title: Visual acuity

text: The measurement of visual acuity in infants, pre-verbal children and special populations (for instance, disabled individuals) is not always possible with a letter chart. For these populations, specialised testing is necessary. As a basic examination step, one must check whether visual stimuli can be fixated, centered and followed.


title: Visual acuity

text: More formal testing using preferential looking techniques use "Teller acuity" cards (presented by a technician from behind a window in the wall) to check whether the child is more visually attentive to a random presentation of vertical or horizontal gratings on one side compared with a blank page on the other side – the bars become progressively finer or closer together, and the endpoint is noted when the child in its adult carer's lap equally prefers the two sides.


title: Visual acuity

text: Another popular technique is electro-physiologic testing using visual evoked (cortical) potentials (VEPs or VECPs), which can be used to estimate visual acuity in doubtful cases and expected severe vision loss cases like Leber's congenital amaurosis.


title: Visual acuity

text: VEP testing of acuity is somewhat similar to preferential looking in using a series of black and white stripes (sine wave gratings) or checkerboard patterns (which produce larger responses than stripes). Behavioral responses are not required and brain waves created by the presentation of the patterns are recorded instead. The patterns become finer and finer until the evoked brain wave just disappears, which is considered to be the endpoint measure of visual acuity. In adults and older, verbal children capable of paying attention and following instructions, the endpoint provided by the VEP corresponds very well to the psychophysical measure in the standard measurement (i.e. the perceptual endpoint determined by asking the subject when they can no longer see the pattern). There is an assumption that this correspondence also applies to much younger children and infants, though this does not necessarily have to be the case. Studies do show the evoked brain waves, as well as derived acuities, are very adult-like by one year of age.


title: Visual acuity

text: For reasons not totally understood, until a child is several years old, visual acuities from behavioral preferential looking techniques typically lag behind those determined using the VEP, a direct physiological measure of early visual processing in the brain. Possibly it takes longer for more complex behavioral and attentional responses, involving brain areas not directly involved in processing vision, to mature. Thus the visual brain may detect the presence of a finer pattern (reflected in the evoked brain wave), but the "behavioral brain" of a small child may not find it salient enough to pay special attention to.


title: Visual acuity

text: A simple but less-used technique is checking oculomotor responses with an optokinetic nystagmus drum, where the subject is placed inside the drum and surrounded by rotating black and white stripes. This creates involuntary abrupt eye movements (nystagmus) as the brain attempts to track the moving stripes. There is a good correspondence between the optokinetic and usual eye-chart acuities in adults. A potentially serious problem with this technique is that the process is reflexive and mediated in the low-level brain stem, not in the visual cortex. Thus someone can have a normal optokinetic response and yet be cortically blind with no conscious visual sensation.


title: Visual acuity

text: Visual acuity depends upon how accurately light is focused on the retina, the integrity of the eye's neural elements, and the interpretative faculty of the brain. "Normal" visual acuity (in central, i.e. foveal vision) is frequently considered to be what was defined by Herman Snellen as the ability to recognize an optotype when it subtended 5 minutes of arc, that is Snellen's chart 6/6-metre, 20/20 feet, 1.00 decimal or 0.0 logMAR. In young humans, the average visual acuity of a healthy, emmetropic eye (or ametropic eye with correction) is approximately 6/5 to 6/4, so "it is inaccurate to refer to 6/6 visual acuity as "perfect" vision". On the contrary, Tscherning writes, "We have found also that the best eyes have a visual acuity which approaches 2, and we can be almost certain that if, with a good illumination, the acuity is only equal to 1, the eye presents defects sufficiently pronounced to be easily established."


title: Visual acuity

text: 6/6 is the visual acuity needed to discriminate two contours separated by 1 arc minute – 1.75 mm at 6 metres. This is because a 6/6 letter, E for example, has three limbs and two spaces in between them, giving 5 different detailed areas. The ability to resolve this therefore requires 1/5 of the letter's total size, which in this case would be 1 minute of arc (visual angle). The significance of the 6/6 standard can best be thought of as the lower limit of normal, or as a screening cutoff. When used as a screening test, subjects that reach this level need no further investigation, even though the average visual acuity with a healthy visual system is typically better.


title: Visual acuity

text: Some people may have other visual problems, such as severe visual field defects, color blindness, reduced contrast, mild amblyopia, cerebral visual impairments, inability to track fast-moving objects, or one of many other visual impairments and still have "normal" visual acuity. Thus, ""normal" visual acuity by no means implies normal vision." The reason visual acuity is very widely used is that it is easily measured, its reduction (after correction) often indicates some disturbance, and that it often corresponds with the normal daily activities a person can handle, and evaluates their impairment to do them (even though there is heavy debate over that relationship).


title: Visual acuity

text: Normally, visual acuity refers to the ability to resolve two separated points or lines, but there are other measures of the ability of the visual system to discern spatial differences.


title: Visual acuity

text: Vernier acuity measures the ability to align two line segments. Humans can do this with remarkable accuracy. This success is regarded as" hyperacuity". Under optimal conditions of good illumination, high contrast, and long line segments, the limit to vernier acuity is about 8 arc seconds or 0.13 arc minutes, compared to about 0.6 arc minutes (6/4) for normal visual acuity or the 0.4 arc minute diameter of a foveal cone. Because the limit of vernier acuity is well below that imposed on regular visual acuity by the "retinal grain" or size of the foveal cones, it is thought to be a process of the visual cortex rather than the retina. Supporting this idea, vernier acuity seems to correspond very closely (and may have the same underlying mechanism) enabling one to discern very slight differences in the orientations of two lines, where orientation is known to be processed in the visual cortex.


title: Visual acuity

text: The smallest detectable visual angle produced by a single fine dark line against a uniformly illuminated background is also much less than foveal cone size or regular visual acuity. In this case, under optimal conditions, the limit is about 0.5 arc seconds or only about 2% of the diameter of a foveal cone. This produces a contrast of about 1% with the illumination of surrounding cones. The mechanism of detection is the ability to detect such small differences in contrast or illumination, and does not depend on the angular width of the bar, which cannot be discerned. Thus as the line gets finer, it appears to get fainter but not thinner.


title: Visual acuity

text: Stereoscopic acuity is the ability to detect differences in depth with the two eyes. For more complex targets, stereoacuity is similar to normal monocular visual acuity, or around 0.6–1.0 arc minutes, but for much simpler targets, such as vertical rods, may be as low as only 2 arc seconds. Although stereoacuity normally corresponds very well with monocular acuity, it may be very poor, or absent, even in subjects with normal monocular acuities. Such individuals typically have abnormal visual development when they are very young, such as an alternating strabismus, or eye turn, where both eyes rarely, or never, point in the same direction and therefore do not function together.


title: Visual acuity

text: The eye has acuity limits for detecting motion. Forward motion is limited by the "subtended angular velocity detection threshold" (SAVT), and horizontal and vertical motion acuity are limited by lateral motion thresholds. The lateral motion limit is generally below the looming motion limit, and for an object of a given size, lateral motion becomes the more insightful of the two, once the observer moves sufficiently far away from the path of travel. Below these thresholds subjective constancy is experienced in accordance with the Stevens' power law and Weber–Fechner law.


title: Visual acuity

text: There is a specific acuity limit in detecting an approaching object's looming motion. This is regarded as the subtended angular velocity detection threshold (SAVT) limit of visual acuity. It has a practical value of 0.0275 rad/s. For a person with SAVT limit of formula_1, the looming motion of a directly approaching object of size , moving at velocity , is not detectable until its distance is


title: Visual acuity

text: where the term is omitted for small objects relative to great distances by small-angle approximation.


title: Visual acuity

text: To exceed the SAVT, an object of size moving as velocity must be closer than ; beyond that distance, subjective constancy is experienced. The SAVT formula_1 can be measured from the distance at which a looming object is first detected:


title: Visual acuity

text: The SAVT has the same kind of importance to driving safety and sports as the static limit. The formula is derived from taking the derivative of the visual angle with respect to distance, and then multiplying by velocity to obtain the time rate of visual expansion ().


title: Visual acuity

text: There are acuity limits (formula_1) of horizontal and vertical motion as well. They can be measured and defined by the threshold detection of movement of an object traveling at distance and velocity orthogonal to the direction of view, from a set-back distance with the formula


title: Visual acuity

text: Because the tangent of the subtended angle is the ratio of the orthogonal distance to the set-back distance, the angular time rate (rad/s) of lateral motion is simply the derivative of the inverse tangent multiplied by the velocity (). In application this means that an orthogonally traveling object will not be discernible as moving until it has reached the distance


title: Visual acuity

text: where formula_1 for lateral motion is generally ≥ 0.0087 rad/s with probable dependence on deviation from the fovia and movement orientation, velocity is in terms of the distance units, and zero distance is straight ahead. Far object distances, close set-backs, and low velocities generally lower the salience of lateral motion. Detection with close or null set-back can be accomplished through the pure scale changes of looming motion.


title: Visual acuity

text: The motion acuity limit affects radial motion in accordance to its definition, hence the ratio of the velocity to the radius must exceed formula_1:


title: Visual acuity

text: Radial motion is encountered in clinical and research environments, in dome theaters, and in virtual-reality headsets.


title: Elizabeth Banks filmography

text: The following is the complete filmography of American actress, director, writer, and producer Elizabeth Banks.


title: Mausoleum

text: A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb, or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum.


title: Mausoleum

text: The word "mausoleum" (from Greek μαυσωλείον) derives from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria, whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.


title: Mausoleum

text: Historically, mausolea were, and still may be, large and impressive constructions for a deceased leader or other person of importance. However, smaller mausolea soon became popular with the gentry and nobility in many countries. In the Roman Empire, these were often in necropoles or along roadsides: the via Appia Antica retains the ruins of many private mausolea for kilometres outside Rome. When Christianity became dominant, mausolea were out of use.


title: Mausoleum

text: Later, mausolea became particularly popular in Europe and its colonies during the early modern and modern periods. A single mausoleum may be permanently sealed. A mausoleum encloses a burial chamber either wholly above ground or within a burial vault below the superstructure. This contains the body or bodies, probably within sarcophagi or interment niches. Modern mausolea may also act as columbaria (a type of mausoleum for cremated remains) with additional cinerary urn niches. Mausolea may be located in a cemetery, a churchyard or on private land.


title: Mausoleum

text: In the United States, the term may be used for a burial vault below a larger facility, such as a church. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, for example, has 6,000 sepulchral and cinerary urn spaces for interments in the lower level of the building. It is known as the "crypt mausoleum". In Europe, these underground vaults are sometimes called crypts or catacombs.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Anthony Kewoa Johnson (March 6, 1984 – November 13, 2022) was an American mixed martial artist. He spent most of his career competing for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he was a multiple time title challenger, before ending his career with a single fight with Bellator MMA. He fought in the welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions. He was known by his nickname, Rumble, which he was given because of his one-punch knockout power. He also had a small acting role as a fighter in a large international mixed martial arts tournament called Sparta in the 2011 film "Warrior".


