The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in Britain, playing an important role in disseminating the arts, playing mainly classical music. It was the BBC's third national radio network, the other two being the Home Service (mainly speech-based) and the Light Programme, principally devoted to light entertainment and music.

History

When it started in 1946, the Third Programme broadcast for six hours each evening from 6.00 pm to midnight, although its output was cut to just 24 hours a week from October 1957, with the early part of weekday evenings being given over to educational programming (known as "Network Three"). The frequencies were also used during daytime hours to broadcast complete ball-by-ball commentary on test match cricket, under the title Test Match Special".

The Third's existence was controversial from the beginning, partly because of perceived "elitism" – it was sometimes criticised for broadcasting programmes of "two dons talking" – and also for the cost of its output relative to a small listener reach. Its existence was against the corporation's founding principles, as Reith himself had during his time at the BBC been against segmenting audiences by splitting programming genres across different networks. From the start, though, it had prominent supporters: the Education Secretary in the Attlee government, Ellen Wilkinson, spoke rather optimistically of creating a "third programme nation". When it faced those 1957 cuts, the Third Programme Defence Society was formed and its leaders included T. S. Eliot, Albert Camus, and Sir Laurence Olivier.

This situation continued until the launch on 22 March 1965 of the BBC Music Programme, which began regular daily broadcasts of classical music (with some interruptions for live sports coverage) on the Network Three / Third Programme frequencies between 7.00 am and 6.30 pm on weekdays, 8.00 am and 12.30 pm on Saturdays, and 8.00 am and 5.00 pm on Sundays. The Third Programme continued as a distinct evening service, and this continued to be the case for a short while after the inception of BBC Radio 3 on 30 September 1967, before all the elements of the BBC's "third network" were finally absorbed into Radio 3 with rebranding effect from Saturday 4 April 1970.

Output and programming
The network was broadly cultural, a Leavisite experiment dedicated to the discerning or "high-brow" listener from an educated, minority audience. Its founders' aims were seen as promoting "something fundamental to our civilisation" and as contributing to "the refinement of society". Its musical output provided a wide range of serious classical music and live concerts, as well as contemporary composers and jazz; popular classical music such as Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky primarily remained on the Home Service until 1964. Voice formed a much higher proportion of its output than the later Radio 3, with specially commissioned plays, poetry readings, talks and documentaries. Nationally known intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell and Isaiah Berlin on philosophy or Fred Hoyle on cosmology were regular contributors.

The network became a principal patron of the arts, within commissioned many music works for broadcast by the BBC Music Department, playing an important role in the development of the career of composers such as Benjamin Britten. Particularly notable were its drama productions, including the radio plays of Samuel Beckett, Henry Reed (the Hilda Tablet plays), Harold Pinter, Wyndham Lewis, Joe Orton and Dylan Thomas, whose Under Milk Wood was written specially for the programme. Philip O'Connor discovered Quentin Crisp in his radio interviews in 1963. The series Inventions for Radio'' aired in 1964 and 1965, with sound collages by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Martin Esslin, BBC Director of Drama (Radio), was associated with the network's productions of European drama, and Douglas Cleverdon with its productions of poetry and radio plays.

The Third Programme's contribution to contemporary poetry and criticism was significant, under producers and presenters such as John Wain, Ludovic Kennedy, George MacBeth and Patrick Dickinson. It promoted young writers such as Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis, as well as the "difficult" work of David Jones and Laura Riding. The Third Programme was for many years the single largest source of copyright payments to poets.

The decision to close down the Third Programme was opposed by many within the BBC, some of them senior figures. Within the music division, a 'BBC rebellion' gathered force, with its most vocal members including Hans Keller and Robert Simpson. Ultimately however, the attempt to prevent the culture-conscious Third being replaced by what Keller called "a daytime music station" proved unsuccessful.

Controllers

 1946–1948: George Barnes
 1948–1952: Harman Grisewood
 1953–1958: John Morris
 1959–1967: Howard Newby

Announcers

 Patrick Butler
 Patricia Hughes
 Alvar Lidell
 Christopher Pemberton
 Philip O'Connor

References

External links
 BBC Third Programme Scripts catalogue The collection of Douglas Cleverdon, a leading talks and drama producer for the Third, at the University of Delaware Library.

BBC Radio 3
Defunct BBC national radio stations
Radio stations established in 1946
Radio stations disestablished in 1967
1946 establishments in the United Kingdom
1967 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
1940s in the United Kingdom
1950s in the United Kingdom
1960s in the United Kingdom

BBC Third Programme


Robert Anthony Lutz (born February 12, 1932) is a Swiss-American automotive executive. He served as a top leader of all of the United States Big Three automobile manufacturers, having been in succession executive vice president (and board member) of Ford Motor Company, president and then vice chairman (and board member) of Chrysler Corporation, and vice chairman of General Motors.

Early life
Lutz was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the son of Margaret and Robert Harry Lutz. His father was a vice chairman of Credit Suisse. Lutz left Switzerland at the age of seven and spent time in Scarsdale, New York, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1943, and returned to Switzerland in 1947 to attend school in Lausanne.  He is fluent in English, Swiss German, German, French and has a modest fluency in Italian.

Lutz received a bachelor's degree in production management in 1961, followed by an MBA with a concentration in marketing with highest honors in 1962, both from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned the latter when he was flying in the United States Marine Corps Reserve's 4th Marine Aircraft Wing and supporting two of four young daughters by selling vacuum cleaners in Walnut Creek, California. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Law from Boston University in 1985, and an honorary degree of Doctor of Management from Kettering University in 2003. He is a trustee of the Marine Corps University Foundation and the Marine Military Academy.

Professional career
After leaving the Marines, Lutz spent eight years with GM Opel in Europe before joining BMW serving as executive vice president of sales at BMW for three years. He takes some credit in the development of the BMW 3 Series as well as their Motorsport division.

Lutz was also an executive vice president at Ford Motor Company.  At Ford of Europe, he led the creation of the Ford Escort III, and Ford Sierra, and upon returning to the US in 1985, initiated development of the original Ford Explorer, and was a member of Ford's board of directors. He was a frequent internal political rival of eventual Ford CEO Red Poling.

Lutz became head of Chrysler Corporation's Global Product Development, including the successful Dodge Viper and LH series cars. Former Chrysler chairman and CEO Lee Iacocca, who helped steer the company back to profitability after receiving loans from private banks backed by the U.S. Government in 1979, said he should have picked Lutz as his successor rather than Bob Eaton upon Iacocca's retirement at the end of 1992, but at the time Iacocca and Lutz were not getting along. Eaton was responsible for the sale of Chrysler to Daimler-Benz in 1998 which Daimler ended up backing out of in 2007 when it sold Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management. Referring to the job performance of Eaton, Iacocca claimed that Lutz "would eat him for lunch".

While at General Motors, Lutz championed the import of the Holden Monaro to the United States as the Pontiac GTO. Other cars such as the Cadillac Sixteen Concept; Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice; Pontiac G8; Chevrolet Malibu; Cadillac CTS; Buick Enclave; Cadillac Converj Concept; Cadillac CTS Coupe Concept; Chevrolet Camaro; Chevy Beat, Groove and Trax Concept Studies; and 2010 Buick Lacrosse, Chevrolet Equinox, and Cadillac SRX are said to be Lutz initiatives. Lutz has also emphasized a need to produce fuel efficient vehicles, backing the 2010 Chevrolet Volt.

Lutz maintained the "Fastlane" blog hosted at GM Blogs.

In 2008, Lutz said that "the electrification of the automobile is inevitable".

On February 9, 2009, GM announced that Lutz would step down on April 1, 2009, from his position as vice chairman of Global Product Development, to take an advisory role. He was to retire from GM at the end of 2009. Lutz said that one reason for his decision was the increasing regulatory climate in Washington that would force GM to produce what Federal regulators wanted, rather than what customers wanted. Lutz has expressed skepticism on the issue of global warming.

During a July 10, 2009, press conference, GM stated that Lutz would remain at GM as vice chairman responsible for all creative elements of products and customer relationships and that his role as vice chairman of Global Product Development would be assumed April 1, 2009, by Thomas G. Stephens, then executive vice president of Global Powertrain and Global Quality. Lutz, Stephens, and design chief Ed Welburn would work together to guide all creative aspects of design. Lutz would also lead the effort to better guide GM's brands, and the automaker's marketing, advertising, and communications teams would report to Lutz in an effort to develop a more consistent message and results. Lutz would report directly to Fritz Henderson, and be part of the newly formed executive committee. Lutz retired from General Motors May 2, 2010.

