, well-understood set of sentences (the axioms). There are typically multiple ways to axiomatize a given mathematical domain.

In both senses, an axiom is any mathematical statement that serves as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. Within the system they define, axioms (unless redundant) cannot be derived by principles of deduction, nor are they demonstrable by mathematical proofs, simply because they are starting points; there is nothing else from which they logically follow otherwise they would be classified as theorems. However, an axiom in one system may be a theorem in another, and vice versa.

==Etymology==
The word "axiom" comes from the Greek word (axioma), a verbal noun from the verb (axioein), meaning "to deem worthy", but also "to require", which in turn comes from (axios), meaning "being in balance", and hence "having (the same) value (as)", "worthy", "proper". Among the ancient Greek philosophers an axiom was a claim which could be seen to be true without any need for proof.

The root meaning of the word 'postulate' is to 'demand'; for instance, Euclid demands of us that we agree that some things can be done, e.g. any two points can be joined by a straight line, etc. Wolff, P. Breakthroughs in Mathematics, 1963, New York: New American Library, pp 47–8 

Ancient geometers maintained some distinction between axioms and postulates. While commenting Euclid's books Proclus remarks that "Geminus held that this Postulate should not be classed as a postulate but as an axiom, since it does not, like the first three Postulates, assert the possibility of some construction but expresses an essential property". Heath, T. 1956. The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements. New York: Dover. p200 Boethius translated 'postulate' as petitio and called the axioms notiones communes but in later manuscripts this usage was not always strictly kept.

==Historical development==

===Early Greeks===
The logico-deductive method whereby conclusions (new knowledge) follow from premises (old knowledge) through the application of sound arguments (syllogisms, rules of inference), was developed by the ancient Greeks, and has become the core principle of modern mathematics. Tautologies excluded, nothing can be deduced if nothing is assumed. Axioms and postulates are the basic assumptions underlying a given body of deductive knowledge. They are accepted without demonstration. All other assertions (theorems, if we are talking about mathematics) must be proven with the aid of these basic assumptions. However, the interpretation of mathematical knowledge has changed from ancient times to the modern, and consequently the terms axiom and postulate hold a slightly different meaning for the present day mathematician, than they did for Aristotle and Euclid.

The ancient Greeks considered geometry as just one of several sciences, and held the theorems of geometry on par with scientific facts. As such, they developed and used the logico-deductive method as a means of avoiding error, and for structuring and communicating knowledge. Aristotle's posterior analytics is a definitive exposition of the classical view.

An "axiom", in classical terminology, referred to a self-evident assumption common to many branches of science. A good example would be the assertion that When an equal amount is taken from equals, an equal amount results.

At the foundation of the various sciences lay certain additional hypotheses which were accepted without proof. Such a hypothesis was termed a postulate. While the axioms were common to many sciences, the postulates of each particular science were different. Their validity had to be established by means of real-world experience. Indeed, Aristotle warns that the content of a science cannot be successfully communicated, if the learner is in doubt about the truth of the postulates. Aristotle, Metaphysics Bk IV, Chapter 3, 1005b "Physics also is a kind of Wisdom, but it is not the first kind. – And the attempts of some of those who discuss the terms on which truth should be accepted, are due to want of training in logic; for they should know these things already when they come to a special study, and not be inquiring into them while they are listening to lectures on it." W.D. Ross translation, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, (Random House, New York, 1941)|date=June 2011 

The classical approach is well-illustrated by Euclid's Elements, where a list of postulates is given (common-sensical geometric facts drawn from our experience), followed by a list of "common notions" (very basic, self-evident assertions).

:;Postulates
:# It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any other point.
:# It is possible to extend a line segment continuously in both directions.
:# It is possible to describe a circle with any center and any radius.
:# It is true that all right angles are equal to one another.
:# ("Parallel postulate") It is true that, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, intersect on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.

:;Common notions:
:# Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.
:# If equals are added to equals, the wholes are equal.
:# If equals are subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.
:# Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another.
:# The whole is greater than the part.

===Modern development===
A lesson learned by mathematics in the last 150 years is that it is useful to strip the meaning away from the mathematical assertions (axioms, postulates, propositions, theorems) and definitions. One must concede the need for primitive notions, or undefined terms or concepts, in any study. Such abstraction or formalization makes mathematical knowledge more general, capable of multiple different meanings, and therefore useful in multiple contexts. Alessandro Padoa, Mario Pieri, and Giuseppe Peano were pioneers in this movement.

Structuralist mathematics goes further, and develops theories and axioms (e.g. field theory, group theory, topology, vector spaces) without any particular application in mind. The distinction between an "axiom" and a "postulate" disappears. The postulates of Euclid are profitably motivated by saying that they lead to a great wealth of geometric facts. The truth of these complicated facts rests on the acceptance of the basic hypotheses. However, by throwing out Euclid's fifth postulate we get theories that have meaning in wider contexts, hyperbolic geometry for example. We must simply be prepared to use labels like "line" and "parallel" with greater flexibility. The development of hyperbolic geometry taught mathematicians that postulates should be regarded as purely formal statements, and not as facts based on experience.

When mathematicians employ the field axioms, the intentions are even more abstract. The propositions of field theory do not concern any one particular application; the mathematician now works in complete abstraction. There are many examples of fields; field theory gives correct knowledge about them all.

It is not correct to say that the axioms of field theory are "propositions that are regarded as true without proof." Rather, the field axioms are a set of constraints. If any given system of addition and multiplication satisfies these constraints, then one is in a position to instantly know a great deal of extra information about this system.

Modern mathematics formalizes its foundations to such an extent that mathematical theories can be regarded as mathematical objects, and mathematics itself can be regarded as a branch of logic. Frege, Russell, Poincaré, Hilbert, and Gödel are some of the key figures in this development.

In the modern understanding, a set of axioms is any collection of formally stated assertions from which other formally stated assertions follow by the application of certain well-defined rules. In this view, logic becomes just another formal system. A set of axioms should be consistent; it should be impossible to derive a contradiction from the axiom. A set of axioms should also be non-redundant; an assertion that can be deduced from other axioms need not be regarded as an axiom.

It was the early hope of modern logicians that various branches of mathematics, perhaps all of mathematics, could be derived from a consistent collection of basic axioms. An early success of the formalist program was Hilbert's formalization of Euclidean geometry, and the related demonstration of the consistency of those axioms.

In a wider context, there was an attempt to base all of mathematics on Cantor's set theory. Here the emergence of Russell's paradox, and similar antinomies of naïve set theory raised the possibility that any such system could turn out to be inconsistent.

The formalist project suffered a decisive setback, when in 1931 Gödel showed that it is possible, for any sufficiently large set of axioms (Peano's axioms, for example) to construct a statement whose truth is independent of that set of axioms. As a corollary, Gödel proved that the consistency of a theory like Peano arithmetic is an unprovable assertion within the scope of that theory.

It is reasonable to believe in the consistency of Peano arithmetic because it is satisfied by the system of natural numbers, an infinite but intuitively accessible formal system. However, at present, there is no known way of demonstrating the consistency of the modern Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms for set theory. Furthermore, using techniques of forcing (Cohen) one can show that the continuum hypothesis (Cantor) is independent of the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms. Thus, even this very general set of axioms cannot be regarded as the definitive foundation for mathematics.

===Other sciences===
Axioms play a key role not only in mathematics, but also in other sciences, notably in theoretical physics. In particular, the monumental work of Isaac Newton is essentially based on Euclid's axioms, augmented by a postulate on the non-relation of spacetime and the physics taking place in it at any moment.

In 1905, Newton's axioms were replaced by those of Albert Einstein's special relativity, and later on by those of general relativity.

Another paper of Albert Einstein and coworkers (see EPR paradox), almost immediately contradicted by Niels Bohr, concerned the interpretation of quantum mechanics. This was in 1935. According to Bohr, this new theory should be probabilistic, whereas according to Einstein it should be deterministic. Notably, the underlying quantum mechanical theory, i.e. the set of "theorems" derived by it, seemed to be identical. Einstein even assumed that it would be sufficient to add to quantum mechanics "hidden variables" to enforce determinism. However, thirty years later, in 1964, John Bell found a theorem, involving complicated optical correlations (see Bell inequalities), which yielded measurably different results using Einstein's axioms compared to using Bohr's axioms. And it took roughly another twenty years until an experiment of Alain Aspect got results in favour of Bohr's axioms, not Einstein's. (Bohr's axioms are simply: The theory should be probabilistic in the sense of the Copenhagen interpretation.)

As a consequence, it is not necessary to explicitly cite Einstein's axioms, the more so since they concern subtle points on the "reality" and "locality" of experiments.

Regardless, the role of axioms in mathematics and in the above-mentioned sciences is different. In mathematics one neither "proves" nor "disproves" an axiom for a set of theorems; the point is simply that in the conceptual realm identified by the axioms, the theorems logically follow. In contrast, in physics a comparison with experiments always makes sense, since a falsified physical theory needs modification.

==Mathematical logic==
In the field of mathematical logic, a clear distinction is made between two notions of axioms: logical and non-logical (somewhat similar to the ancient distinction between "axioms" and "postulates" respectively).

===Logical axioms===
These are certain formulas in a formal language that are universally valid, that is, formulas that are satisfied by every assignment of values. Usually one takes as logical axioms at least some minimal set of tautologies that is sufficient for proving all tautologies in the language; in the case of predicate logic more logical axioms than that are required, in order to prove logical truths that are not tautologies in the strict sense.

====Examples====

=====Propositional logic=====
In propositional logic it is common to take as logical axioms all formulae of the following forms, where , , and can be any formulae of the language and where the included primitive connectives are only "" for negation of the immediately following proposition and "" for implication from antecedent to consequent propositions:

#
#
#

Each of these patterns is an axiom schema, a rule for generating an infinite number of axioms. For example, if , , and are propositional variables, then and are both instances of axiom schema 1, and hence are axioms. It can be shown that with only these three axiom schemata and modus ponens, one can prove all tautologies of the propositional calculus. It can also be shown that no pair of these schemata is sufficient for proving all tautologies with modus ponens.

Other axiom schemas involving the same or different sets of primitive connectives can be alternatively constructed. Mendelson, "6. Other Axiomatizations" of Ch. 1 

These axiom schemata are also used in the predicate calculus, but additional logical axioms are needed to include a quantifier in the calculus. Mendelson, "3. First-Order Theories" of Ch. 2 

=====First-order logic=====

Axiom of Equality. Let be a first-order language. For each variable , the formula

is universally valid.

This means that, for any variable symbol the formula can be regarded as an axiom. Also, in this example, for this not to fall into vagueness and a never-ending series of "primitive notions", either a precise notion of what we mean by (or, for that matter, "to be equal") has to be well established first, or a purely formal and syntactical usage of the symbol has to be enforced, only regarding it as a string and only a string of symbols, and mathematical logic does indeed do that.

Another, more interesting example axiom scheme, is that which provides us with what is known as Universal Instantiation:

Axiom scheme for Universal Instantiation. Given a formula in a first-order language , a variable and a term that is substitutable for in , the formula

is universally valid.

Where the symbol stands for the formula with the term substituted for . (See Substitution of variables.) In informal terms, this example allows us to state that, if we know that a certain property holds for every and that stands for a particular object in our structure, then we should be able to claim . Again, we are claiming that the formula is valid, that is, we must be able to give a "proof" of this fact, or more properly speaking, a metaproof. Actually, these examples are metatheorems of our theory of mathematical logic since we are dealing with the very concept of proof itself. Aside from this, we can also have Existential Generalization:

Axiom scheme for Existential Generalization. Given a formula in a first-order language , a variable and a term that is substitutable for in , the formula

is universally valid.

===Non-logical axioms===
Non-logical axioms are formulas that play the role of theory-specific assumptions. Reasoning about two different structures, for example the natural numbers and the integers, may involve the same logical axioms; the non-logical axioms aim to capture what is special about a particular structure (or set of structures, such as groups). Thus non-logical axioms, unlike logical axioms, are not tautologies. Another name for a non-logical axiom is postulate. Mendelson, "3. First-Order Theories: Proper Axioms" of Ch. 2 

Almost every modern mathematical theory starts from a given set of non-logical axioms, and it was thought that in principle every theory could be axiomatized in this way and formalized down to the bare language of logical formulas.

Non-logical axioms are often simply referred to as axioms in mathematical discourse. This does not mean that it is claimed that they are true in some absolute sense. For example, in some groups, the group operation is commutative, and this can be asserted with the introduction of an additional axiom, but without this axiom we can do quite well developing (the more general) group theory, and we can even take its negation as an axiom for the study of non-commutative groups.

Thus, an axiom is an elementary basis for a formal logic system that together with the rules of inference define a deductive system.

====Examples====
This section gives examples of mathematical theories that are developed entirely from a set of non-logical axioms (axioms, henceforth). A rigorous treatment of any of these topics begins with a specification of these axioms.

Basic theories, such as arithmetic, real analysis and complex analysis are often introduced non-axiomatically, but implicitly or explicitly there is generally an assumption that the axioms being used are the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with choice, abbreviated ZFC, or some very similar system of axiomatic set theory like Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory, a conservative extension of ZFC. Sometimes slightly stronger theories such as Morse-Kelley set theory or set theory with a strongly inaccessible cardinal allowing the use of a Grothendieck universe are used, but in fact most mathematicians can actually prove all they need in systems weaker than ZFC, such as second-order arithmetic.

The study of topology in mathematics extends all over through point set topology, algebraic topology, differential topology, and all the related paraphernalia, such as homology theory, homotopy theory. The development of abstract algebra brought with itself group theory, rings and fields, Galois theory.

This list could be expanded to include most fields of mathematics, including measure theory, ergodic theory, probability, representation theory, and differential geometry.

Combinatorics is an example of a field of mathematics which does not, in general, follow the axiomatic method.

=====Arithmetic=====
The Peano axioms are the most widely used axiomatization of first-order arithmetic. They are a set of axioms strong enough to prove many important facts about number theory and they allowed Gödel to establish his famous second incompleteness theorem. Mendelson, "5. The Fixed Point Theorem. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem" of Ch. 2 

We have a language where is a constant symbol and is a unary function and the following axioms:

# 
# 
# for any formula with one free variable.

The standard structure is where is the set of natural numbers, is the successor function and is naturally interpreted as the number 0.

=====Euclidean geometry=====
Probably the oldest, and most famous, list of axioms are the 4 + 1 Euclid's postulates of plane geometry. The axioms are referred to as "4 + 1" because for nearly two millennia the fifth (parallel) postulate ("through a point outside a line there is exactly one parallel") was suspected of being derivable from the first four. Ultimately, the fifth postulate was found to be independent of the first four. Indeed, one can assume that exactly one parallel through a point outside a line exists, or that infinitely many exist. This choice gives us two alternative forms of geometry in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to exactly 180 degrees or less, respectively, and are known as Euclidean and hyperbolic geometries. If one also removes the second postulate ("a line can be extended indefinitely") then elliptic geometry arises, where there is no parallel through a point outside a line, and in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to more than 180 degrees.

=====Real analysis=====
The object of study is the real numbers. The real numbers are uniquely picked out (up to isomorphism) by the properties of a Dedekind complete ordered field, meaning that any nonempty set of real numbers with an upper bound has a least upper bound. However, expressing these properties as axioms requires use of second-order logic. The Löwenheim-Skolem theorems tell us that if we restrict ourselves to first-order logic, any axiom system for the reals admits other models, including both models that are smaller than the reals and models that are larger. Some of the latter are studied in non-standard analysis.

===Role in mathematical logic===

====Deductive systems and completeness====
A deductive system consists of a set of logical axioms, a set of non-logical axioms, and a set of rules of inference. A desirable property of a deductive system is that it be complete. A system is said to be complete if, for all formulas ,

that is, for any statement that is a logical consequence of there actually exists a deduction of the statement from . This is sometimes expressed as "everything that is true is provable", but it must be understood that "true" here means "made true by the set of axioms", and not, for example, "true in the intended interpretation". Gödel's completeness theorem establishes the completeness of a certain commonly used type of deductive system.

Note that "completeness" has a different meaning here than it does in the context of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, which states that no recursive, consistent set of non-logical axioms of the Theory of Arithmetic is complete, in the sense that there will always exist an arithmetic statement such that neither nor can be proved from the given set of axioms.

There is thus, on the one hand, the notion of completeness of a deductive system and on the other hand that of completeness of a set of non-logical axioms. The completeness theorem and the incompleteness theorem, despite their names, do not contradict one another.

===Further discussion===
Early mathematicians regarded axiomatic geometry as a model of physical space, and obviously there could only be one such model. The idea that alternative mathematical systems might exist was very troubling to mathematicians of the 19th century and the developers of systems such as Boolean algebra made elaborate efforts to derive them from traditional arithmetic. Galois showed just before his untimely death that these efforts were largely wasted. Ultimately, the abstract parallels between algebraic systems were seen to be more important than the details and modern algebra was born. In the modern view axioms may be any set of formulas, as long as they are not known to be inconsistent.

==See also==

* Axiomatic system
* Dogma
* List of axioms
* Model theory
* Regulæ Juris
* Theorem

==References==
 
* Mendelson, Elliot (1987). Introduction to mathematical logic. Belmont, California: Wadsworth & Brooks. ISBN 0-534-06624-0

==External links==

* 
* 
* Metamath axioms page

*



[[Alpha]]

Alpha (uppercase Α, lowercase α; Álpha) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter aleph Aleph. Letters that arose from alpha include the Latin A and the Cyrillic letter А.

In English, the noun "alpha" is used as a synonym for "beginning", or "first" (in a series), reflecting its Greek roots. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alpha 

==Uses==

===Greek===
In Ancient Greek, alpha was pronounced when short and when long. Where there is ambiguity, long and short alpha are sometimes written with a macron and breve today: Ᾱᾱ, Ᾰᾰ.
*ὥρα = ὥρᾱ hōrā "a time"
*γλῶσσα = γλῶσσᾰ glôssa "tongue"

In Modern Greek, vowel length has been lost, and all instances of alpha represent the short .

In the polytonic orthography of Greek, alpha, like other vowel letters, can occur with several diacritic marks: any of three accent symbols (), and either of two breathing marks (), as well as combinations of these. It can also combine with the iota subscript ().

====Greek grammar====
In the Attic-Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, long alpha fronted to (eta). In Ionic, the shift took place in all positions. In Attic, the shift did not take place after epsilon, iota, and rho (ε, ι, ρ; e, i, r). In Doric and Aeolic, long alpha is preserved in all positions. Herbert Weir Smyth. Greek grammar for colleges. paragraph 30 and note. 
*Doric, Aeolic, Attic — Ionic , "country"
*Doric, Aeolic — Attic, Ionic , "report"

Privative a is the Ancient Greek prefix ἀ- or ἀν- a-, an-, added to words to negate them. It originates from the Proto-Indo-European * (syllabic nasal) and is cognate with English un-.

Copulative a is the Greek prefix ἁ- or ἀ- ha-, a-. It comes from Proto-Indo-European *.

===Math and science===

The letter alpha represents various concepts in physics and chemistry, including alpha radiation, angular acceleration, alpha particles, alpha carbon and strength of electromagnetic interaction (as Fine-structure constant). Alpha also stands for thermal expansion coefficient of a compound in physical chemistry. It is also commonly used in mathematics in algebraic solutions representing quantities such as angles. Furthermore, in mathematics, the letter alpha is used to denote the area underneath a normal curve in statistics to denote significance level when proving null and alternative hypotheses. In zoology, it is used to name the dominant individual in a wolf or dog pack.

The proportionality operator "∝" (in Unicode: U+221D) is sometimes mistaken for alpha. 

The uppercase letter alpha is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercase Latin A.

===International Phonetic Alphabet===
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, a letter based on the lower case of alpha represents the open back unrounded vowel.

==History and symbolism==

===Etymology===
Alpha was derived from aleph, which in Phoenician means "ox". alpha on the Online Etymology Dictionary 

===Plutarch===
Plutarch, in Moralia, Symposiacs, Book IX, questions II & III On-line text at Adelaide library presents a discussion on why the letter alpha stands first in the alphabet. Ammonius asks Plutarch what he, being a Boeotian, has to say for Cadmus, the Phoenician who reputedly settled in Thebes and introduced the alphabet to Greece, placing alpha first because it is the Phoenician name for ox — which, unlike Hesiod, Hesiod, in Works and Days (see on Perseus Project), advises the early Greek farmers, "First of all, get a house, then a woman and third, an ox for the plough." the Phoenicians considered not the second or third, but the first of all necessities. "Nothing at all," Plutarch replied. He then added that he would rather be assisted by Lamprias, his own grandfather, than by Dionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. For Lamprias had said that the first articulate sound made is "alpha", because it is very plain and simple — the air coming off the mouth does not require any motion of the tongue — and therefore this is the first sound that children make.

According to Plutarch's natural order of attribution of the vowels to the planets, alpha was connected with the Moon.

===Alpha and Omega===
Memorial Stained Glass window, Royal Military College of Canada features Alpha and Omega
Alpha, both as a symbol and term, is used to refer to or describe a variety of things, including the first or most significant occurrence of something. The New Testament has God declaring himself to be the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Revelation 22:13, KJV, and see also 1:8).

===Language===
The term "alpha" has been used to denote position in social hierarchy, an example being "alpha male".

==Computer encodings==
* Greek alpha / Coptic alfa 

For accented Greek characters, see diacritics#Computer encoding|Greek diacritics: Computer encoding].

* Latin / IPA alpha

* Mathematical / Technical alpha

==References==



[[Alvin Toffler]]

Alvin Toffler (born October 4, 1928) is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communication revolution and technological singularity.

Toffler is a former associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact through effects like information overload. He moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society. His later focus has been on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware, the proliferation of new technologies, and capitalism.

He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, an editor of Fortune magazine, and a business consultant. “Alvin Toffler Speaker Biography”—Milken Institute, 2003. 

Toffler is married to Heidi Toffler, also a writer and futurist. They live in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California, just north of Sunset Boulevard.

The couple’s only child, Karen Toffler, (1954–2000), died at the age of 46 after more than a decade suffering from Guillain–Barré syndrome. http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanphotos/2415309182/ 

==Early life and career==
Alvin Toffler was born in New York city in 1928. He met his future wife, Heidi, at New York University where he was an English major and she was starting a graduate course in linguistics. Being radical students, they decided against further graduate work, moved to the Midwestern United States, and married, spending the next five years as blue-collar workers on assembly lines while studying industrial mass production in their daily work. Heidi became a union shop steward in the aluminum foundry where she worked. Alvin became a millwright and welder. “Alvin and Heidi Toffler: Partnership—Toffler website 

Their hands-on practical labor experience got Toffler a position on a union-backed newspaper, a transfer to its Washington bureau, then three years as a White House Correspondent covering Congress and the White House for a Pennsylvania daily. Meanwhile, his wife worked at a specialized library for business and behavioral science. 

They returned to New York City when Fortune magazine invited Alvin to become its labor columnist, later having him write about business and management. 

After leaving Fortune magazine, Alvin Toffler was hired by IBM to do research and write a paper on the social and organizational impact of computers, leading to his contact with the earliest computer "gurus" and artificial intelligence researchers and proponents. Xerox invited him to write about its research laboratory and AT&T consulted him for strategic advice. This AT&T work led to a study of telecommunications which advised its top management for the company to break up more than a decade before the government forced AT&T to break up. 

In the mid-’60s, the Tofflers began work on what would later become Future Shock. 

In 1996, with Tom Johnson, an American business consultant, they co-founded Toffler Associates, an advisory firm designed to implement many of the ideas the Tofflers had written on. The firm worked with businesses, NGOs, and governments in the U.S., South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and other countries. 

==His ideas==
Toffler explains, "Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest. Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skills that are not just cognitive; they’re emotional, they’re affectional. You can’t run the society on data and computers alone." Alvin Toffler interviewed by Norman Swann, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National, "Life Matters,” March 5, 1998. Toffler is also frequently cited as stating: "Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn." The words came from Herbert Gerjuoy, whom Toffler cites in full as follows: "The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction — how to teach himself." 

In his book The Third Wave, Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of "waves"—each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside.
* First Wave is the society after agrarian revolution and replaced the first hunter-gatherer cultures.
* Second Wave is the society during the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 17th century through the mid-20th century). The main components of the Second Wave society are nuclear family, factory-type education system, and the corporation. Toffler writes: “The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy.”
* Third Wave is the post-industrial society. According to Toffler, since the late 1950s, most nations have been moving away from a Second Wave Society into what he would call a Third Wave Society, one based on actionable knowledge as a primary resource. His description of this (super-industrial society) dovetails into other writers' concepts (like the Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, technetronic age, scientific-technological revolution), which to various degrees predicted demassification, diversity, knowledge-based production, and the acceleration of change (one of Toffler’s key maxims is "change is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways").

In this post-industrial society, there is a wide diversity of lifestyles (“subcultures”). Adhocracies (fluid organizations) adapt quickly to changes. Information can substitute most of the material resources (see ersatz) and becomes the main material for workers (cognitarians instead of proletarians), who are loosely affiliated. Mass customization offers the possibility of cheap, personalized, production catering to small niches (see just-in-time production).

The gap between producer and consumer is bridged by technology using a so-called configuration system. “Prosumers" can fill their own needs (see open source, assembly kit, freelance work). This was the notion that new technologies are enabling the radical fusion of the producer and consumer into the prosumer. In some cases, prosuming entails a "third job" where the corporation "outsources" its labor not to other countries, but to the unpaid consumer, such as when we do our own banking through an ATM instead of a teller that the bank must employ, or trace our own postal packages on the internet instead of relying on a paid clerk.

Since the 1960s, people have been trying to make sense out of the impact of new technologies and social change. Toffler’s writings have been influential beyond the confines of scientific, economic, and public policy discussions. Techno music pioneer Juan Atkins cites Toffler’s phrase "techno rebels" in The Third Wave as inspiring him to use the word "techno" to describe the musical style he helped to create 
Toffler’s works and ideas have been subject to various criticisms, usually with the same argumentation used against futurology: that foreseeing the future is nigh impossible. In the 1990s, his ideas were publicly lauded by Newt Gingrich.

The development Toffler believes may go down as this era’s greatest turning point is the creation of wealth in outer space. Wealth today, he argues, is created everywhere (globalisation), nowhere (cyberspace), and out there (outer space). Global positioning satellites are key to synchronising precision time and data streams for everything from cellphone calls to ATM withdrawals. They allow just-in-time (JIT) productivity because of precise tracking. GPS is also becoming central to air traffic control. And satellites increase agricultural productivity through tracking weather, enabling more accurate forecasts.

==Critical acclaim==
Accenture, the management consultancy firm, has dubbed him the third most influential voice among business leaders, after Bill Gates and Peter Drucker. In the 2002 Accenture list of Top 50 business intellectuals, he was ranked eighth. He has also been described in the Financial Times as the "world’s most famous futurologist." People's Daily classes him among the 50 foreigners that shaped modern China. 50 foreigners shaping China’s modern development, August 30, 2006. Coverage at the Tofflers’ site One author characterizes him as an important early influence on radical centrist political thought. Satin, Mark (2004). Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now. Westview Press and Basic Books, p. 30. ISBN 978-0-8133-4190-3. 

==Selected awards==
He is the recipient of several prestigious prizes, including the McKinsey Foundation Book Award for Contributions to Management Literature, Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres, and appointments, including Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. 

In late 2006, the Tofflers were recipients of Brown University’s Independent Award. Bios and Affiliations—Toffler website 

==Bibliography==
Alvin Toffler co-wrote his books with his wife Heidi.
* The Culture Consumers (1964) St. Martin's Press ISBN 1199154814
* The Schoolhouse in the City (1968) Praeger (editors) ASIN: B000HUAUGW
* Future Shock (1970) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-27737-5
* The Futurists (1972) Random House (editors) ISBN 0394317130
* Learning for Tomorrow (1974) Random House (editors) ISBN 0394719808
* The Eco-Spasm Report (1975) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-14474-X
* The Third Wave (1980) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-24698-4
* Previews & Premises (1983) William Morrow & Co ISBN 0-688-01910-2
* The Adaptive Corporation (1985) McGraw-Hill ISBN 0-553-25383-2
* (1990) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-29215-3
* Creating a New Civilization (1995) Turner Pub ISBN 1570362246
* War and Anti-War (1995) Warner Books ISBN 0-446-60259-0
* Revolutionary Wealth (2006) Knopf ISBN 0-375-40174-1

==See also==

* Daniel Bell
* Norman Swan
* Human nature
* Future Shock

==References==

==External links==

* 
* Toffler Associates, the executive advisory firm formed by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.
* After Words: Alvin Toffler interviewed by Newt Gingrich (Real Audio format)
* Alvin Toffler interview on The Gregory Mantell Show
* BookTalk.org: discuss Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock with other readers
* 
*Booknotes interview with Alvin and Heidi Toffler on Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave, April 16, 1995.



[[The Amazing Spider-Man]]

The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously, with a brief interruption in 1995, until its relaunch with a new numbering order in 1999. In 2003 the series reverted to the numbering order of the first volume. The title has occasionally been published biweekly, and was published three times a month from 2008 to 2010. A film named after the comic was released July 3, 2012.

After DC Comics' relaunch of Action Comics and Detective Comics with new #1 issues in 2011, it had been the highest-numbered American comic still in circulation until it was cancelled. The title ended its 50-year run as a continuously published comic with issue #700 in December 2012. It was replaced by The Superior Spider-Man as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch of Marvel's comic lines. 
The title was relaunched in April 2014, starting fresh from issue #1, after the "Goblin Nation" story arc published in The Superior Spider-Man and Superior Spider-Man Team-Up.

==Publication history==
Amazing Fantasy vol. 1 #15 (August 1962), was Spider-Man's first appearance Art by Jack Kirby
The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Steve Ditko, and the pair produced 38 issues from March 1963 to July 1966. Ditko left after the 38th issue, while Lee remained as writer until issue 100. Since then, many writers and artists have taken over the monthly comic through the years, chronicling the adventures of Marvel's most identifiable hero.

The Amazing Spider-Man has been the character's flagship series for his first fifty years in publication, and was the only monthly series to star Spider-Man until Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1976 (although 1972 saw the debut of Marvel Team-Up, with the vast majority of issues featuring Spider-Man along with a rotating cast of other Marvel characters). Most of the major characters and villains of the Spider-Man saga have been introduced in Amazing, and with few exceptions, it is where most key events in the character's history have occurred. The title was published continuously until #441 (Nov. 1998) The Amazing Spider-Man at the Grand Comics Database when Marvel Comics relaunched it as vol. 2, #1 (Jan. 1999), The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2 at the Grand Comics Database but on Spider-Man's 40th anniversary, this new title reverted to using the numbering of the original series, beginning again with issue #500 (Dec. 2003) and lasting until the final issue, #700 (Dec. 2012). The Amazing Spider-Man (continuation of volume 1) at the Grand Comics Database 

===The 1960s===
Due to strong sales on the character's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-Man was given his own ongoing series in March 1963. DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 91: "Thanks to a flood of fan mail, Spider-Man was awarded his own title six months after his first appearance. Amazing Spider-Man began as a bimonthly title, but was quickly promoted to a monthly." The initial years of the series, under Lee and Ditko, chronicled Spider-Man's nascent career with his civilian life as hard-luck yet perpetually good-humored teenager Peter Parker. Peter balanced his career as Spider-Man with his job as a freelance photographer for The Daily Bugle under the bombastic editor-publisher J. Jonah Jameson to support himself and his frail Aunt May. At the same time, Peter dealt with public hostility towards Spider-Man and the antagonism of his classmates Flash Thompson and Liz Allan at Midtown High School, while embarking on a tentative, ill-fated romance with Jameson's secretary, Betty Brant.

By focusing on Parker's everyday problems, Lee and Ditko created a groundbreakingly flawed, self-doubting superhero, and the first major teenaged superhero to be a protagonist and not a sidekick. Ditko's quirky art provided a stark contrast to the more cleanly dynamic stylings of Marvel's most prominent artist, Jack Kirby, and combined with the humor and pathos of Lee's writing to lay the foundation for what became an enduring mythos.

Most of Spider-Man's key villains and supporting characters were introduced during this time. Issue #1 (March 1963) featured the first appearances of J. Jonah Jameson DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 91 and his astronaut son John Jameson, and the supervillain the Chameleon. It included the hero's first encounter with the superhero team The Fantastic Four. Issue #2 (May 1963) featured the first appearance of the Vulture DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 92: "Introduced in the lead story of The Amazing Spider-Man #2 and created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the Vulture was the first in a long line of animal-inspired super-villains that were destined to battle everyone's favorite web-slinger." and the beginning of Parker's freelance photography career at the newspaper The Daily Bugle. 

The Lee-Ditko era continued to usher in a significant number of villains and supporting characters, including Doctor Octopus in #3 (July 1963); DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 93: "Dr. Octopus shared many traits with Peter Parker. They were both shy, both interested in science, and both had trouble relating to women...Otto Octavius even looked like a grown up Peter Parker. Lee and Ditko intended Otto to be the man Peter might have become if he hadn't been raised with a sense of responsiblity" the Sandman and Betty Brant in #4 (Sept. 1963); the Lizard in #6 (Nov. 1963); DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 95 Living Brain in (#8, January, 1964); Electro in #9 (March 1964); DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 98 Mysterio in #13 (June 1964); the Green Goblin in #14 (July 1964); DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 101: "When the Green Goblin soared into the webhead's life, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko didn't bother to discuss his secret identity. They just knew they had an interesting character to add to Spider-Man's growing gallery of villains." Kraven The Hunter in #15 (Aug. 1964); reporter Ned Leeds in #18 (Nov. 1964); and the Scorpion in #20 (Jan. 1965). The Molten Man was introduced in #28 (Sept. 1965) which also featured Parker's graduation from high school. Peter began attending Empire State University in #31 (Dec. 1965), the issue which featured the first appearances of friends and classmates Gwen Stacy DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 111: "Gwen Stacy, the platinum blonde ex-beauty queen of Standard High, met Peter Parker on his first day in college in this issue." and Harry Osborn. Harry's father, Norman Osborn first appeared in #23 (April 1965) as a member of Jameson's country club but is not named nor revealed as Harry's father until #37 (June 1966). One of the most celebrated issues of the Lee-Ditko run is #33 (Feb. 1966), the third part of the story arc "If This Be My Destiny...!", and featuring the dramatic scene of Spider-Man, through force of will and thoughts of family, escaping from being pinned by heavy machinery. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Steve Ditko squeezes every ounce of anguish out of Spider-Man's predicament, complete with visions of the uncle he failed and the aunt he has sworn to save." Peter David observed that "After his origin, this two-page sequence from Amazing Spider-Man #33 is perhaps the best-loved sequence from the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era." Steve Saffel stated the "full page Ditko image from The Amazing Spider-Man #33 is one of the most powerful ever to appear in the series and influenced writers and artists for many years to come." and Matthew K. Manning wrote that "Ditko's illustrations for the first few pages of this Lee story included what would become one of the most iconic scenes in Spider-Man's history." The story was chosen as #15 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001. Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the story that "These first five pages are a modern-day equivalent to Shakespeare as Parker's soliloquy sets the stage for his next action. And with dramatic pacing and storytelling, Ditko delivers one of the great sequences in all comics." 

The Amazing Spider-Man #23 (April 1965), featuring nemesis the Green Goblin. Cover art by co-creator Steve Ditko.
Although credited only as artist for most of his run, Ditko would eventually plot the stories as well as draw them, leaving Lee to script the dialogue. A rift between Ditko and Lee developed, and the two men were not on speaking terms long before Ditko completed his last issue, The Amazing Spider-Man #38 (July 1966). The exact reasons for the Ditko-Lee split have never been fully explained. DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 117: "To this day, no one really knows why Ditko quit. Bullpen sources reported he was unhappy with the way Lee scripted some of his plots, using a tongue-in-cheek approach to stories Ditko wanted handled seriously." Spider-Man successor artist John Romita, Sr., in a 2010 deposition, recalled that Lee and Ditko "ended up not being able to work together because they disagreed on almost everything, cultural, social, historically, everything, they disagreed on characters..." 

In successor penciler Romita Sr.'s first issue, #39 (Aug. 1966), nemesis the Green Goblin discovers Spider-Man's secret identity and reveals his own to the captive hero. Romita's Spider-Man – more polished and heroic-looking than Ditko's – became the model for two decades. The Lee-Romita era saw the introduction of such characters as Daily Bugle managing editor Robbie Robertson in #52 (Sept. 1967) and NYPD Captain George Stacy, father of Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy, in #56 (Jan. 1968). The most important supporting character to be introduced during the Romita era was Mary Jane Watson, who made her first full appearance in #42, (Nov. 1966), DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 119: "After teasing the readers for more than two years, Stan Lee finally allowed Peter Parker to meet Mary Jane Watson." although she first appeared in #25 (June 1965) with her face obscured and had been mentioned since #15 (Aug. 1964). Peter David wrote in 2010 that Romita "made the definitive statement of his arrival by pulling Mary Jane out from behind the oversized potted plant blocked the readers' view of her face in issue #25 and placing her on panel in what would instantly become an iconic moment." David and Greenberger, p. 38 Romita has stated that in designing Mary Jane, he "used Ann-Margret from the movie Bye Bye Birdie as a guide, using her coloring, the shape of her face, her red hair and her form-fitting short skirts." Saffel "A Legend is Born", p. 27 

Lee and Romita toned down the prevalent sense of antagonism in Parker's world by improving Parker's relationship with the supporting characters and having stories focused as much on the social and college lives of the characters as they did on Spider-Man's adventures. The stories became more topical, Manning "1960s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 46: "Stan Lee tackled the issues of the day again when, with artists John Romita and Jim Mooney, he dealt with social unrest at Empire State University." addressing issues such as civil rights, racism, prisoners' rights, the Vietnam War, and political elections.

Issue #50 (June 1967) introduced the highly enduring criminal mastermind the Kingpin, DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 122: "Stan Lee wanted to create a new kind of crime boss. Someone who treated crime as if it were a business...He pitched this idea to artist John Romita and it was Wilson Fisk who emerged in The Amazing Spider-Man #50." who would become a major force as well in the superhero series Daredevil. Other notable first appearances in the Lee-Romita era include the Rhino in #41 (Oct. 1966), DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 119: "The first original super-villain produced by the new Spider-Man team of Stan Lee and John Romita was the Rhino." the Shocker in #46 (March 1967), DeFalco "1960s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 121 the Prowler in #78 (Nov. 1969), and the Kingpin's son, Richard Fisk, in #83 (April 1970). 

===The 1970s===

Several spin-off series debuted in the 1970s: Marvel Team-Up in 1972, Sanderson, Peter "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 155: "Marvel Team-Up #1 inaugurated a new series in which Spider-Man teamed with a different hero in each issue."" and The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1976. Sanderson "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 177: "Spider-Man already starred in two monthly series: The Amazing Spider-Man and Marvel Team-Up. Now Marvel added a third, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, initially written by Gerry Conway with art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito." A short-lived series titled Giant-Size Spider-Man began in July 1974 and ran six issues through 1975. Giant-Size Spider-Man at the Grand Comics Diiiuatabase Spidey Super Stories, a series aimed at children ages 6–10, ran for 57 issues from October 1974 through 1982. Spidey Super Stories at the Grand Comics Database 
The flagship title's second decade took a grim turn with a story in #89-90 (Oct.-Nov. 1970) featuring the death of Captain George Stacy. Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 55: "Captain George Stacy had always believed in Spider-Man and had given him the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. So in Spider-Man's world, there was a good chance that he would be destined to die." This was the first Spider-Man story to be penciled by Gil Kane, Gil Kane's run on The Amazing Spider-Man at the Grand Comics Database who would alternate drawing duties with Romita for the next year-and-a-half and would draw several landmark issues.

One such story took place in the controversial issues #96-98 (May–July 1971). Writer-editor Lee defied the Comics Code Authority with this story, in which Parker's friend Harry Osborn, was hospitalized after tripping on LSD. Lee wrote this story upon a request from the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for a story about the dangers of drugs. Citing its dictum against depicting drug use, even in an anti-drug context, the CCA refused to put its seal on these issues. With the approval of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, Lee had the comics published without the seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won praise for its socially conscious efforts. Saffel "Bucking the Establishment, Marvel Style", p. 60: "The stories received widespread mainstream publicity, and Marvel was hailed for sticking to its guns." The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms. Daniels, pp. 152 and 154: "As a result of Marvel's successful stand, the Comics Code had begun to look just a little foolish. Some of its more ridiculous restrictions were abandoned because of Lee's decision." 

The "The Six Arms Saga" of #100-102 (Sept.–Nov. 1971) introduced Morbius, the Living Vampire. The second installment was the first Amazing Spider-Man story not written by co-creator Lee, Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 59: "In the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man to be written by someone other than Stan Lee, Roy Thomas was faced with the mammoth task of not only filling the vaunted writer's shoes but also solving the bizarre cliffhanger from the last issue." with Roy Thomas taking over writing the book for several months before Lee returned to write #105-110 (Feb.-July 1972). Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 61: "Stan Lee had returned to The Amazing Spider-Man for a handful of issues after leaving following issue #100 (September 1971). With issue #110. Lee once again departed the title into which he had infused so much of his own personality over his near 10-year stint as regular writer." Lee, who was going on to become Marvel Comics' publisher, with Thomas becoming editor-in-chief, then turned writing duties over to 19-year-old wunderkind Gerry Conway, Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 62: "Amazing Spider-Man #111 marked the dawning of a new era: writer Gerry Conway came on board as Stan Lee's replacement. Alongside artist John Romita, Conway started his run by picking up where Lee left off." who scripted the series through 1975. Romita penciled Conway's first half-dozen issues, which introduced the gangster Hammerhead in #113 (Oct. 1972). Kane then succeeded Romita as penciler, although Romita would continue inking Kane for a time.

The most memorable work of the Conway/Kane/Romita team was #121-122 (June–July 1973), which featured the death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin in "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" in issue #121. Sanderson "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 159: "In June , Marvel embarked on a story that would have far-reaching effects. The Amazing Spider-Man artist John Romita, Sr. suggested killing off Spider-Man's beloved Gwen Stacy in order to shake up the book's status quo." Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 68: "This story by writer Gerry Conway and penciler Gil Kane would go down in history as one of the most memorable events of Spider-Man's life." David and Greenberger p. 49: "The idea of beloved supporting characters meeting their deaths may be standard operating procedure now but in 1973 it was unprecedented...Gwen's death took villainy and victimhood to an entirely new level." Her demise and the Goblin's apparent death one issue later formed a story arc widely considered as the most defining in the history of Spider-Man. Saffel "Death and the Spider", p. 65: "Death struck again, with repercussions that would ripple through comics from that day forward." The aftermath of the story deepened both the characterization of Mary Jane Watson and her relationship with Parker.

In 1973, Gil Kane was succeeded by Ross Andru, whose run lasted from issue #125 (October 1973) to #185 (October 1978). Ross Andru's run on The Amazing Spider-Man at the Grand Comics Database Issue #129 (Feb. 1974) introduced the Punisher, Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 72: "Writer Gerry Conway and artist Ross Andru introduced two major new characters to Spider-Man's world and the Marvel Universe in this self-contained issue. Not only would the vigilante known as the Punisher go on to be one of the most important and iconic Marvel creations of the 1970s, but his instigator, the Jackal, would become the next big threat in Spider-Man's life." who would become one of Marvel Comics' most popular characters. The Conway-Andru era featured the first appearances of the Man-Wolf in #124-125 (Sept.-Oct. 1973); the near-marriage of Doctor Octopus and Aunt May in #131 (April 1974); Harry Osborn stepping into his father's role as the Green Goblin in #135-137 (Aug.-Oct.1974); and the original "Clone Saga", containing the introduction of Spider-Man's clone, in #147-149 (Aug.-Oct. 1975).
Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane produced the title's 150th issue (Nov. 1975) before Len Wein became writer with issue #151. Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 85: "To signify the start of this new era Spider-Man's new regular chronicler writer Len Wein would come onboard with this issue." During Wein's tenure, Harry Osborn and Liz Allen dated and became engaged, J. Jonah Jameson was introduced to his eventual second wife, Marla Madison, and Aunt May suffered a heart attack. Wein's last story on Amazing was a five-issue arc in #176-180 (Jan.-May 1978) featuring a third Green Goblin (Harry Osborn’s psychiatrist, Bart Hamilton). Marv Wolfman, Marvel's editor-in-chief from 1975 to 1976, succeeded Wein as writer, and in his first issue, #182 (July 1978), had Parker propose marriage to Watson who refused, in the following issue. Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 103: "As new regular writer Marv Wolfman took over the scripting duties from Len Wein and partnered with artist Ross Andru, Peter Parker decided to make a dramatic change in his personal life." Keith Pollard succeeded Ross Andru as artist shortly afterward, and with Wolfman introduced the likable rogue the Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) in #194 (July 1979). Manning "1970s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 107: "Spider-Man wasn't exactly sure what to think about his luck when he met a beautiful new thief on the prowl named the Black Cat, courtesy of a story by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Keith Pollard." As a love interest for Spider-Man, the Black Cat would go on to be an important supporting character for the better part of the next decade, and remain a friend and occasional lover into the 2010s.

===The 1980s===
The Amazing Spider-Man #252 (May 1984): Spider-Man's black costume debuts. Cover art by Ron Frenz and Klaus Janson.
The Amazing Spider-Man #200 (Jan. 1980) featured the return and death of the burglar who killed Spider-Man's Uncle Ben. Writer Marv Wolfman and penciler Keith Pollard both left the title by mid-year, succeeded by Dennis O'Neil, a writer known for groundbreaking 1970s work at rival DC Comics, Manning "1980s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 115: "Acclaimed writer Denny O'Neil had returned to Marvel and...took over as the regular writer on The Amazing Spider-Man from issue #207 (August ) until the end of 1981." and penciler John Romita, Jr.. O'Neil wrote two issues of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual which were both drawn by Frank Miller. The 1980 Annual featured a team-up with Doctor Strange Manning "1980s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 114: "Writer Denny O'Neil and artist Frank Miller...used their considerable talents in this rare collaboration that teamed two other legends - Dr. Strange and Spider-Man." while the 1981 Annual showcased a meeting with the Punisher. Manning "1980s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 120: "Writer Denny O'Neil teamed with artist Frank Miller to concoct a Spider-Man annual that played to both their strengths. Miller and O'Neil seemed to flourish in the gritty world of street crime so tackling a Spider/Punisher fight was a natural choice." Roger Stern, who had written nearly 20 issues of sister title The Spectacular Spider-Man, took over Amazing with issue #224 (January 1982). Manning "1980s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 126: "Writer Roger Stern moved from the helm of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man to sit behind the wheel as the new regular writer of The Amazing Spider-Man with this issue." During his two years on the title, Stern augmented the backgrounds of long-established Spider-Man villains, and with Romita Jr. created the mysterious supervillain the Hobgoblin in #238-239 (March–April 1983). Manning "1980s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 133: "Writer Roger Stern and artists John Romita, Jr. and John Romita, Sr. introduced a new - and frighteningly sane - version of the Goblin concept with the debut of the Hobgoblin." Fans engaged with the mystery of the Hobgoblin's secret identity, which continued throughout #244-245 and 249-251 (Sept.-Oct. 1983 and Feb.-April 1984). One lasting change was the reintroduction of Mary Jane Watson as a more serious, mature woman who becomes Peter's confidante after she reveals that she knows his secret identity. Stern wrote "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" in The Amazing Spider-Man #248 (January 1984), a story which ranks among his most popular. David and Greenberger, pp. 68-69: "Writer Roger Stern is primarily remembered for two major contributions to the world of Peter Parker. One was a short piece entitled 'The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man'... other major contribution was the introduction of the Hobgoblin." 

By mid-1984, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over scripting and penciling. DeFalco helped establish Parker and Watson's mature relationship, laying the foundation for the characters' wedding in 1987. Notably, in #257 (Oct. 1984), Watson tells Parker that she knows he is Spider-Man, and in #259 (Dec. 1984), she reveals to Parker the extent of her troubled childhood. Other notable issues of the DeFalco-Frenz era include #252 (May 1984), with the first appearance of Spider-Man's black costume, which the hero would wear almost exclusively for the next four years' worth of comics; the debut of criminal mastermind the Rose, in #253 (June 1984); the revelation in #258 (Nov. 1984) that the black costume is a living being, a symbiote; and the introduction of the female mercenary Silver Sable in #265 (June 1985).

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz were both removed from The Amazing Spider-Man in 1986 by editor Owsley under acrimonious circumstances. A succession of artists including Alan Kupperberg, John Romita, Jr., and Alex Saviuk penciled the book from 1987 to 1988; Owsley wrote the book for the first half of 1987, scripting the five-part "Gang War" story (#284-288) that DeFalco plotted. Former Spectacular Spider-Man writer Peter David scripted #289 (June 1987), which revealed Ned Leeds as being the Hobgoblin although this was retconned in 1996 by Roger Stern into Leeds not being the original Hobgoblin after all.

David Michelinie took over as writer in the next issue, for a story arc in #290-292 (July-Sept. 1987) that led to the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21. The "Kraven's Last Hunt" storyline by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod crossed over into The Amazing Spider-Man #293 and 294. DeFalco "1980s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 231: "The six-issue story arc...ran through all the Spider-Man titles for two months." Issue #298 (March 1988) was the first Spider-Man comic to be drawn by future industry star Todd McFarlane, the first regular artist on The Amazing Spider-Man since Frenz's departure. McFarlane revolutionized Spider-Man's look. His depiction – large-eyed, with wiry, contorted limbs, and messy, knotted, convoluted webbing – influenced the way virtually all subsequent artists would draw the character. McFarlane's other significant contribution to the Spider-Man canon was the design for what would become one of Spider-Man's most wildly popular antagonists, the supervillain Venom. Manning "1980s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 169: "In this landmark installment #298, one of the most popular characters in the wall-crawler's history would begin to step into the spotlight courtesy of one of the most popular artists to ever draw the web-slinger." Issue #299 (April 1988) featured Venom's first appearance (a last-page cameo) before his first full appearance in #300 (May 1988). The latter issue featured Spider-Man reverting to his original red-and-blue costume.

Other notable issues of the Michelinie-McFarlane era include #312 (Feb. 1989), featuring the Green Goblin vs. the Hobgoblin; and #315-317 (May–July 1989), with the return of Venom. In July 2012, Todd McFarlane's original cover art for The Amazing Spider-Man #328 sold for a bid of $657,250, making it the most expensive American comic book art ever sold at auction. 

===The 1990s===
With a civilian life as a married man, the Spider-Man of the 1990s was different from the superhero of the previous three decades. McFarlane left the title in 1990 to write and draw a new series titled simply Parker: Spider-Man|Spider-Man]. His successor, Erik Larsen, penciled the book from early 1990 to mid-1991. After issue #350, Larsen was succeeded by Mark Bagley, who had won the 1986 Marvel Tryout Contest Saffel "Taking Stock: The 1990s" pp. 185-186 and was assigned a number of low-profile penciling jobs followed by a run on New Warriors in 1990. Bagley penciled the flagship Spider-Man title from 1991 to 1996. Mark Bagley's run on The Amazing Spider-Man at the Grand Comics Database 

Issues #361-363 (April–June 1992) introduced Carnage, Cowsill, Alan "1990s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 197: "Artist Mark Bagley's era of The Amazing Spider-Man hit its stride as Carnage revealed the true face of his evil. Carnage was a symbiotic offspring produced when Venom bonded to psychopath Cletus Kasady." a second symbiote nemesis for Spider-Man. The series' 30th-anniversary issue, #365 (Aug. 1992), was a double-sized, hologram-cover issue Cowsill "1990s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 199 with the cliffhanger ending of Peter Parker's parents, long thought dead, reappearing alive. It would be close to two years before they were revealed to be impostors, who are killed in #388 (April 1994), scripter Michelinie's last issue. His 1987–1994 stint gave him the second-longest run as writer on the title, behind Stan Lee.

Issue #375 was released with a gold foil cover. Cowsill "1990s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 203 There was an error affecting some issues and which are missing the majority of the foil. 

With #389, writer J. M. DeMatteis, whose Spider-Man credits included the 1987 "Kraven's Last Hunt" story arc and a 1991–1993 run on The Spectacular Spider-Man, took over the title. From October 1994 to June 1996, Amazing stopped running stories exclusive to it, and ran installments of multi-part stories that crossed over into all the Spider-Man books. One of the few self-contained stories during this period was in #400 (April 1995), which featured the death of Aunt May &mdash; later revealed to have been faked (although the death still stands in the MC2 continuity). The "Clone Saga" culminated with the revelation that the Spider-Man who had appeared in the previous 20 years of comics was a clone of the real Spider-Man. This plot twist was massively unpopular with many readers, and was later reversed in the "Revelations" story arc that crossed over the Spider-Man books in late 1996.

The Clone Saga tied into a publishing gap after #406 (Oct. 1995), when the title was temporarily replaced by The Amazing Scarlet Spider #1-2 (Nov.-Dec. 1995), featuring Ben Reilly. The series picked up again with #407 (Jan. 1996), with Tom DeFalco returning as writer. Bagley completed his 5½-year run by September 1996. A succession of artists, including Ron Garney, Steve Skroce, Joe Bennett, and Rafael Kayanan, penciled the book until the final issue, #441 (Nov. 1998), after which Marvel rebooted the title with vol. 2, #1 (Jan. 1999).

===Relaunch and the 2000s===
Marvel began The Amazing Spider-Man anew with vol. 2, #1 (Jan. 1999). Cowsill "1990s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 246: "This new series heralded a fresh start for the web-slinger's adventures." Howard Mackie wrote the first 29 issues. The relaunch included the Sandman being regressed to his criminal ways and the "death" of Mary Jane, which was ultimately reversed. Other elements included the introduction of a new Spider-Woman (who was spun off into her own short-lived series) and references to John Byrne's , which launched at the same time as the reboot. Mackie's run ended with The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2001, which saw the return of Mary Jane, who then left Parker upon reuniting with him.

With #30 (June 2001), J. Michael Straczynski took over as writer Cowsill "2000s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 262: "J. Michael Straczynski and artist John Romita, Jr. took the helm in this issue to create some of the best Spider-Man stories of the decade." and oversaw additional storylines &mdash; most notably his lengthy "Spider-Totem" arc, which raised the issue of whether Spider-Man's powers were magic-based, rather than as the result of a radioactive spider's bite. Additionally, Straczynski resurrected the plot point of Aunt May discovering her nephew was Spider-Man, and returned Mary Jane, with the couple reuniting in The Amazing Spider-Man #50. Straczynski gave Spider-Man a new profession, having Parker teach at his former high school.

Issue #30 began a dual numbering system, with the original series numbering (#471) returned and placed alongside the volume-two number on the cover. Other longtime, rebooted Marvel Comics titles, including Fantastic Four, likewise were given the dual numbering around this time. In October 2000, John Romita, Jr. succeeded John Byrne as artist. After vol. 2, #58 (Nov. 2003), the title reverted completely to its original numbering for #500 (Dec. 2003). Mike Deodato, Jr. penciled the series from mid-2004 until 2006.

That year Peter Parker revealed his Spider-Man identity on live television in the company-crossover storyline "Civil War", in which the superhero community is split over whether to conform to the federal government's new Superhuman Registration Act. This knowledge was erased from the world with the event of the four-part, crossover story arc, "One More Day", written partially by J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Joe Quesada, running through The Amazing Spider-Man #544-545 (Nov.-Dec. 2007), Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24 (Nov. 2007) and The Sensational Spider-Man #41 (Dec. 2007), the final issues of those two titles. Here, the demon Mephisto makes a Faustian bargain with Parker and Mary Jane, offering to save Parker's dying Aunt May if the couple will allow their marriage to have never existed, rewriting that portion of their pasts. This story arc marked the end of Straczynski's tenure as writer.

Following this, Marvel made The Amazing Spider-Man the company's sole Spider-Man title, increasing its frequency of publication to three issues monthly, and inaugurating the series with a sequence of "back to basics" story arcs under the banner of "Brand New Day". Parker now exists in a changed world where he and Mary Jane had never married, and Parker has no memory of being married to her, with domino effect differences in their immediate world. The most notable of these revisions to Spider-Man continuity are the return of Harry Osborn, whose death in The Spectacular Spider-Man #200 (May 1993) is erased; and the reestablishment of Spider-Man's secret identity, with no one except Mary Jane able to recall that Parker is Spider-Man (although he soon reveals his secret identity to the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four). The alternating regular writers were initially Dan Slott, Bob Gale, Marc Guggenheim, Fred Van Lente, and Zeb Wells, joined by a rotation of artists that included Chris Bachalo, Phil Jimenez, Mike McKone, John Romita, Jr. and Marcos Martín. Joe Kelly, Mark Waid and Roger Stern later joined the writing team and Barry Kitson the artist roster. Waid's work on the series included a meeting between Spider-Man and Stephen Colbert in The Amazing Spider-Man #573 (Dec. 2008). Cowsill "2000s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 316: "The issue also saw TV star Stephen Colbert team up with Spider-Man in a back-up story written by Mark Waid and drawn by Patrick Olliffe." 
Issue #583 (March 2009) included a back-up story in which Spider-Man meets President Barack Obama. Cowsill "2000s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 319: "With President Obama about to be inaugurated, Marvel produced a special variant issue of The Amazing Spider-Man complete with...a five-page back-up strip co-starring the President, written by Zeb Wells and drawn by Todd Nauck." 

===2010s and temporary end of publication===
Mark Waid scripted the opening of the "The Gauntlet" storyline in issue #612 (Jan. 2010). Cowsill "2010s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 327: "Written by Mark Waid and drawn by Paul Azaceta, the two-part opening mixed the real-world drama of the economic meltdown with some Spidey action." With issue #648 (Jan. 2011), the series became a twice-monthly title with Dan Slott as sole writer. Cowsill "2010s" in Gilbert (2012), p. 334: "Spidey's adventures were about to take an exciting new direction as Dan Slott became the title's sole writer." Archive requires scrolldown Eight additional pages were added per issue. This publishing format lasted until issue #700, which concluded the "Dying Wish" storyline, in which Parker and Doctor Octopus swapped bodies, and the latter taking on the mantle of Spider-Man when Parker apparently died in Doctor Octopus' body. The Amazing Spider-Man ended with this issue, with the story continuing in the new series The Superior Spider-Man. In December 2013, the series returned for five issues, numbered 700.1 through 700.5, with the first two written by David Morrell and drawn by Klaus Janson. 

===2014 relaunch===
In January 2014, Marvel confirmed that The Amazing Spider-Man would be relaunched on April 30, 2014, starting from issue #1, with Peter Parker once again as Spider-Man. 

==References==

==External links==

*
*
*The Amazing Spider-Man comic book sales figures from 1966–present at The Comics Chronicles
*Spider-Man at Marvel Comics wikia
*The Amazing Spider-Man cover gallery
*Spiderman Videos



[[AM]]

AM or similar may refer to:

==People==
* A. M., pseudonym of Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

==Timekeeping==
* ante meridiem, Latin for "before noon"
* Anno Mundi, a calendar era based on the Biblical creation of the world
* Anno Martyrum, a method of numbering years in the Coptic calendar

==Technology==
* Amplitude modulation, an electronic communication technique
* Additive Manufacturing, a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model.
* AM broadcasting, radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation
* Automated Mathematician, an artificial intelligence program
* .am, Internet domain for Armenia
* .am, a file extension associated with Automake

==Science and education==
* Americium, a chemical element
* Attometre, a unit of length
* Adrenomedullin, a protein
* Air mass (astronomy)
* Am, a Köppen climate classification code
* AM, a complexity class related to Arthur–Merlin protocol
* Master of Arts, an academic degree
* Arts et Métiers ParisTech, a French engineering school

==Media and entertainment==
* AM (musician), American musician
* A.M. (musician), Canadian musician
* DJ AM, American DJ and producer
* A.M. (Wilco album)
* A.M. (Chris Young album)
* AM (Arctic Monkeys album)
* AM (ABC Radio), an Australian radio programme
* American Morning, an American television programme
* A minor, a minor scale in music
* Am, Antes del Mediodia, Argentine TV program

==Transportation==
* A.M. (automobile), a 1906 French car
* Aeroméxico, IATA airline code AM
* Arkansas and Missouri Railroad
* All-mountain, a discipline of mountain biking

==Military==
* AM, the United States Navy hull classification symbol for "minesweeper"
* Air marshal, a senior air officer rank used in Commonwealth countries
* Anti-materiel rifle
* Aviation Structural Mechanic, a U.S. Navy occupational rating

==Other uses==
* Member of the Order of Australia, postnominal letters which can be used by a Member of the Order
* Assembly Member (disambiguation), a political office
** Member of the National Assembly for Wales
** Member of the London Assembly
* Amharic language, ISO 639-1 language code am
* Armenia, ISO country code AM
* Attacking midfielder, a position in association football

== See also ==
* `am (disambiguation)
* A&M (disambiguation)
* AM2 (disambiguation)
* 
* 



[[Antigua and Barbuda]]

Antigua and Barbuda (; ; Spanish for "ancient" and "bearded") is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands (including Great Bird, Green, Guinea, Long, Maiden and York Islands and further south, the island of Redonda). The permanent population numbers about 81,800 (at the 2011 Census) and the capital and largest port and city is St. John's, on Antigua.

Separated by a few nautical miles, Antigua and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 17°N of the equator. The country is nicknamed "Land of 365 Beaches" due to the many beaches surrounding the islands. Its governance, language, and culture have all been strongly influenced by the British Empire, of which the country was formerly a part.

==History==

Antigua was first settled by Archaic Age hunter-gatherer Amerindians called the Siboney or Ciboney. Carbon dating has established the earliest settlements started around 3100 BC. They were succeeded by the Ceramic Age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River.

The Arawaks introduced agriculture, raising, among other crops, the famous Antigua black pineapple (Moris cultivar of Ananas comosus), corn, sweet potatoes (white with firmer flesh than the bright orange "sweet potato" used in the United States), chiles, guava, tobacco, and cotton.

The indigenous West Indians made excellent seagoing vessels which they used to sail the Atlantic and the Caribbean. As a result, Caribs and Arawaks were able to colonize much of South America and the Caribbean Islands. Their descendants still live there, notably in Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia.

Most Arawaks left Antigua around 1100 AD; those who remained were later raided by the Caribs. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Caribs' superior weapons and seafaring prowess allowed them to defeat most of the West Indian Arawak nations, enslaving some and possibly cannibalizing others.

The Catholic Encyclopedia does make it clear that the European invaders had some difficulty differentiating between the native peoples they encountered. As a result, the number and types of ethnic/tribal groups in existence at that time may have been much more varied and numerous than just the two mentioned in this article.

European and African diseases, malnutrition, and slavery eventually killed most of the Caribbean's native population, although no researcher has conclusively proven any of these causes as the real reason for these deaths. Smallpox was probably the greatest killer. 
 In fact, some historians believe that the psychological stress of slavery may also have played a part in the massive number of deaths amongst enslaved natives. Others believe the reportedly abundant, but starchy, low-protein diet may have contributed to severe malnutrition of the Amerindians, who were used to a diet fortified with protein from the sea. 

The island of Antigua, originally called Wa'ladli by Arawaks, is today called Wadadli by locals. Caribs possibly called it Wa'omoni. Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493, may have named it Santa Maria la Antigua after an icon in the Spanish Seville Cathedral. The Spaniards did not colonize Antigua because it lacked fresh water but not aggressive Caribs.

The English settled on Antigua in 1632; Sir Christopher Codrington settled on Barbuda in 1684. Slavery, established to run sugar plantations around 1684, was abolished in 1834. The British ruled from 1632 to 1981, with a brief French interlude in 1666.

The islands became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981, with Elizabeth II as the first Queen of Antigua and Barbuda. The Right Honourable Vere Cornwall Bird Sr became the first Prime Minister.

==Governance==

===Political system===

A map of Antigua and Barbuda
The politics of Antigua and Barbuda take place within a framework of a unitary, parliamentary, representative democratic monarchy, in which the Head of State is the Monarch who appoints the Governor General as vice-regal representative. Elizabeth II is the present Queen of Antigua and Barbuda, having served in that position since the islands' independence from the United Kingdom in 1981. The Queen is currently represented by Governor General Dame Louise Lake-Tack (1944–), who became the first woman to hold this position. A Council of Ministers is appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister, currently Winston Baldwin Spencer (1948–). The Prime Minister is the Head of Government.

Executive power is exercised by the government while legislative power is vested in both the government and the two Chambers of Parliament. The bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate (17 members appointed by members of the government and the opposition party, and approved by the Governor-General), and the House of Representatives (17 members elected by first past the post) to serve five-year terms. The Speaker of the House is author and former St. John's University professor (New York) D. Giselle Isaac-Arrindell, while the President of the Senate is educator Hazelyn Francis-Mason.

The current Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is Antigua Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), the Honourable Gaston Alphonso Browne. Browne defeated his predecessor Lester Bryant Bird at the party's biennial convention in November 2012 held to elect a political leader and other party officers. Gaston Alphonso Browne renamed the Antigua Labour Party , to the Antigua & Barbuda Labour Party, ABLP. This was done to officially include the party's presence on the sister isle of Barbuda in its organization, the only political party on the mainland to have a physical branch in Barbuda.

The last elections held were on 12 March 2009, during which the Antigua Labour Party won seven seats, the United Progressive Party nine, and the Barbuda People's Movement one.

Since 1949, the party system had been dominated by the populist Antigua Labour Party. However, the Antigua and Barbuda legislative election of 2004 saw the defeat of the longest-serving elected government in the Caribbean. Prime Minister Lester Bryant Bird, who had succeeded his father Vere Cornwall Bird Sr., and Deputy Robin Yearwood had been in office since 1994.

The elder Bird was Prime Minister from 1981 to 1994 and Chief Minister of Antigua from 1960 to 1981, except for the 1971–1976 period when the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM) defeated his party. Vere Cornwall Bird, the nation's first Prime Minister, is credited with having brought Antigua and Barbuda and the Caribbean into a new era of independence.

The Judicial Branch is the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (based in Saint Lucia; one judge of the Supreme Court is a resident of the islands and presides over the High Court of Justice). In addition, Antigua is a member of the Caribbean Court of Justice. The Supreme Court of Appeal was the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council up until 2001, when the nations of the Caribbean Community voted to abolish the right of appeal to the Privy Council in favor of a Caribbean Court of Justice. Some debate between member countries repeatedly delayed the court's date of inauguration. As of March 2005, only Barbados was set to replace appeals to the Privy Council with appeals the Caribbean Court of Justice, which by then had come into operation.

===Administration===

Antigua and Barbuda is divided into six parishes and two dependencies:
Parishes of Antigua

 * Parishes *# Saint George *# Saint John *# Saint Mary *# Saint Paul *# Saint Peter *# Saint Philip * Dependencies *# Barbuda *# Redonda 

St. John's
Note: Though Barbuda and Redonda are called dependencies, they are integral parts of the state, making them essentially administrative divisions. Dependency is simply a title.

===Foreign relations===

Downtown St. John's
Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the United Nations, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Caribbean Community, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the Organization of American States, the World Trade Organization and the Eastern Caribbean's Regional Security System.

Antigua and Barbuda is also a member of the International Criminal Court (with a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of Protection for the US military as covered under Article 98).

In 2013, Antigua and Barbuda called for reparations for slavery at the United Nations. "We have recently seen a number of leaders apologising," said the prime minister Baldwin Spencer. They should now "match their words with concrete and material benefits". 

===Military===

The Royal Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force has around 260 members dispersed between the line infantry regiment, service and support unit and coast guard. There is also the Antigua and Barbuda Cadet Corps made up of 200 teenagers between the ages of 12 to 18.

==Geography==

===Islands===

* Antigua – largest island
* Barbuda
* Bird Island
* Bishop Island
* Blake Island
* Cinnamon Island
* Codrington Island
* Crump Island
* Dulcina Island
* Exchange Island

* Five Islands
* Great Bird Island
* Green Island
* Guiana Island
* Hale Gate Island
* Hawes Island
* Henry Island
* Johnson Island
* Kid Island
* Laviscounts Island

* Lobster Island
* Long Island
* Maid Island
* Moor Island
* Nanny Island
* Pelican Island
* Prickly Pear Island
* Rabbit Island
* Rat Island
* Red Head Island

* Redonda
* Sandy Island
* Smith Island
* The Sisters
* Vernon Island
* Wicked Will Island
* York Island

==Economy==

2009 export percentages
Tourism dominates the economy, accounting for more than half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Antigua is famous for its many luxury resorts. Weak tourist activity since early 2000 has slowed the economy, however, and squeezed the government into a tight fiscal corner.

Investment banking and financial services also make up an important part of the economy. Major world banks with offices in Antigua include the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Scotiabank. Financial-services corporations with offices in Antigua include PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, owned by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, of orchestrating a huge fraud which may have bilked investors of some $8 billion. (check status 20100312)

The twin-island nation's agricultural production is focused on its domestic market and constrained by a limited water supply and a labor shortage stemming from the lure of higher wages in tourism and construction work.

Manufacturing is made up of enclave-type assembly for export, the major products being bedding, handicrafts and electronic components. Prospects for economic growth in the medium term will continue to depend on income growth in the industrialized world, especially in the United States, from which about one-third of all tourists come.

Following the opening of the American University of Antigua College of Medicine by investor and attorney Neil Simon in 2003, a new source of revenue was established. The university employs many local Antiguans and the approximate 1000 students consume a large amount of the goods and services.

==Demographics==

Population of Antigua and Barbuda, Data of FAO, year 2005. Number of inhabitants in thousands.

===Ethnicity===
Antigua has a population of 85,632, mostly made up of people of West African, British, and Madeiran descent. The ethnic distribution consists of 91% Black or Mulatto, 4.4% mixed race, 1.7% White, and 2.9% other (primarily East Indian and Asian). Most Whites are of Irish or British descent. Christian Levantine Arabs, and a small number of Asians and Sephardic Jews make up the remainder of the population.

Behind the late 20th-century revival and redefinition of the role of Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans in the society's cultural life is a history of racial/ethnic tensions which systematically excluded non-Whites. Within the colonial framework established by the British soon after their initial settlement of Antigua in 1623, five distinct and carefully ranked racial/ethnic groups emerged.

At the top of this social structure were the British rulers. Amongst them were divisions between British Antiguans and non-creolized Britons, with the latter coming out on top. In short, this was a racial/ethnic hierarchy which gave maximum recognition to people and cultural practices of Anglican origin.

Immediately below the British were the mulattos, a mixed-race group of Afro-European origin. Mulattos, lighter in shade than most Africans, developed a complex system based on skin shade to distinguish themselves from the latter and to legitimate their claims to higher status. In many ways, they paralleled the British White Supremacy ideology.

In the middle of this social stratification were the Madeirans, 2,500 of whom migrated as workers from Madeira (a Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, to the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula) between 1847 and 1852 because of a severe famine there. Many established small businesses and joined the ranks of the mulatto class. The British never really considered the Madeirans as Whites and did not allow them into their ranks. Amongst Antiguans and Barbudans of Madeiran descent, status differences were based on the varying degrees of assimilation into the dominant group's Anglicized practices.

Next to the bottom were Middle Easterners who began migrating to Antigua and Barbuda around the turn of the 20th century. Starting as itinerant traders, they soon worked their way into the social mix. Although Middle Easterners came from a variety of areas, as a group they are usually referred to as Syrians.

Afro-Antiguans and Afro-Barbudans were at the bottom. Forced into slavery, Africans started arriving in Antigua and Barbuda in large numbers during the 1670s. Very quickly, they grew into the largest racial/ethnic group. Their entry into the local social structure was marked by a profound racialization: They ceased being Yoruba, Igbo, or Akan and became Negroes or Blacks.

In the 20th century, the colonial social structure gradually started to be phased out with the introduction of universal education and better economic opportunities. This process allowed Blacks to rise to the highest echelons of society and government.

In the last decade, Spanish-speaking immigrants from the Dominican Republic and Afro-Caribbean immigrants from Guyana and Dominica were added to this ethnic mosaic. They have entered at the social structure's bottom; it is still too early to predict their patterns of assimilation and social mobility.

Today, an increasingly large percentage of the population lives abroad, most notably in the United Kingdom (Antiguan Britons), United States and Canada. A minority of Antiguan residents are immigrants from other countries, particularly from Dominica, Guyana and Jamaica, and, increasing, from the Dominican Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Nigeria. An estimated 4,500 American citizens also make their home in Antigua and Barbuda, making their numbers one of the largest American populations in the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean. 

===Religion===
St. John's Cathedral, St. John's

Seventy-four percent of Antiguans are Christians, with the Anglican denomination (about 44%) being the largest. Other Christian denominations present are Baptists, [http://www.bwanet.org/default.aspx?pid=1118 ] Presbyterians An Introduction to Southern Presbyterian History (1611-2001) and Catholics.

Non-Christian religions practiced in the islands include the Rastafari Movement, Islam, Judaism and the Bahá'í Faith.

===Languages===
English is the official language, but many of the locals speak Antiguan Creole. The Barbudan accent is slightly different from the Antiguan.

In the years before Antigua and Barbuda's independence, Standard English was widely spoken in preference to Antiguan Creole, but afterwards Antiguans began treating Antiguan Creole as a respectable aspect of their culture. Generally, the upper and middle classes shun Antiguan Creole. The educational system dissuades the use of Antiguan Creole and instruction is done in Standard (British) English.

Many of the words used in the Antiguan dialect are derived from British as well as African languages. This can be easily seen in phrases such as: "Me nah go" meaning "I am not going". Another example is: "Ent it?" meaning "Ain't it?" which is itself dialectal and means "Isn't it?". Common island proverbs can often be traced to Africa.

Spanish is spoken by around 10,000 inhabitants of the country. Bernadette Farquhar - The Spanish Language in Antigua and Barbuda: Implications for Language Planning and Language Research 

===Largest cities===

==Media==
Up until April 2010 there were two daily newspapers: Daily Observer, and the Antigua Sun, which also published newspapers on other Caribbean islands. The Antigua Sun ceased operation in April 2010 after having been in circulation for 13 years. Besides most American television networks, the local channel ABS TV 10 is available (it is the only station which shows exclusively local programs). There are also several local and regional radio stations, such as V2C-AM 620, ZDK-AM 1100, VYBZ-FM 92.9, and ZDK-FM 97.1.

==Education==
The people of Antigua & Barbuda enjoy a more-than-90% literacy rate. In 1998, Antigua and Barbuda adopted a national mandate to become the pre-eminent provider of medical services in the Caribbean. As part of this mission, Antigua and Barbuda built the most technologically advanced hospital in the Caribbean, the Mt. St. John Medical Centre. The island of Antigua currently has two medical schools, the American University of Antigua (AUA), founded in 2004, and The University of Health Sciences Antigua (UHSA), founded in 1982.

There is also a government owned state college in Antigua as well as the Antigua and Barbuda Institute of Information Technology (ABIIT) and the Antigua and Barbuda Hospitality Training Institute (ABHTI). The University of the West Indies has a branch in Antigua for locals to continue university studies.

Antigua has two international primary/secondary schools Including CCSET International, which offers the Ontario Secondary School Diploma, and Island Academy, which offers the International Baccalaureate. There are also many other private schools but these institutions tend to follow the same local curriculum (CXCs) as government schools. Both international schools are relatively inexperienced with offering international degrees. CCSET international has existed for several years but only began offering an International Degree in 2007. While CCSET's graduating classes have consistently been awarded the OSSD, this is somewhat controversial because CCSET students receive their diplomas from one of CCSET's (constantly changing) partner schools based in Ontario.

==Culture==

The culture is predominantly a mixture of West African and British cultural influences. 

Cricket is the national sport and Antigua has produced several famous cricket players including Sir Vivian Richards, Anderson "Andy" Roberts, and Richard "Richie" Richardson. Other popular sports include football, boat racing and surfing. (Antigua Sailing Week attracts locals and visitors from all over the world).

American popular culture and fashion also have a heavy influence. Most of the country's media is made up of major United States networks. Many Antiguans prefer to make a special shopping trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Family and religion play an important roles in the lives of Antiguans. Most attend religious services on Sunday, although there is a growing number of Seventh-day Adventists who observe the Sabbath on Saturday.

The national Carnival held each August commemorates the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, although on some islands, Carnival may celebrate the coming of Lent. Its festive pageants, shows, contests and other activities are a major tourist attraction.

Calypso and soca music, both originating primarily out of Trinidad, are important in Antigua and Barbuda.

===Cuisine===
Corn and sweet potatoes play an important role in Antiguan cuisine. For example, a popular Antiguan dish, Dukuna is a sweet, steamed dumpling made from grated sweet potatoes, flour and spices. One of the Antiguan staple foods, fungi , is a cooked paste made of cornmeal and water.

===Sports===
thumb

Like many Commonwealth countries, cricket is the most popular sport. The Antigua and Barbuda national cricket team represented the country at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, but Antiguan cricketers otherwise play for the Leeward Islands cricket team in domestic matches and the West Indies cricket team internationally. The 2007 Cricket World Cup was hosted in the West Indies from 11 March to 28 April 2007. Antigua hosted eight matches at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, which was completed on 11 February 2007 and can hold up to 20,000 people.
Antigua is a Host of Stanford Twenty20 – Twenty20 Cricket, a version started by Allen Stanford in 2006 as a regional cricket game with almost all Caribbean islands taking part. Antiguan Viv Richards scored the fastest Test Century and Brian Lara twice scored the World Test Record at the Antigua Recreation Ground.

Association football, or soccer, is also a very popular sport. Antigua has a national football team which entered World Cup qualification for the 1974 tournament and for 1986 and onwards. A professional team was formed in 2011, Antigua Barracuda FC, which plays in the, USL Pro, a lower professional league in the USA. The nation's team had a major achievement in 2012, getting out of its preliminary group for the 2014 World Cup, notably due to a victory over powerful Haiti. In its first game in the next CONCACAF group play on 8 June 2012 in Tampa, FL, Antigua and Barbuda, comprising 17 Barracuda players and 7 from the lower English professional leagues, scored a goal against the United States, authored by Peter Byers; however, the team lost 3:1 to the US.

Athletics are popular. Talented athletes are trained from a young age, and Antigua and Barbuda has produced a few fairly adept athletes. Janill Williams, a young athlete with much promise comes from Gray's Farm, Antigua. Sonia Williams and Heather Samuel represented Antigua and Barbuda at the Olympic Games. Other prominent rising stars include Brendan Christian (100 m, 200 m), Daniel Bailey (100 m, 200 m) and James Grayman (high jump).

==See also==

* Outline of Antigua and Barbuda
* Legislative council
* Index of Antigua and Barbuda-related articles
* Bibliography of Antigua and Barbuda
* 
* List of Antiguans and Barbudans
* 
* 

==References==

==External links==

* 
* 
* Antigua and Barbuda, United States Library of Congress
* 
* Antigua and Barbuda from UCB Libraries GovPubs
* 
* Antigua and Barbuda from the BBC News
* World Bank's country data profile for Antigua and Barbuda
* ArchaeologyAntigua.org – 2010March13 source of archaeological information for Antigua and Barbuda

 



[[Azincourt]]

Azincourt (; historically, Agincourt in English) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France.

==Geography==
Situated 12 mi north-west of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise on the D71 road between Hesdin and Fruges

==Etymology==
The town's name is attested as Aisincurt in 1175, derived from a Germanic masculine name Aizo, Aizino and the early Northern French word curt 'farm with a courtyard' (Late Latin cortem). It has no etymological connection in French with Agincourt, Meurthe-et-Moselle (attested as Egincourt 875), which is derived from another Germanic male name *Ingin-. Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieux en France, éditions Larousse 1968. p. 4. 

==History==
Azincourt is famous as being near the site of the battle fought on 25 October 1415 in which the army led by King Henry V of England defeated the forces led by Charles d'Albret on behalf of Charles VI of France, which has gone down in English history as the Battle of Agincourt. According to M. Forrest, the French knights were so encumbered by their armour that they were exhausted even before the start of the battle. The House of Commons: 1509 - 1558, Volume 4; Stanley T. Bindoff, John S. Roskell, Lewis Namier, Romney Sedgwick, David Hayton, Eveline Cruickshanks, R. G. Thorne, P. W. Hasler (Boydell & Brewer, 1982) 

Later on, when he became king in 1509, Henry VIII is supposed to have commissioned an English translation of a Life of Henry V Henry VIII;
 J. J. Scarisbrick, p. 23 so that he could emulate him, on the grounds that he thought that launching a campaign against France would help him to impose himself on the European stage. In 1513, Henry VIII conclusively crossed the English Channel and stopped at Azincourt. He was notably accompanied by John Nevill.

The battle, as was the tradition, was named after a nearby castle called Azincourt. The castle has since disappeared and the settlement now known as Azincourt adopted the name in the 17th Century.

==Population==

==Sights==
The original battlefield museum in the village featured model knights made out of Action Man figures. However, this has now been replaced by a more professional exhibition space incorporating laser, video, slide shows, audio commentaries, and some interactive elements. Azincourt Centre Historique The museum building is shaped like a longbow similar to those used at the battle by archers under King Henry.

, an annual medieval festival commemorating local history has been held in the village since 2004, "Videos from Azincourt" at Azincourt Alliance on a July weekend in the summer. Initially the festival was held in October, but due to the inclement weather and local heavy clay soil (like the battle) making the festival difficult it was moved to July. 
Commemorative monument near to the battlefield

==International relations==

===Twin towns – Sister cities===
Azincourt is twinned with:

* Middleham, United Kingdom 

==See also==
* Communes of the Pas-de-Calais department

==References==
* INSEE commune file

==External links==
* Azincourt on the Quid website 



[[Albert Speer]]

Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; March 19, 1905 – September 1, 1981) was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office. As "the Nazi who said sorry", he accepted moral responsibility at the Nuremberg trials and in his memoirs for complicity in crimes of the Nazi regime. His level of involvement in the persecution of the Jews and his level of knowledge of the Holocaust remain matters of dispute.

Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931, launching him on a political and governmental career which lasted fourteen years. His architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the Party and he became a member of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler instructed him to design and construct a number of structures, including the Reich Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg where Party rallies were held. Speer also made plans to reconstruct Berlin on a grand scale, with huge buildings, wide boulevards, and a reorganized transportation system.

In February 1942, Hitler appointed Speer Minister of Armaments and War Production. Under his leadership, Germany's war production continued to increase despite considerable Allied bombing. After the war, he was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the Nazi regime, principally for the use of forced labor. He served his full sentence, most of it at Spandau Prison in West Berlin.

Following his release from Spandau in 1966, Speer published two bestselling autobiographical works, Inside the Third Reich and , detailing his often close personal relationship with Hitler, and providing readers and historians with a unique perspective on the workings of the Nazi regime. He later wrote a third book, Infiltration, about the SS. Speer died of natural causes in 1981 while on a visit to London.

== Early years ==
Speer was born in Mannheim, into an upper-middle-class family. He was the second of three sons of Albert and Luise Speer. In 1918, the family moved permanently to their summer home Villa Speer on Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg, Heidelberg. According to Henry T. King, deputy prosecutor at Nuremberg who later wrote a book about Speer, "Love and warmth were lacking in the household of Speer's youth." Speer was active in sports, taking up skiing and mountaineering. Speer's Heidelberg school offered rugby football, unusual for Germany, and Speer was a participant. He wanted to become a mathematician, but his father said if Speer chose this occupation he would "lead a life without money, without a position and without a future". Instead, Speer followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and studied architecture.

Speer began his architectural studies at the University of Karlsruhe instead of a more highly acclaimed institution because the hyperinflation crisis of 1923 limited his parents' income. In 1924 when the crisis had abated, he transferred to the "much more reputable" Technical University of Munich. In 1925 he transferred again, this time to the Technical University of Berlin where he studied under Heinrich Tessenow, whom Speer greatly admired. After passing his exams in 1927, Speer became Tessenow's assistant, a high honor for a man of 22. As such, Speer taught some of Tessenow's classes while continuing his own postgraduate studies. In Munich, and continuing in Berlin, Speer began a close friendship, ultimately spanning over 50 years, with Rudolf Wolters, who also studied under Tessenow.

In mid-1922, Speer began courting Margarete (Margret) Weber (1905–1987), the daughter of a successful craftsman who employed 50 workers. The relationship was frowned upon by Speer's class-conscious mother, who felt that the Webers were socially inferior. Despite this opposition, the two married in Berlin on 28 August 1928; seven years were to elapse before Margarete Speer was invited to stay at her in-laws' home.

== Nazi architect ==

=== Joining the Nazis (1930–1934) ===
Speer stated he was apolitical when he was a young man, and that he attended a Berlin Nazi rally in December 1930 at the urging of some of his students. He was surprised to find Hitler dressed in a neat blue suit, rather than the brown uniform seen on Nazi Party posters, and was greatly impressed, not only with Hitler's proposals, but also with the man himself. Several weeks later he attended another rally: this one was presided over by Joseph Goebbels. Speer was disturbed by the way Goebbels whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Despite this unease, Speer could not shake the impression Hitler had made on him. On March 1, 1931, he applied to join the Nazi Party and became member number 474,481.

Speer's first Nazi Party position was as head of the Party's motorist association for the Berlin suburb of Wannsee; he was the only Nazi in the town with a car. Speer reported to the Party's leader for the West End of Berlin, Karl Hanke, who hired Speer—without fee—to redecorate a villa he had just rented. Hanke was enthusiastic about the resulting work.

In 1931, Speer surrendered his position as Tessenow's assistant because of pay cuts and moved to Mannheim, hoping to use his father's connections to get commissions. He had little success, and his father gave him a job as manager of the elder Speer's properties. In July 1932, the Speers visited Berlin to help out the Party prior to the Reichstag elections. While they were there, Hanke recommended the young architect to Goebbels to help renovate the Party's Berlin headquarters. Speer, who had been about to leave with his wife for a vacation in East Prussia, agreed to do the work. When the commission was completed, Speer returned to Mannheim and remained there as Hitler took office in January 1933.

After the Nazis took control, Hanke recalled Speer to Berlin. Goebbels, the new Propaganda Minister, commissioned Speer to renovate his Ministry's building on Wilhelmplatz. Speer also designed the 1933 May Day commemoration in Berlin. In Inside the Third Reich, he wrote that, on seeing the original design for the Berlin rally on Hanke's desk, he remarked that the site would resemble a Schützenfest – a rifle club meet. Hanke, now Goebbels' State Secretary, challenged him to create a better design. As Speer learned later, Hitler was enthusiastic about Speer's design (which used giant flags), though Goebbels took credit for it. Tessenow was dismissive: "Do you think you have created something? It's showy, that's all."

