The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was chartered by an Act of Congress in 1893 at the urging of Methodist bishop John Fletcher Hurst, who sought to create an institution that would promote public service, internationalism, and pragmatic idealism. AU broke ground in 1902, opened as a graduate education institution in 1914, and admitted its first undergraduates in 1925. Although affiliated with the United Methodist Church, religious affiliation is not a criterion for admission.

American University has eight schools and colleges: the School of International Service, College of Arts and Sciences, Kogod School of Business, School of Communication, Professional Studies and Executive Education, School of Public Affairs, School of Education, and the Washington College of Law (WCL). It has over 160 programs, including 71 bachelor's degrees, 87 master's degrees, and 10 doctoral degrees, as well as JD, LLM, and SJD programs. AU's student body numbers over 13,000 and represents all 50 U.S. states and 141 countries; around a fifth of students are international. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

The university owns National Public Radio's flagship capital affiliate, WAMU, which has been a source of nationally and internationally distributed programming such as The Diane Rehm Show and the more recent 1A, styled as "the 1A", as in "the 1st Amendment".

History

Founding

The American University was established in the District of Columbia by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892, primarily due to the efforts of Methodist bishop John Fletcher Hurst, who aimed to create an institution that could train future public servants. Hurst also chose the university's site, which was in the rural periphery of the District. After more than three decades devoted principally to securing financial support, the university was officially dedicated on May 15, 1914, with its first instructions beginning October of that year when 28 students were enrolled, 19 of whom were graduates and the remainder special students not candidates for a degree. The First Commencement, at which no degrees were awarded, was held on June 2, 1915. The Second Annual Commencement was held the following year and saw the awarding of the first degrees: one master's degree and two doctor's degrees. AU admitted both women and African Americans, which was uncommon in higher education at the time. Among its first 28 students were five women, while an African American doctoral student was admitted in 1915.

Shortly after these early commencement ceremonies, classes were interrupted by war. During World War I, the university allowed the U.S. military to use some of its grounds for testing. In 1917, the U.S. military divided American University into two segments, Camp American University and Camp Leach. Camp American University became the birthplace of the United States' chemical weapons program and the site of chemical weapons testing; this required a major cleanup effort in the 1990s. Camp Leach was home to advanced research, development, and testing of modern camouflage techniques. , the Army Corps of Engineers was still removing ordnance including mustard gas and mortar shells.

Instruction was first offered only at the graduate level, in accordance with the plan of the founders. This changed in 1925 with the establishment of the College of Liberal Arts (subsequently named the College of Arts and Sciences), which offered the first undergraduate degrees and programs. What is now the School of Public Affairs was founded in 1934, partly to educate future federal employees in new approaches to public administration introduced by the New Deal; during the event commemorating its launch, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stressed cooperation between the school and his administration.

AU's relationship with the U.S. government continued during World War II, when the campus hosted the U.S. Navy Bomb Disposal School and a WAVE barracks. For AU's role in these wartime efforts, the Victory ship SS American Victory was named in its honor.

Post-war expansion (1949–1990)

The post-war period saw considerable growth and restructuring of AU. In 1947, the Washington Semester Program was established, pioneering the concept of
semester-long internships in the nation's capital. In 1949, the university merged with the Washington College of Law, which began in 1896 as the first law school founded by women and the first coeducational institution for the professional study of law in the District. Shortly after that, three departments were reorganized as schools: the School of Business Administration in 1955 (subsequently named the Robert P. and Arlene R. Kogod College of Business Administration and in 1999, renamed the Kogod School of Business); the School of Government and Public Administration in 1957; and the School of International Service in 1958.

In the early 1960s, the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency operated the FFRDC Special Operations Research Office as a think tank at American University. AU's political involvement was furthered by President John F. Kennedy's Spring 1963 commencement address. In the speech, Kennedy called on the Soviet Union to work with the United States to achieve a nuclear test ban treaty and to reduce the considerable international tensions and the specter of nuclear war during that juncture of the Cold War.

From 1965 to 1977, the College of Continuing Education existed as a degree-granting college responsible for on- and off-campus adult education programs. The Lucy Webb Hayes School of Nursing provided an undergraduate study in Nursing from 1965 until 1988. In 1972, the School of Government and Public Administration, the School of International Service, the Center for Technology and Administration, and the Center for the Administration of Justice (subsequently named the School of Justice) were incorporated into the College of Public and International Affairs.

The university bought the Immaculata Campus in 1986 to alleviate space problems. This would later become Tenley Campus.

In 1986, construction on the Adnan Khashoggi Sports and Convocation Center began. Financed with $5 million from and named for Saudi Arabian Trustee Adnan Khashoggi, the building was intended to update athletics facilities and provide a new arena, as well as a parking garage and office space for administrative services. Costing an estimated $19 million, the building represented the largest construction project to date but met protest by both faculty and students to the university's use of Khashoggi's name on the building due to his involvement in the international arms trade.

In 1988, the College of Public and International Affairs was reorganized to create two free-standing schools: the School of International Service and the School of Public Affairs, incorporating the School of Government and Public Administration and the School of Justice. That same year, construction on the Adnan Khashoggi Sports Center was completed while the Iran–Contra Affair controversy was at its height, although his name remained on the building until after Khashoggi defaulted on his donation obligation in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Present day

The School of Communication became independent from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1993.

In 1997, American University of Sharjah, the only coeducational, liberal arts university in the United Arab Emirates, signed a two-year contract with AU to provide academic management. This contract has since been extended multiple times through August 2009. A team of senior AU administrators relocated to Sharjah to assist in the establishment of the university and guide it through the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation process.

In fall 2005, the new Katzen Arts Center opened.

Benjamin Ladner was suspended from his position as president of the university on August 24, 2005, pending an investigation into possible misuse of university funds for his personal expenses. University faculty passed votes of no confidence in President Ladner on September 26. On October 10, 2005, the board of trustees of American University decided that Ladner would not return to American University as its president. Cornelius M. Kerwin, a long-time AU administrator, served as interim president and was appointed to the position permanently on September 1, 2007, after two outsiders declined an offer from the board of trustees. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ladner received a total compensation of $4,270,665 in his final year of service, the second highest of any university president in the United States.

Ground was broken for the new School of International Service building on November 14, 2007, and completed in 2010. A speech was given by Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI).

In 2015, American began to offer an accredited, accelerated online MBA program.

Neil Kerwin retired as AU's president at the end of May 2017. The current president is Sylvia Mathews Burwell whose tenure officially began on June 1, 2017.

As of the 2017–2018 academic year, a female tuxedo feral cat took up residence on the campus grounds near the McKinley School of Communications building. School students and staff maintained the cat's shelter and feeding station and dubbed her "Wonk Cat". Wonk Cat has been adopted by the campus community at large, including in university social media postings and her own student-run social media sites. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wonk cat went missing and has not been found.

In 2017, Taylor Dumpson became AU's first female black student body president. In her first full day in office, bananas were found at three places on campus, hanging from noose-like ropes, and marked with the initials "AKA", which are also the initials of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.  The university considered the incident to be racist, and then-president Neil Kerwin called it a "cowardly, despicable act." In May 2018, the school said it had exhausted "all credible leads" about who had perpetrated the incident.

Also in May 2018, Dumpson filed a lawsuit against several people, including Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. She accused Anglin of organizing a racist and sexist trolling campaign against her. She alleged that Anglin posted her name, her picture, links to her Facebook page, and the Twitter page of the university's student government, and urged his readers to "troll storm" her, which resulted in many hate-filled and racist online messages directed at her. A federal judge ordered the defendants to pay more than $101,000 in compensatory damages, $500,000 in punitive damages, and more than $124,000 in attorney's fees. Dumpson also entered a restraining order against him. Although Dumpson and Anglin have not settled, she settled in December 2018 with one of the people who harassed her, a man from Oregon who was required to apologize, to renounce white supremacy, to stop trolling and doxing online, and to provide information to and cooperate with authorities in the prosecution of white supremacists.

In 2019, the School of Education (SOE) split from the College of Arts and Sciences. According to Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy (Dean of SOE) the move was made to "encourage more students to pursue careers in education". Areas of study that students can pursue within the school include: teacher education, special education, education policy, and leadership and international education. The school is home to the Institute for Innovation in Education and the newly created Center for Postsecondary Readiness and Success.

On April 22, 2020, AU announced that it had divested its endowment of fossil fuels, becoming one of the first universities in the United States to completely divest of both direct and indirect fossil fuel holdings. Following a student referendum in favor of divestment, the AU board of trustees voted against divesting the endowment in 2014. The decision to divest in 2020 came after extensive student campaigning from groups like Fossil Free AU and the undergraduate student government. In 2020, Fossil Free AU pushed for a second student referendum on the subject, and the student government released a report on divestment, presented to the board of trustees by student comptroller Robert Zitzmann.

Campuses

American University has two contiguous campuses for academics and student housing: the main campus on Massachusetts Avenue and the East Campus on Nebraska Avenue. The Washington College of Law has since been moved to the site of the Tenley Campus located in Tenleytown. Additionally, AU owns several other buildings in the Tenleytown, Spring Valley, the East Campus in Wesley Heights, and American University Park areas.

The first design for the campus was done by Frederick Law Olmsted. However, it was significantly modified over time due to financial constraints. The campus occupies  adjacent to Ward Circle, the intersection of Nebraska and Massachusetts Avenues. AU's campus is predominantly surrounded by the affluent residential neighborhoods characteristic of the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. The campus includes a main quadrangle surrounded by academic buildings, nine residential halls, a 5,000-seat arena, and an outdoor amphitheater. The campus has been designated a public garden and arboretum by the American Public Gardens Association, with many foreign and exotic plants and trees dotting the landscape.

Academic and recreational buildings
 Abbey Joel Butler Pavilion: holds the campus store, the Office of Campus Life, the Career Center, and meeting spaces.
 Battelle-Tompkins Building: The university library until 1977 and now home to parts of the College of Arts and Sciences.
 Don Myers Technology and Innovation Building: Home to the physics, mathematics and statistics, computer science, the AU Game Lab, the Kogod Center for Innovation, and the Design and Build Lab; completed in 2017 and LEED Gold certified.
 Hall of Science: Home to the biology, environmental science, chemistry, and neuroscience departments; completed in 2020 and LEED Gold certified.

 Hurst Hall: First building of the university, ground was broken in 1896 for what was to be the College of History. The architects were Van Brunt & Howe. With the opening of the Hall of Science, the building now houses various departments and classrooms.
 Katzen Arts Center: Provided for by a monetary gift from Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen, the building opened in 2005 and is now home to the Departments of Performing Arts (such as dance), Studio Arts, Graphic Design, and Art History, the American University Museum, and other Academic Departments.