Lutz is currently head of the consulting firm Lutz Communications. He is also chairman of The New Common School Foundation, a member of the board of trustees for the U.S. Marine Corps University Foundation, and vice chairman of the board of trustees for the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Texas. He joined the Transonic Combustion, Inc. board of directors on May 24, 2010.

On August 6, 2012, The NanoSteel Company, a nano-structured steel materials designer, announced an investment by GM Ventures in the company. On October 10, 2012, NanoSteel announced the appointment of Bob Lutz to its board of directors. The Providence, RI-based company said that it "has achieved a significant breakthrough in the development of nano-structured sheet steel with exceptional strength and ductility" for the automotive industry.

In 2015, Lutz was honored with an Edison Achievement Award for his commitment to innovation throughout his career.

In late-2017 Lutz wrote an article for Automotive News predicting upheaval within the car manufacturing industry, anticipating large-scale fleet ownership, removal of dealerships and an eventual ban on human driving of vehicles for transport.

Chronology of career & positions
United States Marine Corps, active duty Naval Aviator 1954 to 1959; flew with the Marine Corps Reserve's 4th Marine Aircraft Wing until 1965.
General Motors—Lutz began his automotive career at GM in September 1963, where he held senior leadership positions in Europe until December 1971.
BMW—1971 to 1974, executive vice president of Global Sales and Marketing at BMW in Munich, and a member of that company's board of management.
Ford—1974 to 1986, where his last position was executive vice president of truck operations. He also served as chairman of Ford of Europe and as executive vice president of Ford International Operations (1982–86), as well as a member, Ford board of directors (1982–86).
 Executive at Chrysler Corporation—1986 to 1998. Lutz began his service with Chrysler in 1986 as executive vice president and was shortly thereafter elected to the Chrysler Corporation board. Lutz led all of Chrysler's automotive activities, including sales, marketing, product development, manufacturing, and procurement and supply. Lutz also served as president and chief operating officer, responsible for Chrysler's car and truck operations worldwide.
 CEO of Exide—1998 to 2002. Lutz was chairman and chief executive officer of Exide Technologies. He served as chairman until his resignation on May 17, 2002, and as a member of Exide's board of directors until May 5, 2004.
General Motors 2001 to 2010. Lutz rejoined GM on September 1, 2001, as vice chairman of Product Development. On November 13, 2001, he was named chairman of GM North America and served in that capacity until April 4, 2005, when he assumed responsibility for Global Product Development. He also served as President of GM Europe on an interim basis from March to June 2004. On April 1, 2009, Lutz was named vice chairman/senior advisor providing strategic input into GM's Global Design and Key Product initiatives, a position he held until retirement at the end of 2009. He agreed to join the new GM at his current position. On July 23, 2009, he was appointed vice chairman, marketing and communications, and on December 4, 2009, named vice chairman, special advisor design and global product development.  On May 1, 2010, Lutz retired from GM; but was retained again by GM in September 2011.
Lutz Communications 2010 to present. Founder and head of Lutz Communication, which he describes as "a universal business consulting firm with an emphasis on businesses in motion."
VIA Motors 2011 to present. Joined as chairman of the board.
VLF Automotive 2013 to present. Founded the company alongside Gilbert Villereal.

Bibliography

 Guts: The Seven Laws of Business That Made Chrysler the World's Hottest Car Company, 1998
Guts: 8 Laws of Business from One of the Most Innovative Business Leaders of Our Time. 2003
Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business by Bob Lutz, 2011 ASIN B0056XQGLS
Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership, 2014

Lutz has authored four books. Guts: the 7 Laws of Business that Made Chrysler the World's Hottest Car Company in 1998, later revised in 2003 to the management and leadership book, Guts: 8 Laws of Business from One of the Most Innovative Business Leaders of Our Time is partially based on his experience as a US Marine Corps aviator. His 2011 book, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, is about his experiences in the US automobile industry. It attained third place in the New York Times "Business Hardcover" category and fifth on the Wall Street Journal list. His 2013 book, Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership is about his personal experiences with leaders and their leadership talents and foibles. It is a compendium from Lutz's more than sixty years of observation of inspirational leaders and an analysis of what made the great ones successful at what they did.

Personal life

Lutz is known as a collector of classic automobiles and military jets. Among other aircraft, he owned and piloted an Aero L-39 Albatros (an advanced Czechoslovakian jet fighter trainer) and an MD-500 helicopter. Further, he maintained a collection of motorcycles that included a Suzuki Hayabusa, a BMW K1200RS, a BMW K1200S, a BMW R1100S, a BMW K-1 and a BMW HP2 Sport.

Bob Lutz is married to Terri (Smith) Lutz and both reside at their home in Ann Arbor, MI; along with their adoptive four-legged family; which includes, two pigs, one dog and three cats (inside); along with Rowan (horse) and Cassie (rescue donkey) outside.

Children: (first marriage) four daughters: Jacqueline Lutz-Geiger {Greg Geiger}, Caroline Lutz-Mannelli, Catherine Lutz-Houlden {Tom Houlden}, Alexandra (Lutz) Bernardi {Andrew Bernardi}.

His younger brother Mark A. Lutz is a retired economics professor.

Lutz was featured in the 2007 coffee table book published by Motorbooks International [(The Quarto Group]), "Motor City Dream Garages." Chapter 2, "Maximum Bob's Car Park," features Lutz's car collection near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Rex Roy, of Detroit, is the book's author.

Lutz was interviewed in the 2011 documentary, Revenge of the Electric Car.

In 2012, Lutz reconfirmed his denial of the scientific consensus on climate change during an interview by Bill Maher.

See also

Rick Wagoner
Fritz Henderson

References

External links

TheGMSource Interviews Bob Lutz
GM Fastlane Blog
Lutz Communications

1932 births
American businesspeople
American people of Swiss-German descent
Automotive businesspeople
BMW people
Chrysler executives
Ford executives
General Motors executives
Living people
Corporate executives in the automobile industry
Swiss emigrants to the United States
United States Marine Corps officers
United States Marine Corps reservists
United States Naval Aviators
Haas School of Business alumni
Chrysler people
Ford people
General Motors people

Bob Lutz (businessman)


The Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව Shri Lanka Parlimenthuwa, Tamil: இலங்கை நாடாளுமன்றம் Ilaṅkai nāṭāḷumaṉṟam) is the supreme legislative body of Sri Lanka. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the island. It is modeled after the British Parliament.

It consists of 225 members known as Members of Parliament (MPs). Members are elected by proportional representation for five-year terms, with universal suffrage.

The President of Sri Lanka has the power to summon, suspend, prorogue, or terminate a legislative session and to dissolve the Parliament. President can dissolve Parliament only after the lapse of  years or if  majority of Members of Parliament requests him. The actions of the president to either suspend or dissolve the Parliament is subject to legal scrutiny of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. The Speaker or, in his absence, the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees or the Deputy Chairman of Committees, presides over Parliament.

Powers
Parliament has the power to make laws, including laws having retrospective effect and repealing or amending any provision of the Constitution, or adding any provision to the Constitution.

History

The first legislature established in Ceylon was the Executive Council and the legislative council, which were established on 13 March 1833 according to the recommendations of the Colebrook-Cameron commission. The Executive Council was composed of the Colonial Secretary, the officer commanding the Military Forces, the Attorney General, the Auditor-General and the Treasurer. The duties of the council were advisory and the Governor of Ceylon, who presided over their meetings and consulted them, was at liberty to disregard their advice. At first it was made up of only British officials but later included native citizens. At the beginning 16, and later 49 members, were elected for the legislative council, but a limited number of people were qualified to vote.

In 1931 the Legislative Council was dissolved and in its place a more powerful State Council of Ceylon was established with its 101 members elected by universal adult franchise as provided by the Donoughmore Constitution.

Prior to the granting of independence and the establishment of the Dominion of Ceylon on 4 February 1948, a new bicameral parliament was established in 1947, according to the recommendations of the Soulbury Commission after the State Council was dissolved. It was based on the Westminster model with an upper house, the Senate, whose members were appointed and a lower house of parliament, the House of Representatives, whose members were directly elected. The House of Representatives consisted of 101 Members (increased to 157 in 1960) and the Senate consisted of 30 Members, of whom 15 were elected by the House of Representatives and 15 nominated by the Governor-General of Ceylon.

The Senate was abolished on 2 October 1971.  On 22 May 1972 when the republican constitution was enacted, the House of Representatives was replaced with the National State Assembly which had 168 elected members. This itself was replaced by the Parliament of Sri Lanka when the constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka was enacted in 1977.

