title: Shobana

text: Her other major films include "Rudraveena" (1988), "Meleparambil Aanveedu", "Kanamarayathu", "Ithiri Poove Chuvanna Poove", "Yathra"(1985), "Anantaram", "Nadodikkattu" (1987), "Vellanakalude Nadu" (1988), "Idhu Namma Aalu" (1988), "Siva" (1989), "Innale" (1990), Kalikkalam (1990), "Thalapathi" (1991), Pappayude Swantham Appoos (1992), "Manichitrathazhu" (1993), "Thenmavin Kombath" (1994), "Minnaram" (1994), "Mazhayethum Munpe" (1995), Hitler (1996),"Agni Sakshi" (1999), "Dance like a Man" (2003), "Makalkku" (2005), "Thira" (2013) and "Varane Avashyamund" (2020). From "Aviduthe Pole Ivideyum" to "Upaharam", Shobana did sixteen movies in a single year, 1985. Shobana also acted in the Tamil period film "Kochadaiiyaan".


title: Shobana

text: Shobana won her first National Film Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in AM Fazil's "Manichitrathazhu". Her portrayal of Ganga Nakulan and alter-ego Nagavalli in the film was described by critics as "spell binding". She received her second National Film Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her role in the Indian English language film "Mitr, My Friend", directed by Revathi. Consequent to the 1993 National Award, Shobana turned extremely selective about her films.


title: Shobana

text: Shobana is a Bharata Natyam dancer. She did her dance training at the Chidambaram academy in Chennai, Tamil Nadu under Chitra Visweswaran. Shobana danced "Abhinaya", a pivotal element in Bharata Natyam. She was one among the judges in "Jodi No. 1", a reality show for dance aired on Vijay TV.


title: Shobana

text: She has worked on collaborative ventures with the likes of tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, Vikku Vinayakram and Mandolin Srinivas. Her recitals abroad include those at the World Malayalee convention, in the United States in 1985 and 1995, in Kuala Lumpur before the King and Queen of Malaysia, numerous cities in the United States, Europe, South East Asia and Australia. Shobana started performing in the Soorya Music & Dance festival organised by Soorya Krishnamoorthy from the year 1994.


title: Bing Russell

text: Neil Oliver "Bing" Russell (May 5, 1926 – April 8, 2003) was an American actor and Class A minor-league baseball club owner. He was the father of Hollywood actor Kurt Russell and grandfather of ex–major league baseball player Matt Franco and actor Wyatt Russell.


title: Bing Russell

text: Russell was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, the son of Ruth Stewart (née Vogel) and Warren Oliver Russell. He always wanted to become an actor and studied drama at Brattleboro High School. He grew up around the New York Yankees’ spring training camp in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the 1930s and 1940s, where his father ran a floatplane service. As a result, he was an unofficial mascot of the New York Yankees, and became friendly with players including Lefty Gomez and Joe DiMaggio. When Lou Gehrig was weakened by illness, he gave Russell the bat he used to hit his last home run before retiring.


title: Bing Russell

text: Russell made his debut in the film "Cavalry Patrol", and had some uncredited roles in his early career.


title: Bing Russell

text: Best known as Deputy Clem Foster on "Bonanza" (1959) and Robert in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), he guest-starred in episodes of many television series, including "Playhouse 90", "Highway Patrol", "Wagon Train", "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp", "The Loretta Young Show", "Johnny Ringo", "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color", "The Rifleman", "Maverick", "Zane Grey Theater", "Route 66", "Rawhide", "Ben Casey", "The Untouchables", "Hazel", "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Twilight Zone", "The Donna Reed Show", "The Munsters", "Gunsmoke", "Combat!", "Branded", "The Fugitive", "The Monkees", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Ironside", "The Big Valley", "Death Valley Days", "Adam-12", "The Virginian", "Alias Smith and Jones", "The Mod Squad", "Mannix", "The Rockford Files", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Emergency!", and "Little House on the Prairie".


title: Bing Russell

text: In 1963, he was cast as John Quigley, a Chicago mobster, in the episode "Five Tickets to Hell" of Jack Webb's CBS anthology series, "GE True". In the storyline, Quigley travels to Chihuahua, Mexico, where he robs the mint of $500,000 and kills seven men in the commission of the crime. Police Lieutenant Juan Garcia (Carlos Romero) tracks down Quigley and his three accomplices. BarBara Luna also appears in the episode.


title: Bing Russell

text: In another 1963 appearance in the episode "The Measure of a Man" on the syndicated Western series "Death Valley Days", Russell plays the outlaw Burt Alvord, who is promised a lenient sentence if he will surrender and reveal the location of the notorious bandit Augustine Chacon (Michael Pate). Rory Calhoun was cast as the Arizona Ranger Burt Mossman who convinces a reluctant Alvord to set a trap to catch Chacon. Mossman has Chacon handcuffed and orders Alvord to toss away the key. Chacon is hanged thereafter for a past conviction of which he had escaped.


title: Bing Russell

text: Russell appeared in the original pilot (filmed in November 1965) for "The Monkees" TV series as Rudy, a record store owner and the group's manager; after the show was greenlit by NBC, the concept of a manager was discarded and Russell's character was not retained. An edited version of this pilot, in which Russell appears, was broadcast as a regular episode of the first season, and is part of the show's syndication package to this day.


title: Bing Russell

text: Russell much later played Vernon Presley to his son Kurt's Elvis Presley in the television movie, "Elvis" (1979). Kurt, as a child actor, had appeared with the real Elvis in the film "It Happened at the World's Fair", and in a later interview recalled the singer-actor, professing to be a fan, asking to meet Bing, who had accompanied his son to the set.


title: Bing Russell

text: Russell owned the Portland Mavericks, the only independent team in the Class A Northwest League. Russell kept a 30-man roster because he believed that some of the players deserved to have one last season. His motto was "fun". He created a park that kept all corporate sponsorship outside the gates, hired the first female general manager, Lanny Moss in professional baseball, and named the first Asian American GM/Manager. His team set a record for the highest attendance in minor league history, but lost the 1977 pennant to the Bellingham Mariners. Subsequently, Major League Baseball regained interest in Portland and resurrected the Class AAA Portland Beavers minor league franchise. The Portland area was recovered but was forced to pay $206,000 to Russell after he took the matter to arbitration; it was the biggest payout in baseball history for a minor league territory. Ex-major-leaguers and never-weres who could not stop playing the game flocked to his June try-outs, which were always open to anyone who showed up. The team and archival footage of Russell were featured in the documentary "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" (2014).


title: Bing Russell

text: In 1945, while working at Teddy's Restaurant in Newport, New Hampshire, a coworker introduced Russell to his future wife, Louise "Lulu" Crone. Russell and Crone married in 1946 and had four children together, including actor Kurt Russell.


title: Bing Russell

text: In 2020, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The hypothesis was formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Lovelock named the idea after Gaia, the primordial goddess who personified the Earth in Greek mythology. The suggestion that the theory should be called "the Gaia hypothesis" came from Lovelock's neighbour, William Golding. In 2006, the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock the Wollaston Medal in part for his work on the Gaia hypothesis.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Topics related to the hypothesis include how the biosphere and the evolution of organisms affect the stability of global temperature, salinity of seawater, atmospheric oxygen levels, the maintenance of a hydrosphere of liquid water and other environmental variables that affect the habitability of Earth.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The Gaia hypothesis was initially criticized for being teleological and against the principles of natural selection, but later refinements aligned the Gaia hypothesis with ideas from fields such as Earth system science, biogeochemistry and systems ecology. Even so, the Gaia hypothesis continues to attract criticism, and today many scientists consider it to be only weakly supported by, or at odds with, the available evidence.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Gaian hypotheses suggest that organisms co-evolve with their environment: that is, they "influence their abiotic environment, and that environment in turn influences the biota by Darwinian process". Lovelock (1995) gave evidence of this in his second book, "Ages of Gaia", showing the evolution from the world of the early thermo-acido-philic and methanogenic bacteria towards the oxygen-enriched atmosphere today that supports more complex life.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: A reduced version of the hypothesis has been called "influential Gaia" in "Directed Evolution of the Biosphere: Biogeochemical Selection or Gaia?" by Andrei G. Lapenis, which states the biota influence certain aspects of the abiotic world, e.g. temperature and atmosphere. This is not the work of an individual but a collective of Russian scientific research that was combined into this peer reviewed publication. It states the coevolution of life and the environment through "micro-forces" and biogeochemical processes. An example is how the activity of photosynthetic bacteria during Precambrian times completely modified the Earth atmosphere to turn it aerobic, and thus supports the evolution of life (in particular eukaryotic life).


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Since barriers existed throughout the twentieth century between Russia and the rest of the world, it is only relatively recently that the early Russian scientists who introduced concepts overlapping the Gaia paradigm have become better known to the Western scientific community. These scientists include Piotr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921) (although he spent much of his professional life outside Russia), (1862 – c. 1922), Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863–1945), and (1886–1963).


