title: Dolores del Río

text: Cedric Gibbons used his influence with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and gained for del Río the main female role in the 1940 film "The Man from Dakota". But despite his position in the studio, Gibbons was never able to help his wife achieve a higher profile, as the main figures of that company at the time were Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow. Studio executives admired del Río's beauty, but her career did not interest them, as at the time, Latin stars had few opportunities to shine at the studio. She was put on a list entitled "box office poison", (along with stars like Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and others). The list was submitted to Los Angeles newspapers by an independent movie theater whose point was that these stars' high salaries and public prominence did not counteract the low ticket sales for their movies.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Amid the decline of her career, that same year, del Río met actor and filmmaker Orson Welles at a party organized by Darryl Zanuck. The couple felt a mutual attraction and began a discreet affair, which caused the divorce between Dolores and Gibbons. While looking for ways to resume her career, she accompanied Welles in his shows across the United States, works on radio and performances at the Mercury Theatre. del Río was at his side during the filming and controversy of "Citizen Kane" (1941). The film, considered a masterpiece today, caused a media scandal by directing open criticism against the media magnate William Randolph Hearst, who began to boycott Orson's projects.


title: Dolores del Río

text: At the beginning of 1942, she started working on "Journey into Fear" (released in 1943) with Norman Foster as director and Welles as producer. Her relationship with Welles, in the midst of the "Citizen Kane" scandal, somehow affected her, as her character was drastically reduced in the film. Nelson Rockefeller, in charge of the Good Neighbor policy (and also associated with RKO through his family investments), hired Welles to visit South America as an ambassador of goodwill to counter fascist propaganda about Americans. Welles left the film four days later and traveled to Rio de Janeiro as part of his goodwill tour. Welles, involved in filming the carnival in Rio de Janeiro, behaved promiscuously, and the news came soon to the United States. Offended and outraged, del Río decided to end her relationship with Welles through a telegram that he never answered. Weeks later, her father died in Mexico. Due to these personal and professional crisis, she decided to return to Mexico, commenting:


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río had been sought by Mexican film directors since the late 1930s. She was considered to star in the Mexican films "La Noche de los Mayas" and "Santa". Of the latter, Orson Welles himself helped correct the script. But economic circumstances were not favorable for the entry of del Río to the Mexican cinema. She also maintained friendly ties with figures of Mexican art and culture (such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo). After breaking off her relationship with Welles, del Río returned to Mexico.


title: Dolores del Río

text: As soon as she returned to her country, del Río begins to listen to movie offers. Mexican filmmaker Emilio "El Indio" Fernández invited her to film "Flor silvestre" (1943). Fernandez was her great admirer and he was eager to direct her. This was del Río's first Spanish-language film. The film gathers a successful film crew consisting of Fernandez, the cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, the screenwriter Mauricio Magdaleno and del Río and Pedro Armendariz as the stars. The film was a huge box office success and allowed del Río to maintain her prestige as an actress.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Subsequently, del Río and Fernández film crew filmed "María Candelaria". The film tells the story of a native indigenous woman from the lake region of Xochimilco, who is despised by her people. Fernández has said that he wrote an original version of the plot on 13 napkins while sitting in a restaurant. He was anxious because he was in love with del Río and could not afford to buy her a birthday present. However, there were tense moments during the filming of the film. Fernández could not hide his love for del Río and, faced with her rejection of his advances, he began to be very demanding and violent. Del Río showed great professionalism and finished filming, despite several threats to abandon the film. "María Candelaria" was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix (now known as the Palme d'Or) becoming the first Latin American film to do so. For del Rio, the film meant success in her native country.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Her third film with Fernández "Las Abandonadas" (1944), was a then controversial film where del Río plays a woman who gives up her son and falls into the world of prostitution. The film was about to be banned due to protests from the Mexican army, because the film spoke of a criminal gang infiltrated in the Mexican armed forces. These controversies ensured the film's box office success. She won the Silver Ariel (Mexican Academy Award) as best actress for her role in the film.


title: Dolores del Río

text: "Bugambilia" (1944) was her fourth movie directed by Fernández. As del Rio did not correspond to the director's love advances, "Bugambilia" filming became a torture for both and for the rest of the team, who had to endure the mood swings of the director and the constant threats of del Río leaving the film. When the film was completed in January 1945, del Río announced that she would never again work with "El Indio" Fernández.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río filmed "La selva de fuego" (1945) directed by Fernando de Fuentes. The script of this film came to her in error, because of a confused messaging. The film had been specially created for María Félix, another Mexican movie star of the day. Félix meanwhile, received the script for "Dizziness" (1946), a film originally created for del Río. When the two stars realized the mistake they refused to return the scripts. Del Río was fascinated by playing a different character which also involved her in daring scenes with the Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova. From this time the press began speculating a strong rivalry between del Río and Felix.


title: Dolores del Río

text: After breaking off her film collaboration with Emilio Fernández, del Río began a film partnership with director Roberto Gavaldón. Del Río plays twin sisters in the film "La Otra" (1946), her first film under Gavaldón's direction. This film later inspired the movie "Dead Ringer", starring Bette Davis in 1964.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1947, del Río was invited by the film director John Ford to play the role of an indigenous woman who helps a fugitive priest (Henry Fonda) in the film "The Fugitive", an adaptation of the novel "The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene. Emilio Fernández also served as associate producer and Gabriel Figueroa was the cinematographer. The movie was filmed in Mexico. Del Río was attacked again for having taken part in what was being called "a communist project".


title: Dolores del Río

text: In the same period, she traveled to Argentina to film "Story of a Bad Woman" ("Historia de una mala mujer", 1948), a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan", directed by Luis Saslavsky. While shooting in Buenos Aires in 1947, del Río was pursued by none other than First Lady Evita Peron. Peron invited del Río to tea, but del Río declined because of her filmmaking schedule. The next day, the government issued an order that the film industry was to shut down completely so del Río could have tea with Mrs. Peron. Rumors about her involvement in issues linked to communism sounded the alarm in Hollywood. In an interview with Hedda Hopper from Argentina, del Río claimed to be unconcerned about the controversy surrounding "The Fugitive". According to Hopper, "Dolores said controversy added millions of pesos to the profit of the picture".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río accepted working again with Emilio Fernández and her film team in the film "La Malquerida" (1949). The film is based on the novel of the Spanish writer Jacinto Benavente. Del Río gained good notices for her portrayal of "Raymunda", a woman confronted by her own daughter for the love of a man. The role of her daughter was played by actress Columba Dominguez. Domínguez was Fernández's new romantic partner, and this situation caused tension on the set and speculation from the press. That year she also met the American millionaire Lewis A. Riley in Acapulco and they started a romance. Del Río was directed again by Roberto Gavaldón in two films: "The Little House" ("La casa chica", 1950) and "Desired" ("Deseada", 1951). That same year, del Río's cousin, activist Maria Asúnsolo, asked her to sign a document for a "conference for the world peace". Del Río never imagined that said document would point her out again as a supporter of international communism.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río starred in "Doña Perfecta" (1951), based on the novel by Benito Perez Galdos. For this work she won her second Silver Ariel Award for Best Actress. Gavaldón directed her again in the film "El Niño y la Niebla" (1953). Her portrayal of an overprotective mother with a mental instability attracted critical acclaim and she was honored with her third Silver Ariel Award.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1954, del Río was slated to appear as the wife of Spencer Tracy's character in the 20th Century Fox film "Broken Lance". The U.S. government denied her permission to work in the United States, accusing her of being sympathetic to international communism. The document signed by her cheering for world peace, as well as her links with figures openly communist (as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were) and her past relationship with Orson Welles, had been interpreted in the United States as sympathy with communism. She was replaced in the film by Katy Jurado. She reacted by sending a letter to the U.S. government, stating:


title: Dolores del Río

text: While her situation was being remedied in the United States, del Río accepted the proposal of filming in Spain another adaptation of a novel by Benavente, "Señora Ama" (1955), directed by her cousin, the filmmaker Julio Bracho. Unfortunately the prevailing censorship in the Spanish cinema caused the film to be seriously truncated during editing.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1956, her political situation in the United States was resolved. She began to listen with interest to theatrical offerings. Del Río was already thinking that the play "Anastacia" of Marcelle Maurette, would be a good choice for her debut. To prepare for this new facet of her career, she engaged the services of Stella Adler as her acting coach. Del Río debuted successfully at the theater on the Falmouth Playhouse in Massachusetts on July 6, 1956 and to continue with a tour of seven other theaters throughout New England. She took advantage of her return to the United States and granted an interview to Louella Parsons to make clear her political position: "In Mexico we are worried and fighting against communism." In 1957, she was selected as vice president of the jury of the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. She was the first woman to sit on the jury. In 1957, she debuted in television in the role of a Spanish lady in the American television series "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars", with Cesar Romero as co-star.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1959, Mexican filmmaker Ismael Rodríguez brought del Río and María Félix together in the film "La Cucaracha". The meeting of the two actresses, considered the main female stars of Mexican cinema, was a success at the box office. Although the press speculated that a war would break out between the two actresses, the truth is that the filming went smoothly and both ended up forming friendly ties. That same year, she married Lewis Riley in a private ceremony in New York.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río and her husband founded their own production company called Producciones Visuales. and they produced numerous theater projects featuring del Río. Mexican writer Salvador Novo became the translator of her plays. Her first production in Mexico City was Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan", which she had made as a film in Argentina a decade earlier. She toured Mexico in the play, an enterprise that was both financially and critically successful, and she later took it to Buenos Aires. In 1958, the play "The Road to Rome", would mark the reunion in the theater of the film couple del Río-Pedro Armendáriz. But the temperamental Armendáriz left the project in rehearsals due to differences with the director. He was replaced by another actor, but the project did not prosper and was a failure at the box office.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río returned to Hollywood after 18 years. She was hired by Fox to play the role of the mother of Elvis Presley's character in the film "Flaming Star" (1960), directed by Don Siegel. She appeared in John Ford's "Cheyenne Autumn" released in 1964. In 1967, the Italian filmmaker Francesco Rosi invited her to be part of the movie "More Than a Miracle" (also 1967) with Sophia Loren and Omar Sharif. She played Sharif's character's mother.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Throughout the 1960s, del Río produced and starred in Mexico in theater projects such as "Ghosts" (1962), "Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters" (1963), "La Voyante" (1964) and "The Queen and the Rebels" (1967)