In 1987, a grenade was lobbed into a conference room inside the Parliament complex where government MPs were meeting. Two people were killed and sixteen injured, but the target of the attack, President J. R. Jayawardene escaped unhurt. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna claimed responsibility for the attack.

On 20 August 2015, Two major parties the United National Party and Sri Lanka Freedom Party have signed Memorandum of Understanding to form the National Government in order to address major unresolved issue after the end of 30-year old ethnic conflict, This is the first time in Sri Lanka's political history that two major parties agrees to work in the joint government. The Presidential Secretariat announced that the Government will be functioning as joint (national unity) government comprising two major parties. United National Party leader who won the most seats was appointed Prime Minister

Members and elections

Of the 225 members, 196 are elected from 22 electoral districts, which are multi-member. The remaining 29 MPs are elected from National Lists allocated to the parties (and independent groups) in proportion to their share of the national vote.

Qualifications
Any Sri Lankan citizen may be elected to parliament unless disqualified to do so under the Article 90 of the Constitution, which includes;
 President of the Republic,
 Public officer, judicial officer or an officer of a public corporation,
 Member of the Regular Force of the Army, Navy or Air Force; with the exception of holders of the rank of Field Marshal,
 A police officer or a public officer exercising police function,
 Declared as an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent in terms of the applicable law,
 A person stands nominated as a candidate for more than one electoral district or as a candidate for more than one political party or group for the same district,
 A person who is also a citizen of any other country,
 A person adjudged guilty by a competent court or by a Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry.

Officers
When Parliament first meets after a general election, it will elect three members to serve as the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees (known simply as the Deputy Speaker) and the Deputy Chairman of Committees. Whilst presiding, the Speaker or Deputy Speaker wears ceremonial dress.

Parliament Secretariat
The Parliament Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General of Parliament, is in charge of all its administrative duties. Until 1972, the post was known as Clerk of Parliament.  The Secretary General is appointed by the President, subject to the approval of the Constitutional Council. The Sergeant-at-Arms is responsible for the maintenance of law, order, and security on the House's premises and acts also as master-of-ceremonies. The Serjeant-at-Arms carries the ceremonial mace, a symbol of the authority of the People and of the Parliament, into the House each day in front of the Speaker, and the Mace is laid upon the Table of the House during sittings. Currently, the parliament secretariat administration is divided into nine departments.

These departments are:
 Department of Serjeant-at-Arms
 Department of Administration
 Hansard Department
 Department of the Co-ordinating Engineer
 Department of Catering and Housekeeping
 Department of Information Systems and Management
 Department of Legislative Services
 Department of Finance & Supplies
 Department of Communication
The Staff Advisory Committee (SAC) established under the Parliamentary Staff Act provides advice and guidance to the Parliamentary Secretariat with respect to matters concerning Parliamentary staff. The SAC consists of the Speaker (Chairman), the Leader of the House, the Minister of Finance and the Leader of the Opposition. Secretariat maintains the Speaker's Residence and the Madiwela Housing Complex for MPs and the nineteen-roomed holiday bungalow for MPs, General's House in Nuwara Eliya. Parliament also owns Mumtaz Mahal which was the former residence of the Speaker and Srawasthi Mandiraya the former hostel for MPs. These are now used by other government entities.

Parliament buildings

Under the British Colonial government, when the Executive Council and the legislative councils were set up in 1833, they met in a building opposite Gordon Gardens, which is now the "Republic Building", occupied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 29 January 1930 the British Governor of Ceylon, Sir Herbert Stanley (1927–1931), opened a building fronting the ocean at Galle Face, Colombo, designed for meetings of the Legislative Council. It was subsequently used by the State Council (1931–1947), the House of Representatives (1947–1972), the National State Assembly (1972–1977) and the Parliament of Sri Lanka (1977–1981). Today the Old Parliament Building is used by the Presidential Secretariat.

In 1967 under Speaker Albert F. Peris, the leaders of the political parties unanimously resolved that a new Parliament building be constructed on the opposite side of Beira Lake from the existing Parliament at Galle Face, but no further action was taken. While Stanley Tillekeratne was the Speaker (1970–77), the leaders of the political parties entrusted the drawing up of plans for a new Parliament building to architects, but the project was subsequently abandoned.

On 4 July 1979, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa obtained sanction from Parliament to construct a  new Parliament Building at Duwa, a 5 hectare (12 acre) island in the Diyawanna Oya (off Baddegana Road, Pita Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte) about  east of Colombo. The island was where the palace of the King Vikramabahu III's powerful Minister Nissaka Alakesvara had been situated. It had belonged to E. W. Perera prior to being vested in the state.

The building was designed by architect Deshamanya Geoffrey Bawa and built with Sri Lankan funds. On 29 April 1982, the new Parliamentary Complex was declared open by President J.R. Jayewardene.

Current layout

See also
 Committee On Public Enterprises (Sri Lanka)
 Politics of Sri Lanka
 List of legislatures by country

References

External links

Government of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka

Parliament of Sri Lanka


A reuptake modulator, or transporter modulator, is a type of drug which modulates the reuptake of one or more neurotransmitters via their respective neurotransmitter transporters. Examples of reuptake modulators include reuptake inhibitors (transporter blockers) and reuptake enhancers.

See also
 Releasing agent
 Release modulator
 Transporter substrate
 Channel modulator
 Enzyme modulator
 Receptor modulator

Drugs by mechanism of action
Psychopharmacology

Reuptake modulator


Reggio di Calabria (; ), commonly and officially referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Regional Council of Calabria. It has an estimated population of nearly 200,000 and is the twenty-first most populous city in Italy, after Modena, and the 100th most populated city in Europe. Reggio Calabria is located in the exact center of the Mediterranean and is known for its climate, ethnic and cultural diversity. It is the third economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. About 560,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2015 by Italy as a metropolitan city.

Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It is situated on the slopes of the Aspromonte, a long, craggy mountain range that runs up through the centre of the region.

As a major functional pole in the region, it has strong historical, cultural and economic ties with the city of Messina, which lies across the strait in Sicily, forming a metro city of less than 1 million people.

Reggio is the oldest city in the region, and during ancient times, it was an important and flourishing colony of Magna Graecia. Reggio has a modern urban system, set up after the catastrophic earthquake of 1908, which destroyed most of the city. Before that seismic event, the region has been subject to several other previous earthquakes. The seismicity is caused by Reggio being on the Eurasian Plate near the faultline where it meets the African Plate that runs through the strait, dividing the two European regions of Calabria and Sicily into two different tectonic regions.

It is a major economic centre for regional services and transport on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to one of the most important archaeological museums, the prestigious National Archaeological Museum of Magna Græcia, dedicated to Ancient Greece (which houses the Bronzes of Riace, rare example of Greek bronze sculpture, which became one of the symbols of the city). Reggio is the seat, since 1907, of the Archeological Superintendence of Bruttium and Lucania. The city is home to football club Reggina, that previously played in the Italian top flight.

The city centre, consisting primarily of Liberty buildings, has a linear development along the coast with parallel streets, and the promenade is dotted with rare magnolias and exotic palms. Reggio has commonly used popular nicknames: The "city of Bronzes", after the Bronzes of Riace that are testimonials of its Greek origins; the "city of bergamot", which is exclusively cultivated in the region; and the "city of Fatamorgana", an optical phenomenon visible in Italy only from the Reggio seaside.

Etymology
During its 3,500-year history Reggio has often been renamed. Each name corresponds with the city's major historical phases:

Erythra (Greek for "Red"), allegedly the name of the pre-Greek settlement.
Rhegion (Ῥήγιον), the Greek city from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BC.
Phoibeia (after Apollo), a short period under Dionysius II of Syracuse, in the 4th century BC.
Regium or Rhegium, its first Latin name, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.
Rhegium Julii (Reggio Giulia), during the Roman Imperial period.
Riyyu, Arabic name under the short domination by Emirate of Sicily, between 10th and 11th centuries.
Rìsa, under the Normans, between the 11th and 12th centuries.
Regols, Catalan name under the Crown of Aragon, in the late 13th century.
Reggio or Regio, usual Italian name in the Middle and Modern age.
Reggio di Calàbria, post Italian Unification (to be distinguished from Reggio di Lombardia or di Modena – located in northern Italy – which was renamed Reggio nell'Emilia).

The toponym of the city might derive from an Italic word rec (meaning king, cognate with Latin rex). Ancient Greek and Roman etymologists derived it from the Greek  (ῥηγνυναι, break), referring to a mythic earthquake in which Sicily was broken off from the Italian mainland.

