title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Northcott was arrested while visiting his sister in Canada in November 1928. The case received national attention due to one of the assumed victims being Walter Collins, the nine-year-old son of Christine Collins, who had gone missing in March of that year. While authorities initially considered the possibility that the total number of boys killed on the farm might have been as high as 20, this theory was eliminated as the investigation began to unfold. Northcott was found guilty of three of the murders in February 1929, and was executed at San Quentin State Prison in October 1930.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Gordon Stewart Northcott was born in Bladworth, Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in British Columbia. He moved to Los Angeles, California, with his parents in 1924. Two years later, at the age of 19, Northcott asked his father to purchase a plot of land in the community of Wineville, located in Riverside County, where he built a chicken ranch and a house with the help of his father and his nephew, 11-year-old Sanford Clark. It was under this pretext that Northcott brought Clark from Bladworth to the U.S. Upon the boy's arrival at the Wineville ranch, Northcott began to physically and sexually abuse Clark.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: In August 1928, out of concern for his welfare, Clark's 19-year-old older sister Jessie visited him at the Wineville ranch. At that time, Clark told her that he feared for his life. One night, while Northcott was asleep, Jessie learned from Clark that Northcott had murdered four boys at his ranch. Once she returned to Canada a week later, Jessie informed an American consul there of Northcott's crimes. The consul then wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detailing Jessie's sworn complaint. Because there was initially some concern over an immigration issue, the LAPD contacted the United States Immigration Service to determine facts relating to the complaint.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: On August 31, 1928, Immigration Service inspectors Judson F. Shaw and George W. Scallorn visited the ranch. Northcott, having seen the agents driving up the long road to his ranch, fled into the treeline at the edge of his property, telling Clark to stall them and threatening to shoot him from the treeline with a rifle if he didn't comply. For the next two hours, while Clark stalled, Northcott kept running. Finally, when Clark felt that the agents could protect him, he told them that Northcott had fled.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Northcott and his mother, Sarah Louise, fled to Canada but were arrested near Vernon, British Columbia, on September 19, 1928. Clark testified at Sarah Louise's sentencing that Northcott had kidnapped, molested, beaten, and killed three young boys with the help of his mother and Clark himself. Clark also testified about the murder of a fourth young man, a Mexican citizen (possibly Alvin Gothea), whose decapitated head Northcott had forced Clark to dispose of by burning it in a fire pit and then crushing the skull. Northcott stated that he "left the headless body by the side of the road near [La] Puente because he had no other place to put it." He stated that quicklime was used to dispose of the remains and that the bodies were buried on the ranch.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Authorities found three shallow graves at the ranch exactly where Clark had stated they were. These graves did not contain complete bodies, but only parts. Clark and his sister Jessie testified that Northcott and his mother had exhumed the bodies on the evening of August 4, 1928, a few weeks before Clark was taken into protective custody. They had taken the bodies to a deserted area, where they were most likely burned in the night. The complete bodies were never recovered.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: The evidence found in the graves consisted of "51 parts of human anatomy... those silent bits of evidence, of human bones and blood, have spoken and corroborated the testimony of living witnesses". This evidence enabled the authorities to conclude that Walter Collins, two brothers named Lewis and Nelson Winslow (aged 12 and 10, respectively), and the unidentified fourth victim had all been murdered. The body parts and Clark's testimony resulted in a death sentence for Gordon Northcott and life imprisonment for Sarah Louise Northcott, who was paroled in 1940. She died in 1944.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Wineville changed its name to Mira Loma on November 1, 1930, in large part because of the negative publicity surrounding the murders. The new cities of Eastvale and Jurupa Valley took different parts of the area of Mira Loma in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Wineville Avenue, Wineville Road, Wineville Park, and other geographic references provide reminders of the community's former name.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Canadian police arrested Northcott and his mother on September 19, 1928. Due to errors in the extradition paperwork, they were not returned to Los Angeles until November 30, 1928.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: While the two were being held in British Columbia awaiting extradition to California, Sarah confessed to the murders, including the murder of nine-year-old Walter Collins. But before being extradited to California, she retracted her confession, as did Northcott, who had confessed to killing more than five boys.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: After Sarah and her son had been extradited from British Columbia to California, she once again confessed and pleaded guilty to killing Walter Collins. She was not tried; upon her plea of guilty, Superior Court Judge Morton sentenced her to life imprisonment on December 31, 1928, sparing her a death sentence because she was a woman. During her sentencing hearing, she claimed that her son was innocent and made a variety of claims about his parentage, including that he was an illegitimate son of an English nobleman, that she was Gordon's grandmother, and that he was the result of incest between her husband, Cyrus George Northcott, and their daughter. She also stated that as a child, Gordon was sexually abused by the entire family. After being sentenced, Sarah attempted to commit suicide and begged the authorities not to execute her son. "I got a square deal," she said. "If they'll just be good to my boy if they just won’t hang him!" After learning that her son would be hanged, Sarah begged the authorities to hang her as well. Sarah served her sentence at Tehachapi State Prison and was paroled after less than twelve years. She died in 1944.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Gordon Northcott was implicated in the murder of Walter Collins, but because his mother had already confessed and been sentenced for it, the state chose to not prosecute Gordon for that murder.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: It was speculated that Gordon may have killed as many as 20 boys, but the State of California could not produce evidence to support that speculation. Ultimately, the state only brought an indictment against Gordon for the murders of an unidentified underage Mexican national (known as the "headless Mexican") and the brothers Lewis and Nelson Winslow (aged 12 and 10, respectively). The brothers had been reported missing from Pomona on May 16, 1928.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: In early 1929, Gordon Northcott's trial was held before Judge George R. Freeman in Riverside County, California. The jury heard that he kidnapped, molested, tortured, and murdered the Winslow brothers and the "headless Mexican" in 1928. On February 8, 1929, the 27-day trial ended with Gordon being convicted of those murders.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: On February 13, 1929, Freeman sentenced him to death and he was hanged on October 2, 1930 at San Quentin State Prison. He was 23 years old.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Sanford's older sister, Jessie, became suspicious of the letters Sanford was forced to send home from Northcott's ranch. These letters assured the family that Sanford was well.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Jessie traveled to the ranch in Wineville and stayed there for several days. At night, Clark told his sister about the crimes that had been committed at the Ranch. Jessie became terrified of Northcott, left the ranch, and returned to Canada. There, she told the American consul about the crimes that had occurred at Wineville.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Sanford was not tried for murder because Assistant District Attorney Loyal C. Kelley believed very strongly that the boy was innocent. He said that Sanford had been a victim of Northcott's death threats and sexual abuse and was not a willing participant in the crimes committed at the chicken ranch.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Kelley told Sanford that he had secured an entirely unique settlement of Sanford's legal situation by having him taken to the nearby Whittier State School, where an experimental program for delinquent youths was under way. He assured Sanford that the Whittier school was unique because of its compassionate mission of genuine rehabilitation.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Sanford was sentenced to five years at the Whittier State School (later renamed the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility). His sentence was later commuted to 23 months, as he "had impressed the Trustees with his temperament, job skills and his personal desire to live a productive life during his nearly two years there."


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: He died in 1991 at the age of 78, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1993.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Nine-year-old Walter Collins was abducted when he went to the movies and never came back, on March 10, 1928. He lived in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Initially, his mother, Christine Collins, and the police believed that enemies of Walter Collins, Sr. had abducted Walter. Walter Collins, Sr. had been convicted of eight armed robberies and was an inmate at Folsom State Prison.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Walter Collins' disappearance received nationwide attention and the Los Angeles Police Department followed up hundreds of leads without success. The police faced negative publicity and increasing public pressure to solve the case.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Five months after Walter's disappearance, a boy claiming to be Walter was found in DeKalb, Illinois. Letters and photographs were exchanged before Walter's mother, Christine Collins, eventually paid for the boy to be brought to Los Angeles. A public reunion was organized by the police, who hoped to negate the bad publicity they had received for their failure to solve this case and others. The police also hoped that the uplifting story would deflect attention from a series of corruption scandals that had sullied the department's reputation. At the reunion, Christine stated that the boy was not her son. She was told by the officer in charge of the case, police Captain J. J. Jones, to take the boy home to "try him out for a couple of weeks". Christine hesitantly agreed to do that.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Three weeks later, Christine returned to see Captain Jones and persisted in her claim that the boy was not Walter. Even though she had dental records proving it, Jones had her committed to the psychiatric ward at Los Angeles County Hospital under a "Code 12", a term used to jail or commit someone who was deemed difficult or inconvenient.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: During Christine's incarceration, Jones questioned the boy, who admitted to being 12-year-old Arthur Hutchens, Jr., a runaway originally from Iowa. A drifter at a roadside café in Illinois had told Hutchens of his resemblance to the missing Walter, so Hutchens came up with a plan to impersonate Walter. His motive was to get to Hollywood so that he could meet his favorite actor, Tom Mix.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Christine was released 10 days after Hutchens admitted that he was not her son. She then filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: On September 13, 1930, Christine won a lawsuit against Jones and was awarded $10,800 (), which Jones never paid. The last newspaper account of Christine is from 1941, when she attempted to collect a $15,562 judgment against then-retired Captain Jones in the Superior Court.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Christine became hopeful that her son, Walter, might still be alive after her first interview with Gordon Stewart Northcott. She asked Northcott if he had killed her son, and after listening to his repeated lies, confessions, and recantations, she concluded that Northcott was insane. Because Northcott did not seem to know whether he had even met Walter, much less killed him, she clung to the hope that Walter was still alive.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Northcott sent Christine a telegram shortly before his execution, saying he had lied when he denied that Walter was among his victims. He promised to tell the truth, if she came in person to hear it. Just a few hours before the execution, Christine visited Northcott. But upon her arrival, he balked. "I don't want to see you," he said when she confronted him. "I don't know anything about it. I'm innocent."