The organizers of the 1933 Nürnberg Nazi Party rally asked Speer to submit designs for the rally, bringing him into contact with Hitler for the first time. Neither the organizers nor Rudolf Hess were willing to decide whether to approve the plans, and Hess sent Speer to Hitler's Munich apartment to seek his approval. When Speer entered, the new Chancellor was busy cleaning a pistol, which he briefly laid aside to cast a short, interested glance at the plans, approving them without even looking at the young architect. This work won Speer his first national post, as Nazi Party "Commissioner for the Artistic and Technical Presentation of Party Rallies and Demonstrations".

Speer's next major assignment was as liaison to the Berlin building trades for Paul Troost's renovation of the Chancellery. As Chancellor, Hitler had a residence in the building and came by every day to be briefed by Speer and the building supervisor on the progress of the renovations. After one of these briefings, Hitler invited Speer to lunch, to the architect's great excitement. Hitler evinced considerable interest in Speer during the luncheon, and later told Speer that he had been looking for a young architect capable of carrying out his architectural dreams for the new Germany. Speer quickly became part of Hitler's inner circle; he was expected to call on Hitler in the morning for a walk or chat, to provide consultation on architectural matters, and to discuss Hitler's ideas. Most days he was invited to dinner.

The two men found much in common: Hitler spoke of Speer as a "kindred spirit" for whom he had always maintained "the warmest human feelings". The young, ambitious architect was dazzled by his rapid rise and close proximity to Hitler, which guaranteed him a flood of commissions from the government and from the highest ranks of the Party. Speer testified at Nuremberg, "I belonged to a circle which consisted of other artists and his personal staff. If Hitler had had any friends at all, I certainly would have been one of his close friends."

=== First Architect of the Third Reich (1934–1939) ===

The Cathedral of light above the Zeppelintribune

When Troost died on January 21, 1934, Speer effectively replaced him as the Party's chief architect. Hitler appointed Speer as head of the Chief Office for Construction, which placed him nominally on Hess's staff.

One of Speer's first commissions after Troost's death was the Zeppelinfeld stadium—the Nürnberg parade grounds seen in Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda masterpiece Triumph of the Will. This huge work was able to hold 340,000 people. The tribune was influenced by the Pergamon Altar in Anatolia, but was magnified to an enormous scale. Speer insisted that as many events as possible be held at night, both to give greater prominence to his lighting effects and to hide the individual Nazis, many of whom were overweight. Speer surrounded the site with 130 anti-aircraft searchlights. This created the effect of a "cathedral of light" or, as it was called by British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson, a "cathedral of ice". Speer described this as his most beautiful work, and as the only one that stood the test of time.

Nürnberg was to be the site of many more official Nazi buildings, most of which were never built; for example, the German Stadium would have accommodated 400,000 spectators, while an even larger rally ground would have held half a million people. While planning these structures, Speer conceived the concept of "ruin value": that major buildings should be constructed in such a way they would leave aesthetically pleasing ruins for thousands of years into the future. Such ruins would be a testament to the greatness of the Third Reich, just as ancient Greek or Roman ruins were symbols of the greatness of those civilizations. Hitler enthusiastically embraced this concept, and ordered that all the Reich's important buildings be constructed in accord with it.

Speer's German pavilion (left) facing the Soviet pavilion (right), 1937 World's Fair, Paris

Speer could not avoid seeing the brutal excesses of the Nazi regime. Shortly after Hitler consolidated power in the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler ordered Speer to take workmen and go to the building housing the offices of Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen to begin its conversion into a security headquarters, even though it was still occupied by von Papen's officials. Speer and his group entered the building, to be confronted with a pool of blood, apparently from the body of Herbert von Bose, von Papen's secretary, who had been killed there. Speer related that the sight had no effect on him, other than to cause him to avoid that room.

When Hitler deprecated Werner March's design for the Stadium (Berlin)#1936: Reichssportfeld|Olympic Stadium] for the 1936 Summer Olympics as too modern, Speer modified the plans by adding a stone exterior. Speer designed the German Pavilion for the 1937 international exposition in Paris. The German and Soviet pavilion sites were opposite each other. On learning (through a clandestine look at the Soviet plans) that the Soviet design included two colossal figures seemingly about to overrun the German site, Speer modified his design to include a cubic mass which would check their advance, with a huge eagle on top looking down on the Soviet figures. Both pavilions were awarded gold medals for their designs. Speer also received, from Hitler Youth Leader and later fellow Spandau prisoner Baldur von Schirach, the Golden Hitler Youth Honor Badge with oak leaves.

In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital with the rank of undersecretary of state in the Reich government. The position carried with it extraordinary powers over the Berlin city government and made Speer answerable to Hitler alone. It also made Speer a member of the Reichstag, though the body by then had little effective power. Hitler ordered Speer to develop plans to rebuild Berlin. The plans centered on a three-mile long grand boulevard running from north to south, which Speer called the Prachtstrasse, or Street of Magnificence; he also referred to it as the "North-South Axis". At the northern end of the boulevard, Speer planned to build the Volkshalle, a huge assembly hall with a dome which would have been over 700 ft high, with floor space for 180,000 people. At the southern end of the avenue a great triumphal arch would rise; it would be almost 400 ft high, and able to fit the Arc de Triomphe inside its opening. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 led to the postponement, and later the abandonment, of these plans. Part of the land for the boulevard was to be obtained by consolidating Berlin's railway system. Speer hired Wolters as part of his design team, with special responsibility for the Prachtstrasse. When Speer's father saw the model for the new Berlin, he said to his son, "You've all gone completely insane."

Marble Gallery of the New Reich Chancellery

In January 1938, Hitler asked Speer to build a new Reich Chancellery on the same site as the existing structure, and said he needed it for urgent foreign policy reasons no later than his next New Year's reception for diplomats on January 10, 1939. This was a huge undertaking, especially as the existing Chancellery was in full operation. After consultation with his assistants, Speer agreed. Although the site could not be cleared until April, Speer was successful in building the large, impressive structure in nine months. The structure included a "Marble Gallery" 146 metres long, almost twice the length of the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. Speer employed thousands of workers in two shifts. Hitler, who had remained away from the project, was overwhelmed when Speer presented it, fully furnished, two days early. In appreciation for the architect's work on the Chancellery, Hitler awarded Speer the Nazi Golden Party Badge. Tessenow was less impressed, suggesting to Speer that he should have taken nine years over the project. The second Chancellery was damaged in the Battle of Berlin in 1945 and was eventually dismantled by the Soviets, its stone used for a war memorial.

During the Chancellery project, the pogrom of Kristallnacht took place. Speer made no mention of it in the first draft of Inside the Third Reich, and it was only on the urgent advice of his publisher that he added a mention of seeing the ruins of the Central Synagogue in Berlin from his car.

Speer was under significant psychological pressure during this period of his life. He would later remember:

=== Wartime architect (1939–1942) ===
Hitler visits Paris in 1940 with Speer (left) and sculptor Arno Breker

Speer supported the German invasion of Poland and subsequent war, though he recognized that it would lead to the postponement, at the least, of his architectural dreams. In his later years, Speer, talking with his biographer-to-be Gitta Sereny, explained how he felt in 1939: "Of course I was perfectly aware that sought world domination ... [A]t that time I asked for nothing better. That was the whole point of my buildings. They would have looked grotesque if Hitler had sat still in Germany. All I wanted was for this great man to dominate the globe."

Speer placed his department at the disposal of the Wehrmacht. When Hitler remonstrated, and said it was not for Speer to decide how his workers should be used, Speer simply ignored him. Among Speer's innovations were quick-reaction squads to construct roads or clear away debris; before long, these units would be used to clear bomb sites. As the war progressed, initially to great German success, Speer continued preliminary work on the Berlin and Nürnberg plans, at Hitler's insistence, but failed to convince him of the need to suspend peacetime construction projects. Speer also oversaw the construction of buildings for the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, and developed a considerable organization to deal with this work.

In 1940, Joseph Stalin proposed that Speer pay a visit to Moscow. Stalin had been particularly impressed by Speer's work in Paris, and wished to meet the "Architect of the Reich". Hitler, alternating between amusement and anger, did not allow Speer to go, fearing that Stalin would put Speer in a "rat hole" until a new Moscow arose. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Speer came to doubt, despite Hitler's reassurances, that his projects for Berlin would ever be completed.

== Minister of Armaments ==

=== Appointment and increasing power ===
Speer (right) awarded an Org.Todt ring by Hitler – May 1943
On February 8, 1942, Minister of Armaments Fritz Todt died in a plane crash shortly after taking off from Hitler's eastern headquarters at Rastenburg. Speer, who had arrived in Rastenburg the previous evening, had accepted Todt's offer to fly with him to Berlin, but had canceled some hours before takeoff (Speer stated in his memoirs that the cancellation was because of exhaustion from travel and a late-night meeting with Hitler). Later that day, Hitler appointed Speer as Todt's successor to all of his posts. In Inside the Third Reich, Speer recounts his meeting with Hitler and his reluctance to take ministerial office, only doing so because Hitler commanded it. Speer also states that Hermann Göring raced to Hitler's headquarters on hearing of Todt's death, hoping to claim Todt's powers. Hitler instead presented Göring with the fait accompli of Speer's appointment.

At the time of Speer's accession to the office, the German economy, unlike the British one, was not fully geared for war production. Consumer goods were still being produced at nearly as high a level as during peacetime. No fewer than five "Supreme Authorities" had jurisdiction over armament production—one of which, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, had declared in November 1941 that conditions did not permit an increase in armament production. Few women were employed in the factories, which were running only one shift. One evening soon after his appointment, Speer went to visit a Berlin armament factory; he found no one on the premises.

Speer inspects a Panzer V tank, 1942 

Speer overcame these difficulties by centralizing power over the war economy in himself. Factories were given autonomy, or as Speer put it, "self-responsibility", and each factory concentrated on a single product. Backed by Hitler's strong support (the dictator stated, "Speer, I'll sign anything that comes from you"), he divided the armament field according to weapon system, with experts rather than civil servants overseeing each department. No department head could be older than 55—anyone older being susceptible to "routine and arrogance"—and no deputy older than 40. Over these departments was a central planning committee headed by Speer, which took increasing responsibility for war production, and as time went by, for the German economy itself. According to the minutes of a conference at Wehrmacht High Command in March 1942, "It is only Speer's word that counts nowadays. He can interfere in all departments. Already he overrides all departments ... On the whole, Speer's attitude is to the point." Goebbels would note in his diary in June 1943, "Speer is still tops with the Führer. He is truly a genius with organization." Speer was so successful in his position that by late 1943, he was widely regarded among the Nazi elite as a possible successor to Hitler.

While Speer had tremendous power, he was of course subordinate to Hitler. Nazi officials sometimes went around Speer by seeking direct orders from the dictator. When Speer ordered peacetime building work suspended, the Gauleiters (Nazi Party district leaders) obtained an exemption for their pet projects. When Speer sought the appointment of Hanke as a labor czar to optimize the use of German labor, Hitler, under the influence of Martin Bormann, instead appointed Fritz Sauckel. Rather than increasing female labor and taking other steps to better organize German labor, as Speer favored, Sauckel advocated importing labor from the occupied nations – and did so, obtaining workers for (among other things) Speer's armament factories, using the most brutal methods.

On December 10, 1943, Speer visited the underground Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory that used concentration camp labor. Shocked by the conditions there (5.7 percent of the work force died that month), and to ensure the workers were in good enough shape to perform the labor, Speer ordered improved conditions for the workers and the construction of the above-ground Dora camp. In spite of these changes, half of the workers at Mittelwerk eventually died. Speer later commented, "[t]he conditions for these prisoners were in fact barbarous, and a sense of profound involvement and personal guilt seizes me whenever I think of them."

Speer (right, with arms folded and swastika armband) looks on with Field Marshal Erhard Milch (left) during weapons testing.

By 1943, the Allies had gained air superiority over Germany, and bombings of German cities and industry had become commonplace. However, the Allies in their strategic bombing campaign did not concentrate on industry, and Speer, with his improvisational skill, was able to overcome bombing losses. In spite of these losses, German production of tanks more than doubled in 1943, production of planes increased by 80 percent, and production time for Kriegsmarine submarines was reduced from one year to two months. Production would continue to increase until the second half of 1944, by which time enough equipment to supply 270 army divisions was being produced—although the Wehrmacht had only 150 divisions in the field.

In January 1944, Speer fell ill with complications from an inflamed knee, and was away from the office for three months. During his absence, his political rivals (mainly Göring, and Martin Bormann), attempted to have some of his powers permanently transferred to them. According to Speer, SS chief Heinrich Himmler tried to have him physically isolated by having Himmler's personal physician Karl Gebhardt treat him, though his "care" did not improve his health. Speer's wife and friends managed to have his case transferred to his friend Dr. Karl Brandt, and he slowly recovered. In April, Speer's rivals for power succeeded in having him deprived of responsibility for construction, and Speer promptly sent Hitler a bitter letter, concluding with an offer of his resignation. Judging Speer indispensable to the war effort, Field Marshal Erhard Milch persuaded Hitler to try to get his minister to reconsider. Hitler sent Milch to Speer with a message not addressing the dispute but instead stating that he still regarded Speer as highly as ever. According to Milch, upon hearing the message, Speer burst out, "The Führer can kiss my ass!" After a lengthy argument, Milch persuaded Speer to withdraw his offer of resignation, on the condition his powers were restored. On April 23, 1944, Speer went to see Hitler who agreed that "everything stay as it was, will remain the head of all German construction". According to Speer, while he was successful in this debate, Hitler had also won, "because he wanted and needed me back in his corner, and he got me".

=== Fall of the Reich ===
Reichsminister Speer rests on a doorstep

Speer's name was included on the list of members of a post-Hitler government drawn up by the conspirators behind the July 1944 assassination plot to kill Hitler. The list had a question mark and the annotation "to be won over" by his name, which likely saved him from the extensive purges that followed the scheme's failure.

By February 1945, Speer, who had long concluded that the war was lost, was working to supply areas about to be occupied with food and materials to get them through the hard times ahead. On March 19, 1945, Hitler issued his Nero Decree, ordering a scorched earth policy in both Germany and the occupied territories. Hitler's order, by its terms, deprived Speer of any power to interfere with the decree, and Speer went to confront Hitler, telling him the war was lost. Hitler gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his position, and when the two met the following day, Speer answered, "I stand unconditionally behind you." However, he demanded the exclusive power to implement the Nero Decree, and Hitler signed an order to that effect. Using this order, Speer worked to persuade generals and Gauleiters to circumvent the Nero Decree and avoid needless sacrifice of personnel and destruction of industry that would be needed after the war.

Speer managed to reach a relatively safe area near Hamburg as the Nazi regime finally collapsed, but decided on a final, risky visit to Berlin to see Hitler one more time. Speer stated at Nuremberg, "I felt that it was my duty not to run away like a coward, but to stand up to him again." Speer visited the Führerbunker on April 22. Hitler seemed calm and somewhat distracted, and the two had a long, disjointed conversation in which the dictator defended his actions and informed Speer of his intent to commit suicide and have his body burned. In the published edition of Inside the Third Reich, Speer relates that he confessed to Hitler that he had defied the Nero Decree, but then assured Hitler of his personal loyalty, bringing tears to the dictator's eyes. Speer biographer Gitta Sereny argued, "Psychologically, it is possible that this is the way he remembered the occasion, because it was how he would have liked to behave, and the way he would have liked Hitler to react. But the fact is that none of it happened; our witness to this is Speer himself." Sereny notes that Speer's original draft of his memoirs lacks the confession and Hitler's tearful reaction, and contains an explicit denial that any confession or emotional exchange took place, as had been alleged in a French magazine article.

The following morning, Speer left the Führerbunker; Hitler curtly bade him farewell. Speer toured the damaged Chancellery one last time before leaving Berlin to return to Hamburg. On April 29, the day before committing suicide, Hitler dictated a final political testament which dropped Speer from the successor government. Speer was to be replaced by his own subordinate, Karl-Otto Saur.

== Nuremberg Trial ==

Leading members of the Flensburg Government after their arrest. Karl Dönitz (centre, in long, dark coat) is followed by Speer (bareheaded) and Alfred Jodl (to the left of Speer).

After Hitler's death, Speer offered his services to the so-called Flensburg Government, headed by Hitler's successor, Karl Dönitz, and took a significant role in that short-lived regime. On May 15, the Americans arrived and asked Speer if he would be willing to provide information on the effects of the air war. Speer agreed, and over the next several days, provided information on a broad range of subjects. On May 23, two weeks after the surrender of German troops, the British arrested the members of the Flensburg Government and brought Nazi Germany to a formal end.

Speer was taken to several internment centres for Nazi officials and interrogated. In September 1945, he was told that he would be tried for war crimes, and several days later, he was taken to Nuremberg and incarcerated there. Speer was indicted on all four possible counts: first, participating in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace, second, planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace, third, war crimes, and lastly, crimes against humanity.

The Nuremberg defendants listen to the proceedings (Speer, top seated row, fifth from right)

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, alleged, "Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation." Speer's attorney, Dr. Hans Flächsner, presented Speer as an artist thrust into political life, who had always remained a non-ideologue and who had been promised by Hitler that he could return to architecture after the war. During his testimony, Speer accepted responsibility for the Nazi regime's actions:

An observer at the trial, journalist and author William L. Shirer, wrote that, compared to his codefendants, Speer "made the most straightforward impression of all and ... during the long trial spoke honestly and with no attempt to shirk his responsibility and his guilt". Speer also testified that he had planned to kill Hitler in early 1945 by introducing tabun poison gas into the Führerbunker ventilation shaft. He said his efforts were frustrated by the impracticability of tabun and his lack of ready access to a replacement nerve agent, and also by the unexpected construction of a tall chimney that put the air intake out of reach. Speer stated his motive was despair at realising that Hitler intended to take the German people down with him. Speer's supposed assassination plan subsequently met with some scepticism, with Speer's architectural rival Hermann Giesler sneering, "the second most powerful man in the state did not have a ladder."

17 October 1946 newsreel of Nuremberg Trials sentencing

Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, though he was acquitted on the other two counts. On 1 October 1946, he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. While three of the eight judges (two Soviet and one American) initially advocated the death penalty for Speer, the other judges did not, and a compromise sentence was reached "after two days' discussion and some rather bitter horse-trading".

The court's judgment stated that:

Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (including Bormann, in absentia) and three acquitted; only seven of the defendants were sentenced to imprisonment. They remained in the cells at Nuremberg as the Allies debated where, and under what conditions, they should be incarcerated.

== Imprisonment ==

: For additional detail on Speer's time at Spandau Prison, see Rudolf Wolters#Spandau years
Speer spent most of his sentence at Spandau Prison.

On July 18, 1947, Speer and his six fellow prisoners, all former high officials of the Nazi regime, were flown from Nuremberg to Berlin under heavy guard. The prisoners were taken to Spandau Prison in the British Sector of what would become West Berlin, where they would be designated by number, with Speer given Number Five. Initially, the prisoners were kept in solitary confinement for all but half an hour a day, and were not permitted to address each other or their guards. As time passed, the strict regimen was relaxed, especially during the three months in four that the three Western powers were in control; the four occupying powers took overall control on a monthly rotation. Speer considered himself an outcast among his fellow prisoners for his acceptance of responsibility at Nuremberg.

Speer made a deliberate effort to make as productive a use of his time as possible. He wrote, "I am obsessed with the idea of using this time of confinement for writing a book of major importance ... That could mean transforming prison cell into scholar's den." The prisoners were forbidden to write memoirs, and mail was severely limited and censored. However, as a result of an offer from a sympathetic orderly, Speer was able to have his writings, which eventually amounted to 20,000 sheets, sent to Wolters. By 1954, Speer had completed his memoirs, which became the basis of Inside the Third Reich, and which Wolters arranged to have transcribed onto 1,100 typewritten pages. He was also able to send letters and financial instructions, and to obtain writing paper and letters from the outside. His many letters to his children, all secretly transmitted, eventually formed the basis for Spandau: The Secret Diaries.

With the draft memoir complete and clandestinely transmitted, Speer sought a new project. He found one while taking his daily exercise, walking in circles around the prison yard. Measuring the path's distance carefully, Speer set out to walk the distance from Berlin to Heidelberg. He then expanded his idea into a worldwide journey, visualizing the places he was "traveling" through while walking the path around the prison yard. Speer ordered guidebooks and other materials about the nations through which he imagined he was passing, so as to envisage as accurate a picture as possible. Meticulously calculating every meter traveled, and mapping distances to the real-world geography, he began in northern Germany, passed through Asia by a southern route before entering Siberia, then crossed the Bering Strait and continued southwards, finally ending his sentence 35 km south of Guadalajara, Mexico.

Speer devoted much of his time and energy to reading. Though the prisoners brought some books with them in their personal property, Spandau Prison had no library so books were sent from Spandau's municipal library. From 1952 the prisoners were also able to order books from the Berlin central library in Wilmersdorf. Speer was a voracious reader and he completed well over 500 books in the first three years at Spandau alone. He read classic novels, travelogues, books on ancient Egypt, and biographies of such figures as Lucas Cranach, Édouard Manet, and Genghis Khan. Speer took to the prison garden for enjoyment and work, at first to do something constructive while afflicted with writer's block. He was allowed to build an ambitious garden, transforming what he initially described as a "wilderness" into what the American commander at Spandau described as "Speer's Garden of Eden".

Speer's supporters maintained a continual call for his release. Among those who pledged support for Speer's sentence to be commuted were Charles de Gaulle, U.S. diplomat George Ball, former U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy, and former Nuremberg prosecutor Hartley Shawcross. Willy Brandt was a strong advocate of Speer's, supporting his release, sending flowers to his daughter on the day of his release, and putting an end to the de-Nazification proceedings against Speer, which could have caused his property to be confiscated. A reduced sentence required the consent of all four of the occupying powers, and the Soviets adamantly opposed any such proposal. Speer served his full sentence, and was released on the stroke of midnight as October 1, 1966 began.

== Release and later life ==
Entrance Villa Speer, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg, Heidelberg, in December 2011
Speer's grave in Heidelberg

Speer's release from prison was a worldwide media event, as reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the Berlin hotel where Speer spent his first hours of freedom in over 20 years. He said little, reserving most comments for a major interview published in Der Spiegel in November 1966, in which he again took personal responsibility for crimes of the Nazi regime. Abandoning plans to return to architecture (two proposed partners died shortly before his release), he revised his Spandau writings into two autobiographical books, and later researched and published a third work, about Himmler and the SS. His books, most notably Inside the Third Reich (in German, Erinnerungen, or Reminiscences) and Spandau: The Secret Diaries, provide a unique and personal look into the personalities of the Nazi era, and have become much valued by historians. Speer was aided in shaping the works by Joachim Fest and Wolf Jobst Siedler from the publishing house Ullstein. Speer found himself unable to re-establish his relationship with his children, even with his son Albert, who had also become an architect. According to Speer's daughter Hilde, "One by one my sister and brothers gave up. There was no communication."

Following the publication of his bestselling books, Speer donated a considerable amount of money to Jewish charities. According to Siedler, these donations were as high as 80% of his royalties. Speer kept the donations anonymous, both for fear of rejection, and for fear of being called a hypocrite.

As early as 1953, when Wolters strongly objected to Speer referring to Hitler in the memoirs draft as a criminal, Speer had predicted that were the writings to be published, he would lose a "good many friends". This came to pass, as following the publication of Inside the Third Reich, close friends, such as Wolters and sculptor Arno Breker, distanced themselves from him. Hans Baur, Hitler's personal pilot, suggested, "Speer must have taken leave of his senses." Wolters wondered that Speer did not now "walk through life in a hair shirt, distributing his fortune among the victims of National Socialism, forswear all the vanities and pleasures of life and live on locusts and wild honey".

Speer made himself widely available to historians and other enquirers. He did an extensive, in-depth interview for the June 1971 issue of Playboy magazine, in which he stated, "If I didn't see it, then it was because I didn't want to see it." In October 1973, Speer made his first trip to Britain, flying to London under an assumed name to be interviewed on the BBC Midweek programme by Ludovic Kennedy. Upon arrival, he was detained for almost eight hours at Heathrow Airport when British immigration authorities discovered his true identity. The Home Secretary, Robert Carr, allowed Speer into the country for 48 hours. In the same year he appeared in the The World at War television program. While in London eight years later to participate in the BBC Newsnight programme, Speer suffered a stroke and died on September 1, 1981. Speer had formed a relationship with a German-born Englishwoman, and was with her at the time of his death.

Even to the end of his life, Speer continued to question his actions under Hitler. In his final book, Infiltration, he asks, "What would have happened if Hitler had asked me to make decisions that required the utmost hardness? ... How far would I have gone? ... If I had occupied a different position, to what extent would I have ordered atrocities if Hitler had told me to do so?" Speer leaves the questions unanswered.

== Legacy and controversy ==
The view of Speer as an unpolitical "miracle man" is challenged by Yale historian Adam Tooze. In his 2006 book, The Wages of Destruction, Tooze, following Gitta Sereny, argues that Speer's ideological commitment to the Nazi cause was greater than he claimed. . Cf. . Tooze further contends that an insufficiently challenged Speer "mythology" (partly fostered by Speer himself through politically motivated, tendentious use of statistics and other propaganda) had led many historians to assign Speer far more credit for the increases in armaments production than was warranted and give insufficient consideration to the "highly political" function of the so-called armaments miracle.

=== Architectural legacy ===
The Soviet War Memorial, constructed using marble from Speer's Chancellery
Little remains of Speer's personal architectural works, other than the plans and photographs. No buildings designed by Speer in the Nazi era remain in Berlin; a double row of lampposts along the Strasse des 17. Juni designed by Speer still stands. The tribune of the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg, though partly demolished, may also be seen. Speer's work may also be seen in London, where he redesigned the interior of the German Embassy to the United Kingdom, then located at 7–9 Carlton House Terrace. Since 1967, it has served as the offices of the Royal Society. His work there, stripped of its Nazi fixtures and partially covered by carpets, survives in part.

Another legacy was the Arbeitsstab Wiederaufbau zerstörter Städte (Working group on Reconstruction of destroyed cities), authorized by Speer in 1943 to rebuild bombed German cities to make them more livable in the age of the automobile. Headed by Wolters, the working group took a possible military defeat into their calculations. The Arbeitsstabs recommendations served as the basis of the postwar redevelopment plans in many cities, and Arbeitsstab members became prominent in the rebuilding.

=== Actions regarding the Jews ===
As General Building Inspector, Speer was responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement. From 1939 onward, the Department used the Nuremberg Laws to evict Jewish tenants of non-Jewish landlords in Berlin, to make way for non-Jewish tenants displaced by redevelopment or bombing. Eventually, 75,000 Jews were displaced by these measures. Speer was aware of these activities, and inquired as to their progress. At least one original memo from Speer so inquiring still exists, as does the Chronicle of the Department's activities, kept by Wolters.

Following his release from Spandau, Speer presented to the German Federal Archives an edited version of the Chronicle, stripped by Wolters of any mention of the Jews. When David Irving discovered discrepancies between the edited Chronicle and other documents, Wolters explained the situation to Speer, who responded by suggesting to Wolters that the relevant pages of the original Chronicle should "cease to exist". Wolters did not destroy the Chronicle, and, as his friendship with Speer deteriorated, allowed access to the original Chronicle to doctoral student Matthias Schmidt (who, after obtaining his doctorate, developed his thesis into a book, Albert Speer: The End of a Myth). Speer considered Wolters' actions to be a "betrayal" and a "stab in the back". The original Chronicle reached the Archives in 1983, after both Speer and Wolters had died.

=== Knowledge of the Holocaust ===
Speer maintained at Nuremberg and in his memoirs that he had no knowledge of the Holocaust. In Inside the Third Reich, he wrote that in mid-1944, he was told by Hanke (by then Gauleiter of Lower Silesia) that the minister should never accept an invitation to inspect a concentration camp in neighbouring Upper Silesia, as "he had seen something there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not describe". Speer later concluded that Hanke must have been speaking of Auschwitz, and blamed himself for not inquiring further of Hanke or seeking information from Himmler or Hitler:

Much of the controversy over Speer's knowledge of the Holocaust has centered on his presence at the Posen Conference on 6 October 1943, at which Himmler gave a speech detailing the ongoing Holocaust to Nazi leaders. Himmler said, "The grave decision had to be taken to cause this people to vanish from the earth ... In the lands we occupy, the Jewish question will be dealt with by the end of the year." Speer is mentioned several times in the speech, and Himmler seems to address him directly. In Inside the Third Reich, Speer mentions his own address to the officials (which took place earlier in the day) but does not mention Himmler's speech.

Bronze eagle from Speer's Chancellery, now in the Imperial War Museum

In 1971, American historian Erich Goldhagen published an article arguing that Speer was present for Himmler's speech. According to Fest in his biography of Speer, "Goldhagen's accusation certainly would have been more convincing" had he not placed supposed incriminating statements linking Speer with the Holocaust in quotation marks, attributed to Himmler, which were in fact invented by Goldhagen. In response, after considerable research in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz, Speer said he had left Posen around noon (long before Himmler's speech) to journey to Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg. In Inside the Third Reich, published before the Goldhagen article, Speer recalled that on the evening after the conference, many Nazi officials were so drunk that they needed help boarding the special train which was to take them to a meeting with Hitler. One of his biographers, Dan van der Vat, suggests this necessarily implies he must have still been present at Posen then, and must have heard Himmler's speech. In response to Goldhagen's article, Speer had alleged that in writing Inside the Third Reich, he erred in reporting an incident that happened at another conference at Posen a year later, as happening in 1943. In 2007, the Guardian reported that a letter from Speer dated December 23, 1971, had been found in Britain in a collection of his correspondence to Hélène Jeanty, widow of a Belgian resistance fighter. In the letter, Speer states that he had been present for Himmler's presentation in Posen. Speer wrote: "There is no doubt – I was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943 that all Jews would be killed."

In 2005, the Daily Telegraph reported that documents had surfaced indicating that Speer had approved the allocation of materials for the expansion of Auschwitz after two of his assistants toured the facility on a day when almost a thousand Jews were murdered. The documents supposedly bore annotations in Speer's own handwriting. Speer biographer Gitta Sereny stated that, due to his workload, Speer would not have been personally aware of such activities.

The debate over Speer's knowledge of, or complicity in, the Holocaust made him a symbol for people who were involved with the Nazi regime yet did not have (or claimed not to have had) an active part in the regime's atrocities. As film director Heinrich Breloer remarked, "created a market for people who said, 'Believe me, I didn't know anything about Holocaust. Just look at the Führer's friend, he didn't know about it either.

== Career summary ==

Joined NSDAP: March 1, 1931
Party Number: 474,481

=== Nazi Party positions ===

* Member, National Socialist Motor Corps: 1931
* Commissioner for the Artistic and Technical Presentation of Party Rallies and Demonstrations: 1933
* Department Chief, German Labor Front: 1934
* Chief, NSDAP Directorate for Technical Matters: 1942

From 1934 to 1939, Speer was often referred to as "First Architect of the Reich", however this was mainly a title given to him by Hitler and not an actual political position within the Nazi Party or German government.

=== Government positions ===

* General Building Inspector for the Reich Capitol: 1937
* Reich Minister for Weapons, Munitions, and Armaments: 1942

In 1943, under his authority as Reich Minister of Armaments, Speer also became the Director of Organisation Todt. The standard uniform Speer wore during the later half of World War II was an insignia-less Nazi Party brown jacket, with an "Org Todt" armband.

=== Political ranks ===

* Mitglieder: 1931
* Amtsleiter des Reichsleitung (later replaced by Einsatzleiter; equivalent to Leutnant or Second Lieutenant): 1934
* Hauptamtsleiter des Reichsleitung (later replaced by Haupteinsatzleiter; equivalent to Captain): 1935
* Dienstleiter (no equivalent, but senior to Colonel) : 1939
* Hauptdienstleiter (no equivalent, but senior to Colonel): 1941
* Befehlsleiter (equivalent to Generalmajor or Brigadier-General): 1942
* Oberbefehlsleiter (equivalent to Generalleutnant or Major-General): 1944

=== Awards and decorations ===

* Golden Party Badge
* Golden Hitler Youth Badge (with Oak Leaves)
* Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross
* NSDAP Long Service Award (Silver – 15 Years)
* Honour Chevron for the Old Guard

== See also ==
* Glossary of Nazi Germany
* List of Nazi Party leaders and officials

== Notes ==
Explanatory notes

Citations

== References ==
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: (Original German edition: )
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: (Original German edition: )
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Online sources

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== Further reading ==
* 
* 
* . Republished in paperback in 1997 by Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4
: (Original German edition: )
* 

== External links ==

* 
* Audio interviews with Andrew Birkin, 1971
* : Interactive maps and 3D reconstructions of Speer's buildings in Berlin
* Review of Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth in Foreign Affairs
* 
* Affidavit of Albert Speer: affidavit, sworn and signed at Munich on June 15, 1977, translated from the German original.

 



[[Allioideae]]

Allioideae is a subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, order Asparagales. It was formerly treated as a separate family, Alliaceae. The subfamily name is derived from the generic name of the type genus, Allium.

Successive revisions of the influential Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) classification have changed the circumscription of the family. In the 1998 version, Alliaceae were a distinct family; in the 2003 version, combining the Alliaceae with the Agapanthaceae and the Amaryllidaceae sensu stricto was recommended but optional; in the 2009 version, only the broad circumscription of the Amaryllidaceae is allowed, with the Alliaceae reduced to a subfamily, Allioideae. 

Note that quite a few of the plants that were once included in family Alliaceae have been assigned to the subfamily Brodiaeoideae (rather than the subfamily Allioideae). 

Some of the species of Allium are important food plants for example onions (Allium cepa), chives (A. schoenoprasum), garlic (A. sativum and A. scordoprasum), and leeks (A. porrum). Species of Allium, Gilliesia, Ipheion, Leucocoryne, Nothoscordum, and Tulbaghia are cultivated as ornamentals. Anthony Huxley, Mark Griffiths, and Margot Levy (1992). The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. The Macmillan Press,Limited: London. The Stockton Press: New York. ISBN 978-0-333-47494-5 (set). 

Thirteen of the total of about 20 genera are endemic to temperate South America. Knud Rahn. 1998. "Alliaceae" pages 70-78. In: Klaus Kubitzki (general editor) with Klaus Kubitzki, Herbert F.J. Huber, Paula J. Rudall, Peter F. Stevens, and Thomas Stützel (volume editors). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants volume III. Springer-Verlag: Berlin;Heidelberg, Germany. ISBN 978-3-540-64060-8 Nothoscordum ranges from Argentina to Canada. Allium is indigenous to most of North America, Eurasia, and North Africa. 

The largest genera are Allium (260-690 species), Nothoscordum (25), and Tulbaghia (22). Some of the generic limits are not clear. Ipheion, Nothoscordum, and possibly others are not monophyletic. Michael F. Fay, Paula J. Rudall, and Mark W. Chase. 2006. "Molecular studies of subfamily Gilliesioideae (Alliaceae)". Aliso 22(Monocots: Comparative Biology and Evolution):367-371. ISSN 0065-6275. 

Allioideae is divided into three tribes: Allieae, Tulbaghieae, and Gilliesieae. Allieae contains only one genus Allium (Milula is merged with Allium in the latest systems). Tulbaghieae contains only Tulbaghia. Gilliesieae contains the remaining genera. Allieae is sister to a clade composed of Tulbaghia and Gilliesieae. J. Chris Pires, Ivan J. Maureira, Thomas J. Givnish, Kenneth J. Sytsma, Ole Seberg, Gitte Petersen, Jerrold I. Davis, Dennis W. Stevenson, Paula J. Rudall, Michael F. Fay, and Mark W. Chase. 2006. "Phylogeny, genome size, and chromosome evolution of Asparagales". Aliso 22(Monocots: Comparative Biology and Evolution):287-304. ISSN 0065-6275. 

==Genera==
, the following genera are included in the Allioideae:

 *Allium L. *Ancrumia Harv. ex Baker * Caloscordum Herb. *Erinna Phil. * Garaventia Looser *Gethyum Phil. *Gilliesia Lindl. *Ipheion Rafinesque *Latace Phil. *Leucocoryne Lindl. *Miersia Lindl. *Milula Prain *Muilla S.Watson ex Bentham *Nothoscordum Kunth. *Prototulbaghia Vosa *Schickendantziella Looser *Solaria Phil. *Speea Loes. *Trichlora Baker *Tristagma Poepp. *Tulbaghia L. 

The genera Androstephium, Bessera, Bloomeria, Brodiaea, Dandya, Dichelostemma, Jaimehintonia, Milla, Muilla, Petronymphe, Triteleia, and Triteleiopsis are now treated in the family Themidaceae. Petronymphe is back in Themidaceae after spending a few years in Anthericaceae (now a segregate of Agavaceae). 

==History==
In 1985, Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo defined their Alliaceae to include all of the genera that are now there, plus Agapanthus and a group of genera that are now placed in Themidaceae, or its equivalent, the subfamily Brodiaeoideae of Asparagaceae. Rolf M.T. Dahlgren, H. Trevor Clifford, and Peter F. Yeo. 1985. The Families of the Monocotyledons. Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Tokyo. ISBN 978-3-540-13655-2. ISBN 978-0-387-13655-4. They divided Alliaceae into three subfamilies: Agapanthoideae, Allioideae, and Gilliesioideae. Agapanthoideae consisted of Agapanthus and Tulbaghia. Allioideae contained two tribes: Brodiaeeae and a broadly defined Allieae. Gilliesioideae was composed of about half of the genera now placed in Gilliesieae, the rest being assigned to Allieae.

In 1996, a molecular phylogenetic study of the rbcL gene showed that Agapanthus was misplaced in Alliaceae, and the authors excluded it from the family. Michael F. Fay and Mark W. Chase. 1996. "Resurrection of Themidaceae for the Brodiaea alliance, and recircumscription of Alliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Agapanthoideae". Taxon 45(3):441-451. (see External links below). They also raised Brodiaeeae to family rank as Themidaceae. They reduced the tribe Allieae to two genera, Allium and Milula, and transferred the rest of Allieae to Gilliesieae. This is the circumscription which the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group accepted in the APG classification of 1998 and which later became known as Alliaceae sensu stricto.

In the APG II system of 2003, Alliaceae could be recognized sensu stricto or sensu lato, as mentioned above. Soon after the publication of APG II, the ICBN conserved the name Amaryllidaceae for the family that had been called Alliaceae sensu lato in APG II.

When the APG III system was published in 2009, the alternative circumscriptions were discontinued and Alliaceae was no longer recognized. Alliaceae sensu stricto became the subfamily Allioideae of Amaryllidaceae sensu lato. Some botanists have not strictly followed the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group and have recognized the smaller version of Alliaceae at family rank. Armen L. Takhtajan (Takhtadzhian). Flowering Plants second edition (2009). Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4020-9608-2. 

==See also==
*Ramsons

==Notes==

==References==

==External links==

*Alliaceae in Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 7, May 2006.
* Resurrection of Themidaceae
* Alliaceae lato in L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The families of flowering plants
* Liliaceae in Flora of North America
* NCBI Taxonomy Browser sensu stricto
* links at CSDL, Texas
* Alliaceae of Mongolia in FloraGREIF

 



[[Asteraceae]]

Asteraceae or Compositae (commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, or sunflower family) is the name of an exceedingly large and widespread family of flowering plants (Angiospermae). Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards) Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 13, updated: 04/19/2014 19:57:49 Jeffrey, C. 2007. Compositae: Introduction with key to tribes. Pages 61-87 in Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, vol. VIII, Flowering Plants, Eudicots, Asterales (J. W. Kadereit and C. Jeffrey, eds.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin The group has more than 23,000 currently accepted species, spread across 1,620 genera (list) and 12 subfamilies. In terms of numbers of species, Asteraceae is rivaled only by Orchidaceae. Panero, J.L., Crozier, B.S. Tree of Life - Asteraceae (Which of the two families is actually larger is unclear, owing to uncertainty about exactly how many species exist in each family). The main feature of the family is the composite flower type in the form of capitula surrounded by involucral bracts. The name "Asteraceae" comes from Aster, the most prominent genus in the family, that derives from the Greek ἀστήρ meaning star, and is connected with its inflorescence star form. As for the term "Compositae", more ancient but still valid, it obviously makes reference to the fact that the family is one of the few angiosperm ones to have composite flowers. International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. In point 18/5 states: "The following names, used traditionally, are considered valid: Compositae (Asteraceae...). This family has a remarkable ecological and economical importance, and is present from the polar regions to the tropics, colonizing all available habitats. The Asteraceae may represent as much as 10% of autochthonous flora in many regions of the world.

Most members of Asteraceae are herbaceous, but a significant number are also shrubs, vines, or trees. The family has a worldwide distribution, and is most common in the arid and semiarid regions of subtropical and lower temperate latitudes. Barkely, T.M., Brouillet, L., Strother, J.L. (2006) Flora of North America - Asteraceae" http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=10074 

The Asteraceae are an economically important family. Some members provide products including cooking oils, lettuce, sunflower seeds, artichokes, sweetening agents, coffee substitutes, and herbal teas. Several genera are popular with the horticultural community, including marigold, pot marigold (also known as calendula), cone flowers, various daisies, fleabane, chrysanthemums, dahlias, zinnias, and heleniums. Asteraceae are important in herbal medicine, including Grindelia, Echinacea, yarrow, and many others. Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases A number of species have come to be considered invasive, including, most notably in North America, dandelion, which was originally introduced by European settlers who used the young leaves as a salad green. 

==Etymology==
The Latin name "Asteraceae" is derived from the type genus Aster, which is a Greek term that means "star". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Aster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aster "Compositae", an older but still valid name, International Code of Botanical Nomenclature - Article 18.5 http://ibot.sav.sk/icbn/main.htm means "composite" and refers to the characteristic inflorescence, a special type of pseudanthium found in only a few other angiosperm families. The study of this family is known as synantherology.

The vernacular name "daisy", widely applied to members of this family, is derived from its Old English name: dægesege, from dæges eage, meaning "day's eye". This is because the petals (of Bellis perennis) open at dawn and close at dusk.

==Distribution==
Asteraceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, and are found everywhere except Antarctica and the extreme Arctic. They are especially numerous in tropical and subtropical regions (notably Central America, eastern Brazil, the Andes, the Mediterranean, the Levant part of the Middle East, southern Africa, central Asia, and southwestern China). 

==Taxonomy==
Compositae were first described in 1792 by the German botanist Paul Dietrich Giseke. Solbrig, O.T. (1963) Subfamilial Nomenclature of Compositae. Taxon 12: 229-235 Traditionally, two subfamilies were recognised: Asteroideae (or Tubuliflorae) and Cichorioideae (or Liguliflorae). The latter has been shown to be extensively paraphyletic, and has now been divided into 11 subfamilies, but the former still stands. The phylogenetic tree presented below is based on Panero & Funk (2002). Panero, J.L., Funk, V.A. (2002) Toward a phylogenetic subfamilial classification for the Compositae (Asteraceae). Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 115: 909-922. The diamond denotes a very poorly supported node (<50% bootstrap support), the dot a poorly supported node (<80%). 

It is noteworthy that the four subfamilies Asteroideae, Cichorioideae, Carduoideae and Mutisioideae contain 99% of the species diversity of the whole family (approximately 70%, 14%, 11% and 3% respectively).

Because of the morphological complexity exhibited by this family, agreeing on generic circumscriptions has often been difficult for taxonomists. As a result, several of these genera have required multiple revisions. Judd, W.S., Campbell, C.S., Kellogg, E.A., Stevens, P.F. (2007) Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland. 

==Characteristics==
Asteraceae are mostly herbaceous plants, but some shrubs, trees and climbers do exist. Asteraceae are generally easy to distinguish from other plants, mainly because of their characteristic inflorescence and other shared characteristics. However, determining genera and species is notoriously difficult (see "damned yellow composite" for example).

===Roots and stems===
Asteraceae generally produce taproots, but sometimes they possess fibrous root systems. Stems are generally erect, but can be prostrate to ascending. Some species have underground stems in the form of caudices or rhizomes. These can be fleshy or woody depending on the species. 

===Leaves===
The leaves and the stems very often contain secretory canals with resin or latex (particularly common among the Cichorioideae). The leaves can be alternate, opposite, or whorled. They may be simple, but are often deeply lobed or otherwise incised, often conduplicate or revolute. The margins can be entire or lobed or toothed.

===Flowers===
====Floral heads====
In many plants of the Asteraceae family, what appears to be a single flower is actually a cluster of much smaller flowers. Sia Morhardt, Emil Morhardt, California Desert Flowers, University of California Press, pp. 29-32 The overall appearance of the cluster, as a single flower, functions in attracting pollinators in the same way as the structure of an individual flower in some other plant families. The older family name, Compositae, comes from the fact that what appears to be a single flower, is actually a composite of smaller flowers. The "petals" or "sunrays" in a sunflower head are actually individual strap-shaped Pam MacKay, Mojave Desert Wildflowers, illustration p. 35 flowers called "ray flowers", and the "sun disk" is made of smaller circular shaped individual flowers called "disc flowers". The word aster means "star" in Greek, referring to the appearance of some family members, as a "star" surrounded by "rays". The cluster of flowers that may appear to be a single flower, is called a head. The entire head may move tracking the sun, like a "smart" solar panel, which maximizes reflectivity of the whole unit and can thereby attract more pollinators. 
 
A ray flower is a 3-tipped (3-lobed), strap-shaped, individual flower in the head of some members of the Asteraceae family. Sometimes a ray flower has 2 tips (or 2-lobes). The corolla of the ray flower may have 2 tiny teeth opposite the 3 lobed strap, or tongue, indicating evolution by fusion from an originally 5 part corolla. Sometimes, the 3:2 arrangement is reversed, with 2 tips on the tongue, and 0 or 3 tiny teeth opposite the tongue. A ligulate flower is a 5 tipped, strap-shaped, individual flower in the heads of other members. A ligule is the strap-shaped tongue tongue of the corolla of a ray flower or ligulate flower. A disk flower is a radially symmetric (i.e., with identical shaped petals arranged in circle around the center) individual flower in the head, which is ringed by ray flowers when both are present. Sometimes ray flowers may be slightly off from radial symmetry, or weakly bilaterally symmetric, as in the case of desert pincushions Chaenactis fremontii. 

At the base of the head, and surrounding the flowers before opening, is a bundle of sepal-like bracts or scales called phyllaries, which together form the involucre that protects the individual flowers in the head before opening. The individual heads have the smaller individual flowers arranged on a round or dome-like structure called the receptacle. The flowers mature first at the outside, moving toward the center, with the youngest in the middle. 

The individual flowers in a head have 5 fused petals (rarely 4), but instead of sepals, have threadlike, hairy, or bristly structures called pappus, which surround the fruit and can stick to animal fur or be lifted by wind, aiding in seed dispersal. The whitish fluffy head of a dandelion commonly blown on by children, is made of the pappus, with tiny seeds attached at the ends, whereby the pappus provides a parachute like structure to help the seed be carried away in the wind. 

A radiate head has disc flowers surrounded by ray flowers. A ligulate head has all ligulate flowers. When a sunflower family flower head has only disk flowers that are sterile, male, or have both male and female parts, it is a discoid head. Disciform heads have only disc flowers, but may have two kinds (male flowers and female flowers) in one head, or may have different heads of two kinds (all male, or all female). Pistillate heads have all female flowers. Staminate heads have all male flowers. 

Sometimes, but rarely, the head contains only a single flower, or has a single flowered pistillate (female) head, and a multi-flowered male staminate (male) head. 

====Floral structures====
Flower diagram of Carduus (Carduoideae) shows (outermost to innermost): subtending bract and stem axis; fused calyx; fused corolla; stamens fused to corolla; gynoecium with two carpels and one locule
A typical Asteraceae flower head (here Bidens torta) showing the individual flowers
Ray floret (as in Cichorioideae, and the outer florets in Asteroideae)
Disc floret (as in Asteroideae)
The most evident characteristic of Asteraceae is perhaps their inflorescence: a specialised capitulum, technically called a calathid or calathidium, but generally referred to as flower head or, alternatively, simply capitulum. Usher, G. (1966) A dictionary of botany, including terms used in bio-chemistry, soil science, and statistics. LCCN 66 0 25447 The capitulum is a contracted raceme composed of numerous individual sessile flowers, called the florets, all sharing the same receptacle.

The capitulum of Asteraceae has evolved many characteristics that make it look superficially like a single flower. This type of flower-like inflorescence is fairly widespread amongst angiosperms, and has been given the name of pseudanthia.

A set of bracts forms an involucre surrounding the base of the capitulum. These are called "phyllaries", or "involucral bracts". They may simulate the sepals of the pseudanthium. These are mostly herbaceous but can also be brightly coloured (e.g. Helichrysum) or have a scarious (dry and membranous) texture. The phyllaries can be free or fused, and arranged in one to many rows, overlapping like the tiles of a roof (imbricate) or not (this variation is important in identification of tribes and genera).

Each floret may itself be subtended by a bract, called a "palea" or "receptacular bract". These bracts as a group are often called "chaff". The presence or absence of these bracts, their distribution on the receptacle, and their size and shape are all important diagnostic characteristics for genera and tribes.

The florets have five petals fused at the base to form a corolla tube and they may be either actinomorphic or zygomorphic. Disc florets are usually actinomorphic, with five petal lips on the rim of the corolla tube. The petal lips may be either very short, or long, in which case they form deeply lobed petals. The latter is the only kind of floret in the Carduoideae, while the first kind is more widespread. Ray florets are always highly zygomorphic and are characterised by the presence of a ligule, a strap-shaped structure on the edge of the corolla tube consisting of fused petals. In the Asteroideae and other minor subfamilies these are usually borne only on florets at the circumference of the capitulum and have a 3+2 scheme – above the fused corolla tube, three very long fused petals form the ligule, with the other two petals being inconspicuously small. The Cichorioidea has only ray florets, with a 5+0 scheme – all five petals form the ligule. A 4+1 scheme is found in the Barnadesioideae. The tip of the ligule is often divided into teeth, each one representing a petal. Some marginal florets may have no petals at all (filiform floret).

The calyx of the florets may be absent, but when present is always modified into a pappus of two or more teeth, scales or bristles and this is often involved in the dispersion of the seeds. As with the bracts, the nature of the pappus is an important diagnostic feature.

There are usually five stamens. The filaments are fused to the corolla, while the anthers are generally connate (syngenesious anthers), thus forming a sort of tube around the style (theca). They commonly have basal and/or apical appendages. Pollen is released inside the tube and is collected around the growing style, and then, as the style elongates, is pushed out of the tube (nüdelspritze).

The pistil consists of two connate carpels. The style has two lobes. Stigmatic tissue may be located in the interior surface or form two lateral lines. The ovary is inferior and has only one ovule, with basal placentation.

===Fruits and seeds===
The fruit of the Asteraceae is achene-like, and is called a cypsela (plural cypselae). Although there are two fused carpels, there is only one locule, and only one seed per fruit is formed. It may sometimes be winged or spiny because the pappus, which is derived from calyx tissue often remains on the fruit (for example in dandelion). In some species, however, the pappus falls off (for example in Helianthus). Cypsela morphology is often used to help determine plant relationships at the genus and species level. The mature seeds usually have little endosperm or none. 

===Metabolites===
Asteraceae generally store energy in the form of inulin. They produce iso/chlorogenic acid, sesquiterpene lactones, pentacyclic triterpene alcohols, various alkaloids, acetylenes (cyclic, aromatic, with vinyl end groups), tannins. They have terpenoid essential oils which never contain iridoids. 

==Evolution==
Diversification of Asteraceae appears to have taken place roughly 42-36 million years ago, the stem group perhaps being up to 49 million years old. 

It is still unknown whether the precise cause of their great success was the development of the highly specialised capitulum, their ability to store energy as fructans (mainly inulin), which is an advantage in relatively dry zones, or some combination of these and possibly other factors. 

==Ecology==
Seeds are dispersed by the wind in Carlina
Epizoochory in Bidens tripartita
Asteraceae are especially common in open and dry environments. 

Many members of the Asteraceae are pollinated by insects, which explains their value in attracting beneficial insects, but anemophyly is also present (e.g. Ambrosia, Artemisia). There are many apomictic species in the family.

Seeds are ordinarily dispersed intact with the fruiting body, the cypsela. Wind dispersal is common (anemochory) assisted by a hairy pappus. Another common variation is epizoochory, in which the dispersal unit, a single cypsela (e.g. Bidens) or entire capitulum (e.g. Arctium) provided with hooks, spines or some equivalent structure, sticks to the fur or plumage of an animal (or even to clothes, like in the photo) just to fall off later far from its mother plant.

==Uses==
Commercially important plants in the Asteraceae include the food crops Lactuca sativa (lettuce), Cichorium (chicory), Cynara scolymus (globe artichoke), Helianthus annuus (sunflower), Smallanthus sonchifolius (yacón), Carthamus tinctorius (safflower) and Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke).

Many members of the family are grown as ornamental plants for their flowers and some are important ornamental crops for the cut flower industry. Some examples are Chrysanthemum, Gerbera, Calendula, Dendranthema, Argyranthemum, Dahlia, Tagetes, Zinnia and many others.

Other commercially important species include Compositae used as herbs and in herbal teas and other beverages. Chamomile, which comes from two different species, the annual Matricaria recutita or German chamomile, and the perennial Chamaemelum nobile, also called Roman chamomile. Calendula, also called the pot marigold is grown commercially for herbal teas and the potpourri industry. Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea), is used as a medicinal tea. Winter tarragon, also called Mexican mint marigold, Tagetes lucida is commonly grown and used as a tarragon substitute in climates where tarragon will not survive. Finally, the wormwood genus Artemisia includes absinthe (A. absinthium) and tarragon (A. dracunculus).

Compositae have also been used for industrial purposes. Common in all commercial poultry feed, marigold (Tagetes patula) is grown primarily in Mexico and Central American nations. Marigold oil, extracted from Tagetes minuta, is used in the cola and cigarette industries.

Plants in Asteraceae are medically important in areas that don't have access to Western medicine. They are also commonly featured in medical and phytochemical journals because the sesquiterpene lactone compounds contained within them are an important cause of allergic contact dermatitis. Allergy to these compounds is the leading cause of allergic contact dermatitis in florists in the US. Pollen from ragweed Ambrosia is among the main causes of so-called hay fever in the United States. Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Ragweed Allergy. http://www.aafa.org/display.cfm?id=9&sub=19&cont=267 

Many members of Asteraceae are copious nectar producers and are useful for evaluating pollinator populations during their bloom. Centaurea (knapweed), Helianthus annuus (domestic sunflower), and some species of Solidago (goldenrod) are major "honey plants" for beekeepers. Solidago produces relatively high protein pollen, which helps honey bees over winter.

Some members of the Asteraceae are economically important as weeds. Notable in the United States are the ragwort, Senecio jacobaea, groundsel Senecio vulgaris and Taraxacum (dandelion).

The genera Chrysanthemum, Pulicaria, Tagetes, and Tanacetum contain species with useful insecticidal properties.

Parthenium argentatum (guayule) is a source of hypoallergenic latex.

The essential oil is an ingredient in a "natural" haemorrhoid treatment. http://www.amoils.com/h-hemorrhoids-ingredients.html, http://www.amoils.com/hemorrhoids.html 

==Genera==

==See also==
* Terminology for Asteraceae
* Damned yellow composite

==References==

==External links==

* Compositae at The Plant List
* Compositae at The Families of Flowering Plants (DELTA)
* Asteraceae at the Encyclopedia of Life
* Asteraceae at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website
* Asteraceae at the Tree of Life Web Project
* Asteraceae at the online Flora of North America
* Asteraceae at the online Flora of Pakistan
* Asteraceae at the online Flora of Zimbabwe
* Compositae at the online Flora of Taiwan
* Asteraceae at the online FloraBase—the Western Australian Flora
* Compositae at the online Flora of New Zealand
* The International Composite Alliance (TICA) A worldwide group of composite systematists

 01



[[Apiaceae]]

The Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae), commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, are a family of mostly aromatic plants with hollow stems. The family, which is named after the type genus Apium, is large, with more than 3,700 species spread across 434 genera; it is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants. Stevens, P.F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008. Included in this family are the well-known plants: Angelica, anise, arracacha, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, Centella asiatica, chervil, cicely, coriander (including cilantro and culantro), cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, lovage, Queen Anne's lace, parsley, parsnip, sea holly, and the now extinct silphium.

== Description ==

Most Apiaceae are annual, biennial or perennial herbs (frequently with the leaves aggregated toward the base), though a minority are shrubs or trees.They are multicellular plants. Their leaves are of variable size and alternately arranged, or alternate with the upper leaves becoming nearly opposite. In some taxa, the texture is leathery, fleshy, or even rigid, but always with stomata. They are petiolate or perfoliate and more or less sheathing, the blade usually dissected and pinnatifid, but entire in some genera. Most commonly, crushing their leaves emits a marked smell, aromatic to foetid, but absent in some members. The flowers are nearly always aggregated in terminal umbels, simple or compound, often umbelliform cymes, rarely in heads.

The defining characteristic of this family is the inflorescence: a simple or compound umbel. Flowers across the Apiaceae are fairly uniform and are usually perfect (hermaphroditic) and actinomorphic, but some are andromonoecious, polygamomonoecious, or even dioecious (as in Acronema), with a distinct calyx and corolla, but the calyx if often highly reduced, to the point of being undetectable in many species, while the corolla can be white, yellow, pink or purple. The flowers are nearly perfectly pentamerous, with 5 petals, sepals, and stamens.
The androecium contains of 5 stamens, but there is often variation in the functionality of the stamens even within a single inflorescence. Some flowers are functionally staminate (where a pistil may be present but has no ovules capable of being fertilized) while others are functionally pistillate (where stamens are present but their anthers do not produce viable pollen). Pollination of one flower by the pollen of a different flower of the same plant (geitonogamy) is common. The gynoecium consists of two carpels fused into a single, bicarpellate pistil with an inferior ovary. When mature, the fused carpels separate into two mericarps. 
Stylopodiums secrete nectar, attracting pollinators like flies, mosquitoes, gnats, beetles, moths, and bees.

The fruits are nonfleshy schizocarp of two mericarps, each with a single seed; they separate at maturity and are dispersed by wind. Some fruit segments (like those in Daucus spp. are covered in bristles and spread via external transport. The seeds have an oily endosperm Watson, L., Dallwitz, M.J. (1992 onwards) The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 4 March 2011. and generally contain large quantities of fatty oils, with the fatty acid petroselinic acid occurring universally throughout the family while rarely being found outside of the Apiaceae.

== Systematics ==

The family is solidly placed within the Apiales order in the APG III classification system. It is closely related to Araliaceae and the boundaries between these families remain unclear. Traditionally groups within the family have been delimited largely based on fruit morphology, and the results from this have not been congruent with the more recent molecular phylogenetic analyses. The subfamilial and tribal classification for the family is currently in a state of flux, with many of the groups being found to be grossly paraphyletic or polyphyletic. 

== Etymology ==

Apiaceae was first described by John Lindley in 1836. Lindley, J. (1836) An Introduction to the Natural System of Botany, 2nd Edition. Longman, London. The name is derived from the type genus Apium, which was originally used by Pliny the Elder circa 50 AD for a celery-like plant. The alternative name for the family, Umbelliferae, derives from the inflorescence being generally in the form of a compound umbel. 
The family was one of the first to be recognized as a distinct group in Jacques Daleschamps' 1586 Historia generalis plantarum. With Robert Morison’s 1672 Plantarum umbelilliferarum distribution nova it became the first group of plants for which a systematic study was published.

== Ecology ==
The black swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polyxenes, utilizes the Apiaceae family for food and host plants during oviposition. Hall, Donald W. 2011 "Featured Creatures - Eastern Black Swallowtail." Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida. http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/bfly2/eastern_black_swallowtail.htm#life 

== Uses ==

=== Cultivation ===

Many members of this family are cultivated for various purposes. The plant structure includes a tap root, which can be large enough to be useful in food, as with parsnips (Pastinaca sativa), carrots (Daucus carota), and Hamburg parsley (Petroselinum crispum). Many plants of this group are also adapted to conditions that encourage heavy concentrations of essential oils, and as a result some are flavourful aromatic herbs. Examples are parsley (Petroselinum crispum), coriander (Coriandrum sativum), and dill (Anethum graveolens). The plentiful seeds of the umbels, likewise, are sometimes used in cuisine, as with, coriander (Coriandrum sativum), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), cumin (Cuminum cyminum), and caraway (Carum carvi).

Other notable cultivated Apiaceae include chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium), angelica (Angelica spp.), celery (Apium graveolens), arracacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza), poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), sea holly (Eryngium spp.), asafoetida (Ferula asafoetida), galbanum (Ferula gummosa), cicely (Myrrhis odorata), anise (Pimpinella anisum), lovage (Levisticum officinale), and hacquetia (Hacquetia epipactis). 

=== Companion plants ===

Almost every widely cultivated plant of this group is a companion plant. In large part, this is because the tiny flowers forming the umbels, are perfectly suited for ladybugs, parasitic wasps, and predatory flies, which actually drink nectar when not reproducing. They then will prey upon insect pests on nearby plants.

Some of the plants are herbs that produce enough scent to possibly dilute the odours of nearby plants, or the pheromones emitted by insects that find those plants, which would otherwise attract more pests.

=== Folk medicine ===

Many plants in this family, such as wild carrot, have estrogenic properties and have been used as a folk medicine for birth control. Most notable for this use is the extinct giant fennel, silphium.
Conium maculatum has been used as a sedative and in treatments for arthritis and asthma in addition to its most famous use: as a “humane” method of killing criminals and philosophers. 
Daucus carota has been used as a diuretic, as a stimulant, to aid in uterine ailments, and one time as a treatment for jaundice.
According to the Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides, “ —especially Bastard or Wild Parsley—provokes venery and bodily lust and erection of the parts.” Fennel has been used to treat nausea; species of Ferula have been used to ease constipation and coughs; cumin has been used as a treatment for diarrhea; coriander for halitosis; Eryngium spp. to treat genitourinary problems; Centella asiatica to treat syphilis; and Ferula assa-foetida has been used as a carminative, antispasmodic, and stimulant.

=== Other uses ===

The poisonous members of the Apiaceae have been used for a variety of purposes globally. The poisonous Oenanthe crocata has been used to stupefy fish, Cicuta douglasii has been used as an aid in suicides, and arrow poisons have been made from various other family species.

Daucus carota has been used as coloring for butter and its roots used as a coffee substitute.

Dorema ammoniacum, Ferula galbaniflua, and Ferula sumbul are sources of incense. 

The woody Azorella compacta Phil. has been used in South America for fuel.

== Chemistry ==
Polyacetylenes can be found in Apiaceae vegetables like carrot, celery, fennel, parsley and parsnip where they show cytotoxic activities. Polyacetylenes from the Apiaceae Vegetables Carrot, Celery, Fennel, Parsley, and Parsnip and Their Cytotoxic Activities. Christian Zidorn, Karin Jöhrer, Markus Ganzera, Birthe Schubert, Elisabeth Maria Sigmund, Judith Mader, Richard Greil, Ernst P. Ellmerer and Hermann Stuppner, J. Agric. Food Chem., 2005, 53 (7), pages 2518–2523, Many species contain coumarins or coumarin derivatives, such as furanocoumarins.

== Genera ==

File:Chaerophyllum_bulbosum_-_Köhler–s_Medizinal-Pflanzen-177.jpg|Chaerophyllum bulbosum
File:Apiaceae Pimpinella anisum.jpg|Anise (Pimpinella anisum) from Woodville (1793) Woodville, W. (1793) Medical Botany. James Phillips, London. 
File:Angelica archangelica (1118596627).jpg|Angelica archangelica
File:Coriandrum sativum 003.JPG|Flowers of Coriandrum sativum

==See also==
* Autumnalia

== References ==

== Further reading ==
*Apiaceae. 2011. Utah State University Intermountain Herbarium. 20 October 2011. http://herbarium.usu.edu/taxa/apiaceae.htm
*Constance, L. (1971). “History of the classification of Umbelliferae (Apiaceae).” in Heywood, V. H. , The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 1–11. Academic Press, London.
*Cronquist, A. (1968). The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
*French, D. H. (1971). “Ethnobotany of the Umbelliferae.” in Heywood, V. H. , The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 385–412. Academic Press, London.
*Hegnauer, R. (1971) “Chemical Patterns and Relationships of Umbelliferae.” in Heywood, V. H. , The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 267–277. Academic Press, London.
*Heywood, V. H. (1971). “Systematic survey of Old World Umbelliferae.” in Heywood, V. H. , The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 31–41. Academic Press, London.
*Judd, W. S. et al. (1999). Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
*Plunkett, G. M. and S. R. Downie (1999). “Major lineages within Apiaceae subfamily Apioideae: a comparison of chloroplast restriction site and DNA sequence data.” American Journal of Botany, 86, 1014–1026.
*Plunkett, G. M., D. E. Soltis, and P. S. Soltis (1996). “Higher Level Relationships of Apiales (Apiaceae and Araliaceae) Based on Phylogenetic Analysis of rbcL Sequences.” Botanical Society of America, 83 (4), 499–515.
*Plunkett, G. M., D. E. Soltis, and P. S. Soltis (1996). “Evolutionary Patters in Apiaceae: Inferences Based on matK Sequence Data.” American Society of Plant Taxonomists, 21 (4), 477–495.
*Nieto Feliner, Gonzalo; Jury, Stephen Leonard & Herrero Nieto, Alberto (eds.) Flora iberica. Plantas vasculares de la Península Ibérica e Islas Baleares. Vol. X. "Araliaceae-Umbelliferae" (2003) Madrid: Real Jardín Botánico, CSIC (in Spanish).

== External links ==

 * Apiaceae at The Plant List * Umbelliferae at The Families of Flowering Plants (DELTA) * Apiaceae at the Encyclopedia of Life * Apiaceae at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website * Apiaceae at the online Flora of Northern Ireland * Apiaceae at the online Michigan Flora * Apiaceae at the online Flora of China * Apiaceae at the online Flora of Zimbabwe * Apiaceae at the online Flora of Western Australia * Umbelliferae at the online Flora of New Zealand * Umbelliferae at the online Flora of Pakistan * Apiaceae at Chileflora * Apiaceae at Flowers in Israel * Apiaceae at Discover Life * Apiaceae at the Utah Valley University Herbarium * Apiaceae at the Plantarium Photo Database (Russia) * Umbellifer Resource Centre at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh * Umbellifer Information Server at Moscow State University 

 

[[Axon]]

An axon (from Greek, axis) also known as a nerve fibre; is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that typically conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body. The function of the axon is to transmit information to different neurons, muscles and glands. In certain sensory neurons (pseudounipolar neurons), such as those for touch and warmth, the electrical impulse travels along an axon from the periphery to the cell body, and from the cell body to the spinal cord along another branch of the same axon. Axon dysfunction causes many inherited and acquired neurological disorders which can affect both the peripheral and central neurons.

An axon is one of two types of protoplasmic protrusions that extrude from the cell body of a neuron, the other type being dendrites. Axons are distinguished from dendrites by several features, including shape (dendrites often taper while axons usually maintain a constant radius), length (dendrites are restricted to a small region around the cell body while axons can be much longer), and function (dendrites usually receive signals while axons usually transmit them). All of these rules have exceptions, however.

Some types of neurons have no axon and transmit signals from their dendrites. No neuron ever has more than one axon; however in invertebrates such as insects or leeches the axon sometimes consists of several regions that function more or less independently of each other. Most axons branch, in some cases very profusely.

Axons make contact with other cells—usually other neurons but sometimes muscle or gland cells—at junctions called synapses. At a synapse, the membrane of the axon closely adjoins the membrane of the target cell, and special molecular structures serve to transmit electrical or electrochemical signals across the gap. Some synaptic junctions appear partway along an axon as it extends—these are called en passant ("in passing") synapses. Other synapses appear as terminals at the ends of axonal branches. A single axon, with all its branches taken together, can innervate multiple parts of the brain and generate thousands of synaptic terminals.

==Anatomy==
Cross section of an axon.
1. Axon
2. Nucleus of Schwann Cell
3. Schwann Cell
4. Myelin Sheath
5. Neurilemma
Axons are the primary transmission lines of the nervous system, and as bundles they form nerves. Some axons can extend up to one meter or more while others extend as little as one millimeter. The longest axons in the human body are those of the sciatic nerve, which run from the base of the spinal cord to the big toe of each foot. The diameter of axons is also variable. Most individual axons are microscopic in diameter (typically about one micrometer (µm) across). The largest mammalian axons can reach a diameter of up to 20 µm. The squid giant axon, which is specialized to conduct signals very rapidly, is close to 1 millimetre in diameter, the size of a small pencil lead. Axonal arborization (the branching structure at the end of a nerve fiber) also differs from one nerve fiber to the next. Axons in the central nervous system typically show complex trees with many branch points. In comparison, the cerebellar granule cell axon is characterized by a single T-shaped branch node from which two parallel fibers extend. Elaborate arborization allows for the simultaneous transmission of messages to a large number of target neurons within a single region of the brain.

There are two types of axons occurring in the peripheral system and the central nervous system: unmyelinated and myelinated axons. Myelin is a layer of a fatty insulating substance, which is formed by two types of glial cells: Schwann cells ensheathing peripheral neurons and oligodendrocytes insulating those of the central nervous system. Along myelinated nerve fibers, gaps in the myelin sheath known as nodes of Ranvier occur at evenly spaced intervals. The myelination enables an especially rapid mode of electrical impulse propagation called saltatory conduction. Demyelination of axons causes the multitude of neurological symptoms found in the disease multiple sclerosis.
A dissected human brain, showing grey matter and white matter
If the brain of a vertebrate is extracted and sliced into thin sections, some parts of each section appear dark and other parts lighter in color. The dark parts are known as grey matter and the lighter parts as white matter. White matter gets its light color from the myelin sheaths of axons: the white matter parts of the brain are characterized by a high density of myelinated axons passing through them, and a low density of cell bodies of neurons. The cerebral cortex has a thick layer of grey matter on the surface and a large volume of white matter underneath: what this means is that most of the surface is filled with neuron cell bodies, whereas much of the area underneath is filled with myelinated axons that connect these neurons to each other.

===Initial segment===
The axon initial segment — the thick, unmyelinated part of an axon that connects directly to the cell body — consists of a specialized complex of proteins. It is approximately 25μm in length and functions as the site of action potential initiation. The density of voltage-gated sodium channels is much higher in the initial segment than in the remainder of the axon or in the adjacent cell body, excepting the axon hillock. The voltage-gated ion channels are known to be found within certain areas of the axonal membrane and initiate action potential, conduction, and synaptic transmission. 

===Nodes of Ranvier===

Nodes of Ranvier (also known as myelin sheath gaps) are short unmyelinated segments of a myelinated axon, which are found periodically interspersed between segments of the myelin sheath. Therefore, at the point of the node of Ranvier, the axon is reduced in diameter. These nodes are areas where action potentials can be generated. In saltatory conduction, electrical currents produced at each node of Ranvier are conducted with little attenuation to the next node in line, where they remain strong enough to generate another action potential. Thus in a myelinated axon, action potentials effectively "jump" from node to node, bypassing the myelinated stretches in between, resulting in a propagation speed much faster than even the fastest unmyelinated axon can sustain.

==Action potentials==

Most axons carry signals in the form of action potentials, which are discrete electrochemical impulses that travel rapidly along an axon, starting at the cell body and terminating at points where the axon makes synaptic contact with target cells. The defining characteristic of an action potentials is that it is "all-or-nothing" — every action potential that an axon generates has essentially the same size and shape. This all-or-nothing characteristic allows action potentials to be transmitted from one end of a long axon to the other without any reduction in size. There are, however, some types of neurons with short axons that carry graded electrochemical signals, of variable amplitude.

When an action potential reaches a presynaptic terminal, it activates the synaptic transmission process. The first step is rapid opening of calcium ion channels in the membrane of the axon, allowing calcium ions to flow inward across the membrane. The resulting increase in intracellular calcium concentration causes vesicles (tiny containers enclosed by a lipid membrane) filled with a neurotransmitter chemical to fuse with the axon's membrane and empty their contents into the extracellular space. The neurotransmitter is released from the presynaptic nerve through exocytosis. The neurotransmitter chemical then diffuses across to receptors located on the membrane of the target cell. The neurotransmitter binds to these receptors and activates them. Depending on the type of receptors that are activated, the effect on the target cell can be to excite the target cell, inhibit it, or alter its metabolism in some way. This entire sequence of events often takes place in less than a thousandth of a second. Afterward, inside the presynaptic terminal, a new set of vesicles are moved into position next to the membrane, ready to be released when the next action potential arrives. The action potential is the final electrical step in the integration of synaptic messages at the scale of the neuron. 

A)pyramidal cell,interneuron,and short durationwaveform (Axon). (B) overlay of the three average waveforms; (C) average and standard error of peak-trough time for pyramidal cells interneurons, and putative axons.(D)Scatter plot of signal to noise ratios for individual units againstpeak-trough time for axons, pyramidal cells (PYR) and interneurons (INT).
Extracellular recordings of action potential propagation in axons has been demonstrated in freely moving animals. While extracellular somatic action potentials have been used to study cellular activity in freely moving animals such as place cells, axonal activity in both white and gray matter can also be recorded. Extracellular recordings of axon action potential propagation is distinct from somatic action potentials in three ways: 1. The signal has a shorter peak-trough duration (~150μs) than of pyramidal cells (~500μs) or interneurons (~250μs). 2. The voltage change is triphasic. 3. Activity recorded on a tetrode is seen on only one of the four recording wires. In recordings from freely moving rats, axonal signals have been isolated in white matter tracts including the alveus and the corpus callosum as well hippocampal gray matter. 

In fact, the generation of action potentials in vivo is sequential in nature, and these sequential spikes constitute the digital codes in the neurons. Although previous studies indicate an axonal origin of a single spike evoked by short-term pulses, physiological signals in vivo trigger the initiation of sequential spikes at the cell bodies of the neurons, Rongjing Ge, Hao Qian and Jin-Hui Wang* (2011) Molecular Brain 4(19), 1~11 Rongjing Ge, Hao Qian, Na Chen and Jin-Hui Wang* (2014) Molecular Brain 7(26):1-16 

In addition to propagating action potentials to axonal terminals, the axon is able to amplify the action potentials, which makes sure a secure propagation of sequential action potentials toward the axonal terminal. In terms of molecular mechanisms, voltage-gated sodium channels in the axons possess lower threshold and shorter refractory period in response to short-term pulses. Na Chen, Jiandong Yu, Hao Qian and Jin-Hui Wang* (2010). "http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011868" PLoS One 5(7):e11868. 

==Development and growth==

===Development===
Studies done on cultured hippocampal neurons suggest that neurons initially produce multiple neurites that are equivalent, yet only one of these neurites is destined to become the axon. It is unclear whether axon specification precedes axon elongation or vice versa, although recent evidence points to the latter. If an axon that is not fully developed is cut, the polarity can change and other neurites can potentially become the axon. This alteration of polarity only occurs when the axon is cut at least 10 μm shorter than the other neurites. After the incision is made, the longest neurite will become the future axon and all the other neurites, including the original axon, will turn into dendrites. Imposing an external force on a neurite, causing it to elongate, will make it become an axon. Nonetheless, axonal development is achieved through a complex interplay between extracellular signaling, intracellular signaling and cytoskeletal dynamics.

====Extracellular signaling====

The extracellular signals that propagate through the extracellular matrix surrounding neurons play a prominent role in axonal development. These signaling molecules include proteins, neurotrophic factors, and extracellular matrix and adhesion molecules. 
UNC-6 or netrin, a secreted protein, functions in axon formation. When the UNC-6 receptor is mutated, several neurites are irregularly projected out of neurons and finally a single axon is extended anteriorly. Neuroglia and pioneer neurons express UNC-6 to provide global and local netrin cues for guiding migrations in C. elegans The neurotrophic factors nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin 3 (NT3) are also involved in axon development and bind to Trk receptors. 

The ganglioside-converting enzyme plasma membrane ganglioside sialidase (PMGS), which is involved in the activation of TrkA at the tip of neutrites, is required for the elongation of axons. PMGS asymmetrically distributes to the tip of the neurite that is destined to become the future axon. 

====Intracellular signaling====
During axonal development, the activity of PI3K is increased at the tip of destined axon. Disrupting the activity of PI3K inhibits axonal development. Activation of PI3K results in the production of phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PtdIns) which can cause significant elongation of a neurite, converting it into an axon. As such, the overexpression of phosphatases that dephosphorylate PtdIns leads into the failure of polarization. 

====Cytoskeletal dynamics====
The neurite with the lowest actin filament content will become the axon. PGMS concentration and f-actin content are inversely correlated; when PGMS becomes enriched at the tip of a neurite, its f-actin content is substantially decreased. In addition, exposure to actin-depolimerizing drugs and toxin B (which inactivates Rho-signaling) causes the formation of multiple axons. Consequently, the interruption of the actin network in a growth cone will promote its neurite to become the axon. 

===Growth===
Axon of 9 day old mouse with growth cone visible
Growing axons move through their environment via the growth cone, which is at the tip of the axon. The growth cone has a broad sheet like extension called lamellipodia which contain protrusions called filopodia. The filopodia are the mechanism by which the entire process adheres to surfaces and explores the surrounding environment. Actin plays a major role in the mobility of this system.
Environments with high levels of cell adhesion molecules or CAM's create an ideal environment for axonal growth. This seems to provide a "sticky" surface for axons to grow along. Examples of CAM's specific to neural systems include N-CAM, neuroglial CAM or NgCAM, TAG-1, and MAG all of which are part of the immunoglobulin superfamily. Another set of molecules called extracellular matrix adhesion molecules also provide a sticky substrate for axons to grow along. Examples of these molecules include laminin, fibronectin, tenascin, and perlecan. Some of these are surface bound to cells and thus act as short range attractants or repellents. Others are difusible ligands and thus can have long range effects.

Cells called guidepost cells assist in the guidance of neuronal axon growth. These cells are typically other, sometimes immature, neurons.

It has also been discovered through research that if the axons of a neuron were damaged, as long as the soma (the cell body of a neuron) is not damaged, the axons would regenerate and remake the synaptic connections with neurons with the help of guidepost cells. This is also referred to as neuroregeneration. 

Nogo-A is a type of neurite growth inhibitory component that is present in the central nervous system myelin membranes (found in an axon). It has a crucial role in restricting axonal regeneration in adult mammalian central nervous system. In recent studies, if Nogo- A is blocked and neutralized, it is possible to induce long-distance axonal regeneration which leads to enhancement of functional recovery in rats and mouse spinal cord. This has yet to be done on humans. A recent study has also found that macrophages activated through a specific inflammatory pathway activated by the Dectin-1 receptor are capable of promoting axon recovery, also however causing neurotoxicity in the neuron. 

==History==
Some of the first intracellular recordings in a nervous system were made in the late 1930s by Kenneth S. Cole and Howard J. Curtis. German anatomist Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters is generally credited with the discovery of the axon by distinguishing it from the dendrites. Swiss Rüdolf Albert von Kölliker and German Robert Remak were the first to identify and characterize the axon initial segment. Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley also employed the squid giant axon (1939) and by 1952 they had obtained a full quantitative description of the ionic basis of the action potential, leading the formulation of the Hodgkin–Huxley model. Hodgkin and Huxley were awarded jointly the Nobel Prize for this work in 1963. The formulas detailing axonal conductance were extended to vertebrates in the Frankenhaeuser–Huxley equations. Louis-Antoine Ranvier was the first to describe the gaps or nodes found on axons and for this contribution these axonal features are now commonly referred to as the Nodes of Ranvier. Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish anatomist, proposed that axons were the output components of neurons, describing their functionality. Erlanger and Gasser earlier developed the classification system for peripheral nerve fibers, Sansom B, "Reflex Isolation" http://www.sansomnia.com based on axonal conduction velocity, myelination, fiber size etc.
Even recently our understanding of the biochemical basis for action potential propagation has advanced, and now includes many details about individual ion channels.

==Injury==

In order of degree of severity, injury to a nerve can be described as neuropraxia, axonotmesis, or neurotmesis.
Concussion is considered a mild form of diffuse axonal injury. eMedicine - Traumatic Brain Injury: Definition, Epidemiology, Pathophysiology : Article by Segun T Dawodu, MD, FAAPMR, FAANEM, CIME, DipMI(RCSed) The dysfunction of axons in the nervous system is one of the major causes of many inherited neurological disorders that affect both peripheral and central neurons. 

==Classification==

The axons that make up nerves in the human peripheral nervous system can be classified based on their physical features and signal conduction properties.

===Motor=== 
Lower motor neurons have two kind of fibers:

+Motor fiber types 
 Type Erlanger-Gasser Classification Diameter (µm) Myelin Conduction velocity Associated muscle fibers 
 α Aα 13-20 Yes 80–120 m/s Extrafusal muscle fibers 
 γ Aγ 5-8 Yes 4–24 m/s Intrafusal muscle fibers 

===Sensory=== 
Different sensory receptors are innervated by different types of nerve fibers. Proprioceptors are innervated by type Ia, Ib and II sensory fibers, mechanoreceptors by type II and III sensory fibers and nociceptors and thermoreceptors by type III and IV sensory fibers.

+Sensory fiber types 
 Type Erlanger-Gasser Classification Diameter (µm) Myelin Conduction velocity Associated sensory receptors 
 Ia Aα 13-20 Yes 80–120 m/s Primary receptors of muscle spindle 
 Ib Aα 13-20 Yes 80–120 m/s Golgi tendon organ 
 II Aβ 6-12 Yes 33–75 m/s Secondary receptors of muscle spindle All cutaneous mechanoreceptors 
 III Aδ 1-5 Thin 3–30 m/s Free nerve endings of touch and pressure Nociceptors of neospinothalamic tract Cold thermoreceptors 
 IV C 0.2-1.5 No 0.5-2.0 m/s Nociceptors of paleospinothalamic tract Warmth receptors 

===Autonomic===
The autonomic nervous system has two kinds of peripheral fibers:

+Fiber types 
 Type Erlanger-Gasser Classification Diameter (µm) Myelin Conduction velocity 
 preganglionic fibers B 1–5 Yes 3–15 m/s 
 postganglionic fibers C 0.2–1.5 No 0.5–2.0 m/s 

==See also==
*Axon guidance
*Electrophysiology
*Nerve fiber
*Pioneer axon
*Telodendron

==References==

==External links==
* - "Slide 3 Spinal cord"
* - Bialowas, Andrzej, Carlier, Edmond, Campanac, Emilie, Debanne, Dominique, Alcaraz. Axon Physiology, GisèlePHYSIOLOGICAL REVIEWS, V. 91 (2), 04/2011, p. 555-602.



[[Aramaic alphabet]]

The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BCE. It was used to write the Aramaic language. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels.

The Aramaic alphabet is historically significant, since virtually all modern Middle Eastern writing systems can be traced back to it, as well as numerous non-Chinese writing systems of Central and East Asia. This is primarily due to the widespread usage of the Aramaic language as both a lingua franca and the official language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and its successor, the Achaemenid Empire. Among the scripts in modern use, the Hebrew alphabet bears the closest relation to the Imperial Aramaic script of the 5th century BC, with an identical letter inventory and, for the most part, nearly identical letter shapes.

Writing systems that indicate consonants but do not indicate most vowels (like the Aramaic one) or indicate them with added diacritical signs, have been called abjads by Peter T. Daniels to distinguish them from later alphabets, such as Greek, that represent vowels more systematically. This is to avoid the notion that a writing system that represents sounds must be either a syllabary or an alphabet, which implies that a system like Aramaic must be either a syllabary (as argued by Gelb) or an incomplete or deficient alphabet (as most other writers have said); rather, it is a different type.

==History==
===Origins===
Bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscription by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka the Great at Kandahar, Afghanistan, 3rd century BC
The earliest inscriptions in the Aramaic language use the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, the alphabet developed into the form shown below. Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca throughout the Middle East, with the script at first complementing and then displacing Assyrian cuneiform as the predominant writing system.

===Achaemenid period===
Around 500 BC, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Old Aramaic was adopted by the conquerors as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did." p. 251 

Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect and was inevitably influenced by Old Persian.

For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BC, Imperial Aramaic—or near enough for it to be recognisable—would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages. The Aramaic script would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi writing system. 

A group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria have been recently discovered. An analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdiana. 

Its widespread usage led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing the Hebrew language. Formerly, Hebrew had been written using an alphabet closer in form to that of Phoenician (the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet).

===Aramaic-derived scripts===
Since the evolution of the Aramaic alphabet out of the Phoenician one was a gradual process, the division of the world's alphabets into those derived from the Phoenician one directly and those derived from Phoenician via Aramaic is somewhat artificial. In general, the alphabets of the Mediterranean region (Anatolia, Greece, Italy) are classified as Phoenician-derived, adapted from around the 8th century BCE, while those of the East (the Levant, Persia, Central Asia and India) are considered Aramaic-derived, adapted from around the 6th century BCE from the Imperial Aramaic script of the Achaemenid Empire.

After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, diversifying into a number of descendant cursives.

The Hebrew and Nabataean alphabets, as they stood by the Roman era, were little changed in style from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet.

A Cursive Hebrew variant developed from the early centuries AD, but it remained restricted to the status of a variant used alongside the non-cursive. By contrast, the cursive developed out of the Nabataean alphabet in the same period soon became the standard for writing Arabic, evolving into the Arabic alphabet as it stood by the time of the early spread of Islam.

The development of cursive versions of Aramaic also led to the creation of the Syriac, Palmyrenean and Mandaic alphabets. These scripts formed the basis of the historical scripts of Central Asia, such as the Sogdian and Mongolian alphabets.

It has been suggested that the Old Turkic script in 8th century epigraphy originated in the Aramaic script.

===Aramaic alphabet===
Today, Biblical Aramaic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects and the Aramaic language of the Talmud are written in the Hebrew alphabet. Syriac and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects are written in the Syriac alphabet. Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. Due to the near-identity of the Aramaic and the classical Hebrew alphabets, Aramaic text is mostly typeset in standard Hebrew script in scholarly literature.