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: He was the number 1 ranked light heavyweight contender in official UFC rankings, and was ranked number 2 in the world by Sherdog and ESPN, before his retirement in April 2017. Johnson later came out of retirement in May 2021 and won his last fight by knockout.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Anthony Kewoa Johnson was born in Dublin, Georgia. He was raised by his grandparents who formally adopted him at age 2. Early in life, his heroes were his grandfather and the football player Walter Payton. He went to West Laurens High School and then attended Lassen College in Susanville, California on a wrestling scholarship, and became a junior college national wrestling champion. After college, he worked as a bouncer and entered mixed martial arts at age 20, after a friend suggested it due to his wrestling background.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson made his UFC debut at UFC Fight Night 10, knocking out Chad Reiner just thirteen seconds into the first round. He had taken the fight on less than a week's notice, replacing an injured Steve Bruno, who had torn his rotator cuff. He was also seen in a previous video for "The Ultimate Fighter" trying out for , however for undisclosed reasons he was not on the show.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In his next bout, he faced Rich Clementi at UFC 76. He lost the fight via rear-naked choke submission in round two.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: After his first professional loss, Johnson then faced Tom Speer at . He won the fight via knockout early in round one.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson's next fight was against Kevin Burns, at aired live on Spike TV on July 19, 2008. Johnson was repeatedly poked in the eyes throughout the bout, with Burns receiving multiple warnings. In round three, Johnson would again be poked in the eye, resulting in a cracked retina that rendered him unable to continue. However, referee Steve Mazzagatti controversially declared Burns the winner via technical knockout. Johnson appealed the loss, but it was denied due to a 'lack of remedy'.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson fought Kevin Burns again in a rematch at . Johnson won the match by knocking Burns out via head kick. The knockout was awarded "Knockout of The Night" and a $25,000 bonus.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson fought Luigi Fioravanti at on February 7, 2009. He won via technical knockout in the first round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was scheduled to fight Matt Brown at the TUF 9 Finale, but had to pull out after suffering a knee injury. Johnson instead fought Japanese judoka Yoshiyuki Yoshida at UFC 104. Johnson weighed in at 176 pounds, five pounds over the welterweight non-title bout limit of 171, and was forced to forfeit 20% of his fight purse. Johnson knocked out Yoshida 41 seconds into the first round, but was not eligible for the Knockout of the Night bonus due to missing weight.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Since he had taken very little damage during his fight with Yoshida, Johnson made a quick turnaround and faced Josh Koscheck on November 21, 2009, at UFC 106. Both Johnson and Koscheck were awarded "Fight of the Night" honors for the contest, which saw Koscheck win via rear naked choke.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was expected to face John Howard on March 21, 2010, at , but had to pull out due to suffering a knee injury in training.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson indicated on the June 4, 2010, episode of Inside MMA that he must typically lose 55 pounds to make 170. Despite this, Johnson said that although he may take a fight at 185, he does not plan to remain there and intends to stay at 170.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson returned to the octagon in early 2011. He faced Dan Hardy on March 26, 2011, at UFC Fight Night 24. Johnson used superior wrestling and controlled Hardy to a unanimous decision victory, dropping him with a left head kick in the first round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was expected to face Nate Marquardt in what would have been his first main event on June 26, 2011, at UFC on Versus 4 but was forced out of the bout with an injury and replaced by Rick Story.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson went on to face Charlie Brenneman at UFC on Versus 6. He won the fight via first-round KO, earning "Knockout of the Night" honors.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: For his next fight, Johnson attempted to move up to middleweight to face Vitor Belfort on January 14, 2012, at UFC 142. Leading up to the UFC 142 weigh-ins, doctors advised Johnson to terminate his weight cut and rehydrate. Johnson came in at 197 lb, 11 pounds over the middleweight division limit. The fight remained scheduled under the stipulation that Johnson would not weigh over 205 lb on fight day and would forfeit 20% of his purse to Belfort. On fight day, Johnson officially weighed in at 204.2 lb, and Belfort won via first round submission. Following the loss, Johnson was released from the promotion for disciplinary reasons due to missing weight yet again.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: After being released from the UFC, Johnson fought fellow UFC veteran David Branch at Titan Fighting Championships 22. On the day of the weigh ins for the fight, Johnson once again missed making the 186 lb limit for the middleweight division, as he weighed in at 194.2 lb, 8.2 lb overweight. Branch was notified the morning of the weight in that Johnson was not going to make weight, so as a result he weighed in at 189 lb. The bout was then agreed upon as a catchweight bout at 195 lb. This marked the fourth time in Johnson's professional career that he had weighed in over the assigned weight limit. Johnson won the fight via unanimous decision (30–27 on all cards).


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson made his light heavyweight debut at Titan Fighting Championships 24 against former King of the Cage Super Heavyweight Champion Esteves Jones, Johnson won via TKO in just 51 seconds of the second round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson fought Jake Rosholt at Xtreme Fight Night 9. Johnson won the fight by TKO due to a head kick in the second round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson faced Bellator veteran D.J. Linderman at WSOF 1 on November 3, 2012. He won the fight via KO in the first round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson fought at heavyweight against Andrei Arlovski on March 23, 2013, at WSOF 2, and won via unanimous decision.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was scheduled to face Strikeforce vet Mike Kyle on September 14, 2013, at WSOF 5. However Johnson was forced out of the bout due to an injury.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson vs. Mike Kyle eventually took place on January 18, 2014, at in Hollywood, Florida. Johnson won the fight via knockout in the first round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In his return bout, instead of cutting weight and fighting at the 170 lbs welterweight division Johnson fought at 205 lbs in the light heavyweight division. There he faced top-ranked light heavyweight Phil Davis in the co-main event at UFC 172. Despite being a nearly 3-to-1 underdog, Johnson was successful in his return, defeating Davis via unanimous decision after dominating all three rounds of the fight.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson next faced Antônio Rogério Nogueira in the co-main event on July 26, 2014, at UFC on Fox 12. He won the fight via KO at just 44 seconds into the first round. The win also earned Johnson his first "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: On September 19, 2014, news surfaced about Johnson being suspected of domestic violence against the mother of his two children. Soon after, Johnson claimed to be innocent. Due to the suspicion, UFC released a statement that Johnson was being indefinitely suspended until the case was investigated. On November 6, 2014, the UFC lifted Johnson's suspension after the civil case was dismissed, clearing him to fight.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson fought Alexander Gustafsson on January 24, 2015, at UFC on Fox 14 with the promise that the winner would earn a title shot against Jon Jones. Johnson won the one-sided bout via TKO in the first round, becoming the first to stop Gustafsson due to strikes. The win also earned Johnson his second "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was expected to face Jon Jones on May 23, 2015, at UFC 187. However, on April 28, it was announced that Jones had been stripped of the UFC Light heavyweight title and suspended indefinitely. Johnson faced Daniel Cormier for the vacant UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Early in the first round, Johnson became the first man to knock down Cormier, but would succumb to Cormier's wrestling, becoming fatigued and losing the fight via rear naked choke submission in round three.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was expected to face Jan Błachowicz on September 5, 2015, at UFC 191. However, Johnson was pulled from the bout on July 30 in favor of a fight with Jimi Manuwa at the event. After dominating the first round with his wrestling, Johnson won via knockout early in the second round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson next faced Ryan Bader on January 30, 2016, at UFC on Fox 18. Bader went for a takedown almost immediately, which Johnson defended. Bader then threatened a kimura off his back, but Johnson again defended it before moving to mount and winning via knockout. The win also earned Johnson his fourth "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was expected to face Glover Teixeira on July 23, 2016, at UFC on Fox 20, but was pulled from the card due to undisclosed reasons. The bout was rescheduled and eventually took place at UFC 202. Johnson defeated Teixeira by knockout 13 seconds into the first round and was awarded his fifth Performance of the Night bonus.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: A rematch with champion Daniel Cormier was expected to take place on December 10, 2016, at UFC 206. However, Cormier pulled out of the fight on November 25 citing an injury and as a result, Johnson was removed from the card. The pairing was rescheduled again and eventually took place on April 8, 2017, at UFC 210. Johnson decided to use his wrestling as his main offense, a decision which frustrated his corner, and led to him becoming fatigued and losing the fight via rear naked choke submission in the second round. After the fight, Johnson announced his retirement from the UFC and combat sports effective immediately.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In 2017, Johnson switched to Combat Sports, an open gym club, and CSMMA after Blackzilians ceased operations across the Florida area.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In August 2019, 2 years after initially announcing his retirement, Johnson confirmed that he would be re-entering the USADA testing pool. Despite initial claims about moving up to heavyweight, Johnson eventually decided to stay in the light heavyweight division. In October 2019, Johnson confirmed he was in talks with the UFC brass to come back as part of the heavyweight division and would like to return in April 2020. However, he eventually entered the testing pool in late August 2020, and would have been eligible to compete in February 2021.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: On December 9, 2020, it was announced that Johnson had parted ways with the UFC and had signed a multi-fight contract with Bellator MMA.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: On February 9, 2021, it was announced that Johnson would be participating in the Bellator Light Heavyweight World Grand Prix Tournament. He was scheduled to face Yoel Romero in the quarterfinal round at Bellator 257 on April 16 but on March 26, it was announced that the bout would be moved to Bellator 258 on May 7. On April 29, it was announced that Yoel had failed his pre-fight medical exam and the bout was scrapped and Romero was removed from the tournament. The next day, it was announced that Jose Augusto would replace Yoel in the bout and the Grand Prix. After surviving being dropped in the first round, Johnson won via knockout in the second round.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In the semi-finals of the Grand Prix, Johnson was scheduled to face the champion Vadim Nemkov, with the Bellator Light Heavyweight Championship on the line, on October 16, 2021 at Bellator 268. On September 18, it was announced that Anthony Johnson was forced to pull out of the bout and the tournament due to an unspecified illness. Johnson was hopeful to return to action in 2022.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: After martial arts competition, Johnson launched a CBD oil company, Competitive Body Development. In early 2019, Johnson was appointed as the head of fighter relations for Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In 2008, Johnson was convicted of domestic battery after he pleaded no contest. He was sentenced to serve three years of probation. He was also charged with making criminal threats and property damage for allegedly breaking the victim's cell phone, but those charges were thrown out.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: In March 2014, Johnson was accused of domestic abuse in Arkansas towards his ex-girlfriend and mother of his children. A police report that was revealed to the public in September 2014 included statements from Johnson's ex in which she alleged Johnson came to her work, physically approached her, grabbed her shirt behind the neck and lifted her up from the chair on which she was sitting. She continued by saying that Johnson then grabbed her right arm and forcefully pulled on it several times to pull her closer to him, and that he verbally abused her in front of several coworkers. The police report also stated that the girlfriend had visible bruising on her arm and scratches near her collarbone. Police said that Johnson's girlfriend was crying and shaking while giving her side of what happened. No charges were filed.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: Johnson was arrested on May 5, 2019 in Boca Raton, Florida after an incident with his girlfriend. Johnson's girlfriend alleged that during an argument, Johnson became angry, picked her up, and carried her into another room. Stating that she was fearful for her safety, Johnson's girlfriend then called 911. Police officers arrived and placed Johnson under arrest and took him to the Palm Beach County jail, where he was booked on charges of domestic battery (by law, any act of non-consensual touching could be considered battery). Johnson was released hours later on recognizance, meaning he signed a court order promising to show up for future court dates. At his arraignment on May 15, Johnson pleaded not guilty. The case was ultimately dismissed, with the charges against Johnson being dropped when he reached a joint agreement with the prosecutors by agreeing to attend an anger management course. In addition, he was required to attend biweekly drug testing due to testing positive for marijuana, thus neglecting his bail conditions.