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Biologists and Earth scientists usually view the factors that stabilize the characteristics of a period as an undirected emergent property or entelechy of the system; as each individual species pursues its own self-interest, for example, their combined actions may have counterbalancing effects on environmental change. Opponents of this view sometimes reference examples of events that resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium, such as the conversion of the Earth's atmosphere from a reducing environment to an oxygen-rich one at the end of the Archaean and the beginning of the Proterozoic periods.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Less accepted versions of the hypothesis claim that changes in the biosphere are brought about through the coordination of living organisms and maintain those conditions through homeostasis. In some versions of Gaia philosophy, all lifeforms are considered part of one single living planetary being called "Gaia". In this view, the atmosphere, the seas and the terrestrial crust would be results of interventions carried out by Gaia through the coevolving diversity of living organisms.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The Gaia hypothesis posits that the Earth is a self-regulating complex system involving the biosphere, the atmosphere, the hydrospheres and the pedosphere, tightly coupled as an evolving system. The hypothesis contends that this system as a whole, called Gaia, seeks a physical and chemical environment optimal for contemporary life.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Gaia evolves through a cybernetic feedback system operated unconsciously by the biota, leading to broad stabilization of the conditions of habitability in a full homeostasis. Many processes in the Earth's surface, essential for the conditions of life, depend on the interaction of living forms, especially microorganisms, with inorganic elements. These processes establish a global control system that regulates Earth's surface temperature, atmosphere composition and ocean salinity, powered by the global thermodynamic disequilibrium state of the Earth system.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The existence of a planetary homeostasis influenced by living forms had been observed previously in the field of biogeochemistry, and it is being investigated also in other fields like Earth system science. The originality of the Gaia hypothesis relies on the assessment that such homeostatic balance is actively pursued with the goal of keeping the optimal conditions for life, even when terrestrial or external events menace them.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Since life started on Earth, the energy provided by the Sun has increased by 25% to 30%; however, the surface temperature of the planet has remained within the levels of habitability, reaching quite regular low and high margins. Lovelock has also hypothesised that methanogens produced elevated levels of methane in the early atmosphere, giving a view similar to that found in petrochemical smog, similar in some respects to the atmosphere on Titan. This, he suggests tended to screen out ultraviolet until the formation of the ozone screen, maintaining a degree of homeostasis. However, the Snowball Earth research has suggested that "oxygen shocks" and reduced methane levels led, during the Huronian, Sturtian and Marinoan/Varanger Ice Ages, to a world that very nearly became a solid "snowball". These epochs are evidence against the ability of the pre Phanerozoic biosphere to fully self-regulate.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Processing of the greenhouse gas CO, explained below, plays a critical role in the maintenance of the Earth temperature within the limits of habitability.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The CLAW hypothesis, inspired by the Gaia hypothesis, proposes a feedback loop that operates between ocean ecosystems and the Earth's climate. The hypothesis specifically proposes that particular phytoplankton that produce dimethyl sulfide are responsive to variations in climate forcing, and that these responses lead to a negative feedback loop that acts to stabilise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Currently the increase in human population and the environmental impact of their activities, such as the multiplication of greenhouse gases may cause negative feedbacks in the environment to become positive feedback. Lovelock has stated that this could bring an extremely accelerated global warming, but he has since stated the effects will likely occur more slowly.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In response to the criticism that the Gaia hypothesis seemingly required unrealistic group selection and cooperation between organisms, James Lovelock and Andrew Watson developed a mathematical model, Daisyworld, in which ecological competition underpinned planetary temperature regulation.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Daisyworld examines the energy budget of a planet populated by two different types of plants, black daisies and white daisies, which are assumed to occupy a significant portion of the surface. The colour of the daisies influences the albedo of the planet such that black daisies absorb more light and warm the planet, while white daisies reflect more light and cool the planet. The black daisies are assumed to grow and reproduce best at a lower temperature, while the white daisies are assumed to thrive best at a higher temperature. As the temperature rises closer to the value the white daisies like, the white daisies outreproduce the black daisies, leading to a larger percentage of white surface, and more sunlight is reflected, reducing the heat input and eventually cooling the planet. Conversely, as the temperature falls, the black daisies outreproduce the white daisies, absorbing more sunlight and warming the planet. The temperature will thus converge to the value at which the reproductive rates of the plants are equal.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock and Watson showed that, over a limited range of conditions, this negative feedback due to competition can stabilize the planet's temperature at a value which supports life, if the energy output of the Sun changes, while a planet without life would show wide temperature changes. The percentage of white and black daisies will continually change to keep the temperature at the value at which the plants' reproductive rates are equal, allowing both life forms to thrive.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: It has been suggested that the results were predictable because Lovelock and Watson selected examples that produced the responses they desired.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Ocean salinity has been constant at about 3.5% for a very long time. Salinity stability in oceanic environments is important as most cells require a rather constant salinity and do not generally tolerate values above 5%. The constant ocean salinity was a long-standing mystery, because no process counterbalancing the salt influx from rivers was known. Recently it was suggested that salinity may also be strongly influenced by seawater circulation through hot basaltic rocks, and emerging as hot water vents on mid-ocean ridges. However, the composition of seawater is far from equilibrium, and it is difficult to explain this fact without the influence of organic processes. One suggested explanation lies in the formation of salt plains throughout Earth's history. It is hypothesized that these are created by bacterial colonies that fix ions and heavy metals during their life processes.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In the biogeochemical processes of Earth, sources and sinks are the movement of elements. The composition of salt ions within our oceans and seas is: sodium (Na), chlorine (Cl), sulfate (SO), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) and potassium (K). The elements that comprise salinity do not readily change and are a conservative property of seawater. There are many mechanisms that change salinity from a particulate form to a dissolved form and back. Considering the metallic composition of iron sources across a multifaceted grid of thermomagnetic design, not only would the movement of elements hypothetically help restructure the movement of ions, electrons, and the like, but would also potentially and inexplicably assist in balancing the magnetic bodies of the Earth's geomagnetic field. The known sources of sodium i.e. salts are when weathering, erosion, and dissolution of rocks are transported into rivers and deposited into the oceans.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The Mediterranean Sea as being Gaia's kidney is found (here) by Kenneth J. Hsue, a correspondence author in 2001. Hsue suggests the "desiccation" of the Mediterranean is evidence of a functioning Gaia "kidney". In this and earlier suggested cases, it is plate movements and physics, not biology, which performs the regulation. Earlier "kidney functions" were performed during the "deposition of the Cretaceous (South Atlantic), Jurassic (Gulf of Mexico), Permo-Triassic (Europe), Devonian (Canada), and Cambrian/Precambrian (Gondwana) saline giants."


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The Gaia theorem states that the Earth's atmospheric composition is kept at a dynamically steady state by the presence of life. The atmospheric composition provides the conditions that contemporary life has adapted to. All the atmospheric gases other than noble gases present in the atmosphere are either made by organisms or processed by them.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The stability of the atmosphere in Earth is not a consequence of chemical equilibrium. Oxygen is a reactive compound, and should eventually combine with gases and minerals of the Earth's atmosphere and crust. Oxygen only began to persist in the atmosphere in small quantities about 50 million years before the start of the Great Oxygenation Event. Since the start of the Cambrian period, atmospheric oxygen concentrations have fluctuated between 15% and 35% of atmospheric volume. Traces of methane (at an amount of 100,000 tonnes produced per year) should not exist, as methane is combustible in an oxygen atmosphere.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Dry air in the atmosphere of Earth contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases including methane. Lovelock originally speculated that concentrations of oxygen above about 25% would increase the frequency of wildfires and conflagration of forests. This mechanism, however, would not raise oxygen levels if they became too low. If plants can be shown to robustly over-produce O then perhaps only the high oxygen forest fires regulator is necessary. Recent work on the findings of fire-caused charcoal in Carboniferous and Cretaceous coal measures, in geologic periods when O did exceed 25%, has supported Lovelock's contention.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Gaia scientists see the participation of living organisms in the carbon cycle as one of the complex processes that maintain conditions suitable for life. The only significant natural source of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) is volcanic activity, while the only significant removal is through the precipitation of carbonate rocks. Carbon precipitation, solution and fixation are influenced by the bacteria and plant roots in soils, where they improve gaseous circulation, or in coral reefs, where calcium carbonate is deposited as a solid on the sea floor. Calcium carbonate is used by living organisms to manufacture carbonaceous tests and shells. Once dead, the living organisms' shells fall. Some arrive at the bottom of the oceans where plate tectonics and heat and/or pressure eventually convert them to deposits of chalk and limestone. Much of the falling dead shells, however, re-dissolve into the ocean below the carbon compensation depth.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: One of these organisms is "Emiliania huxleyi", an abundant coccolithophore algae which may have a role in the formation of clouds. CO excess is compensated by an increase of coccolithophorid life, increasing the amount of CO locked in the ocean floor. Coccolithophorids, if the CLAW Hypothesis turns out to be supported (see "Regulation of Global Surface Temperature" above), could help increase the cloud cover, hence control the surface temperature, help cool the whole planet and favor precipitation necessary for terrestrial plants. Lately the atmospheric CO concentration has increased and there is some evidence that concentrations of ocean algal blooms are also increasing.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lichen and other organisms accelerate the weathering of rocks in the surface, while the decomposition of rocks also happens faster in the soil, thanks to the activity of roots, fungi, bacteria and subterranean animals. The flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the soil is therefore regulated with the help of living beings. When CO levels rise in the atmosphere the temperature increases and plants grow. This growth brings higher consumption of CO by the plants, who process it into the soil, removing it from the atmosphere.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The idea of the Earth as an integrated whole, a living being, has a long tradition. The mythical Gaia was the primal Greek goddess personifying the Earth, the Greek version of "Mother Nature" (from Ge = Earth, and Aia =