 Kay Spiritual Life Center: built in 1963 as a multi-denominational place of worship. Nicknamed the "flaming cupcake" due to its round shape and 16-foot-tall impressionistic flame top, Kay is home to offices of the university chaplains and is used for speeches, performances, and community events.
 Kerwin Hall: The largest classroom building on campus, built in 1968 as a home for the School of Government and Public Administration (now the School of Public Affairs).
 Kogod School of Business: Formerly known as the Myers-Hutchins Building, and previous home to the Washington College of Law. Construction finished in January 2009 to annex it to the now empty Experimental Theater and Butler Instructional Center.
 Mary Graydon Center: Commonly called MGC, it is the university's student union. Home to student organization offices, the main dining facilities, including the Terrace Dining Room (TDR) or "Tedes", The Bridge Coffee Shop, and is interconnected to Butler Pavilion.

 McKinley Building: Cornerstone laid by President Theodore Roosevelt. Was previously the home of the departments of Computer Science, Audio Technology, and Physics. After major renovations in 2014, it became the new home to the School of Communication; LEED Gold certified.

 School of International Service: Ground broken by President Dwight Eisenhower. The new building opened for the 2010–2011 school year, with classes continuing to be also held in the original building, which has since been renamed the "East Quad Building", next door. The School of International Service has an enrollment of over 2,000 undergraduate students and an enrollment of over 900 graduate students. The new building is LEED Gold certified.
 Sports Center: Bender Arena, Reeves Aquatic Center, Jacobs Fitness Center (see Athletics below)
 American University (Bender) Library, which holds over a million books.

Residence halls

Housing is guaranteed for two years. Most freshman and sophomore students choose to live on campus. First-year students are not required to live on campus.

The university added 590 beds in 2017 with the opening of East Campus. Residence halls on the main campus are grouped into three "campuses".

 North Campus, commonly referred to as "North Side":
 Hughes Hall
 Leonard Hall
 McDowell Hall
 Nebraska Hall, located across Massachusetts Avenue from the main campus. It features apartment-style residences of 2 to 4 bedrooms in a suite.
 Cassell Hall, opened for the Fall 2013 semester. This residence hall is equipped with a  fitness facility and is LEED Silver certified.
 East Campus, completed construction in 2017, includes these LEED Gold certified, suite-style residence halls:
Duber Hall (formerly Congressional Hall)
Constitution Hall
Federal Hall
 South Campus, commonly referred to as "South Side":
 Anderson Hall, the largest first-year residence hall on campus.
 Centennial Hall, featuring suite-style living originally intended as housing for upperclassmen.
 Letts Hall, named after John C. Letts, university trustee and president of the board of trustees from 1921 until 1931.
 Roper Hall, home to AU's Black Affinity Housing program.

Tenley Campus

Formerly the Immaculata School, Tenley Campus is located half a mile east of the main campus and was purchased by American University in 1987 specifically for the Washington Semester program. Since 2016, Tenley Campus has been home to American University's law school, the Washington College of Law. Over several years, former dormitory halls and academic buildings were torn down and replaced with many newer, more contemporary academic buildings that now house the Washington College of Law. Graduates are reportedly saddled with enormous amounts of debt, and in 2014 only 42% of graduates held jobs that required they pass the Bar.

Academics
The university is composed of eight divisions, referred to as colleges or schools, which house its academic programs. Except for WCL, undergraduate and graduate courses are housed within the same division, although organized into different programs. These colleges and schools are:
 College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)
 Kogod School of Business (KSB)
 School of Communication (SOC)
 School of Education (SOE)
 School of International Service (SIS)
 Professional Studies and Executive Education
 School of Public Affairs (SPA)
 Washington College of Law (WCL)

American University is also home to a unique program known as the Washington Semester Program. This program partners with institutions around the world to bring students to AU for a semester. The program operates as part of the School of Professional & Extended Studies. The program combines two seminar courses three days a week with a two-day-per-week internship that gives students a unique look at Washington, D.C.

Admissions and student demographics

Admission to American is considered to be "more selective" by the U.S. News & World Report. For the Class of 2023 (enrolling fall 2019), AU received 18,545 freshmen applications; 6,691 were admitted (36%) and 1,755 enrolled. The middle 50% range of SAT scores were 590–690 for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and 590–690 for Math. The middle 50% range of the ACT Composite score was 27–31.

Study abroad
The U.S. News & World Report has ranked American University 7th in Study Abroad programs. American University operates three premier programs in Brussels, Belgium; Madrid, Spain; and Nairobi, Kenya but, also partners with universities across the globe.

Rankings

American University's undergraduate program was tied for 105th overall among "national universities" in U.S. News & World Report 2024 rankings, tied for 31st in "Best Undergraduate Teaching", tied for 46th in "Most Innovative Schools", and 120nd in "Best Value Schools".

In 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2018, American University was named the most politically active school in the nation by The Princeton Reviews annual survey of college students. In 2006, the Fiske Guide to Colleges ranked AU as a "Best Buy" college for the quality of academic offerings in relation to the cost of attendance. However, in 2013, the Daily Beast listed the school in their list of "20 Least Affordable Colleges". For two years in a row, American University has had more students chosen to receive Presidential Management Fellowships than any other college or university in the country. In spring 2006, 34 graduate and law students were chosen for the honor. American University routinely ranks among the top mid-sized universities for producing Peace Corps volunteers.

Among The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) schools, AU School of International Service has the largest number of minority students and female students. It is ranked 6th among APSIA schools in numbers of international students. A review in Foreign Policy Magazine ranked the school 8th in the country for preparing future foreign policy professionals and 25th for academic careers. SIS's undergraduate programs earned a spot at number 11, and its graduate programs were ranked number 8. Because the field of international relations is not evaluated by U.S. News & World Report, the College of William and Mary recently published the results of their survey, which ranked the AU international relations master's degree in the top 10 in the United States and the doctoral degree in the top 25. The School of Communication is among the top 25 in the nation, and it graduates the third-largest number of communication professionals among U.S. colleges and universities. The School of Public Affairs is ranked 10th in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report for 2023.

Folio literary magazine

Folio is a literary magazine founded in 1984 and based at American University. It publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction twice each year. Folio is also known for interviews with prominent writers, most recently Ann Beattie, Alice Fulton, Leslie Pietrzyk, Gregory Orr, and Adam Haslett. Work that has appeared in Folio was short-listed for the Pushcart Prize multiple time in the 1980s. Among the notable stories that first appeared in Folio are Jacob M. Appel's "Fata Morgana" and "Becoming Coretta Davis" by I. Bennett Capers.

Sine Institute
On September 24, 2018, AU President Sylvia M. Burwell announced the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics'''. Taking advantage of AU's location in the nation's capital, the institute will bring together scholars, journalists, and experts from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to find common ground and bipartisan policy solutions to the nation's problems. The Sine Institute launched with a conversation between Burwell and Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. Amy K. Dacey is the first and current executive director of the Sine Institute.

Library system

The Jack I. and Dorothy G. Bender Library and Learning Resources Center is the main library facility for the campus. The University Library is part of the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC), which includes seven other libraries. The WRLC operates a consortium loan service between member institutions and has a shared collections site in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

The Library's Archives and Special Collections houses unique and rare materials and information on the institution's history. The University Archives is the repository for papers and other documents, including sound recordings and photographs, spanning more than a century of the university's history. Special Collections houses rare materials.

Campus life
AU has over 150 recognized organizations on campus, ranging from political to social.

There is an internationally top-ranked Model United Nations team (ranking 1st in North America following the 2021-2022 academic year). The team competes actively at intercollegiate tournaments, and also hosts "AmeriMUNC" (American Model United Nations Conference) a yearly High School Model UN competition on campus.

American University Student Government (AUSG) is the governing body of the student population and has been ranked as the most active student government in the United States. It comprises the Undergraduate Senate and the Executive Branch. AUSG promotes advocacy and launches initiatives on campus supported by the student body.

AU has eight student-run university-recognized media organizations, including The Eagle'' newspaper, radio station WVAU, the Second District Records record label, the American Literary Magazine (AmLit), and several magazines. These media organizations are governed by a Student Media Board and are funded through the university's undergraduate student activity fee:

Religious life
While AU is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and hosts the AU United Methodist Community, AU has a variety of other religious life groups, including Catholic, Chabad Lubavitch of the AU Community, American University Hillel, and the Jewish Student Association.

Greek life
American University has a Panhellenic Association (PHA), Interfraternity Council (IFC), National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), and Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). There are also several independent organizations.

Sustainability
In 2008, American University joined more than 500 other US universities in signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, demonstrating the university's commitment to environmental responsibility. Within a year, American University's Office of Sustainability was established.

An environmental science class at American conducted a study from February to April 2009 to measure the amount of food waste avoided by eliminating trays from one of the college's dining halls. The class found that trayless dinners resulted in 47.1% less solid waste than dinners during which trays were used, spurring a student-driven campaign to go trayless across campus.

In 2011, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) awarded American University a gold rating, the highest possible, on their STARS scale for sustainability. Since then, American University has earned five consecutive gold ratings, the most recent in 2020.

Also in 2011, American University's School of International Service building earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification for its 70,000 square foot building renowned for sustainable design and "cradle-to-cradle" philosophy.

In 2014, American University ranked #2 in the Sierra Club's list of the 'Top 10 Greenest Colleges'.

In 2014, the university announced an ambitious project to build a solar farm in partnership with George Washington University. , the completed solar farm provides an equivalent of 50% of the university's electricity.

In 2018, American University became the first university in the United States to achieve carbon-neutral status. In 2020, AU announced that it had eliminated all public fossil fuel investments from its endowment.

Athletics

A member of the Patriot League, AU has several sports teams including men's and women's basketball, soccer, cross-country, swimming and diving, track, women's volleyball, field hockey, and lacrosse, and men's wrestling. Club sports, such as tennis, rugby, rowing, ice hockey, field hockey, equestrian and ultimate frisbee also have teams.

Bender Arena, a multi-purpose facility, hosts many of American's athletic competitions. Bender Arena opened on January 23, 1988, when AU's women's basketball team hosted James Madison University.

Reeves Field, home to AU's soccer team, earned the 2002 College Soccer Field of the Year by the Sports Turf Managers Association, hosted its fifth NCAA Tournament game, and served as the training site for the Uruguay national football team. Reeves Field features a six-lane track to accommodate the track and field programs at AU and functions as a multi-purpose event site.