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: A news account said, "The distraught woman was outraged by Northcott's conduct... but was also comforted by it. Northcott's ambiguous replies and his seeming refusal to remember such details as Walter's clothing and the color of his eyes gave her continued hope that her son still lived."


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Lewis, 12, and Nelson, 10, were the sons of Nelson Winslow, Sr. and his wife. The boys were abducted on May 16, 1928, from Pomona, California on their way home from a yacht club meeting. Northcott was convicted of kidnapping and killing them.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Mr. Winslow led a lynch mob to the Riverside County Jail, where Northcott was temporarily being held, with the intent of hanging Northcott after the completion of his trial but before his sentencing. Police convinced the mob to disband.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: In 1933, Arthur J. Hutchens, Jr. wrote about how and why he impersonated the missing boy, Walter Collins. Hutchens' biological mother had died in 1925 when he was nine years old, and he had been living with his stepmother, Violet Hutchens.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Hutchens pretended to be Walter Collins to get as far away as possible from his stepmother. After living on the road for a month, he arrived in DeKalb, Illinois. When police brought him in, they began to ask him questions about Walter Collins. Initially he stated that he did not know about Walter, but changed his story when he saw a chance of getting to California.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Briegleb was a Presbyterian minister and an early radio evangelist. He was the pastor of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church on Jefferson Boulevard at Third Avenue in Los Angeles, California.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: He took up many important causes in the City of Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably the poor handling of the Walter Collins kidnapping case in 1928. He fought to have Christine Collins released from a mental hospital after she was committed there in retaliation for disagreeing with the Los Angeles Police Department's version of events. He died in 1943 at the age of 61.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: In 1935, five years after Northcott's execution, a boy and his parents came forward and spoke to authorities. Seven years earlier, the boy had gone missing, and the parents had reported his disappearance to the police. At the time of the boy's disappearance, authorities speculated that he might have been a murder victim at Wineville.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: Sanford Clark, however, never told authorities that a boy had escaped from the chicken coop. The historical record and Sanford Clark's own testimony indicate that only three boys were ever held in the chicken coop. These were Walter Collins and the two Winslow brothers, all of whom were murdered.


title: The Break-Up

text: The Break-Up is a 2006 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Peyton Reed, starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. It was written by Jay Lavender and Jeremy Garelick from a story by them and Vaughn, and produced by Universal Pictures.


title: The Break-Up

text: Gary Grobowski and Brooke Meyers meet at Wrigley Field during a Chicago Cubs game and begin dating, eventually buying a condominium together. Gary works as a tour guide in a family business with his brothers, Lupus and Dennis. Brooke manages an art gallery owned by eccentric artist Marilyn Dean.


title: The Break-Up

text: Their relationship comes to a head after the latest in an escalating series of arguments. Brooke, feeling unappreciated, criticizes Gary's perceived immaturity and unwillingness to work on improving their relationship. Gary is frustrated by Brooke's perceived controlling, perfectionistic attitude, and expresses his desire to have a little more independence, particularly when arriving home from work, wanting to unwind.


title: The Break-Up

text: Brooke becomes irate when Gary fails to offer to help her clean up after a big dinner party at their home. Still frustrated from their earlier, unresolved argument, she breaks up with him (despite still being in love with him). Brooke seeks relationship advice from her friend Addie, while Gary goes to tell his side of things to friend Johnny Ostrofski.


title: The Break-Up

text: Since neither is willing to move out of their condo, they compromise by living as roommates; but each begins acting out to provoke the other in increasingly elaborate ways. Gary buys a pool table, litters the condo with food and trash, and even has a strip poker party with Lupus and a few women. Meanwhile, Brooke has Gary kicked off their "couples-only" bowling team and starts dating other men in an attempt to make Gary jealous.


title: The Break-Up

text: When their friend and realtor Mark Riggleman sells the condo, Gary and Brooke are given two weeks' notice to move out. Brooke invites Gary to an Old 97's concert, hoping that he will figure out that the gesture is meant to be her last-ditch attempt to salvage their relationship. Gary agrees to meet her there, but misses the hidden agenda, and misses the concert—unwittingly breaking Brooke's heart. When Gary goes out for a drink with Johnny, his friend points out that Gary has always had his guard up, has been guilty of a lot of selfishness, and never gave Brooke a chance, emotional intimacy-wise.


title: The Break-Up

text: Afterwards, Brooke quits her job in order to spend time traveling Europe. When she brings a customer from the art gallery home one evening, Brooke finds the condo cleaned and Gary preparing a fancy dinner to win her back. He lays his heart on the line and promises to appreciate her more. Brooke becomes devastated and states that she just cannot give anymore, and, therefore, does not feel the same way. Gary seems to understand and kisses her before leaving. It is later revealed that Brooke's "date" (who initially asked her out, but she politely rejected) was actually a client interested in a piece of artwork she kept at the condo.


title: The Break-Up

text: Both eventually move out of the condo. Gary begins taking a more active role in his tour guide business, while Brooke travels the world, eventually returning to Chicago. Sometime later, they meet again by chance on the street as Gary is bringing home groceries and Brooke is on her way to a meeting. After some awkward but friendly catching up, they part ways but each glances back over their shoulder and they share a smile.


title: The Break-Up

text: The film grossed over $205 million worldwide, with a total of $118.7 million at the American box office.


title: The Break-Up

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 34% based on 192 reviews with an average rating of 5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This anti-romantic comedy lacks both laughs and insight, resulting in an odd and unsatisfying experience." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 45 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Break-Up

text: Film critic Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" wrote, "Although possessed of a laudable desire not to be yet another run-of-the-mill, wacky-impediment—damned if the picture can figure out how to be an anti-romance comedy."


title: The Break-Up

text: The film was released on DVD on October 17, 2006. It has grossed $51 million in the US from DVD/home video rentals. It was later released on Blu-ray on June 3, 2014 and again on October 16, 2018.


title: The Break-Up

text: A double feature Blu-ray was released by Mill Creek Entertainment on October 5, 2021. The release contains the film and "The Dilemma", which Vince Vaughn also starred in.


title: IMG Models

text: IMG Models is an international modeling agency headquartered in New York City and with additional offices in London, Los Angeles, Milan, Paris, and Sydney. It is a subsidiary of the talent management company International Management Group. The company merged with William Morris Endeavor in 2013. The agency represents more than half of the highest paid supermodels. Ivan Bart is the current President, and Lisa Marie Benson is the Vice President.


title: IMG Models

text: IMG Models was founded circa 1987 by sports agent Mark McCormack. In 1994, Ivan Bart joined the company as the creative director and later became IMG Models' president in 2013. Tyra Banks and Niki Taylor joined, followed by Angela Lindvall, Bridget Hall, Carolyn Murphy, Gisele Bündchen and Kate Moss.


title: IMG Models

text: In 2013, Bart decided to sign models without regard to traditional height, weight, race, or age requirements, or other factors that historically have prevented diversity in model casting.


title: IMG Models

text: In 2014, IMG Models began a scouting initiative on Instagram called #WLYG (We Love Your Genes). Models that have been discovered through this process include Lameka Fox, Alyssa Traoré, and Gizele Oliveira. They also have done online scouting via their website.


title: Low Countries

text: The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands (, , ) and historically called the Netherlands (), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting of three countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Geographically and historically, the area also includes parts of France and Germany such as the French Flanders and the German regions of East Frisia and Cleves. During the Middle Ages, the Low Countries were divided into numerous semi-independent principalities.


title: Low Countries

text: Historically, the regions without access to the sea linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to form various unions of ports and hinterland, stretching inland as far as parts of the German Rhineland. Because of this, nowadays not only physically low-altitude areas, but also some hilly or elevated regions are considered part of the Low Countries, including Luxembourg and the south of Belgium. Within the European Union, the region's political grouping is still referred to as the Benelux (short for Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg).


title: Low Countries

text: During the Roman Empire, the region contained a militarised frontier and contact point between Rome and Germanic tribes. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Low Countries were the scene of the early independent trading centres that marked the reawakening of Europe in the 12th century. In that period, they rivalled northern Italy as one of the most densely populated regions of Western Europe. Guilds and councils governed most of the cities along with a figurehead ruler; interaction with their ruler was regulated by a strict set of rules describing what the latter could and could not expect. All of the regions mainly depended on trade, manufacturing and the encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen. Dutch and French dialects were the main languages used in secular city life.