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: PIE grandmother), or the Earth Mother. James Lovelock gave this name to his hypothesis after a suggestion from the novelist William Golding, who was living in the same village as Lovelock at the time (Bowerchalke, Wiltshire, UK). Golding's advice was based on Gea, an alternative spelling for the name of the Greek goddess, which is used as prefix in geology, geophysics and geochemistry. Golding later made reference to Gaia in his Nobel prize acceptance speech.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In the eighteenth century, as geology consolidated as a modern science, James Hutton maintained that geological and biological processes are interlinked. Later, the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt recognized the coevolution of living organisms, climate, and Earth's crust. In the twentieth century, Vladimir Vernadsky formulated a theory of Earth's development that is now one of the foundations of ecology. Vernadsky was a Ukrainian geochemist and was one of the first scientists to recognize that the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere result from biological processes. During the 1920s he published works arguing that living organisms could reshape the planet as surely as any physical force. Vernadsky was a pioneer of the scientific bases for the environmental sciences. His visionary pronouncements were not widely accepted in the West, and some decades later the Gaia hypothesis received the same type of initial resistance from the scientific community.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Also in the turn to the 20th century Aldo Leopold, pioneer in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation, suggested a living Earth in his biocentric or holistic ethics regarding land.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Another influence for the Gaia hypothesis and the environmental movement in general came as a side effect of the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. During the 1960s, the first humans in space could see how the Earth looked as a whole. The photograph "Earthrise" taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission became, through the Overview Effect an early symbol for the global ecology movement.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock started defining the idea of a self-regulating Earth controlled by the community of living organisms in September 1965, while working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California on methods of detecting life on Mars. The first paper to mention it was "Planetary Atmospheres: Compositional and other Changes Associated with the Presence of Life", co-authored with C.E. Giffin. A main concept was that life could be detected in a planetary scale by the chemical composition of the atmosphere. According to the data gathered by the Pic du Midi observatory, planets like Mars or Venus had atmospheres in chemical equilibrium. This difference with the Earth atmosphere was considered to be a proof that there was no life in these planets.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock formulated the "Gaia Hypothesis" in journal articles in 1972 and 1974, followed by a popularizing 1979 book "Gaia: A new look at life on Earth". An article in the "New Scientist" of February 6, 1975, and a popular book length version of the hypothesis, published in 1979 as "The Quest for Gaia", began to attract scientific and critical attention.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock called it first the Earth feedback hypothesis, and it was a way to explain the fact that combinations of chemicals including oxygen and methane persist in stable concentrations in the atmosphere of the Earth. Lovelock suggested detecting such combinations in other planets' atmospheres as a relatively reliable and cheap way to detect life.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Later, other relationships such as sea creatures producing sulfur and iodine in approximately the same quantities as required by land creatures emerged and helped bolster the hypothesis.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In 1971 microbiologist Dr. Lynn Margulis joined Lovelock in the effort of fleshing out the initial hypothesis into scientifically proven concepts, contributing her knowledge about how microbes affect the atmosphere and the different layers in the surface of the planet. The American biologist had also awakened criticism from the scientific community with her advocacy of the theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles and her contributions to the endosymbiotic theory, nowadays accepted. Margulis dedicated the last of eight chapters in her book, "The Symbiotic Planet", to Gaia. However, she objected to the widespread personification of Gaia and stressed that Gaia is "not an organism", but "an emergent property of interaction among organisms". She defined Gaia as "the series of interacting ecosystems that compose a single huge ecosystem at the Earth's surface. Period". The book's most memorable "slogan" was actually quipped by a student of Margulis'.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: James Lovelock called his first proposal the "Gaia hypothesis" but has also used the term "Gaia theory". Lovelock states that the initial formulation was based on observation, but still lacked a scientific explanation. The Gaia hypothesis has since been supported by a number of scientific experiments and provided a number of useful predictions.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In 1985, the first public symposium on the Gaia hypothesis, "Is The Earth A Living Organism?" was held at University of Massachusetts Amherst, August 1–6. The principal sponsor was the National Audubon Society. Speakers included James Lovelock, George Wald, Mary Catherine Bateson, Lewis Thomas, John Todd, Donald Michael, Christopher Bird, Thomas Berry, David Abram, Michael Cohen, and William Fields. Some 500 people attended.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In 1988, climatologist Stephen Schneider organised a conference of the American Geophysical Union. The first Chapman Conference on Gaia, was held in San Diego, California on March 7, 1988.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: During the "philosophical foundations" session of the conference, David Abram spoke on the influence of metaphor in science, and of the Gaia hypothesis as offering a new and potentially game-changing metaphorics, while James Kirchner criticised the Gaia hypothesis for its imprecision. Kirchner claimed that Lovelock and Margulis had not presented one Gaia hypothesis, but four:


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Of Homeostatic Gaia, Kirchner recognised two alternatives. "Weak Gaia" asserted that life tends to make the environment stable for the flourishing of all life. "Strong Gaia" according to Kirchner, asserted that life tends to make the environment stable, "to enable" the flourishing of all life. Strong Gaia, Kirchner claimed, was untestable and therefore not scientific.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock and other Gaia-supporting scientists, however, did attempt to disprove the claim that the hypothesis is not scientific because it is impossible to test it by controlled experiment. For example, against the charge that Gaia was teleological, Lovelock and Andrew Watson offered the Daisyworld Model (and its modifications, above) as evidence against most of these criticisms. Lovelock said that the Daisyworld model "demonstrates that self-regulation of the global environment can emerge from competition amongst types of life altering their local environment in different ways".


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock was careful to present a version of the Gaia hypothesis that had no claim that Gaia intentionally or consciously maintained the complex balance in her environment that life needed to survive. It would appear that the claim that Gaia acts "intentionally" was a statement in his popular initial book and was not meant to be taken literally. This new statement of the Gaia hypothesis was more acceptable to the scientific community. Most accusations of teleologism ceased, following this conference.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: By the time of the 2nd Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis, held at Valencia, Spain, on 23 June 2000, the situation had changed significantly. Rather than a discussion of the Gaian teleological views, or "types" of Gaia hypotheses, the focus was upon the specific mechanisms by which basic short term homeostasis was maintained within a framework of significant evolutionary long term structural change.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In 1997, Tyler Volk argued that a Gaian system is almost inevitably produced as a result of an evolution towards far-from-equilibrium homeostatic states that maximise entropy production, and Kleidon (2004) agreed stating: "...homeostatic behavior can emerge from a state of MEP associated with the planetary albedo"; "...the resulting behavior of a symbiotic Earth at a state of MEP may well lead to near-homeostatic behavior of the Earth system on long time scales, as stated by the Gaia hypothesis". Staley (2002) has similarly proposed "...an alternative form of Gaia theory based on more traditional Darwinian principles... In [this] new approach, environmental regulation is a consequence of population dynamics. The role of selection is to favor organisms that are best adapted to prevailing environmental conditions. However, the environment is not a static backdrop for evolution, but is heavily influenced by the presence of living and vibration-based beings and organisms. The resulting co-evolving dynamical process eventually leads to the convergence of equilibrium and optimal conditions", but would also require progress of truth and understanding in a lens that could be argued was put on hiatus while the species was proliferating the needs of Economic manipulation and environmental degradation while losing sight of the maturing nature of the needs of many. (12:22 10.29.2020)


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: A fourth international conference on the Gaia hypothesis, sponsored by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority and others, was held in October 2006 at the Arlington, VA campus of George Mason University.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Martin Ogle, Chief Naturalist, for NVRPA, and long-time Gaia hypothesis proponent, organized the event. Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and long-time advocate of the Gaia hypothesis, was a keynote speaker. Among many other speakers: Tyler Volk, co-director of the Program in Earth and Environmental Science at New York University; Dr. Donald Aitken, Principal of Donald Aitken Associates; Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, President of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment; Robert Correll, Senior Fellow, Atmospheric Policy Program, American Meteorological Society and noted environmental ethicist, J. Baird Callicott.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: After initially receiving little attention from scientists (from 1969 until 1977), thereafter for a period the initial Gaia hypothesis was criticized by a number of scientists, including Ford Doolittle, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. Lovelock has said that because his hypothesis is named after a Greek goddess, and championed by many non-scientists, the Gaia hypothesis was interpreted as a neo-Pagan religion. Many scientists in particular also criticized the approach taken in his popular book "Gaia, a New Look at Life on Earth" for being teleological—a belief that things are purposeful and aimed towards a goal. Responding to this critique in 1990, Lovelock stated, "Nowhere in our writings do we express the idea that planetary self-regulation is purposeful, or involves foresight or planning by the biota".