title: Dolores del Río

text: She also appeared in the TV shows "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" (1960), the TV movie "The Man Who Bought Paradise" (1965), "I Spy" and "Branded" (1966). In 1968, del Río first performed on Mexican television in an autobiographical documentary narrated by her.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1970, she produced and starred in theater "The Lady of the Camellias". The project was originally directed by the Broadway producer José Quintero. However, despite having received a high salary, the producer did not commit to the project and constantly appeared drunk. Del Río and her husband decided to fire him and were legally sued by the director. The matter was cleared up in court and delayed the premiere of the play, which was a great box office success, despite production problems. Del Río was acclaimed at daring to play a 65-year-old "Marguerite Gautier".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Since the late 1950s, del Río became a main promoter of the Acapulco International Film Review, serving as host on numerous occasions. In 1966, del Río was co-founder of the Society for the Protection of the Artistic Treasures of Mexico with the philanthropist Felipe García Beraza. The society was responsible for protecting buildings, paintings and other works of art and culture in México.


title: Dolores del Río

text: On January 8, 1970, she, in collaboration with other renowned Mexican actresses, founded the union group "Rosa Mexicano", which provided a day nursery for the children of the members of the Mexican Actor's Guild. Del Río was responsible for various activities to raise funds for the project and she trained in modern teaching techniques. She served as the president from its founding until 1981. After her death, the day nursery adopted the official name of "Estancia Infantil Dolores del Río (The Dolores del Río Day Nursery"), and today remains in existence.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1972, she helped found the Cultural Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato. Her deteriorating health led her to cancel two television projects in 1975. The American television series "Who'll See the Children?" and Mexican telenovela "Ven Amigo". In her work in supporting children she became a spokeswoman of the UNICEF in Latin America and records a series of television commercials for the organization. In 1976 she served as president of the jury in the San Sebastian Film Festival.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1978, Dolores makes her last film appearance in the film "The Children of Sanchez", directed by Hall Bartlett and starring Anthony Quinn. There she interprets the role of the grandmother. In the same year, the Mexican American Institute of Cultural Relations and the White House gave Dolores a diploma and a silver plaque for her work in cinema as a cultural ambassador of Mexico in the United States. During the ceremony she was remembered as a victim of McCarthyism.


title: Dolores del Río

text: At the age of 76, del Río appeared on the stage of the Palace of Fine Arts theater the evening of October 11, 1981 for a tribute at the 25th San Francisco International Film Festival. During the ceremony, filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, Mervyn LeRoy and George Cukor spoke, with Cukor declaring del Rio the "First Lady of American Cinema". This was her last known public appearance. In 1982, she was awarded the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río always projected a special elegance with her beauty, more than just a "Latin bombshell" such as other actresses like Lupe Vélez. Del Rio's intrinsic elegance was apparent even off-screen. Del Río strongly identified with her Mexican heritage despite her growing fame and her transition to "modernity". She also felt strongly about being able to play Mexican roles and bemoaned the fact that she was not cast in them. She never relinquished her Mexican citizenship and said in 1929 (at the height of her popularity) that she wanted "to play a Mexican woman and show what life in Mexico really is. No one has shown the artistic side – nor the social".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río was considered one of the prototypes of female beauty in the 1930s. In 1933, the American film magazine "Photoplay" conducted a search for "the most perfect female figure in Hollywood", using the criteria of doctors, artists and designers as judges. The "unanimous choice" of these selective arbiters of female beauty was Del Río. The question posed by the search for the magazine and the methodology used to find "the most perfect female figure" reveal a series of parameters that define femininity and feminine beauty at that particular moment in the US history. Larry Carr (author of the book "More Fabulous Faces") said Del Río's appearance in the early 1930s influenced Hollywood. Women imitated her style of dress and makeup. A new kind of beauty occurred, and Del Río was the forerunner. Dolores Del Rio imitated Joan Crawford’s makeup and hairstyles. Indeed, she even imitated Crawford’s photographic poses. She is also considered the pioneer of the two piece swimsuit.


title: Dolores del Río

text: According to Austrian-American filmmaker Josef von Sternberg, stars such as Del Río, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard and Rita Hayworth helped him to define his concept of the glamour in Hollywood.


title: Dolores del Río

text: When Del Río returned to Mexico, she radically changed her image. In Hollywood, she had lost ground to the modernity of the faces. In Mexico, she had the enormous fortune that filmmaker Emilio Fernández emphasized Mexican indigenous features. She did not come to Mexico as the Hollywood "Latin bombshell" transforming her makeup to highlight her indigenous features. Del Río defined the change that her appearance suffered in her native country: "I took off my furs and diamonds, satin shoes and pearl necklaces; all swapped by the shawl and bare feet."


title: Dolores del Río

text: American actress Joan Crawford: "Dolores became, and remains, as one of the most beautiful stars in the world".


title: Dolores del Río

text: German-American actress and singer Marlene Dietrich: "Dolores del Río was the most beautiful woman who ever set foot in Hollywood". “Ah, this is the real beauty. We blondes have to work at it".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Playwright George Bernard Shaw: "The two most beautiful things in the world are the Taj Mahal and Dolores del Río".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli: "I have seen many beautiful women in here, but none as complete as Dolores del Río!"


title: Dolores del Río

text: Mexican painter Diego Rivera: "The most beautiful, the most gorgeous of the west, east, north and south. I'm in love with her as 40 million Mexicans and 120 million Americans who can't be wrong".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes: "Garbo and Dietrich were women turned into goddesses. Del Río was a goddess about being a woman".


title: Dolores del Río

text: American photographer Jerome Zerbe: "Dolores del Río and Marlene Dietrich are the most beautiful women I've ever photographed".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Australian-American costume designer Orry-Kelly: "I draped her naked body in jersey. She wanted no underpinnings to spoil the line. When I finished draping her she became a Greek goddess as she walked close to the mirror and said, "It is beautiful". Gazing into the mirror, she said in a half-whisper, "Jesus, I am beautiful". Narcissistic? Probably yes, but she was right. She looked beautiful".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa: "I have had great beauties in front of my camera. But the facial bones of Dolores del Río are incomparable. That has been said many times. What has not been said is that she had a privileged smooth skin, a beautiful brown color and a body really perfect".


title: Dolores del Río

text: American actor and director Orson Welles: "Del Río represented the highest erotic ideal with her performance in the film "Bird of Paradise".


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río herself commented on her face and image: "Take care of your inner beauty, your spiritual beauty, and that will reflect in your face. We have the face we created over the years. Every bad deed, every bad fault will show on your face. God can give us beauty and genes can give us our features, but whether that beauty remains or changes is determined by our thoughts and deeds."


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1952, she was awarded the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award and was called the "best-dressed woman in America".


title: Dolores del Río

text: She married Jaime Martínez del Río in 1921. Her marriage ended in 1928. The differences between the couple emerged after settling in Hollywood. In Mexico she had been the wife of Jaime Martinez del Río, but in Hollywood Jaime became husband of a movie star. The trauma of a miscarriage added to the marital difficulties and del Río was advised not to have children. After a brief separation, Dolores filed for divorce. Six months later, she received news that Jaime had died in Germany.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1930, del Río met Cedric Gibbons, an art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of the most influential men in Hollywood, at a party at Hearst Castle. The couple began a romance and finally married on August 6, 1930. The del Rio-Gibbons were one of the most famous couples of Hollywood in the early thirties. They organized 'Sunday brunches' in their Art Deco house at 757 Kingman Avenue in the Rustic Canyon neighborhood of Pacific Palisades. Many celebrities would attend and play tennis or swim in the pool including Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Cary Grant. The couple divorced in 1941.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1949 she met the American millionaire Lewis A. Riley in Acapulco. Riley was known in the Hollywood cinema in the forties for being a member of the Hollywood Canteen, an organization created by movie stars to support relief efforts in World War II. At that time Riley was engaged in a torrid affair with Bette Davis. Del Río and Riley started a romance. In 1959, the couple married in New York after ten years of relationship. They remained together until her death in 1983.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Regardless of her marriages, at different times in her life, she was romantically linked with actor Errol Flynn, filmmaker John Farrow, writer Erich Maria Remarque, film producer Archibaldo Burns, and actor Tito Junco.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Mexican filmmaker Emilio Fernández was one of her admirers. He said that he had appeared as an extra in several films of Dolores in Hollywood just to be near her. The beauty and elegance of del Río had impressed him deeply. Fernández said: "I fell in love with her, but she always ignored me. I adored her... really I adored her."