title: Low Countries

text: Historically, the term "Low Countries" arose at the Court of the Dukes of Burgundy, who used the term ' ("the lands over here") for the Low Countries as opposed to ' ("the lands over there") for the Duchy of Burgundy and the Free County of Burgundy, which were part of their realm but geographically disconnected from the Low Countries. Governor Mary of Hungary used both the expressions ' and ' ("lands down here"), which evolved to "" or "Low Countries". Today the term is typically fitted to modern political boundaries and used in the same way as the term "Benelux".


title: Low Countries

text: The name of the country of the Netherlands has the same etymology and origin as the name for the region Low Countries, due to "nether" meaning "low". In the Dutch language itself "De Lage Landen" is the modern term for Low Countries, and "De Nederlanden" (plural) is in use for the 16th century domains of Charles V, the historic Low Countries, while "Nederland" (singular) is the normal Dutch name for the country of the Netherlands. However, in official use, the name of the Dutch kingdom is still Kingdom of the Netherlands, (plural). This name derives from the 19th-century origins of the kingdom which originally included present-day Belgium.


title: Low Countries

text: In Dutch, and to a lesser extent in English, the Low Countries colloquially means the Netherlands and Belgium, sometimes the Netherlands and Flanders—the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium. For example, a "" ("Derby der Lage Landen"), is a sports event between Belgium and the Netherlands.


title: Low Countries

text: Belgium separated in 1830 from the (northern) Netherlands. The new country took its name from "Belgica", the Latinised name for the Low Countries, as it was known during the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). The Low Countries were in that war divided in two parts. On one hand, the northern Federated Netherlands or "Belgica Foederata" rebelled against King Philip II of Spain; on the other, the southern Royal Netherlands or "Belgica Regia" remained loyal to the Spanish king. This divide laid the early foundation for the later modern states of Belgium and the Netherlands.


title: Low Countries

text: The region politically had its origins in the Carolingian empire; more precisely, most of the people were within the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia. After the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia, the Low Countries were brought under the rule of various lordships until they came to be in the hands of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy. Hence, a large part of the Low Countries came to be referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands. After the reign of the Valois Dukes ended, much of the Low Countries were controlled by the House of Habsburg. This area was referred to as the Habsburg Netherlands, which was also called the Seventeen Provinces up to 1581. Even after the political secession of the autonomous Dutch Republic (or "United Provinces") in the north, the term "Low Countries" continued to be used to refer collectively to the region. The region was temporarily united politically between 1815 and 1839, as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, before this split into the three modern countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.


title: Low Countries

text: The Low Countries were part of the Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior. They were inhabited by Belgic and Germanic tribes. In the 4th and 5th century, Frankish tribes had entered this Roman region and came to run it increasingly independently. They came to be ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, under which dynasty the southern part (below the Rhine) was re-Christianised.


title: Low Countries

text: By the end of the 8th century, the Low Countries formed a core part of a much expanded Francia and the Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingian dynasty. In 800, the Pope crowned and appointed Charlemagne Emperor of the re-established Roman Empire.


title: Low Countries

text: After the death of Charlemagne, Francia was divided in three parts among his three grandsons. The middle slice, Middle Francia, was ruled by Lothair I, and thereby also came to be referred to as "Lotharingia" or "Lorraine". Apart from the original coastal County of Flanders, which was within West Francia, the rest of the Low Countries were within the lowland part of this, "Lower Lorraine".


title: Low Countries

text: After the death of Lothair, the Low Countries were coveted by the rulers of both West Francia and East Francia. Each tried to swallow the region and to merge it with their spheres of influence. Thus, the Low Countries consisted of fiefs whose sovereignty resided with either the Kingdom of France or the Holy Roman Empire. While the further history the Low Countries can be seen as the object of a continual struggle between these two powers, the title of Duke of Lothier was coveted in the low countries for centuries.


title: Low Countries

text: In the 14th and 15th century, separate fiefs came gradually to be ruled by a single family through royal intermarriage. This process culminated in the rule of the House of Valois, who were the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy. At the height of Burgundian influence, the Low Countries became the political, cultural, and economic centre of Northern Europe, noted for its crafts and luxury goods, notably early Netherlandish painting, which is the work of artists who were active in the flourishing cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. Musicians of the Franco-Flemish School were highly sought by the leading classes of all Europe.


title: Low Countries

text: In 1477 the Burgundian holdings in the area passed through an heiress—Mary of Burgundy—to the Habsburgs. Charles V, who inherited the territory in 1506, was named ruler by the States General and styled himself as "Heer der Nederlanden" ("Lord of the Netherlands"). He continued to rule the territories as a multitude of duchies and principalities until the Low Countries were eventually united into one indivisible territory, the Seventeen Provinces, covered by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549, while retaining existing customs, laws, and forms of government within the provinces.


title: Low Countries

text: The Pragmatic Sanction transformed the agglomeration of lands into a unified entity, of which the Habsburgs would be the heirs. By streamlining the succession law in all Seventeen Provinces and declaring that all of them would be inherited by one heir, Charles effectively united the Netherlands as one entity. After Charles' abdication in 1555, the Seventeen Provinces passed to his son, Philip II of Spain.


title: Low Countries

text: The Pragmatic Sanction is said to be one example of the Habsburg contest with particularism that contributed to the Dutch Revolt. Each of the provinces had its own laws, customs and political practices. The new policy, imposed from the outside, angered many inhabitants, who viewed their provinces as distinct entities. It and other monarchical acts, such as the creation of bishoprics and promulgation of laws against heresy, stoked resentments, which fired the eruption of the Dutch Revolt.


title: Low Countries

text: After the northern Seven United Provinces of the seventeen declared their independence from Habsburg Spain in 1581, the ten provinces of the Southern Netherlands remained occupied by the Army of Flanders under Spanish service and are therefore sometimes called the Spanish Netherlands. In 1713, under the Treaty of Utrecht following the War of the Spanish Succession, what was left of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to Austria and thus became known as the Austrian Netherlands.


title: Low Countries

text: The United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830) temporarily united the Low Countries again before it split into the three modern countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.


title: Low Countries

text: During the early months of World War I (around 1914), the Central Powers invaded the Low Countries of Luxembourg and Belgium in what has been come to be known as the German invasion of Belgium. It led to the German occupation of the two countries. However, the German advance into France was quickly halted, causing a military stalemate for most of the war. In the end, a total of approximately 56,000 people were killed in the invasion.


title: Low Countries

text: World War II started in this region, when Adolf Hitler's gaze turned his strategy west toward France. The Low Countries were an easy route around the imposing French Maginot Line. He ordered a conquest of the Low Countries with the shortest possible notice, to forestall the French, and prevent Allied air power from threatening the strategic Ruhr Area of Germany. It would also provide the basis for a long-term air and sea campaign against Britain. As much as possible of the border areas in northern France should be occupied. Germany's Blitzkrieg tactics rapidly overpowered the defences of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.


title: Low Countries

text: All three countries were occupied from May 1940 until early 1945. During the occupation, their governments were forced into exiled in Britain. In 1944, they signed the London Customs Convention, laying the foundation for the eventual Benelux Economic Union, an important forerunner of the EEC (later the EU).


title: Low Countries

text: One of the Low Countries' earliest literary figures is the blind poet Bernlef, from , who sang both Christian psalms and pagan verses. Bernlef is representative of the coexistence of Christianity and Germanic polytheism in this time period.


title: Low Countries

text: The earliest examples of written literature include the Wachtendonck Psalms, a collection of twenty five psalms that originated in the Moselle-Frankish region around the middle of the 9th century.


title: Decolonization

text: Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence movements in the colonies and the collapse of global colonial empires. Other scholars extend the meaning to include economic, cultural and psychological aspects of the colonial experience.


title: Decolonization

text: Decolonisation scholars apply the framework to struggles against coloniality of power within settler-colonial states even after successful independence movements. Indigenous and post-colonial scholars have critiqued Western worldviews, promoting decolonization of knowledge and the centering of traditional ecological knowledge.


title: Decolonization

text: The United Nations (UN) states that the fundamental right to self-determination is the core requirement for decolonization, and that this right can be exercised with or without political independence. A UN General Assembly Resolution in 1960 characterised colonial foreign rule as a violation of human rights. In states that have won independence, Indigenous people living under settler colonialism continue to make demands for decolonization and self-determination.


title: Decolonization

text: Although examples of decolonization can be found as early as the writings of Thucydides, there have been several particularly active periods of decolonization in modern times. These include the breakup of the Spanish Empire in the 19th century; of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires following World War I; of the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Belgian, Italian, and Japanese colonial empires following World War II; and of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.


title: Decolonization

text: Early studies of decolonisation appeared in the 1960s and 1970s. An important book from this period was "The Wretched of the Earth" (1961) by Martiniquan author Frantz Fanon, which established many aspects of decolonisation that would be considered in later works. Subsequent studies of decolonisation addressed economic disparities as a legacy of colonialism as well as the annihilation of people's cultures. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o explored the cultural and linguistic legacies of colonialism in the influential book "Decolonising the Mind" (1986).


title: Decolonization

text: Decolonization has been used to refer to the intellectual decolonization from the colonizers' ideas that made the colonized feel inferior. Issues of decolonization persist and are raised contemporarily. In Latin America and South Africa, such issues are increasingly discussed under the term decoloniality.