 Letter name Hebrew script Syriac script Letter Equivalent Letter in Sound value 
 Hebrew Arabic Brahmi Nabataean Kharosthi 
 Ālap 𐡀 א ء 25px 60px 25px ; , 
 Bēth 𐡁 ב ب 25px 53px 25px , 
 Gāmal 𐡂 ג /ʒ/=ج 25px 27px 25px , 
 Dālath 𐡃 ד /ð/د,ذ/d/ 25px 27px 25px , 
 Hē 𐡄 ה ﻫ ? 53px ? 
 Waw 𐡅 ו و 25px 27px 25px ; , 
 Zain 𐡆 ז ز ? 27px ? 
 Ḥēth 𐡇 ח /X/ﺧ, /ħ/ﺣ ? 53px ? 
 Ṭēth 𐡈 ט ط /ṯ/, ظ/ḍ/ 25px 27px 25px emphatic 
 Yodh 𐡉 י ي 25px 53px 25px ; , 
 Kāp 𐡊 כ ך ك 25px 53px 25px , 
 Lāmadh 𐡋 ל ﻟـ 25px 53px 25px 
 Mim 𐡌 מ ם ﻣ 25px 53px 25px 
 Nun 𐡍 נ ן ن 25px 53px 25px 
 Semkath 𐡎 ס ﺳ 25px 27px 25px 
 ʿĒ 𐡏 ע ﻏ/,/ﻋ/ʁ/ ? 27px ? 
 Pē 𐡐 פ ף /f/ف 25px 53px 25px , 
 Ṣādhē , 𐡑 צ ץ /sˤ/ص ,ض/ḏ/ 25px 53px 25px emphatic 
 Qop 𐡒 ק ق 25px 27px 25px 
 Rēsh 𐡓 ר ر 25px 27px 25px 
 Shin 𐡔 ש ﺷ 25px 27px 25px 
 Taw 𐡕 ת /t/ﺗـ,/θ/ﺛـ 25px 53px 25px , 

===Matres lectionis===

The letters Waw and Yudh, put following the consonants that were followed by the vowels u and i (and often also o and e), are used to indicate the long vowels û and î respectively (often also ô and ê respectively). These letters, which stand for both consonant and vowel sounds, are known as matres lectionis. The letter Alaph, likewise, had some of the characteristics of a mater lectionis: in initial positions, it indicated a specific consonant called glottal stop (followed by a vowel), and, in the middle of the word and word finally, it often also stood for the long vowels â or ê. Among Jews, influence of Hebrew spelling often led to the use of He instead of Alaph in word final positions. The practice of using certain letters to hold vowel values spread to child writing systems of Aramaic, such as Hebrew and Arabic, where they are still used today.

==Unicode==

The Aramaic alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

The Unicode block for Imperial Aramaic is U+10840&ndash;U+1085F:

==References==

* Byrne, Ryan. “Middle Aramaic Scripts.” Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier. (2006)
* Daniels, Peter T., et al. eds. The World's Writing Systems. Oxford. (1996)
* Coulmas, Florian. The Writing Systems of the World. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford. (1989)
* Rudder, Joshua. Learn to Write Aramaic: A Step-by-Step Approach to the Historical & Modern Scripts. n.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. 220 pp. ISBN 978-1461021421 Includes a wide variety of Aramaic scripts.
* Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic on Coins, reading and transliterating Proto-Hebrew, online edition. (Judaea Coin Archive)

==External links==

* Comparison of Aramaic to related alphabets
* Omniglot entry

 

[[American shot]]

"American shot" is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, "plan américain" and refers to a medium-long ("knee") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera. The usual arrangement is for the actors to stand in an irregular line from one side of the screen to the other, with the actors at the end coming forward a little and standing more in profile than the others. The purpose of the composition is to allow complex dialogue scenes to be played out without changes in camera position. In some literature, this is simply referred to as a 3/4 shot.

One of the other main reasons why French critics called it 'American Shot' was its frequent use in westerns. This was because a shot that started at knee level would reveal the weapon of a cowboy, usually holstered at his waist. It's actually the closest you can get to an actor while keeping both his face and his holstered gun in frame.

The French critics thought it was characteristic of American films of the 1930s or 1940s; however, it was mostly characteristic of cheaper American movies, such as Charlie Chan mysteries where people collected in front of a fireplace or at the foot of the stairs in order to explain what happened a few minutes ago.

Howard Hawks legitimized this style in his films, allowing characters to act, even when not talking, when most of the audience would not be paying attention. It became his trademark style.



[[Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis]]

Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is an immune mediated disease of the brain. It usually occurs following a viral infection but may appear following vaccination, bacterial or parasitic infection, or even appear spontaneously. As it involves autoimmune demyelination, it is similar to multiple sclerosis, and is considered part of the Multiple sclerosis borderline diseases. The incidence rate is about 8 per 1,000,000 people per year. Although it occurs in all ages, most reported cases are in children and adolescents, with the average age around 5 to 8 years old. The mortality rate may be as high as 5%, however full recovery is seen in 50 to 75% of cases with increase in survival rates up to 70 to 90% with figures including minor residual disability as well. The average time to recover is one to six months.

ADEM produces multiple inflammatory lesions in the brain and spinal cord, particularly in the white matter. Usually these are found in the subcortical and central white matter and cortical gray-white junction of both cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, brainstem, and spinal cord, but periventricular white matter and gray matter of the cortex, thalami and basal ganglia may also be involved.

When the patient suffers more than one demyelinating episode, it is called recurrent disseminated encephalomyelitis or multiphasic disseminated encephalomyelitis (MDEM).

==Causes and antecedent history==
Viral infections thought to induce ADEM include influenza virus, enterovirus, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella zoster, Epstein Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, hepatitis A, and coxsackievirus; while the bacterial infections include Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Borrelia burgdorferi, Leptospira, and beta-hemolytic Streptococci. The only vaccine proven to induce ADEM is the Semple form of the rabies vaccine, but hepatitis B, pertussis, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumococcus, varicella, influenza, Japanese encephalitis, and polio vaccines have all been implicated. The majority of the studies that correlate vaccination with ADEM onset use small samples or case studies. Large scale epidemiological studies (e.g., of MMR vaccine or smallpox vaccine) do not show increased risk of ADEM following vaccination. In rare cases, ADEM seems to follow from organ transplantation. The risk of ADEM from measles vaccination is about 1 to 2 per million, which is far lower than the risk of developing ADEM from an actual measles infection, which is about 1 per 1000 for measles (and 1 per 5000 for rubella). Measles infection also appears to lead to worse ADEM outcomes than cases associated with measles immunization. Some vaccines, later shown to have been contaminated with host animal CNS tissue, have ADEM incident rates as high as 1 in 600. 

==Presentation==
ADEM has an abrupt onset and a monophasic course. Symptoms usually begin 1–3 weeks after infection. Major symptoms include fever, headache, drowsiness, seizures and coma. Although initially the symptoms are usually mild, they worsen rapidly over the course of hours to days, with the average time to maximum severity being about four and a half days. Additional symptoms include hemiparesis, paraparesis, and cranial nerve palsies. Allmendinger A, Krauthamer A, Spektor V. Case of the month. Diagnostic Imaging. 2009;31(12):10. 

==Treatment==
No controlled clinical trials have been conducted on ADEM treatment, but aggressive treatment aimed at rapidly reducing inflammation of the CNS is standard. The widely accepted first-line treatment is high doses of intravenous corticosteroids, such as methylprednisolone or dexamethasone, followed by 3–6 weeks of gradually lower oral doses of prednisolone. Patients treated with methylprednisolone have shown better outcomes than those treated with dexamethasone. Oral tapers of less than three weeks duration show a higher chance of relapsing, and tend to show poorer outcomes. Other antiinflamatory and immunosuppressive therapies have been reported to show beneficial effect, such as plasmapheresis, high doses of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), mitoxantrone and cyclophosphamide. These are considered alternative therapies, used when corticosteroids cannot be used, or fail to show an effect.

There is some evidence to suggest that patients may respond to a combination of methylprednisolone and immunoglobulins if they fail to respond to either separately 
In a study of 16 children with ADEM, 10 recovered completely after high-dose methylprednisolone, one severe case that failed to respond to steroids recovered completely after IV Ig; the five most severe cases -with ADAM and severe peripheral neuropathy- were treated with combined high-dose methylprednisolone and immunoglobulin, two remained paraplegic, one had motor and cognitive handicaps, and two recovered. A recent review of IVIg treatment of ADEM (of which the previous study formed the bulk of the cases) found that 70% of children showed complete recovery after treatment with IVIg, or IVIg plus corticosteroids. A study of IVIg treatment in adults with ADEM showed that IVIg seems more effective in treating sensory and motor disturbances, while steroids seem more effective in treating impairments of cognition, consciousness and rigor. This same study found one subject, a 71-year-old man who had not responded to steroids, that responded to an IVIg treatment 58 days after disease onset.

==Prognosis==
Full recovery is seen in 50 to 70% of cases, ranging to 70 to 90% recovery with some minor residual disability (typically assessed using measures such as mRS or EDSS), average time to recover is one to six months. The mortality rate may be as high as 5%. Poorer outcomes are associated with unresponsiveness to steroid therapy, unusually severe neurological symptoms, or sudden onset. Children tend to have more favorable outcomes than adults, and cases presenting without fevers tend to have poorer outcomes. The latter effect may be due to either protective effects of fever, or that diagnosis and treatment is sought more rapidly when fever is present.

===Motor deficits===
Residual motor deficits are estimated to remain in about 8 to 30% of cases, the range in severity from mild clumsiness to ataxia and hemiparesis. 

===Neurocognitive===
Patients with demyelinating illnesses, such as MS, have shown cognitive deficits even when there is minimal physical disability. Research suggests that similar effects are seen after ADEM, but that the deficits are less severe than those seen in MS. A study of six children with ADEM (mean age at presentation 7.7 years) were tested for a range of neurocognitive tests after an average of 3.5 years of recovery. All six children performed in the normal range on most tests, including verbal IQ and performance IQ, but performed at least one standard deviation below age norms in at least one cognitive domain, such as complex attention (one child), short-term memory (one child) and internalizing behaviour/affect (two children). Group means for each cognitive domain were all within one standard deviation of age norms, demonstrating that, as a group, they were normal. These deficits were less severe than those seen in similar aged children with a diagnosis of MS. 

Another study compared nineteen children with a history of ADEM, of which 10 were five years of age or younger at the time (average age 3.8 years old, tested an average of 3.9 years later) and nine were older (mean age 7.7y at time of ADEM, tested an average of 2.2 years later) to nineteen matched controls. Scores on IQ tests and educational achievement were lower for the young onset ADEM group (average IQ 90) compared to the late onset (average IQ 100) and control groups (average IQ 106), while the late onset ADEM children scored lower on verbal processing speed. Again, all groups means were within one standard deviation of the controls, meaning that while effects were statistically reliable, the children were as a whole, still within the normal range. There were also more behavioural problems in the early onset group, although there is some suggestion that this may be due, at least in part, to the stress of hospitalization at a young age. 

==ADEM and multiple sclerosis==
While ADEM and MS both involve autoimmune demyelination, they differ in many clinical, genetic, imaging, and histopathological aspects. Some authors consider MS and its borderline forms to constitute a spectrum, differing only in chronicity, severity, and clinical course, Weinshenker B, Miller D. (1999). Multiple sclerosis: one disease or many? In: Siva A, Kesselring J, Thompson A, eds. Frontiers in multiple sclerosis. London: Dunitz, p37-46. while others consider them discretely different diseases. 

Problems for differential diagnosis increase due to the lack of agreement for a definition of Multiple Sclerosis. H. Lassmann, Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis, , For some people MS should be considered a clinical entity based in inflammatory lesions separated in time and space. As some cases of ADEM satisfy these conditions, they should be considered inside the MS spectrum. Using a pathological definition instead, they would be apart (plaques in the white matter in MS are sharply delineated, while the inflammation in ADEM is widely disseminated and ill-defined).

==Acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis==
Acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis (AHL, or AHLE), also known as acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE), acute hemorrhagic encephalomyelitis (AHEM), acute necrotizing hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis (ANHLE), Weston-Hurst syndrome, or Hurst's disease, is a hyperacute and frequently fatal form of ADEM. AHL is relatively rare (less than 100 cases have been reported in the medical literature as of 2006), it is seen in about 2% of ADEM cases, and is characterized by necrotizing vasculitis of venules and hemorrhage, and edema. Death is common in the first week and overall mortality is about 70%, but increasing evidence points to favorable outcomes after aggressive treatment with corticosteroids, immunoglobulins, cyclophosphamide, and plasma exchange. About 70% of survivors show residual neurological deficits, but some survivors have shown surprisingly little deficit considering the magnitude of the white matter affected. 
This disease has been occasionally associated with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, malaria, Venugopal V, Haider M (2013) First case report of acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis following Plasmodium vivax infection. Indian J Med Microbiol 31(1):79-81. doi: 10.4103/0255-0857.108736. septicemia associated with immune complex deposition, methanol poisoning, and other underlying conditions.

==Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis==

Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an animal model of CNS inflammation and demyelination frequently used to investigate potential MS treatments. An acute monophasic illness, EAE is far more similar to ADEM than MS. 

==See also==
* Optic neuritis
* Transverse myelitis

==References==

==External links==
* Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM) at myelitis.org
*
*
* Information for parents about Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis



[[Ataxia]]

Ataxia (from Greek α- negative prefix + -τάξις = "lack of order") is a neurological sign consisting of lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements. Ataxia is a non-specific clinical manifestation implying dysfunction of the parts of the nervous system that coordinate movement, such as the cerebellum. Several possible causes exist for these patterns of neurological dysfunction. Dystaxia is a mild degree of ataxia. dystaxia. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary. Retrieved 09 March 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dystaxia 

==Types==

===Cerebellar===
The term cerebellar ataxia is used to indicate ataxia that is due to dysfunction of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is responsible for integrating a significant amount of neural information that is used to coordinate smoothly ongoing movements and to participate in motor planning. Although ataxia is not present with all cerebellar lesions, many conditions affecting the cerebellum do produce ataxia. People with cerebellar ataxia may have trouble regulating the force, range, direction, velocity and rhythm of muscle contractions. This results in a characteristic type of irregular, uncoordinated movement that can manifest itself in many possible ways, such as asthenia, asynergy, delayed reaction time, and dyschronometria. Individuals with cerebellar ataxia could also display instability of gait, difficulty with eye movements, dysarthria, dysphagia, hypotonia, dysmetria and dysdiadochokinesia. These deficits can vary depending on which cerebellar structures have been damaged, and whether the lesion is bilateral or unilateral.

People with cerebellar ataxia may initially present with poor balance, which could be demonstrated as an inability to stand on one leg or perform tandem gait. As the condition progresses, walking is characterized by a widened base and high stepping, as well as staggering and lurching from side to side. Turning is also problematic and could result in falls. As cerebellar ataxia becomes severe, great assistance and effort are needed in order to stand and walk. Dysarthria, an impairment with articulation, may also be present and is characterized by "scanning" speech that consists of slower rate, irregular rhythm and variable volume. There may also be slurring of speech, tremor of the voice and ataxic respiration. Cerebellar ataxia could result with incoordination of movement, particularly in the extremities. There is overshooting with finger to nose testing, and heel to shin testing; thus, dysmetria is evident. Impairments with alternating movements (dysdiadochokinesia), as well as dysrhythmia, may also be displayed. There may also be tremor of the head and trunk (titubation) in individuals with cerebellar ataxia. 

It is thought that dysmetria is caused by a deficit in the control of interaction torques in multijoint motion. Interaction torques are created at an associated joint when the primary joint is moved. For example, if a movement required reaching to touch a target in front of the body, flexion at the shoulder would create a torque at the elbow, while extension of the elbow would create a torque at the wrist. These torques increase as the speed of movement increases and must be compensated and adjusted for to create coordinated movement. This may, therefore, explain decreased coordination at higher movement velocities and accelerations.

* Dysfunction of the vestibulocerebellum (flocculonodular lobe) impairs the balance and the control of eye movements. This presents itself with postural instability, in which the person tends to separate his/her feet upon standing, in order to gain a wider base and to avoid titubation (bodily oscillations tending to be forward-backward ones). The instability is therefore worsened when standing with the feet together, regardless of whether the eyes are open or closed. This is a negative Romberg's test, or more accurately, it denotes the individual's inability to carry out the test, because the individual feels unstable even with open eyes. 
* Dysfunction of the spinocerebellum (vermis and associated areas near the midline) presents itself with a wide-based "drunken sailor" gait (called truncal ataxia), characterised by uncertain starts and stops, lateral deviations, and unequal steps. As a result of this gait impairment, falling is a concern in patients with ataxia. Studies examining falls in this population show that 74-93% of patients have fallen at least once in the past year and up to 60% admit to fear of falling. 
* Dysfunction of the cerebrocerebellum (lateral hemispheres) presents as disturbances in carrying out voluntary, planned movements by the extremities (called appendicular ataxia). These include:
**intention tremor (coarse trembling, accentuated over the execution of voluntary movements, possibly involving the head and eyes as well as the limbs and torso);
**peculiar writing abnormalities (large, unequal letters, irregular underlining);
**a peculiar pattern of dysarthria (slurred speech, sometimes characterised by explosive variations in voice intensity despite a regular rhythm).
**inability to perform rapidly alternating movements, known as dysdiadochokinesia. This could involve rapidly switching from pronation to supination of the forearm. Movements become more irregular with increases of speed. 
**inability to judge distances or ranges of movement. This is known as dysmetria and is often seen as undershooting, hypometria, or overshooting, hypermetria, the required distance or range to reach a target. This is sometimes seen when a patient is asked to reach out and touch someone's finger or touch his or her own nose. 
**the rebound phenomenon, also known as the loss of the check reflex is also sometimes seen in patients with cerebellar ataxia. For example, when a patient is flexing his or her elbow isometrically against a resistance. When the resistance is suddenly removed without warning, the patient's arm may swing up and even strike themselves. With an intact check reflex, the patient will check and activate the opposing triceps to slow and stop the movement. 

===Sensory===
The term sensory ataxia is employed to indicate ataxia due to loss of proprioception, the loss of sensitivity to the positions of joint and body parts. This is generally caused by dysfunction of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord, because they carry proprioceptive information up to the brain. In some cases, the cause of sensory ataxia may instead be dysfunction of the various parts of the brain which receive positional information, including the cerebellum, thalamus, and parietal lobes.

Sensory ataxia presents itself with an unsteady "stomping" gait with heavy heel strikes, as well as a postural instability that is usually worsened when the lack of proprioceptive input cannot be compensated for by visual input, such as in poorly lit environments.

Physicians can find evidence of sensory ataxia during physical examination by having the patient stand with his/her feet together and eyes shut. In affected patients, this will cause the instability to worsen markedly, producing wide oscillations and possibly a fall. This is called a positive Romberg's test. Worsening of the finger-pointing test with the eyes closed is another feature of sensory ataxia. Also, when the patient is standing with arms and hands extended toward the physician, if the eyes are closed, the patient's finger will tend to "fall down" and then be restored to the horizontal extended position by sudden muscular contractions (the "ataxic hand").

===Vestibular===
The term vestibular ataxia is employed to indicate ataxia due to dysfunction of the vestibular system, which in acute and unilateral cases is associated with prominent vertigo, nausea and vomiting. In slow-onset, chronic bilateral cases of vestibular dysfunction, these characteristic manifestations may be absent, and dysequilibrium may be the sole presentation.

==Causes==
The three types of ataxia have overlapping causes, and therefore can either coexist or occur in isolation.

===Focal lesions===
Any type of focal lesion of the central nervous system (such as stroke, brain tumour, multiple sclerosis) will cause the type of ataxia corresponding to the site of the lesion: cerebellar if in the cerebellum, sensory if in the dorsal spinal cord (and rarely in the thalamus or parietal lobe), vestibular if in the vestibular system (including the vestibular areas of the cerebral cortex).

===Exogenous substances===
Exogenous substances that cause ataxia mainly do so because they have a depressant effect on central nervous system function. The most common example is ethanol, which is capable of causing reversible cerebellar and vestibular ataxia. Other examples include various prescription drugs (e.g. most antiepileptic drugs have cerebellar ataxia as a possible adverse effect), Lithium level over 1.5mEq/L, cannabis ingestion and various other recreational drugs (e.g. ketamine, PCP or dextromethorphan, all of which are NMDA receptor antagonists that produce a dissociative state at high doses). A further class of pharmaceuticals which can cause short term ataxia, especially in high doses are the benzodiazepines. Exposure to high levels of methylmercury, through consumption of fish with high mercury concentrations, is also a known cause of ataxia and other neurological disorders. 

===Radiation poisoning===
Ataxia can be induced as a result of severe acute radiation poisoning with an absorbed dose of more than 30 Grays.

===Vitamin B12 deficiency===
Vitamin B12 deficiency may cause, among several neurological abnormalities, overlapping cerebellar and sensory ataxia.

===Hypothyroidism===
Symptoms of neurological dysfunction may be the presenting feature in some patients with hypothyroidism. These include reversible cerebellar ataxia, dementia, peripheral neuropathy, psychosis and coma. Most of the neurological complications improve completely after thyroid hormone replacement therapy. 

===Causes of isolated sensory ataxia===
Peripheral neuropathies may cause generalised or localised sensory ataxia (e.g. a limb only) depending on the extent of the neuropathic involvement. Spinal disorders of various types may cause sensory ataxia from the lesioned level below, when they involve the dorsal columns 

===Non-hereditary cerebellar degeneration===
Non-hereditary causes of cerebellar degeneration include chronic ethanol abuse, head injury, paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration, high altitude cerebral oedema, coeliac disease, normal pressure hydrocephalus and cerebellitis.

===Hereditary ataxias===
Ataxia may depend on hereditary disorders consisting of degeneration of the cerebellum and/or of the spine; most cases feature both to some extent, and therefore present with overlapping cerebellar and sensory ataxia, even though one is often more evident than the other. Hereditary disorders causing ataxia include autosomal dominant ones such as spinocerebellar ataxia, episodic ataxia, and dentatorubropallidoluysian atrophy, as well as autosomal recessive disorders such as Friedreich's ataxia (sensory and cerebellar, with the former predominating) and Niemann Pick disease, ataxia-telangiectasia (sensory and cerebellar, with the latter predominating), and abetalipoproteinaemia. An example of X-linked ataxic condition is the rare fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome.

===Arnold-Chiari malformation===
Arnold-Chiari malformation is a malformation of the brain. It consists of a downward displacement of the cerebellar tonsils and the medulla through the foramen magnum, sometimes causing hydrocephalus as a result of obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid outflow.

===Wilson's disease===
Wilson's disease is an autosomal-recessive gene disorder whereby an alteration of the ATP7B gene results in an inability to properly excrete copper from the body. Copper accumulates in the nervous system and liver and can cause ataxia as well as other neurological and organ impairments. 

=== Gluten ataxia ===

Gluten ataxia may be a form of gluten sensitivity, a wide spectrum of disorders marked by an abnormal immunological response to gluten. With gluten ataxia, damage takes place in the cerebellum, the balance center of the brain that controls coordination and complex movements like walking, speaking and swallowing. Gluten ataxia is the single most common cause of sporadic idiopathic ataxia. 

Gluten ataxia is an immune-mediated disease triggered by the ingestion of gluten in genetically susceptible individuals. It should be considered in the differential diagnosis of all patients with idiopathic sporadic ataxia. Early diagnosis and treatment with a gluten free diet can improve ataxia and prevent its progression. Readily available and sensitive markers of gluten ataxia include anti-gliadin antibodies. Immunoglobulin A (IgA) deposits against transglutaminase 2 (TG2) in the small bowel and at extraintestinal sites are proving to be additionally reliable and perhaps more specific markers of the whole spectrum of gluten sensitivity. They may also hold the key to its pathogenesis. 

Gluten ataxia is defined as sporadic cerebellar ataxia associated with the presence circulating antigliadin antibodies and in the absence of an alternative etiology for ataxia. 

===Sodium-potassium pump===

Misfunction of the sodium-potassium pump may be a factor in some ataxias. The - pump has been shown to control and set the intrinsic activity mode of cerebellar Purkinje neurons. This suggests that the pump might not simply be a homeostatic, "housekeeping" molecule for ionic gradients; but could be a computational element in the cerebellum and the brain. Indeed, an ouabain block of - pumps in the cerebellum of a live mouse results in it displaying ataxia and dystonia. Ataxia is observed for lower ouabain concentrations, dystonia is observed at higher ouabain concentrations.

==Treatment==
The treatment of ataxia and its effectiveness depend on the underlying cause. Treatment may limit or reduce the effects of ataxia, but it is unlikely to eliminate them entirely. Recovery tends to be better in individuals with a single focal injury (such as stroke or a benign tumour), compared to those who have a neurological degenerative condition. A review of the management of degenerative ataxia was published in 2009. 

The movement disorders associated with ataxia can be managed by pharmacological treatments and through physical therapy and occupational therapy to reduce disability. Some drug treatments that have been used to control ataxia include: 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), idebenone, amantadine, physostigmine, L-carnitine or derivatives, trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole, vigabatrin, phosphatidylcholine, acetazolamide, 4-aminopyridine, buspirone, and a combination of coenzyme Q10 and vitamin E. 

Physical therapy requires a focus on adapting activity and facilitating motor learning for retraining specific functional motor patterns. A recent systematic review suggested that physical therapy is effective, but there is only moderate evidence to support this conclusion. The most commonly used physical therapy interventions for cerebellar ataxia are vestibular habituation, Frenkel Exercises, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), and balance training; however, therapy is often highly individualized and gait and coordination training are large components of therapy.

Current research suggests that, if a person is able to walk with or without a mobility aid, physical therapy should include an exercise program addressing five components: static balance, dynamic balance, trunk-limb coordination, stairs, and contracture prevention. Once the physical therapist determines that the individual is able to safely perform parts of the program independently, it is important that the individual be prescribed and regularly engage in a supplementary home exercise program that incorporates these components to further improve long term outcomes. These outcomes include balance tasks, gait, and individual activities of daily living. While the improvements are attributed primarily to changes in the brain and not just the hip and/or ankle joints, it is still unknown whether the improvements are due to adaptations in the cerebellum or compensation by other areas of the brain. 

Decomposition, simplification, or slowing of multijoint movement may also be an effective strategy that therapists may use to improve function in patients with ataxia. Training likely needs to be intense and focused—as indicated by one study performed with stroke patients experiencing limb ataxia who underwent intensive upper limb retraining. Their therapy consisted of constraint-induced movement therapy which resulted in improvements of their arm function. Treatment should likely include strategies to manage difficulties with everyday activities such as walking. Gait aids (such as a cane or walker) can be provided to decrease the risk of falls associated with impairment of balance or poor coordination. Severe ataxia may eventually lead to the need for a wheelchair. In order to obtain better results, possible coexisting motor deficits need to be addressed in addition to those induced by ataxia. For example, muscle weakness and decreased endurance could lead to increasing fatigue and poorer movement patterns.

There are several assessment tools available to therapists and health care professionals working with patients with ataxia. The International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS) is one of the most widely used and has been proven to have very high reliability and validity. Other tools that assess motor function, balance and coordination are also highly valuable to help the therapist track the progress of their patient, as well as to quantify the patient's functionality. These tests include, but are not limited to:
* The Berg Balance Scale
* Tandem Walking (to test for Tandem gaitability)
* Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia 
* tapping tests – The person must quickly and repeatedly tap their arm or leg while the therapist monitors the amount of dysdiadochokinesia. 
* finger-nose testing – This test has several variations including finger-to-therapist's finger, finger-to-finger, and alternate nose-to-finger. 

==Other uses==
The term "ataxia" is sometimes used in a broader sense to indicate lack of coordination in some physiological process. Examples include optic ataxia (lack of coordination between visual inputs and hand movements, resulting in inability to reach and grab objects) and ataxic respiration (lack of coordination in respiratory movements, usually due to dysfunction of the respiratory centres in the medulla oblongata). Optic ataxia may be caused by lesions to the posterior parietal cortex, which is responsible for combining and expressing positional information and relating it to movement. Outputs of the posterior parietal cortex include the spinal cord, brain stem motor pathways, pre-motor and pre-frontal cortex, basal ganglia and the cerebellum. Some neurons in the posterior parietal cortex are modulated by intention. Optic ataxia is usually part of Balint's syndrome, but can be seen in isolation with injuries to the superior parietal lobule, as it represents a disconnection between visual-association cortex and the frontal premotor and motor cortex. 

==See also==
*Ataxic cerebral palsy

==References==

== Further reading ==
* 
* 

== External links ==
* Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA)
* Ataxia Connect Social Network
* Ataxia UK, including guidelines
* Brasil, Rio Grande do Sul - Associação dos Amigos, Parentes e Portadores de Ataxias Dominantes
* Canadian Association for Familial Ataxias - Claude St-Jean Foundation
* International Ataxia Awareness Day
* LivingWithAtaxia Forums & Community
* Overview at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
* Rochester Ataxia Foundation, Rochester, NY
* The latest news and research on Ataxia
* US National Ataxia Foundation
* University of Minnesota Ataxia Center
* Video demonstration of ataxic gait
* Gluten Ataxia
* Range of Neurologic Disorders in Patients With Celiac Disease
* The Cerebellum
* Cerebellum and Ataxias

and signs: Nervous system]



[[Abdul Alhazred]]

Abdul Alhazred is a fictional character created by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. He is the so-called "Mad Arab" credited with authoring the fictional book Kitab al-Azif (the Necronomicon), and as such is an integral part of Cthulhu Mythos lore.

==Name==

The name Abdul Alhazred is a pseudonym that Lovecraft created in his youth, which he took on after reading 1001 Arabian Nights at the age of about five. The name was invented either by Lovecraft, or by Albert Baker, the Phillips' family lawyer. Harms, p. 7, The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana. Abdul is a common Arabic name component (but never a name by itself), but Alhazred may allude to Hazard, a reference to the book's destructive and dangerous nature, or to Lovecraft's ancestors by that name. L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft, a Biography. Ballantine, 1976. Rootsweb page on Lovecraft's family tree, showing his Hazard ancestry. It might also have been a play on "all-has-read", since Lovecraft was an avid reader in youth. Pearsall, "Alhazred, Abdul", The Lovecraft Lexicon, p. 55. 

Another possibility, raised in an essay by the Swedish fantasy writer and editor Rickard Berghorn, is that the name Alhazred was influenced by references to two historical authors whose names were Latinized as Alhazen: Alhazen ben Josef, who translated Ptolemy into Arabic; and Abu 'Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, who wrote about optics, mathematics and physics. Ibn al-Haytham is said to have pretended to be mad to escape the wrath of a ruler. Rickard Berghorn "Alhazen och Alhazred" 

Abdul Alhazred is not a real Arabic name, and seems to contain the Arabic definite article morpheme al- twice in a row (anomalous in terms of Arabic grammar). The more proper Arabic form might be Abd-al-Hazred or Abdul Hazred. In Arabic translations, his name has appeared as Abdullah (عبدالله الحظرد): Arabic حظر = "he fenced in", "he prohibited". Hazred could come from the Arabic word "Hazrat" meaning Great Lord with a twist that makes it sound like "red" and "hazard" both indicative of danger. It is also thought by some to be a corruption of sorts on the phrase "All has read," to imply he has read lots, and has immense amounts of knowledge. However Abdul is a common Arabic prefix meaning "Servant" and "Al" is Arabic for "the", and if "hazra" means "he prohibited", "he fenced in" or "Great Lord", then the name would mean "Servant of the Prohibited", "Servant of the Fenced in", or "Servant of the Great Lord" which would make sense considering his role, even if it is not a proper Arabic name.

Similarly, an article (written from an in-universe perspective) in the Call of Cthulhu tabletop role-playing game speculates that it may be a corruption of Abd Al-Azrad, which it claims translates to The Worshipper of the Great Devourer.

The phrase "mad Arab", sometimes with both words capitalized in Lovecraft's stories, is used so commonly before Alhazred's name that it almost constitutes a title. A reference to the "Mad Arab" in Cthulhu Mythos fiction is invariably a synonym for Abdul Alhazred. Later writers sometimes preface Alhazred with words such as "monk" (such as in the Chick parody tract "Who will be Eaten First?" by Howard Hallis) or "scholar" replacing Arab to avoid any racist overtones.

==Biography==

===H. P. Lovecraft===

According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon" (written 1927, first published 1938), Alhazred was:

:a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secret of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia&mdash;the Roba El Khaliyeh or "Empty Space" of the ancients&mdash;and "Dahna" or "Crimson" desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus.

In 730, while still living in Damascus, Alhazred supposedly wrote a book of ultimate evil in Arabic, al-Azif, which would later become known as the Necronomicon. Those who have dealings with this book usually come to an unpleasant end, and Alhazred was no exception. Again according to Lovecraft's "History":

:Of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen the fabulous Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind. He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown entities whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.

===August Derleth===

August Derleth later made alterations to the biography of Alhazred, such as redating his death to 731. Derleth also changed Alhazred's final fate, as described in his short story "The Keeper of the Key", first published in May 1951. In the story, Professor Laban Shrewsbury (a recurring Derleth character) and his assistant at the time, Nayland Colum, discover Alhazred's burial site.

While the two are heading a caravan from Salalah, Oman, they cross the border into Yemen and find the unexplored desert area that the Necronomicon calls "Roba el Ehaliyeh" or "Roba el Khaliyeh" — presumably a reference to the Empty Quarter or "Rub al Khali".

At the center of the area they discover the Nameless City (the setting of the Lovecraft story of the same name) and in Derleth's text the domain of the Great Old One Hastur. Shrewsbury, an old agent of Hastur and the devoted enemy of Hastur's half-brother, Cthulhu, crosses its gates in search of Alhazred's burial site.

He indeed finds Alhazred's burial chamber and learns of his fate. Alhazred had been kidnapped in Damascus and brought to the Nameless City, where he had earlier studied and learned some of the Necronomicons lore. As punishment for betraying their secrets, Alhazred was tortured. Then they blinded him, severed his tongue and executed him.

Although the entrance to the chamber warns against disturbing him, Shrewsbury opens Alhazred's sarcophagus anyway, finding that only rags, bones, and dust remain of Alhazred. However, the sarcophagus also contains Alhazred's personal, incomplete copy of the Necronomicon, written in the Arabic alphabet. Shrewsbury then uses necromancy to recall Alhazred's spirit and orders it to draw a map of the world as he knew it. After obtaining the map, which reveals the location of R'lyeh and other secret places, Shrewsbury finally lets Alhazred return to his eternal rest.

==In non-Mythos fiction==

Like his creation the Necronomicon, Alhazred is often referenced in works that are not generally considered part of the Cthulhu Mythos, either as a subtle nod to Lovecraft or to create a connection to his world.

In The Eyes of the Dragon, by Stephen King, the Mad Arab appears in a reference by the evil wizard Flagg to the Necronomicon, "written on the high, distant Plains of Leng by a madman named Alharzed." 

In Fallout 3, an irradiated and mentally insane character named Jaime Palabras can be heard rambling on an audio tape, saying "Abdul comes again, on the feast of the weaker. Feast for the Deep Temple. Born again, here. Alhazred, G’yeth. G’yeth."

In Diablo III, a travelling scholar named "Abd al-Hazir" is the narrator for many of the game's features. Given the similarities in the two characters' names, professions, written works and generally dark subject matter, it is likely that Lovecraft's Alhazred provided the main inspiration for al-Hazir.

The Mercyful Fate albums Time and Into the Unknown reference Alhazred.

The MMORPG Wizard101 features a Krok called Alhazred who teaches Balance magic.

A statue of Alhazred makes a cameo appearance as the "Mad Scholar" in Graham McNeill's book A Thousand Sons. This novel features sorcerers who become destroyed by forbidden knowledge and takes place in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, itself utilizing Lovecraftian themes.

Abdul Alhazred acts as vizier to King Calaphim and Queen Allaria in the Land of the Green Isles in .

In the game , the library contains a book called Kitab as-Azif. The character Snake says it was written by Abdul Alhazred and was said to be one of the books used in the creation of the Necronomicon.

A book by Al-Hazred is mentioned in The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross.

In the Novel Metrom by Andrew Knaut, Abdul Alhazred was in an elite Esis protection team known as Vel Team L-Viathan. He was banished after contacting Esis on Gabrielle DuMont's whereabouts and lived in the Waste alone. When meeting his old team he caused his best friend and partner Zan Farkafk to go insane.

In the novel, A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, a character carries an icon painted by Alhazred known as the Alhazred Icon.

In the video game Wild Arms, the similarly named Alhazad (Japanese: , Aruhazādo) is an evil Metal Demon with a great enjoyment for killing and destruction. He also practices human experimentation, transforming humans into monsters and other creatures.

==See also==
*Alchemy and chemistry in Islam
*Islamic astrology
*Abdul Alhazred (comics)
*Alhazred (novel)
*Sana'a manuscripts

==References==

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*

*

===Notes===



[[Ada Lovelace]]

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer. . 

Lovelace was born 10 December 1815 as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Byron. Ada Lovelace Biography, biography.com All Byron's other children were born out of wedlock. Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever four months later, eventually dying of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Ada's mother remained bitter at Lord Byron and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing what she saw as the insanity seen in her father, but Ada remained interested in him despite this (and was, upon her eventual death, buried next to him at her request).

Ada described her approach as "poetical science" and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)". As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's work on the Analytical Engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called Notes. These notes contain what many consider to be the first computer program—that is, an algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine. Lovelace's notes are important in the early history of computers. She also developed a vision on the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities. Her mind-set of "poetical science" led her to ask basic questions about the Analytical Engine (as shown in her notes) examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool. . 

==Biography==

===Childhood===
Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on 10 December 1815, the child of the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, and Anne Isabella "Annabella" Milbanke, Baroness Byron. George Byron expected his baby to be a "glorious boy" and was disappointed when his wife gave birth to a girl. Augusta was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself.

Ada, aged four
On 16 January 1816, Annabella, at George's behest, left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory taking one-month-old Ada with her. Although English law at the time gave fathers full custody of their children in cases of separation, Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights but did request that his sister keep him informed of Ada's welfare. On 21 April, Byron signed the Deed of Separation, although very reluctantly, and left England for good a few days later. Aside from an acrimonious separation, Annabella continually throughout her life made allegations about Byron's immoral behavior. This set of events made Ada famous in Victorian society. Byron did not have a relationship with his daughter, and never saw her again. He died in 1824 when she was eight years old. Her mother was the only significant parental figure in her life. . Ada was not allowed to view any portrait of her father until her twentieth birthday. Her mother became Baroness Wentworth in her own right in 1856.

Annabella did not have a close relationship with the young Ada, and often left her in the care of her own mother Judith, Hon. Lady Milbanke, who doted on her grandchild. However, due to societal attitudes of the time—which favored the husband in any separation, with the welfare of any child acting as mitigation—Annabella had to present herself as a loving mother to the rest of society. This included writing anxious letters to Lady Milbanke about Ada's welfare, with a cover note saying to retain the letters in case she had to use them to show maternal concern. In one letter to Lady Milbanke, she referred to Ada as "it": "I talk to it for your satisfaction, not my own, and shall be very glad when you have it under your own." In her teenage years, several of her mother's close friends watched Ada for any sign of moral deviation. Ada dubbed these observers the "Furies", and later complained they exaggerated and invented stories about her.

Ada, aged seventeen, 1832
Ada was often ill, beginning in early childhood. At the age of eight, she experienced headaches that obscured her vision. In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout of measles. She was subjected to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831, she was able to walk with crutches. Despite being ill Ada developed her mathematical and technological skills. At age 12, this future "Lady Fairy", as Charles Babbage affectionately called her, decided she wanted to fly. Ada went about the project methodically, thoughtfully, with imagination and passion. Her first step in February 1828, was to construct wings. She investigated different material and sizes. She considered various materials for the wings; paper, oilsilk, wires and feathers. She examined the anatomy of birds to determine the right proportion between the wings and the body. She decided to write a book Flyology illustrating, with plates, some of her findings. She decided what equipment she would need, for example, a compass, to "cut across the country by the most direct road", so that she could surmount mountains, rivers and valleys. Her final step was to integrate steam with the "art of flying". 

In early 1833, Ada had an affair with a tutor and, after being caught, tried to elope with him. The tutor's relatives recognized her and contacted her mother. Annabella and her friends covered the incident up to prevent a public scandal. Ada never met her younger half-sister, Allegra, daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont. Allegra died in 1822 at the age of five. Ada did have some contact with Elizabeth Medora Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh, who purposely avoided Ada as much as possible when introduced at Court.

===Adult years===
Lovelace developed a strong relationship with her tutor Mary Somerville. She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville. and the two of them corresponded for many years. Other acquaintances included Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday. By 1834, Ada was a regular at Court and started attending various events. She danced often and was able to charm many people, and was described by most people as being dainty. However, John Hobhouse, Lord Byron's friend, was the exception and he described her as ".a large, coarse-skinned young woman but with something of my friend's features, particularly the mouth." This description followed their meeting on 24 February 1834 in which Ada made it clear to Hobhouse that she did not like him, probably due to the influence of her mother, which led her to dislike all of her father's friends. This first impression was not to last, and they later became friends.

On 8 July 1835 she married William King, 8th Baron King, becoming Baroness King. . Their residence was a large estate at Ockham Park, in Ockham, Surrey, along with another estate on Loch Torridon, and a home in London. They spent their honeymoon at Worthy Manor in Ashley Combe near Porlock Weir, Somerset. The Manor had been built as a hunting lodge in 1799 and was improved by King in preparation for their honeymoon. It later became their summer retreat and was further improved during this time.

They had three children: Byron (born 12 May 1836); Anne Isabella (called Annabella, later Lady Anne Blunt; born 22 September 1837), and Ralph Gordon (born 2 July 1839). Immediately after the birth of Annabella, Lady King experienced "a tedious and suffering illness, which took months to cure." In 1838, her husband became Earl of Lovelace. Thus, she was styled "The Right Honourable the Countess of Lovelace" for most of her married life. In 1843-44, Ada's mother assigned William Benjamin Carpenter to teach Ada's children, and to act as a 'moral' instructor for Ada. He quickly fell for her, and encouraged her to express any frustrated affections, claiming that his marriage meant he'd never act in an "unbecoming" manner. When it became clear that Carpenter was trying to start an affair, Ada cut it off.

In 1841, Lovelace and Medora Leigh (daughter of Lord Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh) were told by Ada's mother that her father was also Medora's father. On 27 February 1841, Ada wrote to her mother: "I am not in the least 'astonished'. In fact you merely 'confirm' what I have for 'years and years' felt scarcely a doubt about, but should have considered it most improper in me to hint to you that I in any way suspected." She did not blame the incestuous relationship on Byron, but instead blamed Augusta Leigh: "I fear 'she' is 'more inherently' wicked than 'he' ever was." In the 1840s, Ada flirted with scandals: firstly from a relaxed relationship with men who were not her husband, which led to rumours of affairs—and secondly, her love of gambling. The gambling led to her forming a syndicate with male friends, and an ambitious attempt in 1851 to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. This went disastrously wrong, leaving her thousands of pounds in debt to the syndicate, forcing her to admit it all to her husband. She had a shadowy relationship with Andrew Crosse's son John from 1844 onwards. John Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence after her death as part of a legal agreement. She bequeathed him the only heirlooms her father had personally left to her. During her final illness, she would panic at the idea of the younger Crosse being kept from visiting her.

===Death===
Painting of Ada Lovelace at a piano in 1852 by Henry Phillips. While she was in great pain at the time, she sat for the painting as Phillips' father, Thomas Phillips, had painted Ada's father, Lord Byron.
Ada Lovelace died at the age of 36 on 27 November 1852, . from uterine cancer probably exacerbated by bloodletting by her physicians. The illness lasted several months, in which time Annabella took command over whom Ada saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants. Under her mother's influence, she had a religious transformation (after previously being a materialist) and was coaxed into repenting of her previous conduct and making Annabella her executor. She lost contact with her husband after she confessed something to him on 30 August which caused him to abandon her bedside. What she told him is unknown. She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottingham.

===Education===
Throughout her illnesses, she continued her education. Her mother's obsession with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Lord Byron was one of the reasons that Ada was taught mathematics from an early age. She was privately schooled in mathematics and science by William Frend, William King, Sources disagree on whether William King, her math tutor, and William King, her later husband, were the same person. and Mary Somerville, noted researcher and scientific author of the 19th century. One of her later tutors was mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan. From 1832, when she was seventeen, her remarkable mathematical abilities began to emerge, and her interest in mathematics dominated the majority of her adult life. In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested that her daughter's skill in mathematics could lead her to become "an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence."

Lovelace often questioned basic assumptions by integrating poetry and science. While studying differential calculus, she wrote to De Morgan: I may remark that the curious transformations many formulae can undergo, the unsuspected and to a beginner apparently impossible identity of forms exceedingly dissimilar at first sight, is I think one of the chief difficulties in the early part of mathematical studies. I am often reminded of certain sprites and fairies one reads of, who are at one's elbows in one shape now, and the next minute in a form most dissimilar... Lovelace believed that intuition and imagination were critical to effectively applying mathematical and scientific concepts. She valued metaphysics as much as mathematics, viewing both as tools for exploring "the unseen worlds around us".

==Work==
Throughout her life, Ada was strongly interested in scientific developments and fads of the day, including phrenology and mesmerism. Even after her famous work with Babbage, Ada continued to work on other projects. In 1844, she commented to a friend Woronzow Greig about her desire to create a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts and nerves to feelings ("a calculus of the nervous system"). She never achieved this, however. In part, her interest in the brain came from a long-running preoccupation, inherited from her mother, about her 'potential' madness. As part of her research into this project, she visited electrical engineer Andrew Crosse in 1844 to learn how to carry out electrical experiments. In the same year, she wrote a review of a paper by Baron Karl von Reichenbach, Researches on Magnetism, but this was not published and does not appear to have progressed past the first draft. In 1851, the year before her cancer struck, she wrote to her mother mentioning "certain productions" she was working on regarding the relation of maths and music.

Portrait of Ada by British painter Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1836)
Lovelace first met Charles Babbage in June 1833, through their mutual friend Mary Somerville. Later that month, Babbage invited Lovelace to see the prototype for his Difference Engine. She became fascinated with the machine and used her relationship with Somerville to visit Babbage as often as she could. Babbage was impressed by Lovelace's intellect and analytic skills. He called her The Enchantress of Numbers. In 1843 he wrote of her:

During a nine-month period in 1842–43, Ada translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's memoir on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. Explaining the Analytical Engine's function was a difficult task, as even other scientists did not really grasp the concept and the British establishment was uninterested in it. Ada's notes even had to explain how the Engine differed from the original Difference Engine.

The notes are longer than the memoir itself and include (in Section G), in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, which would have run correctly had the Analytical Engine been built (only his Difference Engine has been built, completed in London in 2002). 

Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer and her method is recognised as the world's first computer program. Gleick, J. (2011) , London, Fourth Estate, pp. 116–118. Her work was well received at the time; Michael Faraday described himself as a fan of her writing.

Lovelace and Babbage had a minor falling out when the papers were published, when he tried to leave his own statement (a criticism of the government's treatment of his Engine) as an unsigned preface—which would imply that she had written that also. When Taylor's Scientific Memoirs ruled that the statement should be signed, Babbage wrote to Ada asking her to withdraw the paper. This was the first that she knew he was leaving it unsigned, and she wrote back refusing to withdraw the paper. Historian Benjamin Woolley theorised that, "His actions suggested he had so enthusiastically sought Ada's involvement, and so happily indulged her ... because of her 'celebrated name'." Their friendship recovered, and they continued to correspond. On 12 August 1851, when she was dying of cancer, Ada wrote to him asking him to be her executor, though this letter did not give him the necessary legal authority. Part of the terrace at Worthy Manor was known as Philosopher's Walk, as it was there that Ada and Babbage were reputed to have walked while discussing mathematical principles. 

==First computer program==
In 1842, Babbage was invited to give a seminar at the University of Turin about his Analytical Engine. Luigi Menabrea, a young Italian engineer, and future Prime Minister of Italy, wrote up Babbage's lecture in French, and this transcript was subsequently published in the Bibliothèque universelle de Genève in October 1842.
Babbage's friend Charles Wheatstone commissioned Ada to translate Menabrea's paper into English. She then augmented the paper with notes, which were added to the translation. Ada spent the better part of a year doing this, assisted with input from Babbage. These notes, which are more extensive than Menabrea's paper, were then published in Taylor's Scientific Memoirs under the initialism AAL. In 1953, more than a century after her death, Ada's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished. The engine has now been recognized as an early model for a computer and Ada's notes as a description of a computer and software. 

An illustration inspired by the A. E. Chalon portrait created for the Ada Initiative, which supports open technology and women
Her notes were labeled alphabetically from A to G. In note G, she describes an algorithm for the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. It is considered the first algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/08/tom-stoppards-arcadia-at-twenty.html The engine was never completed, however, so her code was never tested. 

==Conceptual leap==
In her notes, Lovelace emphasized the difference between the Analytical Engine and previous calculating machines, particularly its ability to be programmed to solve problems of any complexity. She realised the potential of the device extended far beyond mere number crunching. She wrote:

This analysis was a conceptual leap from previous ideas about the capabilities of computing devices, and foreshadowed the capabilities and implications of the modern computer. This insight is seen as significant by writers such as Betty Toole and Benjamin Woolley, as well as programmer John Graham-Cumming, whose project Plan 28 has the aim of constructing the first complete Analytical Engine. 

==Controversy over extent of contributions==
Though Ada Lovelace is often referred to as the first computer programmer, there is disagreement over the extent of her contributions, and whether she can accurately be called a programmer. Allan G. Bromley, in the 1990 essay Difference and Analytical Engines, wrote, "All but one of the programs cited in her notes had been prepared by Babbage from three to seven years earlier. The exception was prepared by Babbage for her, although she did detect a 'bug' in it. Not only is there no evidence that Ada ever prepared a program for the Analytical Engine, but her correspondence with Babbage shows that she did not have the knowledge to do so." . On the other hand, Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandra Toole wrote, " was certainly capable of writing the program herself given the proper formula; this is clear from her depth of understanding regarding the process of programming and from her improvements on Babbage's programming notation." 

Curator and author Doron Swade, in his 2001 book The Difference Engine, wrote, "The first algorithms or stepwise operations leading to a solution—what we now recognize as a 'program', although the word was used neither by her nor by Babbage—were certainly published under her name. But the work had been completed by Babbage much earlier." . Kim and Toole dispute this claim: "Babbage had written several small programs for the Analytical Engine in his notebook in 1836 and 1837, but none of them approached the complexity of the Bernoulli numbers program." 

Blue plaque to Lovelace in St. James's Square, London
Historian Bruce Collier went further in his 1990 book The Little Engine That Could've, calling Ada not only irrelevant, but delusional:

Writer Benjamin Woolley said that while Ada's mathematical abilities have been contested, she can claim "some contribution": "Note A, the first she wrote, and the one over which Babbage had the least influence, contains a sophisticated analysis of the idea and implications of mechanical computation" and that this discussion of the implications of Babbage's invention was the most important aspect of her work. According to Woolley, her notes were "detailed and thorough nd still... metaphysical, meaningfully so." They explained how the machine worked and " above the technical minutiae of Babbage's extraordinary invention to reveal its true grandeur."
Babbage published the following on Ada's contribution, in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864): 

Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandar Toole elucidate Babbage's role in writing the first computer program: 

==In popular culture==
Lovelace has been portrayed in Romulus Linney's 1977 play Childe Byron, the 1990 steampunk novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, the 1997 film Conceiving Ada, and in John Crowley's 2005 novel Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, where she is featured as an unseen character whose personality is forcefully depicted in her annotations and anti-heroic efforts to archive her father's lost novel. 

In Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia, the precocious teenage genius Thomasina Coverly (a character "apparently based" Profile, Gale Edwards, 1994, Director of "Arcadia" for the Sydney Theatre Company on Ada Lovelace—the play also involves Lord Byron) comes to understand chaos theory, and theorises the second law of thermodynamics, before either is officially recognised.

==Commemoration==
The computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, was named after Ada Lovelace. The reference manual for the language was approved on 10 December 1980, and the Department of Defense Military Standard for the language, MIL-STD-1815, was given the number of the year of her birth. Since 1998, the British Computer Society has awarded a medal in her name and in 2008 initiated an annual competition for women students of computer science. 
In the UK, the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, the annual conference for women undergraduates is named after Ada Lovelace. 

"Ada Lovelace Day" is an annual event celebrated in mid-October whose goal is to "...raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths."

The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of women in the free culture and open source movements. 

On the 197th anniversary of her birth, Google dedicated its Google Doodle to her. The doodle shows Lovelace working on a formula along with images that show the evolution of the computer. 

The Engineering in Computer Science and Telecommunications College building in Zaragoza University is called the Ada Byron Building. The village computer centre in the village of Porlock, near where Ada Lovelace lived, is named after her. There is a building in the small town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire named Ada Lovelace House. 
One of the tunnel boring machines excavating the tunnels for London's Crossrail project is named Ada in commemoration of Ada Lovelace. 

==Titles and styles by which she was known==
* 10 December 1815 – 8 July 1835: The Honorable Ada Augusta Byron
* 8 July 1835 – 1838: The Right Honorable The Lady King
* 1838 – 27 November 1852: The Right Honorable The Countess of Lovelace

==Ancestry==

==Publications==
* Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, Esq. with notes by trans. Ada Lovelace, in Scientific Memoirs, Vol 3 (1842).

==See also==

* Great Lives (BBC Radio 4) aired on 17 September 2013 was dedicated to the story of Ada Lovelace. Series 31 episode 7 
* Women in computing
* Ada Initiative

==Notes==

==References==

==Bibliography==

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* With notes upon the memoir by the translator.
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==External links==

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[[August Derleth]]

August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography.

A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing.

==Life==
The son of William Julius Derleth and Rose Louise Volk, Derleth grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin. "August Derleth Services Wednesday in Sauk City," Capital Times, July 6, 1971, p. 24, col. 2. He was educated in local parochial and public high school. Derleth wrote his first fiction at age 13. He was interested most in reading, and he made three trips to the library a week. He would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 later on in life). Some of his biggest influences were Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, Walt Whitman, H. L. Mencken's The American Mercury, Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, Alexandre Dumas, Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Scott, and Henry David Thoreau's Walden.

Forty rejected stories and three years later, according to anthologist Jim Stephens, he sold his first story, "Bat's Belfry", to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth wrote throughout his four years at the University of Wisconsin, where he received a B.A. in 1930. During this time he also served briefly as associate editor of Minneapolis-based Fawcett Publications Mystic Magazine.

Returning to Sauk City in the summer of 1931, Derleth worked in a local canning factory and collaborated with childhood friend Mark Schorer (later Chairman of the University of California, Berkeley English Department). They rented a cabin, writing Gothic and other horror stories and selling them
to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth won a place on the O'Brien Roll of Honor for Five Alone, published in Place of Hawks, but was first found in Pagany magazine.

As a result of his early work on the Sac Prairie Saga, Derleth was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his sponsors were Helen C. White, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis and poet Edgar Lee Masters of Spoon River Anthology fame.

In the mid-1930s, Derleth organized a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local school board, served as a parole officer, organized a local men's club and a parent-teacher association. 
Derleth, August. "An Autobiography." He also lectured in American regional literature at the University of Wisconsin and was a contributing editor of Outdoors Magazine.

With longtime friend Donald Wandrei, Derleth in 1939 founded Arkham House. Its initial objective was to publish the works of H.P Lovecraft, with whom Derleth had corresponded since his teenage years. At the same time, he began teaching a course in American Regional Literature at the University of Wisconsin.

In 1941, he became literary editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, a post he held until his resignation in 1960. His hobbies included fencing, swimming, chess, philately and comic-strips (Derleth reportedly deployed the funding from his Guggenheim Fellowship to bind his comic book collection, most recently valued in the millions of dollars, rather than to travel abroad as the award intended.). Derleth's true avocation, however, was hiking the terrain of his native Wisconsin lands, and observing and recording nature with an expert eye.

Derleth once wrote of his writing methods, "I write very swiftly, from 750,000 to a million words yearly, very little of it pulp material."

He was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters. They divorced six years later. Derleth retained custody of the couple's two children, April Rose and Walden William. April earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994. She remained in that capacity until her death. She was known in the community as a naturalist and humanitarian. April died on March 21, 2011. 

In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill, dedicated to poems of man and nature.

Derleth died of a heart attack on July 4, 1971, and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City. 

==Career==
Derleth at his typewriter.
Derleth wrote more than 150 short stories and more than 100 books during his lifetime.

===The Sac Prairie Saga===
Derleth wrote an expansive series of novels, short stories, journals, poems, and other works about Sac Prairie (whose prototype is Sauk City). Derleth intended this series to comprise up to 50 novels telling the projected life-story of the region from the 19th century onwards, with analogies to Balzac's Human Comedy and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

This, and other early work by Derleth, made him a well-known figure among the regional literary figures of his time: early Pulitzer Prize winners Hamlin Garland and Zona Gale, as well as Sinclair Lewis, the last both an admirer and critic of Derleth.

As Edward Wagenknecht writes in Cavalcade of the American Novel: "What Mr. Derleth has that is lacking...in modern novelists generally, is a country. He belongs. He writes of a land and a people that are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In his fictional world, there is a unity much deeper and more fundamental than anything that can be conferred by an ideology. It is clear, too, that he did not get the best, and most fictionally useful, part of his background material from research in the library; like Scott, in his Border novels, he gives, rather, the impression of having drunk it in with his mother's milk."

Jim Stephens, editor of An August Derleth Reader, (1992), argues: "what Derleth accomplished....was to gather a Wisconsin mythos which gave respect to the ancient fundament of our contemporary life."

The author inaugurated the Sac Prairie Saga with four novellas comprising Place of Hawks, published by Loring & Mussey in 1935. At publication, The Detroit News wrote: "Certainly with this book Mr. Derleth may be added to the American writers of distinction." 

Derleth's first novel, Still is the Summer Night, was published two years later by the famous Charles Scribners' editor Maxwell Perkins, and was the second in his Sac Prairie Saga.

Village Year, the first in a series of journals–meditations on nature, Midwestern village American life, and more–was published in 1941 to praise from The New York Times Book Review: "A book of instant sensitive responsiveness...recreates its scene with acuteness and beauty, and makes an unusual contribution to the Americana of the present day." The New York Herald Tribune observed that "Derleth...deepens the value of his village setting by presenting in full the enduring natural background; with the people projected against this, the writing comes to have the quality of an old Flemish picture, humanity lively and amusing and loveable in the foreground and nature magnificent beyond." James Grey, writing in the St. Louis Dispatch concluded, "Derleth has achieved a kind of prose equivalent of the Spoon River Anthology."

In the same year, Evening in Spring was published by Charles Scribners & Sons. This work Derleth considered among his finest. What The Milwaukee Journal called "this beautiful little love story," is an autobiographical novel of first love beset by small town religious bigotry. The work received critical praise: The New Yorker considered it a story told "with tenderness and charm," while the Chicago Tribune concluded: "It's as though he turned back the pages of an old diary and told, with rekindled emotion, of the pangs of pain and the sharp, clear sweetness of a boy's first love." Helen Constance White, wrote in The Capital Times that it was "...the best articulated, the most fully disciplined of his stories."

These were followed in 1943 with Shadow of Night, a Scribners' novel of which The Chicago Sun wrote: "Structurally it has the perfection of a carved jewel...A psychological novel of the first order, and an adventure tale that is unique and inspiriting."

In November 1945, however, Derleth's work was attacked by his one-time admirer and mentor, Sinclair Lewis. Writing in Esquire, Lewis said, "It is a proof of Mr. Derleth's merit that he makes one want to make the journey and see his particular Avalon: The Wisconsin River shining among its islands, and the castles of Baron Pierneau and Hercules Dousman. He is a champion and a justification of regionalism. Yet he is also a burly, bounding, bustling, self-confident, opinionated, and highly sweatered young man with faults so grievous that a melancholoy perusal of them may be of more value to apprentices than a study of his serious virtues. If he could ever be persuaded that he isn't half as good as he thinks he is, if he would learn the art of sitting still and using a blue pencil, he might become twice as good as he thinks he is–which would about rank him with Homer." Derleth good humoredly reprinted the criticism along with a photograph of himself sans sweater, on the back cover of his 1948 country journal: Village Daybook.

A lighter side to the Sac Prairie Saga is a series of quasi-autobiographical short stories known as the "Gus Elker Stories," amusing tales of country life that Peter Ruber, Derleth's last editor, said were "...models of construction and...fused with some of the most memorable characters in American literature." Most were written between 1934 and the late 1940s, though the last, "Tail of the Dog", was published in 1959 and won the Scholastic Magazine short story award for the year. The series was collected and republished in Country Matters in 1996.

"Walden West," published in 1961, is considered by many Derleth's finest work. This prose meditation is built out of the same fundamental material as the series of Sac Prairie journals, but is organized around three themes: "the persistence of memory...the sounds and odors of the country...and Thoreau's observation that the 'mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'" A blend of nature writing, philosophic musings, and careful observation of the people and place of "Sac Prairie." Of this work, George Vukelich, author of "North Country Notebook," writes: "Derleth's Walden West is...the equal of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology." This was followed eight years later by "Return to Walden West," a work of similar quality, but with a more noticeable environmentalist edge to the writing, notes critic Norbert Blei.

A close literary relative of the Sac Prairie Saga was Derleth's Wisconsin Saga, which comprises several historical novels.

===Detective and mystery fiction===
Detective fiction represented another substantial body of Derleth's work. Most notable among this work was a series of 70 stories in affectionate pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, whose creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he admired greatly. These included one published novel as well (Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey). The series features a (Sherlock Holmes-styled) British detective named Solar Pons, of Praed Street in London. The series was greatly admired by such notable writers and critics of mystery and detective fiction as Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay), Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett and Howard Haycraft.

In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen wrote of Derleth's The Norcross Riddle, an early Pons story: "How many budding authors, not even old enough to vote, could have captured the spirit and atmosphere with as much fidelity?" Queen adds, "...and his choice of the euphonic Solar Pons is an appealing addition to the fascinating lore of Sherlockian nomenclature." Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to the 1964 edition of The Casebook of Solar Pons, wrote that the series is "...as sparkling a galaxy of Sherlockian pastiches as we have had since the canonical entertainments came to an end."

Despite close similarities to Doyle's creation, Pons lived in the post-World War I era, in the decade of the 1920s. Though Derleth never wrote a Pons novel to equal The Hound of the Baskervilles, editor Peter Ruber wrote: "...Derleth produced more than a few Solar Pons stories almost as good as Sir Arthur's, and many that had better plot construction."

Although these stories were a form of diversion for Derleth, Ruber, who edited The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition (2000), argued: "Because the stories were generally of such high quality, they ought to be assessed on their own merits as a unique contribution in the annals of mystery ficton, rather than suffering comparison as one of the endless imitators of Sherlock Holmes."

Some of the stories were self-published, through a new imprint called "Mycroft & Moran", an appellation of humorous significance to Holmesian scholars. For approximately a decade, an active supporting group was the Praed Street Irregulars, patterned after the Baker Street Irregulars.

In 1946, Conan Doyle's two sons made some attempts to force Derleth to cease publishing the Solar Pons series, but the efforts were unsuccessful and eventually withdrawn. Peter Ruber. "Introduction" in August Derleth, The Final Adventures of Solar Pons, Shelburne, Ont.: M&M, 1998. 

Derleth's mystery and detective fiction also included a series of works set in Sac Prairie and featuring Judge Peck as the central character.

===Youth and children's fiction===
Derleth wrote many and varied children's works, including biographies meant to introduce younger readers to explorer Fr. Marquette, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Arguably most important among his works for younger readers, however, is the Steve and Sim Mystery Series. The ten-volume series is set in Sac Prairie of the 1920s and can thus be considered in its own right a part of the Sac Prairie Saga, as well as an extension of Derleth's body of mystery fiction. Robert Hood, writing in the New York Times said: "Steve and Sim, the major characters, are twentieth-century cousins of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer; Derleth's minor characters, little gems of comic drawing." The first novel in the series, The Moon Tenders, does, in fact, involve a rafting adventure down the Wisconsin River, which led regional writer Jesse Stuart to suggest the novel was one that "older people might read to recapture the spirit and dream of youth." The connection to the Sac Prairie Saga was noted by the Chicago Tribune: "Once again a small midwest community in 1920s is depicted with perception, skill, and dry humor."

===Arkham House and the "Cthulhu Mythos"===
Derleth near the time he began working on the Cthulhu Mythos
Derleth was a correspondent and friend of H. P. Lovecraft – when Lovecraft wrote about "le Comte d'Erlette" in his fiction, it was in homage to Derleth. Derleth invented the term "Cthulhu Mythos" to describe the fictional universe described in the series of stories shared by Lovecraft and other writers in his circle.

When Lovecraft died in 1937, Derleth and Donald Wandrei assembled a collection of Lovecraft's stories and tried to get them published. Existing publishers showed little interest, so Derleth and Wandrei founded Arkham House in 1939 for that purpose. The name of the company derived from Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, which features in many of his stories. In 1939 Arkham House published The Outsider and Others, a huge collection that contained most of Lovecraft's known short stories. Derleth and Wandrei soon expanded Arkham House and began a regular publishing schedule after its second book, Someone in the Dark, a collection of some of Derleth's own horror stories, was published in 1941.

Following Lovecraft's death, Derleth wrote a number of stories based on fragments and notes left by Lovecraft. These were published in Weird Tales and later in book form, under the byline "H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth", with Derleth calling himself a "posthumous collaborator." This practice has raised objections in some quarters that Derleth simply used Lovecraft's name to market what was essentially his own fiction; S. T. Joshi refers to the "posthumous collaborations" as marking the beginning of "perhaps the most disreputable phase of Derleth's activities". Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Necronomicon Press 1996, p.638. 

A significant number of H. P. Lovecraft fans and critics, such as Dirk W. Mosig, Mosig, "H. P. Lovecraft: Myth Maker" (1976), collected in Mosig at Last, Necronomicon Press 1997. S. T. Joshi, Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Necronomicon Press 1996, pp. 403–4. and Richard L. Tierney "The Derleth Mythos" in Meade & Penny Frierson (eds), HPL (1972) were dissatisfied with Derleth's invention of the term Cthulhu Mythos (Lovecraft himself used Yog-Sothothery) and his presentation of Lovecraft's fiction as having an overall pattern reflecting Derleth's own Christian world view, which they contrast with Lovecraft's depiction of an amoral universe. However Robert M. Price points out that while Derleth's tales are distinct from Lovecraft's in their use of hope and his depiction of a struggle between good and evil, nevertheless the basis of Derlerth's systemization are found in Lovecraft. He also suggests that the differences can be over stated:

Derleth was more optimistic than Lovecraft in his conception of the Mythos, but we are dealing with a difference more of degree than kind. There are indeed tales wherein Derleth's protagonists get off scot-free (like "The Shadow in the Attic", "Witches' Hollow", or "The Shuttered Room"), but often the hero is doomed (e.g., "The House in the Valley", "The Peabody Heritage", "Something in Wood"), as in Lovecraft. And it must be remembered that an occasional Lovecraftian hero does manage to overcome the odds, e.g., in "The Horror in the Museum", "The Shunned House", and 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'. 
 http://crypt-of-cthulhu.com/lovecraftderleth.htm 

Derleth also treated Lovecraft's Old Ones as representatives of elemental forces, creating new fictional entities to flesh out this framework.

Such debates aside, Derleth's founding of Arkham House and his successful effort to rescue Lovecraft from literary obscurity are widely acknowledged by practitioners in the horror field as seminal events in the field. For instance, Ramsey Campbell has acknowledged Derleth's encouragement and guidance during the early part of his own writing career, For example, in The Count of Thirty (Necronomicon Press 1993), p.11. and Kirby McCauley has cited Derleth and Arkham House as an inspiration for his own anthology, Dark Forces. Kirby McCauley, Introduction, Dark Forces (1980). Arkham House and Derleth published Dark Carnival, the first book by Ray Bradbury, as well. Brian Lumley cites the importance of Derleth to his own Lovecraftian work, and contends in a 2009 introduction to Derleth's work that he was "...one of the first, finest, and most discerning editors and publishers of macabre fiction."

Important as was Derleth's work to rescue H.P. Lovecraft from literary obscurity at the time of Lovecraft's death, Derleth also built a body of horror and spectral fiction of his own; still frequently anthologized. The best of this work, recently reprinted in four volumes of short stories–most of which were originally published in Weird Tales, illustrates Derleth's original abilities in the genre. While Derleth considered his work in this genre less important than his most serious literary efforts, the compilers of these four anthologies, including Ramsey Campbell, note that the stories still resonate after more than fifty years.

In 2009, The Library of America selected Derleth’s story The Panelled Room for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales.

===Other works===
Derleth also wrote many historical novels, as part of both the Sac Prairie Saga and the Wisconsin Saga. He also wrote history; arguably most notable among these was The Wisconsin: River of a Thousand Isles, published in 1942. The work was one in a series entitled "The Rivers of America", conceived by writer Constance Lindsay Skinner in the Great Depression as a series that would connect Americans to their heritage through the history of the great rivers of the nation. Skinner wanted the series to be written by artists, not academicians. Derleth, while not a trained historian, was, according to former Wisconsin state historian William F. Thompson, "...a very competent regional historian who based his historical writing upon research in the primary documents and who regularly sought the help of professionals... ." In the foreword to the 1985 reissue of the work by The University of Wisconsin Press, Thompson concluded: "No other writer, of whatever background or training, knew and understood his particular 'corner of the earth' better than August Derleth."

Derleth wrote several volumes of poems, as well as biographies of Zona Gale, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

He also wrote introductions to several collections of classic early 20th century comics, such as Buster Brown, Little Nemo in Slumberland, and Katzenjammer Kids, as well as a book of children's poetry entitled A Boy's Way, and the foreword to Tales from an Indian Lodge by Phebe Jewell Nichols. Derleth also wrote under the noms de plume Stephen Grendon, Kenyon Holmes and Tally Mason.

Derleth's papers and comic book collection (valued at a considerable sum upon his death) were donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison. Derleth, August, 1909–1971 

==Bibliography==

===Novels===

===Short story collections===
Sac Prairie Saga
* Place of Hawks (1935)
* Country Growth (1940)
* Wisconsin Earth: A Sac Prairie Sampler (1948)
* Sac Prairie People (1948)
* Wisconsin in Their Bones (1961)
* Country Matters (1996)
* Return to Sac Prairie (1996)
* The Lost Sac Prairie Novels (2000), including The Odyssey of Janna Meade (first published in the Star Weekly magazine December 3, 1949); The Wind in the Cedars (also as Happiness Shall Not Escape) (first published in Redbook Magazine, January 1946), Lamplight for the Dark (first published in Redbook Magazine January 1941); Shane's Girls (also as Happiness is a Gift) (first published in Redbook Magazine 1948)

Solar Pons
* Re: Sherlock Holmes|"In Re: Sherlock Holmes" – The Adventures of Solar Pons] (UK: The Adventures of Solar Pons) (1945)
* The Memoirs of Solar Pons (1951)
* Three Problems for Solar Pons (1952)
* The Return of Solar Pons (1958)
* The Reminiscences of Solar Pons (1961)
* Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey (1968)
* The Casebook of Solar Pons (1965)
* A Praed Street Dossier (1968)
* The Chronicles of Solar Pons (1973)
* The Solar Pons Omnibus (1982)
* The Final Adventures of Solar Pons (1998)

 Horror & Lovecraft-Mythos
* Someone in the Dark (1941)
* Something Near (1945)
* Not Long for this World (1948)
* The Survivor and Others (1957) with H. P. Lovecraft
* The Mask of Cthulhu (1958)
* Lonesome Places (1962)
* The Trail of Cthulhu (1962)
* Mr. George and Other Odd Persons (1963) as Stephen Grendon
* Colonel Markesan and Less Pleasant People (1966) with Mark Schorer
* The Watchers Out of Time and Others (1974) with H. P. Lovecraft
* Dwellers in Darkness (1976)
* In Lovecraft's Shadow (1998)
* Who Shall I Say is Calling & Other Stories S. Deziemianowicz, ed. (2009)
* The Sleepers and Other Wakeful Things(2009)
* August Derleth's Eerie Creatures (2009)
* (2009)

Science fiction
* Harrigan's File (1975)

Other
* Consider Your Verdict (1937) as Tally Mason

===Short fiction===

===Journals (Sac Prairie Saga)===
* Atmosphere of Houses (1939)
* Village Year: A Sac Prairie Journal (1941)
* Village Daybook (1947)
* Countryman's Journal (1963)
* Walden West (1961)
* Wisconsin Country: A Sac Prairie Journal (1965)
* Return to Walden West (1970)

===Poems===
* Incubus (1934)
* Omega (1934)
* To a Spaceship (1934)
* Man and the Cosmos (1935)
* "Only Deserted" (1937)
* The Shores of Night (1947)
* Providence: Two Gentlemen Meet at Midnight (1948)
* Jacksnipe Over (1971)
* Something Left Behind (1971)

===Poetry collections===

===Essays/articles===

===Biography===
* Still Small Voice (1940) – biography of newpaperwoman and writer Zona Gale
* H.P.L.: A Memoir (1945)
* Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft (1959)
* Concord Rebel: A Life of Henry D. Thoreau (1962)
* Emerson, Our Contemporary (1970)

===History===
* The Wisconsin: River of a Thousand Isles (1942)
* The Milwaukee Road: Its First Hundred Years (1948)
* Saint Ignatius and the Company of Jesus (1956)
* Columbus and the New World (1957)
* Father Marquette and the Great Rivers (1959)
* Wisconsin Murders (1968)

===Anthologies===

====As Stephen Grendon====

====With H. P. Lovecraft====

====With Marc R. Schorer====

====Other collaborations====
* The Churchyard Yew (1947) as Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
* The Adventure of the Snitch in Time (1953) with Mack Reynolds
* The Adventure of the Ball of Nostradamus (1955) with Mack Reynolds
* The House in the Oaks (1971) with Robert E. Howard

====Media adaptations====
* "The Metronome" - The Unforeseen (TV,1960)
* "The Incredible Doctor Markesan" - Thriller (TV, 1962)
* "House - with Ghost" - Night Gallery (TV, 1971)
* "The Dark Boy" - Night Gallery (TV, 1971)
* "Logoda's Head" - Night Gallery (TV, 1971)
 Kim Newman (ed) The BFI Companion to Horror. London: Cassell, 1996, p. 92 

====Awards====
* O'Brien Roll of Honour for short story, 1933
* Guggenheim fellow, 1938

==See also==

* August Derleth Award
* List of authors of new Sherlock Holmes stories
* List of horror fiction authors
* List of people from Wisconsin
* Mark Schorer
* Non-canonical Sherlock Holmes works
* Sauk City, Wisconsin

==Notes==

==References==
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Meudt, Edna. 'August Derleth: "A simple, honorable man",' Wisconsin Academy Review, 19:2 (Summer, 1972) 8–11.
* 
* 
* Schorer, Mark. "An Appraisal of the Work of August Derleth," The Capital Times, July 9, 1971.
* 

==Further reading==
* Robert Bloch. "Two Great Editors". Is No 4 (Oct 1971). Reprint in Bloch's Out of My Head. Cambridge MA: NESFA Press, 1986, 71-79.
* Lin Carter. "A Day in Derleth Country". Is No 4 (Oct 1971). Reprint in Crypt of Cthulhu 1, No 6.

==External links==
* The August Derleth Society
* 
* A short autobiography
* A more detailed biography
* Online catalog of Derleth's collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society
* Arkham House Publishers founded by Derleth
* Stanton & Lee Publishers founded by Derleth
* August Derleth Bibliography
* 
* 
* 
* 



[[Alps]]

The Alps are one of the great mountain range systems of Europe stretching approximately 1,200 km across eight Alpine countries from Austria and Slovenia in the east, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and south east Germany, to the west. Monaco and Italy to the south. "Alpine Convention". Alpine Conferences. Retrieved August 3, 2012 The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4810 m is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains about a hundred peaks higher than 4000 m, known as the "four-thousanders".

The altitude and size of the range affects the climate in Europe; in the mountains precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3400 m, and plants such as Edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations. Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Paleolithic era. A mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991. By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800 Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks. In World War II, Adolf Hitler kept a base of operation in the Bavarian Alps throughout the war.

The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. The traditional culture of farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still exists in Alpine villages, although the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded greatly after World War II to become the dominant industry by the end of the century. The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. At present the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors. Chatré, Baptiste, et al. (2010), 8 

== Etymology ==
An "alp" refers to a high mountain pasture where cows are brought to for grazing, often with a structure, such as this one on the south side of the Alps.
The English word Alps derives from the Latin Alpes (through French). Maurus Servius Honoratus, an ancient commentator of Virgil, says in his commentary (A. X 13) that all high mountains are called Alpes by Celts. The term may be common to Italo-Celtic, because the Celtic languages have terms for high mountains derived from alp.

This may be consistent with the theory that in Latin Alpes is a name of non-Indo-European origin (which is common for prominent mountains and mountain ranges in the Mediterranean region). According to the Old English Dictionary, the Latin Alpes might possibly derive from a pre-Indo-European word *alb "hill", with Albania being a related derivation. Interestingly, Albania (which is a foreign name for modern Albanians) has been used as a name for a number of mountainous areas across Europe. In Roman times, Albania was a name for the eastern Caucasus, while in the English language Albania (or Albany) was occasionally used as a name for Scotland. 

It's likely that alb ("white") and albus have common origins deriving from the association of the tops of tall mountains or steep hills with snow.

In modern languages the term alp, alm, albe or alpe refers to a grazing pastures in the alpine regions below the glaciers, not the peaks. Schmid et al. (2004), 93 An alp refers to a high mountain pasture where cows are taken to be grazed during the summer months and where hay barns can be found, and the term "the Alps", referring to the mountains, is a misnomer. Fleming (2000), 4 The term for the mountain peaks varies by nation and language: words such as horn, kogel, gipfel, and berg are used in German speaking regions: mont, pic, dent and aiguille in French speaking regions; and monte or cima in Italian speaking regions. Shoumatoff (2001), 117–119 

German Alpen is the accusative in origin, but was made the nominative in Modern German, whence also Alm. "Names". Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Swissworld.org. Retrieved August 3, 2012 

== Geography ==

The Alps extend from France in the west to Slovenia in the east, and from Italy in the south to Germany in the north.

The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in a 800 km arc from east to west and is 200 km in width. The mean height of the mountain peaks is 2.5 km. The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po river basin, extending through France from Grenoble, eastward through mid and southern Switzerland. The range continues toward Vienna in Austria, and east to the Adriatic Sea and into Slovenia. Chatré, Baptiste, et al. (2010), 9 Fleming (2000), 1 To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the south border of Bavaria in Germany. Beattie (2006), xii–xiii In areas like Chiasso, Switzerland, and Neuschwanstein, Bavaria, the demarkation between the mountain range and the flatlands are clear; in other places such as Geneva, the demarkation is less clear. The countries with the greatest alpine territory are Switzerland, France, Austria and Italy.

The highest portion of the range is divided by the glacial trough of the Rhone valley, with the Pennine Alps from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa on the Southern side, and the Bernese Alps on the Northern. The peaks in the easterly portion of the range, in Austria and Slovenia, are smaller than those in the central and western portions. 

The variances in nomenclature in the region spanned by the Alps makes classification of the mountains and subregions difficult, but a general classification is that of the Eastern Alps and Western Alps with the divide between the two occurring in eastern Switzerland according to geologist Stefan Schmid, near the Splügen Pass.

The highest peaks of the Western Alps and Eastern Alps, respectively, are Mont Blanc, at 4810 m Shoumtoff (2001), 23 and Piz Bernina at 4049 m. The second-highest peaks are Monte Rosa at 4634 m and Ortler Excluding the Piz Zupò and Piz Roseg located in the Bernina range, close to Piz Bernina. at 3905 m, respectively

Series of lower mountain ranges run parallel to the main chain of the Alps, including the French Prealps in France and the Jura Mountains in Switzerland and France. The secondary chain of the Alps follows the watershed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Wienerwald, passing over many of the highest and most well-known peaks in the Alps. From the Colle di Cadibona to Col de Tende it runs westwards, before turning to the northwest and then, near the Colle della Maddalena, to the north. Upon reaching the Swiss border, the line of the main chain heads approximately east-northeast, a heading it follows until its end near Vienna.

== Passes ==
Teufelsbrücke (Devil's Bridge) at the Gotthard Pass; the medieval bridge is below the newer bridge.

The Alps have been crossed for war and commerce, and by pilgrims, students and tourists. Crossing routes by road, train or foot are known as passes, and usually consist of depressions in the mountains in which a valley leads from the plains and hilly pre-mountainous zones. In the medieval period hospices were established by religious orders at the summits of many of the main passes. The most important passes are the Col de l'Iseran (the highest), the Brenner Pass, the Mont-Cenis, the Great St. Bernard Pass, the Col de Tende, the Gotthard Pass, the Semmering Pass, and the Stelvio Pass. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopedia Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 6 August 2012 

Crossing the Italian-Austrian border, the Brenner Pass separates the Ötztal Alps and Zillertal Alps and has been in use as a trading route since the 14th century. The lowest of the Alpine passes at 985 m, the Semmering crosses from Lower Austria to Styria; since the 12th century when a hospice was built there it has seen continuous use. A railroad with a tunnel 1 mi long was built along the route of the pass in the mid-19th century. With a summit of 2,469 m, the Great St. Bernard Pass is one of the highest in the Alps, crossing the Italian-Swiss border east of the Pennine Alps along the flanks of Mont Blanc. The pass was used by Napoleon Bonaparte to cross 40,000 troops in 1800. The Saint Gotthard Pass crosses from Central Switzerland to Ticino; in the late 19th century the 9 mi long Saint Gotthard Tunnel was built connecting Lucerne in Switzerland, with Milan in Italy. The Mont Cenis pass has been a major commercial road between Western Europe and Italy. Now the pass has been supplanted by the Fréjus Road and Rail tunnel. At 2,756 m, the Stelvio Pass in northern Italy is one of the highest of the Alpine passes; the road was built in the 1820s. The highest pass in the alps is the col de l'Iseran in Savoy (France) at 2,770 m.

== Orogeny and geology ==

Important geological concepts were established as naturalists began studying the rock formations of the Alps in the 18th century. In the mid-19th century the now defunct theory of geosynclines was used to explain the presence of "folded" mountain chains but by the mid-20th century the theory of plate tectonics became widely accepted. 

The geologic folding seen at the Arpanaz waterfall, shown here in a mid-18th century drawing, was noted by 18th-century geologists. Graciansky (2011), 5 

The formation of the Alps (the Alpine orogeny) was an episodic process that began about 300 million years ago. Shoumatoff (2001), 35 In the Paleozoic Era the Pangaean supercontinent consisted of a single tectonic plate; it broke into separate plates during the Mesozoic Era and the Tethys sea developed between Laurasia and Gondwana during the Jurassic Period. Graciansky (2011), 1–2 The Tethys was later squeezed between colliding plates causing the formation of mountain ranges called the Alpide belt, from Gibraltar through the Himalayas to Indonesia—a process that began at the end of the Mesozoic and continues into the present. The formation of the Alps was a segment of this orogenic process, caused by the collision between the African and the Eurasian plates that began in the late Cretaceous Period. Gerrard, (1990), 16 

Under extreme compressive stresses and pressure, marine sedimentary rocks were uplifted, creating characteristic recumbent folds, or nappes, and thrust faults. Earth (2008), 142 As the rising peaks underwent erosion, a layer of marine flysch sediments was deposited in the foreland basin, and the sediments became involved in younger nappes (folds) as the orogeny progressed. Coarse sediments from the continual uplift and erosion were later deposited in foreland areas as molasse. Gerrard, (1990), 9 The molasse regions in Switzerland and Bavaria were well-developed and saw further upthrusting of flysch. Schmid (2004), 102 
The crystalline basement of the Mont Blanc Massif.

The Alpine orogeny occurred in ongoing cycles through to the Paleogene causing differences in nappe structures, with a late-stage orogeny causing the development of the Jura Mountains. Schmid (2004), 97 A series of tectonic events in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods caused different paleogeographic regions. The Alps are subdivided by different lithology (rock composition) and nappe structure according to the orogenic events that affected them. Schmid (2004), 93 The geological subdivision differentiates the Western, Eastern Alps and Southern Alps: the Helveticum in the north, the Penninicum and Austroalpine system in the center and, south of the Periadriatic Seam, the Southern Alpine system. 

Compressed metamorphosed Tethyan sediments and their oceanic basement are sandwiched between the tip of the Matterhorn, which consists of gneisses originally part of the African plate, and the base of the peak, which is part of the Eurasian plate. 

According to geologist Stefan Schmid, because the Western Alps underwent a metamorphic event in the Cenozoic Era while the Austroalpine peaks underwent an event in the Cretaceous Period, the two areas show distinct differences in nappe formations. Flysch deposits in the Southern Alps of Lombardy probably occurred in the Cretaceous or later. 

Peaks in France, Italy and Switzerland lie in the "Houlliere zone", which consists of basement with sediments from the Mesozoic Era. Schmid, 99 High "massifs" with external sedimentary cover are more common in the Western Alps and were affected by Neogene Period thin-skinned thrusting whereas the Eastern Alps have comparatively few high peaked massifs. Similarly the peaks in Switzerland extending to western Austria (Helvetic nappes) consist of thin-skinned sedimentary folding that detached from former basement rock. Schmid (2004), 103 

In simple terms the structure of the Alps consists of layers of rock of European, African and oceanic (Tethyan) origin. Graciansky (2011), 29 The bottom nappe structure is of continental European origin, above which are stacked marine sediment nappes, topped off by nappes derived from the African plate. Graciansky (2011), 31 The Matterhorn is an example of the ongoing orogeny and shows evidence of great folding. The tip of the mountain consists of gneisses from the African plate; the base of the peak, below the glaciated area, consists of European basement rock. The sequence of Tethyan marine sediments and their oceanic basement is sandwiched between rock derived from the African and European plates. 

The core regions of the Alpine orogenic belt have been folded and fractured in such a manner that erosion created the characteristic steep vertical peaks of the Swiss Alps that rise seemingly straight out of the foreland areas. Peaks such as Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, and high peaks in the Pennine Alps, the Briançonnais, and Hohe Tauern consist of layers of rock from the various orogenies including exposures of basement rock. Beattie (2006), 6–8 

== "Four-thousanders" and ascents ==

The Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme (UIAA) has defined a list of 82 "official" Alpine summits that reach at least 4,000 m. The list includes not only mountains, but also subpeaks with little prominence that are considered important mountaineering objectives. Below are listed the 22 "four-thousanders" with at least 500 m of prominence.