History

Ancient times
The history of the area before the arrival of the Greeks in the eighth century BC is not reliably known. Mythical accounts record a series of different peoples in the region, including the Osci (sometimes referred to as Opici), Trojans, Oenotrians, Ligures, Ausones, Mamertines, Taureani, Sicels, Morgetes and Itali. They also claim that the land around Reggio was first known as Saturnia, or Neptunia. The term 'Italia' initially referred to the area around Reggio itself, before expanding to cover present-day southern Calabria (later known as Bruttium), and finally becoming the name of the whole Italian peninsula around the third century BC. Allegedly, the name derives from king Italus, an Oenotrian king of the region.

After Cumae, Reggio was one of the first Greek colonies in southern Italy. The colony was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in 730 or 743 BC on the site of the older settlement, Erythra (Ερυθρά), meaning "red". The legendary founder of the city was King Iocastus, son of Aeolus, who was later said to be buried on the Punta Calamizzi promontory (called "Pallantion") and appeared on the city's coinage. The colony retained the name of "Rhegion" (Ῥήγιον). Pseudo-Scylax also writes that it was a Greek city.

Rhegion was one of the most important cities in Magna Graecia, reaching great economic and political power during the 5th and 6th centuries BC under Anaxilas, who reigned as tyrant from 494 to 476 BC. Anaxilas conquered Zancle (modern Messina), extending Rhegian control over both shores of the Straits of Messina. He attempted to conquer Locri as well in 477 BC but was rebuffed. When he died in 476 BC, his two sons were too young to rule, so power was held by their regent Micythus. Under his rule, Rhegion founded a colony, Pyxous (modern Policastro Bussentino) in Campania in 471 BC. Hieron I of Syracuse orchestrated Micythus' removal from power in 467 BC, after which Anaxilas' sons ruled on their own until they were deposed in 461 BC. During the Peloponnesian War, Rhegion allied with Athens. An Athenian inscription (IG I3 53) reports a renewal of this alliance in 433 BC. The Athenians supported Rhegion in a war with Locri during the First Sicilian Expedition (427–425 BC). However, when the Athenians launched the much larger Sicilian Expedition of 415–413 BC, Rhegion offered them only limited assistance.

During the Third Sicilian War, Rhegion became hostile to Dionysius I of Syracuse. He attacked the city for the first time in 396 BC, but he was rebuffed. Dionysius destroyed the Rhegian navy in 389 BC, besieged the city again in 388 BC and, when it finally fell in 387 BC, destroyed it. His son, Dionysius II refounded the city as 'Phoebeia' in the 360s BC. When he was expelled from Syracuse in 356 BC, he retained control of Phoebeia, but it was captured by Syracusan forces led by Leptines and Callippus in 351 BC. Rhegion then reverted to its original name.

Throughout classical antiquity Rhegion remained an important maritime and commercial city as well as a cultural centre, as is demonstrated by the presence of academies of art, philosophy, and science, such as the Pythagorean School, and also by its well-known poet Ibycus, the historian Ippys, the musicologist Glaucus, and the sculptors Pythagoras and Clearchus.

Rhegion made an alliance with the Roman republic in 282 BC, shortly before the Pyrrhic War. The , under the command of Decius Vibellus, was installed as a garrison but subsequently launched a violent coup and seized control of the city. Roman forces deposed Decius and restored the city's independence in 271 BC. Thereafter, Rhegium was an important ally of Rome, with the status of  and socia navalis (naval ally). It retained its Greek customs and language, as well as its mint. It was a central pivot for both maritime and mainland traffic, reached by the final part of the Via Popilia, which was built in the 2nd century BC and joined the older Via Appia at Capua, south of Rome. Close to Rhegion, on the Straits of Messina, was the busy port of Columna Rhegina. Under the Emperor Augustus, the city was renamed Rhegium Juli in honour of the emperor's adoptive father Julius Caesar and was the seat of the  (governor) of "Regio III Lucania et Bruttii" (the southernmost of the eleven regiones into which Italy was divided). In AD 61 the apostle St. Paul passed through Rhegium on his final voyage towards Rome, converting the first local Christians and, according to tradition, laying the foundations of the Christianization of Bruttium.

Rhegium boasted in imperial times nine thermal baths, one of which is still visible today on the sea-front. Due to its seismic activity, the area was often damaged by earthquakes, such as in 91 BC, AD 17, 305 and 374.

Middle Ages

Numerous occupying armies came to Reggio during the early Middle Ages due to the city's strategic importance.

Invasions by the Vandals, the Lombards and the Goths occurred in the 5th–6th centuries. Then, under Byzantine rule, it became a metropolis of the Byzantine possessions in Italy and was also the capital of the Duchy of Calabria several times between 536 and 1060 AD. Following wars between the Lombards and Byzantines in the 6th century, Bruttium was renamed Calabria.

As a Byzantine centre of culture, certain monks there undertook scribal work, carrying out the transcription of ancient classical works. Until the 15th century, Reggio was one of the most important Greek-rite Bishoprics in Italy—even today Greek words are used and are recognisable in local speech and Byzantine terms can be found in local liturgy, in religious icons and even in local recipes. During this period, constant migrations of Greeks fleeing the Slavic invasion of Peloponnese, further strengthened the Hellenic element of the city.

The Arabs occupied Reggio in 918 and held some of its inhabitants to ransom or kept them prisoners as slaves. For brief periods in the 10th–11th centuries the city was ruled by the Arabs and, renamed Rivàh (or sometimes Rŷu), became part of the Emirate of Sicily. During the period of Arab rule various beneficial ideas were introduced into Calabria, such as Citrus fruit trees, Mulberry trees (used in silk production) and several ways of cooking local vegetables such as aubergines. The Arabs introduced water ices and ice cream and also greatly improved agricultural and hydraulic techniques for irrigation.

In 1005, a Christian fleet coming from Pisa sacked the city and massacred all the Saracens to the great jubilation of the local population. In 1060 the Normans, under Robert Guiscard and Roger I of Sicily, captured Reggio but Greek cultural and religious elements persisted until the 17th century. In 1194 Reggio and the whole of southern Italy went to the Hohenstaufen, who held it until 1266. In 1234 the town fair was established by decree of King Frederick II.

From 1266 it was ruled by the Angevins, under whom life in Calabria deteriorated because of their tendency to accumulate wealth in their capital, Naples, leaving Calabria in the power of local barons. In 1282, during the Sicilian Vespers, Reggio rallied in support of Messina and the other oriental Sicily cities because of the shared history, commercial and cultural interests. From 1147 to 1443 and again from 1465 to 1582, Reggio was the capital of the Calabrian Giustizierato. It supported the Aragonese forces against the House of Anjou. In the 14th century it obtained new administrative powers.  In 1459, the Aragonese enlarged its medieval castle.

Reggio, throughout the Middle Ages, was first an important centre of calligraphy and then of printing after its invention. It boasts the first dated, printed edition of a Hebrew text, a Rashi commentary on the Pentateuch, printed in 1475 in La Giudecca of Reggio, even though scholars consider Rome as the city where Hebrew printing began. The Jewish community of Reggio was also considered to be among the foremost internationally, for the dyeing and the trading of silk: silk woven in Reggio was esteemed and bought by the Spaniards, the Genoese, the Dutch, the English and the Venetians, as it was recognised as the best silk in the Kingdom of Naples.

Early modern period
From the early 16th century, the Kingdom of Naples was under the Habsburgs of Spain, who put Reggio under a viceroy from 1504 to 1713. The 16th and 17th centuries were an age of decay due to high Spanish taxes, pestilence, the 1562 earthquake, and the Ottoman Turkish invasions suffered by Reggio between 1534 and 1594. In 1534, facing attack by an Ottoman fleet under Hayreddin Barbarossa, the townspeople abandoned Reggio. Barbarossa captured eight hundred of those who remained and then burned the town. After Barbary pirates attacked Reggio in 1558, they took most of its inhabitants as slaves to Tripoli.

In 1714, southern Italy became once more property of the Austrian Habsburgs, who remained until 1734, when they were replaced by the Bourbons of Spain. Reggio was the capital of Calabria Ulteriore Prima from 1759 to 1860. In 1783, a disastrous earthquake damaged Reggio, all of southern Calabria and Messina.

The precious citrus fruit, Bergamot orange, had been cultivated and used in the Reggio area since the 15th century. By 1750 it was being grown intensively in the Rada Giunchi area of Reggio and was the first plantation of its kind in the world.