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río met actor and filmmaker Orson Welles at a party organized by Darryl Zanuck. The couple felt a mutual attraction and began a discreet affair. Welles was infatuated with her since adolescence. Welles declared: “That’s when I fell in love with her”. He later said: “She changed my life”. Their relationship was kept secret until 1941, when del Río filed for divorce from Cedric Gibbons. They openly appeared together in New York while Welles was directing the Mercury stage production "Native Son". After del Río filed for divorce, she threw herself into Welles’ chaotic world, considering his intellect “second to none, not even Shakespeare.” Welles was equally complimentary. “She lives so graciously. Everyone around her loves her. She is the one girl you can be with and not feel the need for conversation. She has a mind full of talk, though, when she wants”. Throughout the filming of "Citizen Kane", del Río was often at the difficult Welles’ side, soothing him when he banged his head against the wall and dealing with his insomnia as he abused Dexedrine. They acted together in the movie "Journey into Fear" (1943).


title: Dolores del Río

text: Her relationship with Welles ended after four years largely due to his infidelities. Welles, involved in filming the carnival in Rio de Janeiro, behaved promiscuously and the news came soon to the United States. Offended and outraged, del Río decided to end her relationship with Welles through a telegram that he never answered. He married later with Rita Hayworth, "The New Dolores del Río of Hollywood".


title: Dolores del Río

text: But Welles never got over her completely, and off and on he went to Mexico in usually fruitless attempts to see her, or sent his children, whom she did receive.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Rebecca Welles, the daughter of Welles and Hayworth, expressed her desire to travel to Mexico to meet Dolores on her 18th birthday. In 1962, Dolores received her at her home in Acapulco. After their meeting, Rebecca said: "My father considered Dolores the great love of his life. She is a living legend in the history of my family." According to Rebecca, until the end of his life, Welles felt for del Río a kind of obsession.


title: Dolores del Río

text: For the rest of her life del Río kept a card with two beautiful slanted eyes (easily identifiable as Dolores’s own) and a dove drawing along a banner inscribed with the word "always" and signed "Orson".


title: Dolores del Río

text: There are many anecdotes about her rivalry with Lupe Vélez. Del Río never understood the quarrel that Vélez kept with her. Vélez hated del Río, and called her "bird of bad omen". Del Río was terrified to meet her in public places. When this happened, Vélez was scathing and aggressive. Vélez openly mimicked del Río, ironically making fun of her elegance. But the prestige of del Río was known and respected, and Vélez could not ignore this. Vélez wore spectacular costumes, but never reached del Río's supreme elegance. Vélez was popular, had many friends and devoted fans, but never attended the social circle in Hollywood, where del Río was accepted without reservations. Vélez spoke ill of del Río, but del Río never mentioned her name in an offensive way. Vélez evidently resented Del Rio's success during the years in which both met in Hollywood.


title: Dolores del Río

text: There was media speculation about a strong rivalry between Del Rio and María Félix, another diva of the Mexican Cinema. Félix said in her autobiography: "With Dolores I don't have any rivalry. On the contrary. We were friends and we always treated each other with great respect. We were completely different. She [was] refined, interesting, soft on the deal, and I'm more energetic, arrogant and bossy". Félix said in another interview: "Dolores del Río was a great lady. She behaved like a princess. A very intelligent and very funny woman. I appreciate her very much and I have great memories of her".


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1978, she was diagnosed with osteomyelitis, and in 1981, with hepatitis B following a contaminated injection of vitamins. She also suffered from arthritis. In 1982, del Río was admitted to Scripps Hospital, La Jolla, California, where hepatitis led to cirrhosis.


title: Dolores del Río

text: On April 11, 1983, Dolores del Río died from liver failure at the age of 78 in Newport Beach, California. It is said that the day she died, an invitation to attend the Oscars was sent to her. She was cremated and her ashes were moved from the United States to Mexico where they were buried at the Panteón de Dolores in Mexico City, Mexico, specifically on The Rotunda of Illustrious Persons.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río was the first Mexican actress to succeed in Hollywood. In her wake others followed including Lupe Vélez, Katy Jurado and Lupita Tovar In recent years other Mexican stars that have achieved a place in Hollywood include Salma Hayek, Eiza González, and Adriana Barraza


title: Dolores del Río

text: The physical characteristics of del Río made her a figure of veneration even beyond death. From a young age, del Río had the intelligence to know how to surround herself with personalities of the intellectual environment. The Hollywood myth placed del Río in another area, as she became one of the women related to the renaissance of Mexican culture and customs.


title: Dolores del Río

text: The face of del Río was also the object of veneration for many artists who shaped her image on their canvases. In 1916, when del Río was 11 years old, she was first portrayed by Alfredo Ramos Martínez, a very popular artist among Mexican high society. In the 1920s, del Río was also embodied in the canvases of Mexican painters Roberto Montenegro and Ángel Zárraga. In 1938, the actress was portrayed by her close friend, the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The portrait was made in New York. It was del Río's favorite portrait and occupied a special place in her home in Mexico. Rivera also captured the image of Dolores in some of his paintings and murals, highlighting "La vendedorea de flores", "La pollera" and "La Creacion". In this last mural, located in the Colegio de San Ildefonso, in Mexico City, the actress represents "Justice".


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1941, del Río was also portrayed by the famous Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco. The portrait was made at the request of Orson Welles. Unfortunately, when the artist painted the portrait he was already losing his sight. del Río said: ""He painted his tragedy on my face!"" Although the portrait was not liked by the actress, it had a very important place in her home. Other artists who recorded her image in her paintings were Miguel Covarrubias, Rosa Rolanda, Antonieta Figueroa, Frances Gauner Goshman, Adolfo Best Maugard and John Carroll.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In 1970, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, the Mexico's Screen Actors Guild, the Humane Society of the Artistic Treasures of Mexico and the Motion Picture Export Association of America paid her a tribute titled "Dolores del Rio in the Art" in which her main portraits and a sculpture by Francisco Zúñiga were exhibited.


title: Dolores del Río

text: In her will, del Río stipulated that all her artworks be donated to the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature of Mexico, for display in various museums in Mexico City, including the National Museum of Art, the Museum of Art Carillo Gil and the Home-Studio of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Del Río was the model of the statue of "Evangeline", the heroine of Longfellow's romantic poem located in St. Martinville, Louisiana. The statue was donated by del Río, who played Evangeline in the 1929 film.


title: Dolores del Río

text: Poet Salvador Novo wrote her a sonnet and translated all her stage plays. She inspired Jaime Torres Bodet's novel "La Estrella de Día" ("Star of the Day"), published in 1933, which chronicles the life of an actress named "Piedad". Vicente Leñero was inspired by del Río to write his book, "Señora". Carlos Pellicer also wrote her a poem in 1967. In 1982, del Río and Maria Félix were parodied in the novel "Orchids in the Moonlight: Mexican Comedy" by Carlos Fuentes. Other authors who wrote her poems were Xavier Villaurrutia, Celestino Gorostiza and Pita Amor. Carlos Monsiváis and Jorge Ayala Blanco also made her a tribute book on the occasion of the Ibero-American Film Festival of Huelva, in 1983. The book contains an essay by Monsiváis entitled "Responsibilities of a face". Vicente Leñero also pays tribute to the book "Señora".


title: Dolores del Río

text: After her death, her photo archive was given to the Carso Center for the Study of Mexican History by Lewis Riley.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird (Turdus merula) is a species of true thrush. It is also called the Eurasian blackbird (especially in North America, to distinguish it from the unrelated New World blackbirds), or simply the blackbird where this does not lead to confusion with a local species. It breeds in Europe, Asiatic Russia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to Australia and New Zealand. It has a number of subspecies across its large range; a few of the Asian subspecies are sometimes considered to be full species. Depending on latitude, the common blackbird may be resident, partially migratory, or fully migratory.


title: Common blackbird

text: The adult male of the common blackbird ("Turdus merula merula", the nominate subspecies), which is found throughout most of Europe, is all black except for a yellow eye-ring and bill and has a rich, melodious song; the adult female and juvenile have mainly dark brown plumage. This species breeds in woods and gardens, building a neat, cup-shaped nest, bound together with mud. It is omnivorous, eating a wide range of insects, earthworms, berries, and fruits.


title: Common blackbird

text: Both sexes are territorial on the breeding grounds, with distinctive threat displays, but are more gregarious during migration and in wintering areas. Pairs stay in their territory throughout the year where the climate is sufficiently temperate. This common and conspicuous species has given rise to a number of literary and cultural references, frequently related to its song.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of "Systema Naturae" as "Turdus merula" (characterised as "T. ater, rostro palpebrisque fulvis"). The binomial name derives from two Latin words, "turdus", "thrush", and "merula", "blackbird", the latter giving rise to its French name, "merle", and its Scots name, "merl".


title: Common blackbird

text: About 65 species of medium to large thrushes are in the genus "Turdus", characterised by rounded heads, longish, pointed wings, and usually melodious songs. Although two European thrushes, the song thrush and mistle thrush, are early offshoots from the Eurasian lineage of "Turdus" thrushes after they spread north from Africa, the blackbird is descended from ancestors that had colonised the Canary Islands from Africa and subsequently reached Europe from there. It is close in evolutionary terms to the island thrush ("T. poliocephalus") of Southeast Asia and islands in the southwest Pacific, which probably diverged from "T. merula" stock fairly recently.