title: Anthony Johnson (fighter)

text: On May 11, 2021, Johnson was arrested in Fairfield County, Connecticut and charged with identity theft after allegedly using a stolen credit card to pay for a flight from Newark, New Jersey to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in November 2019. Johnson was released on $500 bond.


title: One Piece (season 17)

text: The seventeenth season of the "One Piece" anime series was produced by Toei Animation, and directed by Hiroaki Miyamoto and Toshinori Fukuzawa. The season began broadcasting in Japan on Fuji Television from January 19, 2014 to June 19, 2016. It features 118 episodes, which makes this the second longest season of the whole anime. Like the rest of the series, it follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates. The first DVD compilation of this season was released on July 2, 2014, with individual volumes being released monthly. Funimation began releasing their English dub of the season through VOD on December 1, 2020.


title: One Piece (season 17)

text: The story arc, called "Dressrosa", adapts material beginning from the end of the 70th volume to the middle of the 80th volume of the manga by Eiichiro Oda. The Straw Hats land in Dressrosa, an island controlled by the warlord Donquixote Doflamingo. Upon learning of Doflamingo's conquering of the kingdom, the Straw Hats team up with the Revolutionaries and the kingdom's deposed princess Viola to overthrow Doflamingo and save Dressrosa.


title: One Piece (season 17)

text: This season makes use of two pieces of theme music. The opening themes are "Wake up!", sung by AAA for the first 57 episodes, and "Hard Knock Days", performed by Generations from Exile Tribe for the remainder of the season.


title: One Piece (season 17)

text: In North America, the season was recategorized as part of "Season Eleven" for its home video release by Funimation Entertainment. Starting with this season, Funimation's releases bundle DVD and Blu-ray copies of the series.


title: Cannon

text: A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in gauge, effective range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. A cannon is a type of heavy artillery weapon.


title: Cannon

text: The word "cannon" is derived from several languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as "tube", "cane", or "reed". In the modern era, the term "cannon" has fallen into decline, replaced by "guns" or "artillery", if not a more specific term such as howitzer or mortar, except for high-caliber automatic weapons firing bigger rounds than machine guns, called autocannons.


title: Cannon

text: The earliest known depiction of cannons appeared in Song dynasty China as early as the 12th century; however, solid archaeological and documentary evidence of cannons do not appear until the 13th century. In 1288 Yuan dynasty troops are recorded to have used hand cannon in combat, and the earliest extant cannon bearing a date of production comes from the same period. By the early 14th century, possible mentions of cannon had appeared in the Middle East and the depiction of one in Europe by 1326. Recorded usage of cannon began appearing almost immediately after. They subsequently spread to India, their usage on the subcontinent being first attested to in 1366. By the end of the 14th century, cannons were widespread throughout Eurasia. Cannons were used primarily as anti-infantry weapons until around 1374, when large cannons were recorded to have breached walls for the first time in Europe. Cannons featured prominently as siege weapons, and ever larger pieces appeared. In 1464 a cannon known as the Great Turkish Bombard was created in the Ottoman Empire. Cannons as field artillery became more important after 1453, with the introduction of limber, which greatly improved cannon maneuverability and mobility. European cannons reached their longer, lighter, more accurate, and more efficient "classic form" around 1480. This classic European cannon design stayed relatively consistent in form with minor changes until the 1750s.


title: Cannon

text: The word "cannon" is derived from the Old Italian word , meaning "large tube", which came from Latin , in turn originating from the Greek (), "reed", and then generalised to mean any hollow tube-like object; cognate with Akkadian "qanu(m)" and Hebrew , "tube, reed". The word has been used to refer to a gun since 1326 in Italy, and 1418 in England. Both of the plural forms "cannons" and "cannon" are correct.


title: Cannon

text: The cannon may have appeared as early as the 12th century in China, and was probably a parallel development or evolution of the fire-lance, a short ranged anti-personnel weapon combining a gunpowder-filled tube and a polearm of some sort. Co-viative projectiles such as iron scraps or porcelain shards were placed in fire lance barrels at some point, and eventually, the paper and bamboo materials of fire lance barrels were replaced by metal.


title: Cannon

text: The earliest known depiction of a cannon is a sculpture from the Dazu Rock Carvings in Sichuan dated to 1128, however, the earliest archaeological samples and textual accounts do not appear until the 13th century. The primary extant specimens of cannon from the 13th century are the Wuwei Bronze Cannon dated to 1227, the Heilongjiang hand cannon dated to 1288, and the Xanadu Gun dated to 1298. However, only the Xanadu gun contains an inscription bearing a date of production, so it is considered the earliest confirmed extant cannon. The Xanadu Gun is 34.7 cm in length and weighs 6.2 kg. The other cannons are dated using contextual evidence. The Heilongjiang hand cannon is also often considered by some to be the oldest firearm since it was unearthed near the area where the History of Yuan reports a battle took place involving hand cannons. According to the History of Yuan, in 1288, a Jurchen commander by the name of Li Ting led troops armed with hand cannons into battle against the rebel prince Nayan.


title: Cannon

text: Chen Bingying argues there were no guns before 1259, while Dang Shoushan believes the Wuwei gun and other Western Xia era samples point to the appearance of guns by 1220, and Stephen Haw goes even further by stating that guns were developed as early as 1200. Sinologist Joseph Needham and renaissance siege expert Thomas Arnold provide a more conservative estimate of around 1280 for the appearance of the "true" cannon. Whether or not any of these are correct, it seems likely that the gun was born sometime during the 13th century.


title: Cannon

text: References to cannons proliferated throughout China in the following centuries. Cannon featured in literary pieces. In 1341 Xian Zhang wrote a poem called "The Iron Cannon Affair" describing a cannonball fired from an eruptor which could "pierce the heart or belly when striking a man or horse, and even transfix several persons at once." By the 1350s the cannon was used extensively in Chinese warfare. In 1358 the Ming army failed to take a city due to its garrisons' usage of cannon, however, they themselves would use cannon, in the thousands, later on during the siege of Suzhou in 1366.