While Mont Blanc was first climbed in 1786, most of the Alpine four-thousanders were climbed during the first half of the 19th century; the ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 marked the end of the golden age of alpinism. Karl Blodig (1859–1956) was among the first to successfully climb all the major 4,000 m peaks. He completed his series of ascents in 1911. Michael Huxley, The Geographical magazine: Volume 59, Geographical Press, 1987 

The first British Mont Blanc ascent was in 1788; the first female ascent in 1819. By the mid-1850s Swiss mountaineers had ascended most of the peaks and were eagerly sought as mountain guides. Edward Whymper reached the top of the Matterhorn in 1865 (after seven attempts), and in 1938 the last of the six great north faces of the Alps was climbed with the first ascent of the Eiger Nordwand (north face of the Eiger). Shoumatoff (2001), 197–200 

 The 22 Alpine four-thousanders with at least 500 metres of topographic prominence Name Height Range Name Height Range 
 Mont Blanc 4810 m Graian Alps Dent d'Hérens 4171 m Pennine Alps 
 Monte Rosa 4634 m Pennine Alps Jungfrau 4158 m Bernese Alps 
 Dom 4545 m Pennine Alps Aiguille Verte 4122 m Graian Alps 
 Weisshorn 4506 m Pennine Alps Mönch 4107 m Bernese Alps 
 Matterhorn 4478 m Pennine Alps Barre des Écrins 4102 m Dauphiné Alps 
 Dent Blanche 4357 m Pennine Alps Schreckhorn 4078 m Bernese Alps 
 Grand Combin 4314 m Pennine Alps Ober Gabelhorn 4063 m Pennine Alps 
 Finsteraarhorn 4273 m Bernese Alps Gran Paradiso 4061 m Graian Alps 
 Grandes Jorasses 4208 m Graian Alps Piz Bernina 4049 m Bernina Range 
 Rimpfischhorn 4199 m Pennine Alps Weissmies 4017 m Pennine Alps 
 Aletschhorn 4193 m Bernese Alps Lagginhorn 4010 m Pennine Alps 

== Minerals ==
The Alps are a source of a minerals that have been mined for thousands of years. In the 8th to 6th centuries BC during the Hallstatt culture, Celtic tribes mined copper; later the Romans mined gold for coins in the Bad Gastein area. Erzberg in Styria furnishes high-quality iron ore for the steel industry. Crystals are found throughout much of the Alpine region such as cinnabar, amethyst, and quartz. The cinnabar deposits in Slovenia are a notable source of cinnabar pigments. Shoumatoff (2001), 49–53 

Alpine crystals have been studied and collected for hundreds of years, and began to be classified in the 18th century. Leonhard Euler studied the shapes of crystals, and by the 19th century crystal hunting was common in Alpine regions. David Friedrich Wiser amassed a collection of 8000 crystals that he studied and documented. In the 20th century Robert Parker wrote a well-known work about the rock crystals of the Swiss Alps; at the same period a commission was established to control and standardize the naming of Alpine minerals. Roth, 10–17 

== Glaciers ==

In the Miocene Epoch the mountains underwent severe erosion because of glaciation, which was noted in the mid-19th century by naturalist Louis Agassiz who presented a paper proclaiming the Alps were covered in ice at various intervals—a theory he formed when studying rocks near his Neuchâtel home which he believed originated to the west in the Bernese Oberland. Because of his work he came to be known as the "father of the ice-age concept" although other naturalists before him put forth similar ideas. Shoumatoff (2001), 63–68 

Louis Agassiz's studies of the Unteraar Glacier in the 1840s showed that it moved at 100 m per year. 

Agassiz studied glacier movement in the 1840s at the Unteraar Glacier where he found the glacier moved 100 m per year, more rapidly in the middle than at the edges. His work was continued by other scientists and now a permanent laboratory exists inside a glacier under the Jungfraujoch, devoted exclusively to the study of Alpine glaciers. 

Glaciers pick up rocks and sediment with them as they flow. This causes erosion and the formation of valleys over time. The Inn valley is an example of a valley carved by glaciers during the ice ages with a typical terraced structure caused by erosion. Eroded rocks from the most recent ice age lie at the bottom of the valley while the top of the valley consists of erosion from earlier ice ages. Glacial valleys have characteristically steep walls (reliefs); valleys with lower reliefs and talus slopes are remnants of glacial troughs or previously infilled valleys. Gerrard, (1990), 132 Moraines, piles of rock picked up during the movement of the glacier, accumulate at edges, center and the terminus of glaciers. 

Inside a glacier at the top of the train station at the Jungfraujoch

Alpine glaciers can be straight rivers of ice, long sweeping rivers, spread in a fan-like shape (Piedmont glaciers), and curtains of ice that hang from vertical slopes of the mountain peaks. Some glaciers flow in two directions such as the glacier between the Jungfrau and the Mönch in Switzerland and the Similaun glacier on the border of Italy and Austria. The stress of the movement causes the ice to break and crack loudly, perhaps explaining why the mountains were believed to be home to dragons in the medieval period. The cracking creates unpredictable and dangerous crevasses, often invisible under new snowfall, which cause the greatest danger to mountaineers. 

Glaciers end in ice caves (the Rhone Glacier), by trailing into a lake or river, or by shedding snowmelt on a meadow. Sometimes a piece of glacier will detach or break resulting in flooding, property damage and loss of life. Shoumatoff (2001), 71–72 In the 17th century about 2500 people were killed by an avalanche in a village on the French-Italian border; in the 19th century 120 homes in a village near Zermatt were destroyed by an avalanche. Fleming (2000), 89–90 

High levels of precipitation cause the glaciers to descend to permafrost levels in some areas whereas in other, more arid regions, glaciers remain above about the 3,500 m level. Gerrard, (1990), 78 The 1817 km2 of the Alps covered by glaciers in 1876 had shrunk to 1342 km2 by 1973, resulting in decreased river run-off levels. Gerrard, (1990), 108 Forty percent of the glaciation in Austria has disappeared since 1850, and 30% of that in Switzerland. Ceben (1998), 38 

== Rivers and lakes ==
The St. Bartholomew's chapel on the Königssee in Bavaria is a popular tourist destination. Shoumatoff (2001), 31 

The Alps provide lowland Europe with drinking water, irrigation, and hydroelectric power. Chatré, Baptiste, et al. (2010), 5 Although the area is only about 11 percent of the surface area of Europe, the Alps provide up to 90 percent of water to lowland Europe, particularly to arid areas and during the summer months. Cities such as Milan depend on 80 percent of water from Alpine runoff. Benniston et al. (2011), 1 Price, Martin. Mountains: Globally Important Eco-systems". University of Oxford Water from the rivers is used in over 500 hydroelectricity power plants, generating as much as 2900 kilowatts per hour of electricity. 

Major European rivers flow from Switzerland, such as the Rhine, the Rhone, the Inn, the Ticino and the Po rivers, all of which have headwaters in the Alps and flow into neighbouring countries, finally emptying into the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. Other rivers such as the Danube have major tributaries flowing into them that originate in the Alps. The Rhone river is second to the Nile as a freshwater source to the Mediterranean Sea; the river begins as glacial meltwater, flows into Lake Geneva, and from there to France where one of its uses is to cool nuclear power plants. Benniston et al. (2011), 3 The Rhine originates in a 30 square kilometre area in Switzerland and represents almost 60 percent of water exported from the country. Tributary valleys, some of which are complicated, channel water to the main valleys which can experience flooding during the snow melt season when rapid runoff causes debris torrents and swollen rivers. Ceben (1998), 31 

The rivers form lakes, such as Lake Geneva, a crescent shaped lake crossing the Swiss border with Geneva on the Swiss side and the town of Evian-les-Bains on the French side. In Germany, the medieval St. Bartholomew's chapel was built on the south side of the Königssee, accessible only by boat or by climbing over the abutting peaks. Shoumatoff (2001), 24, 31 

Scientists have been studying the impact of climate change and water use. For example, each year more water is diverted from rivers for snowmaking in the ski resorts, the effect of which is yet unknown. Furthermore, the decrease of glaciated areas combined with a succession of winters with lower-than-expected precipitation may have a future impact on the rivers in the Alps as well as an effect on the water availability to the lowlands. Chatré, Baptiste, et al. (2010), 13 

== Climate ==

The Alps are a classic example of what happens when a temperate area at lower altitude gives way to higher-elevation terrain. Elevations around the world that have cold climates similar to those of the polar regions have been called Alpine. A rise from sea level into the upper regions of the atmosphere causes the temperature to decrease (see adiabatic lapse rate). The effect of mountain chains on prevailing winds is to carry warm air belonging to the lower region into an upper zone, where it expands in volume at the cost of a proportionate loss of heat, often accompanied by precipitation in the form of snow or rain. The height of the Alps is sufficient to divide the weather patterns in Europe into a wet north and a dry south because moisture is sucked from the air as it flows over the high peaks. Fleming (2000), 3 

The Aletsch Glacier with pine trees growing on the hillside

The severe weather in the Alps has been studied since the 18th century; particularly the weather patterns such as the seasonal foehn wind. Numerous weather stations were placed in the mountains early in the early 20th century, providing continuous data for climatologists. Ceben (1998), 22–24 Some of the valleys are quite arid such as the Aosta valley in Italy, the Maurienne in France, the Valais in Switzerland, and northern Tyrol. 

The areas that are not arid and receive high precipitation experience periodic flooding from rapid snowmelt and runoff. The mean precipitation in the Alps ranges from a low of 2600 mm per year to 3600 mm per year, with the higher levels occurring at high altitudes. At altitudes between 1,000 and, snowfall begins in November and accumulates through to April or May when the melt begins. Snow lines vary from 2,400 to, above which the snow is permanent and the temperatures hover around the freezing point even July and August. High-water levels in streams and rivers peak in June and July when the snow is still melting at the higher altitudes. Ceben (1998), 34–36 

The Alps are split into five climatic zones, each with different vegetation. The climate, plant life and animal life vary among the different sections or zones of the mountains. The lowest zone is the colline zone, which exists between 500 and, depending on the location. The montane zone extends from 800 to, followed by the sub-Alpine zone from 1,600 to. The Alpine zone, extending from tree line to snow line, is followed by the glacial zone, which covers the glaciated areas of the mountain. Climatic conditions show variances within the same zones; for example, weather conditions at the head of a mountain valley, extending directly from the peaks, are colder and more severe than those at the mouth of a valley which tend to be less severe and receive less snowfall. Viazzo (1980), 17 

Various models of climate change have been projected into the 22nd century for the Alps, with an expectation that a trend toward increased temperatures will have an effect on snowfall, snowpack, glaciation, and river runoff. Benniston (2011), 3–4 

== Ecology ==

=== Flora ===

Stemless gentian (Gentiana acaulis)

13,000 species of plants have been identified in the Alpine regions. Alpine plants are grouped by habitat and soil type which can be limestone or non-calcerous. The habitats range from meadows, bogs, woodland (deciduous and coniferous) areas to soilless scree and moraines, and rock faces and ridges. Reynolds, (2012), 43–45 A natural vegetation limit with altitude is given by the presence of the chief deciduous trees—oak, beech, ash and sycamore maple. These do not reach exactly to the same elevation, nor are they often found growing together; but their upper limit corresponds accurately enough to the change from a temperate to a colder climate that is further proved by a change in the presence of wild herbaceous vegetation. This limit usually lies about 1200 m above the sea on the north side of the Alps, but on the southern slopes it often rises to 1500 m, sometimes even to 1700 m. Shoumatoff (2001), 75 

Above the forestry, there is often a band of short pine trees (Pinus mugo), which is in turn superseded by Alpenrosen, dwarf shrubs, typically Rhododendron ferrugineum (on acid soils) or Rhododendron hirsutum (on alkaline soils). Beattie (2006), 17 Although the Alpenrose prefers acidic soil, the plants are found throughout the region. Above the tree line is the area defined as "alpine" where in the alpine meadow plants are found that have adapted well to harsh conditions of cold temperatures, aridity, and high altitudes. The alpine area fluctuates greatly because of regional fluctuations in tree lines. Körner (2003), 9 

Edelweiss (Leontopodium alpinum)

Alpine plants such the Alpine gentian grow in abundance in areas such as the meadows above the Lauterbrunnental. Gentians are named after the Illyrian king Gentius, and 40 species of the early-spring blooming flower grow in the Alps, in a range of 1,500 to. Shoumatoff (2001), 85 Writing about the gentians in Switzerland D. H. Lawrence described them as "darkening the day-time, torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom." qtd in Beattie (2006), 17 Gentians tend to "appear" repeatedly as the spring blooming takes place at progressively later dates, moving from the lower altitude to the higher altitude meadows where the snow melts much later than in the valleys. On the highest rocky ledges the spring flowers bloom in the summer. 

At these higher altitudes, the plants tend to form isolated cushions. In the Alps, several species of flowering plants have been recorded above 4000 m, including Ranunculus glacialis, Androsace alpina and Saxifraga biflora. The Eritrichium nanum, commonly known as the King of the Alps, is the most elusive of the alpine flowers, growing on rocky ridges at 2,600 to. Shoumatoff (2001), 87 Perhaps the best known of the alpine plants is the Edelweiss which grows in rocky areas and can be found at altitudes as low as 1,400 m and as high as 3,400 m. The plants that grow at the highest altitudes have adapted to conditions by specialization such as growing in rock screes that give protection from winds. Sharp (2002), 14 

The extreme and stressful climatic conditions give way to the growth of plant species with secondary metabolites important for medicinal purposes. Origanum vulgare, Prunella vulgaris, Solanum nigrum and Urtica dioica are some of the more useful medicinal species found in the Alps. Kala, C.P. and Ratajc, P. 2012."High altitude biodiversity of the Alps and the Himalayas: ethnobotany, plant distribution and conservation perspective". Biodiversity and Conservation, 21 (4): 1115–1126. 

Human interference has nearly exterminated the trees in many areas, and, except for the beech forests of the Austrian Alps, forests of deciduous trees are rarely found after the extreme deforestation between the 17th and 19th centuries. Gerrard (1990), 225 The vegetation has changed since the second half of the 20th century, as the high alpine meadows cease to be harvested for hay or used for grazing which eventually might result in a regrowth of forest. In some areas the modern practice of building ski runs by mechanical means has destroyed the underlying tundra from which the plant life cannot recover during the non-skiing months, whereas areas that still practice a natural piste type of ski slope building preserve the fragile underlayers. 

=== Fauna ===
The Alps are a habitat for 30,000 species of wildlife, ranging from the tiniest snow fleas to brown bears, many of which have made adaptations to the harsh cold conditions and high altitudes to the point that some only survive in specific micro-climates either directly above or below the snow line. Shoumatoff (2001), 90, 96, 101 

Young Alpine ibex. When fully grown its horns will be about one metre wide.

The largest mammal to live in the highest altitudes are the Ibex, which have been sighted as high as 3,000 m. The ibex live in caves and descend to eat the succulent alpine grasses. Shoumatoff (2001), 104 Classified as antelopes, Chamois are smaller than ibex and found throughout the Alps, living above the tree line and are common in the entire alpine range. Rupicapra rupicapra 1758 Areas of the eastern Alps are still home to brown bears. In Switzerland the canton of Bern was named for the bears but the last bear is recorded as having been killed in 1792 above Kleine Scheidegg by three hunters from Grindelwald. Shoumatoff (2001), 101 

Many rodents such as voles live underground. Marmots live almost exclusively above the tree line as high as 2,700 m. They hibernate in large groups to provide warmth, Shoumatoff (2001), 102–103 and can be found in all areas of the Alps, in large colonies they build beneath the alpine pastures. Golden eagles and Bearded Vultures are the largest birds to be found in the Alps; they nest high on rocky ledges and can be found at altitudes of 2,400 m. The most common bird isa the alpine chough which can be found scavenging at climber's huts or at the Jungfraujoch, a high altitude tourist destination. Shoumatoff (2001), 97–98 

The Alpine Apollo Butterfly has adapted to Alpine conditions.

Reptiles such as adders and vipers live up to the snow line; because they cannot bear the cold temperatures they hibernate underground and soak up the warmth on rocky ledges. Shoumatoff (2001), 96 The high-altitude Alpine salamanders have adapted to living above the snow line by giving birth to fully developed young rather than laying eggs. Brown trout can be found in the streams up to the snow line. Molluscs such as the wood snail live up the snow line. Popularly gathered as food, the snails are now protected. Shoumatoff (2001), 88–89 

A number of species of moths live in the Alps, some of which are believed to have evolved in the same habitat up to 120 million years ago, long before the Alps were created. Blue moths can commonly be seen drinking from the snow melt; some species of blue moths fly as high as 1,800 m. Shoumatoff (2001), 93 The butterflies tend to be large, such as those from the swallowtail Parnassus family, with a habitat that ranges to 1,800 m. Twelve species of beetles have habitats up to the snow line; the most beautiful and formerly collected for its colours but now protected is the Rosalia alpina. Shoumatoff (2001), 91 Spiders, such as the large wolf spider, live above the snow line and can be seen as high as 4,00 m. Scorpions can be found in the Italian Alps. 

Some of the species of moths and insects show evidence of having been indigenous to the area from as long ago as the Alpine orogeny. In Emosson
in Valais, Switzerland, dinosaur tracks were found in 1970s, dating probably from the Triassic era. Reynolds (2012), 75 

== History ==

=== Prehistory to Christianity ===
Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old mummy, found in the Ötztal Alps shown here in a museum reproduction of what he may have looked like.

About 10,000 years ago, when the ice melted after the last glacial period, late Paleolithic communities were established along the lake shores and in cave systems. Evidence of human habitation has been found in caves near Vercors, close to Grenoble; in Austria the Mondsee culture shows evidence of houses built on piles to keep them dry. Standing stones have been found in Alpine areas of France and Italy. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica are more than 5000 years old; more than 200,000 drawings and etchings have been identified at the site. Beatttie, (2006), 25 

In 1991 a mummy of a neolithic body, known as Ötzi the Iceman, was discovered by hikers on the Similaun glacier. His clothing and gear indicate that he lived in an alpine farming community, while the location and manner of his death—an arrowhead was discovered in his shoulder—suggests he was traveling from one place to another. Beatttie, (2006), 21 Analysis of the Mitochondrial DNA of Ötzi, has shown that he belongs to the K1 subclade which cannot be categorized into any of the three modern branches of that subclade. The new subclade has provisionally been named K1ö for Ötzi. Luca Ermini et al., "Complete Mitochondrial Genome Sequence of the Tyrolean Iceman," Current Biology, vol. 18, no. 21 (30 October 2008), pp. 1687–1693. 

Celtic tribes settled in Switzerland between 1000 to 1500 BC. The Raetians lived in the eastern regions, while the west was occupied by the Helvetii and the Allobrogi settled in the Rhone valley and in Savoy. Among the many substances Celtic tribes mined was salt in areas such as Salzburg in Austria where evidence of the Hallstatt culture was found by a mine manager in the 19th century. By the 6th century BC the La Tène culture was well established in the region, Fleming (2000), 2 and became known for high quality decorated weapons and jewelry. Shoumatoff (2001), 131 The Celts were the most widespread of the mountain tribes—they had warriors that were strong, tall and fair skinned skilled with iron weapons, which gave them an advantage in warfare. Shoumatoff (2001), 110 

During the Second Punic War in 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal probably crossed the Alps with an army numbering 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, and 37 war elephants. This was one of the most celebrated achievements of any military force in ancient warfare, Lancel, Serge, (1999), 71 although no evidence exists of the actual crossing or the place of crossing. The Romans, however, had built roads along the mountain passes, which continued to be used through the medieval period to cross the mountains and Roman road markers can still be found on the mountain passes. Prevas (2001), 68–69 

Château de Chillon, an early medieval castle on the north shore of Lake Geneva, is shown here against the backdrop of the Dents du Midi

The Roman expansion brought the defeat of the Allobrogi in 121 BC and during the Gallic Wars in 58 BC Julius Caesar overcame the Helvetii. The Rhaetians continued to resist but were eventually conquered when the Romans turned northward to the Danube valley in Austria and defeated the Brigantes. Beatttie, (2006), 27 The Romans built settlements in the Alps; towns such as Aosta (named for Augustus) in Italy, Martigny and Lausanne in Switzerland, and Partenkirchen in Bavaria show remains of Roman baths, villas, arenas and temples. Beattie, (2006), 28–31 Much of the Alpine region was gradually settled by Germanic tribes, (Lombards, Alemanni, Bavarii, and Franks) from the 6th to the 13th centuries, Beattie, (2006), 31, 34 with the latest expansion corresponding to the Walser migrations.

=== Christianity, feudalism, and Napoleonic wars ===
Christianity was established in the region by the Romans, and saw the establishment of monasteries and churches in the high regions. The Frankish expansion of the Carolingian Empire and the Bavarian expansion in the eastern Alps introduced feudalism and the building of castles to support the growing number of dukedoms and kingdoms. Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento, Italy, still has intricate frescoes, excellent examples of Gothic art, in a tower room. In Switzerland, Château de Chillon is preserved as an example of medieval architecture. Beattie, (2006), 32, 34, 37, 43 

Much of the medieval period was a time of power struggles between competing dynasties such as the House of Savoy, the Visconti in northern Italy and the House of Habsburg in Austria. Beattie, (2006), 41, 46, 48 In 1291 to protect themselves from incursions by the Habsburgs, four cantons in the middle of Switzerland drew up a charter that is considered to be a declaration of independence from neighboring kingdoms. After a series of battles fought in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, more cantons joined the confederacy and by the 16th century Switzerland was well-established as a separate state. Beattie, (2006), 56, 66 

Russian troops under Suvorov crossing the Alps in 1799
During the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th century and early 19th century, Napoleon annexed territory formerly controlled by the Habsburgs and Savoys. In 1798 he established the Helvetic Republic in Switzerland; two years later he led an army across the St. Bernhard pass and conquered almost all of the Alpine regions. Shoumatoff (2001), 182–183 

In the 19th century, the monasteries built in the high Alps during the medieval period to shelter travelers and as places of pilgrimage, became tourist destinations. The Benedictines had built monasteries in Lucerne, Switzerland, and Oberammergau; the Cistercians in the Tyrol and at Lake Constance; and the Augustinians had abbeys in the Savoy and one in the center of Interlaken, Switzerland. Beattie, (2006), 69–70 The Great St Bernard Hospice, built in the 9th or 10th centuries, at the summit of the Great Saint Bernard Pass was shelter for travelers and place for pilgrims since its inception; by the 19th century it became a tourist attraction with notable visitors such as author Charles Dickens and mountaineer Edward Whymper. Beattie, (2006), 73, 75–76 

=== Exploration ===

The first ascent of the Matterhorn (1865), lithograph by Gustave Doré

Radiocarbon dated charcoal placed around 50,000 years ago was found in the Drachloch (Dragon's Hole) cave above the village of Vattis in the canton of St. Gallen, proving that the high peaks were visited by prehistoric people. Seven bear skulls from the cave may have been buried by the same prehistoric people. Shoumatoff (2001), 108 The peaks, however, were mostly ignored except for a few notable examples, and long left to the exclusive attention of the people of the adjoining valleys. Shoumatoff (2001), 188–191 The mountain peaks were seen as terrifying, the abode of dragons and demons, to the point that people blindfolded themselves to cross the Alpine passes. Fleming (2000), 6 The glaciers remained a mystery and many still believed the highest areas to be inhabited by dragons. Fleming (2000), 12 

Charles VII of France ordered his chamberlain to climb Mont Aiguille in 1356. The knight reached the summit of Rocciamelone where he left a bronze triptych of three crosses, a feat which he conducted with the use of ladders to traverse the ice. Fleming (2000), 5 In 1492 Antoine de Ville climbed Mont Aiguille, without reaching the summit, an experience he described as "horrifying and terrifying." Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by variations of light in the higher altitudes, and climbed a mountain—scholars are uncertain which one; some believe it may have been Monte Rosa. From his description of a "blue like that of a gentian" sky it is thought that he reached a significantly high altitude. qtd in Shoumatoff (2001), 193 In the 18th century four Chamonix man almost made the summit of Mont Blanc but were overcome by altitude sickness and snowblindness. Shoumatoff (2001), 192–194 

Conrad Gessner was the first naturalist to ascend the mountains in the 16th century, to study them, writing that in the mountains he found the "theatre of the Lord". Fleming (2000), 8 By the 19th century more naturalists began to arrive to explore, study and conquer the high peaks; they were followed by artists, writers and painters. Fleming (2000), vii Two men who first explored the regions of ice and snow were Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–1799) in the Pennine Alps, Fleming (2000), 27 and the Benedictine monk of Disentis Placidus a Spescha (1752–1833). Born in Geneva, Saussure was enamored with the mountains from an early age; he left a law career to become a naturalist and spent many years trekking through the Bernese Oberland, the Savoy, the Piedmont and Valais, studying the glaciers and the geology, as he became an early proponent of the theory of rock upheaval. Fleming (2000), 12–13, 30, 27 Saussure, in 1787, was a member of the third ascent of Mont Blanc—today the summits of all the peaks have been climbed. 

=== The Romantics ===

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first of many to present the Alps as a place of allure and beauty, banishing the prevalent conception of the mountains as a hellish wasteland inhabited by demons. Rousseau's conception of alpine purity was later emphasized with the publication of Albrecht von Haller's poem Die Alpen that described the mountains as an area of mythical purity. Beattie, (2006), 121–123 Late in the 18th century the first wave of Romantics such as Goethe and Turner came to admire the scenery; Wordsworth visited the area in 1790, writing of his experiences in The Prelude. Schiller later wrote the play William Tell romanticising Swiss independence. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Alpine countries began to see an influx of poets, artists, and musicians, Fleming (2000), 83 as visitors came to experience the sublime effects of monumental nature. Beattie, (2006), 125–126 

Panoramic view from Nivolet peak. The Bourget lake inspired many romantic poets and especially Lamartine
The scenery of the lac du Bourget in Savoy inspired the romantic poet Lamartine who wrote Le Lac (the lake)

In 1816 Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley visited Geneva and all three were inspired by the scenery in their writings. During these visits Shelley wrote the poem "Mont Blanc", Byron wrote "The Prisoner of Chillon" and the dramatic poem Manfred, and Mary Shelley, who found the scenery overwhelming, conceived the idea for the novel Frankenstein in her villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in the midst of a thunderstorm. When Coleridge travelled to Chamonix, he declaimed, in defiance of Shelley, who had signed himself "Atheos" in the guestbook of the Hotel de Londres near Montenvers, Geoffrey Hartman, "Gods, Ghosts, and Shelley's 'Atheos'", Literature and Theology, Volume 24, Issue 1, pp. 4–18 "Who would be, who could be an atheist in this valley of wonders". Beattie, (2006), 127–133 By the mid-19th century scientists began to arrive en masse to study the geology and ecology of the region. Beattie, (2006), 139 

=== The World Wars ===
During World War I, an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 soldiers died as a result of avalanches during the mountain campaign in the Alps at the Austrian-Italian front, many of which were caused by artillery fire. Eduard Rabofsky et al., Lawininenhandbuch, Innsbruck, Verlaganstalt Tyrolia, 1986, p. 11 Some 10,000 men, from both sides, lost their lives in avalanches in December 1916. History Channel - December 13, 1916: Soldiers perish in avalanche as World War I rages 

Austrian-born Adolf Hitler had a lifelong romantic fascination with the Alps and by the 1930s established a home in the Obersalzberg region outside of Berchtesgaden. His first visit to the area was in 1923 and he maintained a strong tie there until the end of his life. At the end of World War II the US Army occupied Obersalzberg, to prevent Hitler from retreating with the Wehrmacht into the mountains. Mitchell (2007), 7–10 

The Nazis hid looted art in salt mines at Altaussee, such as the Early Netherlandish Ghent Altarpiece which sustained significant damage.

By 1940 the Third Reich had occupied many of the Alpine countries. Austria underwent a political coup that made it part of the Third Reich; France had been invaded and Italy was a fascist regime. Switzerland was the only country to luckily avoid invasion. Halbrook (1998), 1 The Swiss Confederate mobilized its troops—the country follows the doctrine of "armed neutrality" with all males required to have military training—a number that General Eisenhower estimated to be about 850,000. The Swiss commanders wired the infrastructure leading into the country, and threatening to destroy bridges, railway tunnels and passes in the event of a Nazi invasion, and then they retreated to the heart of the mountain peaks where conditions were harsher and a military invasion would involve difficult and protracted battles. Halbrook (2006), 1–3 

Ski troops were trained for the war, and battles were waged in mountainous areas such as the battle at Riva Ridge in Italy, where the American 10th Mountain Division encountered heavy resistance in February 1945. Feuer (2006), viii At the end of the war, a substantial amount of Nazi plunder was found stored in Austria, where Hitler had hoped to retreat as the war drew to a close. The salt mines surrounding the Altaussee area, where American troops found 75 kilos of gold coins stored in a single mine, were used to store looted art, jewels, and currency; vast quantities of looted art were found and returned to the owners. Mitchell (2007), 10, 151 

== Alpine people and culture ==

The population of the region is 14 million spread across eight countries. On the rim of the mountains, on the plateaus and the plains the economy consists of manufacturing and service jobs whereas in the higher altitudes and in the mountains farming is still essential to the economy. Chartes et. el. (2010), 14 
The city of Trento is known for its quality of life.
Hallstatt is known for its production of salt, dating back to prehistoric times. Today, the majority lives in Alpine towns or agglomerations, especially around Grenoble, Innsbruck, Trento and Bozen/Bolzano. Alpine urban regions, which often extend over entire valley sections, Krakover & Borsdorf (2000): Spatial dynamics of urban expansion: The case of Innsbruck, Austria. DIE ERDE 131 (2), 125–141 are perceived to offer a relatively high quality of live to due their proximity to natural environments. Borsdorf (1999): Quality of life in alpine towns- with examples from Innsbruck and Bregenz. Revue de geographie alpine 87 (1), 163–169 Farming and forestry continue to be mainstays of Alpine culture, industries that provide for export to the cities and maintain the mountain ecology. Chartes et. el. (2010), 5 

Much of the Alpine culture is unchanged since the medieval period when skills that guaranteed survival in the mountain valleys and in the highest villages became mainstays, leading to strong traditions of carpentry, woodcarving, baking and pastry-making, and cheesemaking. Shoumataff (2001), 123–126 Farming and forestry continue to be mainstays of Alpine culture, industries that provide for export to the cities and maintain the mountain ecology. 

Farming had been a traditional occupation for centuries, although is becoming less dominant in the 20th century with the advent of tourism. Grazing and pasture land is limited because of the steep and rocky topography of the Alps. In mid-June cows are moved to the highest pastures close to the snowline, where they are watched by herdsmen who stay in the high altitudes often living in stone huts or wooden barns during the summers. Villagers celebrate the day the cows are herded up to the pastures and again when they return in mid-September. The Alpanschluss or Désalpes ("coming down from the alps") is celebrated by decorating the cows with garlands and enormous cowbells while the farmers dress in traditional costumes. 

Herding sheep

Cheesemaking is an ancient tradition in most Alpine countries. A wheel of cheese from the Emmental in Switzerland can weigh up to 100 pounds, and the Beaufort in Savoy can weight up to 70 kg. Owners of the cows traditionally receive from the cheesemakers a portion in relation to the proportion of the cow's milk from the summer months in the high alps. Haymaking is an important farming activity in mountain villages which has become somewhat mechanized recent years, although the slopes are so steep that usually scythes are necessary to cut the grass. Hay is normally brought in twice a year, often also on festival days. Alpine festivals vary from country to country and often include the display of local costumes such as dirndl and trachten, the playing of Alpenhorns, wrestling matches, some pagan traditions such as Walpurgis Night, and in many areas Carnival is celebrated before Lent. Shoumataff (2001), 129, 135 

In the high villages people live in homes built according to medieval designs that withstand cold winters. The kitchen is separated from the living area (called the stube, the area of the home heated by a stove), and second-floor bedrooms benefit from rising heat. The typical Swiss chalet originated in the Bernese Oberland. Chalets often face south or downhill, are built of solid wood, with a steeply gabled roof to allow accumulated snow to slide off easily. Stairs leading to upper levels are sometimes built on the outside, and balconies are sometimes enclosed. Shoumataff (2001), 134 
In some French chalets called "Tournavel" the cows are staying downstairs, people using the warmth from the cattle to heat up the living areas designed for humans upstairs.
Typical village of Savoy (France) with roofs made up with pieces of rocks.
Food is passed from the kitchen to the stube, where the dining room table is placed. Some meals are communal, such as fondue, where a pot is set in the middle of the table for each person to dip into. Other meals are still served in a traditional manner on carved wooden plates. Furniture has been traditionally elaborately carved and in many Alpine countries carpentry skills are passed from generation to generation. Roofs are constructed from Alpine rocks such as pieces of schist, gneiss or slate. Shoumataff (2001), 131, 134 Theses chalets are usually found in the higher parts of the valleys were the wood is rare and the amount of snow very important during the cold months like the Maurienne valley in Savoy. The inclination of the roof cannot exceed 40%, allowing the snow to stay on top. Thus this thick layer is used as an effective insulation from the cold. Cahier d'architecture Haute Maurienne/Vanoise 

The Alpine regions are multicultural and linguistically diverse. Dialects are common, and vary from valley to valley, region to region. In the Slavic Alps alone 19 dialects have been identified. Some of the French dialects spoken in the French, Swiss and the Italian alps of Aosta Valley derive from Old Provençal and is called mostly Arpitan; the German dialects derive from Germanic tribal languages. Shoumataff (2001), 114–166 Romansh, spoken by two percent of the population in southeast Switzerland, is an ancient Rheato-Romanic language derived from Latin, remnants of ancient Celtic languages and perhaps Etruscan. 
In others parts of the alps, Celtic languages were used. Like the name of Tarentaise in Savoy (France) deriving from "Darantasia" a Celtic word, meaning "The wild waters" (see Ceutrones).

== Tourism ==

The ski resort in Speikboden, Italy

At present the Alps are one of the more popular tourist destinations in the world with many resorts such Oberstdorf, in Bavaria, Saalbach in Austria, Davos in Switzerland, Chamonix in France, and Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy recording more than a million annual visitors. With over 120 million visitors a year tourism is integral to the Alpine economy with much it coming from winter sports although summer visitors are an important component of the tourism industry. Bartaletti, Fabrizio."What Role Do the Alps Play within World Tourism?". Commission Internationale pour la Protection des Alpes. CIRPA.org. Retrieved 9 August 2012 

The tourism industry began in the early 19th century when foreigners visited the Alps, traveled to the bases of the mountains to enjoy the scenery, and stayed at the spa-resorts. Large hotels were built during the Belle Époque; cog-railways, built early in the 20th century, brought tourists to ever higher elevations, with the Jungfraubahn terminating at the Jungfraujoch after going through a tunnel in Eiger. During this period winter sports were slowly introduced: in 1882 the first figure skating championship was held in St. Moritz, and downhill skiing became a popular sport with English visitors early in the 20th century, as the first ski-lift was installed in 1908 above Grindelwald. Beattie (2006), 198 

Karl Schranz running the Lauberhorn in 1966
In the first half of the 20th century the Olympic Winter Games were held three times in Alpine venues: the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France; the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland; and the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. During World War II the winter games were canceled but after that time the Winter Games have been held in St. Moritz (1948), Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956), Innsbruck, Austria (1964 and 1976), Grenoble, France, (1968), Albertville, France, (1992), and Torino (2006). "21 Past Olympic Games". Olympic.org. Retrieved August 13, 2012 In 1930 the Lauberhorn Rennen (Lauberhorn Race), was run for the first time on the Lauberhorn above Wengen; Lauberhorn History. Retrieved August 14, 2012. the equally demanding Hahnenkamm was first run in the same year in Kitzbühl, Austria. "Hahenkamm Races Kitzbuhel". HKR.com. Retrieved August 13, 2012 Both races continue to be held each January on successive weekends. The Lauberhorn is the more strenuous downhill race at 4.5 km and poses danger to racers who reach 130 km/h within seconds of leaving the start gate. Lauberhorn Downhill. Retrieved August 14, 2012. 

During the post-World War I period ski-lifts were built in Swiss and Austrian towns to accommodate winter visitors, but summer tourism continued to be important; by the mid-20th century the popularity of downhill skiing increased greatly as it became more accessible and in the 1970s several new villages were built in France devoted almost exclusively to skiing, such as Les Menuires. Until this point Austria and Switzerland had been the traditional and more popular destinations for winter sports, but by the end of the 20th century and into the early 21st century, France, Italy and the Tyrol began to see increases in winter visitors. From 1980 to the present, ski-lifts have been modernized and snow-making machines installed at many resorts, leading to concerns regarding the loss of traditional Alpine culture and questions regarding sustainable development as the winter ski industry continues to develop quickly and the number of summer tourists decline. 

== Transportation ==
Zentralbahn Interregio train following the Lake Brienz shoreline, near Niederried in Switzerland.
The region is serviced by 4,200 km of roads used by 6 million vehicles. Train travel is well established in the Alps, with, for instance 120 km of track for every 1000 km2 in a country such as Switzerland. "Rail". Swissworld.org. Retrieved August 20, 2012 Most of Europe's highest railways are located there. Moreover, plans are underway to build a 57 km-long sub-alpine tunnel connecting the older Lötschberg and Gotthard tunnels built in the 19th century. "The Longest Hole". Swissworld.org. Retrieved August 20, 2012 

Some high mountain villages, such as Avoriaz (in France), Wengen, and Zermatt (in Switzerland) are accessible only by cable car or cog-rail trains, and are car free. Other villages in the Alps are considering becoming car free zones or limiting the number of cars for reasons of sustainability of the fragile Alpine terrain. Hudson (2000), 107 

The lower regions and larger towns of the Alps are well-served by motorways and main roads, but higher mountain passes and byroads can be treacherous even in summer due to steep slopes. Many passes are closed in winter. A multitude of airports around the Alps (and some within), as well as long-distance rail links from all neighbouring countries, afford large numbers of travellers easy access from abroad. 

== Notes ==

===References===

=== Sources ===
* Allaby, Michael et al. The Encyclopedia of Earth. (2008). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25471-8
* Beattie, Andrew. (2006). The Alps: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530955-3
* Benniston, Martin, et al. (2011). "Impact of Climatic Change on Water and Natural Hazards in the Alps". Environmental Science and Policy. Volume 30. 1–9
* Cebon, Peter, et al. (1998). Views from the Alps: Regional Perspectives on Climate Change. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-03252-0
* Chatré, Baptiste, et al. (2010). The Alps: People and Pressures in the Mountains, the Facts at a Glance. Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention (alpconv.org). Retrieved August 4, 2012. ISBN 978-88-905158-2-8
* De Graciansky, Pierre-Charles et al. (2011). The Western Alps, From Rift to Passive Margin to Orogenic Belt. Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-53724-9
* Feuer, A.B. (2006). Packs On!: Memoirs of the 10th Mountain Division in World War II. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-3289-5
* Fleming, Fergus. (2000). Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps. New York: Grove. ISBN 978-0-8021-3867-5
* Halbrook, Stephen P. (1998). Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Rockville Center, NY: Sarpedon. ISBN 978-1-885119-53-7
* Halbrook, Stephen P. (2006). The Swiss and the Nazis: How the Alpine Republic Survived in the Shadow of the Third Reich. Havertown, PA: Casemate. ISBN 978-1-932033-42-7
* Hudson, Simon. (2000). Snow Business: A Study of the International Ski Industry. New York: Cengage ISBN 978-0-304-70471-2
* Gerrard, AJ. (1990) Mountain Environments: An Examination of the Physical Geography of Mountains. Boston: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-07128-4
* Körner, Christian. (2003). Alpine Plant Life. New York: Springer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-00347-2
* Lancel, Serge. (1999). Hannibal. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-21848-7
* Mitchell, Arthur H. (2007). Hitler's Mountain. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-2458-0
* Prevas, John. (2001). Hannibal Crosses The Alps: The Invasion Of Italy And The Punic Wars. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81070-1
* Reynolds, Kev. (2012) The Swiss Alps. Cicerone Press. ISBN 978-1-85284-465-3
* Roth, Philipe. (2007). Minerals first Discovered in Switzerland. Lausanne, CH: Museum of Geology. ISBN 978-3-9807561-8-1
* Schmid, Stefan M. (2004). "Regional tectonics: from the Rhine graben to the Po plain, a summary of the tectonic evolution of the Alps and their forelands". Basel: Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut
* Sharp, Hilary. (2002). Trekking and Climbing in the Western Alps. London: New Holland. ISBN 978-0-8117-2954-3
* Schmid, Stefan M.et al. (2004). "Tectonic map and overall architecture of the Alpine orogen". Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae. Volume 97. 93–117
* Shoumatoff, Nicholas and Nina. (2001). The Alps: Europe's Mountain Heart. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11111-4
* Viazzo, Pier Paolo. (1980). Upland Communities: Environment, Population and Social Structure in the Alps since the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521306638

== External links ==

* 17, 2005 Satellite photo of the Alps, taken on 31 August 2005 by MODIS aboard Terra
* Official website of the Alpine Space Programme This EU co-funded programme co-finances transnational projects in the Alpine region

 



[[Albert Camus]]

Albert Camus (; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual and sexual freedom.

Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one (even during his own lifetime). In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked...". "Les Nouvelles littéraires", 15 November 1945 

Camus was born in French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family. He studied at the University of Algiers, where he was goalkeeper for the university association football team, until he contracted tuberculosis in 1930. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement after his split with Garry Davis's Citizens of the World movement. The formation of this group, according to Camus, was intended to "denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA" regarding their idolatry of technology. 

Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". 

==Early years==
Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Dréan (then known as Mondovi) in French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family. His mother was of Spanish descent and was half-deaf. Lottman 1979, p.11 His father Lucien, a poor agricultural worker, died in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during World War I, while serving as a member of the Zouave infantry regiment. This fact is confirmed in the article 'The Master of the Absurd Turns 100', in the September/October 2013 issue of Philosophy Now magazine. The article can be accessed here Camus and his mother lived in poor conditions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers.

In 1923, Camus was accepted into the lycée and eventually he was admitted to the University of Algiers. After he contracted tuberculosis in 1930, he had to end his football activities (he had been a goalkeeper for the university team) and reduce his studies to part-time. To earn money, he also took odd jobs: as private tutor, car parts clerk and assistant at the Meteorological Institute. He completed his licence de philosophie (BA) in 1935; in May 1936, he successfully presented his thesis on Plotinus, Néo-Platonisme et Pensée Chrétienne (Neo-Platonism and Christian Thought), for his diplôme d'études supérieures (roughly equivalent to an MA thesis). 

Camus joined the French Communist Party in the spring of 1935, seeing it as a way to "fight inequalities between Europeans and 'natives' in Algeria". He did not suggest he was a Marxist or that he had read Das Kapital, but did write, "We might see communism as a springboard and asceticism that prepares the ground for more spiritual activities." Todd, O Albert Camus: A Life, pp. 37, 250, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998; Carroll & Graf, 2000 In 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was founded. Camus joined the activities of the Algerian People's Party (Le Parti du Peuple Algérien), which got him into trouble with his Communist party comrades. As a result, in 1937 he was denounced as a Trotskyite and expelled from the party. Camus went on to be associated with the French anarchist movement.

The anarchist André Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in 1948 of the Cercle des Étudiants Anarchistes (Anarchist Student Circle) as a sympathiser familiar with anarchist thought. Camus wrote for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La révolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obrera (Workers' Solidarity, the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT (National Confederation of Labor)). Camus stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the uprising of 1953 in East Germany. He again allied with the anarchists in 1956, first in support of the workers' uprising in Poznań, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian Revolution.

===Marriages===
In 1934, Camus married Simone Hié, but the marriage ended as a consequence of infidelities on both sides. In 1935, he founded Théâtre du Travail (Worker's Theatre), renamed Théâtre de l'Equipe (Team's Theatre) in 1937. It lasted until 1939. From 1937 to 1939 he wrote for a socialist paper, Alger-Républicain. His work included an account of the peasants who lived in Kabylie in poor conditions, which apparently cost him his job. From 1939 to 1940, he briefly wrote for a similar paper, Soir-Republicain. He was rejected by the French army because of his TB.

In 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematician. Although he loved her, he had argued passionately against the institution of marriage, dismissing it as unnatural. Even after Francine gave birth to twins, Catherine and Jean, on 5 September 1945, he continued to joke to friends that he was not cut out for marriage. Camus conducted numerous affairs, particularly an irregular and eventually public affair with the Spanish-born actress María Casares. In the same year, Camus began to work for Paris-Soir magazine. In the first stage of World War II, the so-called Phoney War, Camus was a pacifist. In Paris during the Wehrmacht occupation, on 15 December 1941, Camus witnessed the execution of Gabriel Péri; it crystallized his revolt against the Germans. He moved to Bordeaux with the rest of the staff of Paris-Soir. In the same year he finished his first books, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. He returned briefly to Oran, Algeria in 1942.

==Literary career==
During the war Camus joined the French Resistance cell Combat, which published an underground newspaper of the same name. This group worked against the Nazis, and in it Camus assumed the nom de guerre Beauchard. Camus became the paper's editor in 1943. He first met Sartre at the dress rehearsal of Sartre's play, The Flies, in June 1943. , by Simone de Beauvoir 
When the Allies liberated Paris in August 1944, Camus witnessed and reported the last of the fighting. Soon after the event on 6 August 1945, he was one of the few French editors to publicly express opposition and disgust to the United States' dropping the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. He resigned from Combat in 1947 when it became a commercial paper. After the war, Camus began frequenting the Café de Flore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris with Sartre and others. He also toured the United States to lecture about French thought. Although he leaned left, politically, his strong criticisms of Communist doctrine did not win him any friends in the Communist parties and eventually alienated Sartre.

In 1949, his TB returned and Camus lived in seclusion for two years. In 1951, he published The Rebel, a philosophical analysis of rebellion and revolution which expressed his rejection of communism. Upsetting many of his colleagues and contemporaries in France, the book brought about the final split with Sartre. The dour reception depressed Camus; he began to translate plays.

Camus's first significant contribution to philosophy was his idea of the absurd. He saw it as the result of our desire for clarity and meaning within a world and condition that offers neither, which he expressed in The Myth of Sisyphus and incorporated into many of his other works, such as The Stranger and The Plague. Despite his split from his "study partner", Sartre, some still argue that Camus falls into the existentialist camp. He specifically rejected that label in his essay "Enigma" and elsewhere (see: The Lyrical and Critical Essays of Albert Camus). The current confusion arises, in part, because many recent applications of existentialism have much in common with many of Camus's practical ideas (see: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death). But, his personal understanding of the world (e.g., "a benign indifference", in The Stranger), and every vision he had for its progress (e.g., vanquishing the "adolescent furies" of history and society, in The Rebel) undoubtedly set him apart.

In the 1950s, Camus devoted his efforts to human rights. In 1952, he resigned from his work for UNESCO when the UN accepted Spain as a member under the leadership of General Franco. In 1953, he criticized Soviet methods to crush a workers' strike in East Berlin. In 1956, he protested against similar methods in Poland (protests in Poznań) and the Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolution in October.

The monument to Camus built in the small town of Villeblevin, France where he died in an automobile accident on 4 January 1960

Camus maintained his pacifism and resisted capital punishment anywhere in the world. He wrote an essay against capital punishment in collaboration with Arthur Koestler, the writer, intellectual and founder of the League Against Capital Punishment. He was consistent in his call for non-aggression in Algeria. 

The bronze plaque on the monument to Camus in the town of Villeblevin, France. The plaque reads: "From the General Council of the Yonne Department, in homage to the writer Albert Camus whose remains lay in vigil at the Villeblevin town hall on the night of 4 to 5 January 1960."

When the Algerian War began in 1954, Camus was confronted with a moral dilemma. He identified with the pied-noirs such as his own parents and defended the French government's actions against the revolt. He argued that the Algerian uprising was an integral part of the 'new Arab imperialism' led by Egypt and an 'anti-Western' offensive orchestrated by Russia to 'encircle Europe' and 'isolate the United States'. Actuelles III: Chroniques Algeriennes, 1939–58 Although favouring greater Algerian autonomy or even federation, though not full-scale independence, he believed that the pied-noirs and Arabs could co-exist. During the war he advocated a civil truce that would spare the civilians, which was rejected by both sides, who regarded it as foolish. Behind the scenes, he began to work for imprisoned Algerians who faced the death penalty.

From 1955 to 1956, Camus wrote for L'Express. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times", not for his novel The Fall, published the previous year, but for his writings against capital punishment in the essay "Réflexions sur la Guillotine" (Reflections on the Guillotine). When he spoke to students at the University of Stockholm, he defended his apparent inactivity in the Algerian question; he stated that he was worried about what might happen to his mother, who still lived in Algeria. This led to further ostracism by French left-wing intellectuals.

==Revolutionary Union Movement and Europe==
As he wrote in The Rebel révolté (in the chapter about "The Thought on Midday"), Camus was a follower of the ancient Greek 'Solar Tradition' (la pensée solaire). In 1947–48, he founded the Revolutionary Union Movement (Groupes de liaison internationale – GLI) a trade union movement in the context of revolutionary syndicalism (Syndicalisme révolutionnaire). According to Olivier Todd, in his biography, 'Albert Camus, une vie', it was a group opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton. For more, see the book Alfred Rosmer et le mouvement révolutionnaire internationale by Christian Gras.

His colleagues were Nicolas Lazarévitch, Louis Mercier, Roger Lapeyre, Paul Chauvet, Auguste Largentier, Jean de Boë (see the article: "Nicolas Lazarévitch, Itinéraire d'un syndicaliste révolutionnaire" by Sylvain Boulouque in the review Communisme, n° 61, 2000). His main aim was to express the positive side of surrealism and existentialism, rejecting the negativity and the nihilism of André Breton.

From 1943, Albert Camus had correspondence with Altiero Spinelli who founded the European Federalist Movement in Milan—see Ventotene Manifesto and the book "Unire l'Europa, superare gli stati", Altiero Spinelli nel Partito d'Azione del Nord Italia e in Francia dal 1944 al 1945-annexed a letter by Altiero Spinelli to Albert Camus.

In 1944 Camus founded the "French Committee for the European Federation" (Comité Français pour la Féderation Européene – CFFE) declaring that Europe "can only evolve along the path of economic progress, democracy and peace if the nation states become a federation."

From 22–25 March 1945, the first conference of the European Federalist Movement was organised in Paris with the participation of Albert Camus, George Orwell, Emmanuel Mounier, Lewis Mumford, André Philip, Daniel Mayer, François Bondy and Altiero Spinelli. (see the book The Biography of Europe by Pan Drakopoulos) This specific branch of the European Federalist Movement disintegrated in 1957 after Winston Churchill's ideas about the European integration rose to dominance.

==Death==
Camus died on 4 January 1960 at the age of 46, in a car accident near Sens, in Le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin. In his coat pocket was an unused train ticket. He had planned to travel by train with his wife and children, but at the last minute he accepted his publisher's proposal to travel with him. 
Albert Camus's gravestone
The driver of the Facel Vega car, Michel Gallimard, who was Camus's publisher and close friend, also died in the accident. In August 2011, the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera reported a theory that the writer had been the victim of a Soviet plot, but Camus's biographer Olivier Todd did not consider it credible. Kim Willsher Albert Camus might have been killed by the KGB for criticising the Soviet Union, claims newspaper The Observer, 7 August 2011 Camus was buried in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Lourmarin, Vaucluse, France.

He was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Rudyard Kipling. 

He was survived by his wife and twin son and daughter, Jean and Catherine, who hold the copyrights to his work.

Two of Camus's works were published posthumously. The first, entitled A Happy Death (1970), featured a character named Patrice Mersault, comparable to The Stranger's Meursault. There is scholarly debate as to the relationship between the two books. The second was an unfinished novel, The First Man (1995), which Camus was writing before he died. The novel was an autobiographical work about his childhood in Algeria.

==Summary of absurdism==
Many writers have addressed the Absurd, each with his or her own interpretation of what the Absurd is and what comprises its importance. For example, Sartre recognizes the absurdity of individual experience, while Kierkegaard explains that the absurdity of certain religious truths prevent us from reaching God rationally. Camus regretted the continued reference to himself as a "philosopher of the absurd". He showed less interest in the Absurd shortly after publishing Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus). To distinguish his ideas, scholars sometimes refer to the Paradox of the Absurd, when referring to "Camus's Absurd". 

His early thoughts appeared in his first collection of essays, L'Envers et l'endroit (Betwixt and Between) in 1937. Absurd themes were expressed with more sophistication in his second collection of essays, Noces (Nuptials), in 1938. In these essays Camus reflects on the experience of the Absurd. In 1942 he published the story of a man living an absurd life as L'Étranger (The Stranger). In the same year he released Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), a literary essay on the Absurd. He also wrote a play about Caligula, a Roman Emperor, pursuing an absurd logic. The play was not performed until 1945.

The turning point in Camus's attitude to the Absurd occurs in a collection of four letters to an anonymous German friend, written between July 1943 and July 1944. The first was published in the Revue Libre in 1943, the second in the Cahiers de Libération in 1944, and the third in the newspaper Libertés, in 1945. The four letters were published as Lettres à un ami allemand (Letters to a German Friend) in 1945, and were included in the collection Resistance, Rebellion, and Death.

==Ideas on the absurd==

Camus presents the reader with dualisms such as happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death, etc. He emphasizes the fact that happiness is fleeting and that the human condition is one of mortality; for Camus, this is cause for a greater appreciation for life and happiness. In Le Mythe, dualism becomes a paradox: we value our own lives in spite of our mortality and in spite of the universe's silence. While we can live with a dualism (I can accept periods of unhappiness, because I know I will also experience happiness to come), we cannot live with the paradox (I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless). In Le Mythe, Camus investigates our experience of the Absurd and asks how we live with it. Our life must have meaning for us to value it. If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves? 

In Le Mythe, Camus suggests that 'creation of meaning', would entail a logical leap or a kind of philosophical suicide in order to find psychological comfort. But Camus wants to know if he can live with what logic and lucidity has uncovered – if one can build a foundation on what one knows and nothing more. Creation of meaning is not a viable alternative but a logical leap and an evasion of the problem. He gives examples of how others would seem to make this kind of leap. The alternative option, namely suicide, would entail another kind of leap, where one attempts to kill absurdity by destroying one of its terms (the human being). Camus points out, however, that there is no more meaning in death than there is in life, and that it simply evades the problem yet again. Camus concludes, that we must instead 'entertain' both death and the absurd, while never agreeing to their terms.

Meursault, the absurdist hero of L'Étranger, has killed a man and is scheduled to be executed. Caligula ends up admitting his absurd logic was wrong and is killed by an assassination he has deliberately brought about. However, while Camus possibly suggests that Caligula's absurd reasoning is wrong, the play's anti-hero does get the last word, as the author similarly exalts Meursault's final moments. 

Camus made a significant contribution to a viewpoint of the Absurd, and always rejected nihilism as a valid response. "If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning." Second Letter to a German Friend, December 1943.

Camus's understanding of the Absurd promotes public debate; his various offerings entice us to think about the Absurd and offer our own contribution. Concepts such as cooperation, joint effort and solidarity are of key importance to Camus, though they are most likely sources of 'relative' versus 'absolute' meaning. In The Rebel, Camus identifies rebellion (or rather, the values indicated by rebellion) as a basis for human solidarity. "When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical. But for the moment we are only talking of the kind of solidarity that is born in chains." 

==Opposition to totalitarianism==
Throughout his life, Camus spoke out against and actively opposed totalitarianism in its many forms. Early on, Camus was active within the French Resistance to the German occupation of France during World War II, even directing the famous Resistance journal, Combat. On the French collaboration with Nazi occupiers he wrote: "Now the only moral value is courage, which is useful here for judging the puppets and chatterboxes who pretend to speak in the name of the people." After liberation, Camus remarked, "This country does not need a Talleyrand, but a Saint-Just." The reality of the bloody postwar tribunals soon changed his mind: Camus publicly reversed himself and became a lifelong opponent of capital punishment. 

Camus's well-known falling out with Sartre is linked to this opposition to totalitarianism. Camus detected a reflexive totalitarianism in the mass politics espoused by Sartre in the name of radical Marxism. This was apparent in his work L'Homme Révolté (The Rebel) which not only was an assault on the Soviet police state, but also questioned the very nature of mass revolutionary politics. Camus continued to speak out against the atrocities of the Soviet Union, a sentiment captured in his 1957 speech, The Blood of the Hungarians, commemorating the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, an uprising crushed in a bloody assault by the Red Army.

==Football==
Camus was once asked by his friend Charles Poncet which he preferred, football or the theatre. Camus is said to have replied, "Football, without hesitation." 

Camus played as goalkeeper for Racing Universitaire d'Alger (RUA won both the North African Champions Cup and the North African Cup twice each in the 1930s) junior team from 1928–30. The sense of team spirit, fraternity, and common purpose appealed to Camus enormously. In match reports Camus would often attract positive comment for playing with passion and courage. Any aspirations in football disappeared at age 17, upon contracting tuberculosis—then incurable, Camus was bedridden for long and painful periods.

When Camus was asked in the 1950s by an alumni sports magazine for a few words regarding his time with the RUA, his response included the following:

After many years during which I saw many things, what I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport and learned it in the RUA. 

Camus was referring to a sort of simplistic morality he wrote about in his early essays, the principle of sticking up for your friends, of valuing bravery and fair-play. Camus's belief was that political and religious authorities try to confuse us with over-complicated moral systems to make things appear more complex than they really are, potentially to serve their own needs. 

==Works==

===Novels===
* The Stranger (L'Étranger, often translated as The Outsider) (1942)
* The Plague (La Peste) (1947)
* The Fall (La Chute) (1956)
* A Happy Death (La Mort heureuse) (written 1936–1938, published posthumously 1971)
* The First Man (Le premier homme) (incomplete, published posthumously 1995)

===Short stories===
* Exile and the Kingdom (L'exil et le royaume) (collection) (1957)
** "The Adulterous Woman" ("La Femme adultère")
** "The Renegade or a Confused Spirit" ("Le Renégat ou un esprit confus")
** "The Silent Men" ("Les Muets")
** "The Guest" ("L'Hôte")
** "Jonas or the Artist at Work" ("Jonas ou l’artiste au travail")
** "The Growing Stone" ("La Pierre qui pousse")

===Non-fiction books===
* Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism (1935)
* Betwixt and Between (L'envers et l'endroit, also translated as The Wrong Side and the Right Side) (Collection, 1937)
* Nuptials (Noces) (1938)
* The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe) (1942)
* The Rebel (L'Homme révolté) (1951)
* Notebooks 1935–1942 (Carnets, mai 1935 — fevrier 1942) (1962)
* Notebooks 1943–1951 (1965)
* Notebooks 1951–1959 (2008) Published as "Carnets Tome III : Mars 1951 – December 1959" (1989)

===Plays===
* Caligula (performed 1945, written 1938)
* Requiem for a Nun (Requiem pour une nonne, adapted from William Faulkner's novel by the same name) (1956)
* The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu) (1944)
* The State of Siege (L' Etat de Siège) (1948)
* The Just Assassins (Les Justes) (1949)
* The Possessed (Les Possédés, adapted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Demons) (1959)

===Essays===
* Create Dangerously (Essay on Realism and Artistic Creation) (1957)
* The Ancient Greek Tragedy (Parnassos lecture in Greece) (1956)
* The Crisis of Man (Lecture at Columbia University) (1946)
* Why Spain? (Essay for the theatrical play L' Etat de Siège) (1948)
* Reflections on the Guillotine (Réflexions sur la guillotine) (Extended essay, 1957)
* Neither Victims Nor Executioners (Combat) (1946)

===Collected essays===
* Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1961) – a collection of essays selected by the author, including the 1945 Lettres à un ami allemand (Letters to a German Friend) and A Defense of Intelligence, a 1945 speech given at a meeting organized by Amitié Française Orme, Mark (2007). The Development of Albert Camus's Concern for Social and Political Justice, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 0838641105 
* Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)
* Youthful Writings (1976)
* Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the Resistance Newspaper "Combat", 1944–1947 (1991)
* Camus at "Combat": Writing 1944–1947 (2005)
* Albert Camus Contre la Peine de Mort (2011)

==References==

==Further reading==
* Camus (1959), by Germaine Brée ISBN 1-122-01570-4
* Camus (1966), by Adele King ISBN 0-05-001423-4
* Camus: vida e obra (1970), by Vicente de Paulo Barretto.
* Albert Camus: A Biography (1979), by Herbert R. Lottman (ISBN 3-927258-06-7)
* "Camus: a critical examination" (1988), by David Sprintzen (ISBN 0-87722-544-3)
* Albert Camus and the Minister (2000), by Howard E. Mumma (ISBN 1-55725-246-7)
* Albert Camus, The Artist in the Arena (1965), by Emmett Parker ()
* Albert Camus, A Study of His Work (1957), by Philip Malcolm Waller Thody ()
* Albert Camus: A Life (2000), by Olivier Todd (ISBN 0-7867-0739-9)
* Albert Camus: Kunst und Moral, by Heiner Wittmann (ISBN 3-631-39525-6)
* Ethics and Creativity in the Political thought of Simone Weil and Albert Camus 2004, by Dr. John Randolph LeBlanc (ISBN 978-0-7734-6567-1)
* The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir (1954) Winner of the 1954 Goncourt Prize; Camus himself states that he is "the hero" of the book in his Notebooks 1951-1959.
* Camus, A Romance (2009), by Elizabeth Hawes (ISBN 978-0802118899)
* Socrates, Lucretius, Camus—Two Philosophical Traditions on Death 2001, by Fred Wilson (ISBN 0-7734-7369-6)
* "Sartre and Camus: A Historic Confrontation" (2004), by David Sprintzen and Adrian van den Hoven (ISBN 1-59102-157-x)
* a play about the Camus - Jean-Paul Sartre feud over Algeria The Weight Of Days was written by English playwright Roy Smiles in 2011.

===Since 2009===

* Heiner Wittmann : Sartre and Camus in Aesthetics. The Challenge of Freedom. Hrsg. v. Dirk Hoeges. Dialoghi/Dialogues. Literatur und Kultur Italiens und Frankreichs, Band 13, Frankfurt/M 2009 (ISBN 978-3-631-58693-8)
* Jacques Ferrandez, L'Hôte : D'après l'œuvre d'Albert Camus, éditions Gallimard-Jeunesse, Collection Fétiche, 13 novembre 2009, 62 pages, (ISBN 2-07-062870-1)
* José Lenzini, Les derniers jours de la vie d'Albert Camus, Éditions Actes Sud, Collection Romans et nouvelles, octobre 2009, (ISBN 2742786295)
* Dolorès Lyotard, Albert Camus contemporain, Éditions Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, Collection Objet, 218 pages, 5 novembre 2009, (ISBN 2757401114)
* Albert Camus et René Char, La Postérité du soleil, Éditions Gallimard, Collection Blanche, 20 novembre 2009, avec des photographies de Henriette Grindat, 79 pages, (ISBN 2070127788)
* Jeanyves Guérin, Dictionnaire Albert Camus, Éditions Robert Laffont, Collection Bouquins, 19 novembre 2009, 992 pages, (ISBN 2221-10734-8)
* Catherine Camus, Albert Camus, Solitaire et Solidaire, Éditions Michel-Lafon, 2009
* José Lenzini, Camus et l'Algérie, Éditions Édisud, Collection Les Écritures, 11 janvier 2010, 159 pages, (ISBN 2744908517)
* Virgil Tanase, Camus, Éditions Gallimard, Collection Folio Biographies, 21 janvier 2010, 410 pages, (ISBN 2070344320)
* Alain Vircondelet, Albert Camus, fils d’Alger, Éditions Fayard, 2010
* Jean-Luc Moreau, Camus l'intouchable, Polémiques et complicités, Éditions Écriture-Éd. Neige, 2010 (ISBN 978-2909240961)
* Ève Morisi, Albert Camus contre la peine de mort, préface de Robert Badinter, Éditions Gallimard, 6 octobre 2011, 351 pages, (ISBN 2070135543)
* Brent C. Sleasman, Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication: Making Sense in an Age of Absurdity, 2011 (ISBN 978-1604977912)
* Michel Onfray. L'ordre Libertaire: La vie philosophique de Albert Camus. Flammarion. 2012
* Albert Camus, Algerian Chronicles, Harvard University Press. 2013. ISBN 9780674072589 (3 May 2013 review)

===Articles and conferences===
* Heiner Wittmann, Camus et Sartre : deux littéraires-philosophes, conférence présentée lors d’une Journée d’études à la Maison Henri Heine sur la littérature et la morale, 15 décembre 2005
* Guy Dumur, Les silences d'Albert Camus, Médecine française, 1948
* Francis Jeanson, Albert Camus ou l'âme révoltée, Les Temps modernes, 1952
* Jean Négroni, Albert Camus et le théâtre de l'Équipe, Revue d'histoire du théâtre, 1960
* Pierre Nguyen-Van-Huy, La métaphysique du bonheur chez Albert Camus, Neuchâtel, La Baconnière, 1962
* Bernard Pingaud, La voix de Camus, La Quinzaine littéraire, 1971

===Documents and testimonies===
* L’ordre libertaire, la vie philosophique d’Albert Camus , de Michel Onfray, Flammarion, 596 pages, 2012
* Camus et Sartre, Amitié et combat, Aronson Ronald, éditions Alvik, 2005
* Albert Camus et l'Espagne, Édisud, septembre 2005
* Pierre Zima, L'indifférence romanesque : Sartre, Moravia, Camus, éditions L'Harmattan, mars 2005
* Albert Camus et les écritures algériennes. Quelles traces ?,Édisud, 2004
* Arnaud Corbic, Camus - L'absurde, la révolte, l'amour, Les Éditions de l'Atelier, 2003
* Albert Camus et les écritures du XXe siècle, Collectif, Artois Presse Université, 2003 (Colloque de Cergy 2002)
* Audisio, Camus, Roblès, frères de Soleil, Collectif, Édisud, 2003
* En commune présence : Albert Camus et René Char, Collectif, édition Folle Avoine, 2003
* Écriture autobiographique et Carnets : Albert Camus, Jean Grenier, Louis Guilloux, Collectif, édition Folle Avoine, 2003
* Denis Salas, Albert Camus, la juste révolte, éditions Michalon, 2002
* Jacqueline Lévi-Valensi, Camus à Combat, Cahiers Albert Camus n°8, Gallimard, 2002
* Emmanuel Roblès, Camus, frère de soleil, éditions Le Seuil, 1995
* Histoire d'un livre : l'Etranger d'Albert Camus, Collectif, éditions Imec, 1991

==External links==
* Albert Camus Society UK
* 

 



[[Agatha Christie]]

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (born Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap. 

Born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie served in a hospital during the First World War, before marrying and starting a family in London. She was initially unsuccessful at getting her work published; but in 1920 The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Poirot. This launched her literary career.

The Guinness Book of World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 4 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages. . And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. In 1971, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. . In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association. 

Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than 25,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play.
Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.

==Life and career==

===Childhood: 1890–1910===
Agatha-Mary Clarissa Christie was born on 15 September 1890 into a wealthy upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon in South West England. Christie's mother, Clara Boehmer, was an Englishwoman who had been born in Belfast, modern-day Northern Ireland, in 1854 to Captain Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann West; the couple's only daughter, she had four brothers, one of whom died young. Captain Boehmer was killed in a riding accident while stationed on Jersey in April 1863, leaving Mary Ann to raise her children alone on a meagre income. Under financial strain, she sent Clara to live with her aunt Margaret Miller née West, who had married wealthy American Nathaniel Frary Miller in 1863 and lived in Prinsted, West Sussex. Clara stayed with Margaret, and there she would meet her future husband, an American stockbroker named Frederick Alvah Miller, who was the son of Nathaniel. Frederick was a member of the small and wealthy American upper class, and had been sent to Europe to gain an education in Switzerland. Considered personable and friendly by those who knew him, he soon developed a romantic relationship with Clara, and they were married in April 1878. Their first child, Margaret "Madge" Frary Miller (1879–1950) was born in Torquay, where the couple were renting lodgings, while their second, Louis "Monty" Montant (1880–1929) was born in the U.S. state of New York, where Frederick was on a business trip. Clara soon purchased a villa in Torquay, named "Ashfield", in which to raise her family, and it was here that her third and final child, Agatha, was born.

Agatha Christie as a girl, date unknown
Christie would describe her childhood as "very happy", and was surrounded by a series of strong and independent women from an early age. Her time was spent alternating between her Devonshire home, her step grandmother/aunt's house in Ealing, West London and parts of Southern Europe, where her family would holiday during the winter. Nominally Christian, she was also raised in a household with various esoteric beliefs, and like her siblings believed that their mother Clara was a psychic with the ability of second sight. Her mother insisted that she receive a home education, and so her parents were responsible for teaching her to read and write, and to be able to perform basic arithmetic, a subject that she particularly enjoyed. They also taught her about music, and she learned to play both the piano and the mandolin. A voracious reader from an early age, among her earliest memories were those of reading the children's books written by Mrs Molesworth, including The Adventures of Herr Baby (1881), Christmas Tree Land (1897) and The Magic Nuts (1898). She also read the work of Edith Nesbit, including The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1903) and The Railway Children (1906). When a little older she moved on to reading the surreal verse of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. Much of her childhood was spent largely alone and separate from other children, although she spent much time with her pets, whom she adored. Eventually making friends with a group of other girls in Torquay, she noted that "one of the highlights of my existence" was her appearance with them in a youth production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax. This was to be her last operatic role, for as she later wrote, "an experience that you really enjoyed should never be repeated." Christie, Agatha. Agatha Christie: An Autobiography, London: HarperCollins (1993), p. 125 

Her father was often ill, suffering from a series of heart attacks, and in November 1901 he died, aged 55. His death left the family devastated, and in an uncertain economic situation. Clara and Agatha continued to live together in their Torquay home; Madge had moved to the nearby Cheadle Hall with her new husband and Monty had joined the army and been sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. Agatha would later claim that her father's death, occurring when she was 11 years old, marked the end of her childhood for her. In 1902, Agatha would be sent to receive a formal education at Miss Guyer's Girls School in Torquay, but found it difficult to adjust to the disciplined atmosphere. In 1905 she was then sent to the city of Paris, France, where she was educated in three pensions – Mademoiselle Cabernet's, Les Marroniers and then Miss Dryden's – the latter of which served primarily as a finishing school.

===Early literary attempts and the First World War: 1910–1919===
Returning to England in 1910, Agatha found that her mother Clara was ill. They decided to spend time together in the warmer climate of Cairo, then a popular tourist destination for wealthy Britons; staying for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel. Agatha – always chaperoned by her mother – attended many social functions in search of a husband. She visited such ancient Egyptian monuments as the Great Pyramid of Giza, but did not exhibit the great interest in archaeology and Egyptology that became prominent in her later years. Morgan 1984. pp. 40–41. 

Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities. Writing and performing in amateur theatrics, she also helped put on a play called The Blue Beard of Unhappiness with female friends. Her writing extended to both poetry and music. Some early works saw publication, but she decided against focusing on either of these as future professions. Morgan 1984. pp. 45–46. 

While recovering in bed from illness she penned her first short story – "The House of Beauty". This was about 6000 words on the world of "madness and dreams", a subject of fascination for her. Biographer Janet Morgan later commented that despite "infelicities of style", the story was nevertheless "compelling". Morgan 1984. pp. 48–49. Other shorts followed, most of them illustrating her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Various magazines rejected all her early submissions, made under pseudonyms, although some were revised and published later, often with new titles. Morgan 1984. pp. 49–50. 

Christie then set her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert, in Cairo, and drew from her recent experiences in that city. Under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she was perturbed when various publishers all declined. Morgan 1984. pp. 50–51. Clara suggested that her daughter ask for advice from a family friend and neighbour, the successful writer Eden Philpotts. Philpotts obliged her enquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent her an introduction to his literary agent, Hughes Massie. However, he too rejected Snow Upon the Desert, and suggested a second novel. Morgan 1984. pp. 51–52. 

Meanwhile, Christie continued searching for a husband, and entered into short-lived relationships with four separate men and an engagement with another. She then met Archibald "Archie" Christie (1889–1962) Archie Christie at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford of Chudleigh, about 12 mi from Torquay. Archie had been born in India, the son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service. In England he joined the air service, stationed at Devon in 1912. The couple quickly fell in love. Upon learning he would be stationed in Farnborough, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted. Morgan 1984. pp. 54–63. 

1914 saw the outbreak of World War I, and Archie was sent to France to do battle with the German forces. Agatha also involved herself in the war effort, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and attending to wounded soldiers at the hospital in Torquay. In this position she was responsible for aiding the doctors and maintaining morale; performing 3,400 hours of unpaid work between October 1914 and December 1916. As a dispenser, she finally earned £16 yearly until the end of her service in September 1918.

She met her fiancé Archie in London during his leave at the end of 1914, and they married on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. They met throughout the war every time he was posted home. Rising through the ranks, he was eventually stationed back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry. They settled into a flat at 5 Northwick Terrace in St. John's Wood, Northwest London. Morgan 1984. pp. 64–74. 

===First novels: 1919–1923===
Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White and The Moonstone as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles featuring Hercule Poirot; portrayed as a former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and egg-shaped head, who took refuge in Britain after Germany had invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration for this stemmed from real Belgian refugees who existed in Torquay. Morgan 1984. pp. 75–79. 

The Styles manuscript was not accepted by such publishing companies as Hodder and Stoughton and Methuen. However, John Lane at The Bodley Head kept the submission for several months, then offered to accept it provided Christie change the ending. She duly did so, and then signed a contract that she later felt was exploitative. Morgan 1984. pp. 79, 81–82. Christie meanwhile settled into married life, giving birth to daughter Rosalind at Ashfield in August 1919, where the couple – having few friends in London – spent much of their time. Morgan 1984. p. 79. Archie left the Air Force at the end of the war and started working in the City financial sector at a relatively low salary, though they still employed a maid. Morgan 1984. pp. 80–81. 

Christie's second novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featured a new detective couple Tommy and Tuppence. Again published by The Bodley Head, it earned her £50. A third novel again featured Poirot, Murder on the Links (1923), as did short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of Sketch magazine. Morgan 1984. p. 83. In order to tour the world promoting the British Empire Exhibition the couple left their daughter Rosalind with Agatha's mother and sister then travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. Morgan 1984. pp. 86–103. They learned to surf prone in South Africa, then in Waikiki were among the first Britons to surf standing up. 

===Disappearance===
In late 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele, who had been a friend of Major Belcher, director of the British Empire Mission, on the promotional tour a few years earlier. On 3 December 1926, the Christies quarrelled, and Archie left their house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening, around 9.45 pm, Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire.

Her car, a Morris Cowley, was later found at Newlands Corner, by a lake near Guildford, with an expired driving licence and clothes. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public. The Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, pressured police, and a newspaper offered £100 reward.

Over a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers and several aeroplanes scoured the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find the missing woman. Dorothy L Sayers visited the house in Surrey, later using the scenario in her book Unnatural Death. 

Christie's disappearance featured on the front page of The New York Times. Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for 10 days. On 14 December 1926, Agatha Christie was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele from Cape Town.

Christie's autobiography makes no reference to her disappearance. Although two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from amnesia, opinion remains divided as to why she disappeared. She was known to be in a depressed state from literary overwork, her mother's death earlier that year and her husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or attempt to frame her husband for murder. . 

The 1979 Michael Apted film Agatha features a disclaimer in the opening credits stating that what follows is an imaginary solution to an authentic mystery. The film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman and Timothy Dalton and depicts Christie planning suicide in such a way as to frame her husband's mistress for her "murder". An American reporter, played by Hoffman, follows her closely and stops the plan. The film outraged Christie's heirs who fought two unsuccessful lawsuits in America in an attempt to prevent the film from being distributed.

Author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for his sympathetic biography, Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, revised 2011. He provided substantial evidence to suggest she planned the event to embarrass her husband, never supposing the resulting escalated melodrama. . 

The Christies divorced in 1928, and Archie married Nancy Neele. Agatha retained custody of daughter Rosalind, and the Christie name for her writing. During their marriage, she published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

===Second marriage and later life===
Agatha Christie's room at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie blue plaque. No. 58 Sheffield Terrace, Kensington & Chelsea, London
In 1930 Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan, having met him in an archaeological dig. Their marriage was always happy, and it continued until Christie's death in 1976. Max introduced her to wine, which she never enjoyed – preferring to drink water in restaurants. She tried unsuccessfully to make herself like cigarettes by smoking one after lunch and one after dinner every day for six months. . 

Christie frequently used settings that were familiar to her for her stories. Her travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was raised. Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. . The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust.

Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, basing at least two stories there: a short story "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all its servants and grandeur being woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys, Stoneygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms." . 

During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital, London, where she acquired a knowledge of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels. For example, the use of thallium as a poison was suggested to her by UCH Chief Pharmacist Harold Davis (later appointed Chief Pharmacist at the UK Ministry of Health), and in The Pale Horse, published in 1961, she employed it to dispatch a series of victims, the first clue to the murder method coming from the victims' loss of hair. So accurate was her description of thallium poisoning that on at least one occasion it helped solve a case that was baffling doctors. . John Emsley, The poison prescribed by Agatha Christie:, The Independent, 20 July 1992 

Christie lived in Chelsea, first in Cresswell Place and later in Sheffield Terrace. Both properties are now marked by blue plaques.

Around 1941–1942, the British intelligence agency MI5 investigated Agatha Christie. A character called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller N or M?, a story that features a hunt for two of Hitler's top secret spy agents in Britain. MI5 was afraid that Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie commented to codebreaker Dilly Knox that Bletchley was simply the name of "one of my least lovable characters." 

To honour her many literary works, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours. The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club. . In the 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work in 1968. They were one of the few married couples where both partners were honoured in their own right. From 1968, owing to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady Mallowan.

Agatha Christie's gravestone in Cholsey
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing her increasing weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson. . Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia. . . 

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly part of Berkshire). She is buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey. She was survived by her only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks. 

=== Agatha Christie's estate and subsequent ownership of works===
During Agatha Christie's life, she had set up a private company, Agatha Christie Limited to hold the rights to her works, and around 1959 she had also transferred her 278 acre home, Greenway Estate, to her daughter Rosalind. Obituary: Rosalind Hicks, 2004-11-13, The Telegraph In 1968, when she was almost 80 years old, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and therefore the works it owned) to Booker Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), a subsidiary of the British food and transport conglomerate Booker-McConnell (now Booker Group), the founder of the Booker Prize for literature, which later increased its stake to 64%. Agatha Christie Limited remains the owner of the worldwide rights for over 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays and nearly 40 TV films. 

After her death in 1976, Christie's remaining 36% share of the company was additionally inherited by Rosalind, who passionately preserved her mother's works, image and legacy until her own death 28 years later. The family's share of the company allowed them to appoint 50% of the board and the chairman, and thereby to retain a veto over new treatments, updated versions, and republications, of her works. Agatha Christie begins new chapter after £10m selloff - online version at TheFreeLibrary.com, cited as being from the Birmingham Post & Mail, 1998-06-04. In 1993 Rosalind founded the Agatha Christie Society and became its first president. In 2004 her obituary in The Telegraph commented that Rosalind had been "determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the integrity of her creations" and disapproved of "merchandising" activities. On Rosalind's death – also at age 85 (28 October 2004 in Torbay, Devon, from natural causes ) – both this and the Greenway Estate passed to Christie's grandson Matthew Pritchard, who in 2000 gifted Greenway - both house and contents - to the National Trust. The Big Question: How big is the Agatha Christie industry, and what explains her enduring appeal? - The Independent Christie's family and family trusts, including Prichard, continue to own the remaining 36% stake in Agatha Christie Limited, Acorn Media buys stake in Agatha Christie estate - The Guardian, 2012-02-29 and remain associated with the company. In particular Prichard remains as the company's chairman, and also in his own right holds the copyright to some of his grandmother's later literary works (including The Mousetrap). Thompson, Laura. Agatha Christie, An English Mystery. (Page 473). Headline, 2007 ISBN 978-0-7553-1487-4 

In 1998, Booker sold a number of its non-food assets to focus on its core business. As part of that, its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2.1m annual revenue ) were sold for £10m to Chorion, a major international media company whose portfolio of well known authors' works also included the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley. However in February 2012, Chorion found itself in financial difficulties some years after a management buy-out, and began to sell off their literary assets on the market, selling their stake in Christie’s estate (specifically, their 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited) to the current owner Acorn Media UK (part of RLJ Entertainment, Inc. and the RLJ Companies, owned by American entrepreneur Robert L. Johnson) during that same month. 

As of 2014, media reports state that the BBC had acquired the exclusive television rights to Christie's works in the UK (previously associated with ITV) and plans with Acorn's co-operation to air new productions for the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth in 2015. David Walliams heralds new era for BBC as the new home of Agatha Christie adaptations 

==Writings==

===Fictional writings ===
====Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple====
Agatha Christie's first book The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who became a long-running character in many of Christie's works, appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories.

Miss (Jane) Marple, who also became well known, was introduced in the short stories The Thirteen Problems in 1927 and was based on Christie's grandmother and her "Ealing cronies". Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right." Miss Marple appeared in 12 of Christie's novels.

During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain, and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her diary that she was finding Poirot "insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an egocentric creep." However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot. . Feeling tied down, stuck with a love interest, she did marry off Hastings in an attempt to trim her cast commitments. In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, the Belgian detective's titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one: this is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s. Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady". 

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain. It appeared on the front page of the paper on 6 August 1975. 

Following the great success of Curtain, Christie gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976 but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead.

====Formula and plot devices====
Agatha Christie's reputation as "The Queen of Crime" was built upon the large number of classic motifs that she introduced, or for which she provided the most famous example. Christie built these tropes into what is now considered classic mystery structure: a murder is committed, there are multiple suspects who are all concealing secrets, and the detective gradually uncovers these secrets over the course of the story, discovering the most shocking twists towards the end. At the end, in a Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one room, explains the course of his or her deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party, although there are exceptions in which it is left to the guilty party (or parties) to explain all (such as And Then There Were None and Endless Night, both rather nihilistic in nature). Mezei, Kathy. "Spinsters, Surveillance, and Speech: The Case of Miss Marple, Miss Mole, and Miss Jekyll". Journal of Modern Literature 30.2 (2007): 103–120 Beehler, Sharon A. "Close vs. Closed Reading: Interpreting the Clues". The English Journal 77.6 (1998): 39–43 

Seven stories are named for, or built around words from, well known children's nursery rhymes: And Then There Were None (by Ten Little Indians), One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (by One, Two, Buckle My Shoe), Five Little Pigs (by This Little Piggy), Crooked House (by There Was a Crooked Man), A Pocket Full of Rye (by Sing a Song of Sixpence), Hickory Dickory Dock (by Hickory Dickory Dock), and Three Blind Mice (by Three Blind Mice).

Twice, the murderer turns out to be the unreliable narrator of the story. In six stories, Christie allows the murderer to escape justice: these are The Witness for the Prosecution, Five Little Pigs, The Man in the Brown Suit, Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain and The Unexpected Guest. (When Christie adapted Witness into a stage play, she lengthened the ending so that the murderer was also killed.) There are also numerous instances where the killer is not brought to justice in the legal sense but instead dies (death usually being presented as a more 'sympathetic' outcome), for example Death Comes as the End, And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile, Dumb Witness, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Crooked House, Appointment with Death, The Hollow, Nemesis, Cat Among the Pigeons, and The Secret Adversary. In some cases, this is with the collusion of the detective involved. In some stories, the question of whether formal justice will be done is left unresolved, such as Five Little Pigs and Ordeal by Innocence.

Christie often made the unlikeliest character guilty. This happened so often that it became a cliché; savvy readers could identify the murderer by simply identifying the least likely suspect. On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. John Curran's Agatha Christie: The Secret Notebooks describes different working methods for every book in her autobiography, thus contradicting this claim.

The first Hercule Poirot began with tram passengers and Belgian refugees. Man in the Brown Suit started with Belcher from the world tour. Murder on the Links began with news from France, a wife debunked, who claimed intruders tied her up and murdered her husband. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd killer was suggested by brother-in-law James Watt. The Big Four, helped by Archie's brother Cambell, was a stop-gap collection of Sketch magazine stories, for money when her husband left.

====Character stereotypes====
Christie occasionally inserted stereotyped descriptions of characters into her work, particularly before the end of the Second World War (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), and particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, in the first editions of the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier," she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather flamboyant jewellery"; in later editions the passage was edited to describe "sallow men" wearing same. In "The Hollow", published as late as 1946, one of the more unsympathetic characters is "a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake ..... a small woman with a thick nose, henna red and a disagreeable voice". To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie sometimes characterised the "foreigners" in such a way as to make the reader understand and sympathise with them; this is particularly true of her Jewish characters, who while seen as un-English are seldom actually criminals. (See, for example, the character of Oliver Manders in Three Act Tragedy.) 

Often she is lovingly affectionate or teasing with her prejudices. After four years of war-torn London, Christie hoped to return some day to Syria, which she described as "gentle fertile country and its simple people, who know how to laugh and how to enjoy life; who are idle and gay, and who have dignity, good manners, and a great sense of humour, and to whom death is not terrible."

After trouble with an incompetent Swiss French nursery helper Marcelle for toddler Rosalind, she decides "Scottish preferred ... good with the young. The French were hopeless disciplinarians ... Germans good and methodical, but it was not German that I really wanted Rosalind to learn. The Irish were gay but made trouble in the house; the English were of all kinds" She proposes this, after the fact, knowing the chosen Charlotte lasts decades.

Her book titles, changed by American publishers, for example Ten Little Niggers to Ten Little Indians, were kept the same across the Atlantic, after bushels of fan mail.

===Non-fictional writings===

Among Christie's relatively few nonfiction works is Come, Tell Me How You Live about working on an archaeological dig, drawn from her life with second husband Max Mallowan. 

The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery is a collection of correspondence from her 1922 Grand Tour of the British empire, including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. 

 was published posthumously in 1977.

===Critical reception===
The world's best-selling mystery writer, and often referred to as the "Queen of Crime", Agatha Christie is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterisation. . . Some critics however regarded Christie's plotting abilities as considerably exceeding her literary ones. The novelist Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder", and the American literary critic Edmund Wilson was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction genre generally in his New Yorker essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?". . 

==Interests and influences==

=== Archaeology ===

Christie had a lifelong interest in archaeology. On a trip to the excavation site at Ur in 1930, she met her future husband, Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist, but her fame as an author far surpassed his fame in archaeology. Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes with archaeology, but once the two married they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together.

While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips (spending up to 3–4 months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Ninevah, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud), Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labelling of ancient exhibits which includes tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking field notes. . 

So as to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations, Christie would always pay for her own board and lodging and her travel expenses, and supported excavations as an anonymous sponsor. . 

During their time in the Middle East, there was also a large amount of time spent travelling to and from Mallowan's sites. Their extensive travelling had a strong influence on her writing, which is often reflected as some type of transportation playing a part in her murderer's schemes. The large amount of travel was reused in novels such as The Murder on the Orient Express, as well as suggesting the idea of archaeology as an adventure itself. 

After the Second World War, she chronicled her time in Syria with fondness in "Come Tell Me How You Live". Anecdotes, memories, funny episodes, are strung in a rough timeline, with more emphasis on eccentric characters, lovely scenery, than factual accuracy.

From 8 November 2001 to 24 March 2002, The British Museum had an exhibit named Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia, which presented the secret life of Agatha Christie and the influences of archaeology in her life and works. . 