In 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte took Reggio and made the city a Duchy and General Headquarters. After the former's fall, in 1816, the two ancient Kingdoms of Naples and of Sicily were unified, becoming the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

During the course of the 19th century new public gardens were laid out, the piazzas (or squares) were embellished and cafés and a theatre were opened. On the newly opened sea promenade a Civic Museum was inaugurated. In fact, some 60 years after the devastation caused by the 1783 earthquake, the English traveller and painter Edward Lear remarked "Reggio is indeed one vast garden, and doubtless one of the loveliest spots to be seen on earth. A half-ruined castle, beautiful in colour and picturesque in form, overlooks all the long city, the wide straits, and snow-topped Mongibello beyond."

Late modern and contemporary

On 21 August 1860, during the famous "Battaglia di Piazza Duomo" (Cathedral Square Battle), Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Bruno Antonio Rossi (the mayor of Reggio after the historian Domenico Spanò Bolani, who helped the citizenship during the previous turbulent years) was the first in the kingdom to proclaim the new Garibaldi Dictatorship and the end of the rule of Francis II.

On 28 December 1908, at 5:21 am, the town was hit by a heavy earthquake and shook violently for 31 seconds. Damage was even worse in Messina across the Straits. It is estimated that 25,000 people perished in Reggio and 65,000 in Messina. Reggio lost 27% of its inhabitants and Messina lost 42%. Ten minutes after the catastrophic earthquake, those who tried to escape by running towards the open spaces of the coast were engulfed by a 10-metre-high tsunami. Three waves of 6–12 metres swept away the whole waterfront. The 1908 Messina earthquake remains one of the worst on record in modern western European history.

During the World War II, due to its strategic military position, it suffered a devastating air raid and was used as the invasion target by the British Eighth Army in 1943, which led to the city's capture. After the war Reggio recovered considerably. During 1970–71 the city was the scene of a popular uprising—known as the Moti di Reggio—against the government choice of Catanzaro as capital of the newly instituted Region of Calabria. The revolt was taken over by young neofascists of the Italian Social Movement, backed by the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type criminal organisation based in Calabria. The Reggio Calabria protests were the expression of malcontent about cronyism and the lack of industrial planning. In the 1970s and 1980s, Reggio went through twenty years of increasing organized crime by the 'Ndrangheta as well as urban decay. The town is home to several , such as the Condello-Imerti and the De Stefano-Tegano clans, who were involved in bloody wars against each other during this period. The 'Ndrangheta extorts protection money ("pizzo") from every shop and viable business in town and has more power than the city council in awarding licences to retailers.

The spiral of corruption reached its zenith in the early 1990s. The sitting mayor at the time, Agatino Licandro, made a confession reporting "suitcases coming into city hall stuffed with money but going out empty". As a result of the nationwide corruption scandals most of the city council was arrested. Since the early 1990s, the so-called "Primavera di Reggio" (Reggio Spring)—a spontaneous movement of people and government institutions—encouraged city recovery and a renewed and stronger identity. The symbol of the Reggio Spring is the Lungomare Falcomatà, the sea-side boulevard named after Italo Falcomatà, the centre-left mayor who initiated the recovery of the town.

On 9 October 2012, the Italian government decided to dissolve the city council of Reggio Calabria for infiltration by the 'Ndrangheta. The move came after some councillors were suspected of having ties to the powerful crime syndicate, under the 10-year centre-right rule of Giuseppe Scopelliti, mayor from 2002 to 2010. His successor, the centre-right mayor Demetrio Arena and all 30 city councillors, were sacked to prevent any "mafia contagion" in the local government. It was the first time that the entire government of a provincial capital had been dismissed over suspected links to organized crime. Three commissioners ran the city for 18 months until a new election. According to anti-mafia investigators in 2016, Scopelliti was elected thanks to votes from the 'Ndrangheta.

Earthquakes in history

Reggio has been destroyed by earthquakes several times over the centuries, such as in 91 BC, after which the city was reconstructed by order of the Emperor Augustus, followed by another in the year 17 AD; yet another one in 305 AD, and again another in 374. In 1562 one destroyed the natural, medieval port of the city and brought about the submersion of the Calamizzi promontory, known in ancient times as the Pallantiòn, where, we are told, the first Greek settlers, the Calcidesi, had set foot. The particularly devastating of 1783 and that of 1908, which was the worst natural calamity to take place in Europe in human memory, both profoundly altered the urban aspect of the city, due to the successive re-building which gave the present-day layout of straight, intersecting roads, planned by Giovanbattista Mori in 1784 and by Pietro De Nava in 1911. But some town-planning policies at the time were decided upon with no respect for the architectural history of Reggio, as is shown by the demolition of the remaining Norman part of the Castle, following the last big in 1923.

European travellers who visited Reggio
Although Reggio and Calabria in general were less popular destinations than Sicily or Naples for the first Northern European travellers, several famous names such as the Flemish Pieter Bruegel (in c. 1550), the German Johann Hermann von Riedesel (in 1767), the Frenchmen Jean Claude Richard de Saint-Non (in 1778) and Stendhal (in 1817), the British travellers Henry Swinburne (in c. 1775), Richard Keppel Craven (in c. 1820), Craufurd Tait Ramage (in 1828), the Strutt family and Elizabeth Byron (in 1840), Edward Lear (in 1847), Norman Douglas (in 1911), D. H. Lawrence (in c. 1920) and Eric Whelpton (in 1950s) and the Belgian Jules Destrée (in 1915 and in 1930) visited Reggio.

Geography
With an exceptionally high population density, Reggio Calabria was cited as having the least green space in a study of 386 European cities. The study reported that green space coverage varied markedly, averaging 18.6 per cent and "ranging from 1.9 (Reggio di Calabria, Italy) to 46 (Ferrol, Spain) per cent." The study further reported "Per capita green space provision varied by two orders of magnitude, from 3 to 4 m2 per person in Cádiz, Fuenlabrada and Almería (Spain) and Reggio di Calabria (Italy) to more than 300 m2 in Liège (Belgium), Oulu (Finland) and Valenciennes (France)." Even so, outside of the urban area, the nearby elevated areas have plenty of green space and extensive forests. This includes the Aspromonte National Park.

Climate
According to the Köppen climate classification, Reggio Calabria possesses a typical Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa). Its climate has warmer days and cooler nights than Messina which lies on the other side of the strait. Precipitation is another big difference since Messina receives approximately  more.

Administrative division and city government

The municipality of Reggio is divided into 15 sub-municipalities (Circoscrizioni) containing the frazioni ("subdivisions", mainly villages and hamlets) of Catona, Gallico, Archi, Pentimele, Gallina, Mosorrofa (), Ortì (), Pellaro () and Saracinello. They are: Centro Storico (1st); Pineta Zerbi, Tremulini and Eremo (2nd); Santa Caterina, San Brunello and Vito (3rd); Trabochetto, Condera and Spirito Santo (4th); Rione Ferrovieri, Stadio and Gebbione (5th); Sbarre (6th); San Giorgio, Modena, Scido and San Sperato (7th); Catona, Salice, Rosalì and Villa San Giuseppe (8th); Gallico and Sambatello (9th); Archi (10th); Ortì, Podàrgoni and Terreti (11th); Cannavò, Mosorrofa and Cataforio (12th); Ravagnese, San Gregorio, Croce Valanidi and Trunca (13th); Gallina (14th); Pellaro and Bocale (15th).

Twin towns
Reggio di Calabria is twinned with:
 Patras, Greece
 Athens, Greece, since 2003
 Egaleo, Greece, since 2004
 Cesana Torinese, Italy, since 2006
 San Diego, United States, since 1973
 Montesilvano, Italy, since 2009
 Fairfield City, Australia

Economy

Reggio retains a somewhat rural ambience despite its sizable population. Industry in the city revolves primarily around agriculture and export, fruits, tobacco, briar and the precious essence of the bergamot which is used in perfume production. Reggio is a port city with a sizeable fishing industry.

The beaches of the city have become a popular tourist destination. Tourism is distributed between the Ionian coast (Costa Jonica), the Tyrrhenian coast (the Costa Viola, Purple Coast) and the Aspromonte mountain behind the city, containing the natural reserve of the Aspromonte National Park where, at 1,300–1,950 metres above sea level, there is a panoramic view of the Strait of Messina from the snowy mount Etna to the Aeolian Islands.

Main sights

Castles, churches and cathedrals
 The Castle, originally built before 540 AD and enlarged by the Normans and later by the Aragonese in 1459, partially torn in the late 19th century and in 1923, is now home to art exhibitions.
 The Cathedral of Reggio, re-built after the 1908 Messina earthquake.
 The Church of Saint Gaetano Catanoso, in the Santo Spirito neighborhood. It houses the namesake saint's glass tomb, in the sanctuary as well as museum exhibits.
 The Church of the Optimates constructed in Byzantine-Norman style, containing medieval artistic items of interest.