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Stephen Jay Gould criticized Gaia as being "a metaphor, not a mechanism." He wanted to know the actual mechanisms by which self-regulating homeostasis was achieved. In his defense of Gaia, David Abram argues that Gould overlooked the fact that "mechanism", itself, is a metaphor — albeit an exceedingly common and often unrecognized metaphor — one which leads us to consider natural and living systems as though they were machines organized and built from outside (rather than as autopoietic or self-organizing phenomena). Mechanical metaphors, according to Abram, lead us to overlook the active or agent quality of living entities, while the organismic metaphors of the Gaia hypothesis accentuate the active agency of both the biota and the biosphere as a whole. With regard to causality in Gaia, Lovelock argues that no single mechanism is responsible, that the connections between the various known mechanisms may never be known, that this is accepted in other fields of biology and ecology as a matter of course, and that specific hostility is reserved for his own hypothesis for other reasons.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Aside from clarifying his language and understanding of what is meant by a life form, Lovelock himself ascribes most of the criticism to a lack of understanding of non-linear mathematics by his critics, and a linearizing form of greedy reductionism in which all events have to be immediately ascribed to specific causes before the fact. He also states that most of his critics are biologists but that his hypothesis includes experiments in fields outside biology, and that some self-regulating phenomena may not be mathematically explainable.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lovelock has suggested that global biological feedback mechanisms could evolve by natural selection, stating that organisms that improve their environment for their survival do better than those that damage their environment. However, in the early 1980s, W. Ford Doolittle and Richard Dawkins separately argued against this aspect of Gaia. Doolittle argued that nothing in the genome of individual organisms could provide the feedback mechanisms proposed by Lovelock, and therefore the Gaia hypothesis proposed no plausible mechanism and was unscientific. Dawkins meanwhile stated that for organisms to act in concert would require foresight and planning, which is contrary to the current scientific understanding of evolution. Like Doolittle, he also rejected the possibility that feedback loops could stabilize the system.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist who collaborated with Lovelock in supporting the Gaia hypothesis, argued in 1999 that "Darwin's grand vision was not wrong, "only incomplete." In accentuating the direct competition between individuals for resources as the primary selection mechanism, Darwin (and especially his followers) created the impression that the environment was simply a static arena". She wrote that the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere are regulated around "set points" as in homeostasis, but those set points change with time.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: Evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton called the concept of Gaia Copernican, adding that it would take another Newton to explain how Gaian self-regulation takes place through Darwinian natural selection. More recently Ford Doolittle building on his and Inkpen's ITSNTS (It's The Song Not The Singer) proposal proposed that differential persistence can play a similar role to differential reproduction in evolution by natural selections, thereby providing a possible reconciliation between the theory of natural selection and the Gaia hypothesis.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: The Gaia hypothesis continues to be broadly skeptically received by the scientific community. For instance, arguments both for and against it were laid out in the journal "Climatic Change" in 2002 and 2003. A significant argument raised against it are the many examples where life has had a detrimental or destabilising effect on the environment rather than acting to regulate it. Several recent books have criticised the Gaia hypothesis, expressing views ranging from "... the Gaia hypothesis lacks unambiguous observational support and has significant theoretical difficulties" to "Suspended uncomfortably between tainted metaphor, fact, and false science, I prefer to leave Gaia firmly in the background" to "The Gaia hypothesis is supported neither by evolutionary theory nor by the empirical evidence of the geological record". The CLAW hypothesis, initially suggested as a potential example of direct Gaian feedback, has subsequently been found to be less credible as understanding of cloud condensation nuclei has improved. In 2009 the Medea hypothesis was proposed: that life has highly detrimental (biocidal) impacts on planetary conditions, in direct opposition to the Gaia hypothesis.


title: Gaia hypothesis

text: In a 2013 book-length evaluation of the Gaia hypothesis considering modern evidence from across the various relevant disciplines, Toby Tyrrell concluded that: "I believe Gaia is a dead end. Its study has, however, generated many new and thought provoking questions. While rejecting Gaia, we can at the same time appreciate Lovelock's originality and breadth of vision, and recognize that his audacious concept has helped to stimulate many new ideas about the Earth, and to champion a holistic approach to studying it". Elsewhere he presents his conclusion "The Gaia hypothesis is not an accurate picture of how our world works". This statement needs to be understood as referring to the "strong" and "moderate" forms of Gaia—that the biota obeys a principle that works to make Earth optimal (strength 5) or favourable for life (strength 4) or that it works as a homeostatic mechanism (strength 3). The latter is the "weakest" form of Gaia that Lovelock has advocated. Tyrrell rejects it. However, he finds that the two weaker forms of Gaia—Coeveolutionary Gaia and Influential Gaia, which assert that there are close links between the evolution of life and the environment and that biology affects the physical and chemical environment—are both credible, but that it is not useful to use the term "Gaia" in this sense and that those two forms were already accepted and explained by the processes of natural selection and adaptation.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe was a general consensus among the Great Powers of 19th-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political boundaries, and spheres of influence. Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes and jockeying for position and influence, the Concert was an extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars which had consumed the continent since the 1790s. There is considerable scholarly dispute over the exact nature and duration of the Concert. Some scholars argue that it fell apart nearly as soon as it began in the 1820s when the Great Powers disagreed over the handling of liberal revolts in Italy, while others argue that it lasted until the outbreak of World War I and others for points in between. For those arguing for a longer duration, there is generally agreement that the period after the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War (1853-1856) represented a different phase with different dynamics than the earlier period.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The beginnings of the Concert of Europe, known as the Congress System or the Vienna System after the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), was dominated by the five Great Powers of Europe: Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Initially envisioning regular Congresses among the Great Powers to resolve potential disputes, in practice, Congresses were held on an ad hoc basis and were generally successful in preventing or localizing conflicts. The more conservative members of the Concert of Europe, members of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria, and Prussia), used the system to oppose revolutionary and liberal movements and weaken the forces of nationalism. The formal Congress System fell apart in the 1820s but peace between the Great Powers continued and occasional meetings reminiscent of the Congresses continued to be held at times of Crisis.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert faced a major challenge in the Revolutions of 1848 which sought national independence, national unity, and liberal and democratic reforms. The 1848 revolutions were ultimately checked without major territorial changes. However, the age of nationalism ultimately brought the first phase of the Concert to an end, as it was unable to prevent the wars leading to the Italian unification (by Piedmont-Sardinia) and Germany (by Prussia) in 1871 which remade the maps of Europe. Following German Unification, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck sought to revive the Concert of Europe to protect Germany's gains and secure its leading role in European affairs. The revitalized Concert included Austria (at the time a part of Austria-Hungary), France, Italy, Russia, and Britain, with Germany as the driving continental power. The second phase oversaw a further period of relative peace and stability from the 1870s to 1914, and facilitated the growth of European colonial and imperial control in Africa and Asia without wars between the Great Powers.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe certainly ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 when the Concert proved ultimately unable to handle the collapse of Ottoman power in the Balkans, hardening of the alliance system into two firm camps (the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente), and the feeling among many civilian and military leaders on both sides that a war was inevitable or even desirable.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe describes the geopolitical order in Europe from 1814 to 1914, during which the Great Powers tended to act in concert to avoid wars and revolutions and generally maintain the territorial and political status quo. Particularly in the early years of the Concert, the Concert was maintained through the Congress System – sometimes called the Vienna System - which was a series of Congresses among the Great Powers to resolve disputes or respond to new issues.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe is typically viewed in two distinct phases: the first from 1814 to through the early 1860s, and the second from the 1880s to 1914. The first phase, particularly before the Revolutions of 1848, is sometimes known as the Age of Metternich, due to the influence of the Austrian chancellor's conservatism and the dominance of Austria within the German Confederation, or as the European Restoration, because of the reactionary efforts of the Congress of Vienna to restore Europe to its state before the French Revolution. The ultimate failure of the Concert of Europe, culminating in the First World War, was driven by various factors including rival alliances and the rise of nationalism. The Congress-focused approach to international affairs continued to be influential in the later League of Nations, the United Nations, the Group of Seven and other multi-lateral summits and organizations.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe arose from the coalitions which fought against revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The Great Powers of Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom, had combined with a number of minor powers to defeat Napoleon for the final time in the Hundred Days. In the wake of this victory, these four great powers formalized their partnership in the Quadruple Alliance. In time, the France under the Bourbon Restoration was established as a fifth member of the Concert, after the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the occupation of France and established the Quintuple Alliance. The Ottoman Empire was later admitted to the Concert of Europe in 1856 with the Treaty of Paris following the Crimean War recognized and guaranteed Ottoman territory.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The idea of a European federation had been already raised by figures such as Gottfried Leibniz and Lord Grenville. The Concert of Europe drew upon their ideas and the notion of a balance of power in international relations, so that the ambitions of each Great Power would be restrained by the others:


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe, as it began to be called at the time, had ... a reality in international law, which derived from the final Act of the Vienna Congress, which stipulated that the boundaries established in 1815 could not be altered without the consent of its eight signatories.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe was very much a response to the French Revolution. From the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792 to the exile of Napoleon to Saint Helena in 1815, Europe had been almost constantly at war. All the European powers were short of the funds, materiel, and manpower necessary for further fighting and therefore sought structures to avoid new conflicts. The military conquests of France had resulted in the spread of liberalism throughout much of the continent, including the adoption of the reforms such as the Napoleonic Code. Having seen how the French Revolution had begun with calls for fairly mild reforms but had quickly led to radical democratic reforms and attacks on the aristocracy, the Concert of Europe also sought to tamp down on liberal and democratic movements across the continent. Finally, the French Revolution also provided a model for nationalist movements and both sides in the Napoleonic Wars had sought to exploit nationalist sentiment when convenient to their war aims. For example, the French supported the nationalist rising in Ireland against the British in 1798 and revived hopes of a Polish state by establishing the Duchy of Warsaw in ethnically Polish lands to help fight the Prussians, Russians, and Austrians. The Allies supported nationalist movements in Spain and Germany to encourage resistance against French-established governments there. Along with the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France, the Concert of Europe was in many ways an effort to return as far as possible to the status quo of Europe prior to 1789.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The first phase of the Concert of Europe is typically described as beginning in 1814 with the Congress of Vienna, and ending in the early 1860s with the Prussian and Austrian invasion of Denmark. This first phase included numerous congresses, including the Congress of Paris in 1856 which some scholars argue represented the apex of the Concert of Europe in its ending of the Crimean War. At first, the leading personalities of the system were British foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh, Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, and Emperor Alexander I of Russia. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord of France was largely responsible for quickly returning the country to its place alongside the other major powers in international diplomacy.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian and Russian empires, formed the Holy Alliance on 26 September 1815, with the express intent of preserving Christian social values and traditional monarchism. Only three notable princes did not sign: Pope Pius VII (it was not Catholic enough), Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire (too Christian), and the British Prince Regent because his government was a constitutional monarchy with a more liberal political philosophy and did not wish to pledge itself to the policing of continental Europe.


title: Concert of Europe

text: Britain did ratify the Quadruple Alliance, signed on 20 November 1815, the same day as the Second Treaty of Paris was signed, which later became the Quintuple Alliance when France joined in 1818 with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.


title: Concert of Europe

text: There has been much debate between historians as to which treaty was more influential in the development of international relations in Europe in the two decades following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. In the opinion of historian Tim Chapman the differences are somewhat academic, as the powers were not bound by the terms of the treaties and many of them intentionally broke the terms if it suited them.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Holy Alliance was an informal alliance led by Russia, Austria, and Prussia which aimed to reduce the influence of secularism and liberalism in Europe. The brainchild of Tsar Alexander I, it gained at least nominal support from many states, partly because most European monarchs did not wish to offend the Tsar by refusing to sign it, and as it bound monarchs personally rather than their governments, it was sufficiently vague to be functionally ignored once signed. In the opinion of Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary at the time of its inception, the Holy Alliance was "a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense". Nevertheless, its influence was more long lasting than its contemporary critics expected and was revived in the 1820s as a tool of repression when Britain and France refused to embroil themselves in certain continental matters.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Quadruple Alliance, by contrast, was a standard treaty, and the Great Powers did not invite any minor allies to sign it. The primary objective was to bind the signatories to support the terms of the Second Treaty of Paris for 20 years. It included a provision for the High Contracting Parties to "renew their meeting at fixed periods...for the purpose of consulting on their common interests" which were the "prosperity of the Nations, and the maintenance of peace in Europe". However, the wording of the treaty did not specify what these "fixed periods" were to be and there were no provisions in the treaty for a permanent commission to arrange and organise the conferences. This meant that instead of meeting at "fixed periods" the meetings were arranged on an ad hoc basis, to address specific threats or disputes.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The "Congress System" was an effort to maintain peace and stability in Europe through regular Congresses of the Great Powers, similar to the Congress of Vienna, to address pressing issues and resolve disputes through negotiation and coordinated action. The system of regular formal Congresses was short-lived, primarily due to the refusal of Great Britain to take part due to ideological and strategic differences with the Holy Alliance powers.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert of Europe began with the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna, which was designed to bring together the "major powers" of the time in order to stabilize the geopolitics of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon in 1813–1814, and contain France's power after the war following the French Revolution. The Congress of Vienna took place from November 1814 to June 1815 in Vienna, Austria, and brought together representatives from over 200 European polities. The Congress of Vienna created a new international world order which was based on two main ideologies: restoring and safeguarding power balancing in Europe; and collective responsibility for peace and stability in Europe among the "Great Powers".


title: Concert of Europe

text: The 1818 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle formed the Quintuple Alliance by adding France to the Quadruple Alliance, which had comprised the United Kingdom, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. The ability for this to happen was given by Article V of the Quadruple Alliance, and resulted in ending the occupation of France.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The 1820 Congress of Troppau was held in Troppau, Austria by the Great Powers of the Quintuple Alliance (Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom) to discuss and put down the liberal uprising in Naples that caused King Ferdinand I to agree to a constitutional monarchy – which was seen by Prussia and Austria as a threat of liberalism. Other powers present at this Congress include Spain, Naples, and Sicily. At this Congress, the Troppau Protocol was signed, which stated that if States which have undergone a change of government due to a revolution threaten other States, then they are "ipso facto" no longer members of the European Alliance if their exclusion will help to maintain legal order and stability. Furthermore, the Powers of the Alliance would also be bound to peacefully or by means of war bring the excluded State back into the Alliance.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The 1821 Congress of Laibach took place in Laibach (now Ljubljana, Slovenia), between the powers of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Prussia, and Austria) in order to discuss the Austrian invasion and occupation of Naples in order to put down the Neapolitan Revolution of 1820 which had forced the King to accept a constitution. Other powers present at this Congress include Naples, Sicily, the United Kingdom, and France. The Congress of Laibach represented beginning tensions within the Concert of Europe, between the Eastern powers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, versus the Western powers of Britain and France.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The 1822 Congress of Verona took place in Verona, Italy, between the powers of the Quintuple Alliance (Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom), along with Spain, Sicily, and Naples. This Congress dealt with the question of Spanish revolution of 1820; Russia, Prussia, and Austria agreed to support France's planned intervention in Spain, while the United Kingdom opposed it. This Congress also looked to deal with the Greek revolution against Turkey, but due to the opposition of the United Kingdom and Austria to Russian intervention in the Balkans, the Congress of Verona did not end up addressing this issue.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Protocol of St. Petersburg is often cited as the end of the Congress System, as it represented the failure of the Congress of St. Petersburg (1825) to resolve the question of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans. Russia, seeking territory and influence in the Black Sea and the Balkans, and to protect the Eastern Orthodox Christians under Muslim Ottoman rule, supported Greek independence and was dissatisfied with other Powers' desire to treat the uprising as an internal matter and support for the status quo. Russian and the United Kingdom entered a bilateral agreement to enforce their plan, by war if necessary, for a mediated end to the conflict with Greek autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. The other Great Powers were not consulted in this Protocol and though France later joined, Austria and Prussia opposed the Protocol and the threat it posed to the conservative, anti-nationalist stability they sought to impose on Europe. The Ottomans also rejected the Protocol until their defeat at the Battle of Navarino at the hands of the British, French, Russian, and Greek forces forced them to the negotiating table.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The London Conference of 1830 dealt with the question of the Belgian–Dutch conflict, which was caused by the 1830 Belgian Revolution where Belgium separated from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Austria, Prussia, and Russia saw Belgium's separation as a threat to stability, inviting further revolutions and revolts, and sought to return to the status quo ante. On the other hand, France, now led by the more liberal July Monarchy as a result of its own 1830 revolution, supported Belgium's independence, as much of the impetus came from the lack of power of the Francophone and Catholic residents. The United Kingdom was very wary of French plans to annex parts of Belgium, but when no powers were willing to send troops to support the Dutch, and with the ascension of a more liberal Whig government, eventually supported the creation of an independent, neutral Belgium as a buffer state, to which the other Great Powers ultimately agreed.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Ottoman Empire faced an internal revolt in the 1830s led by the viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, who sought to create an empire and remove Egypt and Sudan independent of Ottoman suzerainty. Muhammad Ali's demand for control of parts of the Levant and subsequent invasion of Syria threatened to topple the weak Ottoman regime and brought the issue to a head in what became known as the Oriental Crisis of 1840. The Ottomans were supported by Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia who sought stability and continuity. France, however, supported Muhammad Ali, a longtime ally in North Africa, hoping to further increase French influence in the Mediterranean through a French-aligned independent Egypt. However, the other four powers agreed in the Convention of London (1840) to act without France. A joint British-Austrian force attacked Egyptian forces and forced Muhammad Ali to accept the Ottoman terms. France threatened war on behalf of Egypt and tried to seek territorial compensation in Europe by reclaiming the Left Bank of the Rhine leading to the Rhine Crisis. However, within a few months, the bellicose French government lost support and the Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers resigned and France's new government fell into step with the other Great Powers. The Oriental Crisis showed that important political questions would still be decided by the Great Powers; but it also illustrated the destabilizing effect the continued weakening of the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Eastern Question) had on the balance of power. The sabre-rattling triggered several powers to embark on the most significant armament and fortification projects since Napoleon, particularly in France and the German Confederation.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Concert was challenged by the Revolutions of 1848 but was ultimately successful in preventing major changes to the map of Europe. However, the revolts, which combined nationalist and liberal ideas, posed a real threat to the conservative order that had reigned since 1815, as shown by the success of the French uprising ending the July Monarchy and ushering in the Second Republic. However, in response, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and even republican France worked - and in some cases coordinate closely - to defeat the uprisings in Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe. Britain also sought to preserve the status quo, providing no support to the revolutionaries, and mainly seeking to ensure that no other powers managed to leverage the uprisings into expanded influence in areas of British interest, such as the Mediterranean and the Low Countries.