title: Cannon

text: The Mongol invasion of Java in 1293 brought gunpowder technology to the Nusantara archipelago in the form of cannon (Chinese: "Pao"). During the Ming dynasty cannons were used in riverine warfare at the Battle of Lake Poyang. One shipwreck in Shandong had a cannon dated to 1377 and an anchor dated to 1372. From the 13th to 15th centuries cannon-armed Chinese ships also travelled throughout Southeast Asia. Cannon appeared in Đại Việt by 1390 at the latest.


title: Cannon

text: The first of the western cannon to be introduced were breech-loaders in the early 16th century, which the Chinese began producing themselves by 1523 and improved on by including composite metal construction in their making.


title: Cannon

text: Japan did not acquire cannon until 1510 when a monk brought one back from China, and did not produce any in appreciable numbers. During the 1593 Siege of Pyongyang, 40,000 Ming troops deployed a variety of cannons against Japanese troops. Despite their defensive advantage and the use of arquebus by Japanese soldiers, the Japanese were at a severe disadvantage due to their lack of cannon. Throughout the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), the Ming–Joseon coalition used artillery widely in land and naval battles, including on the turtle ships of Yi Sun-sin.


title: Cannon

text: According to Ivan Petlin, the first Russian envoy to Beijing, in September 1619, the city was armed with large cannon with cannonballs weighing more than . His general observation was that the Chinese were militarily capable and had firearms:


title: Cannon

text: Outside of China, the earliest texts to mention gunpowder are Roger Bacon's (1267) and in what has been interpreted as references to firecrackers. In the early 20th century, a British artillery officer proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, , dated to 1247, contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder hidden in the text. These claims have been disputed by science historians. In any case, the formula itself is not useful for firearms or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.


title: Cannon

text: There is a record of a gun in Europe dating to 1322 being discovered in the nineteenth century but the artifact has since been lost. The earliest known European depiction of a gun appeared in 1326 in a manuscript by Walter de Milemete, although not necessarily drawn by him, known as ("Concerning the Majesty, Wisdom, and Prudence of Kings"), which displays a gun with a large arrow emerging from it and its user lowering a long stick to ignite the gun through the touch hole. In the same year, another similar illustration showed a darker gun being set off by a group of knights, which also featured in another work of de Milemete's, . On 11 February of that same year, the Signoria of Florence appointed two officers to obtain and ammunition for the town's defense. In the following year a document from the Turin area recorded a certain amount was paid "for the making of a certain instrument or device made by Friar Marcello for the projection of pellets of lead". A reference from 1331 describes an attack mounted by two Germanic knights on Cividale del Friuli, using man-portable gunpowder weapons of some sort. The 1320s seem to have been the takeoff point for guns in Europe according to most modern military historians. Scholars suggest that the lack of gunpowder weapons in a well-traveled Venetian's catalogue for a new crusade in 1321 implies that guns were unknown in Europe up until this point, further solidifying the 1320 mark, however more evidence in this area may be forthcoming in the future.


title: Cannon

text: The oldest extant cannon in Europe is a small bronze example unearthed in Loshult, Scania in southern Sweden. It dates from the early-mid 14th century, and is currently in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.


title: Cannon

text: Early cannons in Europe often shot arrows and were known by an assortment of names such as , , "ribaldis", and . The "ribaldis", which shot large arrows and simplistic grapeshot, were first mentioned in the English Privy Wardrobe accounts during preparations for the Battle of Crécy, between 1345 and 1346. The Florentine Giovanni Villani recounts their destructiveness, indicating that by the end of the battle, "the whole plain was covered by men struck down by arrows and cannon balls". Similar cannon were also used at the Siege of Calais (1346–47), although it was not until the 1380s that the "ribaudekin" clearly became mounted on wheels.


title: Cannon

text: The Battle of Crecy which pitted the English against the French in 1346 featured the early use of cannon which helped the longbowmen repulse a large force of Genoese crossbowmen deployed by the French. The English originally intended to use the cannon against cavalry sent to attack their archers, thinking that the loud noises produced by their cannon would panic the advancing horses along with killing the knights atop them.


title: Cannon

text: Early cannons could also be used for more than simply killing men and scaring horses. English cannon were used defensively in 1346 during the Siege of Breteuil to launch fire onto an advancing siege tower. In this way cannons could be used to burn down siege equipment before it reached the fortifications. The use of cannons to shoot fire could also be used offensively as another battle involved the setting of a castle ablaze with similar methods. The particular incendiary used in these projectiles was most likely a gunpowder mixture. This is one area where early Chinese and European cannons share a similarity as both were possibly used to shoot fire.


title: Cannon

text: Another aspect of early European cannons is that they were rather small, dwarfed by the bombards which would come later. In fact, it is possible that the cannons used at Crécy were capable of being moved rather quickly as there is an anonymous chronicle that notes the guns being used to attack the French camp, indicating that they would have been mobile enough to press the attack. These smaller cannons would eventually give way to larger, wall-breaching guns by the end of the 1300s.


title: Cannon

text: There is no clear consensus on when the cannon first appeared in the Islamic world, with dates ranging from 1260 to the mid-14th century. The cannon may have appeared in the Islamic world in the late 13th century, with Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century stating that cannons were used in the Maghreb region of North Africa in 1274, and other Arabic military treatises in the 14th century referring to the use of cannon by Mamluk forces in 1260 and 1303, and by Muslim forces at the 1324 Siege of Huesca in Spain. However, some scholars do not accept these early dates. While the date of its first appearance is not entirely clear, the general consensus among most historians is that there is no doubt the Mamluk forces were using cannon by 1342. Other accounts may have also mentioned the use of cannon in the early 14th century. An Arabic text dating to 1320–1350 describes a type of gunpowder weapon called a which uses gunpowder to shoot projectiles out of a tube at the end of a stock. Some scholars consider this a hand cannon while others dispute this claim. The Nasrid army besieging Elche in 1331 made use of "iron pellets shot with fire".


title: Cannon

text: According to historian Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, during the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the Mamluks used cannon against the Mongols. He claims that this was "the first cannon in history" and used a gunpowder formula almost identical to the ideal composition for explosive gunpowder. He also argues that this was not known in China or Europe until much later. Al-Hassan further claims that the earliest textual evidence of cannon is from the Middle East, based on earlier originals which report hand-held cannons being used by the Mamluks at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. Such an early date is not accepted by some historians, including David Ayalon, Iqtidar Alam Khan, Joseph Needham and Tonio Andrade. Khan argues that it was the Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world, and believes cannon only reached Mamluk Egypt in the 1370s. Needham argued that the term , dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, did not refer to true hand-guns or bombards, and that contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world did not occur until 1365. Similarly, Andrade dates the textual appearance of cannons in middle eastern sources to the 1360s. Gabor Ágoston and David Ayalon note that the Mamluks had certainly used siege cannons by 1342 or the 1360s, respectively, but earlier uses of cannons in the Islamic World are vague with a possible appearance in the Emirate of Granada by the 1320s and 1330s, though evidence is inconclusive.


title: Cannon

text: Ibn Khaldun reported the use of cannon as siege machines by the Marinid sultan Abu Yaqub Yusuf at the siege of Sijilmasa in 1274. The passage by Ibn Khaldun on the Marinid Siege of Sijilmassa in 1274 occurs as follows: "[The Sultan] installed siege engines ... and gunpowder engines ..., which project small balls of iron. These balls are ejected from a chamber ... placed in front of a kindling fire of gunpowder; this happens by a strange property which attributes all actions to the power of the Creator." The source is not contemporary and was written a century later around 1382. Its interpretation has been rejected as anachronistic by some historians, who urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, as they did for an earlier incendiary, naphtha. Ágoston and Peter Purton note that in the 1204–1324 period, late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, , that they used for an earlier incendiary, naphtha. Needham believes Ibn Khaldun was speaking of fire lances rather than hand cannon.


title: Cannon

text: The Ottoman Empire made good use of cannon as siege artillery. Sixty-eight super-sized bombards were used by Mehmed the Conqueror to capture Constantinople in 1453. Jim Bradbury argues that Urban, a Hungarian cannon engineer, introduced this cannon from Central Europe to the Ottoman realm; according to Paul Hammer, however, it could have been introduced from other Islamic countries which had earlier used cannons. These cannon could fire heavy stone balls a mile, and the sound of their blast could reportedly be heard from a distance of . Shkodëran historian Marin Barleti discusses Turkish bombards at length in his book "De obsidione Scodrensi" (1504), describing the 1478–79 siege of Shkodra in which eleven bombards and two mortars were employed. The Ottomans also used cannon to control passage of ships through the Bosphorus strait. Ottoman cannons also proved effective at stopping crusaders at Varna in 1444 and Kosovo in 1448 despite the presence of European cannon in the former case.


title: Cannon

text: The similar Dardanelles Guns (for the location) were created by Munir Ali in 1464 and were still in use during the Anglo-Turkish War (1807–1809). These were cast in bronze into two parts: the chase (the barrel) and the breech, which combined weighed 18.4 tonnes. The two parts were screwed together using levers to facilitate moving it.


title: Cannon

text: Fathullah Shirazi, a Persian inhabitant of India who worked for Akbar in the Mughal Empire, developed a volley gun in the 16th century.


title: Cannon

text: While there is evidence of cannons in Iran as early as 1405 they were not widespread. This changed following the increased use of firearms by Shah Ismail I, and the Iranian army used 500 cannons by the 1620s, probably captured from the Ottomans or acquired by allies in Europe. By 1443, Iranians were also making some of their own cannon, as Mir Khawand wrote of a 1200 kg metal piece being made by an Iranian which was most likely a cannon. Due to the difficulties of transporting cannon in mountainous terrain, their use was less common compared to their use in Europe.