title: Common blackbird

text: It may not immediately be clear why the name "blackbird", first recorded in 1486, was applied to this species, but not to one of the various other common black English birds, such as the carrion crow, raven, rook, or jackdaw. However, in Old English, and in modern English up to about the 18th century, "bird" was used only for smaller or young birds, and larger ones such as crows were called "fowl". At that time, the blackbird was therefore the only widespread and conspicuous "black bird" in the British Isles. Until about the 17th century, another name for the species was "ouzel", "ousel" or "wosel" (from Old English "osle", cf. German "Amsel"). Another variant occurs in Act 3 of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", where Bottom refers to "The Woosell cocke, so blacke of hew, With Orenge-tawny bill". The ouzel usage survived later in poetry, and still occurs as the name of the closely related ring ouzel ("Turdus torquatus"), and in water ouzel, an alternative name for the unrelated but superficially similar white-throated dipper ("Cinclus cinclus") and American dipper ("Cinclus mexicanus").


title: Common blackbird

text: Two related Asian "Turdus" thrushes, the white-collared blackbird ("T. albocinctus") and the grey-winged blackbird ("T. boulboul"), are also named blackbirds, and the Somali thrush ("T. (olivaceus) ludoviciae") is alternatively known as the Somali blackbird.


title: Common blackbird

text: The icterid family of the New World is sometimes called the blackbird family because of some species' superficial resemblance to the common blackbird and other Old World thrushes, but they are not evolutionarily close, being related to the New World warblers and tanagers. The term is often limited to smaller species with mostly or entirely black plumage, at least in the breeding male, notably the cowbirds, the grackles, and for around 20 species with "blackbird" in the name, such as the red-winged blackbird and the melodious blackbird.


title: Common blackbird

text: As would be expected for a widespread passerine bird species, several geographical subspecies are recognised. The treatment of subspecies in this article follows Clement "et al." (2000).


title: Common blackbird

text: The Asian subspecies, the relatively large "intermedius" also differs in structure and voice, and may represent a distinct species. Alternatively, it has been suggested that they should be considered subspecies of "T. maximus", but they differ in structure, voice and the appearance of the eye-ring.


title: Common blackbird

text: In Europe, the common blackbird can be confused with the paler-winged first-winter ring ouzel ("Turdus torquatus") or the superficially similar common starling ("Sturnus vulgaris"). A number of similar "Turdus" thrushes exist far outside the range of the common blackbird, for example the South American Chiguanco thrush ("Turdus chiguanco"). The Indian blackbird, the Tibetan blackbird, and the Chinese blackbird were formerly considered subspecies of the common blackbird.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird of the nominate subspecies "T. m. merula" is in length, has a long tail, and weighs . The adult male has glossy black plumage, blackish-brown legs, a yellow eye-ring and an orange-yellow bill. The bill darkens somewhat in winter. The adult female is sooty-brown with a dull yellowish-brownish bill, a brownish-white throat and some weak mottling on the breast. The juvenile is similar to the female, but has pale spots on the upperparts, and the very young juvenile also has a speckled breast. Young birds vary in the shade of brown, with darker birds presumably males. The first year male resembles the adult male, but has a dark bill and weaker eye ring, and its folded wing is brown, rather than black like the body plumage.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird breeds in temperate Eurasia, North Africa, the Canary Islands, and South Asia. It has been introduced to Australia and New Zealand. Populations are sedentary in the south and west of the range, although northern birds migrate south as far as northern Africa and tropical Asia in winter. Urban males are more likely to overwinter in cooler climes than rural males, an adaptation made feasible by the warmer microclimate and relatively abundant food that allow the birds to establish territories and start reproducing earlier in the year. Recoveries of blackbirds ringed on the Isle of May show that these birds commonly migrate from southern Norway (or from as far north as Trondheim) to Scotland, and some onwards to Ireland. Scottish-ringed birds have also been recovered in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. Female blackbirds in Scotland and the north of England migrate more (to Ireland) in winter than do the males


title: Common blackbird

text: Common over most of its range in woodland, the common blackbird has a preference for deciduous trees with dense undergrowth. However, gardens provide the best breeding habitat with up to 7.3 pairs per hectare (nearly three pairs per acre), with woodland typically holding about a tenth of that density, and open and very built-up habitats even less. They are often replaced by the related ring ouzel in areas of higher altitude. The common blackbird also lives in parks, gardens and hedgerows.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird occurs at elevations up to in Europe, in North Africa, and at in peninsular India and Sri Lanka, but the large Himalayan subspecies range much higher, with "T. m. maximus" breeding at and remaining above even in winter.


title: Common blackbird

text: This widespread species has occurred as a vagrant in many locations in Eurasia outside its normal range, but records from North America are normally considered to involve escapees, including, for example, the 1971 bird in Quebec. However, a 1994 record from Bonavista, Newfoundland, has been accepted as a genuine wild bird, and the species is therefore on the North American list.


title: Common blackbird

text: The male common blackbird defends its breeding territory, chasing away other males or utilising a "bow and run" threat display. This consists of a short run, the head first being raised and then bowed with the tail dipped simultaneously. If a fight between male blackbirds does occur, it is usually short and the intruder is soon chased away. The female blackbird is also aggressive in the spring when it competes with other females for a good nesting territory, and although fights are less frequent, they tend to be more violent.


title: Common blackbird

text: The bill's appearance is important in the interactions of the common blackbird. The territory-holding male responds more aggressively towards models with orange bills than to those with yellow bills, and reacts least to the brown bill colour typical of the first-year male. The female is, however, relatively indifferent to bill colour, but responds instead to shinier bills.


title: Common blackbird

text: As long as winter food is available, both the male and female will remain in the territory throughout the year, although occupying different areas. Migrants are more gregarious, travelling in small flocks and feeding in loose groups in the wintering grounds. The flight of migrating birds comprises bursts of rapid wing beats interspersed with level or diving movement, and differs from both the normal fast agile flight of this species and the more dipping action of larger thrushes.


title: Common blackbird

text: The male common blackbird attracts the female with a courtship display which consists of oblique runs combined with head-bowing movements, an open beak, and a "strangled" low song. The female remains motionless until she raises her head and tail to permit copulation. This species is monogamous, and the established pair will usually stay together as long as they both survive. Pair separation rates of up to 20% have been noted following poor breeding. Although the species is socially monogamous, there have been studies showing as much as 17% extra-pair paternity.


title: Common blackbird

text: The nominate "T. merula" may commence breeding in March, but eastern and Indian races are a month or more later, and the introduced New Zealand birds start nesting in August (late winter). The breeding pair prospects for a suitable nest site in a creeper or bush, favouring evergreen or thorny species such as ivy, holly, hawthorn, honeysuckle or pyracantha. Sometimes the birds will nest in sheds or outbuildings where a ledge or cavity is used. The cup-shaped nest is made with grasses, leaves and other vegetation, bound together with mud. It is built by the female alone. She lays three to five (usually four) bluish-green eggs marked with reddish-brown blotches, heaviest at the larger end; the eggs of nominate "T. merula" are on average in size and weigh , of which 6% is shell. Eggs of birds of the southern Indian races are paler than those from the northern subcontinent and Europe.


title: Common blackbird

text: The female incubates for 12–14 days before the altricial chicks are hatched naked and blind. Fledging takes another 10–19 (average 13.6) days, with both parents feeding the young and removing faecal sacs. The nest is often ill-concealed compared with those of other species, and many breeding attempts fail due to predation. The young are fed by the parents for up to three weeks after leaving the nest, and will follow the adults begging for food. If the female starts another nest, the male alone will feed the fledged young. Second broods are common, with the female reusing the same nest if the brood was successful, and three broods may be raised in the south of the common blackbird's range.


title: Common blackbird

text: A common blackbird has an average life expectancy of 2.4 years, and, based on data from bird ringing, the oldest recorded age is 21 years and 10 months.


title: Common blackbird

text: In its native Northern Hemisphere range, the first-year male common blackbird of the nominate race may start singing as early as late January in fine weather in order to establish a territory, followed in late March by the adult male. The male's song is a varied and melodious low-pitched fluted warble, given from trees, rooftops or other elevated perches mainly in the period from March to June, sometimes into the beginning of July. It has a number of other calls, including an aggressive "seee", a "pook-pook-pook" alarm for terrestrial predators like cats, and various "chink" and "chook, chook" vocalisations. The territorial male invariably gives "chink-chink" calls in the evening in an attempt (usually unsuccessful) to deter other blackbirds from roosting in its territory overnight. During the northern winter, blackbirds can be heard quietly singing to themselves. Like other passerine birds, it has a thin high "seeet" alarm call for threats from birds of prey since the sound is rapidly attenuated in vegetation, making the source difficult to locate.


title: Common blackbird

text: In urban and suburban environments with high levels of anthropogenic noise, such as near airports, blackbirds have been observed modifying their song to successfully compensate and compete with the noise, singing for longer periods of time, at a higher volume, and earlier during their area's dawn chorus, when environmental sounds are less prominent.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird is omnivorous, eating a wide range of insects, spiders, snails, earthworms, seeds, berries and other fruits. It feeds mainly on the ground, running and hopping with a start-stop-start progress. It pulls earthworms from the soil, usually finding them by sight, but sometimes by hearing, and roots through leaf litter for other invertebrates. Small amphibians, lizards and (on rare occasions) small mammals are occasionally hunted. This species will also perch in bushes to take berries and collect caterpillars and other active insects, such as beetles and grasshoppers. Animal prey predominates, and is particularly important during the breeding season, with windfall apples and berries taken more in the autumn and winter. The nature of the fruit taken depends on what is locally available, and frequently includes exotics in gardens. As the blackbird lives in proximity to urbanized areas, it likely supplements its diet with man-made food.