===Spirituality===
Christie's life within the archaeological world shaped not only the settings and characters for her books but also the issues she highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical and mysterious. Many of Christie's books and short stories set both in the Middle East and back in England have a decidedly otherworldly influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and seances play a part. Such stories include "The Hound of Death" and "the Idol House of Astarte". This theme was greatly strengthened by those times Christie spent in the Middle East where she was consistently surrounded by the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they were excavating during Mallowan's archaeological work.

===Use of archaeology and spirituality in her writing===
Many of the settings for Agatha Christie's books were directly inspired by the many archaeological field seasons spent in the Middle East on the sites managed by her husband Max. The extent of her time spent at the many locations featured in her books is apparent from the extreme detail in which she describes them. One such site featured in her work is the temple site of Abu Simbel, depicted in Death on the Nile. Also there is the great detail in which she describes life at the dig site in Murder in Mesopotamia.

Among the characters in her books, Christie has often given prominence to the archaeologists and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artefacts. Most notable are the characters of Dr. Eric Leidner in Murder in Mesopotamia and Signor Richetti in Death on the Nile, while many minor characters in They Came to Baghdad were archaeologists.

Indirectly, Christie's famous character Hercule Poirot may be compared to an archaeologist by the manner of his detailed scrutiny of all facts both large and small. Cornelius Holtorf, an academic archaeologist, cites an archaeologist as a detective as being one of the key themes of archaeology in popular culture. He describes an archaeologist as a professional detective of the past who has the ability to reveal secrets for the greater good of society. Holtorf's description of the archaeologist as a detective is very similar to Christie's depiction of Poirot, who is hugely observant and is very careful to look at small details as they often impart the most information. Many of Christie's detective characters show some archaeological traits through their careful attention to clues and artefacts alike. Miss Marple, another of Christie's famous characters, shares these characteristics of careful deduction though the attention paid to the small clues.

Some of Christie's best known novels with heavy archaeological influences are:
* Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) - the most archaeologically influenced of all her novels, as it is set in the Middle East at an archaeological dig site and associated expedition house. The main characters include an archaeologist, Dr. Eric Leidner, his wife, multiple specialists, assistants, and the men working on the site. The novel is noted most for its careful description of the dig site and house, which showed the author had spent much of her time in very similar situations. The characters in this book in particular are also based on archaeologists Christie knew from her personal experiences on excavation sites.

* Appointment with Death (1938) - set in Jerusalem and its surrounding area. The death itself occurs at an old cave site in Petra and offers some very descriptive details of sites which Christie herself could have visited in order to write the book.

* Death on the Nile (1937) - takes place on a tour boat on the Nile. Many archaeological sites are visited along the way and one of the main characters is an archaeologist, Signor Richetti.

* They Came to Baghdad (1951) - inspired by Christie's own trips to Baghdad with Mallowan, and involves an archaeologist as the heroine's love interest.

==Portrayals of Christie==
Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television. Several biographical programmes have been made, such as the 2004 BBC's , in which she is portrayed by Olivia Williams, Anna Massey, and Bonnie Wright.

Christie has also been portrayed fictionally. Some of these portrayals have explored and offered accounts of Christie's disappearance in 1926, including the 1979 film Agatha (with Vanessa Redgrave, in which she sneaks away to plan revenge against her husband), and the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (with Fenella Woolgar, in which her disappearance is the result of her suffering a temporary breakdown owing to a brief psychic link being formed between her and an alien). Others, such as 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten (not to be confused with the 1986 comedy by the same name) create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill. . In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself (Dame Peggy Ashcroft) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot. The heroine of Liar-Soft's 2008 visual novel , Mary Clarissa Christie, is based on the real-life Christie. Christie features as a character in Gaylord Larsen's Dorothy and Agatha and The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins. 

==Lists of works and adaptations ==
* Agatha Christie bibliography
* List of short stories by Agatha Christie
* Adaptations of Agatha Christie

==See also==

* (Her life story in a 2004 BBC drama)
* Abney Hall (home to her brother-in-law; several books use Abney as their setting)
* Greenway Estate (Christie's former home in Devon. The house and grounds are now in the possession of the National Trust and open to the public)
* Agatha Christie indult (a non-denominational request to which Christie was signatory seeking permission for the occasional use of the Tridentine (Latin) mass in England and Wales)
* Agatha Award
* Agatha Christie Award (Japan)

==Notes==

==References==

==Sources==
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==Further reading==

===Articles===
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===Books===
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==External links==

* Official Agatha Christie site (also Agatha Christie Limited's website)
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* Agatha Christie/Sir Max Mallowan's blue plaque at Cholsey
* Agatha Christie profile and articles at "The Guardian"
* Agatha Christie profile on PBS.ORG
* Agatha Christie's style and methods, the plot devices that she uses to trick the reader
* Agatha Christie's Profile on FamousAuthors.org

 



[[The Plague]]

The Plague (French: La Peste) is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of medical workers finding solidarity in their labour as the Algerian city of Oran is swept by a plague. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the effects the plague has on a populace.

The novel is believed to be based on the cholera epidemic that killed a large percentage of Oran's population in 1849 following French colonization, but the novel is placed in the 1940s. Magill 1989:683 Oran and its environs were struck by disease multiple times before Camus published this novel. According to a research report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Oran was decimated by the plague in 1556 and 1678, but outbreaks after European colonization, in 1921 (185 cases), 1931 (76 cases), and 1944 (95 cases), were very far from the scale of the epidemic described in the novel.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. Camus (in Thody, 1970):345. In an interview on 15 November 1945, Camus said, "No, I am not an existentialist." Forsdick 2007:119 The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, wherein individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings, the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition. Camus included a dim-witted character misreading The Trial as a mystery novel as an oblique homage. The novel has been read as a metaphorical treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II.

Although Camus's approach in the book is severe, his narrator emphasizes the ideas that we ultimately have no control, and irrationality of life is inevitable. Additionally, he further illustrates the human reaction towards the "absurd"; The Plague represents how the world deals with the philosophical notion of the Absurd, a theory which Camus himself helped to define.

==Plot summary==
The text of The Plague is divided into five parts.

===Part one===
"... Dr Rieux resoved to compile this chronicle ..."
In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the streets. A hysteria develops soon afterward, causing the local newspapers to report the incident. Authorities responding to public pressure order the collection and cremation of the rats, unaware that the collection itself was the catalyst for the spread of the bubonic plague.

The main character, Dr. Bernard Rieux, lives comfortably in an apartment building when strangely the building's concierge, M. Michel, a confidante, dies from a fever. Dr. Rieux consults his colleague, Castel, about the illness until they come to the conclusion that a plague is sweeping the town. They both approach fellow doctors and town authorities about their theory, but are eventually dismissed on the basis of one death. However, as more and more deaths quickly ensue, it becomes apparent that there is an epidemic.

Authorities, including the Prefect, are slow to accept that the situation is serious and quibble over the appropriate action to take. Official notices enacting control measures are posted, but the language used is optimistic and downplays the seriousness of the situation. A "special ward" is opened at the hospital, but its 80 beds are filled within three days. As the death toll begins to rise, more desperate measures are taken. Homes are quarantined; corpses and burials are strictly supervised. A supply of plague serum finally arrives, but there is only enough to treat existing cases and the country's emergency reserves are depleted. When the daily number of deaths jumps to 30, the town is sealed and an outbreak of plague is officially declared.

===Part two===
The town is sealed off. The town gates are shut, rail travel is prohibited, and all mail service is suspended. The use of telephone lines is restricted only to "urgent" calls, leaving short telegrams as the only means of communicating with friends or family outside the town. The separation affects daily activity and depresses the spirit of the townspeople, who begin to feel isolated and introverted, and the plague begins to affect various characters.

One character, Raymond Rambert, devises a plan to escape the city to join his lover in Paris after city officials refused his request to leave. He befriends some underground criminals so that they may smuggle him out of the city. Another character, Father Paneloux, uses the plague as an opportunity to advance his stature in the town by suggesting that the plague was an act of God punishing the citizens' sinful nature. His diatribe falls on the ears of many citizens of the town, who turned to religion in droves but would not have done so under normal circumstances. Cottard, a criminal remorseful enough to attempt suicide yet fearful of being arrested, becomes wealthy as a major smuggler. Meanwhile, Dr. Rieux, a vacationer Jean Tarrou, and a civil servant Joseph Grand exhaustively treat patients in their homes and in the hospital.

Rambert informs Tarrou of his escape plan, but when Tarrou tells him that others in the city, including Dr. Rieux, also have loved ones outside the city whom they are not allowed to see, Rambert becomes sympathetic and changes his mind. He then decides to join Tarrou and Dr. Rieux to help fight the epidemic.

===Part three===

In mid-August, the situation continues to worsen. People try to escape the town, but some are shot by armed sentries. Violence and looting break out on a small scale, and the authorities respond by declaring martial law and imposing a curfew. Funerals are conducted with more and more speed, no ceremony, and little concern for the feelings of the families of the deceased. The inhabitants passively endure their increasing feelings of exile and separation; despondent, they waste away emotionally as well as physically.

===Part four===

In September and October, the town remains at the mercy of the plague. Rieux hears from the sanatorium that his wife's condition is worsening. He also hardens his heart regarding the plague victims so that he can continue to do his work. Cottard, on the other hand, seems to flourish during the plague, because it gives him a sense of being connected to others, since everybody faces the same danger. Cottard and Tarrou attend a performance of Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice, but the actor portraying Orpheus collapses with plague symptoms during the performance.

Rambert finally has a chance to escape, but he decides to stay, saying that he would feel ashamed of himself if he left.

Towards the end of October, Castel's new anti-plague serum is tried for the first time, but it cannot save the life of Othon's young son, who suffers greatly, as Paneloux, Rieux, and Tarrou look on in horror.

Paneloux, who has joined the group of volunteers fighting the plague, gives a second sermon. He addresses the problem of an innocent child's suffering and says it is a test of a Christian's faith, since it requires him either to deny everything or believe everything. He urges the congregation not to give up the struggle but to do everything possible to fight the plague.

A few days after the sermon, Paneloux is taken ill. His symptoms do not conform to those of the plague, but the disease still proves fatal.

Tarrou and Rambert visit one of the isolation camps, where they meet Othon. When Othon's period of quarantine ends, he elects to stay in the camp as a volunteer because this will make him feel less separated from his dead son. Tarrou tells Rieux the story of his life, and the two men go swimming together in the sea. Grand catches the plague and instructs Rieux to burn all his papers. But Grand makes an unexpected recovery, and deaths from the plague start to decline.

===Part five===

By late January, the plague is in full retreat, and the townspeople begin to celebrate the imminent opening of the town gates. Othon, however, does not escape death from the disease. Cottard is distressed by the ending of the epidemic, from which he has profited by shady dealings. Two government employees approach him, and he flees. Despite the epidemic's ending, Tarrou contracts the plague and dies after a heroic struggle. Rieux's wife also dies.

In February, the town gates open and people are reunited with their loved ones from other cities. Rambert is reunited with his wife. Rieux reveals that he is the narrator of the chronicle and that he tried to present an objective view of the events.

Cottard goes mad and shoots at people from his home. He is arrested. Grand begins working on his sentence again. Rieux reflects on the epidemic and reaches the conclusion that there is more to admire than to despise in humans.

==Characters==

*The Narrator: presents himself at the outset of the book as witness to the events and privy to documents, but does not identify himself with any character until the ending of the novel.

*Asthma Patient: The asthma patient receives regular visits from Dr. Rieux. He is a seventy-five-year-old Spaniard with a rugged face, who comments on events in Oran that he hears about on the radio and in the newspapers.

*Dr. Castel: Dr. Castel is one of Rieux's medical colleagues and is much older than Rieux. He realizes after the first few cases that the disease is bubonic plague and is aware of the seriousness of the situation. He labors hard to make an anti-plague serum, but as the epidemic continues, he shows increasing signs of wear and tear.

*Cottard: Cottard lives in the same building as Grand. He does not appear to have a job, and is described as having private means, although he describes himself as "a traveling salesman in wines and spirits." Cottard is an eccentric figure, silent and secretive, who tries to hang himself in his room. Afterwards, he does not want to be interviewed by the police, since he has committed a crime by attempting suicide, and fears arrest.Cottard's personality changes after the outbreak of plague. Whereas he was aloof and mistrustful before, he now becomes agreeable and tries hard to make friends. He appears to relish the coming of the plague, and Tarrou thinks this is because he finds it easier to live with his own fears now that everyone else is in a state of fear, too. Cottard takes advantage of the crisis to make money by selling contraband cigarettes and inferior liquor.When the epidemic ends, Cottard's moods fluctuate. Sometimes he is sociable, but at other times he shuts himself up in his room. Eventually, he loses his mental balance and shoots at random at people on the street. The police arrest him.

*Garcia: Garcia is a man who knows the group of smugglers in Oran. He introduces Rambert to Raoul.

*Gonzales: Gonzales is the smuggler who makes the arrangements for Rambert's escape.

*Joseph Grand: Joseph Grand is a fifty-year-old clerk for the city government. He is tall and thin and always wears clothes a size too large for him. Poorly paid, he lives an austere life, but he is capable of deep affection. In his spare time, Grand polishes up his Latin, and he is also writing a book, but he is such a perfectionist that he continually rewrites the first sentence and can get no further. One of his problems in life is that he can rarely find the correct words to express what he means. Grand tells Rieux that he married while still in his teens, but overwork and poverty took their toll (Grand did not receive the career advancement that he had been promised), and his wife Jeanne left him. He tried but failed to write a letter to her, and he still grieves for his loss.Grand is a neighbor of Cottard, and it is he who calls Rieux for help, when Cottard tries to commit suicide. When the plague takes a grip on the town, Grand joins the team of volunteers, acting as general secretary, recording all the statistics. Rieux regards him as "the true embodiment of the quiet courage that inspired the sanitary groups." Grand catches the plague himself and asks Rieux to burn his manuscript, but then makes an unexpected recovery. At the end of the novel, Grand says he is much happier; he has written to Jeanne and made a fresh start on his book.

*Louis: Louis is one of the sentries who takes part in the plan for Rambert to escape.

*Marcel: Marcel, Louis's brother, is also a sentry who is part of the escape plan for Rambert.

*M. Michel: M. Michel is the concierge of the building in which Rieux lives. An old man, he is the first victim of the plague.

*Jacques Othon:Jacques Othon is M. Othon's young son. When he contracts the plague, he is the first to receive Dr. Castel's anti-plague serum. But the serum is ineffective, and the boy dies after a long and painful struggle.

*M. Othon: M. Othon is a magistrate in Oran. He is tall and thin and, as Tarrou observes in his journal, "his small, beady eyes, narrow nose, and hard, straight mouth make him look like a well-brought-up owl." Othon treats his wife and children unkindly, but after his son dies of the plague, his character softens. After he finishes his time at the isolation camp, where he is sent because his son is infected, he wants to return there, because this would make him feel closer to his lost son. But before Othon can do this, he contracts the plague and dies.

*Father Paneloux: Father Paneloux is a learned, well-respected Jesuit priest. He is well known for having given a series of lectures in which he championed a pure form of Christian doctrine and chastised his audience about their laxity. During the first stage of the plague outbreak, Paneloux preaches a sermon at the cathedral. He has a powerful way of speaking, and he insists to the congregation that the plague is a scourge sent by God to those who have hardened their hearts against him. But Paneloux also claims that God is present to offer succor and hope. Later, Paneloux attends at the bedside of Othon's stricken son and prays that the boy may be spared. After the boy's death, Paneloux tells Rieux that although the death of an innocent child in a world ruled by a loving God cannot be rationally explained, it should nonetheless be accepted. Paneloux joins the team of volunteer workers and preaches another sermon saying that the death of the innocent child is a test of faith. Since God willed the child's death, so the Christian should will it, too. A few days after preaching this sermon, Paneloux is taken ill. He refuses to call for a doctor, trusting in God alone. He dies. Since his symptoms did not seem to resemble those of the plague, Rieux records his death as a "doubtful case."

*The Prefect: The Prefect believes at first that the talk of plague is a false alarm, but on the advice of his medical association, he authorizes limited measures to combat it. When these do not work, he tries to avoid responsibility, saying he will ask the government for orders. After this, he does take responsibility for tightening up the regulations relating to the plague and issues the order to close the town.

*Raymond Rambert: Raymond Rambert is a journalist who is visiting Oran to research a story on living conditions in the Arab quarter of the town. When the plague strikes, he finds himself trapped in a city with which he feels he has no connection. He misses his wife who is in Paris, and he uses all his ingenuity and resourcefulness to persuade the city bureaucracy to allow him to leave. When this fails, he contacts smugglers, who agree to help him to escape for a fee of ten thousand francs. But there is a hitch in the arrangements, and by the time another escape plan is arranged, Rambert has changed his mind. He decides to stay in the city and continue to help fight the plague, saying that he would feel ashamed of himself if he pursued a merely private happiness. He now feels that he belongs in Oran and that the plague is everyone's business, including his.

*Raoul: Raoul is the man who agrees, for a fee of ten thousand francs, to arrange for Rambert to escape. He introduces Rambert to Gonzales.

*Dr. Richard: Dr. Richard is chairman of the Oran Medical Association. He is slow to recommend any action to combat the plague, not wanting to arouse public alarm. He does not even want to admit that the disease is the plague, referring instead to a "special type of fever."

*Dr. Bernard Rieux: Dr. Bernard Rieux is the narrator of the novel, although this is only revealed at the end. Tarrou describes him as about thirty-five-years-old, of moderate height, dark-skinned, with close-cropped black hair. At the beginning of the novel, Rieux's wife, who has been ill for a year, leaves for a sanatorium. It is Rieux who treats the first victim of plague and who first uses the word plague to describe the disease. He urges the authorities to take action to stop the spread of the epidemic. However, at first, along with everyone else, the danger the town faces seems unreal to him. He feels uneasy but does not realize the gravity of the situation. Within a short while, he grasps what is at stake and warns the authorities that unless steps are taken immediately, the epidemic could kill off half the town's population of two hundred thousand within a couple of months.During the epidemic, Rieux heads an auxiliary hospital and works long hours treating the victims. He injects serum and lances the abscesses, but there is little more that he can do, and his duties weigh heavily upon him. He never gets home until late, and he has to distance himself from the natural pity that he feels for the victims; otherwise, he would not be able to go on. It is especially hard for him when he visits a victim in the person's home, because he knows that he must immediately call for an ambulance and have the person removed from the house. Often the relatives plead with him not to do this, since they know they may never see the person again.Rieux works to combat the plague simply because he is a doctor and his job is to relieve human suffering. He does not do it for any grand, religious purpose, like Paneloux (Rieux does not believe in God), or as part of a high-minded moral code, like Tarrou. He is a practical man, doing what needs to be done without any fuss, even though he knows that the struggle against death is something that he can never win.

*Mme. Rieux: Mme. Rieux is Dr. Rieux's mother, who comes to stay with him when his sick wife goes to the sanatorium. She is a serene woman who, after taking care of the housework, sits quietly in a chair. She says that at her age there is nothing much left to fear.

*Jean Tarrou: Jean Tarrou arrived in Oran some weeks before the plague broke out, for unknown reasons. He is not there on business, since he appears to have private means. Tarrou is a good-natured man who smiles a lot. Before the plague came, he liked to associate with the Spanish dancers and musicians in the city. He also keeps a diary, full of his observations of life in Oran, which Rieux incorporates into the narrative.It is Tarrou who first comes up with the idea of organizing teams of volunteers to fight the plague. He wants to do this before the authorities begin to conscript people, and he does not like the official plan to get prisoners to do the work. He takes action, prompted by his own code of morals; he feels that the plague is everybody's responsibility and that everyone should do his or her duty. What interests him, he tells Rieux, is how to become a saint, even though he does not believe in God.Later in the novel, Tarrou tells Rieux, with whom he has become friends, the story of his life. His father, although a kind man in private, was also an aggressive prosecuting attorney who tried death penalty cases, arguing strongly for the death penalty to be imposed. As a young boy, Tarrou attended one day of a criminal proceeding in which a man was on trial for his life. However, the idea of capital punishment disgusted him. After he left home before the age of eighteen, his main interest in life was his opposition to the death penalty, which he regarded as state-sponsored murder. However, years of activism, and fighting for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War have left him disillusioned.When the plague epidemic is virtually over, Tarrou becomes one of its last victims, but puts up a heroic struggle before dying.

==Themes==

===Absurdism===

Absurdism is the search for a meaning to life and being unable to find one. This is similar to nihilism, where one assumes there is no meaning to life.

===Exile and separation===

The theme of exile and separation is embodied in two characters, Rieux and Rambert, both of whom are separated from the women they love. The theme is also present in the many other nameless citizens who are separated from loved ones in other towns or from those who happened to be out of town when the gates of Oran were closed. In another sense, the entire town feels in exile, since it is completely cut off from the outside world. Rieux, as the narrator, describes what exile meant to them all:

Some, like Rambert, are exiles in double measure since they are not only cut off from those they want to be with but they do not have the luxury of being in their own homes.

The feeling of exile produces many changes in attitudes and behaviors. At first, people indulge in fantasies, imagining the missing person's return, but then they start to feel like prisoners, drifting through life with nothing left but the past, since they do not know how long into the future their ordeal may last. And the past smacks only of regret, of things left undone. Living with the sense of abandonment, they find that they cannot communicate their private grief to their neighbors, and conversations tend to be superficial.

Rieux returns to the theme at the end of the novel, after the epidemic is over, when the depth of the feelings of exile and deprivation is clear from the overwhelming joy with which long parted lovers and family members greet each other.

For some citizens, exile was a feeling more difficult to pin down. They simply desired a reunion with something that could hardly be named but which seemed to them to be the most desirable thing on Earth. Some called it peace. Rieux numbers Tarrou among such people, although he found it only in death.

This understanding of exile suggests the deeper, metaphysical implications of the term. It relates to the loss of the belief that humans live in a rational universe in which they can fulfill their hopes and desires, find meaning, and be at home. As Camus put it in The Myth of Sisyphus, "In a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile."

===Solidarity, community, and resistance===

The ravages of the plague in Oran vividly convey the absurdist position that humans live in an indifferent, incomprehensible universe that has no rational meaning or order, and no transcendent God. The plague comes unannounced and may strike down anyone at any time. It is arbitrary and capricious, and it leaves humans in a state of fear and uncertainty, which ends only in death. In the face of this metaphysical reality, what must be the response of individuals? Should they resign themselves to it, accept it as inevitable, and seek what solace they can as individuals, or should they join with others and fight back, even though they must live with the certainty that they cannot win? Camus's answer is clearly the latter, embodied in the characters of Rieux, Rambert, and Tarrou. Rieux's position is made clear in part II in a conversation with Tarrou. Rieux argues that one would have to be a madman to submit willingly to the plague. Rather than accepting the natural order of things — the presence of sickness and death — he believes one must fight against them. He is aware of the needs of the community; he does not live for himself alone. When Tarrou points out that " victories will never be lasting," Rieux admits that he is involved in a "never ending defeat," but this does not stop him from engaging in the struggle.

Rieux is also aware that working for the common good demands sacrifice; he cannot expect personal happiness. This is a lesson that Rambert learns. At first he insists that he does not belong in Oran, and his only thought is returning to the woman he loves in Paris. He thinks only of his own personal happiness and the unfairness of the situation in which he has been placed but gradually comes to recognize his membership in a larger human community, which makes demands on him that he cannot ignore. Ultimately he realizes he cannot face his lover if it is as a coward.

Tarrou lives according to an ethical code that demands that he act in a way that benefits the whole community, even though, in this case, he risks his life by doing so. Later in the novel, when Tarrou tells Rieux the story of his life, he adds a new dimension to the term ”plague.“ He views it not just as a specific disease or simply as the presence of an impersonal evil external to humans. For Tarrou, plague is the destructive impulse within every person, the will and the capacity to do harm, and it is everyone's duty to be on guard against this tendency within themselves, lest they infect someone else with it. He describes his views to Rieux:

===Religion===

In times of calamity, people often turn to religion, and Camus examines this response in the novel. In contrast to the humanist beliefs of Rieux, Rambert, and Tarrou, the religious perspective is given in the sermons of the stern Jesuit priest, Father Paneloux. While the other main characters believe there is no rational explanation for the outbreak of plague, Paneloux believes there is. In his first sermon, given during the first month of the plague, Paneloux describes the epidemic as the "flail of God," through which God separates the wheat from the chaff, the good from the evil. Paneloux is at pains to emphasize that God did not will the calamity: "He looked on the evil-doing in the town with compassion; only when there was no other remedy did He turn His face away, in order to force people to face the truth about their life" In Paneloux's view, even the terrible suffering caused by the plague works ultimately for good. The divine light can still be seen even in the most catastrophic events, and a Christian hope is granted to all.

Paneloux's argument is based on the theology of St. Augustine, on which he is an expert, and it is accepted as irrefutable by many of the townspeople, including the magistrate, Othon. But it does not satisfy Rieux. Camus carefully manipulates the plot to bring up the question of innocent suffering. Paneloux may argue that the plague is a punishment for sin, but how does he reconcile that doctrine with the death of a child? The child in question is Jacques Othon, and Paneloux, along with Rieux and Tarrou, witnesses his horrible death. Paneloux is moved with compassion for the child, and he takes up the question of innocent suffering in his second sermon. He argues that because a child's suffering is so horrible and cannot easily be explained, it forces people into a crucial test of faith: either we must believe everything or we must deny everything, and who, Paneloux asks, could bear to do the latter? We must yield to the divine will, he says; we cannot pick and choose and accept only what we can understand. But we must still seek to do what good lies in our power (as Paneloux himself does as one of the volunteers who fights the plague).

The second sermon given by Paneloux, however, suggests that his faith has been shaken. Unable to reconcile his beliefs with the death of the child, Paneloux becomes sick and refuses to be treated. His illness is not consistent with the symptoms of the plague, and the inexplicable nature of the illness leads Rieux to diagnose him as a "doubtful case". He leaves his fate in the hands of God, and he dies clinging to his cross and the remnants of his beliefs. The implication is that Paneloux's loss of faith is what leads to his death. Paneloux's death is in contrast to Tarrou's, who fights valiantly against death when his turn comes. The fight Tarrou puts up against his end is emblematic of the fight against the plague and the absurdity of the universe. The criticism of Paneloux, is that he, unlike Tarrou, has lost his faith in humanity. He chooses, instead, to cling to a hollow ideal he no longer believes, and his death, in contrast to Tarrou's, does not bring him peace.

It is clear that Camus's sympathy in this contrast of ideas lies with Rieux and Tarrou.

==Style==

===Point of view===

This story is told through the character Rieux. However, Rieux does not function as a first-person narrator. Rather he disguises himself, referring to himself in the third person and only at the end of the novel reveals who he is. The novel thus appears to be told by an unnamed narrator who gathers information from what he has personally seen and heard regarding the epidemic, as well as from the diary of another character, Tarrou, who makes observations about the events he witnesses.
The reason Rieux does not declare himself earlier is that he wants to give an objective account of the events in Oran. He deliberately adopts the tone of an impartial observer. Rieux is like a witness who exercises restraint when called to testify about a crime; he describes what the characters said and did, without speculating about their thoughts and feelings, although he does offer generalized assessments of the shifting mood of the town as a whole. Rieux refers to his story as a chronicle, and he sees himself as a historian, which justifies his decision to stick to the facts and avoid subjectivity. This also explains why the style of The Plague often gives the impression of distance and detachment. Only rarely is the reader drawn directly into the emotions of the characters or the drama of the scene.

===Allegory===

An allegory is a narrative with two distinct levels of meaning. The first is the literal level; the second signifies a related set of concepts and events. The Plague is in part a historical allegory, in which the plague signifies the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944 during World War II. Gray 2007:165 

There are many aspects of the narrative that make the allegory plain. The town Oran, which gets afflicted by pestilence and cut off from the outside world, is the equivalent of France. Camus draws from his own experience of isolation during the war in writing The Plague. Gray 2007:167 The citizens are slow to realize the magnitude of the danger because they do not believe in pestilence or that it could happen to them, just as the French were complacent at the beginning of the war. They could not imagine that the Germans, whom they had defeated only twenty years previously, could defeat them in a mere six weeks, as happened when France fell in June 1940.

The different attitudes of the characters reflect different attitudes in the French population during the occupation. Some were the equivalent of Paneloux and thought that France was to blame for the calamity that had befallen it. They believed that the only solution was to submit gracefully to a historical inevitability — the long-term dominance of Europe by Germany. Many people, however, became members of the French Resistance, and they are the allegorical equivalents of the voluntary sanitary teams in the novel, such as Tarrou, Rambert, and Grand, who fight back against the unspeakable evil (the Nazi occupiers).

Some French collaborated with the Germans. In the novel, they are represented by Cottard, who welcomes the plague and uses the economic deprivation that results from it to make a fortune buying and selling on the black market.

Other details in the novel can be read at the allegorical level. The plague that carries people off unexpectedly echoes the reality of the occupation, in which people could be snatched from their homes by the Gestapo and imprisoned or sent to work as slave labor in German-controlled territories or simply killed. The facts of daily life in the plague-stricken city resemble life in wartime France: the showing of reruns at the cinemas, the stockpiling of scarce goods, nighttime curfews and isolation camps (these paralleling the German internment camps). The scenes at the end of the novel, when Oran's gates are reopened, recall the jubilant scenes in Paris when the city was liberated in 1944.
In some places, Camus makes the allegory explicit, as when he refers to the plague in terms that describe an enemy in war: "the epidemic was in retreat all along the line; victory was won and the enemy was abandoning his positions."

===Symbolism===

Imagery of the sea is often used in Camus's works to suggest life, vigor, and freedom. In The Plague, a key description of Oran occurs early, when it is explained that the town is built in such a way that it "turns its back on the bay, with the result that it's impossible to see the sea, you always have to go to look for it." Symbolically, Oran turns its back on life. When the plague hits, the deprivation of this symbol of freedom becomes more pronounced, as the beaches are closed, as is the port. In summer, the inhabitants lose touch with the sea altogether: "for all its nearness, the sea was out of bounds; young limbs had no longer the run of its delights."
A significant episode occurs near the end of part IV, when Tarrou and Rieux sit on the terrace of a house, from which they can see far into the horizon. As he gazes seaward, Tarrou says with a sense of relief that it is good to be there. To set a seal on the friendship between the two men, they go for a swim together. This contact with the ocean is presented as a moment of renewal, harmony, and peace. It is one of the few lyrical episodes in the novel: "hey saw the sea spread out before them, a gently heaving expanse of deep-piled velvet, supple and sleek as a creature of the wild."
Just before Rieux enters the water, he is possessed by a "strange happiness," a feeling that is shared by Tarrou. There is a peaceful image of Rieux lying motionless on his back gazing up at the stars and moon, and then when Tarrou joins him they swim side by side, "with the same zest, the same rhythm, isolated from the world, at last free of the town and of the plague."

==Film adaptations==
* 1992 La Peste directed by Luis Puenzo

==Notes==

==References==
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[[Applied ethics]]

Applied ethics is the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment. It is thus the attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life. Bioethics, for example, is concerned with identifying the correct approach to matters such as euthanasia, or the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in research. Environmental ethics is concerned with questions such as the duties or duty of 'whistleblowers' to the general public as opposed to their loyalty to their employers. As such, it is an area of professional philosophy that is relatively well paid and highly valued both within and outside of academia. Brenda Almond, 'Applied Ethics', in Mautner, Thomas, Dictionary of Philosophy, Penguin 1996 

Applied ethics is distinguished from normative ethics, which concerns what people should believe to be right and wrong, and from meta-ethics, which concerns the nature of moral statements.

An emerging typology for applied ethics (Porter, 2006) uses seven domains to help improve organizations and social issues at the national and global level:

* Decision ethics, or ethical theories and ethical decision processes
* Professional ethics, or ethics to improve professionalism
* Clinical ethics, or ethics to improve our basic health needs
* Business ethics, or individual based morals to improve ethics in a business environment
* Organizational ethics, or ethics among organizations
* Social ethics, or ethics among nations and as one global unit
* Sexual ethics, or ethics based around sexual acts

==Modern approach==
Much of applied ethics is concerned with just three theories:

# Utilitarianism, where the practical consequences of various policies are evaluated on the assumption that the right policy will be the one which results in the greatest happiness. This theories main developments came from Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill who distinguished between an act and rule utilitarianist morality. Later developments have also adjusted the theory, most notably Henry Sidgwick who introduced the idea of motive or intent in morality, and Peter Singer who introduced the idea of preference in to moral decision making. 
# Deontological ethics, notions based on 'rules' i.e. that there is an obligation to perform the 'right' action, regardless of actual consequences (epitomized by Immanuel Kant's notion of the Categorical Imperative which was the centre to Kant's ethical theory based on duty). Another key deontological theory is Natural Law, which was heavily developed by Thomas Aquinas and is the basis of the Roman Catholic Church. 
# Virtue ethics, derived from Aristotle's and Confucius's notions, which asserts that the right action will be that chosen by a suitably 'virtuous' agent.

One modern approach which attempts to overcome the seemingly impossible divide between deontology and utilitarianism (of which the divide is caused by the opposite takings of an absolute and relativist moral view) is case-based reasoning, also known as casuistry. Casuistry does not begin with theory, rather it starts with the immediate facts of a real and concrete case. While casuistry makes use of ethical theory, it does not view ethical theory as the most important feature of moral reasoning. Casuists, like Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin (The Abuse of Casuistry 1988), challenge the traditional paradigm of applied ethics. Instead of starting from theory and applying theory to a particular case, casuists start with the particular case itself and then ask what morally significant features (including both theory and practical considerations) ought to be considered for that particular case. In their observations of medical ethics committees, Jonsen and Toulmin note that a consensus on particularly problematic moral cases often emerges when participants focus on the facts of the case, rather than on ideology or theory. Thus, a Rabbi, a Catholic priest, and an agnostic might agree that, in this particular case, the best approach is to withhold extraordinary medical care, while disagreeing on the reasons that support their individual positions. By focusing on cases and not on theory, those engaged in moral debate increase the possibility of agreement.

==See also==
*Ethical codes
*Outline of ethics

==Bibliography==
 
* 
* (monograph)
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Porter, R. (2006). The Health Ethics Typology: Six Domains to Improve Care. Socratic Publishing. ISBN 0-9786699-0-8
* Business Ethics Quarterly
* Business and Professional Ethics
* Environmental Ethics
* Ethics (since 1890)
* The Journal of Ethics
* Journal of Applied Philosophy
* International Journal of Applied Philosophy
* International Journal of Philosophical Practice
* Journal of Business Ethics
* Journal of Business Ethics Education
* Professional Ethics
* Teaching Ethics

==External links==

* Chris Young, How to teach an introduction to applied ethics
* Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University
* W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia

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[[Absolute value]]

The absolute value of a number may be thought of as its distance from zero.
In mathematics, the absolute value (or modulus) x of a real number is the non-negative value of without regard to its sign. Namely, 1=x = x for a positive , 1=x = negative , and 1=0 = 0. For example, the absolute value of 3 is 3, and the absolute value of −3 is also 3. The absolute value of a number may be thought of as its distance from zero.

Generalisations of the absolute value for real numbers occur in a wide variety of mathematical settings. For example an absolute value is also defined for the complex numbers, the quaternions, ordered rings, fields and vector spaces. The absolute value is closely related to the notions of magnitude, distance, and norm in various mathematical and physical contexts.

==Terminology and notation==
Jean-Robert Argand introduced the term "module", meaning 'unit of measure' in French, in 1806 specifically for the complex absolute value Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Revision, June 2008 Nahin, O'Connor and Robertson, and functions.Wolfram.com.; for the French sense, see Littré, 1877 and it was borrowed into English in 1866 as the Latin equivalent "modulus". The term "absolute value" has been used in this sense from at least 1806 in French Lazare Nicolas M. Carnot, Mémoire sur la relation qui existe entre les distances respectives de cinq point quelconques pris dans l'espace, p. 105 at Google Books and 1857 in English. James Mill Peirce, A Text-book of Analytic Geometry at Google Books. The oldest citation in the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1907. The term "absolute value" is also used in contrast to "relative value". The notation x was introduced by Karl Weierstrass in 1841. Nicholas J. Higham, Handbook of writing for the mathematical sciences, SIAM. ISBN 0-89871-420-6, p. 25 Other names for absolute value include "the numerical value" and "the magnitude". 

The same notation is used with sets to denote cardinality; the meaning depends on context.

==Definition and properties==

===Real numbers===
For any real number the absolute value or modulus of is denoted by x (a vertical bar on each side of the quantity) and is defined as Mendelson, p. 2. 

:

As can be seen from the above definition, the absolute value of is always either positive or zero, but never negative.

From an analytic geometry point of view, the absolute value of a real number is that number's distance from zero along the real number line, and more generally the absolute value of the difference of two real numbers is the distance between them. Indeed the notion of an abstract distance function in mathematics can be seen to be a generalisation of the absolute value of the difference (see "Distance" below).

Since the square root notation without sign represents the positive square root, it follows that

:

 () 

which is sometimes used as a definition of absolute value. , p. A5 

The absolute value has the following four fundamental properties:

:

 () Non-negativity 
 () Positive-definiteness 
 () Multiplicativeness 
 () Subadditivity 

Other important properties of the absolute value include:

:

 () Idempotence (the absolute value of the absolute value is the absolute value) 
 () Evenness (reflection symmetry of the graph) 
 () Identity of indiscernibles (equivalent to positive-definiteness) 
 () Triangle inequality (equivalent to subadditivity) 
 (if ) () Preservation of division (equivalent to multiplicativeness) 
 () Reverse triangle inequality (equivalent to subadditivity) 

Two other useful properties concerning inequalities are:
:
: or 

These relations may be used to solve inequalities involving absolute values. For example:

:

 
 

Absolute value is used to define the absolute difference, the standard metric on the real numbers.

===Complex numbers===
The absolute value of a complex number is the distance from to the origin. It is also seen in the picture that and its complex conjugate have the same absolute value.

Since the complex numbers are not ordered, the definition given above for the real absolute value cannot be directly generalised for a complex number. However the geometric interpretation of the absolute value of a real number as its distance from 0 can be generalised. The absolute value of a complex number is defined as its distance in the complex plane from the origin using the Pythagorean theorem. More generally the absolute value of the difference of two complex numbers is equal to the distance between those two complex numbers.

For any complex number

:

where and are real numbers, the absolute value or modulus of is denoted z and is given by 

:

When the complex part is zero this is the same as the absolute value of the real number .

When a complex number is expressed in polar form as

:

with r ≥ 0 and θ real, its absolute value is 

:.

The absolute value of a complex number can be written in the complex analogue of equation (1) above as: 

: 

where is the complex conjugate of .
 
The complex absolute value shares all the properties of the real absolute value given in equations (2)–(11) above.

Since the positive reals form a subgroup of the complex numbers under multiplication, we may think of absolute value as an endomorphism of the multiplicative group of the complex numbers. . 

==Absolute value function==
The graph of the absolute value function for real numbers
Composition of absolute value with a cubic function in different orders
The real absolute value function is continuous everywhere. It is differentiable everywhere except for = 0. It is monotonically decreasing on the interval and monotonically increasing on the interval . Since a real number and its opposite have the same absolute value, it is an even function, and is hence not invertible.

Both the real and complex functions are idempotent.

It is a piecewise linear, convex function.

===Relationship to the sign function===
The absolute value function of a real number returns its value irrespective of its sign, whereas the sign (or signum) function returns a number's sign irrespective of its value. The following equations show the relationship between these two functions:
:
or
:
and for x ≠ 0,
:

===Derivative===
The real absolute value function has a derivative for every x ≠ 0, but is not differentiable at 1=x = 0. Its derivative for x ≠ 0 is given by the step function Weisstein, Eric W. Absolute Value. From MathWorld – A Wolfram Web Resource. Bartel and Sherbert, p. 163 
:

The subdifferential of x at 1=x = 0 is the interval . Peter Wriggers, Panagiotis Panatiotopoulos, eds., New Developments in Contact Problems, 1999, ISBN 3-211-83154-1, p. 31–32 

The complex absolute value function is continuous everywhere but complex differentiable nowhere because it violates the Cauchy–Riemann equations. 

The second derivative of x with respect to is zero everywhere except zero, where it does not exist. As a generalised function, the second derivative may be taken as two times the Dirac delta function.

===Antiderivative===
The antiderivative (indefinite integral) of the absolute value function is

:

where is an arbitrary constant of integration.

==Distance==

The absolute value is closely related to the idea of distance. As noted above, the absolute value of a real or complex number is the distance from that number to the origin, along the real number line, for real numbers, or in the complex plane, for complex numbers, and more generally, the absolute value of the difference of two real or complex numbers is the distance between them.

The standard Euclidean distance between two points

:

and

:

in Euclidean -space is defined as:
:

This can be seen to be a generalisation of a − b, since if and are real, then by equation (1),
:

While if

:

and

:

are complex numbers, then

:

 
 
 

The above shows that the "absolute value" distance for the real numbers or the complex numbers, agrees with the standard Euclidean distance they inherit as a result of considering them as the one and two-dimensional Euclidean spaces respectively.

The properties of the absolute value of the difference of two real or complex numbers: non-negativity, identity of indiscernibles, symmetry and the triangle inequality given above, can be seen to motivate the more general notion of a distance function as follows:

A real valued function on a set X × X is called a metric (or a distance function) on , if it satisfies the following four axioms: These axioms are not minimal; for instance, non-negativity can be derived from the other three: 1=0 = d(a, a) ≤ d(a, b) + d(b, a) = 2d(a, b). 
:

 Non-negativity 
 Identity of indiscernibles 
 Symmetry 
 Triangle inequality 

==Generalizations==

===Ordered rings===
The definition of absolute value given for real numbers above can be extended to any ordered ring. That is, if is an element of an ordered ring R, then the absolute value of , denoted by a, is defined to be: Mac Lane, p. 264. 

:

where −a is the additive inverse of , and 0 is the additive identity element.

===Fields===

The fundamental properties of the absolute value for real numbers given in (2)–(5) above, can be used to generalise the notion of absolute value to an arbitrary field, as follows.

A real-valued function on a field is called an absolute value (also a modulus, magnitude, value, or valuation) Shechter, p. 260. This meaning of valuation is rare. Usually, a valuation is the logarithm of the inverse of an absolute value if it satisfies the following four axioms:

:

 Non-negativity 
 Positive-definiteness 
 Multiplicativeness 
 Subadditivity or the triangle inequality 

Where 0 denotes the additive identity element of . It follows from positive-definiteness and multiplicativeness that 1=v(1) = 1, where 1 denotes the multiplicative identity element of . The real and complex absolute values defined above are examples of absolute values for an arbitrary field.

If is an absolute value on , then the function on F × F, defined by 1=d(a, b) = v(a − b), is a metric and the following are equivalent:

* satisfies the ultrametric inequality for all , , in .

* is bounded in R.

* for every 

* for all 

* for all 

An absolute value which satisfies any (hence all) of the above conditions is said to be non-Archimedean, otherwise it is said to be Archimedean. Shechter, pp. 260–261. 

===Vector spaces===

Again the fundamental properties of the absolute value for real numbers can be used, with a slight modification, to generalise the notion to an arbitrary vector space.

A real-valued function on a vector space over a field , represented as ‖·‖, is called an absolute value, but more usually a norm, if it satisfies the following axioms:

For all in , and v, u in ,

:

 Non-negativity 
 Positive-definiteness 
 Positive homogeneity or positive scalability 
 Subadditivity or the triangle inequality 

The norm of a vector is also called its length or magnitude.

In the case of Euclidean space Rn, the function defined by

:

is a norm called the Euclidean norm. When the real numbers R are considered as the one-dimensional vector space R1, the absolute value is a norm, and is the -norm (see Lp space) for any . In fact the absolute value is the "only" norm on R1, in the sense that, for every norm ‖·‖ on R1, 1=‖x‖ = ‖1‖ ⋅ x. The complex absolute value is a special case of the norm in an inner product space. It is identical to the Euclidean norm, if the complex plane is identified with the Euclidean plane R2.

==Notes==

==References==
* Bartle; Sherbert; Introduction to real analysis (4th ed.), John Wiley & Sons, 2011 ISBN 978-0-471-43331-6.
* Nahin, Paul J.; An Imaginary Tale; Princeton University Press; (hardcover, 1998). ISBN 0-691-02795-1.
* Mac Lane, Saunders, Garrett Birkhoff, Algebra, American Mathematical Soc., 1999. ISBN 978-0-8218-1646-2.
* Mendelson, Elliott, Schaum's Outline of Beginning Calculus, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008. ISBN 978-0-07-148754-2.
* O'Connor, J.J. and Robertson, E.F.; "Jean Robert Argand".
* Schechter, Eric; Handbook of Analysis and Its Foundations, pp. 259–263, "Absolute Values", Academic Press (1997) ISBN 0-12-622760-8.

==External links==
* 
* 
* 



[[Analog signal]]

An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable) of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous voltage of the signal varies continuously with the pressure of the sound waves. It differs from a digital signal, in which a continuous quantity is represented by a discrete function which can only take on one of a finite number of values. The term analog signal usually refers to electrical signals; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey analog signals.

An analog signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure information. In an electrical signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be varied to represent the information.

Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal; often such a signal is a measured response to changes in physical phenomena, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure. The physical variable is converted to an analog signal by a transducer. For example, in sound recording, fluctuations in air pressure (that is to say, sound) strike the diaphragm of a microphone which induces corresponding fluctuations in the current produced by a coil in an electromagnetic microphone, or the voltage produced by a condensor microphone. The voltage or the current is said to be an "analog" of the sound.

An analog signal has a theoretically infinite resolution. In practice an analog signal is subject to electronic noise and distortion introduced by communication channels and signal processing operations, which can progressively degrade the signal-to-noise ratio. In contrast, digital signals have a finite resolution. Converting an analog signal to digital form introduces a constant low-level noise called quantization noise into the signal which determines the noise floor, but once in digital form the signal can in general be processed or transmitted without introducing additional noise or distortion. Therefore as analog signal processing systems become more complex, they may ultimately degrade signal resolution to such an extent that their performance is surpassed by digital systems. This explains the widespread use of digital signals in preference to analog in modern technology. In analog systems, it is difficult to detect when such degradation occurs. However, in digital systems, degradation can not only be detected but corrected as well.

==Disadvantages==
The primary disadvantage of analog signal is that any system has noise – i.e., random unwanted variation. As the signal is copied and re-copied, or transmitted over long distances, or electronically processed, the unavoidable noise introduced by each step in the signal path is additive, progressively degrading the signal-to-noise ratio, until in extreme cases the signal can be overwhelmed. This is called generation loss. Noise can show up as 'hiss' and intermodulation distortion in audio signals, or "snow" in video signals. This degradation is impossible to recover, since there is no sure way to distinguish the noise from the signal; amplifying the signal to recover attenuated parts of the signal amplifies the noise (distortion/interference) as well. Since digital signals can be transmitted, stored and processed without introducing noise, even if the resolution of an analog signal is higher than a comparable digital signal, after enough processing the analog signal to noise ratio will be lower.

Electrically, analog signal noise can be diminished by shielding, good connections, and several cable types such as coaxial or twisted pair.

==Modulation==
Another method of conveying an analog signal is to use modulation. In this, some base signal (e.g., a sinusoidal carrier signal) has one of its properties modulated: amplitude modulation involves altering the amplitude of a sinusoidal voltage waveform by the source information, frequency modulation changes the frequency. Other techniques, such as changing the phase of the base signal also work.

Analog circuits do not involve quantisation of information into digital format. The concept being measured over the circuit, whether sound, light, pressure, temperature, or an exceeded limit, remains from end to end.

Sources: Parts of an earlier version of this article were originally taken from Federal Standard 1037C in support of MIL-STD-188.

==See also==
* Ampex
* Analog audio
* Analog device
* Analog signal processing
* Analog sound vs. digital sound
* Analog video
* Analog-to-digital converter
* Digital audio
* Digital signal
* Digital video
* Magnetic tape
* Magnetic recording
* Video tape

==References==



[[Arecales]]

Arecales is an order of flowering plants. The order has been widely recognised only for the past few decades; until then, the accepted name for the order including these plants was Principes. 

The APG II system of 2003 recognises the order and places it in the clade commelinids in the monocots and uses this circumscription:

* order Arecales
*: family Arecaceae, alternative name Palmae

This is unchanged from the APG system of 1998, although it used the spelling "commelinoids" instead of commelinids.

The Cronquist system of 1981 made the same choices at the rank of family and order, but assigned the order to the subclass Arecidae in the class Liliopsida (= monocotyledons).

The Thorne system (1992) and the Dahlgren system had made the same choices at the rank of family and order, but assigned the order to the superorder Arecanae in the subclass Liliidae (= monocotyledons).

==External links==

* NCBI Taxonomy Browser

 



[[Hercule Poirot]]

Hercule Poirot (; ) is a fictional Belgian detective, created by Agatha Christie. Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels, one play (Black Coffee), and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.

Poirot has been portrayed on radio, on screen, for films and television, by various actors, including John Moffatt, Albert Finney, Sir Peter Ustinov, Sir Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina and David Suchet.

== Overview ==

=== Influences ===

Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired Belgian police officer living in London. 

A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In An Autobiography Christie admits, "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp". Reproduced as the "Introduction" to For his part, Conan Doyle acknowledged basing his detective stories on the model of Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and his anonymous narrator, and basing his character Sherlock Holmes on Joseph Bell, who in his use of "ratiocination" prefigured Poirot's reliance on his "little grey cells".

Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective, Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté, who first appeared in the 1910 novel At the Villa Rose and predates the first Poirot novel by ten years.

Poirot was a francophone. Unlike the models mentioned above, Christie's Poirot was clearly the result of her early development of the detective in her first book, written in 1916 and published in 1920. Not only was his Belgian nationality interesting because of Belgium's occupation by Germany (which provided a plausible explanation of why such a skilled detective would be out of work and available to solve mysteries at an English country house). At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's casus belli for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium".

=== Popularity ===

Poirot first appeared in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (published in 1920) and exited in Curtain (published in 1975). Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of The New York Times. 

By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and by 1960 she felt that he was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Yet the public loved him and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked. 

=== Appearance and propinquities ===

Captain Arthur Hastings' first description of Poirot:

He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. Even if everything on his face was covered, the tips of moustache and the pink-tipped nose would be visible.
The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police.

Agatha Christie's initial description of Poirot in The Murder on the Orient Express:

By the step leading up into the sleeping-car stood a young Belgian lieutenant, resplendent in uniform, conversing with a small man (Hercule Poirot) muffled up to the ears of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upward-curled moustache.

In the later books, his limp is not mentioned, suggesting it may have been a temporary wartime injury. Poirot has green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a cat's" when he is struck by a clever idea, e.g. "For about ten minutes sat in dead silence and all the time his eyes grew steadily greener" and dark hair, which he dyes later in life. as Hastings discovers in However, many of his screen incarnations are portrayed as bald or balding.

Frequent mention is made of his patent-leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a source of misery for him, but comical for the reader. E.g. "Hercule Poirot looked down at the tips of his patent-leather shoes and sighed." Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, later falls hopelessly out of fashion. E.g. "And now here was the man himself. Really a most impossible person – the wrong clothes – button boots! an incredible moustache! Not his – Meredith Blake's kind of fellow at all." He employs pince-nez reading glasses.

Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of his stomach:

The plane dropped slightly. "Mon estomac," thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly.

He suffers from sea sickness, "My stomach, it is not happy on the sea" and in Death in the Clouds he states that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told:

Always a man who had taken his stomach seriously, he was reaping his reward in old age. Eating was not only a physical pleasure, it was also an intellectual research.

Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a turnip pocket watch almost to the end of his career. "he walked up the steps to the front door and pressed the bell, glancing as he did so at the neat wrist-watch which had at last replaced an old favourite – the large turnip-faced watch of early days. Yes, it was exactly nine-thirty. As ever, Hercule Poirot was exact to the minute." He is also pernickety about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence.

As mentioned in Curtain and The Clocks, he is fond of classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach.

=== Methods ===

In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based and logical detective; reflected in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Hastings is irritated by the fact that Poirot sometimes conceals important details of his plans, as in The Big Four. In this novel, Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator to mislead.

In Murder on the Links, still largely dependent on clues himself, Poirot mocks a rival "bloodhound" detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues established in detective fiction (e.g., Sherlock Holmes depending on footprints, fingerprints, and cigar ash). From this point on, Poirot establishes his psychological bona fides. Rather than painstakingly examining crime scenes, he inquires into the nature of the victim or the psychology of the murderer. He predicates his actions in the later novels on his underlying assumption that particular crimes are committed by particular types of people.

Poirot focuses on getting people to talk. In the early novels, he casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. In later works, Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background to assist him in obtaining information. "It has been said of Hercule Poirot by some of his friends and associates, at moments when he has maddened them most, that he prefers lies to truth and will go out of his way to gain his ends by elaborate false statements, rather than trust to the simple truth." In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot speaks of a non-existent mentally disabled nephew E.g. "After a careful study of the goods displayed in the window, Poirot entered and represented himself as desirous of purchasing a rucksack for a hypothetical nephew." Hickory Dickory Dock, Chapter 13 to uncover information about homes for the mentally unfit. In Dumb Witness, Poirot invents an elderly invalid mother as a pretense to investigate local nurses. In The Big Four, Poirot pretends to have a younger brother named Achille.

To this day Harold is not quite sure what made him suddenly pour out the whole story to a little man to whom he had only spoken a few minutes before.

Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much:

It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much. And so, you see, I put people off their guard.

In later novels, Christie often uses the word mountebank when characters describe Poirot, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.

Poirot's investigating techniques assist him solving cases; "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away..." At the end, Poirot usually reveals his description of the sequence of events and his deductions to a room of suspects, often leading to the culprit's apprehension.

== Life ==

"I suppose you know pretty well everything there is to know about Poirot's family by this time". Dr. Sheppard 

A brief passage in The Big Four provides information about Poirot's birth or at least childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium or in the village of Ellezelles (province of Hainaut, Belgium – a few memorials dedicated to Hercule Poirot can be seen in the center of this village): "But we did not go into Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet and an isolated white villa high on the hillside." Christie strongly implies that this "quiet retreat in the Ardennes" near Spa is the location of the Poirot family home. Christie is purposefully vague, as Poirot is thought to be an elderly man even in the early novels. And in An Autobiography, she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. At the time, however, she had no idea she would write works featuring him for decades to come.

Christie wrote that Poirot is a Roman Catholic, "Hercule Poirot was a Catholic by birth." and gave her character a strong sense of Catholic morality in later works. In Taken at the Flood, Book II, Chapter 6 Poirot goes into church to pray and happens across a suspect with whom he briefly discusses ideas of sin and confession. Christie provides little information regarding Poirot’s childhood, only mentioning in Three Act Tragedy that he comes from a large family with little wealth.

=== Policeman ===

"Gustave was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I know. He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself."

: — Hercule Poirot 

Hercule Poirot had joined the Brussels police force by 1893. Very little mention is made about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". As Poirot was often misleading about his past to gain information, the truthfulness of that statement is unknown.

Inspector Japp offers some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:

You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here.

In the short story The Chocolate Box (1923) Poirot reveals to Captain Arthur Hastings an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:

I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success.

Nevertheless, he regards the 1893 case in "The Chocolate Box", The date is given in as his only actual failure of detection. Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth. During his police career Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof into the public below. In Lord Edgeware Dies, Poirot reveals that he learned to read writing upside down during his police career. Around that time he met Xavier Bouc, director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Poirot also became a uniformed director, working on trains.

In The Double Clue, Poirot mentions that he was Chief of Police of Brussels, until "the Great War" (WWI) forced him to leave for England.

=== Private detective ===

I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot.

During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for England as a refugee (although he returned a few times). On 16 July 1916 he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings and solved the first of his cases to be published: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, as Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years". Particulars such as the date of 1916 for the case and that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, are given in Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, Chapter 1 (someone had been shot in a village where Hastings was duck-shooting and Poirot had been called in from the Brussels police to investigate). After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister. Recounted in . The events in the story are immediately connected with the First World War, and feature an "Allied Conference" at Versailles that is probably meant to be understood as the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919. Readers were told that the British authorities had learned of Poirot's keen investigative ability from certain Belgian royals.

After the war Poirot became a private detective and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, 56B Whitehaven Mansions. Hastings first visits the house when he returns to England in June 1935 from Argentina in The A.B.C. Murders, Chapter 1 (it is a plot point in the novel that the flat is at Whitehaven Mansions because a letter to Poirot is misaddressed). It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry. (This building was in fact built in 1936, decades after Poirot fictionally moved in.) His first case was "The Affair at the Victory Ball", which allowed Poirot to enter high society and begin his career as a private detective.

Between the world wars, Poirot travelled all over Europe, Africa, Asia, and half of South America investigating crimes and solving murders. Most of his cases occurred during this time and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. In The Murder on the Links, the Belgian pits his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East, he solved the cases Death on the Nile and Murder in Mesopotamia with ease and even survived An Appointment with Death. As he passed through Eastern Europe on his return trip, he solved The Murder on the Orient Express. However he did not travel to North America, the West Indies, the Caribbean or Oceania, probably due to sea sickness.

It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The mal de mer – it is horrible suffering! Poirot, in 

It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the Countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Rebellion and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff offered wildly varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice. Cassatis, John (1979). The Diaries of A. Christie. London. 

It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the Countess held for him. "The Capture of Cerebus" (1947). The first sentence quoted is also a close paraphrase of something said to Poirot by Hastings in Chapter 18 of The Big Four 

Although letting the Countess escape was morally questionable, it was not uncommon. In The Nemean Lion, Poirot sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, allowing her to evade prosecution by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who, Poirot discovered, had plans to commit murder. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff prior to the conclusion of her dog kidnapping campaign. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then withheld the truth to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In The Augean Stables, he helped the government to cover up vast corruption. In Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot allowed the murderers to go free after discovering that twelve different people participated in Ratchett's murder. There was no question of his guilt, but he had been acquitted in America over a technicality. Considering it poetic justice that twelve jurors had acquitted Ratchett and twelve people had stabbed him, Poirot produced an alternate sequence of events to explain the death.

After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain. Apart from some of the so-called "Labours of Hercules" (see next section) he very rarely went abroad during his later career.

While Poirot was usually paid handsomely by clients, he was also known to take on cases that piqued his curiosity, although they did not pay well.

Poirot shows a love of steam trains, which Christie contrasts with Hasting's love of autos: this is shown in The Plymouth Express, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Murder on the Orient Express, and The ABC Murders (in the TV series, steam trains are seen in nearly all of the episodes).

=== Retirement ===

That’s the way of it. Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna’s farewell performance won’t be in it with yours, Poirot. Dr. Burton in the Preface 

Confusion surrounds Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It has been said that the twelve cases related in The Labours of Hercules (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before Roger Ackroyd, and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" of the twenty year gap between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the Labours precede the events in Roger Ackroyd, then the Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years later than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself. in response to the suggestion that he might take up gardening in his retirement, Poirot answers "Once the vegetable marrows, yes – but never again". Also, in "The Erymanthian Boar", a character is said to have been turned out of Austria by the Nazis, implying that the events of The Labours of Hercules took place after 1937. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the Labours takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive.

In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of The Big Four (1927) which places that novel out of published order before Roger Ackroyd. He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of Peril at End House (1932). He is certainly retired at the time of Three Act Tragedy (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and repeatedly takes cases thereafter when his curiosity is engaged. He continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in Hickory Dickory Dock and Dead Man's Folly, which take place in the mid-1950s. It is therefore better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement, but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective, or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.

One consistent element about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it, so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters (especially younger characters) recognise neither him nor his name:

"I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot."
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
"What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?"

=== Post World War II ===

He, I knew, was not likely to be far from his headquarters. The time when cases had drawn him from one end of England to the other was past. Hastings 

Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with Three Act Tragedy (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a sub-genre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as Taken at the Flood, After the Funeral, and Hickory Dickory Dock, he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In Cat Among the Pigeons, Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of Christie's distaste for him, is impossible to assess. Crooked House (1949) and Ordeal by Innocence (1957), which could easily have been Poirot novels, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of his presence in such works.

Towards the end of his career, it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction. He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels. He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic riddles as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand.

Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator) In The Pale Horse, Chapter 1, the novel's narrator, Mark Easterbrook, disapprovingly describes a typical "Chelsea girl" in much the same terms that Poirot uses in Chapter 1 of Third Girl, suggesting that the condemnation of fashion is authorial. becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up-and-coming generation's young people. In Hickory Dickory Dock, he investigates the strange goings on in a student hostel, while in Third Girl (1966) he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the sixties, he proves himself once again, but has become heavily reliant on other investigators (especially the private investigator, Mr. Goby) who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself.

You're too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really don't want to be rude but – there it is. You're too old. I'm really very sorry. Norma Restarick to Poirot in Third Girl, Chapter 1 

Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically, and by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in Curtain, he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.

=== Death ===

Poirot passes away from complications of a heart condition at the end of (novel)|Curtain: Poirot's Last Case]. He had moved his amyl nitrite pills out of his reach, possibly because of guilt. He thereby became the murderer in Curtain, although it was for the benefit of others. Poirot himself noted that he wanted to kill his victim shortly before his own death so that he could avoid succumbing to the arrogance of the murderer, concerned that he may come to view himself as entitled to kill those he deemed necessary to eliminate.

The "murderer" he was hunting had never expressly killed anyone, but subtly and psychologically, he had manipulated others to kill for him, manipulating the moments where others desire to commit murder so that they carry out the crime when they might otherwise dismiss their thoughts as nothing more a momentary passion. Poirot thus was forced to kill the man himself, as otherwise he would have continued his actions and never been officially convicted as he did not legally do anything wrong. It is revealed at the end of Curtain that he fakes his need for a wheelchair to fool people into believing that he is suffering from arthritis, to give the impression that he is more infirm than he is. His last recorded words are "Cher ami!", spoken to Hastings as the Captain left his room. Poirot was buried at Styles, and his funeral was arranged by his best friend Hastings and Hastings' daughter Judith. Hastings reasoned, "Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here at the last."

While Poirot's actual death and funeral occurred in Curtain, years after his retirement from active investigation, it was not the first time Hastings attended the funeral of his best friend. In The Big Four (1927) Poirot feigned his death and subsequent funeral to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.

== Recurring characters ==

=== Arthur Hastings ===

Hastings, a former British Army officer, first meets Poirot during Poirot's years as a police officer in Belgium and almost immediately after they both arrive in England. He becomes Poirot's lifelong friend and appears in many cases. Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal or seeing things the way the average man would see them and for his tendency to unknowingly "stumble" onto the truth. Hastings marries and has four children – two sons and two daughters.

Hastings is capable of great bravery and courage, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by The Big Four and displaying unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. However, when forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he initially chooses to betray Poirot to protect his wife. Later, though, he tells Poirot to draw back and escape the trap.

The two are an airtight team until Hastings meets and marries Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age, after investigating the Murder on the Links. They later emigrate to Argentina, leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man". Poirot and Hastings reunite for the final time in Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, having been earlier reunited in The Big Four, Peril at End House, The ABC Murders, Lord Edgware Dies and Dumb Witness when Hastings arrives in England for business.

=== Ariadne Oliver ===

The detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Christie, she is not overly fond of the detective she is most famous for creating–in Ariadne's case the Finnish sleuth Sven Hjerson. We never learn anything about her husband, but we do know that she hates alcohol and public appearances and has a great fondness for apples until she is put off them by the events of Hallowe'en Party. She also has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle, and in every appearance by her much is made of her clothes and hats. Her maid Maria prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer, but does nothing to prevent her from becoming too much of a burden on others.

She has authored over 56 novels and greatly dislikes people modifying her characters. She is the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It’s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot in the story Cards on the Table and has been bothering him ever since.

=== Miss Felicity Lemon ===

Poirot's secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, has few human weaknesses. The only mistakes she makes within the series are a typing error during the events of Hickory Dickory Dock and the mis-mailing of an electricity bill, although she was worried about strange events surrounding her sister at the time. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system. She also worked for the government statistician-turned-philanthropist Parker Pyne. Whether this was during one of Poirot’s numerous retirements or before she entered his employ is unknown. In The Agatha Christie Hour, she was portrayed by British actress Angela Easterling, while in Agatha Christie's Poirot, she was portrayed by Pauline Moran. A marked difference from the text exists in Moran's portrayal, where she is shown to be an attractive, fashionable and emotional woman showing an occasional soft corner for Poirot.

=== Chief Inspector James Harold Japp ===

Japp is a Scotland Yard Inspector and appears in many of the stories trying to solve cases that Poirot is working on. Japp is outgoing, loud and sometimes inconsiderate by nature and his relationship with the refined Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot’s world. He first met Poirot in Belgium in 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery. Later that year they joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp and lets him take credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail Poirot being supplied with other interesting cases. Captain Arthur Hastings In Agatha Christie's Poirot, Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson. In the film, Thirteen at Dinner (1985), adapted from Lord Edgware Dies, the role of Japp was taken by the actor David Suchet, who would later star as Poirot in the ITV adaptations.

== Major novels ==

The Poirot books take readers through the whole of his life in England, from the first book (The Mysterious Affair at Styles), where he is a refugee staying at Styles, to the last Poirot book (Curtain), where he visits Styles before his death. In between, Poirot solves cases outside England as well, including his most famous case, Murder on the Orient Express (1934).

Hercule Poirot became famous with the publication, in 1926, of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, whose surprising solution proved controversial. The novel is still among the most famous of all detective novels: Edmund Wilson alludes to it in the title of his well-known attack on detective fiction, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Aside from Roger Ackroyd, the most critically acclaimed Poirot novels appeared from 1932 to 1942, including Murder on the Orient Express, The ABC Murders (1935), Cards on the Table (1936), and Death on the Nile (1937). The last of these, a tale of multiple homicide upon a Nile steamer, was judged by the celebrated detective novelist John Dickson Carr to be among the ten greatest mystery novels of all time.

The 1942 novel Five Little Pigs (aka Murder in Retrospect), in which Poirot investigates a murder committed sixteen years before by analysing various accounts of the tragedy, is a Rashomon-like performance that critic and mystery novelist Robert Barnard called the best of the Christie novels.

== Portrayals ==

=== Stage ===

The first actor to portray Hercule Poirot was Charles Laughton. He appeared on the West End in 1928 in the play Alibi which had been adapted by Michael Morton from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

=== Film ===

==== Austin Trevor ====

Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film Alibi. The film was based on the stage play. Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies. Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent. TV & Film page at the Hercule Poirot Central website. Leslie S. Hiscott directed the first two films, with Henry Edwards taking over for the third.

Albert Finney playing Poirot in the 1974 film, Murder on the Orient Express

==== Tony Randall ====

Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in The Alphabet Murders, a 1965 film also known as The ABC Murders. This was more a satire of Poirot than a straightforward adaptation, and was greatly changed from the original. Much of the story, set in contemporary times, was played for comedy, with Poirot investigating the murders while evading the attempts by Hastings (Robert Morley) and the police to get him out of England and back to Belgium.

==== Albert Finney ====

Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of Murder on the Orient Express. Finney is the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win.

==== Peter Ustinov ====

Peter Ustinov as Poirot in a 1982 adaptation of the novel Evil Under the Sun
Peter Ustinov played Poirot six times, starting with Death on the Nile (1978). He reprised the role in Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988).

When Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks, observed Ustinov during a rehearsal, she said, "That's not Poirot! He isn't at all like that!" Ustinov, overhearing, remarked "He is now!" Web page at mapdig.com 

He appeared again as Poirot in three made-for-television movies: Thirteen at Dinner (1985), Dead Man's Folly (1986), and Murder in Three Acts (1986). Unlike earlier adaptations that were set during the time in which the novels were written, however, these TV movies were set in the contemporary era. The first of these was based on Lord Edgware Dies and was made by Warner Bros.. It also starred Faye Dunaway and David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play the famous detective. David Suchet considers his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of career". Interview with David Suchet at strandmag.com 

==== Other ====

* Anatoly Ravikovich, Zagadka Endkhauza (End House Mystery) (1989; based on "Peril at End House")

=== Television ===

==== David Suchet ====

David Suchet starred as the eponymous detective in Agatha Christie's Poirot in the ITV series 1989 until in June 2013, he announced he was bidding farewell to the role. "No one could've guessed then that the series would span a quarter-century or that the classically trained Suchet would complete the entire catalog of whodunits featuring the eccentric Belgian investigator, including 33 novels and dozens of short stories." His final appearance, in an adaptation of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, aired on 13 November 2013.

==== Other ====

* Heini Göbel, (1955; an adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express for the West German television series Die Galerie der großen Detektive)
* José Ferrer, Hercule Poirot (1961; Unaired TV Pilot, MGM; adaptation of "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim")
* Martin Gabel, General Electric Theater (4/1/1962; adaptation of "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim")
* Horst Bollmann Black Coffee 1973
* Ian Holm, Murder by the Book, 1986
* Alfred Molina, Murder on the Orient Express, 2001
* Konstantin Raikin, Neudacha Puaro (Poirot's Failure) (2002; based on "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd")

=== Animated ===

In 2004, NHK (Japanese public TV network) produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005. The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from 4 July 2004 through 15 May 2005, and in repeated reruns on NHK and other networks in Japan. Poirot was voiced by Kōtarō Satomi and Miss Marple was voiced by Kaoru Yachigusa.

=== Radio ===

Radio adaptations of the Poirot stories also appeared, most recently twenty seven of them on BBC Radio 4 (and regularly repeated on BBC 7, later BBC Radio 4 Extra), starring John Moffatt; Maurice Denham and Peter Sallis have also played Poirot on BBC Radio 4, Mr. Denham in The Mystery of the Blue Train and Mr. Sallis in Hercule Poirot's Christmas. In 1939, Orson Welles and the Mercury Players dramatised Roger Ackroyd on CBS's Campbell Playhouse. Cox, Jim, Radio Crime Fighters, 2002, p. 18, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, ISBN 978-0-7864-1390-4 A 1945 radio series of at least 13 original half-hour episodes (none of which apparently adapt any Christie stories) transferred Poirot from London to New York and starred character actor Harold Huber, perhaps better known for his appearances as a police officer in various Charlie Chan films. On 22 February 1945, "speaking from London, Agatha Christie introduced the initial broadcast of the Poirot series via shortwave". 

=== BBC Radio 4 Poirot radio dramas ===

Recorded and released (John Moffatt stars as Poirot unless otherwise indicated):

=== Parodies and references ===

In Revenge of the Pink Panther, Poirot makes a cameo appearance in a mental asylum, portrayed by Andrew Sachs and claiming to be "the greatest detective in all of France, the greatest in all the world".

In Neil Simon's Murder By Death, American actor James Coco plays "Milo Perrier", a parody of Poirot. The film also features parodies of Charlie Chan, Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, and Miss Marple.

Dudley Jones played Poirot in the film The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977).

In the movie Spice World, Poirot (Hugh Laurie) accuses a weapons-packing Emma Bunton of the crime.

In , Poirot appears as a young boy on the train transporting Holmes and Watson. Holmes helps the boy in opening a puzzle-box, with Watson giving the boy advice about using his "little grey cells", giving the impression that Poirot first heard about grey cells and their uses from Dr. Watson. Poirot would go on to use the "little grey cells" line countless times throughout Agatha Christie's fiction.

The Belgian brewery Brasserie Ellezelloise makes a highly rated stout called Hercule with a moustachioed caricature of Hercule Poirot on the label.

In the final host segment of Mystery Science Theater 3000s episode "The Rebel Set", Tom Servo dresses up as Poirot and impersonates him in an attempt to discover the identity of B-movie actor Merritt Stone.

Jason Alexander played Poirot in episode 8 of Muppets Tonight in a spoof called "Murder on the Disoriented Express".

Poirot is parodied twice in sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look, where he is played by David Mitchell; one sketch sees him identifying a killer due to her use of "the evil voice"—a voice that only murderers use—admitting that he otherwise had no evidence, and a later sketch sees him meeting a ship captain who is also played by Mitchell.

Leo Bruce parodied Hercule Poirot with the character Amer Picon in his book Case for Three Detectives (1936); the other two characters were parodies of Lord Peter Wimsey and Father Brown.

== See also ==

* Tropes in Agatha Christie's novels

== References ==

==Works==
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== External links ==
* Agatha Christie|'s Hercule Poirot
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* Listen to the 1945 Hercule Poirot radio program
* Article on Hercule Poirot
* Wikitionary definition of Edgar Allan Poe's "ratiocination"

 



[[Miss Marple]]

Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in 12 of Agatha Christie's crime novels and in 20 short stories. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an consulting detective. Alongside Hercule Poirot, she is one of the most loved and famous of Christie's characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in The Sketch magazine in 1926, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.

==Origins==
The character of Miss Marple is based on Christie's step grandmother, or her Aunt (Margaret West), and her cronies. Margaret West married Agatha Christie's great grandfather Nathaniel Frary Miller in 1863 in Westbourne, West Sussex. He died in 1869 and she dedicated a stained glass window to his memory in St.John's Church, Main Road, Southbourne, West Sussex. "Agatha Christie used her step grandmother as a model for Miss Marple, new tapes reveal", Stephen Adams, The Daily Telegraph, 16 September 2008. Agatha Christie attributed the inspiration for the character of Miss Marple to a number of sources, stating that Miss Marple was "the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my step grandmother's Ealing cronies – old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl". Christie also used material from her fictional creation, spinster Caroline Sheppard, who appeared in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. When Michael Morton adapted the novel for the stage, he removed the character of Caroline replacing her with a young girl. This change saddened Christie and she determined to give old maids a voice: Miss Marple was born. 

There is no definitive source for the derivation of the name 'Marple'. "Was Miss Marple Born in Cheshire?", Cheshire Life, accessed 30 March 2009. The most common explanation is that the name was taken from Marple railway station in Stockport, through which Christie passed. Alternatively, Christie may have taken the name from a family named Marple, who lived at Marple Hall near her sister Madge's home at Abney Hall. "Marple's Profile", Hercule Poirot Central, accessed 30 March 2009. 

==Character==
The character of Jane Marple in the first Miss Marple book, The Murder at the Vicarage, is markedly different from how she appears in later books. This early version of Miss Marple is a gleeful gossip and not an especially nice woman. The citizens of St. Mary Mead like her but are often tired by her nosy nature and how she seems to expect the worst of everyone. In later books she becomes more modern and a kinder person.

Miss Marple solves difficult crimes because of her shrewd intelligence, and St. Mary Mead, over her lifetime, has given her seemingly infinite examples of the negative side of human nature. Crimes always remind her of a parallel incident, although acquaintances may be bored by analogies that often lead her to a deeper realization about the true nature of a crime. She also has a remarkable ability to latch onto a casual comment and connect it to the case at hand. In several stories, she is able to rely on her acquaintance with Sir Henry Clithering, a retired commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, for official information when required.

Miss Marple never married and has no close living relatives. Her nephew, the "well-known author" Raymond West appears in Vicarage, and his wife Joan (initially Joyce), a modern artist, appears in The Thirteen Problems. Raymond overestimates himself and underestimates his aunt's mental acuity. Miss Marple has many other nieces and nephews: Lionel Peel, Diana "Bunch" Harmon. She employs young women (Clara, Emily, Alice, Esther, Gwenda and Amy) from a nearby orphanage, whom she trains for service as general housemaids after the retirement of her long-time maid-housekeeper faithful Florence. She was briefly looked after by her irritating maid, Miss Knight. In her later years, companion Cherry Baker, first introduced in The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, lives in.

Miss Marple has never worked for her living and is of independent means, although she benefits in her old age from the financial support of Raymond West, her nephew (A Caribbean Mystery, 1964). She is not herself from the aristocracy or landed gentry, but is quite at home among them and would probably have been happy to describe herself as "genteel"; indeed, a gentlewoman. Miss Marple may thus be considered a female version of that staple of British detective fiction, the gentleman detective. She demonstrates a remarkably thorough education, including some art courses that involved study of human anatomy through the study of human cadavers. In They Do It with Mirrors (1952), it is revealed that Miss Marple grew up in a cathedral close, and that she studied at an Italian finishing school with Americans Ruth Van Rydock and Caroline "Carrie" Louise Serrocold.

While Miss Marple is described as 'an old lady' in many of the stories, her age is mentioned in "At Bertram's Hotel", where it is said she visited the hotel when she was fourteen and almost sixty years have passed since then. Excluding "Sleeping Murder", 41 years passed between the first and last-written novels, and many characters grow and age. An example would be the Vicar's nephew. In The Murder at the Vicarage, the Reverend Clement's nephew Dennis is a teenager. In The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, it is mentioned that the nephew is now grown and successful and has a career. The effects of aging are seen on Miss Marple, such as needing a vacation after illness in A Caribbean Mystery.

==Novels featuring Miss Marple==
# The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
# The Body in the Library (1942)
# The Moving Finger (1943)
# A Murder is Announced (1950)
# They Do It with Mirrors, or Murder with Mirrors (1952)
# A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
# 4.50 from Paddington, or What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! (1957)
# The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, or The Mirror Crack'd (1962)
# A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
# At Bertram's Hotel (1965)
# Nemesis (1971)
# Sleeping Murder (written around 1940, published 1976)

==Miss Marple short story collections==
* "The Tuesday Night Club" (short story) featured Miss Marple for the first time ever. Written in 1926.
* The Thirteen Problems (short story collection featuring Miss Marple, also published as The Tuesday Club Murders) (1932)
* Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (short stories collected posthumously, also published as Miss Marple's Final Cases, but only six of the eight stories actually feature Miss Marple) (written between 1939 and 1954, published 1979)
* Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories, Hardcover, 243 pages, Published 1985 by Dodd, Mead NY, ISBN 978-0-396-08747-2 includes 20 from 4 sets: The Tuesday Club Murders, The Regatta Mystery, Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, and Double Sin and Other Stories.

Miss Marple also appears in Greenshaw's Folly, a short story traditionally included as part of the Poirot collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960). Four stories in the Three Blind Mice collection (1950) feature Miss Marple: Strange Jest, Tape-Measure Murder, The Case of the Caretaker, and The Case of the Perfect Maid.

The Autograph edition of Miss Marple's Final Cases includes the 8 in the original plus Greenshaw's Folly.

==Books about Miss Marple==
* The Life and Times of Miss Jane Marple – a biography by Anne Hart

==Films==

===Margaret Rutherford===
Although popular from her first appearance in 1930, Jane Marple had to wait thirty-two years for her first big-screen appearance, starring Margaret Rutherford. These were popular and successful light comedies, but were disappointing to Christie herself. Nevertheless, Agatha Christie dedicated the novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side to Rutherford.

Rutherford presented the character as a bold and eccentric old lady, different from the prim and birdlike character Christie created in her novels. As penned by Christie, Miss Marple has never worked for a living, but the character as portrayed by Margaret Rutherford briefly works as a cook, a hotelier, a painter, a stage actress, a banker, and possibly as a pub landlady, a brewer and an architect. Her education and genteel background are hinted at when she mentions her awards at marksmanship, fencing and equestrianism (although these hints are played for comedic value).

Murder, She Said (1961, directed by George Pollock) was the first of four British MGM productions starring Rutherford. This first film was based on the 1957 novel 4:50 from Paddington (U.S. title, What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!), and the changes made in the plot were typical of the series. In the film, Mrs. McGillicuddy is cut from the plot. Miss Marple herself sees an apparent murder committed on a train running alongside hers. Likewise, it is Miss Marple herself who poses as a maid to find out the facts of the case, not a young friend of hers who has made a business of it.

The other Rutherford films, all directed by Pollock, were Murder at the Gallop (1963), based on the 1953 Hercule Poirot novel After the Funeral (in this film, she is identified as Miss JTV Marple, though there was no indication as to what the extra initials might stand for); Murder Most Foul (1964), based on the 1952 Poirot novel Mrs McGinty's Dead; and Murder Ahoy! (1964). The last film is not based on any Christie work but displays a few plot elements from They Do It With Mirrors (viz., the ship is used as a reform school for wayward boys and one of the teachers uses them as a crime force), and there is a kind of salute to The Mousetrap. Rutherford also appeared briefly as Miss Marple in the spoof Hercule Poirot adventure The Alphabet Murders (1965).

The music to all four films was composed and conducted by Ron Goodwin and is still played on radio today. The same theme is used on all four films with slight variations on each. The main theme has a distinct 1960s feel to it and is known to be a highly complex piece of music due to the quick playing of the Violin. The score was written within a couple of weeks by Goodwin who was approached by George Pollock after Pollock had heard about him from Stanley Black. Black had worked with Pollock on "Stranger in Town" in 1957 and years previously Stanley Black had used Ron Goodwin as his orchestrator. Ron Goodwin – Biography 

Rutherford, who was 70 years old when the first film was made, insisted that she wear her own clothes during the filming of the movie, as well as having her real-life husband, Stringer Davis, appear alongside her as the character 'Mr Stringer'. The Rutherford films are frequently repeated on television in Germany, and in that country Miss Marple is generally identified with Rutherford's quirky portrayal. 

===Angela Lansbury===
In 1980, Angela Lansbury played Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (EMI, directed by Guy Hamilton), based on Christie's 1962 novel. The film featured an all-star cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, and Kim Novak. Edward Fox appeared as Inspector Craddock, who did Miss Marple's legwork. Lansbury's Marple was a crisp, intelligent woman who moved stiffly and spoke in clipped tones. Unlike most incarnations of Miss Marple, this one smoked cigarettes.

Lansbury went on to star in the TV series Murder, She Wrote as Jessica Fletcher, a mystery novelist who also solves crimes. The character of Jessica Fletcher is thought to be based on a combination of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie herself, and another Christie character, Ariadne Oliver, who often appears in the Hercule Poirot mysteries.

===Ita Ever===
In 1983, Estonian stage and film actress Ita Ever starred in the Russian language film adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel A Pocket Full of Rye (using the Russian edition's translated title, The Secret of the Blackbirds) as the character of Miss Marple. 

==Television==
American TV was the setting for the first dramatic portrayal of Miss Marple with Gracie Fields, the legendary British actress, playing her in a 1956 episode of Goodyear TV Playhouse based on A Murder Is Announced, the 1950 Christie novel.

In 1970, the character of Miss Marple was portrayed by Inge Langen in a West German television adaptation of The Murder at the Vicarage (Mord im Pfarrhaus). 

American stage and screen actress Helen Hayes portrayed Miss Marple in two American made-for-TV movies, both for CBS: A Caribbean Mystery (1983) and Murder with Mirrors (1985). Sue Grafton contributed to the screenplay of the former. Hayes's Marple was benign and chirpy.

===Joan Hickson===
Joan Hickson as Miss Marple
From 1984 to 1992, the BBC adapted all of the original Miss Marple novels as a series titled Miss Marple. Joan Hickson played the lead role. In the 1940s, Joan appeared on-stage in an Agatha Christie play, Appointment with Death, which was seen by Christie who wrote in a note to her, "I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple". (Coincidentally, Hickson had played a housekeeper in the first film in which Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple.) As well as portraying Miss Marple on television, Hickson also narrated a number of Miss Marple stories on audio books.

Listing of the TV series featuring Joan Hickson:
* The Body in the Library (1984)
* A Murder is Announced (1985)
* A Pocket Full of Rye (1985)
* The Moving Finger (1985)
* The Murder at the Vicarage (1986) – BAFTA nomination
* Sleeping Murder (1987)
* At Bertram's Hotel (1987)
* Nemesis (1987) – BAFTA nomination
* 4.50 from Paddington (1987)
* A Caribbean Mystery (1989)
* They Do It With Mirrors (1991)
* The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1992)

===Geraldine McEwan / Julia McKenzie===
Beginning in 2004, ITV broadcast a series of adaptations of Agatha Christie's books under the title Agatha Christie's Marple, usually referred to as Marple. Geraldine McEwan starred in the first three series. Julia McKenzie took over the role in the fourth season.

The adaptions are notable for changing the plots and characters of the original books (e.g. incorporating lesbian affairs, changing the identities of some killers, renaming or removing significant characters, and even using stories from other books in which Miss Marple did not originally feature). In the Geraldine McEwan series it is revealed that when she was young, Miss Marple had an affair with a married soldier, Captain Ainsworth, who was killed in action in World War I, in December 1915. It is also said (in A Murder Is Announced) that she served as a nurse during World War II.

Listing of the TV series featuring Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie:
* The Body in the Library (2004)
* The Murder at the Vicarage (2004)
* 4.50 from Paddington (2004)
* A Murder is Announced (2005)
* Sleeping Murder (2005)
* The Moving Finger (2006)
* By the Pricking of My Thumbs (2006)
* The Sittaford Mystery (2006)
* At Bertram's Hotel (2007)
* Ordeal by Innocence (2007)
* Towards Zero (2008)
* Nemesis (2008)
* A Pocket Full of Rye (2009)
* Murder is Easy (2009)
* They Do It with Mirrors (2009)
* Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (2009)
* The Pale Horse (2010)
* The Secret of Chimneys (2010)
* The Blue Geranium (2010)
* The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (2010)
* A Caribbean Mystery (2013)
* Greenshaw's Folly (2013)
* Endless Night (2013)

===Others===
From 2004 to 2005, Japanese TV network NHK produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, which features both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Miss Marple's voice is provided by Kaoru Yachigusa. Episodes adapted both short stories and novels.

Listing of the TV series episodes featuring Kaoru Yachigusa:
* Strange Jest (EP 3)
* The Case of the Perfect Maid (EP 4)
* The Tape-Measure Murder (EP 13)
* Ingots of Gold (EP 14)
* The Blue Geranium (EP 15)
* 4.50 from Paddington (EP 21–24)
* Motive versus Opportunity (EP 27)
* Sleeping Murder (EP 30–33)

==Stage==
In 1974, Barbara Mullen played Miss Marple in Murder at the Vicarage at the Savoy Theatre, London.

In September 1977, veteran actress and author Dulcie Gray played the Miss Marple character in a stage adaptation of A Murder Is Announced at the Vaudeville Theatre in London, England that featured also Dinah Sheridan, Eleanor Summerfield, Patricia Brake and Barbara Flynn. Vaudeville Theatre programme, No.29 February 1978 

==Radio==
BBC Radio 4 dramatised all of the novels from 1993 to 2001 with June Whitfield as Miss Marple. 

 Title Show Episodes Episode Frequency Original airdate 
 Murder At the Vicarage 5 Daily 26–30 December 1993 
 A Pocket Full of Rye The Saturday Playhouse 1 11 February 1995 
 At Bertram's Hotel 5 Daily 25–29 December 1995 
 The 4:50 From Paddington The Saturday Playhouse 1 29 March 1997 
 A Caribbean Mystery 5 Weekly 30 October – 27 November 1997 
 The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side Agatha Christie Special 1 29 August 1998 
 Nemesis 5 Weekly 9 November – 7 December 1998 
 The Body In the Library The Saturday Play 1 22 May 1999 
 A Murder Is Announced 5 Weekly 9 August – 6 September 1999 
 The Moving Finger The Saturday Play 1 5 May 2001 
 They Do It With Mirrors 5 Weekly 23 July 2001 – 20 August 2001 
 Sleeping Murder The Saturday Play 1 8 December 2001 

Miss Marple was also referenced multiple times in the episode "Paris" of the BBC Radio 4 program Cabin Pressure.