title: Cannon

text: Documentary evidence of cannons in Russia does not appear until 1382 and they were used only in sieges, often by the defenders. It was not until 1475 when Ivan III established the first Russian cannon foundry in Moscow that they began to produce cannons natively. The earliest surviving cannon from Russia dates to 1485.


title: Cannon

text: Later on large cannons were known as bombards, ranging from three to five feet in length and were used by Dubrovnik and Kotor in defence during the later 14th century. The first bombards were made of iron, but bronze became more prevalent as it was recognized as more stable and capable of propelling stones weighing as much as . Around the same period, the Byzantine Empire began to accumulate its own cannon to face the Ottoman Empire, starting with medium-sized cannon long and of 10 in calibre. The earliest reliable recorded use of artillery in the region was against the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1396, forcing the Ottomans to withdraw. The Ottomans acquired their own cannon and laid siege to the Byzantine capital again in 1422. By 1453, the Ottomans used 68 Hungarian-made cannon for the 55-day bombardment of the walls of Constantinople, "hurling the pieces everywhere and killing those who happened to be nearby". The largest of their cannons was the Great Turkish Bombard, which required an operating crew of 200 men and 70 oxen, and 10,000 men to transport it. Gunpowder made the formerly devastating Greek fire obsolete, and with the final fall of Constantinople—which was protected by what were once the strongest walls in Europe—on 29 May 1453, "it was the end of an era in more ways than one".


title: Cannon

text: The Javanese Majapahit Empire was arguably able to encompass much of modern-day Indonesia due to its unique mastery of bronze-smithing and use of a central arsenal fed by a large number of cottage industries within the immediate region. Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese sought to invade Java in 1293. "History of Yuan" mentioned that the Mongol used a weapon called "p'ao" against Daha forces. This weapon is interpreted differently by researchers, it may be a trebuchet that throws thunderclap bombs, firearms, cannons, or rockets. It is possible that the gunpowder weapons carried by the Mongol–Chinese troops amounted to more than one type.


title: Cannon

text: Thomas Stamford Raffles wrote in "The History of Java" that in 1247 saka (1325 AD), cannons were widely used in Java especially by the Majapahit. It is recorded that the small kingdoms in Java that sought the protection of Majapahit had to hand over their cannons to the Majapahit. Majapahit under "Mahapatih" (prime minister) Gajah Mada (in office 1331–1364) utilized gunpowder technology obtained from Yuan dynasty for use in naval fleet. One of the earliest references to cannon and artillerymen in Java is from the year 1346.


title: Cannon

text: Mongol-Chinese gunpowder technology of Yuan dynasty resulted in eastern-style cetbang which is similar to Chinese cannon. Swivel guns however, only developed in the archipelago because of the close maritime relations of the Nusantara archipelago with the territory of West India after 1460 AD, which brought new types of gunpowder weapons to the archipelago, likely through Arab intermediaries. This weapon seems to be cannon and gun of Ottoman tradition, for example the prangi, which is a breech-loading swivel gun. A new type of cetbang, called the western-style cetbang, was derived from the Turkish prangi. Just like prangi, this cetbang is a breech-loading swivel gun made of bronze or iron, firing single rounds or scattershots (a large number of small bullets).


title: Cannon

text: Cannons derived from western-style cetbang can be found in Nusantara, among others were lantaka and lela. Most lantakas were made of bronze and the earliest ones were breech-loaded. There is a trend toward muzzle-loading weapons during colonial times. A pole gun () was recorded as being used by Java in 1413.


title: Cannon

text: Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion. Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert to new weapons, found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cannon were further improved and used in the Demak Sultanate period during the Demak invasion of Portuguese Malacca. During this period, the iron, for manufacturing Javanese cannon was imported from Khorasan in northern Persia. The material was known by Javanese as (Khorasan iron). When the Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to it as , which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the Spaniards called it .


title: Cannon

text: Duarte Barbosa c. 1514 said that the inhabitants of Java were great masters in casting artillery and very good artillerymen. They made many one-pounder cannon ( or ), long muskets, (arquebus), (hand cannon), Greek fire, guns (cannon), and other fireworks. Every place was considered excellent in casting artillery, and in the knowledge of using it. In 1513, the Javanese fleet led by Pati Unus sailed to attack Portuguese Malacca "with much artillery made in Java, for the Javanese are skilled in founding and casting, and in all works in iron, over and above what they have in India". By early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180- and 260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3 and 8 tons, length of them between .


title: Cannon

text: Cannons were used by the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1352 during its invasion of the Khmer Empire. Within a decade large quantities of gunpowder could be found in the Khmer Empire. By the end of the century firearms were also used by the Trần dynasty.


title: Cannon

text: Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation. Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers. According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles' "The History of Java" (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.


title: Cannon

text: In Africa, the Adal Sultanate and the Abyssinian Empire both deployed cannons during the Adal-Abyssinian War. Imported from Arabia, and the wider Islamic world, the Adalites led by Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi were the first African power to introduce cannon warfare to the African continent. Later on as the Portuguese Empire entered the war it would supply and train the Abyssinians with cannons, while the Ottoman Empire sent soldiers and cannon to back Adal. The conflict proved, through their use on both sides, the value of firearms such as the matchlock musket, cannon, and the arquebus over traditional weapons.


title: Cannon

text: While previous smaller guns could burn down structures with fire, larger cannons were so effective that engineers were forced to develop stronger castle walls to prevent their keeps from falling. Nonetheless, cannons were used other purposes than battering down walls as fortifications began using cannons as defensive instruments such as an example in India where the fort of Raicher had gun ports built into its walls to accommodate the use of defensive cannons. In "The Art of War", Niccolò Machiavelli opined that field artillery forced an army to take up a defensive posture and this opposed a more ideal offensive stance. Machiavelli's concerns can be seen in the criticisms of Portuguese mortars being used in India during the sixteenth century as lack of mobility was one of the key problems with the design. In Russia the early cannons were again placed in forts as a defensive tool. Cannon were also difficult to move around in certain types of terrain with mountains providing a great obstacle for them, for these reasons offensives conducted with cannons would be difficult to pull off in places such as Iran.


title: Cannon

text: By the 16th century, cannons were made in a great variety of lengths and bore diameters, but the general rule was that the longer the barrel, the longer the range. Some cannons made during this time had barrels exceeding in length, and could weigh up to . Consequently, large amounts of gunpowder were needed to allow them to fire stone balls several hundred yards. By mid-century, European monarchs began to classify cannons to reduce the confusion. Henry II of France opted for six sizes of cannon, but others settled for more; the Spanish used twelve sizes, and the English sixteen. They are, from largest to smallest: the cannon royal, cannon, cannon serpentine, bastard cannon, demicannon, pedrero, culverin, basilisk, demiculverin, bastard culverin, saker, minion, falcon, falconet, serpentine, and rabinet. Better powder had been developed by this time as well. Instead of the finely ground powder used by the first bombards, powder was replaced by a "corned" variety of coarse grains. This coarse powder had pockets of air between grains, allowing fire to travel through and ignite the entire charge quickly and uniformly.


title: Cannon

text: The end of the Middle Ages saw the construction of larger, more powerful cannon, as well as their spread throughout the world. As they were not effective at breaching the newer fortifications resulting from the development of cannon, siege engines—such as siege towers and trebuchets—became less widely used. However, wooden "battery-towers" took on a similar role as siege towers in the gunpowder age—such as that used at Siege of Kazan in 1552, which could hold ten large-calibre cannon, in addition to 50 lighter pieces. Another notable effect of cannon on warfare during this period was the change in conventional fortifications. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, "There is no wall, whatever its thickness that artillery will not destroy in only a few days." Although castles were not immediately made obsolete by cannon, their use and importance on the battlefield rapidly declined. Instead of majestic towers and merlons, the walls of new fortresses were thick, angled, and sloped, while towers became low and stout; increasing use was also made of earth and brick in breastworks and redoubts. These new defences became known as bastion forts, after their characteristic shape which attempted to force any advance towards it directly into the firing line of the guns. A few of these featured cannon batteries, such as the House of Tudor's Device Forts in England. Bastion forts soon replaced castles in Europe and, eventually, those in the Americas as well.


title: Cannon

text: By the end of the 15th century, several technological advancements made cannons more mobile. Wheeled gun carriages and trunnions became common, and the invention of the limber further facilitated transportation. As a result, field artillery became more viable, and began to see more widespread use, often alongside the larger cannons intended for sieges. Better gunpowder, cast-iron projectiles (replacing stone), and the standardisation of calibres meant that even relatively light cannons could be deadly. In "The Art of War", Niccolò Machiavelli observed that "It is true that the arquebuses and the small artillery do much more harm than the heavy artillery." This was the case at the Battle of Flodden, in 1513: the English field guns outfired the Scottish siege artillery, firing two or three times as many rounds. Despite the increased maneuverability, however, cannon were still the slowest component of the army: a heavy English cannon required 23 horses to transport, while a culverin needed nine. Even with this many animals pulling, they still moved at a walking pace. Due to their relatively slow speed, and lack of organisation, and undeveloped tactics, the combination of pike and shot still dominated the battlefields of Europe.


title: Cannon

text: Innovations continued, notably the German invention of the mortar, a thick-walled, short-barrelled gun that blasted shot upward at a steep angle. Mortars were useful for sieges, as they could hit targets behind walls or other defences. This cannon found more use with the Dutch, who learnt to shoot bombs filled with powder from them. Setting the bomb fuse was a problem. "Single firing" was first used to ignite the fuse, where the bomb was placed with the fuse down against the cannon's propellant. This often resulted in the fuse being blown into the bomb, causing it to blow up as it left the mortar. Because of this, "double firing" was tried where the gunner lit the fuse and then the touch hole. This, however, required considerable skill and timing, and was especially dangerous if the gun misfired, leaving a lighted bomb in the barrel. Not until 1650 was it accidentally discovered that double-lighting was superfluous as the heat of firing would light the fuse.