title: Decolonization

text: A momentum for decolonization followed World War I, in particular through the League of Nations for European territories that were under the control of the Ottoman and Austria-Hungarian empires. Under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, a number of mandates were created. The expressed intention was to prepare these countries for self-government, but the mandates are often interpreted as a mere redistribution of control over non-European former colonies of the defeated powers, mainly the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire. This reassignment work continued through the United Nations, with a similar system of trust territories created to adjust control over both former colonies and mandated territories.


title: Decolonization

text: The United Nations' 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples was a crucial landmark in decolonization.


title: Decolonization

text: Scholars have proposed various explanations for trends in decolonization. Two prominent explanations emphasize the state of the world economy (such as whether there is hegemony and economic growth or stagnation) and World Polity theory (which emphasizes the diffusion of the nation-state model from Western Europe to its dependencies and contagion processes whereby decolonization in one instance prompts subsequent decolonizations in other cases). Other explanations emphasize how the lower profitability of colonization and the costs associated with empire prompted decolonization. Some explanations emphasize how colonial powers struggled militarily against insurgents in the colonies due to a shift from 19th century conditions of "strong political will, a permissive international environment, access to local collaborators, and flexibility to pick their battles" to 20th century conditions of "apathetic publics, hostile superpowers, vanishing collaborators, and constrained options."


title: Decolonization

text: Beginning with the emergence of the United States in the 1770s, decolonization took place in the context of Atlantic history, against the background of the American and French revolutions. Decolonization became a wider movement in many colonies in the 20th century, and a reality after 1945.


title: Decolonization

text: The historian William Hardy McNeill, in his famous 1963 book "The Rise of the West", appears to have interpreted the post-1945 decline of European empires as paradoxically being due to Westernization itself, writing that


title: Decolonization

text: In the same book, McNeill wrote that "The rise of the West, as intended by the title and meaning of this book, is only accelerated when one or another Asian or African people throws off European administration by making Western techniques, attitudes, and ideas sufficiently their own to permit them to do so".


title: Decolonization

text: Great Britain's Thirteen North American colonies were the first colonies to break from their colonial motherland by declaring independence as the United States of America in 1776, and being recognized as an independent nation by France in 1778 and Britain in 1783.


title: Decolonization

text: The Haitian Revolution was a revolt in 1789 and subsequent slave uprising in 1791 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. In 1804, Haiti secured independence from France as the Empire of Haiti, which later became a republic.


title: Decolonization

text: The chaos of the Napoleonic wars in Europe cut the direct links between Spain and its American colonies, allowing for the process of decolonization to begin.


title: Decolonization

text: With the invasion of Spain by Napoleon in 1806, the American colonies declared autonomy and loyalty to King Ferdinand VII. The contract was broken and the regions of the Spanish Empire had to decide whether to show allegiance to the Junta of Cadiz (the only territory in Spain free from Napoleon) or have a junta (assembly) of its own. The economic monopoly of the metropolis was the main reason why many countries decided to become independent from Spain. In 1809, the independence wars of Latin America began with a revolt in La Paz, Bolivia. In 1807 and 1808, the Viceroyalty of the River Plate was invaded by the British. After their 2nd defeat, a Frenchman called Santiague de Liniers was proclaimed a new Viceroy by the local population and later accepted by Spain. In May 1810 in Buenos Aires, a Junta was created, but in Montevideo it was not recognized by the local government who followed the authority of the Junta of Cadiz. The rivalry between the two cities was the main reason for the distrust between them. During the next 15 years, the Spanish and Royalist on one side, and the rebels on the other fought in South America and Mexico. Numerous countries declared their independence. In 1824, the Spanish forces were defeated in the Battle of Ayacucho. The mainland was free, and in 1898, Spain lost Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Spanish–American War. Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the US, but Cuba became independent in 1902.


title: Decolonization

text: The Napoleonic Wars also led to the severing of the direct links between Portugal and its only American colony, Brazil. Days before Napoleon invaded Portugal, in 1807 the Portuguese royal court fled to Brazil. In 1820 there was a Constitutionalist Revolution in Portugal, which led to the return of the Portuguese court to Lisbon. This led to distrust between the Portuguese and the Brazilian colonists, and finally, in 1822, to the colony becoming independent as the Empire of Brazil, which later became a republic.


title: Decolonization

text: The emergence of Indigenous political parties was especially characteristic of the British Empire, which seemed less ruthless than, for example, Belgium, in controlling political dissent. Driven by pragmatic demands of budgets and manpower the British made deals with the local politicians. Across the empire, the general protocol was to convene a constitutional conference in London to discuss the transition to greater self-government and then independence, submit a report of the constitutional conference to parliament, if approved submit a bill to Parliament at Westminster to terminate the responsibility of the United Kingdom (with a copy of the new constitution annexed), and finally, if approved, issuance of an Order of Council fixing the exact date of independence.


title: Decolonization

text: After World War I, several former German and Ottoman territories in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific were governed by the UK as League of Nations mandates. Some were administered directly by the UK, and others by British dominions – Nauru and the Territory of New Guinea by Australia, South West Africa by the Union of South Africa, and Western Samoa by New Zealand.


title: Decolonization

text: Egypt became independent in 1922, although the UK retained security prerogatives, control of the Suez Canal, and effective control of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The Balfour Declaration of 1926 declared the British Empire dominions as equals, and the 1931 Statute of Westminster established full legislative independence for them. The equal dominions were six– Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa; Ireland had been brought into a union with Great Britain in 1801 creating The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. However, some of the Dominions were already independent de facto, and even de jure and recognized as such by the international community. Thus, Canada was a founding member of the League of Nations in 1919 and served on the council from 1927 to 1930. That country also negotiated on its own and signed bilateral and multilateral treaties and conventions from the early 1900s onward. Newfoundland ceded self-rule back to London in 1934. Iraq, a League of Nations mandate, became independent in 1932.


title: Decolonization

text: In response to a growing Indian independence movement, the UK made successive reforms to the British Raj, culminating in the Government of India Act (1935). These reforms included creating elected legislative councils in some of the Provinces of British India. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, India's independence movement leader, led a peaceful resistance to British rule. By becoming a symbol of both peace and opposition to British imperialism, many Indians began to view the British as the cause of India's problems leading to a newfound sense of nationalism among its population. With this new wave of Indian nationalism, Gandhi was eventually able to garner the support needed to push back the British and create an independent India in 1947.


title: Decolonization

text: Africa was only fully drawn into the colonial system at the end of the 19th century. In the north-east the continued independence of the Empire of Ethiopia remained a beacon of hope to pro-independence activists. However, with the anti-colonial wars of the 1900s (decade) barely over, new modernizing forms of African Nationalism began to gain strength in the early 20th century with the emergence of Pan-Africanism, as advocated by the Jamaican journalist Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) whose widely distributed newspapers demanded swift abolition of European imperialism, as well as republicanism in Egypt. Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) who was inspired by the works of Garvey led Ghana to independence from colonial rule.


title: Decolonization

text: Independence for the colonies in Africa began with the independence of Sudan in 1956, and Ghana in 1957. All of the British colonies on mainland Africa became independent by 1966, although Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 was not recognized by the UK or internationally.


title: Decolonization

text: Some of the British colonies in Asia were directly administered by British officials, while others were ruled by local monarchs as protectorates or in subsidiary alliance with the UK.


title: Decolonization

text: In 1947, British India was partitioned into the independent dominions of India and Pakistan. Hundreds of princely states, states ruled by monarchs in treaty of subsidiary alliance with Britain, were integrated into India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan fought several wars over the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. French India was integrated into India between 1950 and 1954, and India annexed Portuguese India in 1961, and the Kingdom of Sikkim merged with India by popular vote in 1975.


title: Decolonization

text: Significant violence was involved in several prominent cases of decolonization of the British Empire; partition was a frequent solution. In 1783, the North American colonies were divided between the independent United States, and British North America, which later became Canada.


title: Decolonization

text: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a revolt of a portion of the Indian Army. It was characterized by massacres of civilians on both sides. It was not a movement for independence, however, and only a small part of India was involved. In the aftermath, the British pulled back from modernizing reforms of Indian society, and the level of organised violence under the British Raj was relatively small. Most of that was initiated by repressive British administrators, as in the Amritsar massacre of 1919, or the police assaults on the Salt March of 1930. Large-scale communal violence broke out between Muslims and Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs after the British left in 1947 in the newly independent dominions of India and Pakistan. Much later, in 1970, further communal violence broke out within Pakistan in the detached eastern part of East Bengal, which became independent as Bangladesh in 1971.


title: Decolonization

text: Cyprus, which came under full British control in 1914 from the Ottoman Empire, was culturally divided between the majority Greek element (which demanded "enosis" or union with Greece) and the minority Turks. London for decades assumed it needed the island to defend the Suez Canal; but after the Suez crisis of 1956, that became a minor factor, and Greek violence became a more serious issue. Cyprus became an independent country in 1960, but ethnic violence escalated until 1974 when Turkey invaded and partitioned the island. Each side rewrote its own history, blaming the other.