==Other appearances==
Marple, as she appeared in volume 20 of Case Closed
Marple was highlighted in volume 20 of the Case Closed manga's edition of "Gosho Aoyama's Mystery Library", a section of the graphic novels (usually the last page) where the author introduces a different detective (or occasionally, a villain) from mystery literature, television, or other media.

==See also==

* List of female detective characters
* Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories

==References==

==External links==
* Miss Marple at the official Agatha Christie website
* Biography of Miss Marple
* 
* Yahoo Grouplist for Geraldine McEwan
* 
* 

 

Marple, Miss



[[April]]

April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, the fifth in the early Julian and one of four months with a length of 30 days.

April ( ) is commonly associated with the season of spring in parts of the Northern hemisphere and autumn in parts of the Southern hemisphere, where it is the seasonal equivalent to October in the Northern hemisphere and vice versa.

April starts on the same day of the week as July in all years, and January in leap years. April ends on the same day of the week as December every year. October of the previous year starts on the same day of the week as April of the current year as a common year and May of the previous year starts on the same day of the week as April of the current year as a leap year. July of the previous year ends on the same day of the week as April of the current year as a common year and February and October of the previous year ends on the same day of the week as April of the current year as a leap year. In years immediately before common years, April starts on the same day of the week as September and December of the following year and in years immediately before leap years, June of the following year. In years immediately before common years, April ends on the same day of the week as September of the following year and in years immediately before leap years, March and June of the following year.

==Name and origin==
April from the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry

The Romans gave this month the Latin name Aprilis "April" in Chambers's Encyclopædia. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 497. but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb aperire, "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of ἁνοιξις (anoixis) (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite (Aphros), or from the Etruscan name Apru. Jacob Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, Aper or Aprus. Jacob Grim Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Cap. "Monate" 

April was the second month of the earliest Roman calendar, before Ianuarius and Februarius were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it also was given 29 days. The 30th day was added during the reform of the calendar undertaken by Julius Caesar in the mid-40s BC, which produced the Julian calendar.

The Anglo-Saxons called April Oster-monath or Eostur-monath. The Venerable Bede says in The Reckoning of Time that this month Eostur is the root of the word Easter. He further states that the month was named after a goddess Eostre whose feast was in that month. It is also attested by Einhard in his work, Vita Karoli Magni.

St George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St Mark's Eve, with its superstition that the ghosts of those who are doomed to die within the year will be seen to pass into the church, falls on the twenty-fourth.

In China the symbolic ploughing of the earth by the emperor and princes of the blood took place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to April. In Finnish April is huhtikuu, meaning slash-and-burn moon, when gymnosperms for beat and burn clearing of farmland were felled.

In Slovene, the most established traditional name is mali traven, meaning the month when plants start growing. It was first written in 1466 in the Škofja Loka manuscript. 

==Holidays and events==
Buddha's Birthday is celebrated in April (here is pictured the Tian Tan Buddha in Hong Kong)
*Autism Awareness Month (United States)
*Jazz Appreciation Month (United States)
*National Poetry Month (United States)
*National Poetry Writing Month
*Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month (International)
* Confederate History Month (southern United States)-April 26
*National Arab American Heritage Month (United States)
*National Child Abuse Prevention Month (United States)
*Sexual Assault Awareness Month
*April Fools' Day – April 1
*Belarusian Day – April 3
*Japanese school calendar also starts from April 1, although Nyugakushiki (entry ceremony for schools) are usually held later, around second week of April.
*World Autism Awareness Day - April 2
*Arbor Day (Korea) – April 5
* End of Tax Year (UK) – April 5
*April 1 is the first day of Japanese fiscal year. Major Japanese companies usually have Nyushashiki (entry ceremony for companies) for new employees those who newly hired after their graduation from schools, on this day.
*Passover (Hebrew:פסח) a Jewish holiday
*World Health Day – April 7
*Buddha's Birthday – Traditional Date – April 8
*Araw ng Kagitingan, also known as "Bataan Day" (Philippines) – April 9
*Bengali New Year (Bangladesh) - April 14
*Vaisakh (Nepal) - April 14
*Vaisakhi (India) - April 14
*Good Friday (Christians) – a Friday between March 20 and April 23, being the last Friday before Easter
*Easter, or Resurrection Day (Christians) - celebrated the First Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Spring Equinox, near March 21st (between March 22 and April 25)
*International Trombone Week - varies. In 2012, it is April 1–15 
* Beginning of Tax Year (India) – April 1
*Thai New Year in Thailand – April 13
*Lao New Year in Laos – April 13
*Burmese New Year in Burma - April 13
*Khmer New Year in Cambodia – April 13
*Tax Day (US) – April 15
*National Healthcare Decisions Day (US) - April 16 
*Boston Marathon – Third Monday
*Zimbabwean Independence Day – April 18 
* – April 20
*Patriots' Day – April 21
*Earth Day – April 22
*Conch Republic Independence Celebration (Key West, Florida) – April 23
*St George's Day Patron Saint Celebration (England, Europe) – April 23
* Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day – April 24
*Liberation Day in Italy - April 25 is a National Holiday that celebrates the end of the Nazi Germany occupation in the Northern Italy.
*ANZAC Day (Australia and New Zealand) – April 25
*Carnation Revolution (Portugal) – April 25
*Confederate Memorial Day (US: Georgia, Tennessee,Florida, Texas)- April 26 
*Resistance day in Slovenia - formerly Liberation Front of the Slovene People day April 27
*Freedom Day (South Africa) – April 27
*April 29 is a Japanese national holiday, as Shōwa Day since 2007. It has been celebrated as The Emperor's Birthday from 1927 to 1988, then renamed as Greenery Day after Hirohito's death in 1989. It is usually marked as the first day of "Golden Week", a week-long holiday period.
* Formerly Koninginnedag in the Netherlands / Kingdom of the Netherlands – April 30, for the last time celebrated in 2013, now celebrated as Koningsdag at April 27th. 
*Arbor Day – last Friday of April in some states in the United States http://www.arborday.org/
*Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day, usually fourth Thursday (United States)
*London Marathon – usually fourth Sunday
*Opening Day – first Sunday in April
*Independence day (Syria) – April 17
*Record Store Day – usually celebrated on the third Saturday
*Financial Literacy Month (United States)

The "Days of April" (journées d'avril) is a name appropriated in French history to a series of insurrections at Lyons, Paris and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial known as the procès d'avril.

==April symbols==

* April's birthstone is the diamond.
* The birth flower is typically listed as either the Daisy (Bellis perennis) or the Sweet Pea. Kipfer, Barbara Ann (1997) The Order of Things. New York: Random House SHGresources.com 
* The zodiac signs for the month of April are Aries (until April 20) and Taurus (April 21 onwards).

==See also==
* Germanic calendar
* List of historical anniversaries

==References and sources==
;References

;Sources
* 

==External links==

* http://www.arborday.org/

 04
 

[[August]]

Depiction of harvesting in the August calendar page of the Queen Mary Psalter (fol. 78v), ca. 1310.
August ( ) is the eighth month of the year (between July and September) in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and one of seven months with a length of 31 days. "August." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 23 September 2008. 

In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere.

In common years no other month starts on the same day of the week as August, though in leap years February starts on the same day. August ends on the same day of the week as November every year. March and November of the previous year starts on the same day of the week as August of the current year as a common year and June of the previous year starts on the same day of the week as August of the current year as a leap year. In years immediately before common years, August starts and ends on the same day of the week as May of the following year while in years immediately before leap years, August starts on the same day of as October of the following year and ends on the same day of the week as February and October of the following year. 

This month was originally named Sextili in Latin, because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first month of the year. About 700 BC it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 45 BC giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus (despite common belief, he did not take a day from February; see the debunked theory on month lengths). According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt. Year of Julius Caesar, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin, Ed. 

==Events in August==
August, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry showing a group of travelers and the Duc's Château d'Étampes in the background
* In the neopagan wheel of the year August begins at or near Lughnasadh (also known as Lammas) in the northern hemisphere and Imbolc (also known as Candlemas) in the southern hemisphere.
* 14 August is Pakistan's Independence Day since 1947.
* India got independence on 15 August 1947. 
* Some of Ireland's most famous battles have been fought in this month. They include: the Second Battle of Athenry (1316); the battle of Knockdoe (1504); the Battle of the Yellow Ford (1596); the First Battle of Curlew Pass (1599); the Battle of Dungans Hill (1647); the Battle of Castlebar (1798), and the Battle of the Bogside (1969).

===Monthlong events in August===
* Edinburgh Festival is an internationally famous arts festival that takes place during August
* National Immunization Awareness Month
* National Psoriasis Awareness Month
* National Water Quality Month
* In many European countries, August is the holiday month for most workers
* The Philippines celebrates August as the 
* In the United States, August is National Back to School month. Some US School districts and systems return to school in August.
* In the United States, August is National Goat Cheese Month. Bober, Mike. Celebrate National Goat Cheese Month with Local Favorites, dcfoodies.com 
* American Adventures Month
* Audio Appreciation Month
* Black Business Month
* Cataract Awareness Month
* Children's Eye Health and Safety Month
* Children's Vision and Learning Month
* Get Ready for Kindergarten Month
* Happiness Happens Month
* Neurosurgery Outreach Month
* Panini Month
* Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness Month
* What Will Be Your Legacy Month
* Win with Civility Month MHprofessional.com 

===Weeklong events in August===
* During the first week of August in Wales, the National Eisteddfod of Wales is held, in which many aspects of Welsh art and culture are celebrated.
* During the first week of August in Sweden, the Medieval Week of Wisby in Gotland is held each year.
* During the first week of August is World Breastfeeding Week.
* The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held the first full week in August each year.
* The middle week of August is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
* The Pennsic War, a massive gathering of the Society for Creative Anachronism, takes place about the first week of August every year.
* The first week of August is "Indian Week" for the Penobscot Tribe in Old Town, Maine. In this week, members of the Penobscot Tribe from all over Maine venture to the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation in Old Town and take part in games, Native American arts and crafts, pow-wows, cook-outs, etc.

===Other August events===
* The first full weekend in August each year, Twinsburg, Ohio, celebrates Twins Days.
*Bon festival – (Obon Festival) is a Japanese traditional Buddhist custom, evolved into a family reunion holiday. Many Japanese manufacturers and firms give their employees three to five days off around the 15th of August.
*Indian Independence day on August 15
* The Glorious Twelfth, the start of the shooting season for Red Grouse in the United Kingdom August 12th
* International Lefthanders Day August 13th
*Pakistan's Independence day on August 14th
* Vietnam Veterans' Day (Australia) marking the Battle of Long Tan (18 August 1966)
* World Humanitarian Day is a day dedicated to recognize humanitarian personnel and those who have lost their lives working for humanitarian causes on August 19th
* Black Ribbon Day, commemorating the peaceful political demonstration in 1989 when two million people joined hands across the Baltic states of Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR August 23rd
* The International Day against Nuclear Tests August 29th
* The International Day of the Disappeared, drawing attention to the fate of individuals imprisoned at places and under poor conditions unknown to their relatives and/or legal representatives August 30th
* Kilkenny Arts Week in Kilkenny, Ireland. http://www.kilkennyarts.ie/ 

===Daily events in August===
* 1 August is Swiss National Day.
* 6 August is Independence Day in Jamaica since 1962.
* 9 August is the National Day of Singapore.
* 15 August is Indian Independence Day since 1947.
* 14 August is Pakistan's Independence Day since 1947.
* The Philippines celebrates National Heroes Day in commemoration of the First Cry of the Philippine Revolution on August 23, 1896.
* 27 August is Moldova National Day
* 31 August is the National Day of Malaysia.

===Islamic holidays===
* Ramadan runs from July 8 to August 7 2013
* Laylat al-Qadr on August 14, 2012
* August 8, 2013 is Eid ul-Fitr.
* Note: the Islamic holidays vary from year to year. The dates given above are for 2013.

==August symbols==
Gladiolus
*August's birthstones are the peridot and sardonyx.
*Its birth flower is the gladiolus or poppy, meaning beauty, strength of character, love, marriage and family. Birth months, flowers, and gemstones, shgresources.com 
*The zodiac signs for the month of August are Leo (until August 21) and Virgo (from August 22 onwards).

==References==

==Further reading==
* August: Let's get rid of it, by David Plotz, Slate Magazine, slate.com

 08
 

[[Aaron]]

In the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, Aaron (; ) was the older brother of Moses, (Exodus 6:16-20, 7:7; Qur'an 28:34 ), a prophet of God. He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites. While Moses was receiving his education at the Egyptian royal court, and during his exile among the Midianites, Aaron and his sister Miriam remained with their kinsmen in the eastern border-land of Egypt (Goshen). There, Aaron gained a name for eloquent and persuasive speech, so that when the time came for the demand upon Pharaoh to release Israel from captivity, Aaron became his brother's "prophet" to Pharaoh. () Various dates for his life have been proposed, ranging from approximately 1600 to 1200 BC. The Jewish Encyclopedia suggests two possible accounts of Aaron's death. The principal one gives a detailed statement that soon after the incident at Meribah, Aaron, with his son Eleazar and Moses, ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly garments and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died in the top of the mount, and the people mourned for him thirty days. Another account is found in Deuteronomy 10:6, where Moses said that Aaron died at Moserah and was buried there. Aaron is also mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible. 

==Account in the Hebrew Bible==

===Traditional genealogy===
Descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

Great-grandfather: Levi, third of 12 sons and tribes of Israel

Grandfather: Kohath

Father: Amram

Mother: Jochebed

Sister: Miriam

Brother: Moses

Uncles: Izhar, Hebron, Uzziel

Wife: Elisheba

Sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar

Grandson: Phinehas

===Function===
Aaron's function included the duties of speaker and implied personal dealings with the Egyptian royal court on behalf of Moses. The part played by Aaron in the events that preceded the Exodus was, therefore, ministerial, and not directive. He, along with Moses, performed "signs" before his people which impressed them with a belief in the reality of the divine mission of the brothers (Exodus 4:15–16). 

At the command of Moses he stretched out his rod in order to bring on the first of three plagues (Exodus 7:19, 8:1,12). In the infliction of the remaining plagues, he appears to have acted merely as the attendant of Moses, whose outstretched rod drew the divine wrath upon the Pharaoh and his subjects (Exodus 9:23, 10:13,22). The display of potency from Aaron's rod had already been demonstrated in the presence of Pharaoh's magicians; when Aaron's rod was thrown down to the ground it had turned into a snake, so Pharaoh's magicians performed the same act with their own rods. However, Aaron's snake ate up all the other snakes (Exodus 7:9-12) proving his rod was victorious. 

During the journey in the wilderness, Aaron was not always prominent or active; and he sometimes appeared guilty of rebellious or treasonable conduct. At the battle with Amalek, he was chosen with Hur to support the hand of Moses that held the "rod of God" (Exodus 17:9). When the revelation was given to Moses at Mount Sinai, he headed the elders of Israel who accompanied Moses on the way to the summit. Joshua, however, was admitted with his leader to the very presence of the , while Aaron and Hur remained below to look after the people (Exodus 24:9-14). It was during the prolonged absence of Moses that Aaron yielded to the clamors of the people, and made a Golden Calf as a visible image of the divinity who had delivered them from Egypt (Exodus 32:1-6). At the intercession of Moses, Aaron was saved from the plague which smote the people (Deuteronomy 9:20, Exodus 32:35), although it was against Aaron's tribe of Levi that the work of punitive vengeance was committed (Exodus 32:26). 

===Priesthood===
At the time when the tribe of Levi was set apart for the priestly service, Aaron was anointed and consecrated to the priesthood, arrayed in the robes of his office, and instructed in its manifold duties (Exodus 28, Exodus 29). Aaron and his tribe are given control over the Urim and Thummim. 

On the very day of his consecration, his sons, Nadab and Abihu, were consumed by fire from the for having offered incense in an unlawful manner (Leviticus 10:1-10). 

Scholarly consensus is that in Aaron's high priesthood the sacred writer intended to describe a model, the prototype, so to say, of the Jewish high priest. God, on Mount Sinai instituting a worship, also instituted an order of priests. According to the patriarchal customs, the firstborn son in every family used to perform the functions connected with God's worship. It might have been expected, consequently, that Reuben's family would be chosen by God for the ministry of the new altar. However, according to the biblical narrative it was Aaron who was the object of God's choice. To what jealousies this gave rise later, has been indicated above. The office of the Aaronites was at first merely to take care of the lamp that was to burn perpetually before the veil of the tabernacle (Exodus 27:21). A more formal calling soon followed (Exodus 28:1). Aaron and his sons, because of their calling which separated them from the rest of the Israelites, were given holy garments needed for their calling by the Lord. 

Aaron offered the various sacrifices and performed the many ceremonies of the consecration of the new priests, according to divine instructions (Exodus 29) and repeated these rites for seven days, during which Aaron and his sons were entirely separated from the rest of the people. When, on the eighth day, the high priest had inaugurated his office of sacrifice by killing the animals, he blessed the people (very likely according to the prescriptions of Numbers 6:24-26), and, with Moses, entered into the tabernacle to possess it. They "came out and blessed the people: and the glory of the appeared unto all the people: And there came a fire out from before the , and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat "" when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces." (Leviticus 9:23-24). In this way the institution of the Aaronic priesthood was established. 

In later books of the Old Testament, Aaron and his kin are not mentioned as often. In Ezekial, which devotes attention to priestly matters. The group that is mentioned instead of the Aaronites are the Zadokites and the Levites. 

===Rebellion of Korah===
From the time of the sojourn at Mount Sinai, where he became the anointed priest of Israel, Aaron ceased to be the minister of Moses, his place being taken by Joshua. He is mentioned in (Numbers 12:9) in association with Miriam in a jealous complaint against the exclusive claims of Moses as the 's prophet. The presumption of the murmurers was rebuked, and Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Aaron entreated Moses to intercede for her, at the same time confessing the sin and folly that prompted the uprising. Aaron himself was not struck with the plague on account of sacerdotal immunity; and Miriam, after seven days' quarantine, was healed and restored to favor. Micah a prophet in Judaism, mentions Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as the leaders of Israel after the Exodus (a judgment wholly in accord with the tenor of the narratives). In the present instance it is made clear by the express words of the oracle that Moses was unique among men as the one with whom the spoke face to face. The failure to recognize or concede this prerogative of their brother was the sin of Miriam and Aaron.The validity of the exclusive priesthood of the family of Aaron was attested after the ill-fated rebellion of Korah, who was a first cousin of Aaron. When the earth had opened and swallowed up the leaders of the insurgents (Numbers 16:25-35), Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was commissioned to take charge of the censers of the dead priests. And when the plague had broken out among the people who had sympathized with the rebels, Aaron, at the command of Moses, took his censer and stood between the living and the dead till the plague was stayed (Numbers 17:1-15, 16:36-50). The Blossoming of Aaron's Rod, etching by Augustin Hirschvogel 
Another memorable transaction followed. Each of the tribal princes of Israel took a rod and wrote his name upon it, and the twelve rods were laid up over night in the tent of meeting. God suggests that whomever's rod sprouts will be the chosen tribe for the priesthood. The next morning Aaron's rod was found to have budded and blossomed and produced ripe almonds (Numbers 17:8). The miracle proved merely the prerogative of the tribe of Levi; but now a formal distinction was made in perpetuity between the family of Aaron and the other Levites. While all the Levites (and only Levites) were to be devoted to sacred services, the special charge of the sanctuary and the altar was committed to the Aaronites alone (Numbers 18:1-7). The scene of this enactment is unknown, as is the time mentioned.

===Death===
Aaron, like Moses, was not permitted to enter Canaan with the others. The reason given is that the two brothers showed impatience at Meribah (Kadesh) in the last year of the desert pilgrimage (Numbers 20:12-13), when Moses brought water out of a rock to quench the thirst of the people. The action was construed as displaying a want of deference to the , since they had been commanded to speak to the rock, whereas Moses struck it with the staff, twice (Numbers 20:7-11). 

Of the death of Aaron there are two accounts. The principal one gives a detailed statement that soon after the incident at Meribah, Aaron, with his son Eleazar and Moses, ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly garments and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the mountain, and the people mourned for him thirty days (Numbers 20:22-29; compare 33:38-39). The other account is found in Deuteronomy 10:6, where Aaron died at Moserah and was buried. There is a significant amount of travel between these two points, as the itinerary in Numbers 33:31–37 records seven stages between Moseroth (Mosera) and Mount Hor. Aaron was 123 at the time of his death. 

==Aaron in religious traditions==

===Jewish Rabbinic literature===
The older prophets and prophetical writers beheld in their priests the representatives of a religious form inferior to the prophetic truth; men without the spirit of God and lacking the will-power requisite to resist the multitude in its idolatrous proclivities. Thus Aaron, the first priest, ranks below Moses: he is his mouthpiece, and the executor of the will of God revealed through Moses, although it is pointed out Sifra, Wa-yiḳra, 1 that it is said fifteen times in the Pentateuch that "the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron." Under the influence of the priesthood that shaped the destinies of the nation under Persian rule, a different ideal of the priest was formed, according to Malachi 2:4–7, and the prevailing tendency was to place Aaron on a footing equal with Moses. "At times Aaron, and at other times Moses, is mentioned first in Scripture—this is to show that they were of equal rank," says Mekilta, who strongly implies this when introducing in his record of renowned men the glowing description of Aaron's ministration. 

====Death====
In fulfilment of the promise of peaceful life, symbolized by the pouring of oil upon his head (Leviticus Rabbah x., Midrash Teh. cxxxiii. 1), Aaron's death, as described in the Haggadah, was of a wonderful tranquility. Accompanied by Moses, his brother, and by Eleazar, his son, Aaron went to the summit of Mount Hor, where the rock suddenly opened before him and a beautiful cave lit by a lamp presented itself to his view. "Take off thy priestly raiment and place it upon thy son Eleazar!" said Moses; "and then follow me." Aaron did as commanded; and they entered the cave, where was prepared a bed around which angels stood. "Go lie down upon thy bed, my brother," Moses continued; and Aaron obeyed without a murmur. Then his soul departed as if by a kiss from God. The cave closed behind Moses as he left; and he went down the hill with Eleazar, with garments rent, and crying: "Alas, Aaron, my brother! thou, the pillar of supplication of Israel!" When the Israelites cried in bewilderment, "Where is Aaron?" angels were seen carrying Aaron's bier through the air. A voice was then heard saying: "The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips: he walked with me in righteousness, and brought many back from sin" (Malachi 2:6). He died, according to Seder Olam Rabbah ix., R. H. 2, 3a, on the first of Ab." The pillar of cloud which proceeded in front of Israel's camp disappeared at Aaron's death (see Seder 'Olam, ix. and R. H. 2b-3a). The seeming contradiction between Numbers 20:22 et seq. and Deuteronomy 10:6 is solved by the rabbis in the following manner: Aaron's death on Mount Hor was marked by the defeat of the people in a war with the king of Arad, in consequence of which the Israelites fled, marching seven stations backward to Mosera, where they performed the rites of mourning for Aaron; wherefore it is said: "There Mosera died Aaron." See Mek., Beshallaḥ, Wayassa', i.; Tan., Huḳḳat, 18; Yer. Soṭah, i. 17c, and Targum Yer. Num. and Deut. on the abovementioned passages. 

The rabbis also dwell with special laudation on the brotherly sentiment which united Aaron and Moses. When the latter was appointed ruler and Aaron high priest, neither betrayed any jealousy; instead they rejoiced in one another's greatness. When Moses at first declined to go to Pharaoh, saying: "O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send" (Exodus 4:13), he was unwilling to deprive Aaron, his brother, of the high position the latter had held for so many years; but the Lord reassured him, saying: "Behold, when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart" (). Indeed, Aaron was to find his reward, says Shimon bar Yochai; for that heart which had leaped with joy over his younger brother's rise to glory greater than his was decorated with the Urim and Thummim, which were to "be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord" (Canticles Rabbah i. 10). Moses and Aaron met in gladness of heart, kissing each other as true brothers (Exodus 4:27; compare Song of Songs 8:1), and of them it is written: "Behold how good and how pleasant is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalms 133:1). Of them it is said: "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed other" (Psalms 85:10); for Moses stood for righteousness, according to Deuteronomy 33:21, and Aaron for peace, according to . Again, mercy was personified in Aaron, according to Deuteronomy 33:8, and truth in Moses, according to Numbers 12:7 . (Tan., Shemot, ed. Buber, 24-26) 

When Moses poured the oil of anointment upon the head of Aaron, Aaron modestly shrank back and said: "Who knows whether I have not cast some blemish upon this sacred oil so as to forfeit this high office." Then the Shekhinah spoke the words: "Behold the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard of Aaron, that even went down to the skirts of his garment, is as pure as the dew of Hermon" () . (Sifra, Shemini, Milluim; Tan., Korah, ed. Buber, 14) 

====Moses====
According to Tanhuma, ed. Buber, 2:12 Aaron's activity as a prophet began earlier than that of Moses. Hillel held Aaron up as an example, saying: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace; love your fellow creatures and draw them nigh unto the Law!" Abot, 1:12 This is further illustrated by the tradition preserved in Abot de-Rabbi Natan 12, Sanhedrin 6b, and elsewhere, according to which Aaron was an ideal priest of the people, far more beloved for his kindly ways than was Moses. While Moses was stern and uncompromising, brooking no wrong, Aaron went about as peacemaker, reconciling man and wife when he saw them estranged, or a man with his neighbor when they quarreled, and winning evil-doers back into the right way by his friendly intercourse. The mourning of the people at Aaron's death was greater, therefore, than at that of Moses; for whereas, when Aaron died the whole house of Israel wept, including the women, (Numbers 20:29) Moses was bewailed by "the sons of Israel" only (Deuteronomy 34:8). Even in the making of the Golden Calf the rabbis find extenuating circumstances for Aaron. Sanhedrin 7a His fortitude and silent submission to the will of God on the loss of his two sons are referred to as an excellent example to men how to glorify God in the midst of great affliction. Zebahim 115b Especially significant are the words represented as being spoken by God after the princes of the Twelve Tribes had brought their dedication offerings into the newly reared Tabernacle: "Say to thy brother Aaron: Greater than the gifts of the princes is thy gift; for thou art called upon to kindle the light, and, while the sacrifices shall last only as long as the Temple lasts, thy light shall last forever." Tanhuma, ed. Buber, בהעלותך, 6 

===Christianity===
Russian icon of Aaron (18th century, Iconostasis of Kizhi monastery, Karelia, Russia).
While Aaron and his descendants were the high priests of Judaism, Melchizedek, a person who lived more than seven centuries before Moses, is considered a high priest and Christ is said to be of the same rite of Melchizedek of the New Covenant (see the Book of Hebrews).

However, in the Eastern Orthodox and Maronite churches, Aaron is venerated as a saint whose feast day is shared with his brother Moses and celebrated on September 4. (Those churches that follow the traditional Julian Calendar celebrate this day on September 17 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). Aaron is also commemorated with other Old Testament saints on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, the Sunday before Christmas.

Aaron is commemorated as one of the Holy Forefathers in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 30. He is commemorated on July 1 in the modern Latin calendar and in the Syriac Calendar.

In the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aaronic order is the lesser order of priesthood, comprising the grades (from lowest to highest) of deacon, teacher, and priest. The chief office of the Aaronic priesthood is the presiding bishopric; the head of the priesthood is the bishop. Each ward includes a quorum of one or more of each office of the Aaronic priesthood. 

In Community of Christ, the Aaronic order of priesthood is regarded as an appendage to the Melchisedec order, and consists of the priesthood offices of deacon, teacher, and priest. While differing in responsibilities, these offices, along with those of the Melchisidec order, are regarded as equal before God. The Presiding Bishop of the Church is regarded as the president of the entire Aaronic order.

===Islam===

Aaron (Arabic: هارون, Hārūn) is also mentioned in the Quran as a prophet of God. The Quran praises Aaron repeatedly, calling him a "believing servant" as well as one who was "guided" and one of the "victors". Aaron is important in Islam for his role in the events of the Exodus, in which, according to the Quran and Muslim tradition, he preached with his brother Moses to the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Aaron's significance in Islam, however, is not limited to his role as the helper of Moses. Islamic tradition also accords Aaron the role of a patriarch, as tradition records that the priestly descent came through Aaron's lineage, which included the entire House of Amran.

====Aaron in the Quran====
The Qur'an contains numerous references to Aaron, both by name and without name. It says that he was a descendant of Abraham (Qur'an 4: 163) and makes it clear that both he and Moses were sent together to warn the Pharaoh about God's punishment (Qur'an 10: 75). It further adds that Moses had earlier prayed to God to strengthen his own ministry with Aaron (Qur'an 20: 29-30) and that Aaron helped Moses as he too was a prophet (Qur'an 19: 53) and was very eloquent in matters of speech and discourse (Qur'an 28: 34). The Qur'an adds that both Moses and Aaron were entrusted to establish places of dwelling for the Israelites in Egypt, and to convert those houses into places of worship for God (Qur'an 10: 87).

The incident of the Golden Calf as it is narrated in the Qur'an paints Aaron in a positive light. The Qur'an says that Aaron was entrusted the leadership of Israel while Moses was up on Mount Sinai for a period of forty days (Qur'an 7: 142). It adds that Aaron tried his best to stop the worship of the Golden Calf, which was built not by Aaron but by a wicked man by the name of Samiri (Qur'an 19: 50). When Moses returned from Mount Sinai, he rebuked Aaron for allowing the worship of the idol, to which Aaron pleaded with Moses to not blame him when he had no role in its construction (Qur'an 7: 150). The Qur'an then adds that Moses here lamented the sins of Israel and said he only had the power to protect himself and Aaron (Qur'an 5: 25).

Aaron is later commemorated in the Qur'an as one who had a "clear authority" (Qur'an 23: 45) and one who was "guided to the Right Path" (Qur'an 37: 118). It further adds that Aaron's memory was left for people who came after him (Qur'an 37: 119) and he is blessed by God along with his brother (Qur'an 37: 120). The Qur'an also calls the Virgin Mary a "sister of Aaron" (Qur'an 19: 28). Muslim scholars debated as to who exactly this "Aaron" was in terms of his historical persona, with some saying that it was a reference to Aaron of the Exodus, and the term "sister" designating only a metaphorical or spiritual link between the two figures, all the more evident when Mary was a descendant of the priestly lineage of Aaron, while others held it to be another righteous man living at the time of Christ by the name of "Aaron". Most scholars have agreed to the former perspective, and have linked Mary spiritually with the actual sister of Aaron, her namesake Miriam, whom she resembled in many ways. The Qur'an also narrates that, centuries later, when the Ark of the Covenant returned to Israel, it contained "relics from the family of Moses and relics from the family of Aaron" (Qur'an 2: 248).

====Aaron in Muhammad's time====
Muhammad, in many of his sayings, speaks of Aaron. In the event of the Mi'raj, his miraculous ascension through the Heavens, Muhammad is said to have encountered Aaron in the fifth heaven. According to old scholars, including Ibn Hisham, Muhammad, in particular, mentioned the beauty of Aaron when he encountered him in Heaven. Martin Lings, in his biographical Muhammad, speaks of Muhammad's wonderment at seeing fellow prophets in their heavenly glory:

Aaron was also mentioned by Muhammad in likeness to Ali. Muhammad had left Ali to look after his family, but the hypocrites of the time begun to spread the rumor that the prophet found Ali a burden and was relieved to be rid of his presence. Ali, grieved at hearing this wicked taunt, told Muhammad what the local people were saying. In reply, the Prophet said: "They lie, I bade thee remain for the sake of what I had left behind me. So return and represent me in my family and in thine. Art thou not content, O Ali, that thou should be unto me as Aaron was unto Moses, save that after me there is no prophet. "

====Burial Place====

A 14th-century shrine built on top of the supposed grave of Aaron on Jabal Hārūn in Petra, Jordan.
According to Islamic tradition the tomb of Aaron is located on Jabal Harun, or Aaron's Mountain, near Petra in Jordan. At 1350 meters above sea-level it is the highest peak in the area; and it is a place of great sanctity to the local people for here. A 14th-century Mamluk mosque stands here with its white dome visible from most areas in and around Petra.

===Baha'i===
Although his father is described as both an apostle and a prophet, Aaron is merely described as a prophet. The Kitab-I-Iqan describes Imran as being his father. 

==Descendants==
Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon (Exodus 6:23) of the tribe of Judah. The sons of Aaron were Eleazar, Ithamar, and Nadab and Abihu. A descendant of Aaron is an Aaronite, or Kohen, meaning Priest. Any non-Aaronic Levite—i.e., descended from Levi but not from Aaron —assisted the Levitical priests of the family of Aaron in the care of the tabernacle; later of the temple. According to Samaritan sources, a civil war once broke out between the sons of Itamar Eli (Bible) and the sons of Phineas that resulted in a division of those who followed Eli and those who followed High Priest Uzzi ben Bukki at Mount Gerizim Bethel. (A third group followed neither.) Ironically, and likewise according to Samaritan sources, the high priests' line of the sons of Phineas died out in 1624 CE with the death of the 112th High Priest, Shlomyah ben Pinhas, at which time the priesthood was transferred to the sons of Itamar. See article Samaritan for list of High Priests from 1613 to 2004—the 131st high priest of the Samaritans is Elazar ben Tsedaka ben Yitzhaq. Also see article, Samaritan 

==Art history==
Depictions of Aaron within art history are rare. Other than Aaron's inclusion in the crowd of revelers around the Golden Calf ceremony—most notably in Nicolas Poussin's "The Adoration of the Golden Calf" (ca. 1633–34, National Gallery London)—there is little else. The depictions that we do have usually follow Exodus 28 in portraying Aaron with a breastplate with twelve stones that hangs from the shoulder by gold chains over the ephod, as well as a mitre on his head with a gold plate bearing the Hebrew words for "Holiness to the Lord." Some portraits also feature the "holy crown" of Exodus 29:6, sometimes with a pair of high horns that curve in toward each other (example). Examples are in the "Aaron" category at Wikimedia Commons.The recent discovery in 1991 of Pier Francesco Mola's "Aaron, Holy to the Lord" (ca. 1650, Private Collection, New York: image available for study at Fred R. Kline Gallery Archives) adds to the Aaronic mythos. The painting offers a portrayal of the single figure of Aaron in his priestly garments celebrating Yom Kippur in the wilderness Tabernacle. The Mola "Aaron" is considered the unique single figure of Aaron to have been painted by an old master artist, circa 15th–18th centuries (A.Pigler, "Barockthemen" Vol. 1; although unknown to Pigler). The carefully rendered Judaic iconographic details in the Mola painting are rare and may have importance in relationship to mid-17th-century Jewish history. "Aaron, Holy to the Lord" was originally commissioned along with a now lost pendant of Moses (both from Mola) by the nobel Colonna family, wealthy Catholic art patrons living in Rome. 

==Historicity==
See the Exodus.

==See also==
*Harun
*Kohen
*Y-chromosomal Aaron
*Moses in rabbinic literature

==Notes==

==Footnotes==

==References==

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;Attribution
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==Further reading==
* 

* Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated by Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin. 7 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–1938.

* Kaufmann, Yehezkel. The Religion of Israel. Translated by Moshe Greenberg. New York: Schocken Books, 1960.

* 
*"Aaron", McCurdy, J. F. and Kaufmann Kohler. Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906; which cites
** Numbers Rabbah 9
** Leviticus Rabbah 10
** in Jellinek's Bet ha-Midrash, 1:91–95
** 764
** Sabine Baring-Gould, Legends of Old Testament Characters
** Chronicles of Jerahmeel, ed. M. Gaster, pp. cx1:130–133
** Holweck, F. G., A Biographical Dictionary of the Saint. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co. 1924.

* Meek, Theophile James. "Aaronites and Zadokites." The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 45 (April, 1920): 149-166.

* Meek, Theophile James. Hebrew Origins. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

===References in the Qur'an===
* Aaron's prophecy: , ,

* Aaron is made helper of Moses: , , , , 

* Aaron and Moses sent to Pharaoh: , , , 

* Praise for Aaron: , , , , , 

* The Golden Calf: , 

== External links ==
* 

* 

* 
* MFnames.com - Origin and Meaning of Aaron
* "Aaron" at the Christian Iconography website

*Main



[[April 6]]

 
==Events==
*46 BC &ndash; Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus.
* 402 &ndash; Stilicho stymies the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia.
*1199 &ndash; King Richard I of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder.
*1250 &ndash; Seventh Crusade: Ayyubids of Egypt capture King Louis IX of France in the Battle of Fariskur.
*1320 &ndash; The Scots reaffirm their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath.
*1327 &ndash; The poet Petrarch first sees his idealized love, Laura, in the church of Saint Clare in Avignon.
*1385 &ndash; John, Master of the Order of Aviz, is made king John I of Portugal.
*1453 &ndash; Mehmed II begins his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul), which falls on May 29.
*1580 &ndash; One of the largest earthquakes recorded in the history of England, Flanders, or Northern France, takes place.
*1652 &ndash; At the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp that eventually becomes Cape Town.
*1667 &ndash; An earthquake devastates Dubrovnik, then an independent city-state.
*1712 &ndash; The New York Slave Revolt of 1712 begins near Broadway.
*1776 &ndash; American Revolutionary War: Ships of the Continental Navy fail in their attempt to capture a Royal Navy dispatch boat.
*1782 &ndash; King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I) of Siam (modern day Thailand) founded the Chakri dynasty.
*1793 &ndash; During the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety becomes the executive organ of the republic.
*1808 &ndash; John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, that would eventually make him America's first millionaire.
*1812 &ndash; British forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington assault the fortress of Badajoz. This would be the turning point in the Peninsular War against Napoleon-led France.
*1814 &ndash; Nominal beginning of the Bourbon Restoration; anniversary date that Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba.
*1830 &ndash; Church of Christ, the original church of the Latter Day Saint movement, is organized by Joseph Smith, Jr. and others at Fayette or Manchester, New York.
*1860 &ndash; The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—later renamed Community of Christ—is organized by Joseph Smith III and others at Amboy, Illinois
*1861 &ndash; First performance of Arthur Sullivan's debut success, his suite of incidental music for The Tempest, leading to a career that included the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
*1862 &ndash; American Civil War: The Battle of Shiloh begins &ndash; in Tennessee, forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant meet Confederate troops led by General Albert Sidney Johnston.
*1865 &ndash; American Civil War: The Battle of Sayler's Creek &ndash; Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia fights its last major battle while in retreat from Richmond, Virginia.
*1866 &ndash; The Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organization composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, is founded. It lasts until 1956.
*1869 &ndash; Celluloid is patented.
*1888 &ndash; Thomas Green Clemson dies, bequeathing his estate to the State of South Carolina to establish Clemson Agricultural College.
*1893 &ndash; Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated by Wilford Woodruff.
*1895 &ndash; Oscar Wilde is arrested in the Cadogan Hotel, London after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
*1896 &ndash; In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.
*1909 &ndash; Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reach the North Pole.
*1911 &ndash; During the Battle of Deçiq, Dedë Gjon Luli Dedvukaj, leader of the Malësori Albanians, raises the Albanian flag in the town of Tuzi, Montenegro, for the first time after George Kastrioti (Skenderbeg).
*1917 &ndash; World War I: The United States declares war on Germany (see President Woodrow Wilson's address to Congress).
*1919 &ndash; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi orders a general strike.
*1923 &ndash; The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed in Victoria Institution, Malaysia.
*1924 &ndash; First round-the-world flight commences.
*1926 &ndash; Varney Airlines makes its first commercial flight (Varney is the root company of United Airlines).
*1929 &ndash; Huey P. Long Governor of Louisiana is impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives.
*1930 &ndash; Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire," beginning the Salt Satyagraha.
*1936 &ndash; Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak: Another tornado from the same storm system as the Tupelo tornado hits Gainesville, Georgia, killing 203.
*1941 &ndash; World War II: Nazi Germany launches Operation 25 (the invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and Operation Marita (the invasion of Greece).
*1945 &ndash; World War II: Sarajevo is liberated from German and Croatian forces by the Yugoslav Partisans.
* 1945 &ndash; World War II: the Battle of Slater's Knoll on Bougainville comes to an end.
*1947 &ndash; The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement.
*1957 &ndash; Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis buys the Hellenic National Airlines (TAE) and founds Olympic Airlines.
*1962 &ndash; Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms' First Piano Concerto.
*1965 &ndash; Launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
* 1965 &ndash; The British Government announces the cancellation of the TSR-2 aircraft project.
*1968 &ndash; In Richmond, Indiana's downtown district, a double explosion kills 41 and injures 150.
* 1968 &ndash; Pierre Elliot Trudeau wins the Liberal Leadership Election, and becomes Prime Minister of Canada soon after.
*1970 &ndash; Newhall Incident: Four California Highway Patrol officers are killed in a shootout.
*1972 &ndash; Vietnam War: Easter Offensive &ndash; American forces begin sustained air strikes and naval bombardments.
*1973 &ndash; Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
* 1973 &ndash; The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter.
*1974 &ndash; The Swedish pop band ABBA wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 with the song "Waterloo", launching their international career.
*1982 &ndash; Estonian Communist Party bureau declares "fight against bourgeois TV"—meaning Finnish TV—a top priority of the propagandists of Estonian SSR
*1984 &ndash; Members of Cameroon's Republican Guard unsuccessfully attempt to overthrow the government headed by Paul Biya.
*1994 &ndash; The Rwandan Genocide begins when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down.
*1998 &ndash; Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of reaching India.
* 1998 &ndash; Travelers Group announces an agreement to undertake the $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, and the merger is completed on October 8, of that year, forming Citibank.
*2004 &ndash; Rolandas Paksas becomes the first president of Lithuania to be peacefully removed from office by impeachment.
*2005 &ndash; Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani becomes Iraqi president; Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari is named premier the next day.
*2008 &ndash; 2008 Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement and Egyptian activities .
*2009 &ndash; A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L'Aquila, Italy, killing 307.
*2010 &ndash; Maoist rebels kill 76 CRPF officers in Dantewada district, India.
*2011 &ndash; In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, over 193 bodies were exhumed from several mass graves made by Los Zetas.
*2012 &ndash; Azawad declares itself independent from the Republic of Mali.

==Births==
*1483 &ndash; Raphael, Italian painter and architect (d. 1520)
*1632 &ndash; Maria Leopoldine of Austria (d. 1649)
*1651 &ndash; André Dacier, French scholar (d. 1722)
*1660 &ndash; Johann Kuhnau, German organist and composer (d. 1722)
*1664 &ndash; Arvid Horn, Swedish soldier and politician (d. 1742)
*1671 &ndash; Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French poet (d. 1741)
*1672 &ndash; André Cardinal Destouches, French composer (d. 1749)
*1706 &ndash; Louis de Cahusac, French playwright (d. 1759)
*1708 &ndash; Georg Reutter II, Austrian composer (d. 1772)
*1725 &ndash; Pasquale Paoli, French politician (d. 1807)
*1726 &ndash; Gerard Majella, Italian saint (d. 1755)
*1741 &ndash; Nicolas Chamfort, French author and playwright (d. 1794)
*1766 &ndash; Wilhelm von Kobell, German painter (d. 1853)
*1773 &ndash; James Mill, Scottish historian, economist, and philosopher (d. 1836)
*1810 &ndash; Philip Henry Gosse, English biologist (d. 1888)
*1812 &ndash; Alexander Herzen, Russian philosopher and author (d. 1870)
*1815 &ndash; Robert Volkmann, German composer (d. 1883)
*1818 &ndash; Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian journalist and poet (d. 1870)
*1820 &ndash; Nadar, French photographer, journalist, and author (d. 1910)
*1823 &ndash; Joseph Medill, Canadian-American publisher and politician, 26th Mayor of Chicago (d. 1899)
*1826 &ndash; Gustave Moreau, French painter (d. 1898)
*1841 &ndash; Karl Binding, German jurist and author (d. 1920)
*1851 &ndash; Guillaume Bigourdan, French astronomer (d. 1932)
*1855 &ndash; Charles Huot, Canadian painter and illustrator (d. 1930)
*1860 &ndash; René Lalique, French sculptor (d. 1945)
*1861 &ndash; Stanislas de Guaita, French poet (d. 1897)
*1864 &ndash; William Bate Hardy, English biochemist (d. 1934)
*1866 &ndash; Felix-Raymond-Marie Rouleau, Canadian cardinal (d. 1931)
*1869 &ndash; Levon Shant, Armenian author, poet, and playwright (d. 1951)
*1878 &ndash; Erich Mühsam, German author, poet, and playwright (d. 1934)
*1881 &ndash; Karl Staaf, Swedish pole vaulter and hammer thrower (d. 1953)
*1884 &ndash; Walter Huston, Canadian-American actor (d. 1950)
* 1884 &ndash; J. G. Parry-Thomas, Welsh race car driver and engineer (d. 1927)
*1886 &ndash; Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople (d. 1972)
* 1886 &ndash; Walter Dandy, American neurosurgeon (d. 1946)
* 1886 &ndash; Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII, Indian ruler (d. 1967)
*1888 &ndash; Hans Richter, Swiss painter, illustrator, and director (d. 1976)
* 1888 &ndash; Gerhard Ritter, German historian (d. 1967)
*1890 &ndash; Anthony Fokker, Dutch engineer and businessman, founded Fokker Aircraft Manufacturer (d. 1939)
*1892 &ndash; Donald Wills Douglas, Sr., American businessman, founded the Douglas Aircraft Company (d. 1981)
* 1892 &ndash; Lowell Thomas, American journalist (d. 1981)
*1894 &ndash; Gertrude Baines, American super-centenarian (d. 2009)
*1895 &ndash; Dudley Nichols, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1960)
*1898 &ndash; Jeanne Hébuterne, French painter (d. 1920)
*1900 &ndash; Leo Robin, American composer and songwriter (d. 1984)
*1901 &ndash; Pier Giorgio Frassati, Italian activist (d. 1925)
*1902 &ndash; Julien Torma, French author, poet, and playwright (d. 1933)
*1903 &ndash; Mickey Cochrane, American baseball player and manager (d. 1962)
* 1903 &ndash; Harold Eugene Edgerton, American engineer and academic (d. 1990)
*1904 &ndash; Kurt Georg Kiesinger, German politician, 3rd Chancellor of Germany (d. 1988)
*1908 &ndash; Marcel-Marie Desmarais, Canadian preacher, author, and broadcaster (d. 1994)
*1909 &ndash; William M. Branham, American minister (d. 1965)
* 1909 &ndash; Hermann Lang, German race car driver (d. 1987)
*1911 &ndash; Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
*1913 &ndash; Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune, North Korean-American geographer (d. 1993)
*1915 &ndash; Tadeusz Kantor, Polish director, painter, and set designer (d. 1990)
*1916 &ndash; Phil Leeds, American actor (d. 1998)
* 1916 &ndash; Vincent Ellis McKelvey, American geologist (d. 1987)
*1917 &ndash; Leonora Carrington, English-Mexican painter and author (d. 2011)
*1918 &ndash; Alfredo Ovando Candía, Bolivian general and politician, 56th President of Bolivia (d. 1982)
*1918 &ndash; Big Walter Horton, American harmonica player (d. 1981)
*1919 &ndash; Georgios Mylonas, Greek politician (d. 1998)
*1920 &ndash; Jack Cover, American pilot and physicist, invented the Taser gun (d. 2009)
* 1920 &ndash; Edmond H. Fischer, Chinese-American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
*1926 &ndash; Sergio Franchi, Italian-American singer and actor (d. 1990)
* 1926 &ndash; Gil Kane, Latvian-American author and illustrator (d. 2000)
* 1926 &ndash; Ian Paisley, Irish minister and politician, 2nd First Minister of Northern Ireland
*1927 &ndash; Gerry Mulligan, American saxophonist, clarinet player, and composer (d. 1996)
*1928 &ndash; James Watson, American biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, Nobel Prize laureate
*1929 &ndash; Willis Hall, English playwright and author (d. 2005)
* 1929 &ndash; Joi Lansing, American model, actress, and singer (d. 1972)
* 1929 &ndash; André Previn, German-American pianist, composer, and conductor
*1931 &ndash; Ram Dass, American author and educator
* 1931 &ndash; Ivan Dixon, American actor, director, and producer (d. 2008)
* 1931 &ndash; Suchitra Sen, Indian actress (d. 2014)
*1932 &ndash; Connie Broden, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2013)
* 1932 &ndash; Helmut Griem, German actor and director (d. 2004)
*1933 &ndash; Roy Goode, English lawyer and academic
* 1933 &ndash; Tom C. Korologos, American diplomat, United States Ambassador to Belgium
* 1933 &ndash; Eduardo Malapit, American politician, Mayor of Kauai (d. 2007)
* 1933 &ndash; Dudley Sutton, English actor
*1934 &ndash; Enrique Álvarez Félix, Mexican actor (d. 1996)
* 1934 &ndash; Anton Geesink, Dutch martial artist (d. 2010)
* 1934 &ndash; Guy Peellaert, Belgian painter, illustrator, and photographer (d. 2008)
*1935 &ndash; Douglas Hill, Canadian author (d. 2007)
*1936 &ndash; Helen Berman, Dutch-Israeli painter and illustrator
* 1936 &ndash; Jean-Pierre Changeux, French biologist
*1937 &ndash; Merle Haggard, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Strangers and The Buckaroos)
* 1937 &ndash; Terrence Hardiman, English actor
* 1937 &ndash; Peter Maivia, Samoan-American wrestler (d. 1982)
* 1937 &ndash; Billy Dee Williams, American actor and singer
*1938 &ndash; Paul Daniels, English magician
* 1938 &ndash; Roy Thinnes, American actor
*1939 &ndash; André Ouellet, Canadian politician, 1st Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada
* 1939 &ndash; John Sculley, American businessman
*1940 &ndash; Homero Aridjis, Mexican journalist, author, and poet
* 1940 &ndash; Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., Mexican-American actor (d. 2011)
*1941 &ndash; Christopher Allsopp, English economist
* 1941 &ndash; Phil Austin, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter
* 1941 &ndash; Hans W. Geißendörfer, German director and producer
* 1941 &ndash; Don Prudhomme, American race car driver
* 1941 &ndash; Gheorghe Zamfir, Romanian flute player and composer
*1942 &ndash; Barry Levinson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
*1943 &ndash; Max Clifford, English journalist and publicist
* 1943 &ndash; Roger Cook, New Zealand-English journalist and academic
* 1943 &ndash; Mitchell Melton, American politician (d. 2013)
*1944 &ndash; Anita Pallenberg, Italian-English model, actress, and fashion designer
* 1944 &ndash; Felicity Palmer, English soprano and educator
*1945 &ndash; Rodney Bickerstaffe, English union leader
* 1945 &ndash; Neal Boortz, American radio host and author
* 1945 &ndash; Peter Hill, English journalist
*1946 &ndash; Paul Beresford, New Zealand-English dentist and politician
*1947 &ndash; John Ratzenberger, American actor
* 1947 &ndash; André Weinfeld, French-American director, producer, and screenwriter
* 1947 &ndash; Mike Worboys, English mathematician and computer scientist
*1948 &ndash; Patrika Darbo, American actress
*1949 &ndash; Alyson Bailes, English-Irish academic and diplomat
* 1949 &ndash; Patrick Hernandez, French singer-songwriter
* 1949 &ndash; Horst Ludwig Störmer, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
*1950 &ndash; Cleo Odzer, American author (d. 2001)
*1951 &ndash; Bert Blyleven, Dutch-American baseball player and sportscaster
* 1951 &ndash; Jean-Marc Boivin, French skier, mountaineer, and pilot (d. 1990)
* 1951 &ndash; Pascal Rogé, French pianist
*1952 &ndash; Udo Dirkschneider, German singer-songwriter (Accept and U.D.O.)
* 1952 &ndash; Marilu Henner, American actress, producer, and author
* 1952 &ndash; Michel Larocque, Canadian ice hockey player and manager (d. 1992)
*1953 &ndash; Patrick Doyle, Scottish actor and composer
* 1953 &ndash; Christopher Franke, German-American drummer and songwriter (Tangerine Dream and Agitation Free)
*1955 &ndash; Rob Epstein, American director and producer
* 1955 &ndash; Keith Hunter Jesperson, Canadian-American serial killer
* 1955 &ndash; Cathy Jones, Canadian comedian and actor
* 1955 &ndash; Blind Mississippi Morris, American singer and harmonica player
* 1955 &ndash; Michael Rooker, American actor
*1956 &ndash; Michele Bachmann, American politician
* 1956 &ndash; Normand Corbeil, Canadian composer (d. 2013)
* 1956 &ndash; Lee Scott, English politician
* 1956 &ndash; Sebastian Spreng, Argentinian-American painter and journalist
* 1956 &ndash; Dilip Vengsarkar, Indian cricketer
*1957 &ndash; Jaroslava Maxová, Czech soprano
* 1957 &ndash; Paolo A. Nespoli, Italian soldier, engineer, and astronaut
*1958 &ndash; Graeme Base, Australian author and illustrator
*1959 &ndash; Gail Shea, Canadian politician
*1960 &ndash; Batem, Congolese-Belgian illustrator
* 1960 &ndash; Adriana Altaras, Croatian-German actress and director
* 1960 &ndash; Warren Haynes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule, and The Dead)
* 1960 &ndash; John Pizzarelli, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
*1961 &ndash; Rory Bremner, Scottish actor and screenwriter
* 1961 &ndash; Peter Jackson, English footballer and manager
*1962 &ndash; Iris Häussler, German sculptor
* 1962 &ndash; Marco Schällibaum, Swiss footballer, coach, and manager
*1963 &ndash; Rafael Correa, Ecuadorian politician, 54th President of Ecuador
*1964 &ndash; Phil Gayle, English journalist
*1965 &ndash; Black Francis, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Pixies and Grand Duchy)
* 1965 &ndash; Sterling Sharpe, American football player
* 1965 &ndash; Lieve Slegers, Belgian runner
*1966 &ndash; Vince Flynn, American author (d. 2013)
* 1966 &ndash; Young Man Kang, South Korean-American director and producer
*1967 &ndash; Julian Anderson, English composer and educator
* 1967 &ndash; Tanya Byron, English psychologist and academic
* 1967 &ndash; Jonathan Firth, English actor
* 1967 &ndash; Mika Koivuniemi, Finnish-American bowler
*1968 &ndash; Affonso Giaffone, Brazilian race car driver
*1969 &ndash; Bret Boone, American baseball player and manager
* 1969 &ndash; Jack Canfora, American actor, singer, and playwright
* 1969 &ndash; Bison Dele, American basketball player (d. 2002)
* 1969 &ndash; Ari Meyers, Puerto Rican-American actress
* 1969 &ndash; Philipp Peter, Austrian race car driver
* 1969 &ndash; Paul Rudd, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
* 1969 &ndash; Louie Spence, English dancer and choreographer
* 1969 &ndash; Spencer Wells, American geneticist and anthropologist
*1970 &ndash; Olaf Kölzig, South African-German ice hockey player and coach
* 1970 &ndash; Roy Mayorga, American drummer, songwriter, and producer (Stone Sour, Soulfly, Amebix, Black President, and Nausea)
* 1970 &ndash; Huang Xiaomin, Chinese swimmer
*1971 &ndash; Lou Merloni, American baseball player and radio host
* 1971 &ndash; Sanjay Suri, Indian actor and producer
*1972 &ndash; Scott Martin Brooks, American actor
* 1972 &ndash; Chad Eaton, American football player and coach
* 1972 &ndash; Jason Hervey, American actor and producer
* 1972 &ndash; Ami James, Israeli-American tattoo artist
* 1972 &ndash; Anders Thomas Jensen, Danish director and screenwriter
* 1972 &ndash; Dickey Simpkins, American basketball player
* 1972 &ndash; Jo Van Daele, Belgian discus thrower
*1973 &ndash; Donnie Edwards, American football player
* 1973 &ndash; Randall Godfrey, American football player
* 1973 &ndash; Lori Heuring, American actress
* 1973 &ndash; Joe Machine, English painter and poet
* 1973 &ndash; Rie Miyazawa, Japanese model and actress
* 1973 &ndash; Sun Wen, Chinese footballer
*1974 &ndash; Camilla Dallerup, Danish-English dancer and model
* 1974 &ndash; Flash Flanagan, American wrestler
* 1974 &ndash; Érica García, Argentinian-American singer-songwriter and actress (Fool's Gold)
* 1974 &ndash; Robert Kovač, Croatian footballer and coach
* 1974 &ndash; Jeff Tymoschuk, Canadian composer
* 1974 &ndash; Gina Yashere, English comedian and actor
*1975 &ndash; Zach Braff, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
* 1975 &ndash; Hal Gill, American ice hockey player
* 1975 &ndash; Sonia Lopes, Cape Verdean runner
* 1975 &ndash; Joel West, American actor
*1976 &ndash; Candace Cameron Bure, American actress and producer
* 1976 &ndash; James Fox, Welsh singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
* 1976 &ndash; Chris Hoke, American football player
* 1976 &ndash; Georg Hólm, Icelandic bass player (Sigur Rós)
* 1976 &ndash; Hirotada Ototake, Japanese author and educator
*1977 &ndash; Ville Nieminen, Finnish ice hockey player
* 1977 &ndash; Andy Phillips, American baseball player and coach
* 1977 &ndash; Teddy Sears, American actor
*1978 &ndash; Tim Hasselbeck, American football player and sportscaster
* 1978 &ndash; Myleene Klass, English singer, pianist, and model (Hear'Say)
* 1978 &ndash; Martin Mendez, Uruguayan bass player and songwriter (Opeth)
* 1978 &ndash; Blaine Neal, American baseball player
* 1978 &ndash; Igor Semshov, Russian footballer
* 1978 &ndash; Kendra Todd, American real estate agent and author
*1979 &ndash; Sam Atwell, Australian actor
* 1979 &ndash; Eilen Jewell, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
* 1979 &ndash; Christine Smith, American model and actress
* 1979 &ndash; Lord Frederick Windsor, English journalist and financier
*1980 &ndash; Matthew Carey, American actor
* 1980 &ndash; Tommi Evilä, Finnish long jumper
* 1980 &ndash; Tanja Poutiainen, Finnish skier
*1981 &ndash; Eliza Coupe, American actress
* 1981 &ndash; Robert Earnshaw, Zambian-Welsh footballer
* 1981 &ndash; Jeff Faine, American football player
* 1981 &ndash; Kari Jobe, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Gateway Worship)
* 1981 &ndash; Anastassia Morkovkina, Estonian footballer
* 1981 &ndash; Alex Suarez, American bass player (Cobra Starship and This Is Ivy League)
*1982 &ndash; Alana Austin, American actress
* 1982 &ndash; Sofia Boutella, Algerian-American dancer and actress
* 1982 &ndash; Michael Guy Chislett, Australian-American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (The Academy Is... and Hillsong United)
* 1982 &ndash; Herculez Gomez, American soccer player
* 1982 &ndash; Ilan Hall, American chef
* 1982 &ndash; Bret Harrison, American actor and singer
* 1982 &ndash; Travis Moen, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1982 &ndash; Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Spanish actor
* 1982 &ndash; Euclides Varela, Cape Verdean runner
*1983 &ndash; Diora Baird, American model and actress
* 1983 &ndash; Mehdi Ballouchy, Moroccan footballer
* 1983 &ndash; Jerome Kaino, New Zealand rugby player
* 1983 &ndash; Mitsuru Nagata, Japanese footballer
* 1983 &ndash; Remi Nicole, English singer-songwriter and actress
* 1983 &ndash; Jekaterina Patjuk, Estonian runner
* 1983 &ndash; Jade Seah, Singaporean model and actress
* 1983 &ndash; Bobbi Starr, American porn actress
* 1983 &ndash; James Wade, English darts player
* 1983 &ndash; Katie Weatherston, Canadian ice hockey player
*1984 &ndash; Max Bemis, American singer-songwriter (Say Anything, Two Tongues, and Max Bemis and the Painful Splits)
* 1984 &ndash; Michaël Ciani, French footballer
* 1984 &ndash; Siboniso Gaxa, South African footballer
*1985 &ndash; Clarke MacArthur, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1985 &ndash; Ali Mukaddam, Canadian actor, director, and producer
* 1985 &ndash; Frank Ongfiang, Cameroonian footballer
* 1985 &ndash; Sinqua Walls, American basketball player and actor
*1986 &ndash; Nikolas Asprogenis, Cypriot footballer
* 1986 &ndash; Aaron Curry, American football player
* 1986 &ndash; Ryota Moriwaki, Japanese footballer
* 1986 &ndash; Tara Osseck, American model, Miss Missouri 2009
*1987 &ndash; Benjamin Corgnet, French footballer
* 1987 &ndash; Heidi Mount, American model
* 1987 &ndash; Juan Adriel Ochoa, Mexican footballer
* 1987 &ndash; Levi Porter, English footballer
* 1987 &ndash; Hilary Rhoda, American model
*1988 &ndash; Jucilei, Brazilian footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Leigh Adams, Australian footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Mike Bailey, English actor and singer
* 1988 &ndash; Melisa Cantiveros, Filipino actress
* 1988 &ndash; Daniele Gasparetto, Italian footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Carlton Mitchell, American football player
* 1988 &ndash; Fabrice Muamba, Congolese-English footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Ivonne Orsini, Puerto Rician model, Miss World Puerto Rico 2008
*1989 &ndash; Katie Griffiths, English actress
* 1989 &ndash; Renārs Rode, Latvian footballer
* 1989 &ndash; Rigard van Klooster, Dutch cyclist and speed skater
*1990 &ndash; Charlie McDermott, American actor
* 1990 &ndash; Andrei Veis, Estonian footballer
*1994 &ndash; Adrián Alonso, Mexican actor
*1995 &ndash; Darya Lebesheva, Belarusian tennis player
* 1995 &ndash; Ryutaro Morimoto, Japanese actor and singer (Hey! Say! JUMP)
* 1998 &ndash; Peyton List, American actress
* 1998 &ndash; Spencer List, American actor
*1999 &ndash; Kwesi Boakye, American actor
*2000 &ndash; CJ Adams, American actor

==Deaths==
* 885 &ndash; Saint Methodius, Byzantine missionary and saint (b. 815)
*1147 &ndash; Frederick II, Duke of Swabia (b. 1090)
*1199 &ndash; Richard I of England (b. 1157)
*1340 &ndash; Basil of Trebizond
*1362 &ndash; James I, Count of La Marche (b. 1319)
*1490 &ndash; Matthias Corvinus, Hungarian king (b. 1443)
*1520 &ndash; Raphael, Italian painter and architect (b. 1483)
*1528 &ndash; Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (b. 1471)
*1551 &ndash; Joachim Vadian, Swiss scholar and politician (b. 1484)
*1571 &ndash; John Hamilton, Scottish archbishop (b. 1512)
*1590 &ndash; Francis Walsingham, English politician (b. 1532)
*1605 &ndash; John Stow, English historian (b. 1525)
*1655 &ndash; David Blondel, French clergyman and scholar (b. 1591)
*1686 &ndash; Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Anglesey, Irish-English politician (b. 1614)
*1707 &ndash; Willem van de Velde the Younger, Dutch painter (b. 1633)
*1755 &ndash; Richard Rawlinson, English minister and historian (b. 1690)
*1790 &ndash; Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (b. 1719)
*1825 &ndash; Vladimir Borovikovsky, Ukrainian-Russian painter (b. 1757)
*1829 &ndash; Niels Henrik Abel, Norwegian mathematician (b. 1802)
*1833 &ndash; Adamantios Korais, Greek scholar (b. 1748)
*1838 &ndash; José Bonifácio de Andrada, Brazilian politician (b. 1763)
*1860 &ndash; James Kirke Paulding, American author and politician, 11th United States Secretary of the Navy (b. 1778)
*1862 &ndash; Albert Sidney Johnston, American general (b. 1803)
*1883 &ndash; Benjamin Wright Raymond, American politician, 3rd Mayor of Chicago (b. 1801)
*1899 &ndash; Alvan Wentworth Chapman, American physician and botanist (b. 1809)
*1906 &ndash; Alexander Kielland, Norwegian author (b. 1849)
*1935 &ndash; Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (b. 1869)
*1947 &ndash; Herbert Backe, German politician (b. 1896)
*1950 &ndash; Louis Wilkins, American pole vaulter (b. 1882)
*1953 &ndash; Idris Davies, Welsh poet (b. 1905)
*1959 &ndash; Leo Aryeh Mayer, Israeli scholar (b. 1895)
*1961 &ndash; Jules Bordet, Belgian microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1870)
*1963 &ndash; Otto Struve, Russian-American astronomer (b. 1897)
*1970 &ndash; Sam Sheppard, American physician (b. 1923)
* 1970 &ndash; Maurice Stokes, American basketball player (b. 1933)
*1971 &ndash; Igor Stravinsky, Russian-American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1882)
*1974 &ndash; Willem Marinus Dudok, Dutch architect (b. 1884)
* 1974 &ndash; Hudson Fysh, Australian pilot and businessman, co-founded Qantas Airways Limited (b. 1895)
*1977 &ndash; Kōichi Kido, Japanese politician, 13th Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan (b. 1889)
*1979 &ndash; Ivan Vasilyov, Bulgarian architect, designed the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library (b. 1893)
*1984 &ndash; Ral Donner, American singer (b. 1943)
*1992 &ndash; Isaac Asimov, Russian-American author and educator (b. 1920)
*1994 &ndash; Juvénal Habyarimana, Rwandan politician, 3rd President of Rwanda (b. 1937)
* 1994 &ndash; Cyprien Ntaryamira, Burundian politician, 5th President of Burundi (b. 1956)
*1995 &ndash; Ioannis Alevras, Greek politician, President of Greece (b. 1912)
*1996 &ndash; Greer Garson, English-American actress (b. 1904)
*1998 &ndash; Norbert Schmitz, German footballer (b. 1958)
* 1998 &ndash; Wendy O. Williams, American singer-songwriter (Plasmatics) (b. 1949)
* 1998 &ndash; Tammy Wynette, American singer-songwriter (b. 1942)
*1999 &ndash; Red Norvo, American vibraphone player and composer (b. 1908)
*2000 &ndash; Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian politician, 1st President of Tunisia (b. 1903)
*2001 &ndash; Charles Pettigrew, American singer-songwriter (Charles & Eddie) (b. 1963)
*2003 &ndash; David Bloom, American journalist (b. 1963)
* 2003 &ndash; Gerald Emmett Carter, Canadian cardinal (b. 1912)
* 2003 &ndash; Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian drummer, educator, and activist (b. 1927)
*2004 &ndash; Lou Berberet, American baseball player (b. 1929)
* 2004 &ndash; Larisa Bogoraz, Russian linguist and activist (b. 1929)
* 2004 &ndash; Niki Sullivan, American guitarist (The Crickets) (b. 1937)
*2005 &ndash; Rainier III, Prince of Monaco (b. 1923)
*2006 &ndash; Maggie Dixon, American basketball player and coach (b. 1977)
* 2006 &ndash; Francis L. Kellogg, American diplomat (b. 1917)
* 2006 &ndash; Stefanos Stratigos, Greek actor (b. 1926)
*2007 &ndash; Luigi Comencini, Italian director and producer (b. 1916)
*2009 &ndash; J. M. S. Careless, Canadian historian (b. 1919)
* 2009 &ndash; Shawn Mackay, Australian rugby player (b. 1982)
*2010 &ndash; Wilma Mankiller, American tribal leader (b. 1945)
* 2010 &ndash; Neva Morris, American super-centenarian (b. 1895)
* 2010 &ndash; Corin Redgrave, English actor (b. 1939)
*2011 &ndash; Sujatha, Indian actress (b. 1952)
* 2011 &ndash; Nabi Bux Khan Baloch, Pakistani scholar (b. 1917)
* 2011 &ndash; Gerald Finnerman, American cinematographer (b. 1931)
*2012 &ndash; Roland Guilbault, American admiral (b. 1934)
* 2012 &ndash; Thomas Kinkade, American painter (b. 1958)
* 2012 &ndash; Fang Lizhi, Chinese astrophysicist and academic (b. 1936)
* 2012 &ndash; Michael Sands, American model, actor, and publicist (b. 1945)
* 2012 &ndash; Sheila Scotter, Australian fashion designer and journalist (b. 1920)
* 2012 &ndash; Reed Whittemore, American poet and critic (b. 1919)
*2013 &ndash; Hilda Bynoe, Grenadian politician, 2nd Governor of Grenada (b. 1921)
* 2013 &ndash; Johnny Esaw, Canadian sportscaster (b. 1925)
* 2013 &ndash; Bill Guttridge, English footballer and manager (b. 1931)
* 2013 &ndash; Bigas Luna, Spanish director and screenwriter (b. 1946)
* 2013 &ndash; Michael Norgrove, Zambian-English boxer (b. 1981)
* 2013 &ndash; Miguel Poblet, Spanish cyclist (b. 1928)
* 2013 &ndash; Ottmar Schreiner, German lawyer and politician (b. 1946)
*2014 &ndash; Mary Anderson, American actress (b. 1918)
* 2014 &ndash; Jacques Castérède, French pianist and composer (b. 1926)
* 2014 &ndash; Liv Dommersnes, Norwegian actress (b. 1922)
* 2014 &ndash; Erzsi Kovács, Hungarian singer (b. 1928)
* 2014 &ndash; Mickey Rooney, American actor, singer, director, and producer (b. 1920)
* 2014 &ndash; Chuck Stone, American soldier, journalist, and academic (b. 1924)
* 2014 &ndash; Massimo Tamburini, Italian motorcycle designer (b. 1943)

==Holidays and observances==
*Birth of Jesus according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
*Chakri Day, commemorating the reign of the Chakri Dynasty. (Thailand)
*Christian Feast Day:
**Brychan
**Eutychius of Constantinople (Byzantine Church)
**Marcellinus of Carthage
**Pope Celestine I (Roman Catholic Church)
**Pope Sixtus I
**April 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
*Tartan Day (United States & Canada)

==External links==

* International Day of Sport for Development and Peace
* BBC: On This Day
* 
* On This Day in Canada



[[April 12]]

==Events==
* 238 &ndash; Gordian II loses the Battle of Carthage against the Numidian forces loyal to Maximinus Thrax and is killed. Gordian I, his father, commits suicide.
* 240 &ndash; Shapur I is crowned as king of the Sasanian Empire.
* 467 &ndash; Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
* 627 &ndash; King Edwin of Northumbria is converted to Christianity by Paulinus, bishop of York.
*1204 &ndash; The Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade breach the walls of Constantinople and enter the city, which they completely occupy the following day.
*1606 &ndash; The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of English and Scottish ships.
*1776 &ndash; American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.
*1820 &ndash; Alexander Ypsilantis is declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.
*1831 &ndash; Soldiers marching on the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, England cause it to collapse.
*1861 &ndash; American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
*1862 &ndash; American Civil War: The Andrews Raid (the Great Locomotive Chase) occurs, starting from Big Shanty, Georgia (now Kennesaw).
*1864 &ndash; American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces kill most of the African American soldiers that surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
*1865 &ndash; American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama, falls to the Union Army.
*1877 &ndash; The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
*1910 &ndash; , one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, is launched.
*1917 &ndash; World War I: Canadian forces successfully complete the taking of Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
*1927 &ndash; April 12 Incident: Chiang Kai-shek orders the Communist Party of China members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.
*1928 &ndash; The Bremen, a German Junkers W33 type aircraft, takes off for the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
*1934 &ndash; The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
* 1934 &ndash; The U.S. Auto-Lite Strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.
*1935 &ndash; First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.
*1937 &ndash; Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
*1945 &ndash; U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.
*1955 &ndash; The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.
*1961 &ndash; The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
*1963 &ndash; The Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits.
*1970 &ndash; Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.
*1980 &ndash; Samuel Doe takes control of Liberia in a coup d'état, ending over 130 years of minority Americo-Liberian rule over the country.
* 1980 &ndash; Terry Fox begins his "Marathon of Hope" at St. John's, Newfoundland.
*1981 &ndash; The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia) takes place - the STS-1 mission.
*1990 &ndash; Jim Gary's "Twentieth Century Dinosaurs" exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
*1992 &ndash; The Euro Disney Resort officially opens with its theme park Euro Disneyland. The resort and its park's name are subsequently changed to Disneyland Paris.
*1994 &ndash; Canter & Siegel post the first commercial mass Usenet spam.
*1998 &ndash; An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale occurs near the town of Bovec.
*1999 &ndash; US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
*2002 &ndash; A female suicide bomber blows herself up at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing 7 and wounding 104.
*2007 &ndash; A suicide bomber penetrates the Green Zone and detonates in a cafeteria within a parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad and wounding more than twenty other people.
*2009 &ndash; Zimbabwe officially abandons the Zimbabwe Dollar as its official currency.
*2010 &ndash; A train derails near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.
*2014 &ndash; A wildfire ravages the Chilean city of Valparaíso, killing 16, displacing nearly 10,000, and destroying over 2,000 homes.

==Births==
*1484 &ndash; Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Italian architect, designed the Apostolic Palace and St. Peter's Basilica (d. 1546)
*1500 &ndash; Joachim Camerarius, German scholar (d. 1574)
*1526 &ndash; Muretus, French philosopher (d. 1585)
*1550 &ndash; Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, English courtier and politician, Lord Great Chamberlain (d. 1604)
*1577 &ndash; Christian IV of Denmark (d. 1648)
*1705 &ndash; William Cookworthy, English minister and pharmacist (d. 1780)
*1710 &ndash; Caffarelli, Italian opera singer (d. 1783)
*1713 &ndash; Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French author (d. 1796)
*1716 &ndash; Felice Giardini, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1796)
*1722 &ndash; Pietro Nardini, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1793)
*1724 &ndash; Lyman Hall, American physician, clergyman, and politician, 16th Governor of Georgia (d. 1790)
*1748 &ndash; Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, French botanist (d. 1836)
*1777 &ndash; Henry Clay, American lawyer and politician, 9th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852)
*1792 &ndash; John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, English politician, Lord Privy Seal (d. 1840)
*1794 &ndash; Germinal Pierre Dandelin, Belgian mathematician and engineer (d. 1847)
*1796 &ndash; George N. Briggs, American lawyer and politician, 19th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1861)
*1799 &ndash; Henri Druey, Swiss politician (d. 1855)
*1801 &ndash; Joseph Lanner, Austrian composer and conductor (d. 1843)
*1823 &ndash; Alexander Ostrovsky, Russian playwright (d. 1886)
*1839 &ndash; Nikolay Przhevalsky, Russian geographer (d. 1888)
*1848 &ndash; José Gautier Benítez, Puerto Rican poet (d. 1880)
*1851 &ndash; Edward Walter Maunder, English astronomer (d. 1928)
*1852 &ndash; Ferdinand von Lindemann, German mathematician (d. 1939)
*1856 &ndash; Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington, English mountaineer, cartographer, and politician (d. 1937)
*1866 &ndash; Princess Viktoria of Prussia (d. 1929)
*1868 &ndash; Akiyama Saneyuki, Japanese admiral (d. 1918)
* 1868 &ndash; Ella Gaunt Smith, American businesswoman (d. 1932)
*1869 &ndash; Henri Désiré Landru, French serial killer (d. 1922)
*1871 &ndash; Ioannis Metaxas, Greek general and politician, 130th Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1941)
*1874 &ndash; William B. Bankhead, American politician, 47th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1940)
*1880 &ndash; Addie Joss, American baseball player (d. 1911)
*1883 &ndash; Dally Messenger, Australian rugby player (d. 1959)
*1884 &ndash; Tenby Davies, Welsh runner (d. 1932)
* 1884 &ndash; Otto Meyerhof, German physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
*1885 &ndash; Robert Delaunay, French painter (d. 1941)
*1887 &ndash; Harold Lockwood, American actor (d. 1918)
*1888 &ndash; Kaarlo Koskelo, Finnish wrestler (d. 1953)
* 1888 &ndash; Heinrich Neuhaus, Ukrainian-Russian pianist (d. 1964)
*1892 &ndash; Johnny Dodds, American clarinet player and saxophonist (d. 1940)
*1893 &ndash; Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
*1894 &ndash; Francisco Craveiro Lopes, Portuguese field marshal and politician, 13th President of Portugal (d. 1964)
*1898 &ndash; Lily Pons, French-American soprano and actress (d. 1976)
*1901 &ndash; Lowell Stockman, American politician (d. 1962)
*1902 &ndash; Louis Beel, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1977)
*1903 &ndash; Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
*1907 &ndash; Felix de Weldon, Austrian-American sculptor, designed the Marine Corps War Memorial (d. 2003)
* 1907 &ndash; Hardie Gramatky, American author and painter (d. 1979)
*1908 &ndash; Ida Pollock, British writer (d. 2013)
* 1908 &ndash; Robert Lee Scott, Jr., American pilot and general (d. 2006)
*1911 &ndash; Mahmoud Younis, Egyptian engineer (d. 1976)
*1912 &ndash; Frank Dilio, Canadian businessman (d. 1997)
* 1912 &ndash; Walt Gorney, American actor (d. 2004)
* 1912 &ndash; Hamengkubuwono IX, Indonesian politician, 2nd Vice President of Indonesia (d. 1988)
* 1912 &ndash; Hound Dog Taylor, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1975)
*1913 &ndash; Keiko Fukuda, Japanese-American martial artist (d. 2013)
*1914 &ndash; Armen Alchian, American economist (d. 2013)
*1916 &ndash; Beverly Cleary, American author
* 1916 &ndash; Russell Garcia, American-New Zealand composer (d. 2011)
* 1916 &ndash; Benjamin Libet, American neuropsychologist and academic (d. 2007)
*1917 &ndash; Helen Forrest, American singer (d. 1999)
*1919 &ndash; István Anhalt, Hungarian-Canadian composer (d. 2012)
* 1919 &ndash; Billy Vaughn, American singer and bandleader (d. 1991)
*1921 &ndash; Robert Cliche, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (d. 1978)
*1922 &ndash; Simon Kapwepwe, Zambian politician, 2nd Vice President of Zambia (d. 1980)
*1923 &ndash; Ann Miller, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2004)
*1924 &ndash; Raymond Barre, French economist and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 2007)
* 1924 &ndash; Peter Safar, Austrian physician (d. 2003)
*1925 &ndash; Joe Bowman, American target shooter and boot maker (d. 2009)
* 1925 &ndash; Ned Miller, American singer-songwriter
* 1925 &ndash; Oliver Postgate, English animator, puppeteer, and screenwriter (d. 2008)
*1927 &ndash; Thomas Hemsley, English opera singer (d. 2013)
*1928 &ndash; Hardy Krüger, German actor
* 1928 &ndash; Jean-François Paillard, French conductor (d. 2013)
*1929 &ndash; Elspet Gray, Scottish actress (d. 2013)
* 1929 &ndash; Mukhran Machavariani, Georgian poet (d. 2010)
*1930 &ndash; Manuel Neri, American sculptor and painter
* 1930 &ndash; Michał Życzkowski, Polish technician and educator (d. 2006)
* 1930 &ndash; Bryan Magee, English philosopher and politician
*1931 &ndash; Leonid Derbenyov, Russian poet and songwriter (d. 1995)
*1932 &ndash; Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician, 5th Minister of Foreign Affairs for Sri Lanka (d. 2005)
* 1932 &ndash; Jean-Pierre Marielle, French actor
* 1932 &ndash; Julio Ojeda Pascual, Spanish-Peruvian bishop (d. 2013)
* 1932 &ndash; Tiny Tim, American singer and ukulele player (d. 1996)
*1933 &ndash; Montserrat Caballé, Spanish soprano and actress
*1934 &ndash; Heinz Schneiter, Swiss footballer and manager
*1935 &ndash; Jimmy Makulis, Greek singer (d. 2007)
* 1935 &ndash; Wendy Savage, English gynaecologist and activist
*1936 &ndash; Charles Napier, American actor (d. 2011)
*1937 &ndash; Dennis Banks, American author and activist
* 1937 &ndash; Igor Volk, Ukrainian-Russian colonel, pilot, and astronaut
*1939 &ndash; Alan Ayckbourn, English director and playwright
* 1939 &ndash; Johnny Raper, Australian rugby player and coach
*1940 &ndash; Bashir Ahmad, Indian-Bangladeshi singer (d. 2014)
* 1940 &ndash; John Hagee, American pastor
* 1940 &ndash; Herbie Hancock, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (Miles Davis Quintet)
*1941 &ndash; Bobby Moore, English footballer and manager (d. 1993)
*1942 &ndash; Frank Bank, American actor (d. 2013)
* 1942 &ndash; Bill Bryden, Scottish actor, director, and screenwriter
* 1942 &ndash; Carlos Reutemann, Argentinian race car driver and politician, Governor of Santa Fe
* 1942 &ndash; Jacob Zuma, South African politician, 4th President of South Africa
*1944 &ndash; Georgios Balanos, Greek author
* 1944 &ndash; Lisa Jardine, English historian, author, and academic
* 1944 &ndash; John Kay, German-Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (The Sparrows and Steppenwolf)
*1945 &ndash; Lee Jong-wook, South Korean physician (d. 2006)
*1946 &ndash; Ed O'Neill, American actor
* 1946 &ndash; George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, Scottish politician and diplomat, 10th Secretary General of NATO
*1947 &ndash; Roy M. Anderson, English epidemiologist, zoologist, and academic
* 1947 &ndash; Alex Briley, American singer (Village People)
* 1947 &ndash; Tom Clancy, American author (d. 2013)
* 1947 &ndash; Woody Johnson, American businessman and philanthropist
* 1947 &ndash; Dan Lauria, American actor
* 1947 &ndash; David Letterman, American comedian and talk show host
* 1947 &ndash; Wayne Northrop, American actor
*1948 &ndash; Jeremy Beadle, English television host and producer (d. 2008)
* 1948 &ndash; Don Fernando, American porn actor and director
* 1948 &ndash; Joschka Fischer, German politician, Vice Chancellor of Germany
* 1948 &ndash; Marcello Lippi, Italian footballer, manager, and coach
* 1948 &ndash; Lois Reeves, American singer (Martha and the Vandellas)
*1949 &ndash; Scott Turow, American lawyer and author
*1950 &ndash; Flavio Briatore, Italian businessman
* 1950 &ndash; David Cassidy, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
* 1950 &ndash; Nick Sackman, English composer
*1951 &ndash; Tom Noonan, American actor, director, and screenwriter
*1952 &ndash; Reuben Gant, American football player
* 1952 &ndash; Gary Soto, American author and poet
* 1952 &ndash; Ralph Wiley, American journalist (d. 2004)
*1953 &ndash; Tanino Liberatore, Italian comics author and illustrator
*1954 &ndash; John Faulkner, Australian politician, 52nd Minister of Defence for Australia
* 1954 &ndash; Jon Krakauer, American author
* 1954 &ndash; Pat Travers, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
*1955 &ndash; Fabian Hamilton, English politician
*1956 &ndash; Andy García, Cuban-American actor
* 1956 &ndash; Herbert Grönemeyer, German singer-songwriter and actor
*1957 &ndash; Greg Child, Australian mountaineer and author
* 1957 &ndash; Vince Gill, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Pure Prairie League and The Notorious Cherry Bombs)
*1958 &ndash; J. Alexander, American-French model
* 1958 &ndash; Will Sergeant, English guitarist (Echo & the Bunnymen and Electrafixion)
*1959 &ndash; Howard Stableford, English radio and television host
* 1959 &ndash; Tracy Tormé, American screenwriter and producer
*1960 &ndash; Ron MacLean, Canadian sportscaster
*1961 &ndash; Enedina Arellano Félix, Mexican drug lord
* 1961 &ndash; Corrado Fabi, Italian race car driver
* 1961 &ndash; Lisa Gerrard, Australian singer-songwriter (Dead Can Dance)
* 1961 &ndash; Charles Mann, American football player
* 1961 &ndash; Magda Szubanski, English-Australian actress
*1962 &ndash; Art Alexakis, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (Everclear, Colorfinger, and The Easy Hoes)
* 1962 &ndash; Carlos Sainz, Spanish race car driver
* 1962 &ndash; Nobuhiko Takada, Japanese mixed martial artist and wrestler
*1963 &ndash; Lydia Cacho, Mexican journalist
*1964 &ndash; Amy Ray, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Indigo Girls)
* 1964 &ndash; Mark Simmonds, English politician
*1965 &ndash; Kim Bodnia, Danish actor
* 1965 &ndash; Tom O'Brien, American actor and producer
* 1965 &ndash; Chi Onwurah, English politician
* 1965 &ndash; Mihai Stoica, Romanian footballer and manager
*1967 &ndash; Sarah Cracknell, English singer-songwriter (Saint Etienne)
* 1967 &ndash; Mellow Man Ace, Cuban-American rapper (Cypress Hill)
*1968 &ndash; Alicia Coppola, American actress
* 1968 &ndash; Toby Gad, German-American songwriter and producer
* 1968 &ndash; Adam Graves, Canadian ice hockey player
*1969 &ndash; Jörn Lenz, German footballer and manager
* 1969 &ndash; Lucas Radebe, South African footballer
*1970 &ndash; Sylvain Bouchard, Canadian speed skater
*1971 &ndash; Nicholas Brendon, American actor
* 1971 &ndash; Shannen Doherty, American actress, director, and producer
* 1971 &ndash; Eyal Golan, Israeli singer
* 1971 &ndash; Nick Hexum, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (311)
*1972 &ndash; Şebnem Ferah, Turkish singer-songwriter and guitarist
* 1972 &ndash; Dimitrios Kokotis, Greek high jumper
* 1972 &ndash; Paul Lo Duca, American baseball player
*1973 &ndash; J. Scott Campbell, American author and illustrator
* 1973 &ndash; Claudia Jordan, American model and actress
* 1973 &ndash; Ryan Kisor, American trumpet player and composer
* 1973 &ndash; Christina Moore, American actress
* 1973 &ndash; Antonio Osuna, Mexican-American baseball player
*1974 &ndash; Sylvinho, Brazilian footballer and manager
* 1974 &ndash; Belinda Emmett, Australian actress and singer (d. 2006)
* 1974 &ndash; Roman Hamrlík, Czech ice hockey player
* 1974 &ndash; Marley Shelton, American actress
*1976 &ndash; Brad Miller, American basketball player
*1977 &ndash; Giovanny Espinoza, Ecuadorian footballer
* 1977 &ndash; Sarah Jane Morris, American actress
* 1977 &ndash; Jason Price, Welsh footballer
* 1977 &ndash; Glenn Rogers, Australian-Scottish cricketer
* 1977 &ndash; Jordana Spiro, American actress
*1978 &ndash; Guy Berryman, Scottish bass player and producer (Coldplay and Apparatjik)
* 1978 &ndash; Cheeming Boey, Singaporean-Malaysian illustrator
* 1978 &ndash; Scott Crary, American director, producer, and screenwriter
* 1978 &ndash; Riley Smith, American actor and singer
* 1978 &ndash; Robin Walker, English politician
*1979 &ndash; Claire Danes, American actress
* 1979 &ndash; Jordan De Jong, American baseball player
* 1979 &ndash; Elena Grosheva, Russian gymnast
* 1979 &ndash; Mateja Kežman, Serbian footballer
* 1979 &ndash; Jennifer Morrison, American actress and producer
* 1979 &ndash; Paul Nicholls, English actor
* 1979 &ndash; Cristian Ranalli, Italian footballer
*1980 &ndash; Argo Aadli, Estonian actor
* 1980 &ndash; Brian McFadden, Irish singer-songwriter (Westlife)
* 1980 &ndash; Erik Mongrain, Canadian guitarist and composer
*1981 &ndash; Nicolás Burdisso, Argentinian footballer
* 1981 &ndash; Grant Holt, English footballer
* 1981 &ndash; Brian Vandborg, Danish cyclist
*1982 &ndash; Deen, Bosnian singer
* 1982 &ndash; Easton Corbin, American singer-songwriter
*1983 &ndash; Jelena Dokic, Serbian-Australian tennis player
* 1983 &ndash; Genta Ismajli, Kosovan-Albanian singer-songwriter and actress
* 1983 &ndash; Dwayne Smith, Barbadian cricketer
*1985 &ndash; James Alexandrou, English actor
* 1985 &ndash; Brennan Boesch, American baseball player
* 1985 &ndash; Jeísa Chiminazzo, Brazilian model
* 1985 &ndash; Ted Ginn, Jr., American football player
* 1985 &ndash; Anna-Katharina Samsel, German actress
* 1985 &ndash; Olga Seryabkina, Russian singer-songwriter (Serebro)
* 1985 &ndash; Hitomi Yoshizawa, Japanese singer (Morning Musume, Dream Morning Musume, and Hangry & Angry)
*1986 &ndash; Lorena, Spanish singer
* 1986 &ndash; Blerim Džemaili, Swiss footballer
* 1986 &ndash; Marcel Granollers, Spanish tennis player
* 1986 &ndash; Athena Lundberg, American model
*1987 &ndash; Brooklyn Decker, American model and actress
* 1987 &ndash; Shawn Gore, Canadian football player
* 1987 &ndash; Brendon Urie, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Panic at the Disco)
*1988 &ndash; Ricardo Gabriel Álvarez, Argentinian footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Stephen Brogan, English footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Amedeo Calliari, Italian footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Jessie James, American singer-songwriter
* 1988 &ndash; April Rose Pengilly, Australian model and actress
*1989 &ndash; T. Mills, American rapper
* 1989 &ndash; Miguel Ángel Ponce, American-Mexican footballer
* 1989 &ndash; Dominic Roco, Filipino actor
* 1989 &ndash; Felix Roco, Filipino actor
* 1989 &ndash; Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian-American ice dancer
*1990 &ndash; Francesca Halsall, English swimmer
*1991 &ndash; Torey Krug, American ice hockey player
* 1991 &ndash; Oliver Norwood, Irish footballer
* 1991 &ndash; Magnus Pääjärvi, Swedish ice hockey player
* 1991 &ndash; Jazz Richards, Welsh footballer
*1992 &ndash; Giorgio Cantarini, Italian actor
*1993 &ndash; Dorial Green-Beckham, American football player
* 1993 &ndash; Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1993 &ndash; Katelyn Pippy, American actress
*1994 &ndash; Isabelle Drummond, Brazilian actress
* 1994 &ndash; Saoirse Ronan, American-Irish actress
* 1994 &ndash; Airi Suzuki, Japanese actress and singer (Aa!, Cute, and Buono!)
*1996 &ndash; Elizaveta Kulichkova, Russian tennis player
*1997 &ndash; Katelyn Ohashi, American gymnast
*1999 &ndash; Akai Osei, English dancer
*2000 &ndash; Suzanna von Nathusius, Polish actress