title: Common blackbird

text: Near human habitation the main predator of the common blackbird is the domestic cat, with newly fledged young especially vulnerable. Foxes and predatory birds, such as the sparrowhawk and other accipiters, also take this species when the opportunity arises. However, there is little direct evidence to show that either predation of the adult blackbirds or loss of the eggs and chicks to corvids, such as the European magpie or Eurasian jay, decrease population numbers.


title: Common blackbird

text: This species is occasionally a host of parasitic cuckoos, such as the common cuckoo ("Cuculus canorus"), but this is minimal because the common blackbird recognizes the adult of the parasitic species and its non-mimetic eggs. In the UK, only three nests of 59,770 examined (0.005%) contained cuckoo eggs. The introduced "merula" blackbird in New Zealand, where the cuckoo does not occur, has, over the past 130 years, lost the ability to recognize the adult common cuckoo but still rejects non-mimetic eggs.


title: Common blackbird

text: As with other passerine birds, parasites are common. Intestinal parasites were found in 88% of common blackbirds, most frequently "Isospora" and "Capillaria" species. and more than 80% had haematozoan parasites ("Leucocytozoon", "Plasmodium", "Haemoproteus" and "Trypanosoma" species).


title: Common blackbird

text: Common blackbirds spend much of their time looking for food on the ground where they can become infested with ticks, which are external parasites that most commonly attach to the head of a blackbird. In France, 74% of rural blackbirds were found to be infested with "Ixodes" ticks, whereas, only 2% of blackbirds living in urban habitats were infested. This is partly because it is more difficult for ticks to find another host on lawns and gardens in urban areas than in uncultivated rural areas, and partly because ticks are likely to be commoner in rural areas, where a variety of tick hosts, such as foxes, deer and boar, are more numerous. Although ixodid ticks can transmit pathogenic viruses and bacteria, and are known to transmit "Borrelia" bacteria to birds, there is no evidence that this affects the fitness of blackbirds except when they are exhausted and run down after migration.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird is one of a number of species which has unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. One hemisphere of the brain is effectively asleep, while a low-voltage EEG, characteristic of wakefulness, is present in the other. The benefit of this is that the bird can rest in areas of high predation or during long migratory flights, but still retain a degree of alertness.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird has an extensive range, estimated at 32.4 million square kilometres (12.5 million square miles), and a large population, including an estimated 110 to 174 million individuals in Europe alone. The species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations), and is therefore evaluated as least concern In the western Palearctic, populations are generally stable or increasing, but there have been local declines, especially on farmland, which may be due to agricultural policies that encouraged farmers to remove hedgerows (which provide nesting places), and to drain damp grassland and increase the use of pesticides, both of which could have reduced the availability of invertebrate food.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird was introduced to Australia by a bird dealer visiting Melbourne in early 1857, and its range has expanded from its initial foothold in Melbourne and Adelaide to include all of southeastern Australia, including Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands. The introduced population in Australia is considered a pest because it damages a variety of soft fruits in orchards, parks and gardens, including berries, cherries, stone fruit and grapes. It is thought to spread weeds, such as blackberry, and may compete with native birds for food and nesting sites.


title: Common blackbird

text: The introduced common blackbird is, together with the native silvereye ("Zosterops lateralis"), the most widely distributed avian seed disperser in New Zealand. Introduced there along with the song thrush ("Turdus philomelos") in 1862, it has spread throughout the country up to an elevation of , as well as outlying islands such as the Campbell and Kermadecs. It eats a wide range of native and exotic fruit, and makes a major contribution to the development of communities of naturalised woody weeds. These communities provide fruit more suited to non-endemic native birds and naturalised birds than to endemic birds.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird was seen as a sacred though destructive bird in Classical Greek folklore, and was said to die if it consumed pomegranates. Like many other small birds, it has in the past been trapped in rural areas at its night roosts as an easily available addition to the diet, and in medieval times the practice of placing live birds under a pie crust just before serving may have been the origin of the familiar nursery rhyme:


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird's melodious, distinctive song is mentioned in the poem "Adlestrop" by Edward Thomas;


title: Common blackbird

text: In the English Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas", the line commonly sung today as "four calling birds" is believed to have originally been written in the 18th century as "four colly birds", an archaism meaning "black as coal" that was a popular English nickname for the common blackbird.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird, unlike many black creatures, is not normally seen as a symbol of bad luck, but R. S. Thomas wrote that there is "a suggestion of dark Places about it", and it symbolised resignation in the 17th century tragic play "The Duchess of Malfi"; an alternate connotation is vigilance, the bird's clear cry warning of danger.


title: Common blackbird

text: The common blackbird is the national bird of Sweden, which has a breeding population of 1–2 million pairs, and was featured on a 30 öre Christmas postage stamp in 1970; it has also featured on a number of other stamps issued by European and Asian countries, including a 1966 4d British stamp and a 1998 Irish 30p stamp. This bird—arguably—also gives rise to the Serbian name for Kosovo, which is the possessive adjectival form of Serbian ("blackbird"), as in Kosovo polje ("Blackbird's Field").


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The field-effect transistor (FET) is a type of transistor that uses an electric field to control the flow of current in a semiconductor. FETs (JFETs or MOSFETs) are devices with three terminals: "source", "gate", and "drain". FETs control the flow of current by the application of a voltage to the gate, which in turn alters the conductivity between the drain and source.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: FETs are also known as unipolar transistors since they involve single-carrier-type operation. That is, FETs use either electrons (n-channel) or holes (p-channel) as charge carriers in their operation, but not both. Many different types of field effect transistors exist. Field effect transistors generally display very high input impedance at low frequencies. The most widely used field-effect transistor is the MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor).


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The concept of a field-effect transistor (FET) was first patented by Austro-Hungarian physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925 and by Oskar Heil in 1934, but they were unable to build a working practical semiconducting device based on the concept. The transistor effect was later observed and explained by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1947, shortly after the 17-year patent expired. Shockley initially attempted to build a working FET, by trying to modulate the conductivity of a semiconductor, but was unsuccessful, mainly due to problems with the surface states, the dangling bond, and the germanium and copper compound materials. In the course of trying to understand the mysterious reasons behind their failure to build a working FET, it led to Bardeen and Brattain instead inventing the point-contact transistor in 1947, which was followed by Shockley's bipolar junction transistor in 1948.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The first FET device to be successfully built was the junction field-effect transistor (JFET). A JFET was first patented by Heinrich Welker in 1945. The static induction transistor (SIT), a type of JFET with a short channel, was invented by Japanese engineers Jun-ichi Nishizawa and Y. Watanabe in 1950. Following Shockley's theoretical treatment on the JFET in 1952, a working practical JFET was built by George C. Dacey and Ian M. Ross in 1953. However, the JFET still had issues affecting junction transistors in general. Junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. The insulated-gate field-effect transistor (IGFET) was theorized as a potential alternative to junction transistors, but researchers were unable to build working IGFETs, largely due to the troublesome surface state barrier that prevented the external electric field from penetrating into the material. By the mid-1950s, researchers had largely given up on the FET concept, and instead focused on bipolar junction transistor (BJT) technology.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The foundations of MOSFET technology were laid down by the work of William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. Shockley independently envisioned the FET concept in 1945, but he was unable to build a working device. The next year Bardeen explained his failure in terms of surface states. Bardeen applied the theory of surface states on semiconductors (previous work on surface states was done by Shockley in 1939 and Igor Tamm in 1932) and realized that the external field was blocked at the surface because of extra electrons which are drawn to the semiconductor surface. Electrons become trapped in those localized states forming an inversion layer. Bardeen's hypothesis marked the birth of surface physics. Bardeen then decided to make use of an inversion layer instead of the very thin layer of semiconductor which Shockley had envisioned in his FET designs. Based on his theory, in 1948 Bardeen patented the progenitor of MOSFET, an insulated-gate FET (IGFET) with an inversion layer. The inversion layer confines the flow of minority carriers, increasing modulation and conductivity, although its electron transport depends on the gate's insulator or quality of oxide if used as an insulator, deposited above the inversion layer. Bardeen's patent as well as the concept of an inversion layer forms the basis of CMOS technology today. In 1976 Shockley described Bardeen's surface state hypothesis "as one of the most significant research ideas in the semiconductor program".


title: Field-effect transistor

text: After Bardeen's surface state theory the trio tried to overcome the effect of surface states. In late 1947, Robert Gibney and Brattain suggested the use of electrolyte placed between metal and semiconductor to overcome the effects of surface states. Their FET device worked, but amplification was poor. Bardeen went further and suggested to rather focus on the conductivity of the inversion layer. Further experiments led them to replace electrolyte with a solid oxide layer in the hope of getting better results. Their goal was to penetrate the oxide layer and get to the inversion layer. However, Bardeen suggested they switch from silicon to germanium and in the process their oxide got inadvertently washed off. They stumbled upon a completely different transistor, the point-contact transistor. Lillian Hoddeson argues that "had Brattain and Bardeen been working with silicon instead of germanium they would have stumbled across a successful field effect transistor".