Museums, palaces and theatres
 The Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia (National Archaeological Museum of Magna Grecia), dedicated to Ancient Greece, heir of the previous City Museum (created in 1819); its building was built in 1932 with project of Marcello Piacentini under the auspices of Archæological Superintendent Edoardo Galli.
 The Villa Genoese-Zerbi is a modern villa in 14th century Venetian style (Neo-Gothic). It is the seat of exhibition of the Venice Biennale in southern Italy.
 The Palazzo Nesci is a mansion in Neoclassical style; it is one of the few 19th-century buildings survived to the 1908 earthquake.
 The Pinacoteca Comunale ("Town Art Gallery") houses works by Antonello da Messina (Abraham Served by the Angels and St. Jerome in Penitence), Mattia Preti, Luca Giordano, Giuseppe Benessai and others.
 The Piccolo Museo San Paolo, a museum with a collection of medieval Byzantine and Russian artistic items.

Archaeological sites and natural sites

 Soprintendenza alle Antichità della Calabria, established in 1907 as Archeological Superintendence of Bruttium and Lucania.
 The Riace bronzes, that can be seen at the important National Museum of Greater Greece, are some of the main touristic destinations in Reggio.
 The Lungomare Falcomatà, a seaside promenade located in the downtown, is a swimming destination and main symbol of the summer movida; it was defined by Nando Martellini, quoting the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, as "the most beautiful kilometre of Italy".
 The botanic gardens facing the sea.
 The walls of the ancient city, one of the few remaining examples of the original Greek walls, are divided into four separate sections. The one at the Falcomatà Seaside dates to the 5th–4th century BC and is attributed to the city's reconstruction by Dionysius II of Syracuse.
 The remains of Roman baths, along the sea promenade.
 The archaeological excavations of Piazza Italia, which was the central square of Reggio since Greater Greece age until today.
 The archaeological site of Griso Laboccetta, an ancient Greek and Roman sacred area.
 The archaeological excavations nearby Church San Giorgio al Corso.
 Other sites of archæological interest in the upper-eastern part of the city, such as a Greek mansion, a necropolis, or some ancient Greek walls and Byzantine items of interest nearby Reggio Campi street.

New waterfront: Museum and Performing Arts Centre
The new waterfront, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, is located on a narrow strait separating Italy from Sicily. The museum (13,400 m2) draws inspiration from the organic form of the starfish, utilizing a radial symmetry to coordinate communication and circulation between different program elements: exhibition spaces, restoration facilities, archive, aquarium and library. A second, multifunctional building (8,000 m2), comprises two separate elements, placed around a partially covered piazza. It houses offices, gyms, craft laboratories, cinema and flexible auditoria.

Culture

Literature and theatre

Teatro Comunale "Francesco Cilea": Municipal Theatre, firstly inaugurated in 1818 as Real Teatro Borbonio, it was rebuilt in a different place after the 1908 earthquake.
Politeama "Siracusa": multi-purpose theatre inaugurated in 1922 inside a Liberty style building.
Biblioteca Comunale "Pietro De Nava": the Municipal Library was inaugurated in 1818 as Regia Biblioteca Ferdinandiana and set in its present-day building in 1928, after the last earthquake.

Sport
The city's main association football team is Reggina. They play at the Stadio Oreste Granillo and are fierce rivals with neighbours Messina, who are just a twenty-five minutes ferry ride apart from each other. Throughout their histories they have clashed in the Derby dello Stretto (Strait of Messina Derby). There is also a major Calabrian derby with Crotone. There is also a second much smaller team HinterReggio Calcio.

Politics
The members of Parliament representing Reggio Calabria are Federica Dieni (M5S) in the Chamber and Marco Siclari (FI) in the Senate.

Education
Università "Mediterranea": established in 1968, it is the first Calabrian university.
Università per Stranieri "Dante Alighieri": it is one of the three Italian Universities for Foreigners; created in 1984 it includes several Linguistic and Philology courses.
Accademia di Belle Arti: the Academy of Fine Arts, established in 1967 is the most long-standing of its kind in Calabria and the third one in Southern Italy.
Conservatorio Musicale "Francesco Cilea": founded in 1927, the most ancient Conservatory of Music in Calabria, was then dedicated to the musician from Palmi.
State High School "Thomas Gulli", (Liceo statale Tommaso Gulli) established in 1911 as Girls Private School.
Liceo Classico "Tommaso Campanella", established in 1814 as Real Collegio under Joachim Murat government; poet Diego Vitrioli, from Reggio, attended this college.
Liceo Scientifico "Leonardo da Vinci", founded in the 1920s, under Fascism.
Liceo Scientifico "Alessandro Volta".
Istituto Tecnico-Industriale "Panella-Vallauri".

Notable people
For more information, see :Category:People from Reggio Calabria

 Learchus (end of 15th century BC), sculptor
 Iokastos (beginning of 13th century BC), probably king of Reggio
 Clearchus (7th–6th century BC), sculptor
 Ibycus (6th century BC), poet
 Theagenes of Rhegium (6th century BC), literary critic
 Pythagoras (6th–5th century BC), sculptor born in Samos
 Glaucus of Rhegium (5th century BC), historian
 Lycus of Rhegium, also known as Boutheras, was a historian who wrote a history of Libya and Sicily. Father of Lycophron.
 Proclus of Rhegium (1st–2nd century AD), physician
 Agatho (7th century AD), pope born in Sicily
 Barlaam of Seminara (1290-1348), Byzantine thinker
 Marc'Antonio Politi (1541-1626), medical doctor and historian
 Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), philosopher, theologian, astrologer, writer and poet born in Stilo
 Giuseppe Logoteta (1758–1799), politician
 Raffaele Piria (1814–1865), chemist born in Scilla
 Domenico Spanò Bolani (1815-1890), politician, historian and author
 Giuseppe De Nava (1858–1924), politician
 Francesco Cilea (1866–1950), musician and composer born in Palmi
 Gaetano Catanoso (1879–1963), saint, priest born in Choriò
 Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), painter/sculptor
 Domingo Periconi (1883–1940), painter
 Goffredo Zehender (1901–1958), Grand Prix driver
 Tito Minniti (1909–1935), pilot
 Leopoldo Trieste (1917–2003), actor and movie director
 Diego Carpitella (1924–1990), ethno-musicologist
 Nik Spatari (1929–2020), painter, sculptor, architect and art scholar born in Mammola
 Luigi Malice (born 1937), painter and sculptor born in Naples
 Marina Ripa di Meana (1941-2018), writer, actress, director, stylist and activist born Maria Elide Punturieri
 Italo Falcomatà (1943-2001), politician and university teacher
 Mino Reitano (1944–2009), singer born in Fiumara
 Santo Versace (born 1944), fashion designer and politician
 Mia Martini (1947-1995), singer born in Bagnara Calabra
 Gianni Versace (1946–1997), fashion designer
 Antonio Strati (born 1949), organisational theorist, artist and university teacher
 Loredana Bertè (born 1950), singer born in Bagnara Calabra
 Nicola Calipari (1953-2005), mayor general and military intelligence officer
 Nuccio Schepis (born 1955), sculptor and art restorer
 Donatella Versace (born 1955), fashion designer
 Marco Minniti (born 1956), politician and former Minister of the Interior in Italy
 Giuseppe Filianoti (born 1974), operatic tenor
 Michele Morrone (born 1990), actor, fashion designer, model, singer, songwriter

Transport

Highway
Reggio is a road junction on the SS18 Naples-Reggio and on the SS106 Reggio-Taranto roads and also on the A2 Salerno-Reggio motorway.

Tramway
The Tramway of Reggio was operative since 1918 until 1937.  Tramway line was 5.3 km long, from Sbarre district (southern suburbs) until Annunziata bridge (northern part of town centre) passing by the whole historical centre.

Railway
It has an important main central railway station, the largest in Calabria, opened in 1866, with ten smaller stations.

Port
The Port of Reggio was enlarged after the 1908 earthquake. It is directly connected to the city of Messina through a ferryboat line system.

Airport

Reggio Calabria, served by air from the Reggio Calabria Airport (IATA: REG, ICAO: LICR) also known as Aeroporto dello Stretto or Tito Minniti Airport, is located a few kilometres south of Reggio. The airport has been at the center of polemics about its financial loss, risking to be closed. It is currently connected to the airports of Rome Fiumicino and Milan Linate.