==Deaths==
*45 BC &ndash; Gnaeus Pompeius, Roman general and politician (b. 75 BC)
* 238 &ndash; Gordian I, Roman emperor (b. 159)
* 238 &ndash; Gordian II, Roman emperor (b. 192)
* 352 &ndash; Pope Julius I
* 434 &ndash; Archbishop Maximianus of Constantinople
*1125 &ndash; Vladislaus I, Duke of Bohemia (b. 1065)
*1443 &ndash; Henry Chichele, English archbishop (b. 1364)
*1550 &ndash; Claude, Duke of Guise (b. 1496)
*1555 &ndash; Joanna of Castile (b. 1479)
*1675 &ndash; Richard Bennett, English politician, Governor of Virginia (b. 1609)
*1684 &ndash; Nicola Amati, Italian instrument maker (b. 1596)
*1687 &ndash; Ambrose Dixon, English-American soldier (b. 1619)
*1704 &ndash; Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, French bishop (b. 1627)
*1748 &ndash; William Kent, English architect, designed Holkham Hall and Chiswick House (b. 1685)
*1782 &ndash; Metastasio, Italian poet (b. 1698)
*1788 &ndash; Carlo Antonio Campioni, French composer (b. 1719)
*1795 &ndash; Johann Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée, Bavarian general (b. 1710)
*1814 &ndash; Charles Burney, English historian (b. 1726)
*1817 &ndash; Charles Messier, French astronomer (b. 1730)
*1850 &ndash; Adoniram Judson, American missionary (b. 1788)
*1866 &ndash; Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, English politician, founded Fleetwood (b. 1801)
*1872 &ndash; Nikolaos Mantzaros, Greek composer (b. 1795)
*1878 &ndash; William M. Tweed, American politician (b. 1823)
*1898 &ndash; Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau, Canadian cardinal (b. 1820)
*1902 &ndash; Marie Alfred Cornu, French physicist (b. 1842)
*1906 &ndash; Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya, Indian scholar, academic, and philanthropist (b. 1836)
*1912 &ndash; Clara Barton, American nurse and humanitarian, founded the American Red Cross (b. 1821)
*1933 &ndash; Adelbert Ames, American general and politician, 30th Governor of Mississippi (b. 1835)
*1938 &ndash; Feodor Chaliapin, Russian opera singer (b. 1873)
*1943 &ndash; Viktor Puskar, Estonian colonel (b. 1889)
*1945 &ndash; Franklin D. Roosevelt, American lawyer and politician, 32nd President of the United States (b. 1882)
*1953 &ndash; Lionel Logue, Australian actor and therapist (b. 1880)
*1962 &ndash; Ron Flockhart, Scottish race car driver (b. 1923)
*1968 &ndash; Heinrich Nordhoff, German engineer (b. 1899)
*1971 &ndash; Wynton Kelly, American pianist (b. 1931)
* 1971 &ndash; Ed Lafitte, American baseball player (b. 1871)
*1973 &ndash; Arthur Freed, American songwriter and producer (b. 1894)
*1975 &ndash; Josephine Baker, American-French actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1906)
*1977 &ndash; Philip K. Wrigley, American businessman, co-founded Lincoln Park Gun Club (b. 1894)
*1980 &ndash; Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker player (b. 1895)
* 1980 &ndash; William R. Tolbert, Jr., Liberian politician, 20th President of Liberia (b. 1913)
*1981 &ndash; Prince Yasuhiko Asaka of Japan (b. 1887)
* 1981 &ndash; Joe Louis, American boxer (b. 1914)
*1983 &ndash; Carl Morton, American baseball player (b. 1944)
*1984 &ndash; Edwin T. Layton, American admiral (b. 1903)
*1986 &ndash; Valentin Kataev, Russian author and playwright (b. 1897)
*1987 &ndash; Mike Von Erich, American wrestler (b. 1964)
*1988 &ndash; Colette Deréal, French actress and singer (b. 1927)
* 1988 &ndash; Alan Paton, South African author (b. 1903)
*1989 &ndash; Gerald Flood, English actor (b. 1927)
* 1989 &ndash; Abbie Hoffman, American activist, co-founded Youth International Party (b. 1936)
* 1989 &ndash; Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer (b. 1921)
*1997 &ndash; George Wald, American neurologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
*1998 &ndash; Robert Ford, Canadian poet and diplomat (b. 1915)
*1999 &ndash; Marion Albert Pruett, American spree killer (b. 1949)
* 1999 &ndash; Boxcar Willie, American singer-songwriter (b. 1931)
*2001 &ndash; Harvey Ball, American illustrator, created the smiley (b. 1921)
*2002 &ndash; George Shevelov, Ukrainian-American linguist and philologist (b. 1908)
*2003 &ndash; Sydney Lassick, American actor (b. 1922)
*2004 &ndash; Moran Campbell, Canadian physician and academic, invented the venturi mask (b. 1925)
*2005 &ndash; Ehud Manor, Israeli songwriter (b. 1941)
*2006 &ndash; Rajkumar, Indian actor and singer (b. 1929)
* 2006 &ndash; William Sloane Coffin, American clergyman and activist (b. 1924)
* 2006 &ndash; Puggy Pearson, American poker player (b. 1929)
*2007 &ndash; Kevin Crease, Australian journalist (b. 1936)
*2008 &ndash; Cecilia Colledge, English figure skater (b. 1920)
* 2008 &ndash; Patrick Hillery, Irish politician, 6th President of Ireland (b. 1923)
* 2008 &ndash; Jerry Zucker, Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1949)
*2009 &ndash; Marilyn Chambers, American porn actress and model (b. 1952)
*2010 &ndash; Palito, Filipino actor (b. 1934)
* 2010 &ndash; Michel Chartrand, Canadian union leader (b. 1916)
* 2010 &ndash; Werner Schroeter, German director and screenwriter (b. 1945)
*2011 &ndash; Karim Fakhrawi, Bahraini journalist, co-founded Al-Wasat (b. 1962)
*2012 &ndash; Elly Deliou, Greek musician (b. 1936)
* 2012 &ndash; Masakre, Mexican wrestler (b. 1954)
* 2012 &ndash; Mohit Chattopadhyay, Indian poet and playwright (b. 1934)
* 2012 &ndash; Linda Cook, American actress (b. 1948)
* 2012 &ndash; Rodgers Grant, American pianist and composer (b. 1935)
* 2012 &ndash; Amy Tryon, American horse rider (b. 1970)
*2013 &ndash; Robert Byrne, American chess player and author (b. 1928)
* 2013 &ndash; Johnny DuPlooy, South African boxer (b. 1964)
* 2013 &ndash; Michael France, American screenwriter (b. 1962)
* 2013 &ndash; Brennan Manning, American priest and author (b. 1934)
* 2013 &ndash; Annamária Szalai, Hungarian journalist and politician (b. 1961)
* 2013 &ndash; William Y. Thompson, American historian and author (b. 1922)
* 2013 &ndash; Ya'akov Yosef, Israeli rabbi and politician (b. 1946)
*2014 &ndash; Pierre Autin-Grenier, French author (b. 1947)
* 2014 &ndash; Fred Ho, American saxophonist and composer (b. 1957)
* 2014 &ndash; Brita Koivunen, Finnish singer (b. 1931)
* 2014 &ndash; Pierre-Henri Menthéour, French cyclist (b. 1960)
* 2014 &ndash; Maurício Alves Peruchi, Brazilian footballer (b. 1990)
* 2014 &ndash; Hal Smith, American baseball player and coach (b. 1931)
* 2014 &ndash; Billy Standridge, American race car driver (b. 1953)

==Holidays and observances==
* Christian Feast Day:
** Alferius
** Blessed Angelo Carletti di Chivasso
** Erkembode
** Adoniram Judson (Episcopal Church (USA))
** Pope Julius I
** Zeno of Verona
** April 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Commemoration of first human in space by Yuri Gagarin:
** Cosmonautics Day (Russia)
** Yuri's Night (International)
* Halifax Day (North Carolina)
* The first day of Cerealia (Roman Empire)
* Global Day of Action on Military Spending

==External links==

* BBC: On This Day
* 
* On This Day in Canada



[[April 15]]

==Events==
* 769 &ndash; The Lateran Council condemned the Council of Hieria and anathematized its iconoclastic rulings.
*1071 &ndash; Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, is surrendered to Robert Guiscard.
*1395 &ndash; Tokhtamysh–Timur war: Battle of the Terek River: Timur defeats Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde at the Volga. The Golden Horde capital city, Sarai, is razed to the ground and Timur installs a puppet ruler on the Golden Horde throne. Tokhtamysh escapes to Lithuania.
*1450 &ndash; Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in Northern France.
*1632 &ndash; Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
*1638 &ndash; Tokugawa shogunate forces put down the Shimabara Rebellion when they retake Hara Castle from the rebels.
*1642 &ndash; Irish Confederate Wars: A Confederate Irish militia is routed in the Battle of Kilrush when it attempts to halt the progress of a Parliamentarian army.
*1715 &ndash; The Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.
*1738 &ndash; Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel receives its premiere performance in London, England.
*1755 &ndash; Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.
*1783 &ndash; Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.
*1802 &ndash; William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy see a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
*1817 &ndash; Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.
*1861 &ndash; President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War
*1865 &ndash; Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth.
*1892 &ndash; The General Electric Company is formed. disaster.
*1896 &ndash; Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece.
*1900 &ndash; Philippine–American War: Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a four-day siege of Catubig, Philippines.
*1907 &ndash; Triangle Fraternity was founded at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
*1912 &ndash; The British passenger liner sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,227 passengers and crew on board survive.
*1920 &ndash; Two security guards are murdered during a robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti would be convicted of and executed for the crime, amid much controversy.
*1921 &ndash; Black Friday: mine owners announce more wage and price cuts, leading to the threat of a strike all across England.
*1922 &ndash; U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of secret land deal, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.
*1923 &ndash; Insulin becomes generally available for use by people with diabetes.
*1924 &ndash; Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
*1927 &ndash; The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, begins.
*1935 &ndash; Roerich Pact signed in Washington, D.C.
*1936 &ndash; First day of the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine.
* 1936 &ndash; Aer Lingus (Aer Loingeas) is founded by the Irish government as the national airline of the Republic of Ireland.
*1940 &ndash; The Allies begin their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which is occupied by Nazi Germany.
*1941 &ndash; In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom killing one thousand people.
*1942 &ndash; The George Cross is awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta &ndash; its people and defenders" by King George VI.
*1945 &ndash; The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.
*1947 &ndash; Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball's color line.
*1952 &ndash; The maiden flight of the B-52 Stratofortress
*1955 &ndash; McDonald's restaurant dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois
*1957 &ndash; White Rock, British Columbia officially separates from Surrey, British Columbia and is incorporated as a new city.
*1960 &ndash; At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Ella Baker leads a conference that results in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the principal organizations of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
*1964 &ndash; The first Ford Mustang rolls off the show room floor, two days before it is set to go on sale nationwide.
*1969 &ndash; The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
*1970 &ndash; During the Cambodian Civil War, massacres of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong River into South Vietnam.
*1984 &ndash; The inaugural World Youth Day is held in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City.
*1986 &ndash; The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, its bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a bombing in West Germany that killed two U.S. servicemen.
*1989 &ndash; Hillsborough disaster: A human crush occurs at Hillsborough Stadium, home of Sheffield Wednesday, in the FA Cup Semi-final, resulting in the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans.
* 1989 &ndash; Upon Hu Yaobang's death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in the People's Republic of China.
*2013 &ndash; Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.
*2014 &ndash; More than 200 female students are declared missing after a mass kidnapping in Borno State, Nigeria.
* 2014 &ndash; A total lunar eclipse occurs, producing a Blood Moon.

==Births==
*1367 &ndash; Henry IV of England (d. 1413)
*1452 &ndash; Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect (d. 1519)
*1552 &ndash; Pietro Cataldi, Italian mathematician and astronomer (d. 1626)
*1588 &ndash; Claudius Salmasius, French scholar (d. 1653)
*1641 &ndash; Robert Sibbald, Scottish physician (d. 1722)
*1642 &ndash; Suleiman II, Ottoman sultan (d. 1691)
*1646 &ndash; Christian V of Denmark (d. 1699)
* 1646 &ndash; Pierre Poiret, French mystic and philosopher (d. 1719)
*1684 &ndash; Catherine I of Russia (d. 1727)
*1688 &ndash; Johann Friedrich Fasch, German violinist and composer (d. 1758)
*1707 &ndash; Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician and physicist (d. 1783)
*1710 &ndash; William Cullen, Scottish physician and chemist (d. 1790)
*1721 &ndash; Prince William, Duke of Cumberland (d. 1765)
*1741 &ndash; Charles Willson Peale, American painter and soldier (d. 1827)
*1771 &ndash; Nicolas Chopin, French educator (d. 1844)
*1772 &ndash; Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, French biologist (d. 1844)
*1793 &ndash; Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, German astronomer and academic (d. 1864)
*1800 &ndash; James Clark Ross, English captain and explorer (d. 1862)
*1809 &ndash; Hermann Grassmann, German linguist and mathematician (d. 1877)
*1828 &ndash; Jean Danjou, French captain (d. 1863)
*1832 &ndash; Wilhelm Busch, German poet, painter, and illustrator (d. 1908)
*1841 &ndash; Joseph E. Seagram, Canadian businessman and politician, founded the Seagram Company Ltd (d. 1919)
*1843 &ndash; Henry James, American-English author (d. 1916)
*1851 &ndash; Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician, 3rd Solicitor General of Sri Lanka (d. 1930)
*1856 &ndash; Jean Moréas, Greek poet and critic (d. 1910)
*1858 &ndash; Émile Durkheim, French sociologist (d. 1917)
*1861 &ndash; Bliss Carman, Canadian-American poet (d. 1929)
*1874 &ndash; George Harrison Shull, American botanist and geneticist (d. 1954)
* 1874 &ndash; Johannes Stark, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)
*1875 &ndash; James J. Jeffries, American boxer (d. 1953)
*1878 &ndash; Robert Walser, Swiss author (d. 1956)
*1879 &ndash; Melville Henry Cane, American lawyer and poet (d. 1980)
*1883 &ndash; Stanley Bruce, Australian politician, 8th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)
*1885 &ndash; Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general (d. 1947)
*1886 &ndash; Nikolay Gumilev, Russian poet and critic (d. 1921)
*1888 &ndash; Maximilian Kronberger, German poet (d. 1904)
*1889 &ndash; Thomas Hart Benton, American painter (d. 1975)
* 1889 &ndash; A. Philip Randolph, American activist (d. 1979)
*1890 &ndash; Percy Shaw, English businessman, invented the cat's eye (d. 1976)
*1892 &ndash; Theo Osterkamp, German pilot (d. 1975)
* 1892 &ndash; Corrie ten Boom, Dutch-American author and Holocaust survivor (d. 1983)
*1894 &ndash; Nikita Khrushchev, Russian general and politician, 7th Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1971)
* 1894 &ndash; Bessie Smith, American singer and actress (d. 1937)
*1895 &ndash; Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker player (d. 1980)
*1896 &ndash; Nikolay Semyonov, Russian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
*1901 &ndash; Joe Davis, English snooker player (d. 1978)
* 1901 &ndash; René Pleven, French politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1993)
*1902 &ndash; Fernando Pessa, Portuguese journalist (d. 2002)
*1904 &ndash; Arshile Gorky, Armenian-American painter (d. 1948)
*1907 &ndash; Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch ethologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1988)
*1908 &ndash; Eden Ahbez, American singer-songwriter (d. 1995)
* 1908 &ndash; Lita Grey, American actress (d. 1995)
*1910 &ndash; Miguel Najdorf, Polish-Argentinian chess player (d. 1997)
*1912 &ndash; Kim Il-sung, North Korean politician, Eternal President of North Korea (d. 1994)
*1916 &ndash; Alfred S. Bloomingdale, American businessman (d. 1982)
* 1916 &ndash; Helene Hanff, American author and screenwriter (d. 1997)
*1917 &ndash; Hans Conried, American actor (d. 1982)
* 1917 &ndash; James Kee, American politician (d. 1989)
*1919 &ndash; Alberto Breccia, Uruguayan-Argentinian author and illustrator (d. 1993)
*1920 &ndash; Godfrey Stafford, English-South African physicist (d. 2013)
* 1920 &ndash; Thomas Szasz, Hungarian-American psychiatrist and academic (d. 2012)
* 1920 &ndash; Richard von Weizsäcker, German politician, 6th President of Germany
*1921 &ndash; Georgy Beregovoy, Ukrainian-Russian general, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1995)
* 1921 &ndash; Angelo DiGeorge, American physician (d. 2009)
*1922 &ndash; Michael Ansara, Syrian-American actor (d. 2013)
* 1922 &ndash; Joyce Jacobs, English-Australian actress (d. 2013)
* 1922 &ndash; Hasrat Jaipuri, Indian poet and songwriter (d. 1999)
* 1922 &ndash; Harold Washington, American lawyer and politician, 51st Mayor of Chicago (d. 1987)
*1923 &ndash; Artur Alliksaar, Estonian poet (d. 1966)
* 1923 &ndash; Robert DePugh, American activist, founded the Minutemen Organization (d. 2009)
* 1923 &ndash; Douglas Wass, English civil servant
*1924 &ndash; M. Canagaratnam, Sri Lankan politician (d. 1980)
* 1924 &ndash; Neville Marriner, English violinist and conductor
*1925 &ndash; George Shuffler, American guitarist (The Bailey Brothers and the Happy Valley Boys) (d. 2014)
*1926 &ndash; Maurice Shock, English academic
*1927 &ndash; Robert Mills, American physicist (d. 1999)
*1929 &ndash; Gérald Beaudoin, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 2008)
* 1929 &ndash; Adrian Cadbury, English rower and businessman
*1930 &ndash; Georges Descrières, French actor (d. 2013)
* 1930 &ndash; Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Icelandic educator and politician, 4th President of Iceland
*1931 &ndash; Kenneth Bloomfield, Irish civil servant 
* 1931 &ndash; Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish poet and psychologist, Nobel Prize laureate
*1932 &ndash; Suresh Bhat, Indian poet (d. 2003)
*1933 &ndash; Roy Clark, American singer and actor
* 1933 &ndash; David Hamilton, English-French photographer and director
* 1933 &ndash; Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (d. 1995)
* 1933 &ndash; Jim Towers, English footballer (d. 2010)
* 1933 &ndash; Kōji Yada, Japanese voice actor (d. 2014)
*1935 &ndash; Stavros Paravas, Greek actor (d. 2008)
*1936 &ndash; Raymond Poulidor, French cyclist
*1937 &ndash; Bob Luman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1978)
*1938 &ndash; Claudia Cardinale, Tunisian-Italian actress
* 1938 &ndash; Hso Khan Pha, Burmese-Canadian geologist and politician
*1939 &ndash; Marty Wilde, English singer-songwriter and actor
*1940 &ndash; Jeffrey Archer, English author, playwright, and politician
* 1940 &ndash; Sean Caffrey, Irish actor (d. 2013)
* 1940 &ndash; Willie Davis, American baseball player and actor (d. 2010)
* 1940 &ndash; Woodie Fryman, American baseball player (d. 2011)
* 1940 &ndash; Robert Lacroix, Canadian economist and academic
* 1940 &ndash; Yossef Romano, Libyan-Israeli weightlifter (d. 1972)
* 1940 &ndash; Robert Walker, Jr., American actor
*1941 &ndash; Howard Berman, American lawyer and politician
*1942 &ndash; Francis X. DiLorenzo, American bishop
* 1942 &ndash; Walt Hazzard, American basketball player and coach (d. 2011)
* 1942 &ndash; Kenneth Lay, American businessman (d. 2006)
* 1942 &ndash; Tim Lankester, English economist and academic
*1943 &ndash; Robert Lefkowitz, American physician, Nobel Prize laureate
* 1943 &ndash; Hugh Thompson, Jr., American soldier and pilot (d. 2006)
* 1943 &ndash; Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater, English politician
*1944 &ndash; Dzhokhar Dudayev, Russian-Chechen general and politician, 1st President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (d. 1996)
* 1944 &ndash; Dave Edmunds, Welsh singer, guitarist, and producer (Love Sculpture and Rockpile)
*1946 &ndash; John Lloyd, Scottish journalist
* 1946 &ndash; Pete Rouse, American politician, White House Chief of Staff
* 1946 &ndash; Michael Tucci, American actor
*1947 &ndash; Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, American screenwriter and producer
* 1947 &ndash; Martin Broughton, English businessman
* 1947 &ndash; Lois Chiles, American model and actress
* 1947 &ndash; David Omand, English civil servant and academic
* 1947 &ndash; Cristina Husmark Pehrsson, Swedish nurse and politician
* 1947 &ndash; Woolly Wolstenholme, English singer and keyboard player (Barclay James Harvest) (d. 2010)
*1948 &ndash; Christopher Brown, English curator
* 1948 &ndash; Michael Kamen, American composer and conductor (d. 2003)
*1949 &ndash; Alla Pugacheva, Russian singer-songwriter and actress
* 1949 &ndash; Craig Zadan, American director, producer, and screenwriter
*1950 &ndash; Josiane Balasko, French actress, director, and screenwriter
* 1950 &ndash; Amy Wright, American actress
*1951 &ndash; Heloise, American journalist and author
* 1951 &ndash; John L. Phillips, American captain and astronaut
* 1951 &ndash; Stuart Prebble, English broadcaster
*1952 &ndash; Bengt Gingsjö, Swedish swimmer
* 1952 &ndash; Kym Gyngell, Australian actor
* 1952 &ndash; Sam McMurray, American actor
* 1952 &ndash; Brian Muir, English sculptor and set designer
* 1952 &ndash; Avital Ronell, American philosopher
* 1952 &ndash; Glenn Shadix, American actor (d. 2010)
*1954 &ndash; Seka, American porn actress
*1955 &ndash; Mark Damazer, English broadcaster and academic
* 1955 &ndash; Dodi Fayed, Egyptian film producer (d. 1997)
*1956 &ndash; Michael Cooper, American basketball player and coach
*1957 &ndash; Evelyn Ashford, American runner
*1958 &ndash; Keith Acton, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
* 1958 &ndash; Abu Hamza al-Masri, Egyptian-English criminal
* 1958 &ndash; Noni Ioannidou, Greek model and actress
* 1958 &ndash; Memos Ioannou, Greek basketball player and coach
* 1958 &ndash; Sir Robert Smith, 3rd Baronet, Scottish politician
* 1958 &ndash; Benjamin Zephaniah, English actor, author, poet, and playwright
*1959 &ndash; Fruit Chan, Chinese director, producer, and screenwriter
* 1959 &ndash; Kevin Lowe, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and manager
* 1959 &ndash; Emma Thompson, English actress and screenwriter
* 1959 &ndash; Thomas F. Wilson, American actor
*1960 &ndash; Pierre Aubry, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1960 &ndash; Susanne Bier, Danish director and screenwriter
* 1960 &ndash; Pedro Delgado, Spanish cyclist
* 1960 &ndash; Tony Jones, English snooker player
* 1960 &ndash; Philippe of Belgium
*1961 &ndash; Neil Carmichael, English academic and politician
*1962 &ndash; Surjit Bindrakhia, Indian singer (d. 2003)
* 1962 &ndash; Nawal El Moutawakel, Moroccan hurdler
* 1962 &ndash; Tom Kane, American voice actor
*1963 &ndash; Alex Crawford, Nigerian-South African journalist
* 1963 &ndash; Bobby Pepper, American journalist
*1965 &ndash; Linda Perry, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (4 Non Blondes)
*1966 &ndash; Samantha Fox, English singer and actress
* 1966 &ndash; Mott Green, American businessman, founded the Grenada Chocolate Company (d. 2013)
*1967 &ndash; Frankie Poullain, Scottish bass player and songwriter (The Darkness)
* 1967 &ndash; Dara Torres, American swimmer
*1968 &ndash; Ben Clarke, English rugby player
* 1968 &ndash; Ed O'Brien, English guitarist and songwriter (Radiohead)
* 1968 &ndash; Stacey Williams, American model and actress
*1969 &ndash; Jeromy Burnitz, American baseball player
* 1969 &ndash; Kaisa Roose, Estonian conductor
* 1969 &ndash; Jimmy Waite, Canadian-German ice hockey player
*1970 &ndash; Flex Alexander, American actor
* 1970 &ndash; Chris Huffins, American decathlete
*1971 &ndash; Kate Harbour, English voice actress
* 1971 &ndash; Katy Hill, English television host
* 1971 &ndash; Meelis Loit, Estonian fencer
* 1971 &ndash; Jason Sehorn, American football player
* 1971 &ndash; Karl Turner, English politician
*1972 &ndash; Arturo Gatti, Italian-Canadian boxer (d. 2009)
* 1972 &ndash; Lou Romano, American animator and voice actor
*1974 &ndash; Keith Malley, American comedian and actor
* 1974 &ndash; Kim Min-kyo, South Korean actor and director
* 1974 &ndash; Danny Pino, American actor
* 1974 &ndash; Mike Quinn, American football player
* 1974 &ndash; Douglas Spain, American actor, director, and producer
* 1974 &ndash; Tim Thomas, American ice hockey player
*1975 &ndash; Paul Dana, American race car driver (d. 2006)
* 1975 &ndash; Philip Labonte, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (All That Remains and Shadows Fall)
*1976 &ndash; Jason Bonsignore, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1976 &ndash; Darius Regelskis, Lithuanian footballer
* 1976 &ndash; Kęstutis Šeštokas, Lithuanian basketball player
* 1976 &ndash; Susan Ward, American actress
* 1976 &ndash; Steve Williams, English rower
*1977 &ndash; Sudarsan Pattnaik, Indian sculptor
* 1977 &ndash; Brian Pothier, American ice hockey player
*1978 &ndash; Austin Aries, American wrestler
* 1978 &ndash; Milton Bradley, American baseball player
* 1978 &ndash; Tim Corcoran, American baseball player
* 1978 &ndash; Luis Fonsi, Puerto Rican-American singer-songwriter
*1980 &ndash; Patrick Carney, American drummer (The Black Keys and Drummer)
* 1980 &ndash; James Foster, English cricketer
* 1980 &ndash; Michelle L'amour, American dancer
* 1980 &ndash; Raül López, Spanish basketball player
* 1980 &ndash; Willie Mason, Australian rugby player
* 1980 &ndash; Aida Mollenkamp, American chef and author
* 1980 &ndash; Víctor Núñez, Costa Rican footballer
* 1980 &ndash; Fränk Schleck, Luxembourger cyclist
* 1980 &ndash; Billy Yates, American football player
*1981 &ndash; Andrés D'Alessandro, Argentinian footballer
*1982 &ndash; Michael Aubrey, American baseball player
* 1982 &ndash; Anthony Green, American singer-songwriter (Circa Survive, The Sound of Animals Fighting, Saosin, High and Driving, and Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer)
* 1982 &ndash; Albert Riera, Spanish footballer
* 1982 &ndash; Seth Rogen, Canadian-American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
*1983 &ndash; Blu, American rapper and producer (All City Chess Club)
* 1983 &ndash; Alice Braga, Brazilian actress
* 1983 &ndash; Matt Cardle, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Seven Summers and Darwyn)
* 1983 &ndash; Dudu Cearense, Brazilian footballer
* 1983 &ndash; Ilya Kovalchuk, Russian ice hockey player
* 1983 &ndash; Bronson La'Cassie, Australian golfer
* 1983 &ndash; Martin Pedersen, Danish cyclist
* 1983 &ndash; Anthony Sedlak, Canadian chef (d. 2012)
*1984 &ndash; Cam Janssen, American ice hockey player
* 1984 &ndash; Ben Kasica, American guitarist and producer (Skillet)
* 1984 &ndash; Daniel Paille, Canadian hockey player
*1985 &ndash; Chris Cates, American baseball player
* 1985 &ndash; John Danks, American baseball player
* 1985 &ndash; Ryan Hamilton, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1985 &ndash; Aaron Laffey, American baseball player
* 1985 &ndash; Amy Ried, American porn actress
* 1985 &ndash; Diana Zubiri, Filipino actress
*1986 &ndash; Tom Heaton, English footballer
* 1986 &ndash; Sylvain Marveaux, French footballer
* 1986 &ndash; Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Ghanaian footballer
*1987 &ndash; Iyaz, Virgin Islander singer-songwriter
* 1987 &ndash; Sapphire Elia, English actress and singer
*1988 &ndash; Thomas Albanese, Italian footballer
* 1988 &ndash; Yann David, French rugby player
* 1988 &ndash; Eliza Doolittle, English singer-songwriter
* 1988 &ndash; Manami Numakura, Japanese voice actress
* 1988 &ndash; Beate Schrott, Austrian hurdler
*1989 &ndash; Andre Kinney, American actor
*1990 &ndash; Lily Carter, American porn actress
* 1990 &ndash; Emma Watson, French-English actress
*1991 &ndash; Daiki Arioka, Japanese actor and singer (Hey! Say! JUMP)
*1992 &ndash; Amy Diamond, Swedish singer and actress
* 1992 &ndash; Kimberly Dos Ramos, Venezuelan actress and singer
* 1992 &ndash; John Guidetti, Swedish footballer
* 1992 &ndash; Richard Sandrak, Ukrainian-American bodybuilder, martial artist, and actor
*1993 &ndash; Madeleine Martin, American actress
*1997 &ndash; Maisie Williams, English actress
*2004 &ndash; Chelokee, American race horse (d. 2014)

==Deaths==
* 628 &ndash; Empress Suiko of Japan (b. 554)
*1053 &ndash; Godwin, Earl of Wessex (b. 1001)
*1220 &ndash; Adolf of Altena, German archbishop (b. 1157)
*1415 &ndash; Manuel Chrysoloras, Greek educator (b. 1355)
*1446 &ndash; Filippo Brunelleschi, Italian sculptor and architect (b. 1377)
*1610 &ndash; Robert Persons, English priest (b. 1546)
*1632 &ndash; George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, English politician, English Secretary of State (b. 1580)
*1641 &ndash; Domenico Zampieri, Italian painter (b. 1581)
*1652 &ndash; Patriarch Joseph, Russian patriarch
*1659 &ndash; Simon Dach, German poet (b. 1605)
*1704 &ndash; Johannes Hudde, Dutch mathematician and politician (b. 1628)
*1719 &ndash; Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, French wife of Louis XIV of France (b. 1635)
*1754 &ndash; Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (b. 1676)
*1761 &ndash; Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, Scottish lawyer and politician (b. 1682)
* 1761 &ndash; William Oldys, English historian and author (b. 1696)
*1764 &ndash; Madame de Pompadour, French mistress of Louis XV of France (b. 1721)
* 1764 &ndash; Peder Horrebow, Danish astronomer and mathematician (b. 1679)
*1765 &ndash; Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian chemist and physicist (b. 1711)
*1788 &ndash; Giuseppe Bonno, Austrian composer (b. 1711)
*1793 &ndash; Ignacije Szentmartony, Croatian priest, mathematician, and astronomer (b. 1718)
*1854 &ndash; Arthur Aikin, English chemist and mineralogist (b. 1773)
*1861 &ndash; Sylvester Jordan, Austrian-German lawyer and politician (b. 1792)
*1865 &ndash; Abraham Lincoln, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 16th President of the United States (b. 1809)
*1888 &ndash; Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic (b. 1822)
*1889 &ndash; Father Damien, Belgian priest and saint (b. 1840)
*1898 &ndash; Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui, New Zealand commander
*1912 &ndash; Victims of the RMS Titanic disaster
** Thomas Andrews, Irish businessman and shipbuilder (b. 1873)
** John Jacob Astor IV, American colonel, businessman, and author (b. 1864)
** Archibald Butt, American general and journalist (b. 1865)
** Jacques Futrelle, American journalist and author (b. 1875)
** Benjamin Guggenheim American businessman (b. 1865)
** Wallace Hartley, English violinist and bandleader (b. 1878)
** James Paul Moody, English sixth officer (b. 1887)
** William McMaster Murdoch, Scottish sailor and first officer (b. 1873)
** Jack Phillips, English telegraphist (b. 1887)
** Edward Smith, English captain (b. 1850)
** William Thomas Stead English journalist (b. 1849)
** Ida Straus, German-American businesswoman (b. 1849)
** Isidor Straus, German-American businessman and politician (b. 1845)
** John Thayer, American cricketer (b. 1862)
** Henry Tingle Wilde, English chief officer (b. 1872)
*1917 &ndash; János Murkovics, Slovene author, poet, and educator (b. 1839)
*1927 &ndash; Gaston Leroux, French journalist and author (b. 1868)
*1938 &ndash; César Vallejo, Peruvian journalist, poet, and playwright (b. 1892)
*1942 &ndash; Robert Musil, Austrian author (b. 1880)
*1943 &ndash; Aristarkh Lentulov, Russian painter and set designer (b. 1882)
*1944 &ndash; Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin, Russian general (b. 1901)
*1945 &ndash; Hermann Florstedt, German SS officer (b. 1895)
*1948 &ndash; Radola Gajda, Montenegrin-Czech general and politician (b. 1892)
*1949 &ndash; Wallace Beery, American actor (b. 1885)
*1957 &ndash; Pedro Infante, Mexican actor and singer (b. 1917)
*1962 &ndash; Clara Blandick, American actress (b. 1880)
* 1962 &ndash; Arsenio Lacson, Filipino journalist and politician, Mayor of Manila (b. 1911)
*1963 &ndash; Edward Greeves, Jr., Australian footballer (b. 1903)
*1967 &ndash; Totò, Italian actor, singer, and screenwriter (b. 1898)
*1969 &ndash; Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (b. 1887)
*1970 &ndash; Ripper Collins, American baseball player (b. 1904)
*1971 &ndash; Gurgen Boryan, Armenian poet and playwright (b. 1915)
* 1971 &ndash; Dan Reeves, American businessman (b. 1912)
* 1971 &ndash; Friedebert Tuglas, Estonian author and critic (b. 1886)
*1974 &ndash; Giovanni D'Anzi, Italian songwriter (b. 1906)
*1975 &ndash; Richard Conte, American actor (b. 1910)
*1980 &ndash; Raymond Bailey, American actor (b. 1904)
* 1980 &ndash; Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
*1982 &ndash; Arthur Lowe, English actor (b. 1915)
*1983 &ndash; John Engstead, American photographer (b. 1909)
* 1983 &ndash; Corrie ten Boom, Dutch-American author and holocaust survivor (b. 1892)
*1984 &ndash; Tommy Cooper, Welsh comedian and magician (b. 1921)
* 1984 &ndash; Alexander Trocchi, Scottish author (b. 1925)
*1986 &ndash; Jean Genet, French author and playwright (b. 1910)
*1988 &ndash; Kenneth Williams, English actor (b. 1926)
*1989 &ndash; Nesuhi Ertegun, Turkish-American record producer (b. 1917)
* 1989 &ndash; Charles Vanel, French actor and director (b. 1892)
* 1989 &ndash; Hu Yaobang, Chinese politician (b. 1915)
*1990 &ndash; Greta Garbo, Swedish-American actress (b. 1905)
*1992 &ndash; Otis Barton, American diver and actor (b. 1899)
*1993 &ndash; Leslie Charteris, Singaporean-English author and screenwriter (b. 1907)
* 1993 &ndash; John Tuzo Wilson, Canadian geologist (b. 1908)
*1994 &ndash; John Curry, English figure skater (b. 1949)
*1995 &ndash; Harry Shoulberg, American painter (b. 1903)
*1998 &ndash; Pol Pot, Cambodian politician, 29th Prime Minister of Cambodia (b. 1925)
*1999 &ndash; Harvey Postlethwaite, English engineer (b. 1944)
*2000 &ndash; Edward Gorey, American poet and illustrator (b. 1925)
*2001 &ndash; Joey Ramone, American singer-songwriter (Ramones and Sniper) (b. 1951)
*2002 &ndash; Damon Knight, American author and critic (b. 1922)
* 2002 &ndash; Byron White, American football player, lawyer, and jurist, 4th United States Deputy Attorney General (b. 1917)
*2003 &ndash; Reg Bundy, English actor and dancer (b. 1941)
* 2003 &ndash; Erin Fleming, Canadian-American actress (b. 1941)
*2004 &ndash; Ray Condo, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1950)
* 2004 &ndash; Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Japanese illustrator (b. 1934)
*2005 &ndash; Margaretta Scott, English actress (b. 1912)
*2007 &ndash; Brant Parker, American illustrator (b. 1920)
*2008 &ndash; Sean Costello, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1979)
* 2008 &ndash; Benoît Lamy, Belgian director and screenwriter (b. 1945)
* 2008 &ndash; Krister Stendahl, Swedish bishop, theologian, and scholar (b. 1921)
*2009 &ndash; Ed Blake, American baseball player (b. 1925)
* 2009 &ndash; Clement Freud, German-English journalist and politician (b. 1924)
* 2009 &ndash; László Tisza, Hungarian-American physicist and educator (b. 1907)
*2010 &ndash; Jack Herer, American author and activist (b. 1939)
* 2010 &ndash; Michael Pataki, American actor and director (b. 1938)
*2011 &ndash; Vittorio Arrigoni, Italian journalist, author, and activist (b. 1975)
*2012 &ndash; Paul Bogart, American director and producer (b. 1919)
* 2012 &ndash; Bob Perani, Italian-American ice hockey player (b. 1942)
* 2012 &ndash; Murray Rose, English-Australian swimmer and actor (b. 1939)
* 2012 &ndash; Rich Saul, American football player (b. 1948)
* 2012 &ndash; Dwayne Schintzius, American basketball player (b. 1968)
* 2012 &ndash; Bob Wright, American basketball player and coach (b. 1926)
* 2012 &ndash; Tadashi Yamamoto, Japanese businessman (b. 1936)
*2013 &ndash; Sal Castro, American educator and activist (b. 1933)
* 2013 &ndash; Benny Frankie Cerezo, Puerto Rican-American lawyer and politician (b. 1943)
* 2013 &ndash; Richard Collins, Canadian actor (b. 1947)
* 2013 &ndash; Benjamin Fain, Ukrainian-Israeli physicist and academic (b. 1930)
* 2013 &ndash; Joe Francis, American football player and coach (b. 1936)
* 2013 &ndash; Richard LeParmentier, American-English actor and screenwriter (b. 1946)
* 2013 &ndash; Dave McArtney, New Zealand singer-songwriter and guitarist (Hello Sailor) (b. 1951)
* 2013 &ndash; Scott Miller, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Game Theory and The Loud Family) (b. 1960)
* 2013 &ndash; Cleyde Yáconis, Brazilian actress (b. 1923)
*2014 &ndash; Júnior, Filipino-Spanish singer and actor (b. 1943)
* 2014 &ndash; Little Joe Cook, American singer-songwriter (b. 1922)
* 2014 &ndash; Shane Gibson, American guitarist (stOrk and Jonathan Davis and the SFA) (b. 1979)
* 2014 &ndash; John Houbolt, American engineer and academic (b. 1919)
* 2014 &ndash; Eliseo Verón, Argentinian sociologist and academic (b. 1935)
* 2014 &ndash; Owen Woodhouse, New Zealand commander and jurist (b. 1916)

==Holidays and observances==
* Christian Feast Day:
** Abbo II of Metz
** Father Damien and Sister Marianne Cope (Episcopal Church (USA))
** Hunna
** Paternus of Avranches
** April 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Father Damien Day (Hawaii)
* Earliest day on which Sechseläuten can fall, while April 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday in April. (Zurich)
* Fordicidia (Roman Empire)
* Hillsborough Disaster Memorial (Anfield at Liverpool)
* Jackie Robinson Day (Major League Baseball)
* Latest day on which New Year festivals in South and Southeast Asian cultures can fall. (see April 14)
* Tax Day, the official deadline for filing an individual tax return (or requesting an extension). (United States, Philippines)
* World Art Day

==External links==

* BBC: On This Day
* 
* On This Day in Canada



[[April 30]]

==Events==
* 311 &ndash; The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ends.
* 313 &ndash; Battle of Tzirallum: Emperor Licinius defeats Maximinus II and unifies the Eastern Roman Empire.
* 642 &ndash; Chindasuinth is proclaimed king by the Visigothic nobility and bishops.
*1315 &ndash; Enguerrand de Marigny is hanged on the public gallows at Montfaucon.
*1492 &ndash; Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.
*1513 &ndash; Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, is executed on the orders of Henry VIII.
*1557 &ndash; Mapuche leader Lautaro is killed by Spanish forces at the Battle of Mataquito in Chile.
*1598 &ndash; Juan Oñate makes a formal declaration of his Conquest of New Mexico.
*1636 &ndash; Eighty Years' War: Dutch Republic forces recapture a strategically important fort from Spain after a nine-month siege.
*1671 &ndash; Petar Zrinski, the Croatian Ban from the Zrinski family, is executed.
*1789 &ndash; On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
*1803 &ndash; Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
*1812 &ndash; The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
*1838 &ndash; Nicaragua declares independence from the Central American Federation.
*1863 &ndash; A 65-man French Foreign Legion infantry patrol fights a force of nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers to nearly the last man in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico.
*1871 &ndash; The Camp Grant massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.
*1885 &ndash; Governor of New York David B. Hill signs legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use.
*1894 &ndash; Coxey's Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893.
*1900 &ndash; Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
* 1900 &ndash; Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughan, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.
*1904 &ndash; The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri.
*1907 &ndash; Honolulu, Hawaii becomes an independent city.
*1920 &ndash; Peru becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
*1925 &ndash; Automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc is sold to Dillon, Read & Company for $146 million plus $50 million for charity.
*1927 &ndash; The Federal Industrial Institute for Women opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women's federal prison in the United States.
* 1927 &ndash; Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
*1937 &ndash; The Philippines holds a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage; over 90% would vote in the affirmative.
*1938 &ndash; The animated cartoon short Porky's Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit (a prototype of Bugs Bunny).
* 1938 &ndash; The first televised FA Cup Final takes place between Huddersfield Town and Preston North End.
*1939 &ndash; The 1939-40 New York World's Fair opens.
* 1939 &ndash; NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N.Y. World's Fair opening day ceremonial address.
*1943 &ndash; World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.
*1945 &ndash; World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.
*1947 &ndash; In Nevada, the Boulder Dam is renamed the Hoover Dam a second time.
*1948 &ndash; In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established.
*1953 &ndash; In Warner Robins, Georgia, an F4 tornado kills 18 people.
*1956 &ndash; Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming "I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty."
*1961 &ndash; K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.
*1963 &ndash; The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom.
*1966 &ndash; The Church of Satan is established at the Black House in San Francisco, California.
*1967 &ndash; The Aldene Connection opened in Roselle Park, NJ, shutting down the CNJ's Jersey City waterfront terminal and transferring commuters to Newark Penn Station.
*1973 &ndash; Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aides H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.
*1975 &ndash; Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.
*1980 &ndash; Beatrix of the Netherlands becomes Queen of the Netherlands.
* 1980 &ndash; The Iranian Embassy Siege begins in London.
*1982 &ndash; The Bijon Setu massacre occurs in Calcutta.
*1993 &ndash; CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
* 1993 &ndash; Monica Seles is stabbed by Günter Parche, an obsessed fan, during a quarterfinal match of the 1993 Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany
*1994 &ndash; Formula One racing driver Roland Ratzenberger is killed in a crash during the qualifying session of the San Marino Grand Prix run at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari outside Imola, Italy.
*1995 &ndash; U.S. President Bill Clinton becomes the first President to visit Northern Ireland.
*2004 &ndash; U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
*2008 &ndash; Two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia, are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, one of his sisters.
*2009 &ndash; Chrysler files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
* 2009 &ndash; Seven people are killed and 17 injured at a Queen's Day parade in Apeldoorn, Netherlands in an attempted assassination on Queen Beatrix.
* 2009 &ndash; Azerbaijan State Oil Academy shooting: Twelve people were killed (students and staff members) by an armed attacker. 
*2012 &ndash; An overloaded ferry capsizes on the Brahmaputra River in India killing at least 103 people.
*2013 &ndash; Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicates and Willem-Alexander becomes King of the Netherlands.
*2014 &ndash; A bomb blast in Ürümqi kills 3 people and injures 79 others.

==Births==
*1245 &ndash; Philip III of France (d. 1285)
*1331 &ndash; Gaston III, Count of Foix (d. 1391)
*1553 &ndash; Louise of Lorraine (d. 1601)
*1623 &ndash; François de Laval, French-Canadian bishop and saint (d. 1708)
*1651 &ndash; Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, French priest and saint (d. 1719)
*1662 &ndash; Mary II of England (d. 1694)
*1664 &ndash; François Louis, Prince of Conti (d. 1709)
*1710 &ndash; Johann Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée, Bavarian general (d. 1795)
*1723 &ndash; Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French zoologist and philosopher (d. 1806)
*1758 &ndash; Emmanuel Vitale, Maltese commander and politician (d. 1802)
*1770 &ndash; David Thompson, English-Canadian cartographer and explorer (d. 1857)
*1777 &ndash; Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician and physicist (d. 1855)
*1803 &ndash; Albrecht von Roon, Prussian soldier and politician, 10th Minister President of Prussia (d. 1879)
*1812 &ndash; Kaspar Hauser, German feral child (d. 1833)
*1829 &ndash; Ferdinand von Hochstetter, Austrian geologist (d. 1884)
*1850 &ndash; George Gibb, Scottish businessman (d. 1925)
*1857 &ndash; Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1940)
* 1857 &ndash; Walter Simon, German banker and philanthropist (d. 1920)
*1864 &ndash; Jean, duc Decazes, French sailor (d. 1912)
* 1864 &ndash; Juhan Liiv, Estonian poet and author (d. 1913)
*1865 &ndash; Max Nettlau, German historian (d. 1944)
*1869 &ndash; Hans Poelzig, German architect, designed the IG Farben Building and Großes Schauspielhaus (d. 1936)
*1870 &ndash; Franz Lehár, Slovak-Austrian composer (d. 1948)
* 1870 &ndash; Dadasaheb Phalke, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1944)
*1874 &ndash; Cyriel Verschaeve, Flemish priest (d. 1949)
*1876 &ndash; Orso Mario Corbino, Italian physicist and politician (d. 1937)
*1877 &ndash; Léon Flameng, French cyclist (d. 1917)
* 1877 &ndash; Alice B. Toklas, American-French businesswoman (d. 1967)
*1880 &ndash; Charles Exeter Devereux Crombie, Scottish cartoonist (d. 1967)
*1883 &ndash; Jaroslav Hašek, Czech soldier and author (d. 1923)
* 1883 &ndash; Luigi Russolo, Italian painter and composer (d. 1947)
*1884 &ndash; Olof Sandborg, Swedish actor (d. 1965)
*1888 &ndash; John Crowe Ransom, American poet (d. 1974)
*1893 &ndash; Joachim von Ribbentrop, German politician, 14th German Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs (d. 1946)
*1895 &ndash; Philippe Panneton, Canadian physician, academic, and diplomat (d. 1960)
*1896 &ndash; Reverend Gary Davis, American singer and guitarist (d. 1972)
* 1896 &ndash; Hans List, Austrian scientist and businessman, founded the AVL Engineering Company (d. 1996)
*1897 &ndash; Humberto Mauro, Brazilian director and screenwriter (d. 1983)
*1900 &ndash; Erni Krusten, Estonian author (d. 1984)
* 1900 &ndash; David Manners, Canadian-American actor (d. 1998)
*1901 &ndash; Simon Kuznets, Ukrainian-American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
*1902 &ndash; Theodore Schultz, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)
*1905 &ndash; Sergey Nikolsky, Russian mathematician and academic (d. 2012)
*1908 &ndash; Eve Arden, American actress (d. 1990)
* 1908 &ndash; Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic politician, 13th Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1970)
* 1908 &ndash; Frank Robert Miller, Canadian air marshal and politician (d. 1997)
*1909 &ndash; F. E. McWilliam, Irish sculptor (d. 1992)
* 1909 &ndash; Juliana of the Netherlands (d. 2004)
*1910 &ndash; Levi Celerio, Filipino composer and songwriter (d. 2002)
* 1910 &ndash; Sri Sri, Indian poet and songwriter (d. 1983)
*1913 &ndash; Ilmar Raud, Estonian chess player (d. 1941)
*1914 &ndash; Dorival Caymmi, Brazilian singer-songwriter, actor, and painter (d. 2008)
*1916 &ndash; Claude Shannon, American mathematician and engineer (d. 2001)
* 1916 &ndash; Paul Kuusberg, Estonian author (d. 2003)
* 1916 &ndash; Robert Shaw, American conductor (d. 1999)
*1920 &ndash; Duncan Hamilton, Irish-English race car driver (d. 1994)
*1921 &ndash; Roger L. Easton, American scientist, co-invented the GPS (d. 2014)
* 1921 &ndash; Tove Maës, Danish actress (d. 2010)
*1923 &ndash; Percy Heath, American bassist (Heath Brothers and Modern Jazz Quartet) (d. 2005)
* 1923 &ndash; Kagamisato Kiyoji, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 42nd Yokozuna (d. 2004)
* 1923 &ndash; Al Lewis, American actor (d. 2006)
* 1923 &ndash; Francis Tucker, South African race car driver (d. 2008)
*1924 &ndash; Uno Laht, Estonian KGB officer and author (d. 2008)
*1925 &ndash; Corinne Calvet, French-American actress (d. 2001)
* 1925 &ndash; Johnny Horton, American singer and guitarist (d. 1960)
*1926 &ndash; Shrinivas Khale, Indian composer (d. 2011)
* 1926 &ndash; Cloris Leachman, American actress and singer
*1928 &ndash; Hugh Hood, Canadian author (d. 2000)
*1930 &ndash; Félix Guattari, French psychotherapist and philosopher (d. 1992)
*1933 &ndash; Dickie Davies, English television host
* 1933 &ndash; Charles Sanderson, Baron Sanderson of Bowden, English politician
*1934 &ndash; Jerry Lordan, English singer-songwriter (d. 1995)
* 1934 &ndash; Don McKenney, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
*1937 &ndash; Tony Harrison, English poet and playwright
*1938 &ndash; Gary Collins, American actor and talk show host (d. 2012)
* 1938 &ndash; Juraj Jakubisko, Slovak director and screenwriter
* 1938 &ndash; Larry Niven, American author
*1940 &ndash; Burt Young, American actor
*1941 &ndash; Stavros Dimas, Greek politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Greece
* 1941 &ndash; Johnny Farina, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Santo & Johnny)
*1943 &ndash; Frederick Chiluba, Zambian politician, 2nd President of Zambia (d. 2011)
* 1943 &ndash; Bobby Vee, American singer
*1944 &ndash; Jon Bing, Norwegian author, scholar, and academic (d. 2014)
* 1944 &ndash; Jill Clayburgh, American actress (d. 2010)
* 1944 &ndash; Graham Upton, English academic
*1945 &ndash; Annie Dillard, American author and poet
* 1945 &ndash; Mimi Fariña, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (d. 2001)
* 1945 &ndash; Michael J. Smith, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1986)
*1946 &ndash; Lee Bollinger, American lawyer and academic
* 1946 &ndash; Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
* 1946 &ndash; Bill Plympton, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
* 1946 &ndash; Don Schollander, American swimmer
*1947 &ndash; Paul Fiddes, English theologian and academic
* 1947 &ndash; Leslie Grantham, English actor
* 1947 &ndash; Finn Kalvik, Norwegian singer-songwriter
* 1947 &ndash; Tom Køhlert, Danish footballer and manager
* 1947 &ndash; Mats Odell, Swedish economist and politician
*1948 &ndash; Perry King, American actor
* 1948 &ndash; Alexander Onassis, American-Greek son of Aristotle Onassis (d. 1973)
* 1948 &ndash; Pierre Pagé, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
*1949 &ndash; Phil Garner, American baseball player and manager
* 1949 &ndash; António Guterres, Portuguese politician, 114th Prime Minister of Portugal
* 1949 &ndash; Karl Meiler, German tennis player (d. 2014)
*1952 &ndash; Jacques Audiard, French director and screenwriter
*1953 &ndash; Merrill Osmond, American singer, bass player, and actor (The Osmonds)
*1954 &ndash; Thom Bray, American actor
* 1954 &ndash; Jane Campion, New Zealand director, producer, and screenwriter
* 1954 &ndash; Kim Darroch, English diplomat
* 1954 &ndash; Frank-Michael Marczewski, German footballer
*1955 &ndash; Nicolas Hulot, French journalist
* 1955 &ndash; David Kitchin, English judge
* 1955 &ndash; Dimitra Liani, Greek wife of Andreas Papandreou
*1956 &ndash; Jorge Chaminé, Portuguese opera singer
* 1956 &ndash; Lars von Trier, Danish director and screenwriter
*1957 &ndash; Aviva Chomsky, American historian and author
*1958 &ndash; Charles Berling, French actor, director, and screenwriter
*1959 &ndash; Paul Gross, Canadian actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter
* 1959 &ndash; Stephen Harper, Canadian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Canada
* 1959 &ndash; W. Thomas Smith, Jr., American journalist and author
*1960 &ndash; Geoffrey Cox, English lawyer and politician
* 1960 &ndash; Kerry Healey, American politician, 70th Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
* 1960 &ndash; David Miscavige, American religious leader
*1961 &ndash; Isiah Thomas, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster
*1963 &ndash; Andrew Carwood, English tenor and conductor
* 1963 &ndash; Michael Waltrip, American race car driver
*1964 &ndash; Tony Fernandes, Malaysian-Indian businessman, co-founded Tune Group
* 1964 &ndash; Ian Healy, Australian cricketer, coach, and sportscaster
* 1964 &ndash; Kent James, American singer-songwriter and actor
* 1964 &ndash; Barrington Levy, Jamaican rapper
* 1964 &ndash; Lorenzo Staelens, Belgian footballer and manager 
*1965 &ndash; Daniela Costian, Romanian-Australian discus thrower
* 1965 &ndash; Steven Klein, American photographer
* 1965 &ndash; Adrian Pasdar, American actor and director
*1966 &ndash; Jeff Brown, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
* 1966 &ndash; Dave Meggett, American football player
*1967 &ndash; Steven Mackintosh, English actor
*1968 &ndash; Dave Halili, American illustrator and graphic designer
*1969 &ndash; Warren Defever, American bass player and producer (His Name Is Alive and Elvis Hitler)
* 1969 &ndash; Justine Greening, English politician, Secretary of State for International Development
* 1969 &ndash; Paulo Jr., Brazilian bass player and songwriter (Sepultura)
*1971 &ndash; John Boyne, Irish author
* 1971 &ndash; Darren Emerson, English DJ and producer (Underworld)
*1972 &ndash; J. R. Richards, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Dishwalla)
*1973 &ndash; Leigh Francis, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter
* 1973 &ndash; Kinna McInroe, American actress
* 1973 &ndash; Naomi Novik, American author
* 1973 &ndash; Jamie Staff, English cyclist and coach
* 1973 &ndash; Jeff Timmons, American singer-songwriter and producer (98 Degrees)
*1975 &ndash; Michael Chaturantabut, Thai-American actor and stuntman
* 1975 &ndash; Johnny Galecki, Belgian-American actor
* 1975 &ndash; Tomi Joutsen, Finnish singer-songwriter (Amorphis)
* 1975 &ndash; Elliott Sadler, American race car driver
*1976 &ndash; Davian Clarke, Jamaican sprinter
* 1976 &ndash; Amanda Palmer, American singer-songwriter and pianist (The Dresden Dolls and Evelyn Evelyn)
*1977 &ndash; Jeannie Haddaway, American politician
* 1977 &ndash; Alexandra Holden, American actress
* 1977 &ndash; Pell James, American actress
*1978 &ndash; Tom Fulp, American businessman, co-founded The Behemoth
*1979 &ndash; Gerardo Torrado, Mexican footballer
*1980 &ndash; Luis Scola, Argentinian basketball player
* 1980 &ndash; Jeroen Verhoeven, Dutch footballer
*1981 &ndash; Nicole Kaczmarski, American basketball player
* 1981 &ndash; Kunal Nayyar, English-American actor
* 1981 &ndash; John O'Shea, Irish footballer
* 1981 &ndash; Emma Pierson, English actress
* 1981 &ndash; Megan Reinking, American actress
* 1981 &ndash; Ali Williams, New Zealand rugby player
*1982 &ndash; Lloyd Banks, American rapper and actor (G-Unit)
* 1982 &ndash; Kirsten Dunst, American actress and singer
* 1982 &ndash; Cleo Higgins, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress (Cleopatra)
* 1982 &ndash; Drew Seeley, Canadian-American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor
*1983 &ndash; Chris Carr, American football player
* 1983 &ndash; Tatjana Hüfner, German luger
* 1983 &ndash; Marina Tomić, Slovenian hurdler
* 1983 &ndash; Troy Williamson, American football player
*1984 &ndash; Shawn Daivari, American wrestler and manager
* 1984 &ndash; Risto Mätas, Estonian javelin thrower
* 1984 &ndash; Lee Roache, English footballer
*1985 &ndash; Brandon Bass, American basketball player
* 1985 &ndash; Ashley Alexandra Dupré, American prostitute and singer
* 1985 &ndash; Gal Gadot, Israeli model and actress, Miss Israel 2004
*1986 &ndash; Dianna Agron, American actress, singer, and dancer
* 1986 &ndash; Martten Kaldvee, Estonian biathlete
*1987 &ndash; Alipate Carlile, Australian footballer
* 1987 &ndash; Chris Morris, South African cricketer
* 1987 &ndash; Rohit Sharma, Indian cricketer
* 1987 &ndash; Kaspar Taimsoo, Estonian rower
* 1987 &ndash; Nikki Webster, Australian singer and actress
*1988 &ndash; Andy Allen, Australian chef
*1989 &ndash; Baauer, American DJ and producer
* 1989 &ndash; Jang Wooyoung, South Korean singer, dancer, and actor (2PM)
*1990 &ndash; Mac DeMarco, Canadian singer
* 1990 &ndash; Kaarel Kiidron, Estonian footballer
*1991 &ndash; Kaarel Nurmsalu, Estonian ski jumper
*1992 &ndash; Marc-André ter Stegen, German footballer
*1994 &ndash; Wang Yafan, Chinese tennis player
*2002 &ndash; Miguel Urdangarín y de Borbón, Spanish son of Infanta Cristina, Duchess of Palma de Mallorca

==Deaths==
* 65 &ndash; Lucan, Roman poet (b. 39)
* 535 &ndash; Amalasuntha of the Ostrogoths (b. 495)
*1030 &ndash; Mahmud of Ghazni (b. 971)
*1063 &ndash; Emperor Renzong of Song (b. 1010)
*1131 &ndash; Adjutor, French knight and saint
*1341 &ndash; John III, Duke of Brittany (b. 1285)
*1439 &ndash; Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, English commander (b. 1382)
*1513 &ndash; Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk, English son of Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk (b. 1472)
*1524 &ndash; Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard, French soldier (b. 1473)
*1544 &ndash; Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden, English lawyer and judge, Lord Chancellor of England (b. 1488)
*1550 &ndash; Tabinshwehti, Burmese king (b. 1516)
*1632 &ndash; Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, Bavarian general (b. 1559)
* 1632 &ndash; Sigismund III Vasa, Swedish-Polish son of John III of Sweden (b. 1566)
*1637 &ndash; Niwa Nagashige, Japanese daimyo (b. 1571)
*1642 &ndash; Dmitry Pozharsky, Russian prince (b. 1578)
*1655 &ndash; Eustache Le Sueur, French painter (b. 1617)
*1660 &ndash; Petrus Scriverius, Dutch historian and scholar (b. 1576)
*1672 &ndash; Marie of the Incarnation, French-Canadian nun and saint, founded the Ursulines of Quebec (b. 1599)
*1696 &ndash; Robert Plot, English chemist (b. 1640)
*1712 &ndash; Philipp van Limborch, Dutch theologian (b. 1633)
*1736 &ndash; Johann Albert Fabricius, German scholar (b. 1668)
*1758 &ndash; François d'Agincourt, French organist and composer (b. 1684)
*1792 &ndash; John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, English politician, Secretary of State for the Northern Department (b. 1718)
*1795 &ndash; Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, French numismatist (b. 1716)
*1806 &ndash; Onogawa Kisaburō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 5th Yokozuna (b. 1758)
*1841 &ndash; Peter Andreas Heiberg, Danish philologist and author (b. 1758)
*1847 &ndash; Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen (b. 1771)
*1863 &ndash; Jean Danjou, French captain (b. 1828)
*1865 &ndash; Robert FitzRoy, English admiral, meteorologist, and politician, 2nd Governor of New Zealand (b. 1805)
*1870 &ndash; Thomas Cooke, Canadian bishop (b. 1792)
*1875 &ndash; Jean-Frédéric Waldeck, French explorer, lithographer, and cartographer (b. 1766)
*1879 &ndash; Emma Smith, American wife of Joseph Smith (b. 1804)
*1883 &ndash; Édouard Manet, French painter (b. 1832)
*1891 &ndash; Joseph Leidy, American paleontologist and author (b. 1823)
*1900 &ndash; Casey Jones, American engineer (b. 1863)
*1903 &ndash; Emily Stowe, Canadian physician and activist (b. 1831)
*1910 &ndash; Jean Moréas, Greek poet and critic (b. 1856)
*1936 &ndash; A. E. Housman, English poet and scholar (b. 1859)
*1939 &ndash; Frank Haller, American boxer (b. 1883)
*1941 &ndash; Edgar Aabye, Danish tug of war competitor (b. 1865)
*1943 &ndash; Otto Jespersen, Danish philologist (b. 1860)
* 1943 &ndash; Beatrice Webb, English sociologist and economist (b. 1858)
*1945 &ndash; Eva Braun, German wife of Adolf Hitler (b. 1912)
* 1945 &ndash; Adolf Hitler, Austrian-German politician, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1889)
*1953 &ndash; Jacob Linzbach, Estonian linguist (b. 1874)
*1956 &ndash; Alben W. Barkley, American lawyer and politician, 35th Vice President of the United States (b. 1877)
*1966 &ndash; Richard Fariña, American author and singer (b. 1937)
*1970 &ndash; Inger Stevens, Swedish-American actress (b. 1934)
*1972 &ndash; Gia Scala, English-American model and actress (b. 1934)
*1973 &ndash; Václav Renč, Czech poet and playwright (b. 1911)
*1974 &ndash; Agnes Moorehead, American actress (b. 1900)
*1980 &ndash; Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican journalist and politician, 1st Governor of Puerto Rico (b. 1898)
*1982 &ndash; Lester Bangs, American journalist and author (b. 1949)
*1983 &ndash; George Balanchine, Russian dancer and choreographer (b. 1904)
* 1983 &ndash; Muddy Waters, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader (b. 1913)
* 1983 &ndash; Edouard Wyss-Dunant, Swiss physician and mountaineer (b. 1897)
*1986 &ndash; Robert Stevenson, English director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1905)
*1989 &ndash; Yi Bangja, Japanese daughter of Prince Nashimoto Morimasa (b. 1901)
* 1989 &ndash; Sergio Leone, Italian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1929)
*1993 &ndash; Tommy Caton, English footballer (b. 1962)
*1994 &ndash; Roland Ratzenberger, Austrian race car driver (b. 1960)
* 1994 &ndash; Richard Scarry, American author and illustrator (b. 1919)
*1995 &ndash; Maung Maung Kha, Burmese politician, 8th Prime Minister of Burma (b. 1920)
*1996 &ndash; David Opatoshu, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1918)
*1998 &ndash; Nizar Qabbani, Syrian poet (b. 1926)
*1999 &ndash; Darrell Sweet, English drummer (Nazareth) (b. 1947)
*2000 &ndash; Poul Hartling, Danish politician, 36th Prime Minister of Denmark (b. 1914)
*2002 &ndash; Nitsa Tsaganea, Greek actress (b. 1899)
* 2002 &ndash; Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, German founder of the Gründerzeit Museum (b. 1928)
*2003 &ndash; Mark Berger, American economist and educator (b. 1955)
* 2003 &ndash; Possum Bourne, New Zealand race car driver (b. 1956)
*2005 &ndash; Phil Rasmussen, American lieutenant and pilot (b. 1918)
* 2005 &ndash; Ron Todd, English union leader (b. 1927)
*2006 &ndash; Lawrence Patrick, American mechanic and educator (b. 1920)
* 2006 &ndash; Jean-François Revel, French journalist and author (b. 1924)
* 2006 &ndash; Beatriz Sheridan, Mexican actress and director (b. 1934)
* 2006 &ndash; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesian author (b. 1925)
*2007 &ndash; Grégory Lemarchal, French singer (b. 1983)
* 2007 &ndash; Kevin Mitchell, American football player (b. 1971)
* 2007 &ndash; Tom Poston, American actor (b. 1921)
* 2007 &ndash; Gordon Scott, American actor (b. 1927)
* 2007 &ndash; Zola Taylor, American singer (The Platters) (b. 1938)
*2008 &ndash; John Cargher, English-Australian journalist (b. 1919)
*2009 &ndash; Venetia Burney, English girl who named Pluto (b. 1918)
* 2009 &ndash; Henk Nijdam, Dutch cyclist (b. 1935)
*2010 &ndash; Gerry Ryan, Irish radio and television host (b. 1956)
*2011 &ndash; Dorjee Khandu, Indian politician, 6th Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh (b. 1955)
* 2011 &ndash; Evald Okas, Estonian painter (b. 1915)
* 2011 &ndash; Ernesto Sabato, Argentinian physicist, author, and painter (b. 1911)
* 2011 &ndash; Harry S. Morgan, German pornographic actor, producer and director (b. 1945)
*2012 &ndash; Ernst Bolldén, Swedish table tennis player (b. 1966)
* 2012 &ndash; Tomás Borge, Nicaraguan politician and poet, co-founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front (b. 1930)
* 2012 &ndash; Alexander Dale Oen, Norwegian swimmer (b. 1985)
* 2012 &ndash; Giannis Gravanis, Greek footballer (b. 1958)
* 2012 &ndash; Benzion Netanyahu, Russian-Israeli historian and educator (b. 1910)
* 2012 &ndash; Achala Sachdev, Pakistani-Indian actress (b. 1920)
* 2012 &ndash; Sicelo Shiceka, South African politician (b. 1966)
*2013 &ndash; Roberto Chabet, Filipino painter and sculptor (b. 1937)
* 2013 &ndash; Shirley Firth, Canadian skier (b. 1953)
* 2013 &ndash; Viviane Forrester, French author and critic (b. 1925)
* 2013 &ndash; Emil Frei, American physician and oncologist (b. 1924)
* 2013 &ndash; Mike Gray, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1935)
* 2013 &ndash; Andrew J. Offutt, American author (b. 1934)
*2014 &ndash; Khaled Choudhury, Indian set designer (b. 1919)
* 2014 &ndash; Chris Harris, English actor and director (b. 1942)
* 2014 &ndash; Julian Lewis, English biologist (b. 1946)
* 2014 &ndash; Carl E. Moses, American politician (b. 1929)
* 2014 &ndash; Ian Ross, Australian journalist (b. 1940)

==Holidays and observances==
*Armed Forces Day (Georgia)
*Birthday of the King Carl XVI Gustaf, one of the official flag days of Sweden.
*Camarón Day (French Foreign Legion)
*Children's Day (Mexico)

*Christian Feast Day:
**Adjutor
**Aimo
**Amator, Peter and Louis
**Blessed Miles Gerard
**Eutropius of Saintes
**Marie Guyart (Anglican Church of Canada)
**Sarah Josepha Hale (Episcopal Church (USA))
**Maximus of Rome
**Pomponius of Naples
**Quirinus of Neuss
**Suitbert the Younger
**Saint Pope Pius V
**April 30 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

*Consumer Protection Day (Thailand)
*Earliest day on which Ascension Day can fall, while June 3 is the latest; celebrated 40 days after Easter (Christianity), and its related observances:
**Father's Day (Germany)
**Global Day of Prayer (Western Christianity)
*International Jazz Day (UNESCO)
*May Eve, the eve of the first day of summer in the Northern hemisphere (see May 1):
**Beltane Fire Festival (Calton Hill, Edinburgh)
**Carodejnice (Czech Republic and Slovakia)
**Beltane begins at sunset in the Northern hemisphere, Samhain begins at sunset in the Southern hemisphere. (Neo-Druidic Wheel of the Year)
**Walpurgis Night (Central and Northern Europe)

*National Persian Gulf Day (Iran)
*Reunification Day (Vietnam)
*Teachers' Day (Paraguay)
*Tax Day Canada

==External links==

*BBC: On This Day
*
*On This Day in Canada



[[August 22]]

==Events==
* 392 &ndash; Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor.
* 476 &ndash; Odoacer is named Rex italiae by his troops.
* 564 &ndash; Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland.
* 851 &ndash; Battle of Jengland: Erispoe defeats Charles the Bald near the Breton town of Jengland.
*1138 &ndash; Battle of the Standard between Scotland and England.
*1485 &ndash; The Battle of Bosworth Field, the death of Richard III and the end of the House of Plantagenet.
*1559 &ndash; Bartolomé Carranza, Spanish archbishop, is arrested for heresy.
*1639 &ndash; Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers.
*1642 &ndash; Charles I calls the English Parliament traitors. The English Civil War begins.
*1654 &ndash; Jacob Barsimson arrives in New Amsterdam. He is the first known Jewish immigrant to America.
*1711 &ndash; Ships from British Admiral Hovenden Walker's Quebec Expedition founders on rocks at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River.
*1717 &ndash; Spanish troops land on Sardinia.
*1770 &ndash; James Cook names and lands on Possession Island, Queensland and claims the east coast of Australia as New South Wales in the name of King George III.
*1777 &ndash; American Revolutionary War: British forces abandon the Siege of Fort Stanwix after hearing rumors of Continental Army reinforcements.
*1780 &ndash; James Cook's ship HMS Resolution returns to England (Cook having been killed on Hawaii during the voyage).
*1791 &ndash; Beginning of the Haitian Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue.
*1798 &ndash; French troops land in Kilcummin harbour, County Mayo, Ireland to aid Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen's Irish Rebellion.
*1827 &ndash; José de la Mar becomes President of Peru.
*1831 &ndash; Nat Turner's slave rebellion commences just after midnight in Southampton County, Virginia, leading to the deaths of more than 50 whites and several hundred African Americans who are killed in retaliation for the uprising.
*1846 &ndash; The Second Federal Republic of Mexico is established.
*1848 &ndash; The United States annexes New Mexico.
*1849 &ndash; The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.
*1851 &ndash; The first America's Cup is won by the yacht America.
*1864 &ndash; 12 nations sign the First Geneva Convention.
*1875 &ndash; The Treaty of Saint Petersburg between Japan and Russia is ratified, providing for the exchange of Sakhalin for the Kuril Islands.
*1902 &ndash; Cadillac Motor Company is founded.
* 1902 &ndash; Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile.
*1910 &ndash; Korea is annexed by Japan with the signing of the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, beginning a period of Japanese rule of Korea that lasted until the end of World War II.
*1922 &ndash; Michael Collins, Commander-in-chief of the Irish Free State Army, is shot dead during an Anti-Treaty ambush at Béal na Bláth, County Cork, during the Irish Civil War.
*1932 &ndash; The BBC first experiments with television broadcasting. (See also Timeline of the BBC.)
*1934 &ndash; Bill Woodfull of Australia becomes the only cricket captain to twice regain The Ashes.
*1941 &ndash; World War II: German troops reach Leningrad, leading to the siege of Leningrad.
*1942 &ndash; World War II: Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.
*1944 &ndash; World War II: Romania is captured by the Soviet Union.
* 1944 &ndash; World War II: Holocaust of Kedros in Crete by German forces
*1949 &ndash; Queen Charlotte earthquake: Canada's largest earthquake since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake
*1950 &ndash; Althea Gibson becomes the first black competitor in international tennis.
*1952 &ndash; The penal colony on Devil's Island is permanently closed.
*1961 &ndash; Ida Siekmann died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.
*1962 &ndash; An attempt to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle fails.
*1963 &ndash; American Joe Walker in an X-15 test plane reaches an altitude of 106 km.
*1966 &ndash; Labor movements NFWA and AWOC merge to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers.
*1968 &ndash; Pope Paul VI arrives in Bogotá, Colombia. It is the first visit of a pope to Latin America.
*1971 &ndash; J. Edgar Hoover and John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the Camden 28.
*1972 &ndash; Rhodesia is expelled by the IOC for its racist policies.
*1973 &ndash; The Congress of Chile votes in favour of a resolution condemning President Salvador Allende's government and demands him to resign or else be unseated through force and new elections be called. The first demand is executed eighteen days later in a bloody coup d'etat, commencing 17 years of military rule.
*1978 &ndash; The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLSN) occupies national palace in Nicaragua.
*1984 &ndash; PC Brian Bishop was a British police officer who was shot in the head by an armed robber in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex. He died from his injuries five days later.
*1985 &ndash; Manchester Air Disaster sees 55 people killed when a fire breaks out on a commercial aircraft at Manchester Airport.
*1989 &ndash; Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts.
*1992 &ndash; FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi shoots and kills Vicki Weaver during an 11-day siege at her home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
*1996 &ndash; Bill Clinton signs welfare reform into law, representing major shift in US welfare policy
*2003 &ndash; Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court building.
*2004 &ndash; Versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.
*2006 &ndash; Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border over eastern Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board.
*2007 &ndash; The Texas Rangers rout the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern MLB history.
* 2007 &ndash; The Storm botnet, a botnet created by the Storm Worm, sends out a record 57 million e-mails in one day
*2012 &ndash; Ethnic clashes over grazing rights for cattle in Kenya's Tana River District result in more than 52 deaths.