title: Field-effect transistor

text: By the end of the first half of the 1950s, following theoretical and experimental work of Bardeen, Brattain, Kingston, Morrison and others, it became more clear that there were two types of surface states. Fast surface states were found to be associated with the bulk and a semiconductor/oxide interface. Slow surface states were found to be associated with the oxide layer because of adsorption of atoms, molecules and ions by the oxide from the ambient. The latter were found to be much more numerous and to have much longer relaxation times. At the time Philo Farnsworth and others came up with various methods of producing atomically clean semiconductor surfaces.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In 1955, Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derrick accidentally covered the surface of silicon wafer with a layer of silicon dioxide. They showed that oxide layer prevented certain dopants into the silicon wafer, while allowing for others, thus discovering the passivating effect of oxidation on the semiconductor surface. Their further work demonstrated how to etch small openings in the oxide layer to diffuse dopants into selected areas of the silicon wafer. In 1957, they published a research paper and patented their technique summarizing their work. The technique they developed is known as oxide diffusion masking, which would later be used in the fabrication of MOSFET devices. At Bell Labs, the importance of Frosch's technique was immediately realized. Results of their work circulated around Bell Labs in the form of BTL memos before being published in 1957. At Shockley Semiconductor, Shockley had circulated the preprint of their article in December 1956 to all his senior staff, including Jean Hoerni.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In 1955, Ian Munro Ross filed a patent for a FeFET or MFSFET. Its structure was like that of a modern inversion channel MOSFET, but ferroelectric material was used as a dielectric/insulator instead of oxide. He envisioned it as a form of memory, years before the floating gate MOSFET. In February 1957, John Wallmark filed a patent for FET in which germanium monoxide was used as a gate dielectric, but he didn't pursue the idea. In his other patent filed the same year he described a double gate FET. In March 1957, in his laboratory notebook, Ernesto Labate, a research scientist at Bell Labs, conceived of a device similar to the later proposed MOSFET, although Labate's device didn't explicitly use silicon dioxide as an insulator.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: A breakthrough in FET research came with the work of Egyptian engineer Mohamed Atalla in the late 1950s. In 1958 he presented experimental work which showed that growing thin silicon oxide on clean silicon surface leads to neutralization of surface states. This is known as surface passivation, a method that became critical to the semiconductor industry as it made mass-production of silicon integrated circuits possible.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) was then invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng in 1959. The MOSFET largely superseded both the bipolar transistor and the JFET, and had a profound effect on digital electronic development. With its high scalability, and much lower power consumption and higher density than bipolar junction transistors, the MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits. The MOSFET is also capable of handling higher power than the JFET. The MOSFET was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. The MOSFET thus became the most common type of transistor in computers, electronics, and communications technology (such as smartphones). The US Patent and Trademark Office calls it a "groundbreaking invention that transformed life and culture around the world".


title: Field-effect transistor

text: CMOS (complementary MOS), a semiconductor device fabrication process for MOSFETs, was developed by Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1963. The first report of a floating-gate MOSFET was made by Dawon Kahng and Simon Sze in 1967. A double-gate MOSFET was first demonstrated in 1984 by Electrotechnical Laboratory researchers Toshihiro Sekigawa and Yutaka Hayashi. FinFET (fin field-effect transistor), a type of 3D non-planar multi-gate MOSFET, originated from the research of Digh Hisamoto and his team at Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in 1989.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: FETs can be majority-charge-carrier devices, in which the current is carried predominantly by majority carriers, or minority-charge-carrier devices, in which the current is mainly due to a flow of minority carriers. The device consists of an active channel through which charge carriers, electrons or holes, flow from the source to the drain. Source and drain terminal conductors are connected to the semiconductor through ohmic contacts. The conductivity of the channel is a function of the potential applied across the gate and source terminals.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: All FETs have "source", "drain", and "gate" terminals that correspond roughly to the "emitter", "collector", and "base" of BJTs. Most FETs have a fourth terminal called the "body", "base", "bulk", or "substrate." This fourth terminal serves to bias the transistor into operation; it is rare to make non-trivial use of the body terminal in circuit designs, but its presence is important when setting up the physical layout of an integrated circuit. The size of the gate, length "L" in the diagram, is the distance between source and drain. The "width" is the extension of the transistor, in the direction perpendicular to the cross section in the diagram (i.e., into/out of the screen). Typically the width is much larger than the length of the gate. A gate length of 1 µm limits the upper frequency to about 5 GHz, 0.2 µm to about 30 GHz.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The names of the terminals refer to their functions. The gate terminal may be thought of as controlling the opening and closing of a physical gate. This gate permits electrons to flow through or blocks their passage by creating or eliminating a channel between the source and drain. Electron-flow from the source terminal towards the drain terminal is influenced by an applied voltage. The body simply refers to the bulk of the semiconductor in which the gate, source and drain lie. Usually the body terminal is connected to the highest or lowest voltage within the circuit, depending on the type of the FET. The body terminal and the source terminal are sometimes connected together since the source is often connected to the highest or lowest voltage within the circuit, although there are several uses of FETs which do not have such a configuration, such as transmission gates and cascode circuits.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Unlike BJTs, the vast majority of FETs are electrically symmetrical. The source and drain terminals can thus be interchanged in practical circuits with no change in operating characteristics or function. This can be confusing when FET's appear to be connected "backwards" in schematic diagrams and circuits because the physical orientation of the FET was decided for other reasons, such as printed circuit layout considerations.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The FET controls the flow of electrons (or electron holes) from the source to drain by affecting the size and shape of a "conductive channel" created and influenced by voltage (or lack of voltage) applied across the gate and source terminals. (For simplicity, this discussion assumes that the body and source are connected.) This conductive channel is the "stream" through which electrons flow from source to drain.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In an n-channel "depletion-mode" device, a negative gate-to-source voltage causes a depletion region to expand in width and encroach on the channel from the sides, narrowing the channel. If the active region expands to completely close the channel, the resistance of the channel from source to drain becomes large, and the FET is effectively turned off like a switch (see right figure, when there is very small current). This is called "pinch-off", and the voltage at which it occurs is called the "pinch-off voltage". Conversely, a positive gate-to-source voltage increases the channel size and allows electrons to flow easily (see right figure, when there is a conduction channel and current is large).


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In an n-channel "enhancement-mode" device, a conductive channel does not exist naturally within the transistor, and a positive gate-to-source voltage is necessary to create one. The positive voltage attracts free-floating electrons within the body towards the gate, forming a conductive channel. But first, enough electrons must be attracted near the gate to counter the dopant ions added to the body of the FET; this forms a region with no mobile carriers called a depletion region, and the voltage at which this occurs is referred to as the threshold voltage of the FET. Further gate-to-source voltage increase will attract even more electrons towards the gate which are able to active channel from source to drain; this process is called "inversion".


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In a p-channel "depletion-mode" device, a positive voltage from gate to body widens the depletion layer by forcing electrons to the gate-insulator/semiconductor interface, leaving exposed a carrier-free region of immobile, positively charged acceptor ions.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Conversely, in a p-channel "enhancement-mode" device, a conductive region does not exist and negative voltage must be used to generate a conduction channel.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: For either enhancement- or depletion-mode devices, at drain-to-source voltages much less than gate-to-source voltages, changing the gate voltage will alter the channel resistance, and drain current will be proportional to drain voltage (referenced to source voltage). In this mode the FET operates like a variable resistor and the FET is said to be operating in a linear mode or ohmic mode.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: If drain-to-source voltage is increased, this creates a significant asymmetrical change in the shape of the channel due to a gradient of voltage potential from source to drain. The shape of the inversion region becomes "pinched-off" near the drain end of the channel. If drain-to-source voltage is increased further, the pinch-off point of the channel begins to move away from the drain towards the source. The FET is said to be in "saturation mode"; although some authors refer to it as "active mode", for a better analogy with bipolar transistor operating regions. The saturation mode, or the region between ohmic and saturation, is used when amplification is needed. The in-between region is sometimes considered to be part of the ohmic or linear region, even where drain current is not approximately linear with drain voltage.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Even though the conductive channel formed by gate-to-source voltage no longer connects source to drain during saturation mode, carriers are not blocked from flowing. Considering again an n-channel enhancement-mode device, a depletion region exists in the p-type body, surrounding the conductive channel and drain and source regions. The electrons which comprise the channel are free to move out of the channel through the depletion region if attracted to the drain by drain-to-source voltage. The depletion region is free of carriers and has a resistance similar to silicon. Any increase of the drain-to-source voltage will increase the distance from drain to the pinch-off point, increasing the resistance of the depletion region in proportion to the drain-to-source voltage applied. This proportional change causes the drain-to-source current to remain relatively fixed, independent of changes to the drain-to-source voltage, quite unlike its ohmic behavior in the linear mode of operation. Thus, in saturation mode, the FET behaves as a constant-current source rather than as a resistor, and can effectively be used as a voltage amplifier. In this case, the gate-to-source voltage determines the level of constant current through the channel.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: FETs can be constructed from various semiconductors, out of which silicon is by far the most common. Most FETs are made by using conventional bulk


title: Field-effect transistor

text: semiconductor processing techniques, using a single crystal semiconductor wafer as the active region, or channel.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Among the more unusual body materials are amorphous silicon, polycrystalline silicon or other amorphous semiconductors in thin-film transistors or organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) that are based on organic semiconductors; often, OFET gate insulators and electrodes are made of organic materials, as well. Such FETs are manufactured using a variety of materials such as silicon carbide (SiC), gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN), and indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs).