American University has seven tennis courts and two basketball courts in the outdoor recreational facility located next to Reeves Field and behind Bender Arena. AU has hosted Patriot League tennis team championships three times since joining the league. Both the men's and women's tennis teams have been cut from the athletics program.

On March 14, 2008, AU earned its first NCAA tournament berth in men's basketball by defeating Colgate University in the Patriot League Championship Game. However, AU lost its first-round NCAA tournament game against the University of Tennessee. On March 13, 2009, AU's men's basketball team repeated as Patriot League Champion by defeating Holy Cross 73–57, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. They ultimately lost to Villanova University in the first round on March 19, 2009, with a final score of 80–67.

William I Jacobs Recreational Complex is also located on campus, containing an AstroTurf surface, a softball diamond, and two sand volleyball courts.

Off-campus facilities include the Massachusetts Ave. Field, which hosts intramural and varsity athletic practices for both the Men's and Women's soccer teams.

The Marilyn Meltzer Wrestling Room is located within Jacobs Fitness Center, and hosts practices for the Men's Varsity Wrestling Team at American University.

Notable people

References

External links

1893 establishments in Washington, D.C.
American University Park
Arboreta in Washington, D.C.
Articles containing video clips
Universities and colleges established in 1893
Patriot League schools
Private universities and colleges in Washington, D.C.
Universities and colleges affiliated with the United Methodist Church

American University


Dido and Aeneas (/ˈdaɪdoʊ/ "Dy-doh and eh-Nee-us") is a three-act English opera. The story and words were written by Nahum Tate. The music was written by Henry Purcell. The opera was probably written about 1684-1685. Dido is Purcell's only true opera. It was possibly modeled on John Blow's Venus and Adonis. Blow's piece was written and staged about the same time. Marc-Antoine Charpentier's little French operas may also have served as models. French music was appreciated at the English court.

The opera was intended for performance at the court. The death of Charles II may have caused it to be postponed however. The first performance occurred in a Chelsea girls' school run by Josias Priest (the dancing master at court) in 1689. Tragedy and comedy are deftly combined in Dido. The lovers' scenes are tense with emotion. The witches' scenes are filled with comical cackling and mischief-making.

The story of the opera is taken from Virgil's Aeneid. It tells of the Trojan Aeneas' tragic love for Dido, the Queen of Carthage. The opera manuscript has been lost or destroyed. Research and performance rely on earliest printed copies. Some music is believed missing from these early copies. That music is composed afresh by modern composers in Purcell's style. Sometimes music Purcell composed about 1685 is inserted into the score to make up for the lack of the original music. Dido and Aeneas is Purcell's best known work.

Background
The words and story (the libretto) of Dido and Aeneas were written by Nahum Tate. The music was written by Henry Purcell. The date for the opera's composition is usually given as 1689. This has been called into question. The work is closer to the music Purcell composed in 1684-1685. The true date of composition probably falls in the middle-1680s rather than 1689. In the middle of the decade, Josias Priest's Chelsea boarding school for young ladies performed John Blow's Venus and Adonis. This little opera was possibly the model for Purcell's work.

The opera was probably intended for a performance at court. The death of Charles II in February 1685 may have been a reason to postpone the performance. There is no evidence that the opera was performed at court at this time. The opera was first performed in 1689 at Priest's Chelsea girls' school, rather than at court.  The themes, the mythological subject, the plentiful dances, the pastoral setting, the formal concision are all indicative that it was intended for a noble audience rather than the common man. It is more likely these short forms of opera appealed to the English. They preferred song and spoken dialogue.

Dido may have been modeled on the little French operas of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It may have been modeled on John Blow's Venus and Adonis, too. Venus was composed and staged about the same time as Dido. The action is carried forward in Dido by arioso passages. Choruses and dances are used to frame the various scenes. The intensity of emotion in the scenes for the lovers is contrasted with the grotesqueness of the witches' scenes. Comedy and tragedy are carefully balanced in Dido. This balance reveals Purcell's sense of drama.

After 1705, the opera disappeared from the stage. Occasionally, there were concert performances. In 1895, the first staged version in modern times was performed by students of the Royal College of Music to mark the bicentenary of Purcell's death.

Roles

Story

The story of the opera is taken from the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil. Virgil was trying to create a national epic for the Romans in the way Homer did with The Iliad and The Odyssey for the Greeks. Aeneas is the son of Venus and Anchises of Troy. He flees his home after it is sacked by the Greeks. Ahead of him lies a seven year journey to Italy. Fate has decreed he will found a new nation. Aeneas arrives in Carthage. Queen Dido is mourning her dead husband, a man to whom she swore eternal fidelity. She has fallen in love with Aeneas, and he with her.

 Act 1. Belinda tries to cheer Dido. Belinda assumes Dido is concerned about Aeneas, "the Trojan guest". It is so. Dido is obviously in love with him. Aeneas is in love with her. The chorus urges them to enjoy their love. "The Triumphing Dance" closes the act.
Act 2. Scene 1: In the cave of a sorceress, the witches decide to ruin Dido's happiness by having Aeneas set sail for Italy. They conjure a storm. To thunder and lightning the Witches perform an "Echo Dance of Furies". Scene 2: Aeneas, Dido, and the courtiers seek shelter in a grove. The storm grows. The ladies hurry away. A Spirit conjured by the Witches advises Aeneas to leave Carthage. Aeneas believes the advice is Jove's command. He decides to sail. He wonders how he will pacify Dido.
Act 3. Sailors dance. One sailor sings a lusty tune. The Sorceress and the Witches are glad to see Aeneas preparing to depart. They vow to do him more harm when once he is at sea. The witches dance. Dido and her train enter. Aeneas enters a moment later. Dido bids Aeneas be off. Aeneas refuses. Dido again urges him to leave. He finally goes. Dido kills herself.

Musical numbers

The original manuscript does not exist. Research depends upon the earliest printed copies. Some pieces are believed missing. Sometimes music Purcell composed in the middle 1680s is put into the score to balance the loss. Sometimes the missing music is composed completely afresh in Purcell's style.

The opera's tragic outcome is hinted at almost at once in the accompaniment to the Queen's Act 1 aria. The modulation in the ground bass from C minor to G minor on the words "I languish till my grief is known" anticipates the key of Dido's lament in Act 3. Purcell uses a ground bass at other moments: Dido's two arias (Acts 1 and 2) and in the aria "Oft she visits" in Act 2. This aria references Actaeon's tragic death by his own hounds. The word "ground" suggests that which will cover Dido after her death.

 Overture
 Act 1.
 Shake the cloud - Belinda
 Ah! Belinda, I am prest - Dido
 Grief increases by concealing - Belinda
 When monarchs unite - Chorus
 Whence could so much virtue spring - Dido
 Fear no danger - Belinda, Second Woman
 See, Your Royal Guest appears - Belinda
 Cupid only throws the dart - Chorus
 If not for mine - Aeneas
 Pursue thy Conquest - Belinda
 To the hills and the vales - Chorus
 The Triumphing Dance
Act 2.

 Prelude for the Witches
 Harm's our delight - Chorus
 The Queen of Carthage - Sorceress
 Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho! - Chorus
 But ere we this perform - Two Witches
 In our deep vaulted cell - Chorus
 Echo Dance of Furies
 Ritornelle
 Thanks to these lonesome vales - Belinda
 Oft she visits - Second Woman
 Behold, upon my bending spear - Aeneas
 Haste, haste to town - Belinda
 Stay, Prince and hear great Jove's command - Spirit
 Then since our charmes have sped - Chorus
 The Grove's Dance
Act 3.
 Prelude
 Come away - Chorus
 See the flags - Sorceress
 Our next motion - Sorceress
 Destruction's our delight - Chorus
 The Witches' Dance
 Your counsel all is urged in vain - Dido
 Great minds against themselves conspire - Chorus
 They hand, Belinda - Dido
 When I am laid in earth - Dido
 With dropping wings ye Cupids, come - Chorus

Orchestra

 Violins
 Violas
 Cellos
 Bass
 Viol de gamba
 Flûtes à bec
 Bass flûtes à bec
 Bassoon
 Clavier and Organ
 Theorboes
 Guitars

Notes

References

17th-century operas
1680s works

Dido and Aeneas


Ian Keith Shelton (born 30 March 1957) is a Canadian astronomer who discovered SN 1987A, the first modern supernova close and bright enough to be visible to the naked eye.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Shelton received his B.Sc. in 1979 from the University of Manitoba and in 1981 began his professional career working as Resident Astronomer at the University of Toronto Southern Observatory at Las Campanas, Chile.

Discovery of Supernova 1987A
On 1987 February 24, at 02:40, Shelton, while working in Chile at Las Campanas Observatory for the University of Toronto, discovered a previously undetected bright light on a photograph of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Initially skeptical, Shelton went outside to look with the naked eye, and saw that the bright light was indeed present. His discovery turned out to be a supernova, the first visible to the naked eye since Johannes Kepler observed SN 1604 nearly 383 years prior.

Other astronomers around the world also soon noticed the bright new object. As Shelton was among the first to report, he is credited as the discoverer, along with Oscar Duhalde and Albert Jones.

Subsequent career and life
Shelton became a graduate student at the University of Toronto in the fall of 1987. He received his M.Sc. in 1990 and PhD in 1996. He has since worked as an astronomer at several observatories:  Japan's 8.3-metre Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, the 1.9-metre David Dunlap Observatory in Toronto, Athabasca University north of Edmonton, and the 6.5-metre MMT Observatory south of Tucson.

He is married to Turkish-born astronomer Tuba Koktay and they reside with their daughter Victoria Büse Shelton in Toronto, Ontario where he teaches at The University of Toronto.

References

Sources
Starfest. A Celebration of Astronomy (2009) (Brief bio of Ian Shelton p. 6)
Whole new science exploded with supernova discovery 20 years ago The Edmonton Journal, 25 Feb. 2007

Living people
20th-century Canadian astronomers
University of Manitoba alumni
University of Toronto alumni
People from Winnipeg
1957 births
Discoverers of supernovae
People from Sackville, New Brunswick
21st-century Canadian astronomers

Ian Shelton


යනු  කර්ක ශාස්ත්‍රය-පදනම් කොටගෙන සංඛ්‍යා ස්ථානගත කිරීමේ ප්‍රහේලිකාවකි. මෙහි පරමාර්ථය වනුයේ  9×9 ජාලකයක්, එක් එක් සිරස් පේළිය, එක් එක් තිරස් පේළිය හා  එක් එක් 3×3 කොටු නවය (කොටස හෝ පෙදෙස ලෙසද හැඳින්වේ)තුල අංක 1 සිට 9 දක්වා එක් වරක් පමණක් අඩංගු වන පරිදි සම්පූර්ණ කිරීමය. ප්‍රහේලිකාව සකස්කොට ඉදිරිපත් කරන්නා විසින් භාගික වශයෙන් සම්පූර්ණ ජාලකයක් සපයනු ලැබේ.