title: Concert of Europe

text: Sometimes viewed as the end of the first phase, the next blow to the Concert was the Crimean War, the first war between Great Powers since Napoleon. However, the war was marked by being geographically limited to the Crimea and Danubian Principalities rather than a general European war, numerous peace overtures, and serial efforts by the Great Powers to find a diplomatic solution. The war also illustrated a key piece of the balance of power theory, when the combined efforts of several Great Powers were marshaled to check the ambitions of a single rival to prevent it becoming too powerful.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The war ended in 1856 with the Congress of Paris, which is sometimes viewed as the pinnacle of the Concert with all outstanding issues surrounding the conflict resolved in a single Congress and resulting in a single treaty.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The next war between Great Powers came just 3 years later in 1859, with what became known as the Second Italian War of Independence. The war was fought between France and Piedmont-Sardinia on the one hand and Austria on the other and resulted in a swift defeat for the Austrians. Lasting only two months and resulting mainly in the transfer of lands to a minor Italian power (Piedmont Sardinia), the war also did not result in a general European war but the transfer of European territory from a Great Power was unprecedented during the Concert period and presaged the coming decade of wars of national unity which would reshape Europe.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The decline of the Concert was further highlighted by the failure of a ceasefire in 1864 over the issue of Prussia's and Austria's invasion of Denmark in the Second Schleswig War. As the growth of nationalism led to dissatisfaction with the rule of the Danish crown over ethnically German Holstein and ethnically mixed Schleswig, the German populations of the provinces revolted in 1848 but the threat of intervention by the other major powers prevented the German great powers (Prussia and Austria) from intervening and the First Schleswig War ended in a restoration of the status quo ante. However, by 1863, when a succession crisis caused Denmark to breach the terms of the treaty and attempt to incorporate Schleswig into Denmark, the German powers, Austria and Prussia, responding to national sentiment across the German Confederation and with the excuse that Denmark had violated the existing treaties, both opposed a negotiated settlement. The efforts of the other Powers, primarily Britain, France and Russia at the London Conference of 1864 failed. The collapse of the Concert was further sealed when the war was concluded with a trilateral treaty between Prussia, Austria, and Denmark rather than a larger Congress involving the other Great Powers.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The Second Schleswig War set the stage for the subsequent wars of German Unification (the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War) which did not result in interventions by any other Great Powers and which resulted in significant changes to the map of Europe. These wars, and the wars of Italian Unification were concluded among the participants without the approval of non-participant powers in Congresses or Conferences to maintain the balance of power. While various multilateral conferences took place during this period - most notably, the London Conference of 1867 which forestalled war over the Luxembourg Crisis - the cooperative nature of the Concert and its focus on stability was significantly diminished during this time of conflict.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The second phase of the Concert of Europe is typically described as beginning in the 1871 and ending in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. 1871 is the year in which the German and Italian unifications were completed and also the year of the Treaty of London. The second phase saw a further period of peace between the Great Powers and a revival of the conference system for the resolution of disputes. This period was dominated by issues related to colonialism, particularly the Scramble for Africa. However, a number of factors led to the hardening of alliances into two camps, the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the rival Triple Entente (France, Russia, and the United Kingdom), rather than the flexible balance of power system with each Power viewing all others as rivals. In addition, the growth of colonial and imperial power around the world and the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and North Africa meant the Concert's goal of territorial and political stability was harder to achieve, eventually leading to the outbreak of war.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The second phase saw a revival of Great Power "Conferences" where all the Great Powers met on an ad hoc basis to resolve crises or disputes by consensus. Among these were the Congress of Berlin determining the status of the Balkan Peninsula following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 is often seen as the high point of the second phase, as all Great Powers and several minor powers agreed on the rules for colonial expansion which defined areas of colonial and imperial control and successfully preempted many disputes concerning colonial expansion in Africa. Two major international conferences at the Hague led to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and illustrated the continuing desire for peace and stability in Europe. While these do reveal a continuation of the norm of grand Conferences to preserve the status quo, the Conventions were largely ignored in the First World War, many proposals were vetoed or not adopted by all Great Powers, and non-European and minor Powers played an important role.


title: Concert of Europe

text: The fall of the second phase of the Concert of Europe can be attributed largely to the rival alliance systems – the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) – which formed a rift in the European States. These rival alliances threatened the underlying nature of the Concert, which relied on "ad hoc" alliances to respond to a given situation. Later conferences including the Algeciras Conference of 1906 defusing the First Moroccan Crisis, showed that the Conference System was still viable for resolving disputes, but further cemented the adversarial relationship between the two camps.


title: Concert of Europe

text: Furthermore, events in the Balkans undermined the Concert as the Great Powers were not able to preserve the status quo after the First Balkan War. While the London Conference of 1912-1913 called on the Great Powers to finalize the borders, the success of the minor Balkan states was presented to the Great Powers as a "fait accompli" and could not be undone. The crisis of July 1914 – the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo which lit the fuse on Balkan tensions – catalyzed the collapse of the Concert of Europe for good, and marked the start of the first World War.


title: Concert of Europe

text: Nationalism played a role in the fall of both the first and second phases of the Concert of Europe, and was generally on the rise around the world before the start of the first World War; nationalism is seen by some scholars as a driving factor in the start of the first World War. Particularly with the fall of the first phase, the rise of nationalism was in almost direct opposition to the core cooperative functions of the Concert, and resulted in States who were no longer well constrained by the Congress system. The outbreak of conflict - namely in the Balkans after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand - highlighted the final failure of the Concert of Europe, in that it was no longer able to constrain State national interests in order to maintain a cooperative international front.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Blackfish is a 2013 American documentary film directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. It concerns Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld and the controversy over captive orcas. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013, and was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films for wider release. It was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The documentary concerns the captivity of Tilikum, an orca involved in the deaths of three people, and the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. The coverage of Tilikum includes his capture in 1983 off the coast of Iceland and his purported harassment by fellow captive orcas at Sealand of the Pacific. Cowperthwaite argues these incidents contributed to the orca's aggression.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The film includes a testimonial from Lori Marino, director of science with the Nonhuman Rights Project. Cowperthwaite also focuses on SeaWorld's claims that lifespans of orcas in captivity are comparable to those in the wild, typically 30 years for males and 50 years for females, a claim the film argues is false. Other people interviewed include former SeaWorld trainers, such as John Hargrove, who describe their experiences with Tilikum and other captive orcas.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The documentary argues that the wild-caught orcas experienced extreme stress when captured as juveniles, and spending a lifetime in aquariums being forced to perform and breed lead to aggression toward other orcas and humans. The film features footage of attacks on trainers by Tilikum and other captive orcas as well as interviews with witnesses.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Cowperthwaite began work on the film after the February 2010 death of Tilikum's trainer Dawn Brancheau and in response to the claim that the orca had targeted Brancheau because she had worn her hair in a ponytail. Cowperthwaite argued that this claim had been conjecture and that "there had to be more to this story".


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013, and was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films for wider release.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: "Blackfish" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013. Shortly after, Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films acquired US distribution rights to the film, releasing the film on July 19, 2013, with Dogwoof Pictures acquiring international rights. Dogwoof sold the film to multiple buyers for international territories, including Netflix for the UK, Scandinavia and Latin America (the latter two would later go to Universal) and Universal Pictures for Asia, Africa, Portugal, Italy and several other territories. However, in 2021, for unexplained reasons, Netflix removed "Blackfish" from their platform.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, the film has a score of 98% based on 132 reviews with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critical consensus states, ""Blackfish" is an aggressive, impassioned documentary that will change the way you look at performance killer whales." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 83 out of 100 based on 33 critics indicating "universal acclaim." The "Deseret News" called it "a gripping example of documentary filmmaking at its finest".


title: Blackfish (film)

text: After the film's release, former SeaWorld trainer Bridgette Pirtle said the final film was "a complete '180' from what was originally presented to me." In earlier statements, Pirtle praised the film's direction and supported its message. Mark Simmons, one of Tilikum's first trainers, believed few of his interview comments were used "because the things I said flew in the face of the movie's clear agenda. What I contributed did not support Gabriela or Tim Zimmerman's intent with the film."