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In June 2011, IBM announced that it had successfully used graphene-based FETs in an integrated circuit. These transistors are capable of about 2.23 GHz cutoff frequency, much higher than standard silicon FETs.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The channel of a FET is doped to produce either an n-type semiconductor or a p-type semiconductor. The drain and source may be doped of opposite type to the channel, in the case of enhancement mode FETs, or doped of similar type to the channel as in depletion mode FETs. Field-effect transistors are also distinguished by the method of insulation between channel and gate. Types of FETs include:


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Field-effect transistors have high gate-to-drain current resistance, of the order of 100 MΩ or more, providing a high degree of isolation between control and flow. Because base current noise will increase with shaping time, a FET typically produces less noise than a bipolar junction transistor (BJT), and is found in noise-sensitive electronics such as tuners and low-noise amplifiers for VHF and satellite receivers. It is relatively immune to radiation. It exhibits no offset voltage at zero drain current and makes an excellent signal chopper. It typically has better thermal stability than a BJT.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Because the FETs are controlled by gate charge, once the gate is closed or open, there is no additional power draw, as there would be with a bipolar junction transistor or with non-latching relays in some states. This allows extremely low-power switching, which in turn allows greater miniaturization of circuits because heat dissipation needs are reduced compared to other types of switches.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: A field-effect transistor has a relatively low gain–bandwidth product compared to a bipolar junction transistor. MOSFETs are very susceptible to overload voltages, thus requiring special handling during installation. The fragile insulating layer of the MOSFET between the gate and the channel makes it vulnerable to electrostatic discharge or changes to threshold voltage during handling. This is not usually a problem after the device has been installed in a properly designed circuit.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: FETs often have a very low "on" resistance and have a high "off" resistance. However, the intermediate resistances are significant, and so FETs can dissipate large amounts of power while switching. Thus, efficiency can put a premium on switching quickly, but this can cause transients that can excite stray inductances and generate significant voltages that can couple to the gate and cause unintentional switching. FET circuits can therefore require very careful layout and can involve trades between switching speed and power dissipation. There is also a trade-off between voltage rating and "on" resistance, so high-voltage FETs have a relatively high "on" resistance and hence conduction losses.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Field-effect transistors are relatively robust, especially when operated within the temperature and electrical limitations defined by the manufacturer (proper derating). However, modern FET devices can often incorporate a body diode. If the characteristics of the body diode are not taken into consideration, the FET can experience slow body diode behavior, where a parasitic transistor will turn on and allow high current to be drawn from drain to source when the FET is off.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: The most commonly used FET is the MOSFET. The CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) process technology is the basis for modern digital integrated circuits. This process technology uses an arrangement where the (usually "enhancement-mode") p-channel MOSFET and n-channel MOSFET are connected in series such that when one is on, the other is off.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: In FETs, electrons can flow in either direction through the channel when operated in the linear mode. The naming convention of drain terminal and source terminal is somewhat arbitrary, as the devices are typically (but not always) built symmetrical from source to drain. This makes FETs suitable for switching analog signals between paths (multiplexing). With this concept, one can construct a solid-state mixing board, for example.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: FET is commonly used as an amplifier. For example, due to its large input resistance and low output resistance, it is effective as a buffer in common-drain (source follower) configuration.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: IGBTs are used in switching internal combustion engine ignition coils, where fast switching and voltage blocking capabilities are important.


title: Field-effect transistor

text: Source-gated transistors are more robust to manufacturing and environmental issues in large-area electronics such as display screens, but are slower in operation than FETs.


title: Taya Kyle

text: Taya Renae Kyle (née Studebaker; born September 4, 1974) is an American author, political commentator, and military veteran's family activist. Known as the widow of US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, she was portrayed by Sienna Miller in the 2014 film "American Sniper" about her husband's life. Kyle is the co-author of "American Wife: A Memoir of Love, Service, Faith, and Renewal", a book about life with her husband.


title: Taya Kyle

text: Born Taya Renae Studebaker on September 4, 1974, in Portland, Oregon, she is the daughter of Kim and Kent Studebaker. Her father previously served as the mayor of Lake Oswego, Oregon. Her older sister is Ashley (Studebaker) Brittell.


title: Taya Kyle

text: As a Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle is known as the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history. His autobiography, "American Sniper", was published on January 3, 2012. On February 2, 2013, he was shot and killed at a shooting range in Texas, making Taya a widow at age 38.


title: Taya Kyle

text: In 2014, Kyle founded the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation as a touchstone for veterans and their families. The foundation's mission is to "serve those who serve us by providing meaningful interactive experiences that enrich family relationships".


title: Taya Kyle

text: In May 2013, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura brought a defamation suit against Taya Kyle for $1.3 million. The lawsuit was the continuation of an original lawsuit filed in 2012 against Kyle's wife, over a statement made in the book "American Sniper". In the book's chapter titled "Punching Out Scruff Face", Chris Kyle stated he had punched a celebrity he called "Scruff Face" for saying the SEALs "could afford to lose a couple" in war. Ventura won the lawsuit in an 8 to 2 jury decision. An appeals court threw out part of the lawsuit in June 2016, and the case was ultimately settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money.


title: Taya Kyle

text: Clint Eastwood directed the feature film "American Sniper" in 2014, based on the lives of Chris and Taya Kyle. Taya Kyle was involved in the making of the film, working with the film's screenwriter Jason Hall, and she was portrayed by Sienna Miller. The film, released by Warner Bros. Pictures nationwide in January 2015, was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing at the 87th Academy Awards.


title: Taya Kyle

text: On May 5, 2015, Taya Kyle's autobiography, "American Wife: A Memoir of Love, Service, Faith, and Renewal", was released by Harper Collins publishing. Co-written with military and war author Jim DeFelice, the book details her life as a military wife and how she dealt with the sudden and untimely death of her husband.


title: Taya Kyle

text: Kyle is a Republican and endorsed Rick Perry in the 2016 presidential election. After Perry withdrew, she endorsed Ted Cruz. She also served as treasurer for the successful 2016 campaign of Bill Waybourn for Sheriff of Tarrant County, Texas.


title: Taya Kyle

text: In January 2016, she opined at a CNN Town Hall Event that the opposition to the NRA and adding more laws restricting gun ownership is not a solution to the gun violence in the United States.


title: Ship of the line

text: A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the opponent with more cannons firingand therefore more firepowertypically had an advantage. Since these engagements were almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying more of the most powerful guns, the natural progression was to build sailing vessels that were the largest and most powerful of their time.


title: Ship of the line

text: From the end of the 1840s, the introduction of steam power brought less dependence on the wind in battle and led to the construction of screw-driven wooden-hulled ships of the line; a number of purely sail-powered ships were converted to this propulsion mechanism. However, the rise of the ironclad frigate, starting in 1859, made steam-assisted ships of the line obsolete. The ironclad warship became the ancestor of the 20th-century battleship, whose very designation is itself a contraction of the phrase "ship of the line of battle" or, more colloquially, "battleship of the line".


title: Ship of the line

text: The term "ship of the line" has fallen into disuse except in historical contexts, after warships and naval tactics evolved and changed from the mid-19th century, at least in English (the Imperial German Navy called its battleships "Linienschiffe" until World War I).


title: Ship of the line

text: The heavily armed carrack, first developed in Portugal for either trade or war in the Atlantic Ocean, was the precursor of the "ship of the line". Other maritime European states quickly adopted it in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. These vessels were developed by fusing aspects of the cog of the North Sea and galley of the Mediterranean Sea. The cogs, which traded in the North Sea, in the Baltic Sea and along the Atlantic coasts, had an advantage over galleys in battle because they had raised platforms called "castles" at bow and stern that archers could occupy to fire down on enemy ships or even to drop heavy weights from. At the bow, for instance, the castle was called the forecastle (usually contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le, and pronounced FOHK-səl). Over time these castles became higher and larger, and eventually were built into the structure of the ship, increasing overall strength. This aspect of the cog remained in the newer-style carrack designs and proved its worth in battles like that at Diu in 1509.


title: Ship of the line

text: The "Mary Rose" was an early 16th-century English carrack or "great ship". She was heavily armed with 78 guns and 91 after an upgrade in the 1530s. Built in Portsmouth in 1510–1512, she was one of the earliest purpose-built men-of-war in the English navy. She was over 500 tons burthen and had a keel of over and a crew of over 200 sailors, composed of 185 soldiers and 30 gunners. Although the pride of the English fleet, she accidentally sank during the Battle of the Solent, 19 July 1545.


title: Ship of the line

text: "Henri Grâce à Dieu" (English: "Henry Grace of God"), nicknamed "Great Harry", was another early English carrack. Contemporary with "Mary Rose", "Henri Grâce à Dieu" was long, measuring 1,000–1,500 tons burthen and having a complement of 700–1,000. It is said that she was ordered by Henry VIII in response to the Scottish ship "Michael", launched in 1511. She was originally built at Woolwich Dockyard from 1512 to 1514 and was one of the first vessels to feature gunports and had twenty of the new heavy bronze cannon, allowing for a broadside. In all, she mounted 43 heavy guns and 141 light guns. She was the first English two-decker, and when launched she was the largest and most powerful warship in Europe, but she saw little action. She was present at the Battle of the Solent against Francis I of France in 1545 (in which "Mary Rose" sank) but appears to have been more of a diplomatic vessel, sailing on occasion with sails of gold cloth. Indeed, the great ships were almost as well known for their ornamental design (some ships, like the "Vasa", were gilded on their stern scrollwork) as they were for the power they possessed.