title: Cannon

text: Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden emphasised the use of light cannon and mobility in his army, and created new formations and tactics that revolutionised artillery. He discontinued using all 12 pounder—or heavier—cannon as field artillery, preferring, instead, to use cannons that could be handled by only a few men. One obsolete type of gun, the "leatheren", was replaced by 4 pounder and 9 pounder demi-culverins. These could be operated by three men, and pulled by only two horses. Gustavus Adolphus's army was also the first to use a cartridge that contained both powder and shot which sped up reloading, increasing the rate of fire. Finally, against infantry he pioneered the use of canister shot—essentially a tin can filled with musket balls. Until then there was no more than one cannon for every thousand infantrymen on the battlefield but Gustavus Adolphus increased the number of cannons sixfold. Each regiment was assigned two pieces, though he often arranged them into batteries instead of distributing them piecemeal. He used these batteries to break his opponent's infantry line, while his cavalry would outflank their heavy guns.


title: Cannon

text: At the Battle of Breitenfeld, in 1631, Adolphus proved the effectiveness of the changes made to his army, by defeating Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly. Although severely outnumbered, the Swedes were able to fire between three and five times as many volleys of artillery, and their infantry's linear formations helped ensure they did not lose any ground. Battered by cannon fire, and low on morale, Tilly's men broke ranks and fled.


title: Cannon

text: In England, cannons were being used to besiege various fortified buildings during the English Civil War. Nathaniel Nye is recorded as testing a Birmingham cannon in 1643 and experimenting with a saker in 1645. From 1645 he was the master gunner to the Parliamentarian garrison at Evesham and in 1646 he successfully directed the artillery at the Siege of Worcester, detailing his experiences and in his 1647 book "The Art of Gunnery". Believing that war was as much a science as an art, his explanations focused on triangulation, arithmetic, theoretical mathematics, and cartography as well as practical considerations such as the ideal specification for gunpowder or slow matches. His book acknowledged mathematicians such as Robert Recorde and Marcus Jordanus as well as earlier military writers on artillery such as Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia and Thomas (or Francis) Malthus (author of "A Treatise on Artificial Fire-Works").


title: Cannon

text: Around this time also came the idea of aiming the cannon to hit a target. Gunners controlled the range of their cannons by measuring the angle of elevation, using a "gunner's quadrant". Cannons did not have sights; therefore, even with measuring tools, aiming was still largely guesswork.


title: Cannon

text: In the latter half of the 17th century, the French engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban introduced a more systematic and scientific approach to attacking gunpowder fortresses, in a time when many field commanders "were notorious dunces in siegecraft". Careful sapping forward, supported by enfilading ricochets, was a key feature of this system, and it even allowed Vauban to calculate the length of time a siege would take. He was also a prolific builder of bastion forts, and did much to popularize the idea of "depth in defence" in the face of cannon. These principles were followed into the mid-19th century, when changes in armaments necessitated greater depth defence than Vauban had provided for. It was only in the years prior to World War I that new works began to break radically away from his designs.


title: Cannon

text: The lower tier of 17th-century English ships of the line were usually equipped with demi-cannons, guns that fired a solid shot, and could weigh up to . Demi-cannons were capable of firing these heavy metal balls with such force that they could penetrate more than a metre of solid oak, from a distance of , and could dismast even the largest ships at close range. Full cannon fired a shot, but were discontinued by the 18th century, as they were too unwieldy. By the end of the 18th century, principles long adopted in Europe specified the characteristics of the Royal Navy's cannon, as well as the acceptable defects, and their severity. The United States Navy tested guns by measuring them, firing them two or three times—termed "proof by powder"—and using pressurized water to detect leaks.


title: Cannon

text: The carronade was adopted by the Royal Navy in 1779; the lower muzzle velocity of the round shot when fired from this cannon was intended to create more wooden splinters when hitting the structure of an enemy vessel, as they were believed to be more deadly than the ball by itself. The carronade was much shorter, and weighed between a third to a quarter of the equivalent long gun; for example, a 32-pounder carronade weighed less than a ton, compared with a 32-pounder long gun, which weighed over 3 tons. The guns were, therefore, easier to handle, and also required less than half as much gunpowder, allowing fewer men to crew them. Carronades were manufactured in the usual naval gun calibres, but were not counted in a ship of the line's rated number of guns. As a result, the classification of Royal Navy vessels in this period can be misleading, as they often carried more cannons than were listed.


title: Cannon

text: Cannons were crucial in Napoleon's rise to power, and continued to play an important role in his army in later years. During the French Revolution, the unpopularity of the Directory led to riots and rebellions. When over 25,000 royalists led by General Danican assaulted Paris, Paul Barras was appointed to defend the capital; outnumbered five to one and disorganised, the Republicans were desperate. When Napoleon arrived, he reorganised the defences but realised that without cannons the city could not be held. He ordered Joachim Murat to bring the guns from the Sablons artillery park; the Major and his cavalry fought their way to the recently captured cannons, and brought them back to Napoleon. When Danican's poorly trained men attacked, on 13 Vendémiaire 1795 (5 October in the calendar used in France at the time), Napoleon ordered his cannon to fire grapeshot into the mob, an act that became known as the "whiff of grapeshot". The slaughter effectively ended the threat to the new government, while, at the same time, making Bonaparte a famous—and popular—public figure. Among the first generals to recognise that artillery was not being used to its full potential, Napoleon often massed his cannon into batteries and introduced several changes into the French artillery, improving it significantly and making it among the finest in Europe. Such tactics were successfully used by the French, for example, at the Battle of Friedland, when 66 guns fired a total of 3,000 roundshot and 500 rounds of grapeshot, inflicting severe casualties to the Russian forces, whose losses numbered over 20,000 killed and wounded, in total. At the Battle of Waterloo—Napoleon's final battle—the French army had many more artillery pieces than either the British or Prussians. As the battlefield was muddy, recoil caused cannons to bury themselves into the ground after firing, resulting in slow rates of fire, as more effort was required to move them back into an adequate firing position; also, roundshot did not ricochet with as much force from the wet earth. Despite the drawbacks, sustained artillery fire proved deadly during the engagement, especially during the French cavalry attack. The British infantry, having formed infantry squares, took heavy losses from the French guns, while their own cannons fired at the cuirassiers and lancers, when they fell back to regroup. Eventually, the French ceased their assault, after taking heavy losses from the British cannon and musket fire.


title: Cannon

text: In the 1810s and 1820s, greater emphasis was placed on the accuracy of long-range gunfire, and less on the weight of a broadside. Around 1822, George Marshall wrote "Marshall's Practical Marine Gunnery". The book was used by cannon operators in the United States Navy throughout the 19th century. It listed all the types of cannons and instructions.


title: Cannon

text: The carronade, although initially very successful and widely adopted, disappeared from the Royal Navy in the 1850s after the development of wrought-iron-jacketed steel cannon by William Armstrong and Joseph Whitworth. Nevertheless, carronades were used in the American Civil War.


title: Cannon

text: Western cannons during the 19th century became larger, more destructive, more accurate, and could fire at longer range. One example is the American wrought-iron, muzzle-loading rifle, or Griffen gun (usually called the 3-inch Ordnance Rifle), used during the American Civil War, which had an effective range of over . Another is the smoothbore 12-pounder Napoleon, which originated in France in 1853 and was widely used by both sides in the American Civil War. This cannon was renowned for its sturdiness, reliability, firepower, flexibility, relatively lightweight, and range of .


title: Cannon

text: The practice of rifling—casting spiralling lines inside the cannon's barrel—was applied to artillery more frequently by 1855, as it gave cannon projectiles gyroscopic stability, which improved their accuracy. One of the earliest rifled cannons was the breech-loading Armstrong Gun—also invented by William Armstrong—which boasted significantly improved range, accuracy, and power than earlier weapons. The projectile fired from the Armstrong gun could reportedly pierce through a ship's side and explode inside the enemy vessel, causing increased damage and casualties. The British military adopted the Armstrong gun, and was impressed; the Duke of Cambridge even declared that it "could do everything but speak". Despite being significantly more advanced than its predecessors, the Armstrong gun was rejected soon after its integration, in favour of the muzzle-loading pieces that had been in use before. While both types of gun were effective against wooden ships, neither had the capability to pierce the armour of ironclads; due to reports of slight problems with the breeches of the Armstrong gun, and their higher cost, the older muzzle-loaders were selected to remain in service instead. Realising that iron was more difficult to pierce with breech-loaded cannons, Armstrong designed rifled muzzle-loading guns, which proved successful; "The Times" reported: "even the fondest believers in the invulnerability of our present ironclads were obliged to confess that against such artillery, at such ranges, their plates and sides were almost as penetrable as wooden ships."


title: Cannon

text: The superior cannon of the Western world brought them tremendous advantages in warfare. For example, in the First Opium War in China, during the 19th century, British battleships bombarded the coastal areas and fortifications from afar, safe from the reach of the Chinese cannons. Similarly, the shortest war in recorded history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896, was brought to a swift conclusion by shelling from British cruisers. The cynical attitude towards recruited infantry in the face of ever more powerful field artillery is the source of the term "cannon fodder", first used by François-René de Chateaubriand, in 1814; however, the concept of regarding soldiers as nothing more than "food for powder" was mentioned by William Shakespeare as early as 1598, in "Henry IV, Part 1".