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Michael Scarpuzzi, the vice president for zoological operations and trainer for SeaWorld San Diego, says the film uses Brancheau's death and gruesome details to "not inform the public, but, rather regrettably, because of the desire to sensationalize." He states, "We have altered how we care for, display and train these extraordinary animals. We have changed the facilities, equipment and procedures at our killer whale habitats. The care and educational presentation of these animals at SeaWorld has been made safer than ever. Does "Blackfish" inform its viewers of that fact? No, it does not."


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In January 2014, the family of the late trainer Dawn Brancheau said neither they nor the foundation named after her were affiliated with the film, and that they did not believe it accurately reflected Brancheau or her experiences.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: SeaWorld Entertainment refused to take part in the production of "Blackfish", and later claimed the film was inaccurate, saying in a statement:


title: Blackfish (film)

text: SeaWorld also responded with an open letter rebutting the claims. The Oceanic Preservation Society and The Orca Project, a non-profit organization focusing on orca in captivity, responded with open letters criticizing SeaWorld's claims. Marine researcher Debbie Giles also offered rebuttals to SeaWorld, finding its assertions inaccurate. SeaWorld considers the film to be propaganda.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: On December 31, 2013, the "Orlando Business Journal" posted a poll asking if "Blackfish" had changed readers' opinions on SeaWorld. The majority of votes stated that the film had not. It was later found that 180 out of 328 votes (55%) originated from a single SeaWorld-hosted IP address. SeaWorld defended the voting, stating that "each of the votes that came from a SeaWorld domain were cast by team members who are passionate about the incredible work SeaWorld does and the experiences our parks provide."


title: Blackfish (film)

text: SeaWorld also created a section of its website titled "Truth About Blackfish," addressing the claims stated above and highlighting what it considered other problems with the film. This section of the website is no longer active.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: On February 27, 2014, SeaWorld filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor, claiming that Lara Padgett, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigator, had behaved unethically by aiding the filmmakers. Cowperthwaite denied claims of improper collaboration.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Starting in the summer of 2014, SeaWorld, as Eric Davis, created a number of public relations websites such as Awesome Ocean, Stand With Sea World, and I Love SeaWorld, in an effort to share their view, counter what they believed were inaccuracies happening in the public debate, and repair their brand.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: SeaWorld announced afterward it had suffered a $15.9 million loss, which CEO Jim Atchison attributed in part to high ticket prices and poor weather.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Overall attendance at SeaWorld parks and Busch Gardens declined by 5% in the first nine months of 2013, though it was unclear if the drop in attendance was due to the influence of the film. SeaWorld claimed attendance figures for its three marine parks — Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio — in the last three months of 2013 were at record levels for that quarter.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In response to the film, New York State Senator Greg Ball proposed legislation in New York that bans keeping orcas in captivity. In March 2014, California State Assemblyman Richard Bloom introduced the Orca Welfare and Safety Act, a bill in California that would ban entertainment-driven orca captivity and retire all current whales. In June 2014, U.S. Congressmen Adam Schiff and Jared Huffman attached an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations Act, requiring the USDA to update regulations under the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 in regards to cetacean captivity. It passed with "unanimous bipartisan support." The bill allocates 1 million USD to studying the impacts of captivity on marine mammals. Schiff cited "Blackfish" as raising public concern.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: After the release of "Blackfish", Southwest Airlines came under pressure to end its 26-year relationship with SeaWorld. Southwest responded that it was aware of concerns and was "engaged" with SeaWorld over them, but that the partnership would continue. In July 2014, it was announced that the partnership would not be renewed. A press release stated that the break was mutual and based on "shifting priorities". The petitioning by activists was cited as a possible factor for the split.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In August 2014, SeaWorld announced that attendance and revenue were down about 1% to 2% for the second quarter of 2014 compared with the second quarter of 2013. Additionally, SeaWorld stock prices dropped by 33%. The company attributed the decline to the proposed government legislation related to the documentary. In November 2014, SeaWorld announced that attendance at the parks had dropped 5.2% from the previous year and profits had fallen 28% over that quarter. As of November 2014, the company's stock was down 50% from the previous year.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In September 2014, the Rosen Law Firm PA announced an investigation into "potential securities claim" on behalf of SeaWorld investors. According to the firm, SeaWorld "acknowledged for the first time the negative publicity may have had a hit and may have been why the attendance has been flat for now and the past quarters." The firm will investigate if SeaWorld was aware of the impact and "chose to downplay that as a reason for its performance results." In September 2014, the Rosen Law Firm filed a class action lawsuit. It alleges that SeaWorld "misled investors by claiming the decrease in attendance at its parks was caused by Easter holiday and other factors" rather than the release of "Blackfish" and improper practices.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: SeaWorld said in August 2014 that the film had hurt revenues at its park in San Diego. On December 11, 2014, SeaWorld announced that chief executive Jim Atchison would resign, with an interim successor replacing him on January 15, 2015. The company's share price had fallen 44% in 2014.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In August 2015, SeaWorld announced a 3% drop in revenue and an 84% drop in net income for the second quarter of 2015 when compared to the previous year. Attendance fell 1.6%, from 6.58 million to 6.48 million.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In November 2015, SeaWorld announced plans to end killer-whale shows at its theme park in San Diego. In March 2016, SeaWorld announced it would end its orca breeding program and begin to phase out all live performances using orcas. In a statement regarding the decision, the company said, “Society is changing and we’re changing with it."


title: Blackfish (film)

text: In 2018, SeaWorld and former CEO James Atchison agreed to pay over $5 million to settle federal charges that the company hid from investors the negative impact that "Blackfish" had on the business. As part of the indictment, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Atchison sold Seaworld stock in the first quarter of 2014 in order to hide the loss in revenue.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Reaction to the documentary prompted the bands and singers Heart, Barenaked Ladies, Willie Nelson, Martina McBride, .38 Special, Cheap Trick, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, The Beach Boys, Trace Adkins, and Trisha Yearwood to cancel their concerts at the "Bands, Brew & BBQ" event at SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa in 2014.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The ending to the Disney/Pixar film "Finding Dory" was revised after director Andrew Stanton and then-chief creative officer John Lasseter saw "Blackfish" and spoke with director Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The depiction of a marine park in the film was altered.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The film "Paper Towns", based on the book by John Green, had scenes featuring SeaWorld cut. Producer Wyck Godfrey explained, "Since [John] wrote the book, the documentary ["Blackfish"] came out. I think it's a little less playful to go to SeaWorld now."


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Director Colin Trevorrow admitted that the animal rights themes in the 2015 film "Jurassic World" were inspired by "Blackfish", with elements of the hybrid dinosaur "Indominus rex" and the fictional theme park in the film inspired by Tilikum and SeaWorld, respectively.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: Composer Jeff Beal composed the original score, recording a small orchestra at his house in Agoura Hills. While no physical CDs were produced, the score is available for download on iTunes. In July 2016, the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra premiered the concert version of the score, live-to-picture, at the Montalban Theater, conducted by Beal.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: "Blackfish" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 26, 2013 in the UK (Region 2, PAL). Its U.S. release was on November 12, 2013.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The documentary was broadcast on CNN on October 24, 2013. After the broadcast, CNN aired an Anderson Cooper special with Jack Hanna, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Naomi Rose and Jack Hurley. This was followed by a special edition of "Crossfire" with "Blackfish" associate producer Tim Zimmermann debating Grey Stafford, a conservationist, zoologist, and member of the International Marine Animal Trainers Association.


title: Blackfish (film)