විසඳා හමාර කරන ලද සූදකු ප්‍රහේලිකා ලතින් කොටු ගණයට අයත් වන මුත්, එක් එක් කොටස් හෝ ප්‍රදේශ වල අන්තර්ගතය පිළිබඳ පැනවුනු අමතර සංරෝධනයන් හේතුවෙන් ලතින් කොටු වලින් වෙනස් වේ. ලියොනාඩ් ඉයුලර් මෙම ප්‍රහේලිකාවේ නිර්මාතෘ ලෙස සාවද්‍ය ලෙස උපුටා දැක්වෙනුයේ ලතින් කොටු සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඔහු විසින් සිදුකරන ලද  ගණනයන්, විශ්ලේෂණ හා පර්යේෂණ හේතුවෙනි. .

නූතන ප්‍රහේලිකාව, ඇමරිකානු වාස්තුවිද්‍යාඥ හොවාඩ් ගාන්ස් වෙතින් 1979 දී නිමැවී ඩෙල් සඟරා හි "අංක පෙදෙස" යන නම යටතේ ප්‍රකාශයට පත් විය.   මෙය 1986 දී  ජපානයේ ජනප්‍රිය භාවයට පත් වූයේ,   නිකෝලි විසින් ප්‍රකාශයට පත්කරනු ලැබ, තනි අංකය යන අරුත් දනවන සූදකු යන නම ආරූඨ කිරීමෙන් අනතුරුවය. එය 2005 දී ජාත්‍යන්තර ජනමෝදකයක් බවට පත් විය.

හැඳින්වීම
සූදකු (数独) යන නාමය "සූජි වා දකුෂින් නි කගිරු" යනුවෙන් උච්චාරණය වන හා "සංඛ්‍යා හුදකලා විය යුතුයි", හෝ "සංඛ්‍යා එක් වරක් පමණක් භාවිත විය යුතුයි" යනුවෙන් අරුත් දනවන  "数字は独身に限る" යන්නට කෙටි පදයයි.  මෙම නාමය ප්‍රහේලිකාවේ  ප්‍රකාශක ජපානයේසීමාසහිත නිකෝලි සමාගමේ වෙළෙඳ ලකුණක් වේ . ජපන් බසින්, මෙම වචනය උච්චාරණය වනුයේ  ලෙසය; ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන්, එය සාමාන්‍යයෙන් උච්චාරණය වනුයේ  යනුවෙනි. අනෙකුත් ජපන් ප්‍රකාශකයන් මෙම ප්‍රහේලිකාව හඳුන්වනුයේ, මුල් එ. ජ. නාමය වන  අංක පෙදෙස යනුවෙන් හෝ, කෙටියෙන් "නන්පුරේ"(ナンプレ) ලෙසිනි. සමහරක් ප්‍රකාශකයන් නාමය වහරන්නේ "සූ දොකු" ලෙසය.

සූදකු ප්‍රහේලිකාවේ සංඛ්‍යාංක භාවික වනුයේ හුදෙක් පහසුව සඳහා වේ; සංඛ්‍යාංක අතර අංකගණිතමය බන්ධුතාවයන් අනාදාල වේ. අකුරු, හැඩ, හෝ වර්ණ වැනි කුමන හෝ ප්‍රභින්න සංකේත කට්ටලයක් මේ සඳහා සුදුසු වේ.  සත්‍යවශයෙන්ම, ඊඑස්පීඑන්  විසින් ප්‍රකාශිත සූදකු ප්‍රහේලිකාවන්හි 1 සිට 9 දක්වා සංඛ්‍යා වෙනුවට බේස්බෝල් පිටියක ස්ථාන ආදේශ කර තිබූ අතර, විස් සඟරාව විසින්, රූපවාහිනී කථා මාලාවේ පළමු ප්‍රමුඛ නළුවන් නව දෙනා සංඛ්‍යාංක නවය වෙනුවට යොදා ගනිමින්,  ක්‍රීඩාවේ ඩොක්ට හූ ප්‍රවාචනයක් ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කොට තිබුණි. ප්‍රහේලිකාවේ උත්පාදකයා වන ඩෙල් සඟරා විසින්, 1979 දී වූ පළමු ප්‍රකාශයේ සිට එහි සඟරාවන්හි අංක පෙදෙස සඳහා සංඛ්‍යාංක භාවිත කිරීම පුරුද්දක් කොට ගෙන තිබුණි.

මූලෝපායයන්
ප්‍රහේලිකාවක් විසඳීමෙහි මූලෝපායය, ක්‍රියාවලින් ත්‍රිත්වයක සංකලනයක් ලෙස සැලකේ: පරිලෝකනය, ලකුණු කිරීම, හා විශ්ලේෂණයThe approach to analysis may vary according to the concepts and the representations on which it is based.

පරිලෝකනය
පරිලෝකනය කරනු ලබන්නේ විසඳුම ආරම්භයෙහිදී හා අතරතුරදීය. විශ්ලේෂණයන් අතරතුරදී පරිලෝකනයන් සිදුකල යුත්තේ එක් වරක් පමණි. පරිලෝකනය ශිල්පක්‍රම දෙකකින් සමන්විත වේ:

 හරස්-කඩරේඛනය: මෙය තිරස් පේලි පරිලෝකනය කරමින් හා නොගැලපෙන කොටු බැහැර කිරීමේ ක්‍රියාවලියක් තුලින් යම් පෙදෙසක හෝ කොටසක කුමන පේලියක්  කිසියම් අංකයක් අඩංගු වීමට සුදුසුද යන්න සොයා බැලීමය. මෙම ක්‍රියාවලිය සිරස් පේළි සඳහාද පුනරාවර්තනය කරනු ලැබේ. 1– 9 දක්වා අංක සියල්ල විමසීමට ලක් කරමින්, මෙම ක්‍රියාවලිය ක්‍රමානුකූලව සිදු කිරීම ඉතා වැදගති.
 අන්තර්ගත වී නොමැති අංක හඳුනාගැනීම සඳහා, ප්‍රදේශයන්හි, තිරස් පේළි, හා සිරස් පේළි වලදී 1–9 ගැන බැලීම. සොයාගත් අවසාන අංකය පදනම් කොට ගෙන මෙම ගැන බැලීම සිදු කිරීම, ගවේෂණය වේගවත් කිරීමට ඉවහල් විය හැක. විශේෂයෙන්, දුෂ්කර ප්‍රහේලිකාවන්හීදී, සිහි තබා ගත යුතු කරුණක් වනුයේ, යම් කොටුවක් සඳහා නියමිත අංකය නිශ්චය කිරීමේ හොඳම ක්‍රමය වනුයේ, පසුපසට ගැන බැලීම —එනම්, වියනොහැකි අගයයන් සොයාගැනීමට කොටුවක පෙදෙසල තිරස් පේළිය, හා සිරස් පේළිය පරිලෝකනය කොට, ඉතිරි වන්නේ කුමක් දැයි විමසා බැලීමයි. මෙම ආකාරයට සිදු කිරීමෙන්, කොටුවක් සඳහා විකල්පය එක් ප්‍රවේශනයක් දක්වා ලඝු කර ගැනීමෙන් සූදකු ක්‍රීඩාව වචනයේ පරිසමාප්ත අර්ථයෙන්ම සිදුකල හැක.

Advanced solvers look for "contingencies" while scanning, narrowing a numeral's location within a row, column, or region to two or three cells.  When those cells lie within the same row and region, they can be used for elimination during cross-hatching and counting. Puzzles solved by scanning alone without requiring the detection of contingencies are classified as "easy"; more difficult puzzles are not readily solved by basic scanning alone.

Marking up
Scanning stops when no further numerals can be discovered, making it necessary to engage in logical analysis. One method to guide the analysis is to mark candidate numerals in the blank cells.

Subscript notation
In subscript notation, the candidate numerals are written in subscript in the cells. Because puzzles printed in a newspaper are too small to accommodate more than a few subscript digits of normal handwriting, solvers may create a larger copy of the puzzle. Using two colours, or mixing pencil and pen marks can be helpful.

Dot notation
The dot notation uses a pattern of dots in each square, where the dot position indicates a number from 1 to 9. The dot notation can be used on the original puzzle. Dexterity is required in placing the dots, since misplaced dots or inadvertent marks lead to confusion and may not be easily erased.

Another technique is to mark the numerals that a cell cannot be. The cell starts empty and as more constraints become known, it slowly fills until only one mark is missing. Assuming no mistakes are made and the marks can be overwritten with the value of a cell, there is no longer a need for any erasures.

විශ්ලේශණය
The two main approaches to analysis are "candidate elimination" and "what-if".

Candidate elimination
In "candidate elimination", progress  is made by successively eliminating candidate numerals to leave one choice for a given cell.  After each answer is found, another scan may be performed—usually checking to see the effect on contingencies.  In general, if entering a numeral prevents completion of other empty cells, then the numeral can be eliminated as a candidate.

One method of candidate elimination works by identifying "matched cell groups".  For instance, if precisely two cells within a scope (a particular row, column, or region) contain the same two candidate numerals (p,q), or if precisely three cells within a scope contain the same three candidate numerals (p,q,r), these cells are said to be matched.  The placement of those candidate numerals anywhere else within the same scope would make a solution impossible, allowing the numbers to be eliminated as candidates from those other cells.

What-if
In the "what-if" approach (also called "guess-and-check", "bifurcation", "backtracking" and "Ariadne's thread"), a cell with two candidate numerals is selected, and a guess is made. The results are followed until a duplication is found or a cell is left without a candidate, in which case the alternative must have been the solution. For each cell's candidate, the question is posed: 'will entering a particular numeral prevent completion of the other placements of that numeral?' If 'yes', then that candidate can be eliminated. If the "what-if" exercises show that either candidate is possible, then another pair should be tried.  Alternatively, if the "what-if" exercises for both candidates imply an identical result, then that result is known.  The what-if approach requires a pencil and eraser or a good layout memory.

There are three kind of conflicts, which can appear during puzzle solving:

basic conflicts - there are only N-1 different candidates in N cell in the area
fish conflicts - when eliminating number from N rows/columns, it will disappear also from N+1 columns/rows.
unique conflicts - this pattern means multiple solutions, all numbers in the pattern exist exactly two times in every area, row and column. If there is only one candidate in the cell, any virtual candidate can be added.