title: Cannon

text: Cannons in the 20th and 21st centuries are usually divided into sub-categories and given separate names. Some of the most widely used types of modern cannon are howitzers, mortars, guns, and autocannon, although a few very large-calibre cannon, custom-designed, have also been constructed. Nuclear artillery was experimented with, but was abandoned as impractical. Modern artillery is used in a variety of roles, depending on its type. According to NATO, the general role of artillery is to provide fire support, which is defined as "the application of fire, coordinated with the manoeuvre of forces to destroy, neutralize, or suppress the enemy".


title: Cannon

text: When referring to cannons, the term "gun" is often used incorrectly. In military usage, a gun is a cannon with a high muzzle velocity and a flat trajectory, useful for hitting the sides of targets such as walls, as opposed to howitzers or mortars, which have lower muzzle velocities, and fire indirectly, lobbing shells up and over obstacles to hit the target from above.


title: Cannon

text: By the early 20th century, infantry weapons had become more powerful, forcing most artillery away from the front lines. Despite the change to indirect fire, cannons proved highly effective during World War I, directly or indirectly causing over 75% of casualties. The onset of trench warfare after the first few months of World War I greatly increased the demand for howitzers, as they were more suited at hitting targets in trenches. Furthermore, their shells carried more explosives than those of guns, and caused considerably less barrel wear. The German army had the advantage here as they began the war with many more howitzers than the French. World War I also saw the use of the Paris Gun, the longest-ranged gun ever fired. This calibre gun was used by the Germans against Paris and could hit targets more than away.


title: Cannon

text: The Second World War sparked new developments in cannon technology. Among them were sabot rounds, hollow-charge projectiles, and proximity fuses, all of which increased the effectiveness of cannon against specific target. The proximity fuse emerged on the battlefields of Europe in late December 1944. Used to great effect in anti-aircraft projectiles, proximity fuses were fielded in both the European and Pacific Theatres of Operations; they were particularly useful against V-1 flying bombs and kamikaze planes. Although widely used in naval warfare, and in anti-air guns, both the British and Americans feared unexploded proximity fuses would be reverse engineered, leading to them limiting their use in continental battles. During the Battle of the Bulge, however, the fuses became known as the American artillery's "Christmas present" for the German army because of their effectiveness against German personnel in the open, when they frequently dispersed attacks. Anti-tank guns were also tremendously improved during the war: in 1939, the British used primarily 2 pounder and 6 pounder guns. By the end of the war, 17 pounders had proven much more effective against German tanks, and 32 pounders had entered development. Meanwhile, German tanks were continuously upgraded with better main guns, in addition to other improvements. For example, the Panzer III was originally designed with a 37 mm gun, but was mass-produced with a 50 mm cannon. To counter the threat of the Russian T-34s, another, more powerful 50 mm gun was introduced, only to give way to a larger 75 mm cannon, which was in a fixed mount as the StuG III, the most-produced German World War II armoured fighting vehicle of any type. Despite the improved guns, production of the Panzer III was ended in 1943, as the tank still could not match the T-34, and was replaced by the Panzer IV and Panther tanks. In 1944, the 8.8 cm KwK 43 and many variations, entered service with the Wehrmacht, and was used as both a tank main gun, and as the PaK 43 anti-tank gun. One of the most powerful guns to see service in World War II, it was capable of destroying any Allied tank at very long ranges.


title: Cannon

text: Despite being designed to fire at trajectories with a steep angle of descent, howitzers can be fired directly, as was done by the 11th Marine Regiment at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, during the Korean War. Two field batteries fired directly upon a battalion of Chinese infantry; the Marines were forced to brace themselves against their howitzers, as they had no time to dig them in. The Chinese infantry took heavy casualties, and were forced to retreat.


title: Cannon

text: The tendency to create larger calibre cannons during the World Wars has reversed since. The United States Army, for example, sought a lighter, more versatile howitzer, to replace their ageing pieces. As it could be towed, the M198 was selected to be the successor to the World War II–era cannons used at the time, and entered service in 1979. Still in use today, the M198 is, in turn, being slowly replaced by the M777 Ultralightweight howitzer, which weighs nearly half as much and can be more easily moved. Although land-based artillery such as the M198 are powerful, long-ranged, and accurate, naval guns have not been neglected, despite being much smaller than in the past, and, in some cases, having been replaced by cruise missiles. However, the 's planned armament included the Advanced Gun System (AGS), a pair of 155 mm guns, which fire the Long Range Land-Attack Projectile. The warhead, which weighted , had a circular error of probability of , and was mounted on a rocket, to increase the effective range to , further than that of the Paris Gun. The AGS's barrels would be water cooled, and fire 10 rounds per minute, per gun. The combined firepower from both turrets would give a "Zumwalt"-class destroyer the firepower equivalent to 18 conventional M198 howitzers. The reason for the re-integration of cannons as a main armament in United States Navy ships was because satellite-guided munitions fired from a gun would be less expensive than a cruise missile but have a similar guidance capability.


title: Cannon

text: Autocannons have an automatic firing mode, similar to that of a machine gun. They have mechanisms to automatically load their ammunition, and therefore have a higher rate of fire than artillery, often approaching, or, in the case of rotary autocannons, even surpassing the firing rate of a machine gun. While there is no minimum bore for autocannons, they are generally larger than machine guns, typically 20 mm or greater since World War II and are usually capable of using explosive ammunition even if it is not always used. Machine guns in contrast are usually too small to use explosive ammunition; such ammunition is additionally banned in international conflict for the parties to the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868.


title: Cannon

text: Most nations use rapid-fire cannon on light vehicles, replacing a more powerful, but heavier, tank gun. A typical autocannon is the 25 mm "Bushmaster" chain gun, mounted on the LAV-25 and M2 Bradley armoured vehicles. Autocannons may be capable of a very high rate of fire, but ammunition is heavy and bulky, limiting the amount carried. For this reason, both the 25 mm Bushmaster and the 30 mm RARDEN are deliberately designed with relatively low rates of fire. The typical rate of fire for a modern autocannon ranges from 90 to 1,800 rounds per minute. Systems with multiple barrels, such as a rotary autocannon, can have rates of fire of more than several thousand rounds per minute. The fastest of these is the GSh-6-23, which has a rate of fire of over 10,000 rounds per minute.


title: Cannon

text: Autocannons are often found in aircraft, where they replaced machine guns and as shipboard anti-aircraft weapons, as they provide greater destructive power than machine guns.


title: Cannon

text: The first documented installation of a cannon on an aircraft was on the Voisin Canon in 1911, displayed at the Paris Exposition that year. By World War I, all of the major powers were experimenting with aircraft-mounted cannons; however their low rate of fire and great size and weight precluded any of them from being anything other than experimental. The most successful (or least unsuccessful) was the SPAD 12 Ca.1 with a single 37mm Puteaux mounted to fire between the cylinder banks and through the propeller boss of the aircraft's Hispano-Suiza 8C. The pilot (by necessity an ace) had to manually reload each round.


title: Cannon

text: The first autocannon were developed during World War I as anti-aircraft guns, and one of these, the Coventry Ordnance Works "COW 37 mm gun", was installed in an aircraft. However, the war ended before it could be given a field trial, and it never became standard equipment in a production aircraft. Later trials had it fixed at a steep angle upwards in both the Vickers Type 161 and the Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter, an idea that would return later.


title: Cannon

text: During this period autocannons became available and several fighters of the German and the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service were fitted with 20 mm cannons. They continued to be installed as an adjunct to machine guns rather than as a replacement, as the rate of fire was still too low and the complete installation too heavy. There was a some debate in the RAF as to whether the greater number of possible rounds being fired from a machine gun, or a smaller number of explosive rounds from a cannon was preferable. Improvements during the war in regards to rate of fire allowed the cannon to displace the machine gun almost entirely. The cannon was more effective against armour so they were increasingly used during the course of World War II, and newer fighters such as the Hawker Tempest usually carried two or four versus the six .50 Browning machine guns for US aircraft or eight to twelve M1919 Browning machine guns on earlier British aircraft. The Hispano-Suiza HS.404, Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, MG FF, and their numerous variants became among the most widely used autocannon in the war. Cannons, as with machine guns, were generally fixed to fire forwards (mounted in the wings, in the nose or fuselage, or in a pannier under either); or were mounted in gun turrets on heavier aircraft. Both the Germans and Japanese mounted cannons to fire upwards and forwards for use against heavy bombers, with the Germans calling guns so-installed . This term derives from a German colloquialism for jazz music (the German word means "off-key").


title: Cannon

text: Preceding the Vietnam War the high speeds aircraft were attaining led to a move to remove the cannon due to the mistaken belief that they would be useless in a dogfight, but combat experience during the Vietnam War showed conclusively that despite advances in missiles, there was still a need for them. Nearly all modern fighter aircraft are armed with an autocannon and they are also commonly found on ground-attack aircraft. One of the most powerful examples is the 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling-type rotary cannon, mounted exclusively on the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. The Lockheed AC-130 gunship (a converted transport) can carry a 105 mm howitzer as well as a variety of autocannons ranging up to 40 mm. Both are used in the close air support role.


title: Cannon

text: Cannons in general have the form of a truncated cone with an internal cylindrical bore for holding an explosive charge and a projectile. The thickest, strongest, and closed part of the cone is located near the explosive charge. As any explosive charge will dissipate in all directions equally, the thickest portion of the cannon is useful for containing and directing this force. The backward motion of the cannon as its projectile leaves the bore is termed its recoil, and the effectiveness of the cannon can be measured in terms of how much this response can be diminished, though obviously diminishing recoil through increasing the overall mass of the cannon means decreased mobility.