See also

 Black-figure pottery
 Fatti di Reggio
 List of mayors of Reggio Calabria
 Museo della ndrangheta
 Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reggio-Bova
 Urbs Reggina 1914
 Chiesa di Gesù e Maria, Reggio Calabria
 Chiesa degli Ottimati

Notes

References

Paoli, Letizia (2003). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style, New York: Oxford University Press;  (Organized-crime.de, Review by Klaus Von Lampe) (CCKA-ACJP.ca, Review by Alexandra V. Orlova)
Partridge, Hilary  (1998). Italian politics today, Manchester: Manchester University Press;

Bibliography

External links

 Official tourist site
 The City of Reggio di Calabria
 Province of Reggio di Calabria

Cities and towns in Calabria
Populated coastal places in Italy
Euboean colonies of Magna Graecia
Cumaean colonies
Populated places established in the 8th century BC
Mediterranean port cities and towns in Italy
Roman sites of Calabria

Reggio Calabria


Blackout and All Clear are the two volumes that constitute a 2010 science fiction novel by American author Connie Willis. Blackout was published February 2, 2010 by Spectra.  The second part, the conclusion All Clear, was released as a separate book on October 19, 2010. The diptych won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2011 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
These two volumes are the most recent of four books and a short story that Willis has written involving time travel from Oxford during the mid-21st century, all of which won multiple awards.

Plot introduction
Willis imagines a near future (first introduced in her 1982 story "Fire Watch" and featured in two of her previous novels: Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog) in which historians conduct field work by traveling into the past as observers. The research is mainly conducted at the University of Oxford in England in the mid-21st century. In their world, time-travel has been known since the early 21st century. The time-travel device, a portal called "the Net", remains in the time-traveler's present, while sending the time-traveler to a particular location (called "the drop") and time.  They can return from the same location when someone in the future re-opens the Net for them at an agreed-upon "rendezvous" time.

Historians in Willis' world believe that the laws of physics resist possible alterations to the past by preventing time-travel to certain places or times. In some cases, the machine used for time-travel will refuse to function, rendering the trip impossible. In other cases, "slippage"—a shift from the exact, desired target in time and/or space—occurs. The time-traveler arrives at the nearest place and time suitable for preventing a time paradox; although sometimes this is only a few minutes later than planned, it can be as much as several years. An example is when the character Polly wishes to arrive on September 10, 1940, in London, but instead arrives on September 14.

In addition to slippage, which the technicians operating the net cannot control or predict, there are other reasons why a historian might not be able to travel to a certain time. Once a time-traveler has visited a certain date, he or she can never go to that same time again. The 21st-century authorities controlling time-travel also have rules and can deem some historical periods too dangerous for time-travel, even though those times might be theoretically accessible.

Plot summary

Blackout
It is the year 2060, and the historians (time-traveling research staff) at Oxford University are a hair's breadth away from revolting. Mr. Dunworthy keeps changing their assignments at the last minute, for reasons not explained until All Clear. Michael Davies, who had prepared for a first-hand look at the events of Pearl Harbor, for example by having brain implants to give him an American accent and knowledge of that time, abruptly finds himself instead being sent to witness the response to the Battle of Dunkirk. The constant changes also mean that the wardrobe department cannot assemble the proper wardrobe for Polly Churchill, who plans to work as a shopgirl during the Blitz. Merope Ward, overseeing child refugees from London in Warwickshire, finds herself utterly unable to find the support she needs to complete her first assignment in the past. Dunworthy himself is nowhere to be found, having set off for a meeting with another academic, Ishiwaka, who theorizes that continued time travel has pushed the laws that safely govern it to the breaking point.

When they make it to World War II-era England, all initially seems well.

Merope takes on the persona of an Irish girl, Eileen O'Reilly, to secure a position in the staff of an English country manor house. From December, 1939, to May, 1940, she works for Lady Caroline as a servant; she desires to observe children evacuated from London during World War II. She sees far more of these children and their predicaments than she bargained for, especially some undisciplined trouble-makers, sister and brother street urchins Binnie and Alf Hodbin. Merope, referred to mostly in both books as Eileen, excels at her assignment, even when she comes to dislike it and to try desperately to escape to her "drop," which is located in the woods outside the manor grounds. The children love her, and when Alf comes down with measles, and then infects the dozens of other children, the house is quarantined; Eileen proves an excellent and tireless nurse, against her own wishes. She is appalled by what she considers the barbaric medical treatments of 1940 (she errs by referring to "a virus," a term not generally known then), and manages to save Binnie's life only by stealing some aspirin to bring the girl's fever down.

Eileen repeatedly finds herself unable to return to 2060 via her drop. She helps to return most of the children to their homes, and then plans to travel by train to seek help from her friend Polly, who should, by September, 1940, be a shopgirl in London. To her dismay, the local vicar, Mr. Goode, has arranged for Binnie and Alf to be given "safe passage" to Canada, so that they will not have to remain with their neglectful mother in Whitechapel, which, as Eileen knows, was bombed during the Blitz. But, as she also knows, they are likely to be transported on the SS City of Benares, which was torpedoed by a German submarine. Unable to allow this to happen, Eileen accompanies the brats to London, after which she can seek Polly. During their train trip, Alf's mischievousness delays their train; if the train had proceeded on time, it would have been destroyed by German bombers. When they disembark from the train and cross a field to find a bus, they witness in the sky the beginning of the Battle of Britain. Alf (who fancies himself a plane spotter) and Binnie are delighted to watch an air battle between a German Messerschmitt fighter plane against a Hawker Hurricane and a Spitfire. The Messerschmitt is destroyed, and Eileen manages both to return the children to their home and to find Polly.

Polly, fair-haired and pretty, secures employment at a department store in Oxford Street in the West End of London. Her intention (that is, her research assignment) was "to observe shelterers in the tube stations", but she ends up joining a group huddling under St. George's Church. The group, most of whom become fond of Polly, includes the nasty-tempered Mrs. Rickett, who owns a boarding house where Polly rents a tiny room; some other boarders, including the sweet but flighty spinster Miss Laburnum; Sir Godfrey, a Shakespearean actor who forms a crush on Polly; a rector; Mr. Simms and his dog Nelson; Lila and Viv, young women who chat constantly about dances and movie stars; and others.

Michael Davies had planned to travel to witness the attack on Pearl Harbor. Instead, he is sent to Dover, a trip he had intended to make later, where he had planned to witness heroism during the Dunkirk evacuation. When he discovers that, instead of Dover, he has landed in Saltram-on-Sea, a town 30 miles south, with his "drop" within some rocks on the beach, he tells the locals that he is Mike Davis, an American war correspondent, who wishes to cover the British anti-invasion preparations of World War II. The residents are pleased to find a "Yankee" interested in them.

To his horror, he is brought against his will onto the small, barely seaworthy craft Lady Jane of Commander Harold and taken across the English Channel to help evacuate the soldiers from the beach at Dunkirk. When they arrive at the mole there, soldiers begin scrambling onto the boat, but Michael must dive underwater to free the propeller from a corpse which has become entangled with it. Michael frees the boat and joins the evacuees on the deck, which is too crowded for movement, and the Commander guides the boat back to England. During the trip, Michael goes into shock and barely hears a rescued soldier, Private Hardy, thanking him for saving his life. When they return, Michael finds his right foot has been mangled. (He will limp for the rest of his life.) He awakes in Orpington War Emergency Hospital, where he is adored as a hero, but, for months, he is terrified that he has changed the course of history by saving soldiers.

Eventually, Merope, Polly and Michael meet each other in London. They are all worried because they cannot find drops which will return them to Oxford.

All Clear
All Clear begins where Blackout left off, with Michael Davies (posing as an American journalist, Mike Davis), Polly Churchill (as Polly Sebastian), and Merope Ward (posing as Eileen O'Reilly) trapped in 1940 Britain during the Blitz.  Just as in Blackout, the novel switches between multiple people and times.

As the novel opens, Polly Churchill, who is posing as a shop assistant, realizes that she has a deadline. She had already visited Oxford and London in 1943. Since she was able to do that, and she now believes she is trapped in 1940, she must either have returned to the future or died by 1943. She is convinced that she will in fact die. We later learn that Mary, a seemingly unrelated character whose experiences as a volunteer nurse and ambulance driver in 1943-44 are included in All Clear, is actually also Polly, under an assumed name (Polly being a nickname for Mary). Meanwhile, Merope and Michael have found Polly after discovering that their drops are also unable to return them to the future. Now together, the three believe that their own actions, particularly in Mike's case, may have changed the future so that there is no time travel, and that possibly it will involve Germany winning the war.