Encountering any of those would indicate that the puzzle is not uniquely solvable.  Encountering any of them as a consequence of "what-if" indicates that an untried alternative is correct.

Computer solutions
There are three general approaches taken in the creation of serious Sudoku-solving programs: human solving methods, rapid-style methods, and pure brute-force algorithms. Human-style solvers will typically operate by maintaining a mark-up matrix, and search for contingencies, matched cells, and other elements that a human solver can use to determine and exclude cell values.

Many rapid-style solvers employ backtracking searches, with various pruning techniques in order to help reduce the size of the search tree. The term rapid-style may be misleading: Most human-style solvers run considerably faster than a rapid-style solver, although the latter takes less time to write and is more easily adapted to larger grids.  A purely brute-force algorithm is very simple and finds a solution to a puzzle essentially by "counting" upward until a string of eighty-one digits is constructed which satisfies the row, column, and box constraints of the puzzle.

Rapid solvers are preferred for trial-and-error puzzle-creation algorithms, which allow for testing large numbers of partial problems for validity in a short time; human-style solvers can be employed by hand-crafting puzzlesmiths for their ability to rate the difficulty of a created puzzle and show the actual solving process their target audience can be expected to follow.

Although typical Sudoku puzzles (with 9×9 grid and 3×3 regions) can be solved quickly by computer,
the generalization to larger grids is known to be NP-complete. Various optimization methods
have been proposed for large grids.

Details of computer solutions may be found on the page on the Algorithmics of Sudoku.

Difficulty ratings

The difficulty of a puzzle is based on the relevance and the positioning of the given numbers rather than their quantity. Surprisingly, the number of givens often does not reflect a puzzle's difficulty. Computer solvers can estimate the difficulty for a human to find the solution based on the complexity of the solving techniques required. Some online versions offer several difficulty levels.

Most publications sort their Sudoku puzzles into four or five rating levels, although the cut-off points and the names of the levels vary widely.  Typically, the levels are "easy", "intermediate", and "hard". Extremely difficult puzzles are known as "diabolical" or "evil". An easy puzzle can be solved using only scanning; an intermediate puzzle may take markup to solve; a hard puzzle will usually take analysis.

Another approach is to rely on the experience of a group of human test solvers. Puzzles can be published with a median solving time rather than an algorithmically defined difficulty level.

Difficulty is a very complex topic, subject to much debate on the Sudoku forums, because it may depend on the concepts and visual representations one is ready to use.

Construction
Building a Sudoku puzzle can be performed by predetermining the locations of the givens and assigning them values only as needed to make deductive progress. This technique gives the constructor greater control over the flow of puzzle solving, leading the solver along the same path the compiler used in building the puzzle. Great caution is required, however, as failing to recognize where a number can be logically deduced at any point in construction—regardless of how tortuous that logic may be—can result in an unsolvable puzzle when defining a future given contradicts what has already been built.  Building a Sudoku with symmetrical givens is a simple matter of placing the undefined givens in a symmetrical pattern to begin with.

Nikoli Sudoku are hand-constructed, with the author being credited; the givens are always found in a symmetrical pattern. Dell Number Place Challenger (see Variants below) puzzles also list authors. The Sudoku puzzles printed in most UK newspapers are apparently computer-generated but employ symmetrical givens; The Guardian famously claimed that because they were hand-constructed, their puzzles would contain "imperceptible witticisms" that would be very unlikely in computer-generated Sudoku.

විවිධ වර්ග

Although the 9×9 grid with 3×3 regions is by far the most common, variations abound.  Sample puzzles can be 4×4 grids with 2×2 regions; 5×5 grids with pentomino regions have been published under the name Logi-5; the World Puzzle Championship has featured a 6×6 grid with 2×3 regions and a 7×7 grid with six heptomino regions and a disjoint region. Larger grids are also possible. The Times offers a 12×12-grid Dodeka sudoku with 12 regions of 4×3 squares. Dell regularly publishes 16×16 Number Place Challenger puzzles (the 16×16 variant often uses 1 through G rather than the 0 through F used in hexadecimal). Nikoli offers 25×25 Sudoku the Giant behemoths.

Another common variant is to add restrictions on the placement of numbers beyond the usual row, column, and region requirements.  Often the restriction takes the form of an extra "dimension"; the most common is to require the numbers in the main diagonals of the grid also to be unique.  The aforementioned Number Place Challenger puzzles are all of this variant, as are the Sudoku X puzzles in the Daily Mail, which use 6×6 grids.

A variant named "Mini Sudoku" appears in the American newspaper USA Today, which is played on a 6x6 grid with 3x2 regions. The object is the same as standard Sudoku, but the puzzle only uses the numbers 1 through 6.

Another variant is the combination of Sudoku with Kakuro on a 9 x 9 grid, called Cross Sums Sudoku, in which clues are given in terms of cross sums. The clues can also be given by cryptic alphametics in which each letter represents a single digit from 0 to 9. An excellent example is  NUMBER+NUMBER=KAKURO which has a unique solution 186925+186925=373850. Another example is SUDOKU=IS*FUNNY whose solution is 426972=34*12558.

Killer Sudoku combines elements of Sudoku with Kakuro - usually no initial numbers are given, but the 9*9 grid is divided into regions, each with a number that the sum of all numbers in the region must add up to, with no repeated numerals. These must be filled in while obeying the standard rules of Sudoku.

Many newspapers include the popular Hypersudoku such as The Age. The layout is identical to a normal Sudoku, but with additional interior areas defined in which the numbers 1 to 9 must appear. The solving algorithm is slightly different from the normal Sudoku puzzles because of the leverage on the overlapping squares. This overlap gives you more information to logically reduce the possibilities in the remaining squares. The approach to playing is still similar to sudoku but with possibly more emphasis on scanning the squares and overlap rather than columns and rows.

Puzzles constructed from multiple Sudoku grids are common.  Five 9×9 grids which overlap at the corner regions in the shape of a quincunx is known in Japan as Gattai 5 (five merged) Sudoku. In The Times, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald this form of puzzle is known as Samurai SuDoku. The Baltimore Sun publishes a puzzle of this variant (titled High Five) in their sunday edition. Puzzles with twenty or more overlapping grids can be found in some Japanese publications.   Often, no givens are to be found in overlapping regions.  Sequential grids, as opposed to overlapping, are also published, with values in specific locations in grids needing to be transferred to others.

Alphabetical variations have emerged; there is no functional difference in the puzzle unless the letters spell something.  Some variants, such as in the TV Guide, include a word reading along a main diagonal, row, or column once solved; determining the word in advance can be viewed as a solving aid.  A more loose variant on the sudoku concept is seen in Squaro, wherein circles at the vertices of a grid are filled in to meet the requirements of numbers in that grid in a combination of sudoku and minesweeper.

A tabletop version of Sudoku can be played with a standard 81-card Set deck (see Set game).  A three-dimensional Sudoku puzzle was invented by Dion Church and published in the Daily Telegraph in May 2005. There is a Sudoku version of the Rubik's Cube named Sudokube.

The 2005 U.S. Puzzle Championship included a variant called Digital Number Place: rather than givens, most cells contain a partial given—a segment of a number, with the numbers drawn as if part of a seven-segment display. This version has also appeared in GAMES magazine.

සූදකු තුල ගණිතය

A completed Sudoku grid is a special type of Latin square with the additional property of no repeated values in any partition of the 9×9 block into contiguous 3×3 blocks. The relationship between the two theories is now completely known, after Denis Berthier has proven in his recent book, "The Hidden Logic of Sudoku", that a first order formula that does not mention blocks (also called boxes or regions) is valid for Sudoku if and only if it is valid for Latin Squares (this property is trivially true for the axioms and it can be extended to any formula).

The first known calculation of the number of classic 9×9 Sudoku solution grids was posted on a USENET newsgroup rec.puzzles in September of 2003 and is 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 . This is roughly 0.00012% the number of 9×9 Latin squares. A detailed calculation of this figure was provided by Bertram Felgenhauer and Frazer Jarvis in 2005. Various other grid sizes have also been enumerated—see the main article for details.  The number of essentially different solutions, when symmetries such as rotation, reflection and relabelling are taken into account, was shown by Ed Russell and Frazer Jarvis to be just 5,472,730,538 .

The maximum number of givens provided while still not rendering a unique solution is four short of a full grid; if two instances of two numbers each are missing and the cells they are to occupy form the corners of an orthogonal rectangle, and exactly two of these cells are within one region, there are two ways the numbers can be assigned.  Since this applies to Latin squares in general, most variants of Sudoku have the same maximum.  The inverse problem—the fewest givens that render a solution unique—is unsolved, although the lowest number yet found for the standard variation without a symmetry constraint is 17, a number of which have been found by Japanese puzzle enthusiasts, and 18 with the givens in rotationally symmetric cells.  Over 47,000 examples of Sudokus with 17 givens resulting in a unique solution are known.

History

Number puzzles first appeared in newspapers in the late 19th century, when French puzzle setters began experimenting with removing numbers from magic squares. Le Siècle, a Paris-based daily, published a partially completed 9×9 magic square with 3×3 sub-squares in 1892.  It was not a Sudoku because it contained double-digit numbers and required arithmetic rather than logic to solve, but it shared key characteristics: each row, column and sub-square added up to the same number.

Within three years Le Siècle's rival, La France, refined the puzzle so that it was almost a modern Sudoku. It simplified the 9×9 magic square puzzle so that each row and column contained only the numbers 1–9, but did not mark the sub-squares. Although they are unmarked, each 3×3 sub-square does indeed comprise the numbers 1–9. However, the puzzle cannot be considered the first Sudoku because, under modern rules, it has two solutions. The puzzle setter ensured a unique solution by requiring 1–9 to appear in both diagonals.

These weekly puzzles were a feature of newspaper titles including L'Echo de Paris for about a decade but disappeared about the time of the First World War.

According to Will Shortz, the modern Sudoku was most likely designed anonymously by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor from Indiana, and first published in 1979 by Dell Magazines as Number Place (the earliest known examples of modern Sudoku). Garns's name was always present on the list of contributors in issues of Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games that included Number Place, and was always absent from issues that did not. He died in 1989 before getting a chance to see his creation as a worldwide phenomenon. It is unclear if Garns was familiar with any of the French newspapers listed above.