title: Decolonization

text: Palestine became a British mandate from the League of Nations, and during the war the British gained support from both sides by making promises both to the Arabs and the Jews. (See Balfour Declaration). Decades of ethno—religious violence resulted. The British pulled out, after dividing the Mandate into Palestine and Jordan.


title: Decolonization

text: After World War I, the colonized people were frustrated at France's failure to recognize the effort provided by the French colonies (resources, but more importantly colonial troops – the famous "tirailleurs"). Although in Paris the Great Mosque of Paris was constructed as recognition of these efforts, the French state had no intention to allow self-rule, let alone grant independence to the colonized people. Thus, nationalism in the colonies became stronger in between the two wars, leading to Abd el-Krim's Rif War (1921–1925) in Morocco and to the creation of Messali Hadj's Star of North Africa in Algeria in 1925. However, these movements would gain full potential only after World War II.


title: Decolonization

text: After World War I, France administered the former Ottoman territories of Syria and Lebanon, and the former German colonies of Togoland and Cameroon, as League of Nations mandates. Lebanon declared its independence in 1943, and Syria in 1945.


title: Decolonization

text: Although France was ultimately a victor of World War II, Nazi Germany's occupation of France and its North African colonies during the war had disrupted colonial rule. On October 27, 1946, France adopted a new constitution creating the Fourth Republic, and substituted the French Union for the colonial empire. However power over the colonies remained concentrated in France, and the power of local assemblies outside France was extremely limited. On the night of March 29, 1947, a Madagascar nationalist uprising led the French government headed by Paul Ramadier (Socialist) to violent repression: one year of bitter fighting, 11,000–40,000 Malagasy died.


title: Decolonization

text: In 1946, the states of French Indochina withdrew from the French Union, leading to the Indochina War (1946–54). Ho Chi Minh, who had been a co-founder of the French Communist Party in 1920 and had founded the Vietminh in 1941, declared independence from France, and led the armed resistance against France's reoccupation of Indochina. Cambodia and Laos became independent in 1953, and the 1954 Geneva Accords ended France's occupation of Indochina, leaving North Vietnam and South Vietnam independent.


title: Decolonization

text: In 1956, Morocco and Tunisia gained their independence from France. In 1960, eight independent countries emerged from French West Africa, and five from French Equatorial Africa. The Algerian War of Independence raged from 1954 to 1962. To this day, the Algerian war – officially called a "public order operation" until the 1990s – remains a trauma for both France and Algeria. Philosopher Paul Ricœur has spoken of the necessity of a "decolonisation of memory", starting with the recognition of the 1961 Paris massacre during the Algerian war, and the decisive role of African and especially North African immigrant manpower in the "Trente Glorieuses" post–World War II economic growth period. In the 1960s, due to economic needs for post-war reconstruction and rapid economic growth, French employers actively sought to recruit manpower from the colonies, explaining today's multiethnic population.


title: Decolonization

text: A union of former colonies itself, the United States approached imperialism differently from the other Powers. Much of its energy and rapidly expanding population was directed westward across the North American continent against English and French claims, the Spanish Empire and Mexico. The Native Americans were sent to reservations, often unwillingly. With support from Britain, its Monroe Doctrine reserved the Americas as its sphere of interest, prohibiting other states (particularly Spain) from recolonizing the newly independent polities of Latin America. However, France, taking advantage of the American government's distraction during the Civil War, intervened militarily in Mexico and set up a French-protected monarchy. Spain took the step to occupy the Dominican Republic and restore colonial rule. The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 forced both France and Spain to accede to American demands to evacuate those two countries. America's only African colony, Liberia, was formed privately and achieved independence early; Washington unofficially protected it. By 1900 the US advocated an Open Door Policy and opposed the direct division of China.


title: Decolonization

text: After 1898 direct intervention expanded in Latin America. The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867 and annexed Hawaii in 1898. Following the Spanish-American war in 1898, the US added most of Spain's remaining colonies: Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Guam. Deciding not to annex Cuba outright, the U.S. established it as a client state with obligations including the perpetual lease of Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. Navy. The attempt of the first governor to void the island's constitution and remain in power past the end of his term provoked a rebellion that provoked a reoccupation between 1906 and 1909, but this was again followed by devolution. Similarly, the McKinley administration, despite prosecuting the Philippine–American War against a native republic, set out that the Territory of the Philippine Islands was eventually granted independence. In 1917, the US purchased the Danish West Indies (later renamed the US Virgin Islands) from Denmark and Puerto Ricans became full U.S. citizens that same year. The US government declared Puerto Rico the territory was no longer a colony and stopped transmitting information about it to the United Nations Decolonization Committee. As a result, the UN General Assembly removed Puerto Rico from the U.N. list of non-self-governing territories. Four referendums showed little support for independence, but much interest in statehood such as Hawaii and Alaska received in 1959.


title: Decolonization

text: The Monroe Doctrine was expanded by the Roosevelt Corollary in 1904, providing that the United States had a right and obligation to intervene "in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence" that a nation in the Western Hemisphere became vulnerable to European control. In practice, this meant that the United States was led to act as a collections agent for European creditors by administering customs duties in the Dominican Republic (1905–1941), Haiti (1915–1934), and elsewhere. The intrusiveness and bad relations this engendered were somewhat checked by the Clark Memorandum and renounced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy."


title: Decolonization

text: The Fourteen Points were preconditions addressed by President Woodrow Wilson to the European powers at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I. In allowing allies France and Britain the former colonial possessions of the German and Ottoman Empires, the US demanded of them submission to the League of Nations mandate, in calling for "V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable government whose title is to be determined." See also point XII.


title: Decolonization

text: After 1947, the U.S. poured tens of billions of dollars into the Marshall Plan, and other grants and loans to Europe and Asia to rebuild the world economy. Washington pushed hard to accelerate decolonization and bring an end to the colonial empires of its Western allies, most importantly during the 1956 Suez Crisis, but American military bases were established around the world and direct and indirect interventions continued in Korea, Indochina, Latin America ("inter alia", the 1965 occupation of the Dominican Republic), Africa, and the Middle East to oppose Communist invasions and insurgencies. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States has been far less active in the Americas, but invaded Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11 attacks in 2001, establishing army and air bases in Central Asia.


title: Decolonization

text: Before World War I, Japan had gained several substantial colonial possessions in East Asia such as Taiwan (1895) and Korea (1910). Japan joined the allies in World War I, and after the war acquired the South Seas Mandate, the former German colony in Micronesia, as a League of Nations Mandate. Pursuing a colonial policy comparable to those of European powers, Japan settled significant populations of ethnic Japanese in its colonies while simultaneously suppressing Indigenous ethnic populations by enforcing the learning and use of the Japanese language in schools. Other methods such as public interaction, and attempts to eradicate the use of Korean, Hokkien, and Hakka among the Indigenous peoples, were seen to be used. Japan also set up the Imperial Universities in Korea (Keijō Imperial University) and Taiwan (Taihoku Imperial University) to compel education.


title: Decolonization

text: In 1931, Japan seized Manchuria from the Republic of China, setting up a puppet state under Puyi, the last Manchu emperor of China. In 1933 Japan seized the Chinese province of Jehol, and incorporated it into its Manchurian possessions. The Second Sino-Japanese War started in 1937, and Japan occupied much of eastern China, including the Republic's capital at Nanjing. An estimated 20 million Chinese died during the 1931–1945 war with Japan.


title: Decolonization

text: In December 1941, the Japanese Empire joined World War II by invading the European and US colonies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, including French Indochina, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Portuguese Timor, and others. Following its surrender to the Allies in 1945, Japan was deprived of all its colonies with a number of them being returned to the original colonizing Western powers. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan in August 1945, and shortly after occupied and annexed the southern Kuril Islands, which Japan still claims.


title: Decolonization

text: In the United States, the two major parties were divided on the acquisition of the Philippines, which became a major campaign issue in 1900. The Republicans, who favored permanent acquisition, won the election, but after a decade or so, Republicans turned their attention to the Caribbean, focusing on building the Panama Canal. President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat in office from 1913 to 1921, ignored the Philippines, and focused his attention on Mexico and Caribbean nations. By the 1920s, the peaceful efforts by the Filipino leadership to pursue independence proved convincing. When the Democrats returned to power in 1933, they worked with the Filipinos to plan a smooth transition to independence. It was scheduled for 1946 by Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1934. In 1935, the Philippines transitioned out of territorial status, controlled by an appointed governor, to the semi-independent status of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Its constitutional convention wrote a new constitution, which was approved by Washington and went into effect, with an elected governor Manuel L. Quezon and legislature. Foreign Affairs remained under American control. The Philippines built up a new army, under general Douglas MacArthur, who took leave from his U.S. Army position to take command of the new army reporting to Quezon. The Japanese occupation 1942 to 1945 disrupted but did not delay the transition. It took place on schedule in 1946 as Manuel Roxas took office as president.


title: Decolonization

text: As a result of its pioneering discoveries, Portugal had a large and particularly long-lasting colonial empire which had begun in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta and ended only in 1999 with the handover of Portuguese Macau to China. In 1822, Portugal lost control of Brazil, its largest colony.