==Births==

*1412 &ndash; Frederick II, Elector of Saxony (d. 1464)
*1601 &ndash; Georges de Scudéry, French author, poet, and playwright (d. 1667)
*1624 &ndash; Jean Regnault de Segrais, French author and poet (d. 1701)
*1647 &ndash; Denis Papin, French physicist and mathematician, developed pressure cooking (d. 1712)
*1679 &ndash; Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French cardinal (d. 1758)
*1760 &ndash; Pope Leo XII (d. 1829)
*1764 &ndash; Charles Percier, French architect (d. 1838)
*1771 &ndash; Henry Maudslay, English inventor (d. 1831)
*1773 &ndash; Aimé Bonpland, French botanist and explorer (d. 1858)
*1778 &ndash; James Kirke Paulding, American politician, 11th United States Secretary of the Navy (d. 1860)
*1800 &ndash; William S. Harney, American general (d. 1889)
* 1800 &ndash; Samuel David Luzzatto, Italian poet and scholar (d. 1865)
*1827 &ndash; Ezra Butler Eddy, Canadian businessman and politician (d. 1906)
*1834 &ndash; Samuel Pierpont Langley, American physicist and astronomer (d. 1906)
*1836 &ndash; Archibald Willard, American painter (d. 1918)
*1845 &ndash; William Lewis Douglas, American businessman and politician, 42nd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1924)
*1848 &ndash; Melville Elijah Stone, American publisher, founded the Chicago Daily News (d. 1929)
*1854 &ndash; Milan I of Serbia (d. 1901)
*1857 &ndash; Ned Hanlon, American baseball player and manager (d. 1937)
*1860 &ndash; Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, German inventor, created the Nipkow disk (d. 1940)
* 1860 &ndash; Alfred Ploetz, German physician, biologist, and eugenicist (d. 1940)
* 1860 &ndash; Eleonore Reuss of Köstritz (d. 1917)
*1862 &ndash; Claude Debussy, French composer (d. 1918)
*1867 &ndash; Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Swiss physician and nutritionist (d. 1939)
*1873 &ndash; Alexander Bogdanov, Russian physician and philosopher (d. 1928)
*1874 &ndash; Max Scheler, German philosopher (d. 1928)
*1880 &ndash; Gorch Fock, German author and poet (d. 1916)
* 1880 &ndash; George Herriman, American cartoonist (d. 1944)
*1885 &ndash; Thomas Cooke, American soccer player (d. 1964)
*1887 &ndash; Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, German politician, Foreign Minister of Germany (d. 1977)
*1890 &ndash; Cecil Kellaway, South African born character actor (d. 1973)
*1891 &ndash; Jacques Lipchitz, Lithuanian-Italian sculptor (d. 1973)
*1893 &ndash; Wilfred Kitching, English 7th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1977)
* 1893 &ndash; Dorothy Parker, American poet and author (d. 1967)
*1895 &ndash; László Almásy, Hungarian pilot (d. 1951)
* 1895 &ndash; Paul Comtois, Canadian politician, 21st Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (d. 1966)
*1902 &ndash; Thomas Pelly, American politician (d. 1973)
* 1902 &ndash; Leni Riefenstahl, German actress and director (d. 2003)
* 1902 &ndash; Edward Rowe Snow, American historian and author (d. 1982)
*1903 &ndash; Jerry Iger, American cartoonist, co-founded Eisner & Iger (d. 1990)
*1904 &ndash; Deng Xiaoping, Chinese politician, 1st Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1997)
*1908 &ndash; Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer and painter (d. 2004)
* 1908 &ndash; Erwin Thiesies, German rugby player and coach (d. 1993)
*1909 &ndash; Julius J. Epstein, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2000)
* 1909 &ndash; Mel Hein, American football player and coach (d. 1992)
* 1909 &ndash; Lucille Ricksen, American actress (d. 1925)
*1913 &ndash; Leonard Pagliero, English businessman and pilot (d. 2008)
* 1913 &ndash; Bruno Pontecorvo, Italian physicist (d. 1993)
*1914 &ndash; Connie B. Gay, American businessman, co-founded the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (d. 1989) 
*1915 &ndash; David Dellinger, American activist (d. 2004)
* 1915 &ndash; James Hillier, Canadian-American scientist, co-designed the electron microscope (d. 2007)
* 1915 &ndash; Hugh Paddick, English actor (d. 2000)
* 1915 &ndash; Edward Szczepanik, Polish economist and politician, 15th Prime Minister of the Polish Republic in Exile (d. 2005)
*1917 &ndash; John Lee Hooker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2001)
*1918 &ndash; Mary McGrory, American journalist (d. 2004)
*1920 &ndash; Ray Bradbury, American author (d. 2012)
* 1920 &ndash; Denton Cooley, American surgeon
*1921 &ndash; Sotiria Bellou, Greek singer (d. 1997)
* 1921 &ndash; Dinos Dimopoulos, Greek director and screenwriter (d. 2003)
* 1921 &ndash; Tony Pawson, English cricketer (d. 2012)
*1922 &ndash; Roberto Aizenberg, Argentinian painter and sculptor (d. 1996)
* 1922 &ndash; Theoni V. Aldredge, Greek-American costume designer (d. 2011)
* 1922 &ndash; Harishankar Parsai, Indian author (d. 1995)
* 1922 &ndash; Micheline Presle, French actress
*1925 &ndash; Honor Blackman, English actress and singer
* 1925 &ndash; James Kirkwood, Jr., American playwright and author (d. 1989)
*1928 &ndash; Tinga Seisay, Sierra Leonean diplomat and activist 
* 1928 &ndash; Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer (d. 2007)
*1929 &ndash; Valery Alekseyev, Russian anthropologist (d. 1991)
* 1929 &ndash; Ulrich Wegener, German general and police officer
*1930 &ndash; Gylmar dos Santos Neves, Brazilian footballer (d. 2013)
*1932 &ndash; Gerald P. Carr, American engineer, colonel, and astronaut
*1934 &ndash; Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., American general (d. 2012)
*1935 &ndash; Annie Proulx, American journalist and author
*1936 &ndash; Chuck Brown, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2012)
* 1936 &ndash; John Callaway, American journalist (d. 2009)
* 1936 &ndash; Dale Hawkins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2010)
* 1936 &ndash; Werner Stengel, German roller coaster designer and engineer, designed the maverick roller coaster 
*1938 &ndash; Jean Berkey, American politician (d. 2013)
* 1938 &ndash; Paul Maguire, American football player and sportscaster 
*1939 &ndash; Valerie Harper, American actress and singer
* 1939 &ndash; George Reinholt, American actor
* 1939 &ndash; Carl Yastrzemski, American baseball player
*1940 &ndash; Bill McCartney, American football player and coach, founded Promise Keepers
*1941 &ndash; Bill Parcells, American football player and coach
* 1941 &ndash; Hannspeter Winter, Austrian physicist (d. 2006)
*1942 &ndash; Uğur Mumcu, Turkish journalist and author (d. 1993)
*1943 &ndash; Masatoshi Shima, Japanese computer scientist, co-designed the Intel 4004
*1944 &ndash; Peter Hofmann, Czech-German tenor (d. 2010)
*1945 &ndash; David Chase, American director, producer, and screenwriter
* 1945 &ndash; Ron Dante, American singer-songwriter and producer (The Archies, The Cuff Links, and The Detergents)
* 1945 &ndash; Erol Gelenbe, Turkish computer scientist and mathematician
*1947 &ndash; Donna Jean Godchaux, American singer-songwriter (Grateful Dead, Heart of Gold Band, and Jerry Garcia Band, and Donna Jean Godchaux Band)
* 1947 &ndash; Cindy Williams, American actress, singer, and producer
*1948 &ndash; Eleonora Brown, Italian actress
* 1948 &ndash; David Marks, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Beach Boys)
*1949 &ndash; Doug Bair, American baseball player and coach
* 1949 &ndash; Þórarinn Eldjárn, Icelandic author and poet
* 1949 &ndash; Diana Nyad, American swimmer and author
*1950 &ndash; Ray Burris, American baseball player and coach
* 1950 &ndash; Scooter Libby, American lawyer, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
*1951 &ndash; Chandra Prakash Mainali, Nepalese politician
*1952 &ndash; Peter Laughner, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Rocket from the Tombs and Pere Ubu) (d. 1977)
*1953 &ndash; Paul Ellering, American weightlifter and wrestling manager
*1955 &ndash; Chiranjeevi, Indian actor, producer, and politician
* 1955 &ndash; Gordon Liu, Chinese martial artist and actor
*1956 &ndash; Paul Molitor, American baseball player and coach
*1957 &ndash; Steve Davis, English snooker player
*1958 &ndash; Colm Feore, American-Canadian actor
* 1958 &ndash; Stevie Ray, American wrestler
* 1958 &ndash; Vernon Reid, English-American guitarist and songwriter (Living Colour)
*1959 &ndash; Juan Croucier, Cuban-American singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (Ratt and Dokken)
* 1959 &ndash; Pia Gjellerup, Danish politician, Finance Minister of Denmark
* 1959 &ndash; Kidd Kraddick, American radio host (d. 2013)
* 1959 &ndash; Mark Williams, English actor and screenwriter 
*1960 &ndash; Holger Gehrke, German footballer and manager
*1961 &ndash; Andrés Calamaro, Argentinian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Los Abuelos de la Nada and Los Rodríguez)
* 1961 &ndash; Roland Orzabal, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Tears for Fears and Graduate)
* 1961 &ndash; Debbi Peterson, American singer and drummer (The Bangles and Kindred Spirit)
*1963 &ndash; Tori Amos, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (Y Kant Tori Read)
* 1963 &ndash; Terry Catledge, American basketball player
*1964 &ndash; Tom Gibis, American voice actor
* 1964 &ndash; Diane Setterfield, English author
* 1964 &ndash; Mats Wilander, Swedish tennis player
* 1964 &ndash; Andrew Wilson, American actor and director
*1965 &ndash; Courtney Gains, American actor and producer
* 1965 &ndash; Chen Liping, Singaporean actress
*1966 &ndash; Gza, American rapper (Wu-Tang Clan)
* 1966 &ndash; Eric Andolsek, American football player (d. 1992)
* 1966 &ndash; Brooke Dillman, American actress
* 1966 &ndash; Rob Witschge, Dutch footballer and manager
*1967 &ndash; Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, English actor
* 1967 &ndash; Ty Burrell, American actor
* 1967 &ndash; Alfred Gough, American screenwriter and producer
* 1967 &ndash; Yukiko Okada, Japanese singer and actress (d. 1986)
* 1967 &ndash; Layne Staley, American singer-songwriter (Alice in Chains, Class of '99, Mad Season, and Sleze) (d. 2002)
* 1967 &ndash; Bill Welke, American baseball umpire
*1968 &ndash; Casper Christensen, Danish comedian, actor, and screenwriter
* 1968 &ndash; Paul Colman, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (Newsboys and Paul Colman Trio)
* 1968 &ndash; Aleksandr Mostovoi, Russian footballer
* 1968 &ndash; Horst Skoff, Austrian tennis player (d. 2008)
*1970 &ndash; George Canyon, Canadian singer, guitarist, and actor
* 1970 &ndash; Charlie Connelly, English-Irish author and journalist
* 1970 &ndash; Giada De Laurentiis, Italian-American chef and author
* 1970 &ndash; Tímea Nagy, Hungarian fencer
* 1970 &ndash; Shaun Steels, English drummer and bass player (My Dying Bride and Anathema)
*1971 &ndash; Richard Armitage, English actor
* 1971 &ndash; Craig Finn, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Hold Steady and Lifter Puller)
* 1971 &ndash; Rick Yune, American actor and martial artist
*1972 &ndash; Okkert Brits, South African pole vaulter
* 1972 &ndash; Paul Doucette, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and drummer (Matchbox Twenty, The Break and Repair Method, and Tabitha's Secret)
* 1972 &ndash; Steve Kline, American baseball player and coach
* 1972 &ndash; Pontus Schultz, Swedish journalist (d. 2012)
* 1972 &ndash; Max Wilson, Brazilian race car driver
*1973 &ndash; Sornram Teppitak, Thai actor
*1973 &ndash; Howie Dorough, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (Backstreet Boys)
* 1973 &ndash; Beenie Man, Jamaican rapper and producer
* 1973 &ndash; Kristen Wiig, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
* 1973 &ndash; Eurelijus Žukauskas, Lithuanian basketball player
* 1974 &ndash; Agustín Pichot, Argentinian rugby player
* 1974 &ndash; Lee Sheppard, Australian animator
*1975 &ndash; Clint Bolton, Australian footballer
* 1975 &ndash; Davor Krznarić, Croatian footballer
* 1975 &ndash; Sheree Murphy, English actress
* 1975 &ndash; Rodrigo Santoro, Brazilian actor
*1976 &ndash; Marius Bezykornovas, Lithuanian footballer
* 1976 &ndash; Bryn Davies, American bassist, cellist, and pianist
* 1976 &ndash; Laurent Hernu, French decathlete
* 1976 &ndash; Randy Wolf, American baseball player
*1977 &ndash; Jenna Leigh Green, American actress and singer
* 1977 &ndash; Keren Cytter, Visual artist and writer
* 1977 &ndash; Heiðar Helguson, Icelandic footballer
*1978 &ndash; Robert Levon Been, American singer and guitarist (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club)
* 1978 &ndash; James Corden, English actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter
* 1978 &ndash; Ioannis Gagaloudis, Greek basketball player
* 1978 &ndash; Ed Petrie, English comedian and actor
* 1978 &ndash; Jeff Stinco, Canadian guitarist (Simple Plan)
*1979 &ndash; Brandon Adams, American actor
* 1979 &ndash; Jennifer Finnigan, Canadian actress
* 1979 &ndash; Matt Walters, American football player
*1980 &ndash; Roland Benschneider, German footballer
* 1980 &ndash; Nicolas Macrozonaris, Canadian sprinter
*1981 &ndash; Alex Holmes, American football player
* 1981 &ndash; Jang Hyun-Kyu, South Korean footballer (d. 2012)
* 1981 &ndash; Takumi Saito, Japanese actor and singer
*1982 &ndash; Rodrigo Nehme, Mexican actor
*1983 &ndash; Theo Bos, Dutch cyclist
* 1983 &ndash; Laura Breckenridge, American actress
* 1983 &ndash; Justin Buchholz, American mixed martial artist
* 1983 &ndash; Jahri Evans, American football player
* 1983 &ndash; Dani Thompson, Australian-born, English actress, glamour model and TV presenter
*1984 &ndash; Lee Camp, English footballer
* 1984 &ndash; Missy Monroe, American porn actress
* 1984 &ndash; Lawrence Quaye, Ghanaian-Qatari footballer
*1985 &ndash; Kether Donohue, American actress
* 1985 &ndash; Luke Russert, American journalist
*1986 &ndash; Lacie Heart, American porn actress
* 1986 &ndash; Erika Hebron, American model, Miss Missouri 2010 
* 1986 &ndash; Keiko Kitagawa, Japanese actress
* 1986 &ndash; Janis Vahter, Estonian basketball player
*1987 &ndash; Leonardo Moracci, Italian footballer
* 1987 &ndash; Karlie Simon, English porn actress
*1988 &ndash; Sarah Major, New Zealand actress
Remov* 1989 &ndash; Chariz Solomon, Filipino actress 
*1990 &ndash; Syque Caesar, Bangladeshi gymnast 
* 1990 &ndash; Randall Cobb, American football player
*1991 &ndash; Federico Macheda, Italian footballer
* 1991 &ndash; Brayden Schenn, Canadian ice hockey player
*1994 &ndash; Olli Maatta, Finnish ice hockey player
*1996 &ndash; Shannon Flynn, English actress
*1999 &ndash; Dakota Goyo, Canadian actor

==Deaths==

* 408 &ndash; Stilicho, Roman general (b. 359)
*1155 &ndash; Emperor Konoe of Japan (b. 1139)
*1241 &ndash; Pope Gregory IX, (b. 1143)
*1280 &ndash; Pope Nicholas III (b. 1216)
*1304 &ndash; John II, Count of Holland (b. 1247)
*1350 &ndash; Philip VI of France (b. 1293)
*1358 &ndash; Isabella of France (b. 1295)
*1456 &ndash; Vladislav II of Wallachia
*1485 &ndash; Richard III of England (b. 1452)
*1553 &ndash; John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, English admiral and politician, Lord President of the Council (b. 1504)
*1572 &ndash; Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland, English leader of the Rising of the North (b. 1528)
*1584 &ndash; Jan Kochanowski, Polish poet (b. 1530)
*1599 &ndash; Luca Marenzio, Italian singer-songwriter (b. 1553)
*1607 &ndash; Bartholomew Gosnold, English lawyer and explorer, founded the London Company (b. 1572)
*1652 &ndash; Jacob De la Gardie, Estonian-Swedish soldier and politician, Lord High Constable of Sweden (b. 1583)
*1664 &ndash; Maria Cunitz, Polish astronomer (b. 1610)
*1680 &ndash; John George II, Elector of Saxony (b. 1613)
*1701 &ndash; John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1628)
*1711 &ndash; Louis François, duc de Boufflers, French general (b. 1644)
*1752 &ndash; William Whiston, English mathematician, historian, and theologian (b. 1667)
*1793 &ndash; Louis de Noailles, French general (b. 1713)
* 1793 &ndash; Cäcilia Weber, German-Austrian mother of Constanze Weber and mother-in-law of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1727)
*1797 &ndash; Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, French-Austrian field marshal (b. 1724)
*1806 &ndash; Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter (b. 1732)
*1818 &ndash; Warren Hastings, English politician, 1st Governor-General of Bengal (b. 1732)
*1828 &ndash; Franz Joseph Gall, Austrian neuroanatomist and physiologist (b. 1758)
*1850 &ndash; Nikolaus Lenau, Romanian-Austrian poet (b. 1802)
*1861 &ndash; Xianfeng Emperor of China (b. 1831)
*1888 &ndash; Ágoston Trefort, Hungarian politician (b. 1817)
*1891 &ndash; Jan Neruda, Czech journalist, author, and poet (b. 1834)
*1903 &ndash; Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1830)
*1904 &ndash; Kate Chopin, American author (b. 1850)
*1909 &ndash; Henry Radcliffe Crocker, English dermatologist (b. 1846)
*1914 &ndash; Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi, Italian bishop (b. 1859)
*1918 &ndash; Korbinian Brodmann, German neurologist (b. 1868)
*1922 &ndash; Michael Collins, Irish politician, 2nd Minister of Finance for Ireland (b. 1890)
*1926 &ndash; Charles William Eliot, American academic (b. 1834)
*1933 &ndash; Alexandros Kontoulis, Greek general and diplomat (b. 1858)
*1940 &ndash; Oliver Lodge, English physicist (b. 1851)
* 1940 &ndash; Gerald Strickland, 1st Baron Strickland, Maltese politician, 4th Prime Minister of Malta (b. 1861)
*1942 &ndash; Michel Fokine, Russian dancer and choreographer (b. 1880)
*1946 &ndash; Döme Sztójay, Hungarian general and politician, 35th Prime Minister of Hungary (b. 1883)
*1950 &ndash; Kirk Bryan, American geologist (b. 1888)
*1951 &ndash; Jack Bickell, Canadian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1884)
*1953 &ndash; Jim Tabor, American baseball player (b. 1916)
*1958 &ndash; Roger Martin du Gard, French author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
*1960 &ndash; Johannes Sikkar, Estonian politician (b. 1897)
* 1960 &ndash; Eduard Pütsep, Estonian wrestler (b. 1898)
*1963 &ndash; Lord Nuffield, English motor manufacturer and philanthropist (b. 1877)
*1965 &ndash; Ellen Church, American flight attendant (b. 1904)
*1967 &ndash; Gregory Goodwin Pincus, American biologist, co-created the birth-control pill (b. 1903)
*1970 &ndash; Vladimir Propp, Russian scholar (b. 1895)
*1973 &ndash; Louise Huff, American actress (b. 1895)
*1974 &ndash; Jacob Bronowski, Polish-English mathematician, biologist, and author (b. 1908)
*1976 &ndash; Gina Bachauer, Greek pianist (b. 1913)
* 1976 &ndash; Juscelino Kubitschek, Brazilian physician and politician, 21st President of Brazil (b. 1902)
*1977 &ndash; Sebastian Cabot, English-Canadian actor and singer (b. 1918)
*1978 &ndash; Jomo Kenyatta, Kenyan politician, 1st President of Kenya (b. 1894)
*1979 &ndash; James T. Farrell, American author and poet (b. 1904)
*1980 &ndash; James Smith McDonnell, American pilot, engineer, and businessman, founded McDonnell Aircraft (b. 1899)
*1987 &ndash; Joseph P. Lash, American author and journalist (b. 1909)
*1989 &ndash; Robert Grondelaers, Belgian cyclist (b. 1933)
* 1989 &ndash; Huey P. Newton, American activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party (b. 1942)
*1991 &ndash; Colleen Dewhurst, Canadian-American actress (b. 1924)
* 1991 &ndash; Boris Pugo, Latvian politician, Soviet Interior Minister (b.1937)
*1994 &ndash; Gilles Groulx, Canadian director and screenwriter (b. 1931)
*2003 &ndash; Generosa Ammon, American wife of Ted Ammon (b. 1956)
* 2003 &ndash; Imperio Argentina, Argentinian singer and actress (b. 1906)
* 2003 &ndash; Arnold Gerschwiler, Swiss figure skater and coach (b. 1914)
*2004 &ndash; Konstantin Aseev, Russian chess player (b. 1960)
* 2004 &ndash; Angus Bethune, Australian soldier and politician, 33rd Premier of Tasmania (b. 1908)
* 2004 &ndash; Al Dvorin, American bandleader and talent agent (b. 1922)
* 2004 &ndash; Daniel Petrie, Canadian director and producer (b. 1920)
*2005 &ndash; Luc Ferrari, French-Italian composer (b. 1929)
* 2005 &ndash; Ernest Kirkendall, American chemist and metallurgist (b. 1914)
* 2005 &ndash; Mati Unt, Estonian author and director (b. 1944)
*2006 &ndash; Bruce Gary, American drummer and producer (The Knack) (b. 1951)
*2008 &ndash; Gladys Powers, Canadian soldier (b. 1899)
*2009 &ndash; Elmer Kelton, American journalist and author (b. 1926)
*2010 &ndash; Stjepan Bobek, Croatian footballer and manager (b. 1923)
*2011 &ndash; Nick Ashford, American singer-songwriter and producer (Ashford & Simpson) (b. 1942)
* 2011 &ndash; Gudrun Berend, German hurdler (b. 1955)
* 2011 &ndash; Jack Layton, Canadian educator and politician (b. 1950)
* 2011 &ndash; Jerry Leiber, American songwriter (b. 1933)
*2012 &ndash; Nina Bawden, English author (b. 1925)
* 2012 &ndash; Larry Carp, American lawyer (b. 1926)
* 2012 &ndash; Charles Flores, Cuban-American bassist (b. 1970)
* 2012 &ndash; Paulino Matip Nhial, South Sudanese military leader and politician
* 2012 &ndash; Paul Shan Kuo-hsi, Chinese cardinal (b. 1923)
* 2012 &ndash; Martin Shikuku, Kenyan politician (b. 1933)
* 2012 &ndash; Jeffrey Stone, American actor (b. 1926)
* 2012 &ndash; András József Szennay, Hungarian clergyman (b. 1921)
*2013 &ndash; Keiko Fuji, Japanese singer and actress (b. 1951)
* 2013 &ndash; Petr Kment, Czech wrestler (b. 1942)
* 2013 &ndash; William McIlroy, English journalist and activist (b. 1928)
* 2013 &ndash; Ronald Motley, American lawyer (b. 1944)
* 2013 &ndash; Jetty Paerl, Dutch singer (b. 1921)
* 2013 &ndash; Paul Poberezny, American pilot and businessman, founded the Experimental Aircraft Association (b. 1921)
* 2013 &ndash; Andrea Servi, Italian footballer (b. 1984)
* 2013 &ndash; Peter Waieng, Papua New Guinea politician (b. 1966)

==Holidays and observances==
*Christian Feast Day:
**Immaculate Heart of Mary
**Queenship of Mary
**Symphorian and Timotheus
**August 22 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
*Earliest day on which National Heroes' Day can fall, while August 28 is the latest; celebrated on the fourth Monday in August. (Philippines)
*Flag Day (Russia)

==External links==

* BBC: On This Day
* 
* On This Day in Canada



[[August 27]]

==Events==
* 410 &ndash; The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days.
*1172 &ndash; Henry the Young King and Margaret of France are crowned as junior king and queen of England.
*1232 &ndash; The Formulary of Adjudications is promulgated by Regent Hōjō Yasutoki. (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 1232)
*1593 &ndash; Pierre Barrière fails in his attempt to assassinate King Henry IV of France.
*1689 &ndash; The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed by Russia and the Qing Empire.
*1776 &ndash; Battle of Long Island: in what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.
*1793 &ndash; French Revolutionary Wars: the city of Toulon revolts against the French Republic and admits the British and Spanish fleets to seize its port, leading to the Siege of Toulon by French Revolutionary forces.
*1798 &ndash; Wolfe Tone's United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army in the Battle of Castlebar, part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connacht.
*1810 &ndash; Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.
*1813 &ndash; French Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.
*1828 &ndash; Uruguay is formally proclaimed independent at preliminary peace talks brokered by the United Kingdom between Brazil and Argentina during the Cisplatine War.
*1832 &ndash; Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
*1859 &ndash; Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.
*1861 &ndash; American Civil War: Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
*1896 &ndash; Anglo-Zanzibar War: the shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.
*1914 &ndash; Battle of Étreux: a British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Great Retreat. 
*1916 &ndash; Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations.
*1918 &ndash; Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales — U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas and their German advisors in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.
*1921 &ndash; The British install the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali (leader of the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Empire) as King Faisal I of Iraq.
*1922 &ndash; Greco-Turkish War: The Turkish army takes the Aegean city of Afyonkarahisar from the Greeks.
*1927 &ndash; Five Canadian women file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?"
*1928 &ndash; The Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by the first 15 nations to do so. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it.
*1939 &ndash; First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.
*1943 &ndash; World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
*1957 &ndash; Malaysia's constitution comes into force.
*1962 &ndash; The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
*1964 &ndash; The Walt Disney musical film Mary Poppins is released.
*1971 &ndash; An attempted coup d'état fails in the African nation of Chad. The Government of Chad accuses Egypt of playing a role in the attempt and breaks off diplomatic relations.
*1975 &ndash; The Governor of Portuguese Timor abandons its capital, Dili, and flees to Atauro Island, leaving control to a rebel group.
*1979 &ndash; A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Louis Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.
*1982 &ndash; Turkish military diplomat Colonel Atilla Altıkat is shot and killed in Ottawa, Canada's capital city. Justice Commandos Against Armenian Genocide claim responsibility, saying they are avenging the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
*1985 &ndash; The Nigerian government is peacefully overthrown by Army Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Babangida.
*1991 &ndash; The European Community recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
* 1991 &ndash; Moldova declares independence from the USSR.
*1993 &ndash; The Rainbow Bridge, connecting Tokyo's Shibaura and the island of Odaiba, is completed.
*2000 &ndash; The 540 m-tall Ostankino Tower in Moscow catches fire, three people are killed.
*2003 &ndash; Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34646418 mi distant.
* 2003 &ndash; The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
*2006 &ndash; Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.
*2009 &ndash; The Burmese military junta and ethnic armies begin three days of violent clashes in the Kokang Special Region.
*2013 &ndash; The riots between two religious communities started at Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India.

==Births==
*1407 &ndash; Ashikaga Yoshikazu, Japanese shogun (d. 1425)
*1471 &ndash; George, Duke of Saxony (d. 1539)
*1487 &ndash; Anna of Brandenburg (d. 1514)
*1637 &ndash; Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, English politician, 2nd Proprietor of Maryland (d. 1715)
*1665 &ndash; John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, English politician (d. 1751)
*1669 &ndash; Anne Marie d'Orléans, French wife of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia (d. 1728)
*1677 &ndash; Otto Ferdinand von Abensberg und Traun, Austrian general (d. 1748)
*1724 &ndash; John Joachim Zubly, Swiss-American pastor, planter, and politician (d. 1781)
*1730 &ndash; Johann Georg Hamann, German philosopher (d. 1788)
*1770 &ndash; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher (d. 1831)
*1803 &ndash; Edward Beecher, American theologian (d. 1895)
*1809 &ndash; Hannibal Hamlin, American politician, 15th Vice President of the United States (d. 1891)
*1812 &ndash; Bertalan Szemere, Hungarian poet and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 1869)
*1845 &ndash; Ödön Lechner, Hungarian architect, designed the Museum of Applied Arts and the Church of St. Elisabeth (d. 1914)
* 1845 &ndash; Friedrich Martens, Estonian-Russian historian, lawyer, and diplomat (d. 1909)
*1856 &ndash; Ivan Franko, Ukrainian author and poet (d. 1916)
*1858 &ndash; Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician (d. 1932)
*1864 &ndash; Hermann Weingärtner, German gymnast (d. 1919)
*1865 &ndash; James Henry Breasted, American archaeologist and historian (d. 1935)
* 1865 &ndash; Charles G. Dawes, American general and politician, 30th Vice President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
*1868 &ndash; Hong Beomdo, Korean activist (d. 1943)
*1870 &ndash; Amado Nervo, Mexican journalist, poet, and diplomat (d. 1919)
*1871 &ndash; Theodore Dreiser, American journalist and author (d. 1945
*1874 &ndash; Carl Bosch, German chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
*1875 &ndash; Katharine McCormick, American biologist, philanthropist, and activist (d. 1967)
*1877 &ndash; Charles Rolls, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited (d. 1910)
* 1877 &ndash; Ernst Wetter, Swiss politician (d. 1963)
*1878 &ndash; Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, Russian general (d. 1928)
*1884 &ndash; Vincent Auriol, French politician, 16th President of the French Republic (d. 1966)
*1886 &ndash; Rebecca Clarke, English viola player and composer (d. 1979)
* 1886 &ndash; Eric Coates, English viola player and composer (d. 1957)
*1887 &ndash; George, Crown Prince of Serbia (d. 1972)
*1890 &ndash; Man Ray, American-French photographer and painter (d. 1976)
*1895 &ndash; Andreas Alföldi, Hungarian archaeologist and historian (d. 1981)
*1896 &ndash; Kenji Miyazawa, Japanese author and poet (d. 1933)
* 1896 &ndash; Faina Ranevskaya, Russian actress (d. 1984)
* 1896 &ndash; Léon Theremin, Russian physicist and engineer, invented the Theremin (d. 1993)
*1898 &ndash; Gaspard Fauteux, Canadian politician, 19th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (d. 1963)
*1899 &ndash; C. S. Forester, Egyptian-English author (d. 1966)
* 1899 &ndash; Byron Foulger, American actor (d. 1970)
*1903 &ndash; Ferenc Keserű, Hungarian water polo player (d. 1968)
* 1903 &ndash; Xavier Villaurrutia, Mexican poet and playwright (d. 1950)
*1904 &ndash; Alar Kotli, Estonian architect (d. 1963)
* 1904 &ndash; Norah Lofts, English author (d. 1983)
* 1904 &ndash; John Hay Whitney, American businessman, publisher, and diplomat, founded J.H. Whitney & Company (d. 1982)
*1905 &ndash; Aris Velouchiotis, Greek military leader (d. 1945)
*1906 &ndash; Ed Gein, American murderer (d. 1984)
*1908 &ndash; Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer (d. 2001)
* 1908 &ndash; Lyndon B. Johnson, American commander and politician, 36th President of the United States (d. 1973)
* 1908 &ndash; Kurt Wegner, German painter (d. 1985)
*1909 &ndash; Sylvère Maes, Belgian cyclist (d. 1966)
* 1909 &ndash; Lester Young, American saxophonist and clarinet player (d. 1959)
*1911 &ndash; Kay Walsh, English actress, singer and dancer (d. 2005)
*1912 &ndash; Gloria Guinness, Mexican journalist (d. 1980)
*1913 &ndash; Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, Russian-German wife of Claus von Stauffenberg (d. 2006)
*1914 &ndash; Heidi Kabel, German actress and singer (d. 2010)
*1915 &ndash; Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr., American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
*1916 &ndash; Tony Harris, South African cricketer (d. 1993)
* 1916 &ndash; Martha Raye, American actress and singer (d. 1994)
* 1916 &ndash; Gordon Bashford, English car design and engineer (d. 1991)
*1917 &ndash; Peanuts Lowrey, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1986)
*1918 &ndash; Jelle Zijlstra, Dutch economist and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 2001)
*1919 &ndash; Thomas “Pee Wee” Butts, American baseball player (d. 1972)
* 1919 &ndash; Murray Grand, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2007)
*1921 &ndash; Georg Alexander, Duke of Mecklenburg (d. 1996)
* 1921 &ndash; Leo Penn, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1998)
*1922 &ndash; Roelof Kruisinga, Dutch physician and politician, Minister of Defence for The Netherlands (d. 2012)
*1923 &ndash; Jimmy Greenhalgh, English footballer and manager (d. 2013)
*1924 &ndash; David Rowbotham, Australian journalist and poet (d. 2010)
* 1924 &ndash; Rosalie E. Wahl, American lawyer and jurist (d. 2013)
*1925 &ndash; Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, Italian cardinal
* 1925 &ndash; Darry Cowl, French actor and composer (d. 2006)
* 1925 &ndash; Nat Lofthouse, English footballer and manager (d. 2011)
* 1925 &ndash; Saiichi Maruya, Japanese author and critic (d. 2012)
*1926 &ndash; Pat Coombs, English actress (d. 2002)
* 1926 &ndash; Kristen Nygaard, Norwegian computer scientist (d. 2002)
*1927 &ndash; Jimmy C. Newman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
*1928 &ndash; Péter Boross, Hungarian politician, 54th Prime Minister of Hungary 
* 1928 &ndash; Mangosuthu Buthelezi, South African politician, Chief Minister of KwaZulu
* 1928 &ndash; Joan Kroc, American philanthropist (d. 2003)
*1929 &ndash; Ira Levin, American author, playwright, and composer (d. 2007)
* 1929 &ndash; George Scott, Canadian-American wrestler (d. 2014)
*1930 &ndash; Gholamreza Takhti, Iranian wrestler (d. 1968)
*1931 &ndash; Sri Chinmoy, Bangladeshi-American guru and poet (d. 2007)
* 1931 &ndash; Joe Cunningham, American baseball player
*1932 &ndash; Cor Brom, Dutch footballer and manager (d. 2008)
* 1932 &ndash; Antonia Fraser, English author
*1933 &ndash; Jenő Hámori, Hungarian fencer
* 1933 &ndash; Joke Smit, Dutch activist and politician (d. 1981)
*1935 &ndash; Ernie Broglio, American baseball player
* 1935 &ndash; Frank Yablans, American screenwriter and producer
*1936 &ndash; Joel Kovel, American scholar and politician
*1937 &ndash; Alice Coltrane, American pianist and composer (d. 2007)
* 1937 &ndash; Tommy Sands, American actor and singer
*1939 &ndash; William Least Heat-Moon, American author
* 1939 &ndash; Edward Patten, American singer-songwriter and producer (Gladys Knight & the Pips) (d. 2005)
*1940 &ndash; Sonny Sharrock, American guitarist (Last Exit) (d. 1994)
*1941 &ndash; Cesária Évora, Cape Verdean singer (d. 2011)
* 1941 &ndash; János Konrád, Hungarian water polo player and swimmer
* 1941 &ndash; Harrison Page, American actor
*1942 &ndash; Daryl Dragon, American keyboard player and songwriter (Captain & Tennille)
* 1942 &ndash; Brian Peckford, Canadian educator and politician, 3rd Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador
*1943 &ndash; Chuck Girard, American singer-songwriter and pianist (Love Song and The Castells)
* 1943 &ndash; Bob Kerrey, American lieutenant and politician, 35th Governor of Nebraska
* 1943 &ndash; Tuesday Weld, American actress and singer
*1944 &ndash; G.W. Bailey, American actor
* 1944 &ndash; Jan Bols, Dutch speed skater
* 1944 &ndash; Barbara Trentham, American actress (d. 2013)
*1945 &ndash; Jan Sloot, Dutch technician (d. 1999)
*1946 &ndash; Tony Howard, Barbadian cricketer and manager
*1947 &ndash; Barbara Bach, American model and actress
* 1947 &ndash; Peter Krieg, German director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2009)
* 1947 &ndash; John Morrison, New Zealand cricketer and politician
* 1947 &ndash; Gavin Pfuhl, South African cricketer and sportscaster (d. 2002)
* 1947 &ndash; Harry Reems, American porn actor (d. 2013)
*1948 &ndash; John Mehler, American drummer (Love Song)
* 1948 &ndash; Sgt. Slaughter, American wrestler and actor
* 1948 &ndash; Philippe Vallois, French director and screenwriter
*1949 &ndash; Jeff Cook, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Alabama)
*1950 &ndash; Charles Fleischer, American comedian, actor, and singer
* 1950 &ndash; Neil Murray, Scottish bass player and songwriter (Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Colosseum II, and Gogmagog)
*1951 &ndash; Buddy Bell, American baseball player and manager
* 1951 &ndash; Mack Brown, American football player and coach
* 1951 &ndash; Randall Garrison, American-Canadian criminologist and politician
*1952 &ndash; Paul Reubens, American actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter
*1953 &ndash; Alex Lifeson, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Rush and Big Dirty Band)
* 1953 &ndash; Peter Stormare, Swedish actor, director, and playwright 
*1954 &ndash; John Lloyd, English tennis player and sportscaster
* 1954 &ndash; Derek Warwick, English race car driver
*1955 &ndash; Laura Fygi, Dutch singer
* 1955 &ndash; Robert Richardson, American cinematographer
* 1955 &ndash; Diana Scarwid, American actress
*1957 &ndash; Jeff Grubb, American game designer and author
* 1957 &ndash; Bernhard Langer, German golfer
*1958 &ndash; Normand Brathwaite, Canadian comedian and actor
* 1958 &ndash; Stalking Cat, American body modifier (d. 2012)
* 1958 &ndash; Sergei Krikalev, Russian engineer and astronaut 
* 1958 &ndash; Tom Lanoye, Belgian author, poet, and playwright
*1959 &ndash; Gerhard Berger, Austrian race car driver
* 1959 &ndash; Downtown Julie Brown, English television host and actress
* 1959 &ndash; Juan Fernando Cobo, Colombian painter and sculptor 
* 1959 &ndash; András Petőcz, Hungarian author and poet
* 1959 &ndash; Jeanette Winterson, English author
* 1959 &ndash; Denice Denton, American engineer and academic (d. 2006)
*1961 &ndash; Yolanda Adams, American singer, producer, and actress
* 1961 &ndash; Mark Curry, English television host and actor
* 1961 &ndash; Tom Ford, American fashion designer, actor, and director
* 1961 &ndash; Mark McConnell, American drummer (Blackfoot, Madam X, and Southern Rock Allstars) (d. 2012)
* 1961 &ndash; Urmas Muru, Estonian architect
* 1961 &ndash; Helmut Winklhofer, German footballer
*1962 &ndash; Vic Mignogna, American voice actor, singer, and director
* 1962 &ndash; Adam Oates, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
*1964 &ndash; Paul Bernardo, Canadian murderer and rapist
* 1964 &ndash; Robert Bogue, American actor
* 1964 &ndash; Stephan Elliott, Australian actor, director, and screenwriter
*1965 &ndash; Scott Dibble, American politician
* 1965 &ndash; Wayne James, Zimbabwean cricketer
* 1965 &ndash; Ange Postecoglou, Greek-Australian footballer and coach
*1966 &ndash; Jeroen Duyster, Dutch rower
* 1966 &ndash; Juhan Parts, Estonian politician, 14th Prime Minister of Estonia
*1967 &ndash; Ogie Alcasid, Filipino singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
*1969 &ndash; Mark Ealham, English cricketer
* 1969 &ndash; Cesar Millan, Mexican-American dog trainer
* 1969 &ndash; Reece Shearsmith, English actor, producer, and screenwriter
* 1969 &ndash; Chandra Wilson, American actress and director
*1970 &ndash; Andy Bichel, Australian cricketer and coach
* 1970 &ndash; Peter Ebdon, English snooker player
* 1970 &ndash; Mark Ilott, English cricketer
* 1970 &ndash; Tony Kanal, English-American bass player, songwriter, and producer (No Doubt)
* 1970 &ndash; Jeff Kenna, Irish footballer and manager
* 1970 &ndash; Park Myeong-su, South Korean singer-songwriter and television host
* 1970 &ndash; Jim Thome, American baseball player and manager
* 1970 &ndash; Karl Unterkircher, Italian mountaineer (d. 2008)
*1971 &ndash; Julian Cheung, Hong Kong actor and singer
* 1971 &ndash; Ernest Faber, Dutch footballer and manager
* 1971 &ndash; Aygül Özkan, German politician
*1972 &ndash; Jaap-Derk Buma, Dutch field hockey player
* 1972 &ndash; Felix da Housecat, American DJ and producer
* 1972 &ndash; The Great Khali, Indian wrestler and actor
* 1972 &ndash; Denise Lewis, English heptathlete
* 1972 &ndash; Jimmy Pop, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Bloodhound Gang)
*1973 &ndash; Jazz, American wrestler
* 1973 &ndash; Cory Bowles, Canadian actor, singer, and choreographer
* 1973 &ndash; Danny Coyne, Welsh footballer
* 1973 &ndash; Dietmar Hamann, German footballer and manager
* 1973 &ndash; Burak Kut, Turkish singer-songwriter
* 1973 &ndash; Johan Norberg, Swedish historian and author
*1974 &ndash; Michael Mason, New Zealand cricketer
* 1974 &ndash; José Vidro, Puerto Rican baseball player
* 1974 &ndash; Mohammad Yousuf, Pakistani cricketer
*1975 &ndash; Blake Adams, American golfer
* 1975 &ndash; Björn Gelotte, Swedish guitarist and songwriter (In Flames and All Ends)
* 1975 &ndash; Jonny Moseley, American skier
* 1975 &ndash; Mark Rudan, Australian footballer and manager
*1976 &ndash; Sarah Chalke, Canadian actress
* 1976 &ndash; Milano Collection A.T., Japanese wrestler
* 1976 &ndash; Carlos Moyá, Spanish tennis player
* 1976 &ndash; Mark Webber, Australian race car driver
*1977 &ndash; Deco, Brazilian-Portuguese footballer
* 1977 &ndash; Justin Miller, American baseball player (d. 2013)
*1979 &ndash; Giovanni Capitello, American actor and director
* 1979 &ndash; Tian Liang, Chinese diver
* 1979 &ndash; Sarah Neufeld, Canadian violinist (Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre)
* 1979 &ndash; Aaron Paul, American actor
* 1979 &ndash; Rusty Smith, American speed skater 
*1980 &ndash; Neha Dhupia, Indian model and actress
* 1980 &ndash; Kyle Lowder, American actor
*1981 &ndash; Patrick J. Adams, Canadian actor and producer
* 1981 &ndash; Maxwell Cabelino Andrade, Spanish footballer
* 1981 &ndash; Alessandro Gamberini, Italian footballer
*1982 &ndash; Damien Monier, French cyclist
*1983 &ndash; Bolin Chen, Taiwanese actor
*1984 &ndash; David Bentley, English footballer
* 1984 &ndash; Sulley Muntari, Ghanaian footballer
*1985 &ndash; Kevan Hurst, English footballer
* 1985 &ndash; Nikica Jelavić, Croatian footballer
* 1985 &ndash; Daniel Küblböck, German singer and actor
* 1985 &ndash; Alexandra Nechita, Romanian-American painter
*1986 &ndash; Mario, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor
* 1986 &ndash; Nabil El Zhar, French-Moroccan footballer
*1987 &ndash; Darren McFadden, American football player
*1988 &ndash; Alexa Vega, American actress and singer
*1989 &ndash; Juliana Cannarozzo, American figure skater and actress
* 1989 &ndash; Romain Amalfitano, French footballer
*1990 &ndash; Luuk de Jong, Dutch footballer
*1991 &ndash; Rikiya Otaka, Japanese actor
*1992 &ndash; Kim Petras, German singer-songwriter
*1993 &ndash; Sarah Hecken, German figure skater
*1995 &ndash; Cainan Wiebe, Canadian actor 

==Deaths==
* 542 &ndash; Caesarius of Arles, French bishop and saint (b. 470)
* 749 &ndash; Qahtaba ibn Shabib al-Ta'i, Khorasan general
* 827 &ndash; Pope Eugene II
*1312 &ndash; Arthur II, Duke of Brittany (b. 1261)
*1394 &ndash; Emperor Chōkei of Japan (b. 1343)
*1450 &ndash; Reginald West, 6th Baron De La Warr, English politician (b. 1395)
*1521 &ndash; Josquin des Prez, Flemish composer (b. 1450)
*1545 &ndash; Piotr Gamrat, Polish archbishop (b. 1487)
*1577 &ndash; Titian, Italian painter (b. 1488)
*1590 &ndash; Pope Sixtus V (b. 1521)
*1635 &ndash; Lope de Vega, Spanish poet and playwright (b. 1562)
*1664 &ndash; Francisco de Zurbarán, Spanish painter (b. 1598)
*1748 &ndash; James Thomson, Scottish poet and playwright (b. 1700)
*1773 &ndash; Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (b. 1721)
*1828 &ndash; Eise Eisinga, Dutch astronomer, built the Eisinga Planetarium (b. 1744)
*1857 &ndash; Rufus Wilmot Griswold, American anthologist, poet, and critic (b. 1815)
*1865 &ndash; Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Canadian judge and politician (b. 1796)
*1871 &ndash; William Whiting Boardman, American politician (b. 1794)
*1875 &ndash; William Chapman Ralston, American businessman and financier, founded the Bank of California (b. 1826)
*1891 &ndash; Samuel C. Pomeroy, American politician and railroad executive (b. 1816)
*1909 &ndash; Emil Christian Hansen, Danish physiologist and mycologist (b. 1842)
*1929 &ndash; Herman Potočnik, Croatian-Austrian engineer (b. 1892)
*1931 &ndash; Frank Harris, Irish-American journalist and author (b. 1856)
* 1931 &ndash; Willem Hubert Nolens, Dutch priest and politician (b. 1860)
* 1931 &ndash; Francis Marion Smith, American miner and businessman (b. 1846)
*1934 &ndash; Linda Agostini, Australian murder victim (b. 1905)
*1944 &ndash; Georg von Boeselager, German soldier (b. 1915)
*1945 &ndash; Hubert Pál Álgyay, Hungarian engineer, designed the Petőfi Bridge (b. 1894)
*1948 &ndash; Charles Evans Hughes, American lawyer and politician, 11th Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1862)
*1950 &ndash; Cesare Pavese, Italian author, poet, and critic (b. 1908)
*1958 &ndash; Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
*1961 &ndash; Kálmán Rózsahegyi, Hungarian actor and educator (b. 1873)
*1963 &ndash; W. E. B. Du Bois, American sociologist, historian, and activist (b. 1868)
* 1963 &ndash; Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, Pakistani mathematician and scholar (b. 1888)
*1964 &ndash; Gracie Allen, American actress and singer (b. 1895)
*1965 &ndash; Le Corbusier, Swiss-French architect, designed the Philips Pavilion (b. 1887)
*1967 &ndash; Brian Epstein, English businessman and manager (b. 1934)
*1968 &ndash; Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark (b. 1906)
*1969 &ndash; Ivy Compton-Burnett, English author (b. 1884)
* 1969 &ndash; Erika Mann, German actress and author (b. 1905)
*1971 &ndash; Bennett Cerf, American publisher, co-founded Random House (b. 1898)
* 1971 &ndash; Margaret Bourke-White, American photographer and journalist (b. 1906)
*1975 &ndash; Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor (b. 1892)
*1976 &ndash; Mukesh, Indian singer (b. 1923)
*1978 &ndash; Ieva Simonaitytė, Lithuanian writer (b. 1897)
*1979 &ndash; Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, English admiral and politician, 44th Governor-General of India (b. 1900)
*1980 &ndash; Douglas Kenney, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1947)
*1981 &ndash; Valeri Kharlamov, Russian ice hockey player (b. 1948)
*1983 &ndash; Harry A. deButts, American railroad executive
*1984 &ndash; Bernard Youens, English actor (b. 1914)
*1987 &ndash; Scott La Rock, American DJ and producer (Boogie Down Productions) (b. 1962)
*1988 &ndash; Mario Montenegro, Filipino actor (b. 1928)
* 1988 &ndash; William Sargant, English psychiatrist (b. 1907)
*1990 &ndash; Avdy Andresson, Estonian diplomat (b. 1899)
* 1990 &ndash; Stevie Ray Vaughan, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1954)
*1994 &ndash; Frank Jeske, German footballer (b. 1960)
* 1994 &ndash; Boris Malenko, American wrestler (b. 1933)
*1996 &ndash; Greg Morris, American actor (b. 1933)
*1997 &ndash; Sotiria Bellou, Greek singer (b. 1921)
*1998 &ndash; Essie Summers, New Zealand author (b. 1912)
*1999 &ndash; Hélder Câmara, Brazilian archbishop (b. 1909)
*2001 &ndash; Michael Dertouzos, Greek-American academic (b. 1936)
* 2001 &ndash; Abu Ali Mustafa, Palestinian leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (b. 1938)
*2002 &ndash; Edwin Louis Cole, American religious leader and author (b. 1922)
*2003 &ndash; Peter-Paul Pigmans, Dutch record producer (b. 1961)
* 2003 &ndash; Pierre Poujade, French politician (b. 1920)
*2004 &ndash; Willie Crawford, American baseball player (b. 1946)
*2005 &ndash; Giorgos Mouzakis, Greek trumpet player and composer (b. 1922)
* 2005 &ndash; Seán Purcell, Irish footballer (b. 1929)
*2006 &ndash; María Capovilla, Ecuadorian super-centenarian (b. 1889)
* 2006 &ndash; Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922)
* 2006 &ndash; Jesse Pintado, Mexican-American guitarist (Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Brujeria, and Lock Up) (b. 1969)
*2007 &ndash; Emma Penella, Spanish actress (b. 1930)
*2008 &ndash; Mark Priestley, Australian actor (b. 1970)
*2009 &ndash; Abdullah al-Asiri, Saudi Arabian terrorist (b. 1986)
* 2009 &ndash; Sergey Mikhalkov, Russian author and poet (b. 1913)
*2010 &ndash; Anton Geesink, Dutch martial artist (b. 1934)
* 2010 &ndash; Luna Vachon, Canadian-American wrestler (b. 1962)
*2012 &ndash; Neville Alexander, South African linguist and activist (b. 1936)
* 2012 &ndash; Aurora Bautista, Spanish actress (b. 1925)
* 2012 &ndash; Malcolm Browne, American journalist and photographer (b. 1931)
* 2012 &ndash; Art Heyman, American basketball player (b. 1941)
* 2012 &ndash; Ivica Horvat, Croatian footballer and manager (b. 1926)
* 2012 &ndash; Richard Kingsland, Australian captain and pilot (b. 1916)
* 2012 &ndash; Gely Korzhev, Russian painter (b. 1925)
* 2012 &ndash; Antoine Redin, French footballer and manager (b. 1934)
* 2012 &ndash; Aboud Rogo, Kenyan cleric (b. 1968)
* 2012 &ndash; Russell Scott, American clown (b. 1921)
* 2012 &ndash; Tao Wei, Chinese footballer and sportscaster (b. 1966)
*2013 &ndash; Helene Brandt, American sculptor (b. 1936)
* 2013 &ndash; Kent Finell, Swedish radio host (b. 1944)
* 2013 &ndash; Maxwell Fuller, Australian chess player (b. 1945)
* 2013 &ndash; Chris Kennedy, Australian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1948)
* 2013 &ndash; Zoltán Kovács, Hungarian footballer (b. 1986)
* 2013 &ndash; Chen Liting, Chinese director and playwright (b. 1910)
* 2013 &ndash; Anatoly Onoprienko, Ukrainian murderer (b. 1959)
* 2013 &ndash; Bill Peach, Australian journalist (b. 1935)
* 2013 &ndash; Héctor Sanabria, Argentinian footballer (b. 1985)
* 2013 &ndash; Dave Thomas, Welsh golfer (b. 1934)

==Holidays and observances==
*Christian feast day:
**Baculus of Sorrento
**Caesarius of Arles
**Margaret the Barefooted
**Monica of Hippo, mother of Augustine of Hippo
**Phanourios of Rhodes
**Rufus and Carpophorus
**Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle (Episcopal Church (USA))
**August 27 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

*Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Moldova from the USSR in 1991.
*Lyndon Baines Johnson Day (Texas)
*Volturnalia, held in honor of Volturnus. (Roman Empire)

==External links==

* BBC: On This Day
* 
* On This Day in Canada



[[Alcohol]]

Ball-and-stick model of the hydroxyl (-OH) functional group in an alcohol molecule (R3COH). The three "R's" stand for carbon substituents or hydrogen atoms. 

The hydroxyl (-OH) functional group with bond angle.
 
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms. 

An important class of alcohols are the simple acyclic alcohols, the general formula for which is CnH2n+1OH. Of these ethanol (C2H5OH) is the alcohol found in alcoholic beverages; in common speech the word alcohol refers to ethanol.

Other alcohols are usually described with a clarifying adjective, as in isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol) or wood alcohol (methyl alcohol, or methanol). The suffix -ol appears in the IUPAC chemical name of all substances where the hydroxyl group is the functional group with the highest priority; in substances where a higher priority group is present the prefix hydroxy- will appear in the IUPAC name. The suffix -ol in non-systematic names (such as paracetamol or cholesterol) also typically indicates that the substance includes a hydroxyl functional group and, so, can be termed an alcohol. But many substances, particularly sugars (examples glucose and sucrose) contain hydroxyl functional groups without using the suffix.

In everyday life "alcohol" without qualification usually refers to ethanol, or a beverage based on ethanol (as in the term "alcohol abuse").

==Occurrence in nature==
Alcohol has been found outside the Solar System. It can be found in low densities in star and planetary-system-forming regions of space. 

===Human metabolites===

Studies have found trace quantities of endogenous alcohols of healthy volunteers from exhaled breath with a mean of 450 ppb methanol http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16705261 and 244 ppb ethanol. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16312013 Fruit consumption is a source of endogenous methanol metabolized from pectin; One kilos of apple produces a mean of to 4.5 gram methanol. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9267548 However, methanol should never consumed on its own as it is poisonous to the central nervous system, and may cause blindness, coma, and death. These studies are not guidelines that intentional external consumptions of alcohols are healthy in quantities.

==Toxicity==

Ball-and-stick model of tert-Amyl alcohol, which is 20 times more intoxicating than ethanol and like all tertiary alcohols, cannot be metabolised to toxic aldehydes. 
Most significant of the possible long-term effects of ethanol. In addition, in pregnant women, it causes fetal alcohol syndrome.

Alcoholic beverages have been consumed by humans since prehistoric times for a variety of hygienic, dietary, medicinal, religious, and recreational reasons.

Primary alcohols (R-CH2-OH) can be oxidized either to aldehydes (R-CHO) (e.g. acetaldehyde) or to carboxylic acids (R-CO2H), while the oxidation of secondary alcohols (R1R2CH-OH) normally terminates at the ketone (R1R2C=O) stage. Tertiary alcohols (R1R2R3C-OH) are resistant to oxidation.

Ethanol's toxicity is largely caused by its primary metabolite, acetaldehyde (systematically ethanal) and secondary metabolite, acetic acid. All primary alcohols are broken down into aldehydes then to carboxylic acids whose toxicities are similar to acetaldehyde and acetic acid. Metabolite toxicity is reduced in rats fed N-acetylcysteine and thiamine. 

Tertiary alcohols cannot be metabolized into aldehydes and as a result they cause no hangover or toxicity through this mechanism.

Some secondary and tertiary alcohols are less poisonous than ethanol because the liver is unable to metabolize them into toxic by-products. This makes them more suitable for recreational and medicinal use as the chronic harms are lower. Ethchlorvynol and tert-Amyl alcohol are good examples of tertiary alcohols which saw both medicinal and recreational use. 

Other alcohols are substantially more poisonous than ethanol, partly because they take much longer to be metabolized and partly because their metabolism produces substances that are even more toxic. Methanol (wood alcohol), for instance, is oxidized to formaldehyde and then to the poisonous formic acid in the liver by alcohol dehydrogenase and formaldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes, respectively; accumulation of formic acid can lead to blindness or death. Likewise, poisoning due to other alcohols such as ethylene glycol or diethylene glycol are due to their metabolites, which are also produced by alcohol dehydrogenase. 

Methanol itself, while poisonous (LD50 5628 mg/kg, oral, rat ChemIDplus Advanced - Chemical information with searchable synonyms, structures, and formulas ), has a much weaker sedative effect than ethanol.

Isopropyl alcohol is oxidized to form acetone by alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver but has occasionally been abused by alcoholics, leading to a range of adverse health effects. 

===Treatment===
An effective treatment to prevent toxicity after methanol or ethylene glycol ingestion is to administer ethanol. Alcohol dehydrogenase has a higher affinity for ethanol, thus preventing methanol from binding and acting as a substrate. Any remaining methanol will then have time to be excreted through the kidneys. 

==Nomenclature==

===Systematic names===
In the IUPAC system, the name of the alkane chain loses the terminal "e" and adds "ol", e.g., "methanol" and "ethanol". When necessary, the position of the hydroxyl group is indicated by a number between the alkane name and the "ol": propan-1-ol for CH3CH2CH2OH, propan-2-ol for CH3CH(OH)CH3. Sometimes, the position number is written before the IUPAC name: 1-propanol and 2-propanol. If a higher priority group is present (such as an aldehyde, ketone, or carboxylic acid), then it is necessary to use the prefix "hydroxy", for example: 1-hydroxy-2-propanone (CH3COCH2OH). Organic chemistry IUPAC nomenclature. Alcohols Rule C-201. 

The IUPAC nomenclature is used in scientific publications and where precise identification of the substance is important. In other less formal contexts, an alcohol is often called with the name of the corresponding alkyl group followed by the word "alcohol", e.g., methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol. Propyl alcohol may be n-propyl alcohol or isopropyl alcohol, depending on whether the hydroxyl group is bonded to the 1st or 2nd carbon on the propane chain.

Alcohols are classified into 0°, primary (1°), secondary (2°; also italic abbreviated sec- or just s-), and tertiary (3°; also italic abbreviated tert- or just t-), based upon the number of carbon atoms connected to the carbon atom that bears the hydroxyl (OH) functional group. The primary alcohols have general formulas RCH2OH; secondary ones are RR'CHOH; and tertiary ones are RR'R"COH, where R, R', and R" stand for alkyl groups. Methanol (C H3O H or CH4O) is a 0° alcohol. Some sources include methanol as a primary alcohol, including the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, but this interpretation is less common in modern texts.

Some examples of simple alcohols and how to name them

===Common names===

 Chemical Formula IUPAC Name Common Name 
 Monohydric alcohols 
 CH3OH Methanol Wood alcohol 
 C2H5OH Ethanol Alcohol 
 C3H7OH Isopropyl alcohol Rubbing alcohol 
 C4H9OH Butyl alcohol Butanol 
 C5H11OH Pentanol Amyl alcohol 
 C16H33OH Hexadecan-1-ol Cetyl alcohol 
 Polyhydric alcohols 
 C2H4(OH)2 Ethane-1,2-diol Ethylene glycol 
 C3H6(OH)2 Propane-1,2-diol Propylene Glycol 
 C3H5(OH)3 Propane-1,2,3-triol Glycerol 
 C4H6(OH)4 Butane-1,2,3,4-tetraol Erythritol, Threitol 
 C5H7(OH)5 Pentane-1,2,3,4,5-pentol Xylitol 
 C6H8(OH)6 Hexane-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexol Mannitol, Sorbitol 
 C7H9(OH)7 Heptane-1,2,3,4,5,6,7-heptol Volemitol 
 Unsaturated aliphatic alcohols 
 C3H5OH Prop-2-ene-1-ol Allyl alcohol 
 C10H17OH 3,7-Dimethylocta-2,6-dien-1-ol Geraniol 
 C3H3OH Prop-2-in-1-ol Propargyl alcohol 
 Alicyclic alcohols 
 C6H6(OH)6 Cyclohexane-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexol Inositol 
 C10H19OH 2 - (2-propyl)-5-methyl-cyclohexane-1-ol Menthol 

====Alkyl chain variations in alcohols====
Short-chain alcohols have alkyl chains of 1-3 carbons. Medium-chain alcohols have alkyl chains of 4-7 carbons. Long-chain alcohols (also known as fatty alcohols) have alkyl chains of 8-21 carbons, and very long-chain alcohols have alkyl chains of 22 carbons or longer. 

====Simple alcohols====
"Simple alcohols" appears to be a completely undefined term. However, simple alcohols are often referred to by common names derived by adding the word "alcohol" to the name of the appropriate alkyl group. For instance, a chain consisting of one carbon (a methyl group, CH3) with an OH group attached to the carbon is called "methyl alcohol" while a chain of two carbons (an ethyl group, CH2CH3) with an OH group connected to the CH2 is called "ethyl alcohol." For more complex alcohols, the IUPAC nomenclature must be used. 

Simple alcohols, in particular ethanol and methanol, possess denaturing and inert rendering properties, leading to their use as anti-microbial agents in medicine, pharmacy, and industry.

====Higher alcohols====
Encyclopædia Britannica states, "The higher alcohols - those containing 4 to 10 carbon atoms – are somewhat viscous, or oily, and they have heavier fruity odours. Some of the highly branched alcohols and many alcohols containing more than 12 carbon atoms are solids at room temperature." 

Like ethanol, butanol can be produced by fermentation processes. (However, the fermenting agent is a bacterium, Clostridium acetobutylicum, that feeds on cellulose, not sugars like the Saccharomyces yeast that produces ethanol.) Saccharomyces yeast are known to produce these higher alcohols at temperatures above 75 °F.

===History and etymology===
The word alcohol appears in English as a term for a very fine powder in the 16th century. It was borrowed from French, which took it from medical Latin.

Ultimately the word is from the Arabic (, "kohl, a powder used as an eyeliner"). Al- is the Arabic definitive article, equivalent to the in English; alcohol was originally used for the very fine powder produced by the sublimation of the natural mineral stibnite to form antimony sulfide Sb2S3 (hence the essence or "spirit" of the substance), which was used as an antiseptic, eyeliner, and cosmetic (see kohl (cosmetics)). Bartholomew Traheron, in his 1543 translation of John of Vigo, introduces the word as a term used by "barbarous" (Moorish) authors for "fine powder." Vigo wrote:
the barbarous auctours use alcohol, or (as I fynde it sometymes wryten) alcofoll, for moost fine poudre.

The 1657 Lexicon Chymicum by William Johnson glosses the word as antimonium sive stibium. By extension, the word came to refer to any fluid obtained by distillation, including "alcohol of wine," the distilled essence of wine. Libavius in Alchymia (1594) refers to vini alcohol vel vinum alcalisatum. Johnson (1657) glosses alcohol vini as quando omnis superfluitas vini a vino separatur, ita ut accensum ardeat donec totum consumatur, nihilque fæcum aut phlegmatis in fundo remaneat. The word's meaning became restricted to "spirit of wine" (the chemical known today as ethanol) in the 18th century and was extended to the class of substances so-called as "alcohols" in modern chemistry after 1850.

The first alcohol (today known as ethyl alcohol) was discovered by the tenth-century Persian alchemist al-Razi.
The current Arabic name for alcohol (ethanol) is الغول al-ġawl – properly meaning "spirit" or "demon" – with the sense "the thing that gives the wine its headiness" (in the Qur'an sura 37 verse 47). 
The term ethanol was invented 1838, modeled on the German word äthyl (Liebig), which is in turn based on Greek aither ether and hyle "stuff." 

==Physical and chemical properties==
Alcohols have an odor that is often described as “biting” and as “hanging” in the nasal passages. Ethanol has a slightly sweeter (or more fruit-like) odor than the other alcohols.

In general, the hydroxyl group makes the alcohol molecule polar. Those groups can form hydrogen bonds to one another and to other compounds (except in certain large molecules where the hydroxyl is protected by steric hindrance of adjacent groups 
 ). This hydrogen bonding means that alcohols can be used as protic solvents. Two opposing solubility trends in alcohols are: the tendency of the polar OH to promote solubility in water, and the tendency of the carbon chain to resist it. Thus, methanol, ethanol, and propanol are miscible in water because the hydroxyl group wins out over the short carbon chain. Butanol, with a four-carbon chain, is moderately soluble because of a balance between the two trends. Alcohols of five or more carbons (pentanol and higher) are effectively insoluble in water because of the hydrocarbon chain's dominance. All simple alcohols are miscible in organic solvents.

Because of hydrogen bonding, alcohols tend to have higher boiling points than comparable hydrocarbons and ethers. The boiling point of the alcohol ethanol is 78.29 °C, compared to 69 °C for the hydrocarbon hexane (a common constituent of gasoline), and 34.6 °C for diethyl ether.

Alcohols, like water, can show either acidic or basic properties at the -OH group. With a pKa of around 16-19, they are, in general, slightly weaker acids than water, but they are still able to react with strong bases such as sodium hydride or reactive metals such as sodium. The salts that result are called alkoxides, with the general formula RO- M+.

Meanwhile, the oxygen atom has lone pairs of nonbonded electrons that render it weakly basic in the presence of strong acids such as sulfuric acid. For example, with methanol:

Acidity & basicity of methanol

Alcohols can also undergo oxidation to give aldehydes, ketones, or carboxylic acids, or they can be dehydrated to alkenes. They can react to form ester compounds, and they can (if activated first) undergo nucleophilic substitution reactions. The lone pairs of electrons on the oxygen of the hydroxyl group also makes alcohols nucleophiles. For more details, see the reactions of alcohols section below.

As one moves from primary to secondary to tertiary alcohols with the same backbone, the hydrogen bond strength, the boiling point, and the acidity typically decrease.

==Applications==
Total recorded alcohol per capita consumption (15+), in litres of pure alcohol 
Alcohol has a long history of several uses worldwide. It is found in beverages for adults, as fuel, and also has many scientific, medical, and industrial uses. The term alcohol-free is often used to describe a product that does not contain alcohol. Some consumers of some commercially prepared products may view alcohol as an undesirable ingredient, particularly in products intended for children.

===Alcoholic beverages===
Alcoholic beverages, typically containing 1&ndash;50% ethanol by volume, have been produced and consumed by humans since pre-historic times. Other alcohols such as 2-methyl-2-butanol and γ-hydroxybutyric acid are also consumed by humans for their psychoactive effects.

===Antifreeze===
A 50% v/v (by volume) solution of ethylene glycol in water is commonly used as an antifreeze.

===Antiseptics===
Ethanol can be used as an antiseptic to disinfect the skin before injections are given, often along with iodine. Ethanol-based soaps are becoming common in restaurants and are convenient because they do not require drying due to the volatility of the compound. Alcohol based gels have become common as hand sanitizers.

===Fuels===
Some alcohols, mainly ethanol and methanol, can be used as an alcohol fuel. Fuel performance can be increased in forced induction internal combustion engines by injecting alcohol into the air intake after the turbocharger or supercharger has pressurized the air. This cools the pressurized air, providing a denser air charge, which allows for more fuel, and therefore more power.

===Preservative===
Alcohol is often used as a preservative for specimens in the fields of science and medicine.

===Solvents===
Hydroxyl groups (-OH), found in alcohols, are polar and therefore hydrophilic (water loving) but their carbon chain portion is non-polar which make them hydrophobic. The molecule increasingly becomes overall more nonpolar and therefore less soluble in the polar water as the carbon chain becomes longer. Methanol has the shortest carbon chain of all alcohols (one carbon atom) followed by ethanol (two carbon atoms.)

Alcohols have applications in industry and science as reagents or solvents. Because of its relatively low toxicity compared with other alcohols and ability to dissolve non-polar substances, ethanol can be used as a solvent in medical drugs, perfumes, and vegetable essences such as vanilla. In organic synthesis, alcohols serve as versatile intermediates.

==Production==

===Ziegler and Oxo Processes===
In the Ziegler process, linear alcohols are produced from ethylene and triethylaluminium followed by oxidation and hydrolysis. Jürgen Falbe, Helmut Bahrmann, Wolfgang Lipps, Dieter Mayer "Alcohols, Aliphatic" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology Wiley-VCH Verlag; Weinheim, 2002. An idealized synthesis of 1-octanol is shown:
:Al(C2H5)3 + 9 C2H4 → Al(C8H17)3
:Al(C8H17)3 + 3 O + 3 H2O → 3 HOC8H17 + Al(OH)3
The process generates a range of alcohols that are separated by distillation.

Many higher alcohols are produced by hydroformylation of alkenes followed by hydrogenation. When applied to a terminal alkene, as is common, one typically obtains a linear alcohol: 
:RCH=CH2 + H2 + CO → RCH2CH2CHO
:RCH2CH2CHO + 3 H2 → RCH2CH2CH2OH
Such processes give fatty alcohols, which are useful for detergents.

===Hydration reactions===
Low molecular weight alcohols of industrial importance are produced by the addition of water to alkenes. Ethanol, isopropanol, 2-butanol, and tert-butanol are produced by this general method. Two implementations are employed, the direct and indirect methods. The direct method avoids the formation of stable intermediates, typically using acid catalysts. In the indirect method, the alkene is converted to the sulfate ester, which is subsequently hydrolyzed. The direct hydration using ethylene (ethylene hydration) or other alkenes from cracking of fractions of distilled crude oil.

Hydration is also used industrially to produce the diol ethylene glycol from ethylene oxide.

===Biological routes===
Ethanol is obtained by fermentation using glucose produced from sugar from the hydrolysis of starch, in the presence of yeast and temperature of less than 37 °C to produce ethanol. For instance, such a process might proceed by the conversion of sucrose by the enzyme invertase into glucose and fructose, then the conversion of glucose by the enzyme zymase into ethanol (and carbon dioxide).

Several of the benign bacteria in the intestine use fermentation as a form of anaerobic metabolism. This metabolic reaction produces ethanol as a waste product, just like aerobic respiration produces carbon dioxide and water. Thus, human bodies contain some quantity of alcohol endogenously produced by these bacteria. In rare cases, this can be sufficient to cause "auto-brewery syndrome" in which intoxicating quantities of alcohol are produced. 

===Laboratory synthesis===
Several methods exist for the preparation of alcohols in the laboratory.

====Substitution====
Primary alkyl halides react with aqueous NaOH or KOH mainly to primary alcohols in nucleophilic aliphatic substitution. (Secondary and especially tertiary alkyl halides will give the elimination (alkene) product instead). Grignard reagents react with carbonyl groups to secondary and tertiary alcohols. Related reactions are the Barbier reaction and the Nozaki-Hiyama reaction.

====Reduction====
Aldehydes or ketones are reduced with sodium borohydride or lithium aluminium hydride (after an acidic workup). Another reduction by aluminiumisopropylates is the Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley reduction. Noyori asymmetric hydrogenation is the asymmetric reduction of β-keto-esters.

====Hydrolysis====
Alkenes engage in an acid catalysed hydration reaction using concentrated sulfuric acid as a catalyst that gives usually secondary or tertiary alcohols. The hydroboration-oxidation and oxymercuration-reduction of alkenes are more reliable in organic synthesis. Alkenes react with NBS and water in halohydrin formation reaction. Amines can be converted to diazonium salts, which are then hydrolyzed.

The formation of a secondary alcohol via reduction and hydration is shown:
:Preparation of a secondary alcohol

==Reactions==

===Deprotonation===
Alcohols can behave as weak acids, undergoing deprotonation. The deprotonation reaction to produce an alkoxide salt is performed either with a strong base such as sodium hydride or n-butyllithium or with sodium or potassium metal.

: 2 R-OH + 2 NaH → 2 R-O-Na+ + 2H2↑

: 2 R-OH + 2 Na → 2 R-O−Na+ + H2

: 2 CH3CH2-OH + 2 Na → 2 CH3-CH2-O-Na+ + H2↑

Water is similar in pKa to many alcohols, so with sodium hydroxide there is an equilibrium set-up, which usually lies to the left:

: R-OH + NaOH ⇌ R-O-Na+ + H2O (equilibrium to the left)

It should be noted, however, that the bases used to deprotonate alcohols are strong themselves. The bases used and the alkoxides created are both highly moisture-sensitive chemical reagents.

The acidity of alcohols is also affected by the overall stability of the alkoxide ion. Electron-withdrawing groups attached to the carbon containing the hydroxyl group will serve to stabilize the alkoxide when formed, thus resulting in greater acidity. On the other hand, the presence of electron-donating group will result in a less stable alkoxide ion formed. This will result in a scenario whereby the unstable alkoxide ion formed will tend to accept a proton to reform the original alcohol.

With alkyl halides alkoxides give rise to ethers in the Williamson ether synthesis.

===Nucleophilic substitution===
The OH group is not a good leaving group in nucleophilic substitution reactions, so neutral alcohols do not react in such reactions. However, if the oxygen is first protonated to give R−OH2+, the leaving group (water) is much more stable, and the nucleophilic substitution can take place. For instance, tertiary alcohols react with hydrochloric acid to produce tertiary alkyl halides, where the hydroxyl group is replaced by a chlorine atom by unimolecular nucleophilic substitution. If primary or secondary alcohols are to be reacted with hydrochloric acid, an activator such as zinc chloride is needed. In alternative fashion, the conversion may be performed directly using thionyl chloride.

Some simple conversions of alcohols to alkyl chlorides

Alcohols may, likewise, be converted to alkyl bromides using hydrobromic acid or phosphorus tribromide, for example:

: 3 R-OH + PBr3 → 3 RBr + H3PO3

In the Barton-McCombie deoxygenation an alcohol is deoxygenated to an alkane with tributyltin hydride or a trimethylborane-water complex in a radical substitution reaction.

===Dehydration===
Alcohols are themselves nucleophilic, so R−OH2+ can react with ROH to produce ethers and water in a dehydration reaction, although this reaction is rarely used except in the manufacture of diethyl ether.

More useful is the E1 elimination reaction of alcohols to produce alkenes. The reaction, in general, obeys Zaitsev's Rule, which states that the most stable (usually the most substituted) alkene is formed. Tertiary alcohols eliminate easily at just above room temperature, but primary alcohols require a higher temperature.

This is a diagram of acid catalysed dehydration of ethanol to produce ethene:

550px

A more controlled elimination reaction is the Chugaev elimination with carbon disulfide and iodomethane.

===Esterification===
To form an ester from an alcohol and a carboxylic acid the reaction, known as Fischer esterification, is usually performed at reflux with a catalyst of concentrated sulfuric acid:

: R-OH + R'-COOH → R'-COOR + H2O

In order to drive the equilibrium to the right and produce a good yield of ester, water is usually removed, either by an excess of H2SO4 or by using a Dean-Stark apparatus. Esters may also be prepared by reaction of the alcohol with an acid chloride in the presence of a base such as pyridine.

Other types of ester are prepared in a similar manner – for example, tosyl (tosylate) esters are made by reaction of the alcohol with p-toluenesulfonyl chloride in pyridine.

===Oxidation===

Primary alcohols (R-CH2-OH) can be oxidized either to aldehydes (R-CHO) or to carboxylic acids (R-CO2H), while the oxidation of secondary alcohols (R1R2CH-OH) normally terminates at the ketone (R1R2C=O) stage. Tertiary alcohols (R1R2R3C-OH) are resistant to oxidation.

The direct oxidation of primary alcohols to carboxylic acids normally proceeds via the corresponding aldehyde, which is transformed via an aldehyde hydrate (R-CH(OH)2) by reaction with water before it can be further oxidized to the carboxylic acid.

Mechanism of oxidation of primary alcohols to carboxylic acids via aldehydes and aldehyde hydrates

Reagents useful for the transformation of primary alcohols to aldehydes are normally also suitable for the oxidation of secondary alcohols to ketones. These include Collins reagent and Dess-Martin periodinane. The direct oxidation of primary alcohols to carboxylic acids can be carried out using potassium permanganate or the Jones reagent.

==See also==

* Blood alcohol content
* Breathalyzer
* Cooking with alcohol
* Enol
* Ethanol fuel
* Fatty alcohol
* History of alcoholic beverages
* List of countries by alcohol consumption
* 2-Methyl-2-butanol
* Phenols
* Polyol
* Rubbing alcohol
* Sugar alcohol
* Surrogate alcohol
* Transesterification

== Notes ==

== References ==
* 

== External links ==

* Alcohol (Ethanol) at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)

*



[[Achill Island]]

Achill Island (; ) in County Mayo is the largest island off the coast of Ireland, and is situated off the west coast. It has a population of 2,700. Its area is 148 km2. Achill is attached to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Gob an Choire (Achill Sound) and Poll Raithní (Polranny). A bridge was first completed here in 1887, replaced by another structure in 1949, and subsequently replaced with the current bridge which was completed in 2008. Other centres of population include the villages of Keel, Dooagh, Dumha Éige (Dooega) and Dugort. The parish's main Gaelic football pitch and two secondary schools are on the mainland at Poll Raithní. Early human settlements are believed to have been established on Achill around 3000 BC. A paddle dating from this period was found at the crannóg near Dookinella.
The island is 87% peat bog. The parish of Achill also includes the Curraun peninsula. Some of the people of Curraun consider themselves Achill people, and most natives of Achill refer to this area as being "in Achill". There are between 500-600 native Irish speakers in Achill parish. In the summer of 1996, the RNLI decided to station a lifeboat at Kildownet.

==History==
It is believed that at the end of the Neolithic Period (around 4000 BC), Achill had a population of 500–1,000 people. The island would have been mostly forest until the Neolithic people began crop cultivation. Settlement increased during the Iron Age, and the dispersal of small promontory forts around the coast indicate the warlike nature of the times. Megalithic tombs (see picture, right) and forts can be seen at Slievemore, along the Atlantic Drive and on Achillbeg.

===Overlords===
Achill Island lies in the Barony of Burrishoole, in the territory of ancient Umhall (Umhall Uactarach and Umhall Ioctarach), that originally encompassed an area extending from the Galway/Mayo border to Achill Head in Co. Mayo.

The hereditary chieftains of Umhall were the O'Malleys, recorded in the area in 814 AD when they successfully repelled an onslaught by the Vikings in Clew Bay. The Anglo/Norman invasion of Connacht in 1235 AD saw the territory of Umhall taken over by the Butlers and later by the de Burgos. The Butler Lordship of Burrishoole continued into the late 14th century when Thomas le Botiller was recorded as being in possession of Akkyll & Owyll.

===Immigration===
In the 17th and 18th centuries, there was much migration to Achill from other parts of Ireland, particularly Ulster, due to the political and religious turmoil of the time. For a while there were two different dialects of Irish being spoken on Achill. This led to many townlands being recorded as having two names during the 1824 Ordnance Survey, and some maps today give different names for the same place. Achill Irish still has many traces of Ulster Irish.

===Specific historical sites and events===

====Grace O'Malley's Castle====
Grace O'Malley's Kildamhnait Castle is a 15th-century tower house associated with the O'Malley Clan, who were once a ruling family of Achill. Grace O' Malley, or Granuaile, the most famous of the O'Malleys, was born on Clare Island around 1530. Her father was the chieftain of the barony of Murrisk. The O'Malleys were a powerful seafaring family, who traded widely. Grace became a fearless leader and gained fame as a sea captain and pirate. She is reputed to have met with Queen Elizabeth I in 1593. She died around 1603 and is buried in the O'Malley family tomb on Clare Island.

====Achill Mission====
One of Achill's most famous historical sites is that of the Achill Mission or 'the Colony' at Dugort. In 1831 the Church of Ireland Reverend Edward Nangle founded a proselytising mission at Dugort. The Mission included schools, cottages, an orphanage, an infirmary and a guesthouse. The Colony was very successful for a time and regularly produced a newspaper called the Achill Herald and Western Witness. Nangle expanded his mission into Mweelin, where a school was built. The Achill Mission began to decline slowly after Nangle was moved from Achill and was finally closed in the 1880s. Nangle died in 1883.

====Railway====
In 1894, the Westport - Newport railway line was extended to Achill Sound. The train station is now a hostel. The train provided a great service to Achill, but it also fulfilled an ancient prophecy. Brian Rua O' Cearbhain had prophesied that 'carts on iron wheels' would carry bodies into Achill on their first and last journey. In 1894, the first train on the Achill railway carried the bodies of victims of the Clew Bay Drowning. This tragedy occurred when a boat overturned in Clew Bay, drowning thirty two young people. They had been going to meet the steamer which would take them to Scotland for potato picking.

=====Kirkintilloch Fire=====
The Kirkintilloch Fire in 1937 fulfilled the second part of the prophecy, when the bodies of ten victims were carried by rail to Achill. These people had died in a fire in a bothy in Kirkintilloch. This term referred to the temporary accommodation provided for those who went to Scotland to pick potatoes, a migratory pattern that had been established in the early nineteeenth century.

Memorial for the victims of the Clew Bay Drowning on 15 June 1894 at Kildavenet Graveyard

====Kildamhnait====
Kildamhnait on the south east coast of Achill is named after St. Damhnait, or Dymphna, who founded a church there in the 16th century. There is also a holy well just outside the graveyard. The present church was built in the 1700s and the graveyard contains memorials to the victims of two of Achill's greatest tragedies, the Kirchintilloch Fire (1937) and the Clew Bay Drowning (1894).

====The Monastery====
In 1852, Dr. John McHale, Archbishop of Tuam set aside land in Bunnacurry for the building of a monastery. A Franciscan Monastery was built which, for many years provided an education for local children. The ruins of this monastery are still to be seen in Bunnacurry today.

====The Valley House====
The historic Valley House is located in The Valley, near Dugort in the north-east of Achill Island. The present building sits on the site of a hunting lodge built by the Earl of Cavan in the 19th century. Its notoriety arises from an incident in 1894 in which the then owner, an English landlady named Agnes McDonnell, was savagely beaten and the house set alight, allegedly by a local man, James Lynchehaun. Lynchehaun had been employed by McDonnell as her land agent, but the two fell out and he was sacked and told to quit his accommodation on her estate. A lengthy legal battle ensued, with Lynchehaun refusing to leave. At the time, in the 1890s, the issue of land ownership in Ireland was politically charged, and after the events at the Valley House in 1894 Lynchehaun was to claim that his actions were motivated by politics. He escaped custody and fled to the United States, where he successfully defeated legal attempts by the British authorities to have him extradited to face charges arising from the attack and the burning of the Valley House. Agnes McDonnell suffered terrible injuries from the attack but survived and lived for another 23 years, dying in 1923. Lynchehaun is said to have returned to Achill on two occasions, once in disguise as an American tourist, and eventually died in Girvan, Scotland, in 1937. The Valley House is now a hostel.

====The Deserted Village====
Close by Dugort, at the base of Slievemore mountain lies the Deserted Village. There are approximately 80 ruined houses in the village.

The houses were built of unmortared stone, which means that no cement or mortar was used to hold the stones together. Each house consisted of just one room and this room was used as kitchen, living room, bedroom and even stable.

If one looks at the fields around the Deserted Village and right up the mountain, one can see the tracks in the fields of 'lazy beds', which is the way crops like potatoes were grown. In Achill, as in many areas of Ireland, a system called 'Rundale' was used for farming. This meant that the land around a village was rented from a landlord. This land was then shared by all the villagers to graze their cattle and sheep. Each family would then have two or three small pieces of land scattered about the village, which they used to grow crops.

For many years people lived in the village and then in 1845 Famine struck in Achill as it did in the rest of Ireland. Most of the families moved to the nearby village of Dooagh, which is beside the sea, while some others emigrated. Living beside the sea meant that fish and shellfish could be used for food. The village was completely abandoned which is where the name 'Deserted Village' came from.

No one has lived in these houses since the time of the Famine, however the families that moved to Dooagh and their descendants, continued to use the village as a 'booley village'. This means that during the summer season, the younger members of the family, teenage boys and girls, would take the cattle to graze on the hillside and they would stay in the houses of the Deserted Village. This custom continued until the 1940s. Boolying was also carried out in other areas of Achill, including Annagh on Croaghaun mountain and in Curraun.

At Ailt, Kildownet, you can see the remains of a similar deserted village. This village was deserted in 1855 when the tenants were evicted by the local landlord so the land could be used for cattle grazing, the tenants were forced to rent holdings in Currane, Dooega and Slievemore. Others emigrated to America.

===Archaeology===
Keem BayAchill Archaeological Field School is based at the Achill Archaeology Centre in Dooagh, which has served as a catalyst for a wide array of archaeological investigations on the island. It was founded in 1991 and is a training school for students of archaeology and anthropology. Since 1991, several thousand students from 21 countries have come to Achill to study and participate in ongoing excavations. The school is involved in a study of the prehistoric and historic landscape at Slievemore, incorporating a research excavation at a number of sites within the deserted village of Slievemore. Slievemore is rich in archaeological monuments that span a 5,000 year period from the Neolithic to the Post Medieval. Recent archaeological research suggests the village was occupied year-round at least as early as the 19th century, though it is known to have served as a seasonally occupied booley village by the first half of the 20th century. A booley village (a number of which exist in a ruined state on the island) is a village occupied only during part of the year, such as a resort community, a lake community, or (as the case on Achill) a place to live while tending flocks or herds of ruminants during winter or summer pasturing. Deserted village, Slievemore, Achill Island, achill247.com Retrieved on 17 February 2008. Specifically, some of the people of Dooagh and Pollagh would migrate in the summer to Slievemore and then go back to Dooagh in the autumn. The summer 2009 field school excavated Round House 2 on Slievemore Mountain under the direction of archaeologist Stuart Rathbone. Only the outside northwall, entrance way and inside of the Round House were completely excavated. Amanda Burt, member of Achill Field School, Summer 2009. 

From 2004 to 2006, the Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project directed by Chuck Meide was sponsored by the College of William and Mary, the Institute of Maritime History, the Achill Folklife Centre (now the Achill Archaeology Centre), and the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP). This project focused on the documentation of archaeological resources related to Achill's rich maritime heritage. Maritime archaeologists recorded 19th century fishing station, ice house, and boat house ruins, a number of anchors which had been salvaged from the sea, 19th century and more recent currach pens, a number of traditional vernacular watercraft including a possibly 100-year-old Achill yawl, and the remains of four historic shipwrecks. 

==Other places of interest==
Croaghaun, the third highest sea cliff in Europe
Slievemore mountain dominates the centre of the island

Despite some development, the island retains some striking natural beauty. The cliffs of Croaghaun on the western end of the island are the third highest sea cliffs in Europe but are inaccessible by road. Near the westernmost point of Achill, Achill Head, is Keem Bay. Keel Beach is quite popular with tourists and some locals as a surfing location. South of Keem beach is Moytoge Head, which with its rounded appearance drops dramatically down to the ocean. An old British observation post, built during World War I to prevent the Germans from landing arms for the Irish Republican Army, is still standing on Moytoge. During the Second World War this post was rebuilt by the Irish Defence Forces as a Look Out Post for the Coast Watching Service wing of the Defence Forces. It operated from 1939 to 1945. See Michael Kennedy, 'Guarding Neutral Ireland' (Dublin, 2008), p. 50 

The mountain Slievemore (672 m) rises dramatically in the north of the island and the Atlantic Drive (along the south/west of the island) has some dramatically beautiful views. On the slopes of Slievemore, there is an abandoned village (the "Deserted Village") The Deserted Village is traditionally thought to be a remnant village from An Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger of 1845-1849).

The plaque to Johnny Kilbane is situated on Achillbeg and was erected to celebrate 100 years since his first championship win. 
Just west of the deserted village is an old Martello tower, again built by the British to warn of any possible French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. The area also boasts an approximately 5000-year-old Neolithic tomb. Achillbeg (, Little Achill) is a small island just off Achill's southern tip. Its inhabitants were resettled on Achill in the 1960s. Jonathan Beaumont (2005), Achillbeg: The Life of an Island, ISBN 0-85361-631-0 

The villages of Dooniver and Askill have very picturesque scenery and the cycle route is popular with tourists.

==Economy==
While a number of attempts at setting up small industrial units on the island have been made, the economy of the island is largely dependent on tourism. Subventions from Achill people working abroad, in particular in the United Kingdom the United States and Africa allowed many families to remain living in Achill throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the advent of Ireland's "Celtic Tiger" economy fewer Achill people were forced to look for work abroad. Agriculture plays a small role and the fact that the island is mostly bog means that its potential for agriculture is limited largely to sheep farming. In the past, fishing was a significant activity but this aspect of the economy is small now. At one stage, the island was known for its shark fishing, basking shark in particular was fished for its valuable liver oil. There was a big spurt of growth in tourism in the 1960s and 1970s before which life was tough and difficult on the island. Despite healthy visitor numbers each year, the common perception is that tourism in Achill has been slowly declining since its heyday. Currently the largest employers on Achill are two hotels. In late 2009 Ireland's only Turbot farm opened in the Bunnacurry Business Park.

==Religion==
Most people on Achill are either Roman Catholic or Anglican (Church of Ireland). There are three priests on Achill and eight churches in total.

* Catholic:
** Bunnacurry Church (Saint Josephs)
** Valley Church
** Dookinella Church
** Currane Church
** Pollagh Church
** Derreens Church
** Dooega Church
** Belfarsed Church
** Achill Sound Church

* Church of Ireland:
** Dugort Church (St.Thomas's church)
** Innisbiggle Island church

==Education==
Hedge schools existed in most villages of Achill in various periods of history. A university was started by the missions to Achill in Mweelin. In modern age, there used to be two secondary schools in Achill, Mc Hale College and Scoil Damhnait. However in August 2011, the two schools amalgamated to form Colaiste Pobail Acla. For primary education, there are nine National Schools including Bullsmouth NS, Valley NS, Bunnacurry NS, Dookinella NS, Dooagh NS, Saulia NS, Achill Sound NS, Tonragee NS and Curanne NS. National schools closed down include Dooega NS, Crumpaun NS, Ashleam NS.

==Transport==
* Achill railway station opened on 13 May 1895, but finally closed on 1 October 1937. 
* The Great Western Greenway is a greenway rail trail that follows the line of the former Midland Great Western Railway branch line from Westport to Achill via Newport and Mulranny. 
* Bus Éireann 440 daily commutes to Westport and beyond from the island's scattered villages.
* Bus Éireann provide transport for the areas secondary school children
* There are many Taxicab and Hackney carriage services on the Island

==Cuisine==
As a popular tourist destination Achill has many bars, cafes and restaurants which serve a full range of food. However with the island's Atlantic location seafood is a speciality on Achill with common foods including lobster, mussels, salmon, trout and winkles. With a large sheep population, Achill lamb is a very popular meal on the island too. Furthermore Achill has a big population of cows which produces excellent beef.

==Sport==
Achill has a Gaelic football club which competes in the intermediate championship and division 1C of the Mayo League. There are also an association football club, Achill Rovers, which competes in the Mayo Football League division 1, FAI Club Portal for Achill Rovers and Achill Golf Club. Card games, including Whist and 24 card game are also popular on Achill.
The island's primary recreational outdoor centre is Achill Outdoor Education Centre. achilloutdoor.com Achill Island's rugged landscape and the surrounding ocean offers a prime location for outdoor adventure activities, like surfing, kite-surfing and sea kayaking. Fishing and watersports are popular with tourists and locals alike. Sailing regattas featuring a local vessel type, the Achill Yawl, have been popular since the 19th century, though most present-day yawls, unlike their traditional working boat ancestors, have been structurally modified to promote greater speed under sail. The island's waters and striking underwater sites are occasionally visited by scuba divers, though Achill's unpredictable weather generally has precluded a commercially successful recreational diving industry.

==Population==
In 2006, the population was 2,701. The island's population has declined from around 6,000 before the Great Hunger.

==Architecture==

Because of the inhospitable climate, few inhabited houses date from before the 20th century, though there are many examples of abandoned stone structures dating to the 19th century.
The "Deserted Village" at the foot of Slievemore was a booley village; see Transhumance
The location of the village is relatively sheltered

The best known of these earlier can be seen in the "Deserted Village" ruins near the graveyard at the foot of Slievemore. Even the houses in this village represent a relatively comfortable class of dwelling as, even as recently as a hundred years ago, some people still used "Beehive" style houses (small circular single roomed dwellings with a hole in ceiling to let out smoke).

Many of the oldest and most picturesque inhabited cottages date from the activities of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland—a body set up around the turn of the 20th century in Ireland to improve the welfare for inhabitants of small villages and towns. Most of the homes in Achill at the time were very small and tightly packed together in villages. The CDB subsidised the building of new, more spacious (though still small by modern standards) homes outside of the traditional villages.

Some of the recent building development (1980 and onwards) on the island does fit as nicely in the landscape as the earlier style of whitewashed raised gable cottages. Many holiday homes have been built but many of these houses have been built in prominent scenic areas and have damaged traditional views of the island while lying empty for most of the year.

==Notable people==
* Manus Sweeney from Achill was hanged in Newport for his part in the 1798 rebellion. There is a monument to him at the eastern end of Keel beach
* Charles Boycott (1832–1897) - Unpopular landowner from whom the formerly slang term 'Boycott' arose
* The artist Paul Henry stayed on the island for a number of years in the early 1900s and some of his most famous paintings are of the dramatic landscape of the island. Not long after arriving, he threw his return train ticket into the sea near Purteen Harbour
* The Nobel Prize winning author, Heinrich Böll, visited the island and wrote of his experience in his "Irish Journal" (Irisches Tagebuch). The Bölls later bought a cottage near Dugort and lived in it periodically until 2001 when they donated it to be used as an artists' residence
* Novelist Graham Greene, visited and stayed on Achill Island a number of times in the late 1940s. He wrote parts of the novels The Heart of the Matter (subsequently banned in Ireland) and The Fallen Idol in Dooagh, and Achill Island is also said to have inspired Greene to write some of his best poetry. He retained a special affection for Achill Island, which he mentioned frequently in his letters and notes, although this was largely due to the circumstances of his visits, as he was introduced to Achill by his mistress, Catherine Walston. She rented a cottage in Dooagh, with no electricity, one outside tap for water, and a corrugated iron roof on the traditional stone cottage, now since demolished. 
* Artist Robert Henri came to Achill on a regular basis in the early decades of the 20th century. It was during his early trips to Achill prior to the outbreak of World War I that Henri painted extensively and is reputed to have done portraits of almost all the children in Dooagh village. He bought Corrymore House on the hill above Dooagh in 1924. He died in America in 1929. 
* Thomas Patten from Dooega died fighting Francisco Franco's fascist forces during the Siege of Madrid in December 1936. There is a monument to him in his native village.
* English writer Honor Tracy lived there until her death in 1989
* In the centre of Dooagh is a commemoration plaque to Don Allum, the first man to row across the Atlantic Ocean in both directions. He landed close to the memorial on Dooagh beach on 4 September 1987, completing the second leg of his voyage. 
* Singer James Kilbane, also known for his research on traditional Achill watercraft, lives on the island.
* Belgian graphic artist, photographer, printmaker and publisher Francis Van Maele lives and works on the island. He runs fine art publishers Redfox Press in Dugort. 

==Literature==
Heinrich Böll: Irisches Tagebuch, Berlin 1957
Kingston, Bob: The Deserted Village at Slievemore, Castlebar 1990
McDonald, Theresa: Achill: 5000 B.C. to 1900 A.D. Archeology History Folklore, I.A.S. Publications 
Meehan, Rosa: The Story of Mayo, Castlebar 2003
Carney, James: The Playboy & the Yellow lady, 1986 POOLBEG 
Hugo Hamilton: The Island of Talking, The Island of Talking Hugo Hamilton in the footsteps of Heinrich Böll, 50 years after 2007

==See also==
* Achillbeg
* Achill Sound
* Askill
* Bunnacurry
* Connacht Irish
* Darren Fletcher
* Dooagh
* Dooniver
* Gallowglass
* Innisbiggle
* James Kilbane
* Kevin Kilbane
* List of RNLI stations
* Mid West Radio
* Nevin (surname)
* Saula
* Wild Atlantic Way

==References==

==External links==

* Colaiste Pobail Acla students project on the Achill area
* Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project
* VisitAchill multilingual visitor's site