The puzzle was introduced in Japan by Nikoli in the paper Monthly Nikolist in April 1984 as , which can be translated as "the digits must be single" or "the digits are limited to one occurrence." At a later date, the name was abbreviated to Sudoku by , taking only the first kanji of compound words to form a shorter version. In 1986, Nikoli introduced two innovations: the number of givens was restricted to no more than 32, and puzzles became "symmetrical" (meaning the givens were distributed in rotationally symmetric cells).<ref name=Nikoli> It is now published in mainstream Japanese periodicals, such as the Asahi Shimbun.

Popularity in the media

In 1997, retired Hong Kong judge Wayne Gould, 59, a New Zealander, saw a partly completed puzzle in a Japanese bookshop. Over six years he developed a computer program to produce puzzles quickly. Knowing that British newspapers have a long history of publishing crosswords and other puzzles, he promoted Sudoku to The Times in Britain, which launched it on 12 November 2004 (calling it Su Doku).

The rapid rise of Sudoku in Britain from relative obscurity to a front-page feature in national newspapers attracted commentary in the media and parody (such as when The Guardian'''s G2 section advertised itself as the first newspaper supplement with a Sudoku grid on every page). Recognizing the different psychological appeals of easy and difficult puzzles, The Times introduced both side by side on 20 June 2005. From July 2005, Channel 4 included a daily Sudoku game in their Teletext service. On 2 August, the BBC's programme guide Radio Times featured a weekly Super Sudoku.

Even the Greeks owe the publication of their first Sudoku magazine to British influence. It was at Heathrow airport in the summer of 2005 that a Greek computer magazine publisher first laid eyes on a British Sudoku magazine and - realizing the opportunity - proceeded to purchase the necessary software and quickly launch the first local Sudoku magazine that became an instant success.

In the United States, the first newspaper to publish a Sudoku puzzle by Wayne Gould was The Conway Daily Sun (New Hampshire), in 2004.

The world's first live TV Sudoku show, Sudoku Live, was a puzzle contest first broadcast on 1 July 2005 on Sky One. It was presented by Carol Vorderman. Nine teams of nine players (with one celebrity in each team) representing geographical regions competed to solve a puzzle. Each player had a hand-held device for entering numbers corresponding to answers for four cells. Phil Kollin of Winchelsea, England was the series grand prize winner taking home over £23,000 over a series of games. The audience at home was in a separate interactive competition, which was won by Hannah Withey of Cheshire.

Later in 2005, the BBC launched SUDO-Q, a game show that combines Sudoku with general knowledge.  However, it uses only 4x4 and 6x6 puzzles.

Sudoku software is now also very popular on PCs, websites, and mobile phones. It comes with many distributions of Linux. It has also been released on portable video game handhelds such as the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, the Game Boy Advance, and even on several iPod models. One of the most popular video games featuring Sudoku is Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!. Critically and commercially well received, it generated particular praise for its Sudoku implementation  and sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. Due to its popularity, Nintendo made a second Brain Age game titled Brain Age2, which has over 100 new sudoku puzzles and other activities.

 තරඟ
 පලමු ලෝක සුදෝකු ශුරතාවය ඉතාලියේ Luccaහිදි 2006 මාර්තු මස 10 දින 12 දින තෙක් පැවැත්වින. ජයාග්‍රාහිකාව වුයේ Czech ජනරජයේ Jana Tylova. තරගයට විවිධ වර්ගයේ සුදොකු ප්‍රෙහෙලිකාවන් ඇතුලත්ව තිබිනි.
 දෙවන ලෝක සුදෝකු ශුරතාවය Prague 2007 මාර්තු 28 සිට අප්‍රේල් 1 තෙක් පැවැත්වින.  කේවල තරගයෙන් ඇමරිකාවේ Thomas Snyder කන්ඩායම් තරගයෙන් ජපානය ද ජය ගන්නා ලදි.
Hosted by renowned puzzle master Will Shortz, The Philadelphia Inquirer Sudoku National Championship was the first U.S. Sudoku Championship. Thomas Snyder was the winner of the expert division, receiving $10,000 and a spot on the U.S. National Sudoku Team at the 2008 World Sudoku Championship in India.
The third World Sudoku Championship was held in Goa, India from April 14-16, 2008. Thomas Synder repeated as the individual overall championship, and also won the first ever Classic Trophy (a subset of the competition counting only classic Sudoku). The Czech Republic won the team competition.

 See also

Mathematics of Sudoku
 Algorithmics of Sudoku
List of Sudoku terms and jargon
Killer sudoku
Sudokube (3D variant)
Latin square
Logic puzzle
List of Nikoli puzzle types
Kakuro
Nonogram (aka Paint by numbers, O'ekaki)
Futoshiki
KenKen

 ආශ්‍රිත

 External links
  – An active listing of Sudoku'' links.
Father of Sudoku puzzles next move BBC

English words and phrases of foreign origin

Mathematics and culture
ගණිතය

සූදකු


Guarani, Guaraní or Guarany may refer to

Ethnography
 Guaraní people, an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia)
 Guaraní language, or Paraguayan Guarani, an official language of Paraguay
 Guarani dialects, spoken in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay
 Guarani languages, a group of languages, including Guarani, in the Tupí-Guaraní language subfamily
 Eastern Bolivian Guarani, historically called Chiriguanos, living in the eastern Bolivian foothills of the Andes. Also called Ava Guarani.

Economics
 Paraguayan guaraní, the currency of Paraguay

Education
 The Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, a subunit of Dartmouth College

Geography
 Guarani, Minas Gerais, Brazil
 Guarani de Goiás, Brazil
 Guarani das Missões, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
 Guarani Aquifer, a large underground water reservoir in South America

Literature and music
 The Guarani, an 1857 novel by José de Alencar
 Il Guarany, an opera by Carlos Gomes, based on the above novel
 Guarany (film), a 1948 Italian film directed by Riccardo Freda

Machines
 FMA IA 50 Guaraní II, an Argentine utility aircraft
 VBTP-MR, a Brazilian 6x6 armored personnel carrier

Association football (soccer) clubs
Brazil
 Guarani Esporte Clube (CE), Juazeiro do Norte
 Guarani Esporte Clube (MG), Divinópolis
 Guarani Futebol Clube, Campinas
 Guarany Futebol Clube, Bagé
 Guarany Futebol Clube (Camaquã)
 Guarany Sporting Club, Sobral
 Associação Atlética Guarany, Porto da Folha
 Esporte Clube Guarani, Venâncio Aires
 Sociedade Esportiva, Recreativa e Cultural Guarani, Palhoça
 Sport Club Guarany, Cruz Alta

Paraguay
 Club Guaraní, Asunción
 Guaraní F.B.C., Trinidad

Astronomy
 Guarani, official name of exoplanet HD 23079 b

People
Horacio Guarany (1925-2017), Argentinian singer & writer

See also
 Guarini (disambiguation), an Italian name

Language and nationality disambiguation pages

Guarani


Sir Georg Solti (pronounce: "George Shollti"), (born Budapest, 21 October 1912; died Antibes, France, 5 September 1997) was a Hungarian conductor who later became a naturalized British citizen.

Early career
Solti was born György Stern in Budapest to a Jewish family. His father changed his name from György to Georg and changed his family name to Solti. This was so that his name did not look Jewish, because there was a lot of antisemitism in Europe.

He learned the piano but, when he was 14, he heard Erich Kleiber conduct Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and he immediately wanted to be a conductor. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Leo Weiner and Ernst von Dohnanyi. By 1935 he was becoming known as a conductor. He conducted The Marriage of Figaro at the Budapest Opera in 1938. It was the first time he had conducted there, and it was also to be the last time. That very day, Hitler annexed Austria. Life became dangerous for Jews in Hungary. In 1939, he moved to Switzerland, where he continued a career as a pianist and won the Geneva International Piano Competition, but he did not have many chances to conduct there. His father became ill and died, so he never saw him again.

After World War II Solti became music director of the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich (where he gave the first performance in Germany of Paul Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler, which had been banned when the Nazis were in power. He conducted the Frankfurt Opera where he gave the first performance in Germany of Alban Berg's Lulu. In 1951 he performed at the Salzburg Festival conducting Mozart's Idomeneo.

Mid career

Solti often conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and it was arranged that he would be their main conductor (music director) from 1962. However, Solti changed his mind because they appointed Zubin Mehta as assistant conductor without telling Solti. Mehta became musical director instead.

In 1961 Solti became music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and stayed there until 1971. He was a great conductor, but made the musicians work very hard. With his bald head he got the nickname "The Screaming Skull". He spent much of his time in Britain and the United States.

His first marriage ended in divorce. His second marriage was to Valerie Pitts, a British television presenter whom he met when she was sent to interview him. They had two daughters, Gabrielle and Claudia. He was given an honorary Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1971. The next year he became a British citizen, and was then known as Sir Georg Solti.

Solti helped many young musicians, training them in workshops and giving them opportunities to perform.

Later career
Solti was music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) from 1969 until 1991, when he was given the title of Music Director Laureate, the only CSO conductor to be given that title. He made them into a world class orchestra and took them on tours to other countries. He gave 999 performances with the CSO. He died before his 1,000th performance. A square near the Symphony Center in Chicago was called "Sir Georg Solti Place" in his memory.

Solti also had other jobs. He was music director of the Orchestre de Paris from 1972 until 1975. From 1979 until 1983 he was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. During this time with the London Philharmonic he performed and recorded many works by Elgar including the two symphonies, the Violin Concerto with Kyung Wha Chung and the Cello Concerto with Julian Lloyd Webber. In 1983 he conducted Wagner's Ring Cycle at Bayreuth for the only time. For the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, Solti formed the World Orchestra for Peace, which consisted of musicians from 47 orchestras around the world.

Solti worked with Dudley Moore on a 1991 television series, Orchestra!, which was made to explain to people all about the orchestra.

Solti never retired. He had many plans for concerts and recordings when he suddenly died of a heart attack on 5 September 1997 in Antibes, France He was given a state funeral, and was buried next to Bartók who had been his teacher and had helped him a lot. Solti's widow and daughters began the Solti Foundation to help young musicians.

Other websites
 Georg Solti official website

1912 births
1997 deaths
British conductors
Deaths from myocardial infarction
Musicians from Budapest
Grammy Award winners
Hungarian conductors
Hungarian Jews
Jewish British musicians
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Refugees from Nazism

Georg Solti


Cretan hieroglyphs is a writing system, used in Crete from about the 20th to the 15th century BC. It is undeciphered, so it cannot be read today. For most of its history, it was used together with Linear A. Most symbols are pictograms, for some symbols, experts do not agree on what they represent. Most of the corpus consists of short inscriptions on seal stones, and clay tablets.  The texts are usually very short, they are inscriptions on seals, and markers on clay tablets. There are three items that are noticeably different: A stone called Malia altar stone, the Phaistos Disc and the Arkalochori Axe. The exact relation of these items to the rest of the corpus is unknown.