title: Decolonization

text: From 1933 to 1974, Portugal was an authoritarian state (ruled by António de Oliveira Salazar). The regime was fiercely determined to maintain the country's colonial possessions at all costs and to aggressively suppress any insurgencies. In 1961, India annexed Goa and by the same year nationalist forces had begun organizing in Portugal. Revolts (preceding the Portuguese Colonial War) spread to Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique. Lisbon escalated its effort in the war: for instance, it increased the number of natives in the colonial army and built strategic hamlets. Portugal sent another 300,000 European settlers into Angola and Mozambique before 1974. That year, a left-wing revolution inside Portugal overthrew the existing regime and encouraged pro-Soviet elements to attempt to seize control in the colonies. The result was a very long and extremely difficult multi-party Civil War in Angola, and lesser insurrections in Mozambique.


title: Decolonization

text: Belgium's empire began with the annexation of the Congo in 1908 in response to international pressure to bring an end to the terrible atrocities that had taken place under King Leopold's privately run Congo Free State. It added Rwanda and Burundi as League of Nations mandates from the former German Empire in 1919. The colonies remained independent during the war, while Belgium itself was occupied by the Germans. There was no serious planning for independence, and exceedingly little training or education provided. The Belgian Congo was especially rich, and many Belgian businessmen lobbied hard to maintain control. Local revolts grew in power and finally, the Belgian king suddenly announced in 1959 that independence was on the agenda – and it was hurriedly arranged in 1960, for country bitterly and deeply divided on social and economic grounds.


title: Decolonization

text: The Netherlands, a small rich country in Western Europe, had spent centuries building up its empire. By 1940 it consisted mostly of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Its massive oil reserves provided about 14 percent of the Dutch national product and supported a large population of ethnic Dutch government officials and businessmen in Jakarta and other major cities. The Netherlands was overrun and almost starved to death by the Nazis during the war, and Japan sank the Dutch fleet in seizing the East Indies. In 1945 the Netherlands could not regain these islands on its own; it did so by depending on British military help and American financial grants. By the time Dutch soldiers returned, an independent government under Sukarno, originally set up by the Japanese, was in power. The Dutch in the East Indies, and at home, were practically unanimous (except for the Communists) that Dutch power and prestige and wealth depended on an extremely expensive war to regain the islands. Compromises were negotiated, were trusted by neither side. When the Indonesian Republic successfully suppressed a large-scale communist revolt, the United States realized that it needed the nationalist government as an ally in the Cold War. Dutch possession was an obstacle to American Cold War goals, so Washington forced the Dutch to grant full independence. A few years later, Sukarno seized all Dutch properties and expelled all ethnic Dutch—over 300,000—as well as several hundred thousand ethnic Indonesians who supported the Dutch cause. In the aftermath, the Netherlands prospered greatly in the 1950s and 1960s but nevertheless public opinion was bitterly hostile to the United States for betrayal. Washington remained baffled why the Dutch were so inexplicably enamored of an obviously hopeless cause. The Netherlands also had one other major colony, Dutch Guiana in South America, which became independent as Suriname in 1975.


title: Decolonization

text: When the United Nations was formed in 1945, it established trust territories. These territories included the League of Nations mandate territories which had not achieved independence by 1945, along with the former Italian Somaliland. The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was transferred from Japanese to US administration. By 1990 all but one of the trust territories had achieved independence, either as independent states or by merger with another independent state; the Northern Mariana Islands elected to become a commonwealth of the United States.


title: Decolonization

text: Newly independent states organised themselves in order to oppose continued economic colonialism by former imperial powers. The Non-Aligned Movement constituted itself around the main figures of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, Sukarno, the Indonesian president, Josip Broz Tito the Communist leader of Yugoslavia, and Gamal Abdel Nasser, head of Egypt. In 1955 these leaders gathered at the Bandung Conference along with Sukarno, the leader of Indonesia, and Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China. In 1960, the UN General Assembly voted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. The next year, the Non-Aligned Movement was officially created in Belgrade (1961), and was followed in 1964 by the creation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which tried to promote a New International Economic Order (NIEO). The NIEO was opposed to the 1944 Bretton Woods system, which had benefited the leading states which had created it, and remained in force until 1971 after the United States' suspension of convertibility from dollars to gold. The main tenets of the NIEO were:


title: Decolonization

text: The UNCTAD however wasn't very effective in implementing the NIEO, and social and economic inequalities between industrialized countries and the Third World grew throughout the 1960s until the 21st century. The 1973 oil crisis which followed the Yom Kippur War (October 1973) was triggered by the OPEC which decided an embargo against the US and Western countries, causing a fourfold increase in the price of oil, which lasted five months, starting on October 17, 1973, and ending on March 18, 1974. OPEC nations then agreed, on January 7, 1975, to raise crude oil prices by 10%. At that time, OPEC nations – including many who had recently nationalized their oil industries – joined the call for a New International Economic Order to be initiated by coalitions of primary producers. Concluding the First OPEC Summit in Algiers they called for stable and just commodity prices, an international food and agriculture program, technology transfer from North to South, and the democratization of the economic system. But industrialized countries quickly began to look for substitutes to OPEC petroleum, with the oil companies investing the majority of their research capital in the US and European countries or others, politically sure countries. The OPEC lost more and more influence on the world prices of oil.


title: Decolonization

text: The second oil crisis occurred in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Then, the 1982 Latin American debt crisis exploded in Mexico first, then Argentina and Brazil, which proved unable to pay back their debts, jeopardizing the existence of the international economic system.


title: Decolonization

text: The 1990s were characterized by the prevalence of the Washington consensus on neoliberal policies, "structural adjustment" and "shock therapies" for the former Communist states.


title: Decolonization

text: The decolonization of North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa took place in the mid-to-late 1950s, very suddenly, with little preparation. There was widespread unrest and organized revolts, especially in French Algeria, Portuguese Angola, the Belgian Congo and British Kenya.


title: Decolonization

text: After Italy's defeat in World War II, France and the UK occupied the former Italian colonies. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951. Eritrea was merged with Ethiopia in 1952. Italian Somaliland was governed by the UK, and by Italy after 1954, until its independence in 1960.


title: Decolonization

text: By 1977 European colonial rule in mainland Africa had ended. Most of Africa's island countries had also become independent, although Réunion and Mayotte remain part of France. However the black majorities in Rhodesia and South Africa were disenfranchised until 1979 in Rhodesia, which became Zimbabwe-Rhodesia that year and Zimbabwe the next, and until 1994 in South Africa. Namibia, Africa's last UN Trust Territory, became independent of South Africa in 1990.


title: Decolonization

text: Most independent African countries exist within prior colonial borders. However Morocco merged French Morocco with Spanish Morocco, and Somalia formed from the merger of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. Eritrea merged with Ethiopia in 1952, but became an independent country in 1993.


title: Decolonization

text: Most African countries became independent as republics. Morocco, Lesotho, and Eswatini remain monarchies under dynasties that predate colonial rule. Burundi, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia gained independence as monarchies, but all four countries' monarchs were later deposed, and they became republics.


title: Decolonization

text: African countries cooperate in various multi-state associations. The African Union includes all 55 African states. There are several regional associations of states, including the East African Community, Southern African Development Community, and Economic Community of West African States, some of which have overlapping membership.


title: Decolonization

text: Japan expanded its occupation of Chinese territory during the 1930s, and occupied Southeast Asia during World War II. After the war, the Japanese colonial empire was dissolved, and national independence movements resisted the re-imposition of colonial control by European countries and the United States.


title: Decolonization

text: The Republic of China regained control of Japanese-occupied territories in Manchuria and eastern China, as well as Taiwan. Only Hong Kong and Macau remained in outside control.


title: Decolonization

text: The Allied powers divided Korea into two occupation zones, which became the states of North Korea and South Korea. The Philippines became independent of the US in 1946.


title: Decolonization

text: The Netherlands recognized Indonesia's independence in 1949, after a four-year independence struggle. Indonesia annexed Netherlands New Guinea in 1963, and Portuguese Timor in 1975. In 2002, former Portuguese Timor became independent as East Timor.


title: Decolonization

text: The following list shows the colonial powers following the end of hostilities in 1945, and their colonial or administrative possessions. The year of decolonization is given chronologically in parentheses.


title: Decolonization

text: Italy had occupied the Dodecanese islands in 1912, but Italian occupation ended after World War II, and the islands were integrated into Greece. British rule ended in Cyprus in 1960, and Malta in 1964, and both islands became independent republics.


title: Decolonization

text: Soviet control of its non-Russian member republics weakened as movements for democratization and self-government gained strength during the late 1980s, and four republics declared independence in 1990 and 1991. The Soviet coup d'état attempt in August 1991 accelerated the breakup of the USSR, which formally ended on December 26, 1991. The Republics of the Soviet Union become sovereign states—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus (formerly called Byelorussia,) Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Historian Robert Daniels says, "A special dimension that the anti-Communist revolutions shared with some of their predecessors was decolonization." Moscow's policy had long been to settle ethnic Russians in the non-Russian republics. After independence, minority rights has been an issue for Russian-speakers in some republics and for non-Russian-speakers in Russia; see Russians in the Baltic states. Meanwhile, the Russian Federation continues to apply political, economic, and military pressure on former Soviet colonies. In 2014, it annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, the first such action in Europe since the end of the Second World War.