title: Cannon

text: Field artillery cannon in Europe and the Americas were initially made most often of bronze, though later forms were constructed of cast iron and eventually steel. Bronze has several characteristics that made it preferable as a construction material: although it is relatively expensive, does not always alloy well, and can result in a final product that is "spongy about the bore", bronze is more flexible than iron and therefore less prone to bursting when exposed to high pressure; cast-iron cannon are less expensive and more durable generally than bronze and withstand being fired more times without deteriorating. However, cast-iron cannon have a tendency to burst without having shown any previous weakness or wear, and this makes them more dangerous to operate.


title: Cannon

text: The older and more-stable forms of cannon were muzzle-loading as opposed to breech-loading—to be used they had to have their ordnance packed down the bore through the muzzle rather than inserted through the breech.


title: Cannon

text: The following terms refer to the components or aspects of a classical western cannon (c. 1850) as illustrated here. In what follows, the words "near", "close", and "behind" will refer to those parts towards the thick, closed end of the piece, and "far", "front", "in front of", and "before" to the thinner, open end.


title: Cannon

text: The main body of a cannon consists of three basic extensions: the foremost and the longest is called the "chase", the middle portion is the "reinforce", and the closest and briefest portion is the "cascabel" or "cascable".


title: Cannon

text: To pack a muzzle-loading cannon, first gunpowder is poured down the bore. This is followed by a layer of wadding (often nothing more than paper), and then the cannonball itself. A certain amount of windage allows the ball to fit down the bore, though the greater the windage the less efficient the propulsion of the ball when the gunpowder is ignited. To fire the cannon, the fuse located in the vent is lit, quickly burning down to the gunpowder, which then explodes violently, propelling wadding and ball down the bore and out of the muzzle. A small portion of exploding gas also escapes through the vent, but this does not dramatically affect the total force exerted on the ball.


title: Cannon

text: Any large, smoothbore, muzzle-loading gun—used before the advent of breech-loading, rifled guns—may be referred to as a cannon, though once standardised names were assigned to different-sized cannon, the term specifically referred to a gun designed to fire a shot, as distinct from a demi-cannon – , culverin – , or demi-culverin – . "Gun" specifically refers to a type of cannon that fires projectiles at high speeds, and usually at relatively low angles; they have been used in warships, and as field artillery. The term "cannon" is also used for autocannon, a modern repeating weapon firing explosive projectiles. Cannon have been used extensively in fighter aircraft since World War II.


title: Cannon

text: In the 1770s, cannon operation worked as follows: each cannon would be manned by two gunners, six soldiers, and four officers of artillery. The right gunner was to prime the piece and load it with powder, and the left gunner would fetch the powder from the magazine and be ready to fire the cannon at the officer's command. On each side of the cannon, three soldiers stood, to ram and sponge the cannon, and hold the ladle. The second soldier on the left was tasked with providing 50 bullets.


title: Cannon

text: Before loading, the cannon would be cleaned with a wet sponge to extinguish any smouldering material from the last shot. Fresh powder could be set off prematurely by lingering ignition sources. The powder was added, followed by wadding of paper or hay, and the ball was placed in and rammed down. After ramming, the cannon would be aimed with the elevation set using a quadrant and a plummet. At 45 degrees, the ball had the utmost range: about ten times the gun's level range. Any angle above a horizontal line was called random-shot. Wet sponges were used to cool the pieces every ten or twelve rounds.


title: Cannon

text: During the Napoleonic Wars, a British gun team consisted of five gunners to aim it, clean the bore with a damp sponge to quench any remaining embers before a fresh charge was introduced, and another to load the gun with a bag of powder and then the projectile. The fourth gunner pressed his thumb on the vent hole, to prevent a draught that might fan a flame. The charge loaded, the fourth would prick the bagged charge through the vent hole, and fill the vent with powder. On command, the fifth gunner would fire the piece with a slow match. Friction primers replaced slow match ignition by the mid-19th century.


title: Cannon

text: When a cannon had to be abandoned such as in a retreat or surrender, the touch hole of the cannon would be plugged flush with an iron spike, disabling the cannon (at least until metal boring tools could be used to remove the plug). This was called "spiking the cannon".


title: Cannon

text: A gun was said to be "honeycombed" when the surface of the bore had cavities, or holes in it, caused either by corrosion or casting defects.


title: Cannon

text: In the United States, muzzleloading cannons are not subject to any regulations at the federal level. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, muzzleloading cannons made before 1899 (and replicas) that are unable to fire fixed ammunition are considered antiques. They are not subject to the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 or National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. Muzzleloading cannons may be subject to state of local rules in some jurisdictions, however.


title: Cannon

text: Historically, logs or poles have been used as decoys to mislead the enemy as to the strength of an emplacement. The "Quaker Gun trick" was used by Colonel William Washington's Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War; in 1780, approximately 100 Loyalists surrendered to them, rather than face bombardment. During the American Civil War, Quaker guns were also used by the Confederates, to compensate for their shortage of artillery. The decoy cannon were painted black at the "muzzle", and positioned behind fortifications to delay Union attacks on those positions. On occasion, real gun carriages were used to complete the deception.


title: Cannon

text: Cannon sounds have sometimes been used in classical pieces with a military theme. One of the best known examples of such a piece is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". The overture is to be performed using an artillery section together with the orchestra, resulting in noise levels high enough that musicians are required to wear ear protection. The cannon fire simulates Russian artillery bombardments of the Battle of Borodino, a critical battle in Napoleon's invasion of Russia, whose defeat the piece celebrates. When the overture was first performed, the cannon were fired by an electric current triggered by the conductor. However, the overture was not recorded with real cannon fire until Mercury Records and conductor Antal Doráti's 1958 recording of the Minnesota Orchestra. Cannon fire is also frequently used annually in presentations of the "1812" on the American Independence Day, a tradition started by Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops in 1974.


title: Cannon

text: The hard rock band AC/DC also used cannon in their song "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)", and in live shows replica Napoleonic cannon and pyrotechnics were used to perform the piece.


title: Cannon

text: Cannon recovered from the sea are often extensively damaged from exposure to salt water; because of this, electrolytic reduction treatment is required to forestall the process of corrosion. The cannon is then washed in deionized water to remove the electrolyte, and is treated in tannic acid, which prevents further rust and gives the metal a bluish-black colour. After this process, cannon on display may be protected from oxygen and moisture by a wax sealant. A coat of polyurethane may also be painted over the wax sealant, to prevent the wax-coated cannon from attracting dust in outdoor displays. In 2011, archaeologists say six cannon recovered from a river in Panama that could have belonged to legendary pirate Henry Morgan are being studied and could eventually be displayed after going through a restoration process.


title: New England Revolution

text: The New England Revolution is an American professional soccer club based in the Greater Boston area that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), in the Eastern Conference of the league. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having competed in the league since its inaugural season.


title: New England Revolution

text: The club is owned by Robert Kraft, who also owns the New England Patriots along with his son, Jonathan Kraft. The name "Revolution" refers to the New England region's significant involvement in the American Revolution that took place from 1775 to 1783.


title: New England Revolution

text: New England plays their home matches at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, located 21 miles (34 km) southwest of downtown Boston. The club played their home games at the adjacent and now-demolished Foxboro Stadium, from 1996 until 2001. The Revs are the only original MLS team to have every league game in their history televised.


title: New England Revolution

text: The Revolution won their first major trophy in the 2007 U.S. Open Cup. The following year, they won the 2008 North American SuperLiga. They won their first Supporters' Shield in 2021. The Revolution have participated in five MLS Cup finals in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2014, which are the most of clubs who have not won the MLS Cup.


title: New England Revolution

text: Soccer has a long history in the New England region. In 1862, the Oneida Football Club in Boston was the first organized team to play any kind of "football/soccer" in the United States. In the 1920s, the Boston Soccer Club (later renamed the Bears) and Fall River Marksmen were formed and played in the professional American Soccer League, which comprised teams based in the northeastern U.S. region. The Marksmen were one of the most successful soccer clubs in the United States, winning the National Challenge Cup four times. At the inaugural FIFA World Cup in 1930 in Uruguay, Bert Patenaude (from Fall River, Massachusetts) scored the first hat-trick in World Cup play. The USMNT finished in third place. The Boston area was next represented by the New England Tea Men (1978–80) and Boston Minutemen (1974–76), who played in the FIFA-backed, major professional North American Soccer League (NASL). However, each club struggled for financial solvency and folded. The NASL folded in 1984, leaving the United States without a top-level soccer league until Major League Soccer (MLS) began play in 1996.


title: New England Revolution

text: The success of the 1994 FIFA World Cup (with Foxboro Stadium as one of nine venues) paved the way for a new era of sports in the Boston area and to bring professional soccer back to the region. On June 6, 1995, Robert Kraft became the founding investor/operator of the Revolution, joining Major League Soccer (MLS) as one of its 10 charter clubs for its inaugural season in 1996. Kraft is also the owner of the National Football League's (NFL) New England Patriots and CEO of the Kraft Group.


title: New England Revolution

text: The inaugural Revolution team featured several U.S. Men's national team regulars returning from abroad to be part of the new league. Despite the presence of Alexi Lalas, Mike Burns, and Joe-Max Moore, however, the team was one of only two that failed to make the playoffs of the then 10 team league. The following season, the squad made the playoffs, but failed to advance past the first round. For the next five years, this playoff result would be the Revs' best (which they matched in the 2000 season), as a revolving door of players and head coaches failed to make much of an impact on the fledgling league.


title: New England Revolution

text: Attendance in these early years was high despite the team's poor on-field performances. More than 15,000 people per match regularly came to watch the Revolution play in the old Foxboro Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Revs did manage to make the final of the 2001 U.S. Open Cup, but they lost to the Los Angeles Galaxy on a golden goal by Danny Califf. It was a harbinger of finals to come for the Revolution.