In total, there are 137 symbols. 96 seem to be words, or part of words. 32 are probably Logograms. 9 seem to represent fractions. There are four numerals, standing for 1, 10, 100 and 1000. One symbol is  used to separate words, like a hyphen, another looks like a  cross, and probably stands for the beginning of the text. The writing is probably syllabic.

References
J. G. Younger: The Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: A Review Article; Minos 31–32 (1996–1997), pp 379–400.

Unreadable writing systems
Minoan culture

Cretan hieroglyphs


The Beginning or the End is a 1947 American docudrama film about the development of the atomic bomb in World War II, directed by Norman Taurog, starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, and Tom Drake, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film dramatizes the creation of the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Hiroshima.

The film originated in October 1945 as a project of actress Donna Reed and her high school science teacher, Edward R. Tompkins, who was a chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bob Considine wrote the treatment, which was sent to MGM scriptwriters. The title was supplied by  President Harry S. Truman. At the time there was a legal requirement that permission be obtained to depict living well-known public figures. Many refused, but others, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, co-operated. Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., the director of the Manhattan Project, was hired as a consultant for $10,000 ().

Although the filmmakers put considerable effort into historical accuracy, particularly in details, the film is known for some key distortions of history. An entirely fictional sequence was added in which Truman agonizes over whether to authorize the attack; anti-aircraft shells are shown bursting around the Enola Gay on its bombing run over Hiroshima. The film received generally mixed reviews, and was a box office disappointment.

Plot
A prelude scene in the form of a Newsreel story suggests that the film is part of a package of information about the development of atomic energy and the atomic bomb being placed in a time capsule in California, to be opened in 2446.

Physicist and atomic scientist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Hume Cronyn) praises the discovery of atomic energy but also warns of its dangers. American scientists such as Matt Cochran (Tom Drake), working under the guidance of Dr. Enrico Fermi (Joseph Calleia) and Dr. Marré (Victor Francen), have split the atom, and essentially beaten the Germans in the race to create an atomic bomb. With the assistance of Albert Einstein (Ludwig Stössel), they inform President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Godfrey Tearle) that a monumental discovery has been made.

In 1941, with the United States at war, Roosevelt authorizes up to two billion dollars for the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. In December 1942, at the University of Chicago, under the watchful eyes of observers such as Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Nixon (Robert Walker) and international experts, scientists create the first chain reaction, under a stadium at the campus.

Nixon is assigned to General Leslie Groves (Brian Donlevy), who is placed in charge of the project. Groves has to bring together the scientific, industrial and defense communities to build the atomic bomb. In 1945, following the death of Roosevelt, the new president, Harry S. Truman (Art Baker), continues to support the atomic project, now moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Facing stiff resistance in the Pacific War, Truman orders the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in July 1945.

Cochran and Nixon are assigned to accompany the crew transporting the bomb to Tinian. While assembling the bomb, Cochran comes into contact with radioactive material and dies. The following day, on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. After the mission, Nixon returns home to break the news of her husband's death to Cochran's wife.

Cast

 Brian Donlevy as Major General Leslie R. Groves
 Robert Walker as Lieutenant Colonel, later Colonel, Jeff Nixon
 Tom Drake as Matt Cochran
 Beverly Tyler as Anne Cochran
 Audrey Totter as Jean O'Leary
 Hume Cronyn as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
 Hurd Hatfield as Dr. John Wyatt
 Joseph Calleia as Dr. Enrico Fermi
 Godfrey Tearle as President Franklin D. Roosevelt
 Victor Francen as Dr. Marre
 Richard Haydn as Dr. Chisholm
 Jonathan Hale as Dr. Vannevar Bush
 John Litel as K. T. Keller
 Henry O'Neill as General Thomas F. Farrell
 Warner Anderson as Captain William S. Parsons
 Barry Nelson as Colonel Paul Tibbets, Jr., pilot of the Enola Gay
 Art Baker as President Harry S. Truman
 Ludwig Stössel as Dr. Albert Einstein
 John Hamilton as Dr. Harold C. Urey
 Frank Ferguson as Dr. James B. Conant
 Tom Stevenson as Dr. E. P. Wigner
 John Gallaudet as Dr. Leo Szilard
 Moroni Olsen as Dr. Arthur H. Compton
 Norman Lloyd as Dr. Troyanski
 Charles Trowbridge as Walter S. Carpenter Jr.
 Henry Hall as General Brehon Somervell
 William Wright as Colonel John Lansdale
 James Bush as Dr. Ernest O. Lawrence
 Erville Alderson as Henry Stimson (uncredited)

Production

The idea for The Beginning or the End originated in October 1945 with actress Donna Reed, and her high school science teacher, Edward R. Tompkins, a chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. According to The Hollywood Reporter issues of December 1945 and January 1946, MGM, Paramount and 20th Century-Fox were all interested in making a film about the Manhattan Project. Paramount's Hal B. Wallis was already working on his own version, titled Top Secret, but agreed to merge his project with MGM's and hand over his story and research, offering to serve as an adviser on the MGM treatment in return for a fixed fee and a percentage of the box office gross.

The Beginning or the End had a number of working titles, including Atom Bomb, The Manhattan Project and  Top Secret. Bob Considine was hired to produce a treatment, which was submitted to MGM writers. The script underwent a number of revisions, with Ayn Rand being one of the writers. Her contributions include the montage of Hitler's conquests, a sequence in which a dying informant sends a message to Albert Einstein, and the sequence in which President Franklin Roosevelt authorizes the Manhattan Project. Other writers involved with the script were Robert Smith, Frank "Spig" Wead, Norman Krasna, David Hawkins, John Lee Mahin and Glenn Tryon. Producer Samuel Marx wrote  the opening narration.
Marx and Donna Reed's husband Tony Owen met with President Harry S. Truman to secure his approval. At their meeting, Truman is reported to have said: "Gentlemen, make a motion picture. Tell the people of this nation that for them it is the beginning or the end," thereby supplying the movie with its title.

H. T. Wensel from the National Bureau of Standards, Tompkins, and W. Bradford Shank from the Los Alamos National Laboratory acted as technical advisers. Relations between MGM and the scientists soon soured, as the scientists began asking for more accuracy which required multiple script changes, and Tompkins eventually resigned. Oppenheimer sent David Hawkins, a philosophy professor from the University of California to act as a mediator between Marx and the scientists. Although the original intention was that a substantial sum of money would be donated to scientists' associations like the Federation of Atomic Scientists, in the end, no scientific organizations accepted any money. Tompkins received payment of one hundred dollars.  (). At the time, there was a legal requirement that permission be obtained to depict living well-known public figures in films. Lise Meitner, Niels Bohr and Sir James Chadwick all refused to allow their names to be used in The Beginning or the End, which Marx regarded as unfortunate, as it made the film's Manhattan Project scenes look like an all-American affair.

The loss of Bohr caused important sequences to be deleted. The script originally had Bohr, rescued from the Germans in Denmark, bring a shocked Oppenheimer news that the German nuclear weapon project was supplying expertise to its Japanese counterpart. A German submarine carrying a fictional scientist travels to Japan where he joins the Japanese project in Hiroshima. Vannevar Bush objected to the way the script depicted him as having doubts about whether the atomic bomb could be built in time or could fit into an aircraft. Bush insisted that he never had any doubts. The script was changed to soften this. In the film, when Bush tells President  Roosevelt that he has a top-secret matter to discuss, the President's dog Fala leaves the room.

Oppenheimer raised no objection to the sequence in the film in which he informed Brigadier General Thomas Farrell that the odds of a runaway explosion destroying the planet were less than one in a million, although he told MGM that he never said this. The cultured Oppenheimer's main concern was that the script was poor, with characters that were "stilted, lifeless, and without purpose or insight."

Military technical advisers for The Beginning or the End included Colonel William A. Considine, Groves's assistant in charge of Security and Public Relations, Major Glen W. Landreth, Major Paul Van Sloun and Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Sweeney, the pilot of Bockscar, the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Scientists were alarmed by reports that MGM leading man Clark Gable was being considered for the role of Groves, but were relieved when Brian Donlevy was cast instead. Donlevy usually appeared in villainous supporting roles   and indeed, most of the actors cast in the movie were best known for film noir: Hume Cronyn for The Postman Always Rings Twice; Joseph Calleia, for Gilda and Deadline at Dawn; and Ludwig Stössel for Fritz Lang's Cloak and Dagger. The portly Groves apparently had no objection to his portrayal by the slim and handsome Donlevy, except for the way in which he was shown bossing industrialists around. He had a scene in which he warned Roosevelt that the invasion of Japan would be opposed by Japanese atomic weapons deleted.

Eleanor Roosevelt objected to the casting of Lionel Barrymore as her late husband, due to political remarks that Barrymore had made about the president in 1944. Marx delayed Barrymore's scenes while she had a chance to read and respond to a letter Barrymore sent her explaining that his remarks had been misinterpreted, but she was not placated, and Barrymore was replaced in the role by Godfrey Tearle. The War Department and the White House reviewed the script, and both asked for changes. The Army had objected to a scene in which an Army major made a pass at a girl and it was cut from the film, as the Army felt that this was poor conduct for an officer.

The casual way that Truman and Groves were shown to decide to use the bomb, with Truman stating that "I think more of our American boys than I do of all our enemies", while accurate, troubled Walter Lippmann, who felt that it could lead to foreigners being fearful of atomic weapons being in American hands. It was replaced with a scene where Truman agonizes over whether to authorize the attack or not. In it, Truman asserts that dropping the bomb will shorten the war, and a "year less of war will mean life for ... from 300,000 to half a million of America's finest youth".

The motion picture censors asked for further cuts.  Derogatory references to Mexicans were removed, as was an off-color joke about the effects of exposure to radioactive substances ("Is it true if you fool around with that stuff you don't like girls anymore?" "Not that I've noticed"), and one about politics ("I got it confidential−we're makin' the front ends of horses. We ship 'em to Washington to hook on to the other end.")

Principal photography for The Beginning or the End began on April 29, 1946, and continued until July 25 with retakes beginning on August 9, 1946. The production premiered in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 1947, with the national release of the film following on March 7, 1947.