title: Decolonization

text: The decolonization of Oceania occurred after World War II when nations in Oceania achieved independence by transitioning from European colonial rule to full independence.


title: Decolonization

text: Typical challenges of decolonization include state-building, nation-building, and economic development.


title: Decolonization

text: After independence, the new states needed to establish or strengthen the institutions of a sovereign state – governments, laws, a military, schools, administrative systems, and so on. The amount of self-rule granted prior to independence, and assistance from the colonial power and/or international organizations after independence, varied greatly between colonial powers, and between individual colonies.


title: Decolonization

text: Except for a few absolute monarchies, most post-colonial states are either republics or constitutional monarchies. These new states had to devise constitutions, electoral systems, and other institutions of representative democracy.


title: Decolonization

text: Nation-building is the process of creating a sense of identification with, and loyalty to, the state. Nation-building projects seek to replace loyalty to the old colonial power, and/or tribal or regional loyalties, with loyalty to the new state. Elements of nation-building include creating and promoting symbols of the state like a flag, a coat of arms and an anthem, monuments, official histories, national sports teams, codifying one or more Indigenous official languages, and replacing colonial place-names with local ones. Nation-building after independence often continues the work began by independence movements during the colonial period.


title: Decolonization

text: From the perspective of language policy (or language politics), "linguistic decolonization" entails the replacement of a colonizing (imperial) power's language with a given colony's indigenous language in the function of official language. With the exception of colonies in Eurasia, linguistic decolonization did not take place in the former colonies-turned-independent states on the other continents ("Rest of the World"). The persistent absence of linguistic decolonization is known as linguistic imperialism.


title: Decolonization

text: Decolonization is not an easy matter in colonies with large settler populations, particularly if they have been there for several generations. When settlers remain in former colonies after independence, colonialism is ongoing and takes the form of settler colonialism, which is highly resistant to decolonisation.


title: Decolonization

text: In a few cases, settler populations have been repatriated. For instance, the decolonization of Algeria by France was particularly uneasy due to the large European population (see also "pied noir"), which largely evacuated to France when Algeria became independent. In Zimbabwe, former Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe seized property from white African farmers, killing several of them, and forcing the survivors to emigrate. A large Indian community lived in Uganda as a result of Britain colonizing both India and East Africa, and Idi Amin expelled them for domestic political gain.


title: Decolonization

text: Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o has written about colonization and decolonization in the film universe. Born in Ethiopia, filmmaker Haile Gerima describes the "colonization of the unconscious" he describes experiencing as a child:


title: Decolonization

text: ...as kids, we tried to act out the things we had seen in the movies. We used to play cowboys and Indians in the mountains around Gondar...We acted out the roles of these heroes, identifying with the cowboys conquering the Indians. We didn't identify with the Indians at all and we never wanted the Indians to win. Even in Tarzan movies, we would become totally galvanized by the activities of the hero and follow the story from his point of view, completely caught up in the structure of the story. Whenever Africans sneaked up behind Tarzan, we would scream our heads off, trying to warn him that 'they' were coming".


title: Decolonization

text: In Asia, kung fu cinema emerged at a time Japan wanted to reach Asian populations in other countries by way of its cultural influence. The surge in popularity of kung fu movies began in the late 1960s through the 1970s. Local populations were depicted as protagonists opposing "imperialists" (foreigners) and their "Chinese collaborators".


title: Decolonization

text: Newly independent states also had to develop independent economic institutions – a national currency, banks, companies, regulation, tax systems, etc.


title: Decolonization

text: Many colonies were serving as resource colonies which produced raw materials and agricultural products, and as a captive market for goods manufactured in the colonizing country. Many decolonized countries created programs to promote industrialization. Some nationalized industries and infrastructure, and some engaged in land reform to redistribute land to individual farmers or create collective farms.


title: Decolonization

text: Some decolonized countries maintain strong economic ties with the former colonial power. The CFA franc is a currency shared by 14 countries in West and Central Africa, mostly former French colonies. The CFA franc is guaranteed by the French treasury.


title: Decolonization

text: After independence, many countries created regional economic associations to promote trade and economic development among neighboring countries, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Gulf Cooperation Council.


title: Decolonization

text: John Kenneth Galbraith argues that the post–World War II decolonization was brought about for economic reasons. In "A Journey Through Economic Time", he writes: "The engine of economic well-being was now within and between the advanced industrial countries. Domestic economic growth – as now measured and much discussed – came to be seen as far more important than the erstwhile colonial trade... The economic effect in the United States from the granting of independence to the Philippines was unnoticeable, partly due to the Bell Trade Act, which allowed American monopoly in the economy of the Philippines. The departure of India and Pakistan made small economic difference in the United Kingdom. Dutch economists calculated that the economic effect from the loss of the great Dutch empire in Indonesia was compensated for by a couple of years or so of domestic post-war economic growth. The end of the colonial era is celebrated in the history books as a triumph of national aspiration in the former colonies and of benign good sense on the part of the colonial powers. Lurking beneath, as so often happens, was a strong current of economic interest – or in this case, disinterest."


title: Decolonization

text: In general, the release of the colonized caused little economic loss to the colonizers. Part of the reason for this was that major costs were eliminated while major benefits were obtained by alternate means. Decolonization allowed the colonizer to disclaim responsibility for the colonized. The colonizer no longer had the burden of obligation, financial or otherwise, to their colony. However, the colonizer continued to be able to obtain cheap goods and labor as well as economic benefits (see Suez Canal Crisis) from the former colonies. Financial, political and military pressure could still be used to achieve goals desired by the colonizer. Thus decolonization allowed the goals of colonization to be largely achieved, but without its burdens.


title: Decolonization

text: The United Nations, under "Chapter XI: Declaration Regarding Non-Self Governing Territories" of the Charter of the United Nations, defines Non-Self Governing Nations (NSGSs) as "territories whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government"—the contemporary definition of colonialism. After the conclusion of World War II with the surrender of the Axis Powers in 1945, and two decades into the latter half of the 20th century, over three dozen "states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or outright independence" from European administering powers. As of 2020, 17 territories remain under Chapter XI distinction:


title: Decolonization

text: "On 26 February 1976, Spain informed the Secretary-General that as of that date it had terminated its presence in the Territory of the Sahara and deemed it necessary to place on record that Spain considered itself thenceforth exempt from any responsibility of any international nature in connection with the administration of the Territory, in view of the cessation of its participation in the temporary administration established for the Territory. In 1990, the General Assembly reaffirmed that the question of Western Sahara was a question of decolonization which remained to be completed by the people of Western Sahara."


title: Decolonization

text: On 10 December 2010, the United Nations published its official decree, announcing the "Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism" wherein the United Nations declared its "renewal of the call to States Members of the United Nations to speed up the process of decolonization towards the complete elimination of colonialism". According to an article by scholar John Quintero, "given the modern emphasis on the equality of states and inalienable nature of their sovereignty, many people do not realize that these non-self-governing structures still exist". Some activists have claimed that the attention of the United Nations was "further diverted from the social and economic agenda [for decolonization] towards "firefighting and extinguishing” armed conflicts". Advocates have stressed that the United Nations "[remains] the last refuge of hope for peoples under the yolk "[sic]" of colonialism". Furthermore, on 19 May 2015, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the attendants of the Caribbean Regional Seminar on Decolonization, urging international political leaders to "build on [the success of precedent decolonization efforts and] towards fully eradicating colonialism by 2020".


title: Decolonization

text: The sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean is disputed between the United Kingdom and Mauritius. In February 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the United Kingdom must transfer the islands to Mauritius as they were not legally separated from the latter in 1965. On 22 May 2019, the United Nations General Assembly debated and adopted a resolution that affirmed that the Chagos Archipelago "forms an integral part of the territory of Mauritius." The UK does not recognize Mauritius' sovereignty claim over the Chagos Archipelago. In October 2020, Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth described the British and American governments as "hypocrites" and "champions of double talk" over their response to the dispute.


title: Decolonization

text: Indigenous decolonization theory views Western Eurocentric historical accounts and political discourse as an ongoing political construct that attempts to negate Indigenous peoples and their experiences around the world. Indigenous people of the world precede and negate all Eurocentric colonization projects and the resulting historical constructs, popular discourse, conceptualizations, and theory. In this view, the independence of European-styled former Western-European colonies, such as the United States, Australia, and Brazil, is conceptualized as ongoing neo-colonization projects of settler colonialism and not as decolonization. The creation of these states merely continued ongoing European colonialism. Any former European colony not free of Western European influence fits such a concept. Examples of such former colonies include South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and the USA.


title: Decolonization

text: A 2019 study found that "democracy levels increased sharply as colonies gained internal autonomy in the period immediately before their independence. However, conflict, revenue growth, and economic growth did not systematically differ before and after independence."


title: Decolonization

text: According to political theorist Kevin Duong, decolonization "may have been the century’s greatest act of disenfranchisement", as numerous anti-colonial activists primarily pursued universal suffrage within empires rather than independence: "As dependent territories became nation-states, they lost their voice in metropolitan assemblies whose affairs affected them long after independence."