text: The documentary aired on BBC Four in the UK on November 21, 2013 as part of the "Storyville" documentary series.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Bobbie Jo Stinnett (December 4, 1981 – December 16, 2004) was a pregnant 23-year-old American woman found murdered in her home in Skidmore, Missouri. The perpetrator, Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36, strangled Stinnett and cut her fetus, eight months into gestation, from her womb. The baby was safely recovered by authorities and returned to the father.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Montgomery was tried and found guilty in 2007. She was executed by lethal injection shortly after midnight on January 13, 2021, having exhausted the appeals process. She thus became the first female federal inmate in 67 years to be executed by the United States federal government, and the fourth overall.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Stinnett graduated from Nodaway-Holt High School in Graham, Missouri, in 2000. Stinnett and her husband ran a dog-breeding business from their residence.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Stinnett and Montgomery met through dog show events and had ongoing interactions in an online Rat Terrier chatroom called Ratter Chatter. Montgomery told Stinnett that she was pregnant too, leading to the two women chatting online and exchanging e-mails about their pregnancies.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: On December 16, 2004, Montgomery entered Stinnett's house and murdered her by strangulation. Montgomery then cut Stinnett's unborn child from her womb and fled the scene. There was no sign of forced entry; authorities believe that Montgomery, posing as customer "Darlene Fischer", had arranged to visit Stinnett's house on that day. It is known that Stinnett was expecting the arrival in Skidmore of prospective buyers for a terrier at about the time of her murder.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Stinnett was discovered by her mother Becky Harper, lying in a pool of blood, approximately an hour after the murder. Harper immediately called authorities and described the wounds inflicted upon her daughter as appearing as if her "stomach had exploded." Paramedics were unsuccessful in attempts to revive Stinnett, and she was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville. Montgomery allegedly called her husband, Kevin, that same day around 5:15 p.m. saying that, on a shopping trip to Topeka, she had gone into labor and given birth.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: The following day, December 17, police arrested Montgomery at her farmhouse in Melvern, Kansas. A witness would later report that on the morning before her arrest, Montgomery took the infant, her husband, and two teenage sons to a restaurant for breakfast. Police had initially gone to Montgomery's home after tracing online communications to her IP address, hoping to interview her as a witness. When they arrived, they found a car matching the description of the one at the crime scene, and when they entered the home, they found Montgomery inside, holding the infant, and watching television. Montgomery was arrested an hour later after her story fell apart and she confessed. The kidnapped newborn, whom she claimed as her own, was recovered and soon placed in custody of the father. The quick recovery and capture was attributed to the use of forensic computer investigations which tracked Montgomery and Stinnett's online communication.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: The investigation was aided by the issuance of an AMBER alert to enlist the public's help. The alert was initially denied as it had not been used before in an unborn child's case and thus there was no description of the victim. Eventually after intervention by Congressman Sam Graves, the alert was implemented. DNA testing was used to confirm the infant's identity.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Lisa Marie Montgomery (February 27, 1968 – January 13, 2021) resided in Melvern, Kansas, at the time of the murder. Montgomery's mother's alcohol addiction led to Lisa being born with permanent brain damage. She was raised in a physically, emotionally and sexually abusive home where she was allegedly raped by her stepfather and his friends, and beaten, from the age of 11. She sought mental escape through drinking alcohol. When Montgomery was 14, her mother discovered the abuse and reacted by threatening her daughter with a gun. Montgomery tried to escape by marrying at the age of 18, but both her first marriage and a second marriage resulted in further abuse.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Montgomery had four children before she underwent a tubal ligation in 1990. She falsely claimed to be pregnant several times after the procedure, according to both her first and second spouses.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: At the time of her arrest, it was speculated that Montgomery's motivation stemmed from a miscarriage she may have suffered and subsequently concealed from her family. Further possibilities surrounding her motive were raised following speculation that her former husband planned to reveal she had lied about being pregnant in an effort to get custody of her children; it was surmised that Montgomery needed to produce a baby to counter this charge of habitual lying about pregnancy.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Montgomery was charged with the federal offense of "kidnapping resulting in death", a crime established by the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932, and described in Title 18 of the United States Code. If convicted, she faced a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: At a pre-trial hearing, a neuropsychologist testified that head injuries which Montgomery had sustained some years before could have damaged the part of the brain that controls aggression. During her trial in federal court, her defense attorneys, led by Frederick Duchardt, asserted that she had pseudocyesis, a mental condition that causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy. According to "The Guardian", Duchardt attempted to follow this line of defense only one week before the trial began after being forced to abandon a contradictory argument that Stinnett was murdered by Montgomery's brother Tommy, who had an alibi. As a result, Montgomery's family refused to co-operate with Duchardt and described her background to the jury.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Dr. V. S. Ramachandran and MD William Logan gave expert testimony that Montgomery had pseudocyesis in addition to depression, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Ramachandran testified that Montgomery's stories about her actions fluctuated because of her delusional state and that she was unable to dictate the nature and quality of her acts. Both federal prosecutor Roseann Ketchmark and the opposing expert witness forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz disagreed strongly with the diagnosis of pseudocyesis.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: On October 22, 2007, jurors found Montgomery guilty, rejecting the defense claim that Montgomery was delusional. On October 26, the jury recommended the death sentence. Judge Gary A. Fenner formally sentenced Montgomery to death on April 4, 2008.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Duchardt's pseudocyesis defense, Montgomery's past trauma and separate diagnosis of mental illness were not fully revealed until after her conviction. This led critics including "Guardian" journalist David Rose to argue that Duchardt provided an incompetent legal defense for Montgomery. Fenner required Duchardt to be cross-examined in November 2016. Duchardt rejected all criticism and defended his conduct.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: On March 19, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Montgomery's "certiorari" petition. Montgomery, who was registered for the Federal Bureau of Prisons under number 11072-031, was incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she remained until she was transferred to the site of her execution. For a long time, she was the only woman with a federal death sentence at Federal Medical Center, Carswell (FMC Carswell).


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: During her appeals, Montgomery's lawyers argued that she technically did not commit the crime of kidnapping resulting in death, claiming that Victoria Jo Stinnett was not considered a person until she was removed from her mother's womb. Accordingly, since Bobbi had died beforehand, the crime was instead a "death resulting in kidnapping." That claim was dismissed, with the courts saying the felony murder rule nullified this and that Montgomery needed to kill Bobbi regardless in order to complete the kidnapping.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Experts who examined Montgomery after conviction concluded that by the time of her crime she had long been living with psychosis, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorders. She was said to be often disassociated from reality and to have permanent brain damage from numerous beatings at the hands of her parents and spouses. The case of "Atkins v. Virginia" ruled that executing individuals with intellectual disability violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding cruel and unusual punishments. Given this ruling, it could be expected that Montgomery was ineligible for a death sentence. Very strong and undisputed evidence can lead to a withdrawal of the death sentence or a further enquiry into it. Montgomery was scheduled for execution on December 8, 2020, by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, but this was delayed following her attorneys contracting COVID-19. On December 23, 2020, Montgomery was given a new execution date of January 12, 2021. U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss found that "the director's order setting a new execution date while the Court's stay was in effect was 'not in accordance with law'", prohibiting the re-scheduling of the execution before January 1, 2022.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: On January 1, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated Moss's ruling, effectively reinstating her execution date of January 12. On that date, federal judge Patrick Hanlon granted a stay of her execution on the grounds that her mental competence must first be tested as it could be argued she did not understand the grounds for her execution, per the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The stay was then vacated by the Supreme Court via a 6–3 vote. The execution was ordered to be carried out immediately. She arrived in Terre Haute's death row on January 12.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Montgomery was executed by lethal injection on January 13, 2021, at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. When asked if she had any last words, she replied: "No." She was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. EST.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: Montgomery became the first female federal prisoner executed in 67 years, the first woman executed in the United States since Kelly Gissendaner in 2015, and the first person executed in the United States in 2021. Only three other women have been executed by the U.S. federal government: Mary Surratt, by hanging in 1865; Ethel Rosenberg by electric chair in 1953; and Bonnie Heady by gas chamber, also in 1953. Montgomery's execution was followed a day later by Corey Johnson, and three days later by Dustin Higgs. They were the last three executions under the presidency of Donald Trump, occurring in a lame-duck period. All three were carried out by the United States federal government, each being controversial for a variety of reasons.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: In her final days, Montgomery had kept a calendar marked with Joe Biden's inauguration date. Joe Biden had promised to enact a moratorium on capital punishment at the federal level.


title: Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

text: The case was described in author Diane Fanning's "Baby Be Mine" books, and M. William Phelps's "Murder in the Heartland". The case featured in an episode of the true crime series "Deadly Women" titled "Fatal Obsession", in an episode of the true crime series "Solved" titled "Life and Death", and in the fifth episode of the documentary series "No One Saw a Thing" that aired on the Sundance Channel on August 29, 2019.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: Benjamin Jacques Marcel Pavard (born 28 March 1996) is a French professional footballer who plays as a right-back for club Bayern Munich and the France national team. Although usually deployed as a right-back, he is also capable of playing as a centre-back.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: He began his career at Lille in Ligue 1 and transferred to VfB Stuttgart in 2016, where he won the 2. Bundesliga in his first season. In January 2019 he agreed a move to Bayern Munich, which was completed after Stuttgart's relegation at the end of the season. In 2020, he completed an historic sextuple by winning the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, Champions League, DFL-Supercup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: Pavard made his international debut for France in November 2017, and won the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2020–21 UEFA Nations League, also featuring at UEFA Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: Pavard first played with his hometown club in Jeumont, where former France international striker Jean-Pierre Papin also began his career.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: Spotted by Jean-Michel Vandamme, Pavard joined Lille's academy at the age of nine. He made his Ligue 1 debut on 31 January 2015 against FC Nantes, playing the full game in a 1–1 away draw. Pavard made 21 league appearances across two seasons for Lille, before leaving the club in 2016.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: On 30 August 2016, Pavard moved to VfB Stuttgart, signing a four-year contract. He made his debut in the 2. Bundesliga on 3 October, scoring in a 4–0 home win over SpVgg Greuther Fürth. He played 21 games and his team ended the season as league champions.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: Pavard made his Bundesliga debut on 19 August in a 2–0 loss at Hertha BSC. He scored his first goal in the Bundesliga with a delightful back header on 29 October in a 3–0 win over SC Freiburg at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. He extended his contract with Stuttgart on 20 December 2017 until 30 June 2021.


title: Benjamin Pavard

text: He was one of only four players to feature in every single second of the 2017–18 Bundesliga season. He played in several positions, namely right-back, centre-back, defensive midfielder and right wing, but after the appointment of Tayfun Korkut as manager in January 2018 he was exclusively a centre back; the team conceded 10 goals in their last 14 games as they went from near the relegation places to finish 7th, only just missing out on a UEFA Europa League place.