Historical accuracy
The filmmakers put considerable effort into many details for historical accuracy, such as military uniforms, and the details of the Enola Gay and its crew. Nine of the actors who portrayed the Enola Gay crew were actual veterans of World War II. However, the technical details of atomic processes and the bomb's design are wildly inaccurate by intention. In 1947, these details were highly classified. Another inaccuracy, independent of necessary military secrecy, is the portrayal of anti-aircraft shells bursting around the aircraft on the bombing run, as the attack on Hiroshima was not opposed.

The film twice refers to supposed specific leaflet drops on the target for ten days in advance of the mission warning the citizens of the forthcoming raid. "We've been dropping warning leaflets on them for ten days now", one crew member remarks, "That's ten days more warning than they gave us before Pearl Harbor." However, there was no leaflet specifically warning of an atomic attack. In his review in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, physicist Harrison Brown called this "the most horrible falsification of history". Historians  have debated whether any leaflets were dropped at all.

This incident in which "Cochran" receives a fatal dose of radiation while assembling the Hiroshima bomb is a highly fictionalized reference to the deaths of Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin, members of the Manhattan Project who died after contact with radioactive material on 21 August 1945 and 21 May 1946.

In his award-winning book, The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,(July 2020),  historian and journalist Greg Mitchell explores "the shocking and significant story of how the White House and Pentagon scuttled an epic Hollywood production."

Reception
Although The Beginning or the End was the first film to depict the story of the atomic bomb, both critics and the public were confused by the attempt to merge real events in a docudrama form. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times commented that "despite its generally able reenactments, this film is so laced with sentiment of the silliest and most theatrical nature that much of its impressiveness is marred." Variety described the film as a "portentous tale in broad strokes of masterful scripting and production", and a "sum credit of everybody concerned that the documentary values are sufficiently there without becoming static". The review in Time was less positive, noting that, "even as entertainment ... the picture seldom rises above cheery imbecility." In his Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists review, Harrison Brown considered the movie "poor", with a romantic angle "insipid in the extreme", but was most troubled by way  scientific equipment was "over-glamorized" in the film, which he felt gave "a completely false impression of how scientists work."

According to MGM records, The Beginning or the End was made on a budget of $2,632,000 (), but earned $1,221,000 () in the United States and Canada and $721,000 () elsewhere, resulting in a loss to the studio of $1,596,000 ().

See also
 Day One (1989)
 Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

 Film lobby poster

1947 films
1947 drama films
American aviation films
American war films
American black-and-white films
1940s English-language films
Films about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Films about the Manhattan Project
Films scored by Daniele Amfitheatrof
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Science docudramas
Cultural depictions of Albert Einstein
Cultural depictions of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Cultural depictions of Harry S. Truman
J. Robert Oppenheimer
American documentary films
1947 documentary films
American docudrama films
Films directed by Norman Taurog
1940s American films

The Beginning or the End


The right of nations to self-determination (from ), or with less words, self-determination  is the idea that nations  have the right to choose their sovereignty (who or what rules them) and international political status without other countries telling them. Most of the world used to be ruled by empires (really big countries with more than one ethnic group, usually with one group having a lot of power over the others), and many of the countries that the empires ruled were considered colonies of the empire, but after The first World War (1914-1919), and especially the second World War (1929-1945), most of these empires collapsed (fell apart) and local populations (people living in the "colonies" native to the area) began to want independence and their country to be ruled by them, not someone very far away who they thought was mistreating them. Lots of nationalist movements arose in these countries, usually in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, because people usually considered themselves as a separate group than the one who ruled them (for example, Arabs, not British, when the British Empire had ruled a lot of Arabia).

Some people who believe in self-determination use violence, others do not.

Politics
Human rights
Nationalism

Self-determination


Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Philippsthal (11 August 1730, Philippsthal – 7 September 1801, Meiningen), was Duchess and regent from 1763 to 1782 of Saxe-Meiningen.

Life
Charlotte Amalie was a daughter of Landgrave Charles I of Hesse-Philippsthal and his wife, Princess Christine of Saxe-Eisenach.  In 1750, when she was 20 years old, she married with the 63-year-old Duke Anton Ulrich of Saxe-Meiningen to whom she gave eight children.

The Duke stipulated in his last will and testament that Charlotte Amalie would act as the sole guardian of their sons and regent of Saxe-Meiningen.  Anton Ulrich had retired to Frankfurt, away from the family squabbles, and lived there with his family.  After her husband's death she first traveled to Philippsthal to await an imperial decision confirming her as guardian and regent.  Relatives from Gotha travelled to Meiningen, in anticipation of the inheritance. After the imperial decision confirmed her as regent and first guardian, she could move to Meiningen.

When she took over the regency in 1763, the country was financially and economically ruined.  With strict austerity measures and reforms, economic reconstruction and promotion of spiritual life, she is considered the "savior of the Duchy".  The appointment of new ministers, like Adolph Gottlieb von Eyben, allowed the central government to effectively function again within one year.  With a sophisticated system of savings and financial analysis at the court she attracted the attention of Emperor Joseph II, who appointed her as Director of the Commission to save the even more hopelessly indebted Duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Since her sons were entitled to rule jointly, she ruled jointly with her eldest son Charles from 1775 to 1782, when George I was still a minor.

Her reign was the breakthrough of enlightened absolutism in Saxe-Meiningen, and she raised her sons to continue that policy.  She founded the Masonic lodge  ("Charlotte and the three carnations").  In accordance with her last wishes, she was not buried in the royal crypt, but in the town cemetery.

Issue
Charlotte Amalie from her marriage had the following children:
 Charlotte (1751–1827)
 married Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1745-1804)
 Louise (1752–1805)
 married in 1781 Landgrave Adolph of Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld (1743-1803)
 Elizabeth (1753–1754)
 Charles (1754–1782), Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
 married in 1780 Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern (1764-1834)
 Frederick Francis (1756–1761)
 Frederick William (1757–1758)
 George I (1761–1803), Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
 married in 1782 Princess Louise Eleanore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1763-1837)
 Amalie (1762–1798)
 married in 1783 Prince Charles Henry Erdmann of Carolath-Beuthen (1759-1817)

References
 L. Hertel: Meiningische Geschichte von 1680 bis zur Gegenwart = Schriften des Vereins für Sachsen-Meiningische Geschichte und Landeskunde, issue 47, Hildburghausen, 1904.

Duchesses of Saxe-Meiningen
18th-century women rulers
House of Hesse
1730 births
1801 deaths
Regents of Germany
18th-century German people
Daughters of monarchs
Mothers of monarchs

Princess Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Philippsthal


Rosa Luxemburg (5 March 1871 in Zamość, Russian Poland – 15 January 1919 in Berlin) was a Polish-Jewish Marxist politician working in both Poland and Germany. Her birth name was Rosalia Luxemburg. She was born into a Jewish family. She was the fifth child of her parents. Her father was a wood trader/timber trader. His name was Eliasz Luxemburg III. Her mother's name was Line (maiden name: Löwenstein).

Publications
In one of her earliest publications, 'Reform or Revolution?' (1900) Luxemburg accepted Marx's argument that capitalism promoted exploitation and was at odds with humanity's natural, fraternal instincts. She also agreed that evolutionary socialism was impossible: only revolution could create real change. However, like Lenin, she had little sympathy for Marx's 'historicism' and denied that for a revolution to occur, capitalism would have to reach an advanced stage of development. However, Luxemburg's analysis of how the revolution should come would distinguish her from both Marx and Lenin.

Life
After WW1 Luxemburg helped establish the German Communist Party (KDP). She organised a socialist uprising in Germany but was killed by a right-wing group called the Freikorps. Rosa Luxemburg made many new communist ideas that continue to influence communism today. Rosa Luxemburg supported the Russian Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky, but she saw them both as making undemocratic mistakes in organizing what was supposed to be a more democratic nation. She also insisted the freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and abolition of death penalty. In 1913 she published an essay "The Accumulation of Capital" that urges that capital accumulation causes the imperialism.

Murder
Rosa Luxemburg was assassinated by the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützendivision of the Freikorps.

1871 births
1919 deaths
19th-century German philosophers
20th-century German philosophers
Executed German people
German communists
Assassinated German politicians
Jewish atheists
Jewish feminists
Jewish German politicians
Jewish philosophers
Marxists
Murders by firearm in Germany
Polish Jews
20th-century Polish philosophers

Rosa Luxemburg


Citizenship is a legal relationship between a person and a country.  Usually the country is the one they were born in, lives in, supports, and in return gets protection.  A person is usually a citizen of the country where he or she is born, but sometimes a person will apply for naturalization, to become a citizen in another country.  There are countries which allow dual (two) citizenship, and countries which do not.

Definitions
A citizen is a member of a sovereign group of people that have certain rights. Governments protect these rights or take advantage of them. Some Governments may exile people from citizenship laws on such matter vary between countries.
 People born in the country may be citizens by Jus soli, right of soil.  Those having citizen parents may be natural born citizens.
Some countries also recognise Jus sanguinis, the right of members of the national diaspora to be citizens.  Jus sanguinis comes from Latin meaning "right of blood" which basically means one can inherit citizenship by descent from a parent and in some cases a grandparent or even more distant ancestors.
 Foreigners can also be naturalized as citizens.  Naturalization makes them citizens of their new country.  Many countries require that they give up their citizenship of their old country, but some countries have permanent citizenship; you can't quit such a citizenship.
 People who are citizens of more than one country, with approval of both Governments, are dual citizens. They may legally enter and live in either country.
A person who has no citizenship is called a stateless person. There are many causes of statelessness: wars, refugees, people whose birth was never registered, people born in a territory which is not recognised as a state, and so on. Some countries are very generous in giving stateless people citizenship, and some are not. The problem is well-known, but there is no general solution.
Citizenship may be permanent. Some countries remove citizenship for various reasons, and some citizens renounce their citizenship.

Citizenship in Canada
People born in Canada become citizens of the country by Jus soli even if their parents are not citizens.

In 2018 the New York Times reported that 20% of babies born in Richmond Hospital in Richmond, British Columbia, were born to mothers involved in birth tourism. This means that the babies automatically acquire Canadian citizenship.

Citizenship in the European Union

Citizenship in the United States

Related pages
Civil rights
Global citizenship

References

Nationality

Citizenship


Demigods are people in mythology (usually Greek or Roman) who are half-god and half-human. They are special because of their godly parent. However, they normally have no great powers because of their human parent. Demigods are usually mortal but not always. An example of one is Hercules. His father, Jupiter (Zeus), made him a god after Hercules died. Other demigods from Classical mythology include Achilles, Heracles and Romulus and Remus.

Related pages
Angel

Gods and goddesses

Demigod