title: Decolonization

text: David Strange writes that the loss of their empires turned France and Britain into "second-rate powers."


title: Decolonization

text: Global health as a discipline is widely acknwoledged to be of imperial origin and the need for its decolonisation has been widely recognised. Dismantling the feudal structure of global health has been mentioned to be a key decolonisation agenda


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: Similar to previous installments of the series, the two games follow the journey of a young Pokémon trainer through the region of Unova, as they train Pokémon used to compete against other trainers while thwarting the schemes of the criminal organization Team Plasma. "Black" and "White" introduced 156 new Pokémon to the franchise, 5 more than the previous record holder "Pokémon Red" and "Blue", as well as many new features, including a seasonal cycle, rotation battles, fully animated Pokémon sprites, and triple battles. Both titles are independent of each other but feature largely the same plot, and while both can be played separately, trading Pokémon between both of the games is necessary in order to complete the games' Pokédex.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: Upon their release, "Black" and "White" received positive reviews, with praise for the advancements in gameplay. Reviewers, however, were divided on some of the Pokémon designs, and some critics felt that the games did not innovate as much as expected. Nevertheless, the games were commercial successes; prior to the games' Japanese release, "Black" and "White" sold one million consumer pre-orders and became the fastest Nintendo DS titles to sell five million copies. As of September 2017, the games' combined sales have reached 15.64 million, putting them amongst the best-selling games for the Nintendo DS, just behind their predecessors, "Pokémon Diamond" and "Pearl".


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: "Pokémon Black" and "White" are role-playing video games with adventure elements, presented in a third-person, overhead perspective. There are three basic screens: an overworld, in which the player navigates the main character; a battle screen; and the menu, in which the player configures their party, items, or gameplay settings. The player controls a Pokémon Trainer who begins the game with a single Pokémon and is able to capture more using Poké Balls. Like all other Trainers, the player can carry up to six Pokémon at one time. However, the game also includes a network of PCs to store hundreds of Pokémon. PCs are found in certain buildings—named, "Pokémon Centers", where the player can heal their Pokémon when they have low health or have fainted.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: Pokémon can learn up to four moves, including attacking moves, healing moves, and moves that inflict status conditions on the opponent. They have six stats that affect battle performance: maximum hit points (HP), Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. Attack and Special Attack are distinguished from Defense and Special Defense by the types of moves being considered: generally, moves involving physical exertion are physical, while moves involving supernatural or elemental powers are special. Moves are classed as one of seventeen types: Normal, Water, Grass, Fire, Electric, Ghost, Bug, Fighting, Ice, Steel, Rock, Poison, Psychic, Dark, Dragon, Ground, and Flying; Pokémon can have one or two types. Generally, most of a Pokémon's moves correspond to its typing. A Pokémon's type makes it vulnerable or resistant to others; for example, Fire-type Pokémon are weak to Water-type moves, while Grass-type moves do little damage to them and Electric-type moves do normal damage.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: When the player encounters a wild Pokémon or is challenged by another Trainer to a battle, the screen switches to a turn-based battle screen where the Pokémon fight. During the battle, the player may use a move, use an item, switch the active Pokémon, or flee. However, the player cannot flee a battle against another Trainer or against certain wild Pokémon that are stronger than the player's. When a Pokémon's HP is reduced to zero, it faints until it is revived. If an opposing Pokémon faints, all of the player's Pokémon who participated in defeating it receive experience points. After accumulating enough experience points, a Pokémon may level up, increasing its stats. Many Pokémon evolve into other forms after certain conditions are met, usually after reaching a certain level threshold or by having a certain item used on them. At the "Day Care" location, the player can breed two of their Pokémon—usually, a male and a female—to create Eggs that hatch into baby Pokémon at level 1.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: "Pokémon Black" and "White" takes place in the Unova region, based on New York City. As with all regions, Unova consists of a number of cities and towns connected by "Routes". Random encounters may take place in tall grass along routes or in bodies of water. The player occasionally battles Trainers in cities and towns, as well as along routes. In addition, eight of the game's cities and towns are homes to "Gym Leaders", powerful Trainers specializing in certain types of Pokémon; beating a Gym Leader gives the player a "Badge". All eight Badges are needed to unlock the Pokémon League, where the player faces off against the "Elite Four" and, finally, the Champion. Across Unova, items can be found on the ground or purchased from "Poké Marts". For example, Hyper Potions restore HP, Antidotes cure poisoning, and Revives revitalize fainted Pokémon. TMs (Technical Machines) teach moves to Pokémon, and HMs (Hidden Machines) are a special class of TMs for important moves that allow the player to traverse the environment. The "Surf" HM move, for example, is used to cross bodies of water.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: The graphics have been improved from "Diamond" and "Pearl". The dialog boxes of previous games have been changed to speech balloons that appear over other characters' heads, allowing more than one character to speak at once. Japanese players can have kanji appear on screen, rather than only hiragana and katakana. During battles, the sprites of the Pokémon are fully animated and the camera changes position to highlight specific parts of the battle. In addition to continuing the day and night cycle introduced in "Gold" and "Silver", "Black" and "White" introduces a seasonal cycle, with the seasons advancing every month rather than being linked to the calendar. Outside areas appear differently depending on the season, such as changing of leaves in autumn or snow on the ground in winter. Certain areas are only accessible during certain seasons, and different Pokémon can be found in the wild in winter where others are encountered in the other seasons. The Pokémon Deerling and Sawsbuck change their physical appearance to match the seasons.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: There are two new battle mechanics: Triple Battles and Rotation Battles. In Triple Battles, both teams must send out three Pokémon in a row at once; Some moves only allow Pokémon on the left or right side to attack the opponent's Pokémon on the same side or in the center. Changing position takes up one turn. In Rotation Battles, each side sends out three Pokémon at once, but they are arranged in a circle that can be rotated at will. "Black" has more Rotation Battles than Triple Battles, and the opposite is true in "White". Another introduction is Combination Moves: a starter Pokémon can be taught one of three moves, and using them together in Double or Triple battles produces more powerful attacks. In the wild, walking through darker-colored tall grass can trigger Double Battles against wild Pokémon rather than only Single Battles with lighter-colored grass.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: Occasionally, the player can find rustling patches of grass and rippling water, where they can encounter either a rare Pokémon, a Pokémon more common in the opposite game version, or the highest evolutionary form of a Pokémon whose lower forms can normally be found in the area. This is the only way to capture Pokémon such as Audino, Emolga, and Alomomola. Also, dust clouds in caves and the shadows of flying Pokémon on certain bridges can be entered to either find a rare item or encounter Drilbur, Excadrill, Ducklett, or Swanna, none of which can be found in the wild otherwise. Occasionally, when throwing a Poké Ball, the capture rate is highly increased, triggered by a random event. There are also new side-games and sidequests: the player can compete in Pokémon Musicals, a side-game similar to the Pokémon Contests of previous games; the Battle Subway, similar to the Battle Towers and Battle Frontiers of previous games; and on the "Royal Unova", a cruise ship that the player can ride and fight Trainers aboard to win otherwise rare items.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: The C-Gear replaces the Pokétech from "Diamond" and "Pearl" on the Nintendo DS's bottom screen. It controls the game's wireless capabilities, including infrared (IR) communication for battling and trading, wireless communications in the Xtranceiver video chat access to the Entralink to transfer content from the Pokémon Dream World, using the Wi-Fi to sync with the Pokémon Global Link servers, and the new "Pass By mode" which allows the game to communicate with other copies through infrared while the DS is asleep. The Feeling Check function tests the compatibility between two players and awards them items accordingly. In the "Pass By" feature, the player answers various survey questions and receives one of several items depending on how many other players they have connected with. In the "Random Matchup" feature, the player can battle others randomly. When playing against others online or in IR battles, a new mechanic called the Wonder Launcher allows healing items to be used in battle.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: Two features were added to transfer Pokémon from older DS "Pokémon" games to "Black" and "White". For normal transfer, the Poké Transfer feature is available after completion of the main storyline. Unlike the "Pal Park" feature from previous games, the Poké Transfer is a mini-game in which after six Pokémon are transferred, the player uses the touch screen to launch Poké Balls at the transferred Pokémon to catch them within a time limit. Another feature called the Relocator is used to transfer the Pokémon given away in promotions for the film "" so the player can obtain the rare Pokémon Zorua and Zoroark. Unlike the Poké Transfer, this is available before the main game is completed.


title: Pokémon Black and White

text: Unique to "Black" and "White" is the Pokémon Dream World, which is dependent on the official Pokémon Global Link website. Here, the player can befriend Pokémon that are not normally obtainable in-game and that have unique abilities. This occurs after syncing the game back with the Dream World, similarly to the Pokéwalker from "HeartGold" and "SoulSilver". The player can maintain a house in the Dream World that other players can visit as well as grow berries. In addition to allowing access to Pokémon acquired in the Dream World, the Entralink also enables players to interact with each other and play side games. These side-games award points that can be traded for temporary powers such as increasing experience, improving capture rate, or lowering prices of items in Poké Marts.