title: Ship of the line

text: Carracks fitted for war carried large-calibre guns aboard. Because of their higher freeboard and greater load-bearing ability, this type of vessel was better suited than the galley to wield gunpowder weapons. Because of their development for conditions in the Atlantic, these ships were more weatherly than galleys and better suited to open waters. The lack of oars meant that large crews were unnecessary, making long journeys more feasible. Their disadvantage was that they were entirely reliant on the wind for mobility. Galleys could still overwhelm great ships, especially when there was little wind and they had a numerical advantage, but as great ships increased in size, galleys became less and less useful.


title: Ship of the line

text: Another detriment was the high forecastle, which interfered with the sailing qualities of the ship; the bow would be forced low into the water while sailing before the wind. But as guns were introduced and gunfire replaced boarding as the primary means of naval combat during the 16th century, the medieval forecastle was no longer needed, and later ships such as the galleon had only a low, one-deck-high forecastle. By the time of the 1637 launching of England's "Sovereign of the Seas", the forecastle had disappeared altogether.


title: Ship of the line

text: During the 16th century the galleon evolved from the carrack. It was a longer and more manoeuvrable type of ship with all the advantages of the carrack. The main ships of the English and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Gravelines of 1588 were galleons; all of the English and most of the Spanish galleons survived the battle and the following storm even though the Spanish galleons suffered the heaviest attacks from the English while regrouping their scattered fleet. By the 17th century every major European naval power was building ships like these.


title: Ship of the line

text: With the growing importance of colonies and exploration and the need to maintain trade routes across stormy oceans, galleys and galleasses (a larger, higher type of galley with side-mounted guns, but lower than a galleon) were used less and less, and only in ever more restricted purposes and areas, so that by about 1750, with a few notable exceptions, they were of little use in naval battles.


title: Ship of the line

text: King Erik XIV of Sweden initiated construction of the ship in 1563; this might have been the first attempt of this battle tactic, roughly 50 years ahead of widespread adoption of the line of battle strategy. "Mars" was likely the largest ship in the world at the time of her build, equipped with 107 guns at a full-length of . Ironically it became the first ship to be sunk by gunfire from other ships in a naval battle.


title: Ship of the line

text: In the early to mid-17th century, several navies, particularly those of the Netherlands and England, began to use new fighting techniques. Previously battles had usually been fought by great fleets of ships closing with each other and fighting in whatever arrangement they found themselves in, often boarding enemy vessels as opportunities presented themselves. As the use of broadsides (coordinated fire by the battery of cannon on one side of a warship) became increasingly dominant in battle, tactics changed. The evolving "line-of-battle" tactic, first used in an ad hoc way, required ships to form single-file lines and close with the enemy fleet on the same tack, battering the enemy fleet until one side had had enough and retreated. Any manoeuvres would be carried out with the ships remaining in line for mutual protection.


title: Ship of the line

text: In order that this order of battle, this long thin line of guns, may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest, there is at the same time felt the necessity of putting in it only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally strong sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which the line ahead became definitively the order for battle, there was established the distinction between the ships 'of the line', alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant for other uses.


title: Ship of the line

text: The lighter ships were used for various functions, including acting as scouts, and relaying signals between the flagship and the rest of the fleet. This was necessary because from the flagship, only a small part of the line would be in clear sight.


title: Ship of the line

text: The adoption of line-of-battle tactics had consequences for ship design. The height advantage given by the castles fore and aft was reduced, now that hand-to-hand combat was less essential. The need to manoeuvre in battle made the top weight of the castles more of a disadvantage. So they shrank, making the ship of the line lighter and more manoeuvrable than its forebears for the same combat power. As an added consequence, the hull itself grew larger, allowing the size and number of guns to increase as well.


title: Ship of the line

text: In the 17th century fleets could consist of almost a hundred ships of various sizes, but by the middle of the 18th century, ship-of-the-line design had settled on a few standard types: older two-deckers (i.e., with two complete decks of guns firing through side ports) of 50 guns (which were too weak for the battle line but could be used to escort convoys), two-deckers of between 64 and 90 guns that formed the main part of the fleet, and larger three- or even four-deckers with 98 to 140 guns that served as admirals' command ships. Fleets consisting of perhaps 10 to 25 of these ships, with their attendant supply ships and scouting and messenger frigates, kept control of the sea lanes for major European naval powers whilst restricting the sea-borne trade of enemies.


title: Ship of the line

text: The most common size of sail ship of the line was the "74" (named for its 74 guns), originally developed by France in the 1730s, and later adopted by all battleship navies. Until this time the British had 6 sizes of ship of the line, and they found that their smaller 50- and 60-gun ships were becoming too small for the battle line, while their 80s and over were three-deckers and therefore unwieldy and unstable in heavy seas. Their best were 70-gun three-deckers of about long on the gundeck, while the new French 74s were around . In 1747 the British captured a few of these French ships during the War of Austrian Succession. In the next decade Thomas Slade (Surveyor of the Navy from 1755, along with co-Surveyor William Bately) broke away from the past and designed several new classes of 74s to compete with these French designs, starting with the and classes. Their successors gradually improved handling and size through the 1780s. Other navies ended up building 74s also as they had the right balance between offensive power, cost, and manoeuvrability. Eventually around half of Britain's ships of the line were 74s. Larger vessels were still built, as command ships, but they were more useful only if they could definitely get close to an enemy, rather than in a battle involving chasing or manoeuvring. The 74 remained the favoured ship until 1811, when Seppings's method of construction enabled bigger ships to be built with more stability.


title: Ship of the line

text: In a few ships the design was altered long after the ship was launched and in service. In the Royal Navy, smaller two-deck 74- or 64-gun ships of the line that could not be used safely in fleet actions had their upper decks removed (or "razeed"), resulting in a very stout, single-gun-deck warship called a "razee". The resulting razeed ship could be classed as a frigate and was still much stronger. The most successful razeed ship in the Royal Navy was , commanded by Sir Edward Pellew.


title: Ship of the line

text: The Spanish ship , was a Spanish first-rate ship of the line with 112 guns. This was increased in 1795–96 to 130 guns by closing in the spar deck between the quarterdeck and forecastle, and around 1802 to 140 guns, thus creating what was in effect a continuous fourth gundeck although the extra guns added were actually relatively small. She was the heaviest-armed ship in the world when rebuilt, and bore the most guns of any ship of the line outfitted in the Age of Sail.


title: Ship of the line

text: The second largest sailing three-decker ship of the line ever built in the West and the biggest French ship of the line was the , launched in 1847. She had vertical sides, which increased significantly the space available for upper batteries, but reduced the stability of the ship; wooden stabilisers were added under the waterline to address the issue. "Valmy" was thought to be the largest sort of sailing ship possible, as larger dimensions made the manoeuvre of riggings impractical with mere manpower. She participated in the Crimean War, and after her return to France later housed the French Naval Academy under the name "Borda" from 1864 to 1890.


title: Ship of the line

text: The first major change to the ship-of-the-line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. The first military uses of steamships came in the 1810s, and in the 1820s a number of navies experimented with paddle steamer warships. Their use spread in the 1830s, with paddle-steamer warships participating in conflicts like the First Opium War alongside ships of the line and frigates.


title: Ship of the line

text: Paddle steamers, however, had major disadvantages. The paddle wheel above the waterline was exposed to enemy fire, while itself preventing the ship from firing broadsides effectively. During the 1840s, the screw propeller emerged as the most likely method of steam propulsion, with both Britain and the US launching screw-propelled warships in 1843. Through the 1840s, the British and French navies launched ever larger and more powerful screw ships, alongside sail-powered ships of the line. In 1845, Viscount Palmerston gave an indication of the role of the new steamships in tense Anglo-French relations, describing the English Channel as a "steam bridge", rather than a barrier to French invasion. It was partly because of the fear of war with France that the Royal Navy converted several old 74-gun ships of the line into 60-gun steam-powered blockships (following the model of Fulton's ), starting in 1845. The blockships were "originally conceived as steam batteries solely for harbour defence, but in September 1845 they were given a reduced [sailing] rig rather than none at all, to make them sea-going ships.… The blockships were to be a cost-effective experiment of great value." They subsequently gave good service in the Crimean War.


title: Ship of the line

text: The French Navy, however, developed the first purpose-built steam battleship with the 90-gun in 1850. She is also considered the first true steam battleship, and the first screw battleship ever. "Napoléon" was armed as a conventional ship of the line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of , regardless of the wind conditionsa potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement.


title: Ship of the line

text: Eight sister ships to "Napoléon" were built in France over a period of ten years, but the United Kingdom soon took the lead in production, in number of both purpose-built and converted units. Altogether, France built 10 new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older battleship units, while the United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41.


title: Ship of the line

text: In the end, France and Britain were the only two countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made some use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. These included Russia, Turkey, Sweden, Naples, Prussia, Denmark, and Austria.


title: Ship of the line

text: In the Crimean War, six line-of-battle ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Ottoman frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853.


title: Ship of the line

text: In the 1860s unarmoured steam line-of-battle ships were replaced by ironclad warships. In the US civil war, on March 8, 1862, during the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, two unarmoured US wooden frigates were sunk and destroyed by the Confederate ironclad .


title: Ship of the line

text: However, the power implied by the ship of the line would find its way into the ironclad, which would develop during the next few decades into the concept of the battleship.