Knowing something has gone wrong which prevents them from returning to 2060 Oxford, the three time travelers attempt to determine an escape plan, but none of their efforts are successful.  A fellow student, Gerald Phipps, who was supposed to be at Bletchley Park studying Ultra, never came through to his assignment. They realize that another Oxford historian, John Bartholomew, is also in their place and time, but understand this only less than a day before he will leave. (Bartholomew's time travel experience is the subject of Willis's short story "Fire Watch," written almost thirty years previously.) Frantically they try to get to him, but the three are separated and repeatedly delayed, not helped by the fact that this is the night of December 29, 1940, during which some of the worst raids of the war occurred.  They are unable to find Bartholomew before he returns to 2054 Oxford.  When Mike and Eileen figure out that Polly has a deadline in June 1943, and its implications, their search for a way out becomes even more desperate.  Their frustration turns into tragedy when Mike is reported killed during a raid.  Eileen refuses to accept his death, but upon realizing Alf and Binnie's mother has been dead for months, she volunteers to raise the orphans, thus giving her life, now trapped in the mid-20th century, a significant meaning. Polly fights with her about this, but Eileen is adamant and later proves to have become a very good mother to the children.

In 2060, in Oxford, Mr. Dunworthy sends himself on a rescue mission to retrieve Polly in September 1940.  However, when he arrives at St Paul's Cathedral, he is unable to determine the date before the raids start. (St. Paul's, and especially one of the paintings in the Cathedral, The Light of the World, are viewed several times by most of the important characters in the book. They are either inspired or depressed by their current view of the painting.) When he realizes it is December 1940, he becomes hopeless and distraught.  Polly stumbles across him in the cathedral a few weeks later.  He explains his hypothesis that slippage isn't a result of the time continuum trying to prevent historians from changing the past, as he had previously thought, but is a response to changes they'd already caused.  The continuum around World War II is in such disarray that it has sealed itself off to time travel, and will engage in 'corrections' – likely the death of the historians and those they have influenced, Dunworthy believes.  Their worst fears – that they have been able to influence the past and cause discrepancies – have been realized, possibly to the point the War will be lost.

However, all hope is not lost.  Mike had faked his own death and in 1944 is engaged in Operation Fortitude, a misinformation campaign. Mike is not revealed to be this character until later in the novel, as he operates under a code name in this part of the narrative. He is able to plant notices in newspapers which hint where Polly and Eileen are located, in the hopes that someone in 2060's Oxford will find the notices and be able to rescue the young women.  Another potential rescuer is Colin Templer, an overeager teenager from 2060 Oxford with a crush on Polly.  He goes back to 1944 and finds Michael, right after Mike has been hit by a bomb and helped by Polly, who is then an ambulance driver and first-aid responder but who, because of the blacked-out night, cannot see that it is Michael.  Mike explains to Colin that Polly and Eileen are together, then falls unconscious as Colin brings him back to 2060 Oxford.  Colin also goes to the 1970s for research and to 1995 to try to find someone who knew Polly. To his surprise, in 1995 he meets an elderly Binnie, who tells him Eileen died in 1987. Binnie also reveals that she has learned all about time travel and has been looking for him through the decades to tell him where and when he can rescue the stranded historians. Equipped with this knowledge, Colin is able to return to 1941 to rescue Polly and Mr. Dunworthy.

Despite Polly's worries about leading to the deaths of those around her by interfering, she heroically risks her own life to save Sir Godfrey's during a bombing.  She finally realizes what is going on as she lies recovering in the hospital; the historians have caused small things to happen which ultimately led to winning the war.  She concludes that they're stuck in World War II not to be killed by the continuum, but because there are things they need to do so that the war will be won by the Allies and so that history is as it should be.

In April 1941, an older Colin comes through at St. Paul's and finds the historians.  Polly and Mr. Dunworthy leave with Colin to return to 2060 Oxford, but Eileen stays behind.  She reasons that she must remain in the past so she can tell Colin in the future where to find them, and she refuses to abandon Alf and Binnie.  Colin tells them that Mike had faked his own death, but died in Oxford from his 1944 injuries.  Finally Polly, Mr. Dunworthy, and Colin return to the St. Paul's drop and to Oxford. Eileen stays behind, committing to live out her life in the past with Alf and Binnie.

While waiting for the drop to open for her to return to Oxford, Polly also realizes that there is a resemblance between the grown-up Colin and Eileen, implying that Eileen will become his ancestor.  Eileen also seemed to see this, since she called Colin "dear boy" and said "I will always be with you" before they left.  Thus Eileen had another reason to remain behind in 1941.

On VE-Day, May 7, 1945, Eileen is reunited during the celebrations with Vicar Goode, whom she has known since the beginning of the War while working for Lady Caroline in Warwickshire. Vicar Goode had always been kind to Alf and Binnie, and it is strongly implied that Eileen and Mr. Goode will marry and raise the children together.

Characters
 Polly Churchill is a 25-year-old Oxford student historian (in 2060), with previous time-traveling experience, who goes to London as Polly Sebastian to become a shopgirl, in September 1940, to observe Londoners' reactions to the Blitz. She is unable to return to 2060 through her "drop" in London, and comes to believe she has a "deadline" to return or die, due to a previous trip back to a later time during World War II (since a time traveler cannot exist in the same time more than once). Polly can be sneaky and deceitful; she often lies to her friends Merope and Michael, apparently for the self-serving reason that she doesn't want to see them feel hurt if she tells them the truth about their situation. In one of her previous time-traveling trips to WWII, she was known as Mary Kent, a FANY nurse, who unknowingly treated Ernest (Michael Davis) after an HE attack, and who also saw Eileen (Merope Ward) on VE-Day.Not wishing to use the last name Churchill during a trip to WWII, she tells Merope that she chooses aliases from the plays of William Shakespeare; in this case, that of Sebastian from Twelfth Night, a play often quoted throughout the novel.She is also given, by her FANY friends, nicknames based on motorcycle manufacturers, such as Douglas, DeHavilland, and Triumph.
 Michael Davies is another 2060 Oxford student historian. While pretending to be an American reporter, Mike Davis, he tries to reach Dover in May 1940 to observe soldiers being evacuated back to England from Dunkirk. Instead, Mike is transported to Saltram-on-Sea, and ends up on a boat which goes to Dunkirk, where he loses half his right foot while helping to evacuate soldiers. After spending several months in a hospital in Orpington (in Greater London) he discovers that he cannot return to the future via his "drop" in Saltram-on-Sea, and in September 1940 travels to London in seeking Polly and her drop. When Michael later works on Fortitude South, he goes by the codename Ernest Worthing. (Fortitude South operatives in the book are named after characters in The Importance of Being Earnest). Willis might have taken Davies's last name from that of Lieutenant Robert Davies (GC), who distinguished himself during the Second World War with the Royal Engineers and was awarded the George Cross (GC) for the heroism he displayed in defusing a bomb which threatened to destroy St Paul's Cathedral on 12 September 1940.
 Merope Ward is a red-headed young Oxford historian (in 2060) making her first trip back in time to Warwickshire as a servant, Eileen O'Reilly, in a country house in 1939 to observe children evacuated from London. Her name Ward suggests her sympathy for the orphaned wards of the war-time. After Merope cannot return to 2060 Oxford via her drop in Warwickshire, she travels to London to seek help from her friend Polly. Unable ever to find a viable drop, she chooses to remain in England and to adopt and raise Alf and Binnie Hodbin. It is implied at the end of All Clear that she will marry Vicar Goode and will become an ancestor of Colin Templer.
 Alf and Binnie Hodbin (Binnie is an 11-year-old girl; Alf is her younger brother) are very troublesome young urchins evacuated from London to Warwickshire in 1939. Despite causing difficulties for Eileen (Merope), she nurses them after both catch measles (and saves Binnie's life when her measles turns into pneumonia). After a measles quarantine is lifted, Eileen delivers them both back to their mother in London in September 1940. Binnie, it turns out, has never been given a first name; "Binnie" is merely a nickname derived from her last name, Hodbin. When she fears dying and having no given name on her tombstone, Eileen tells her she can choose any name she likes. Binnie searches film magazines for a glamorous actress name. At one point, she chooses "Spitfire"; later she opts for Dolores, Rapunzel, Vera, and others.  Finally she takes Eileen's name as her own, too.
 James Dunworthy, a Fellow (professor) of History in charge of time travel from Oxford in 2060. (Dunworthy was a pivotal character in "Fire Watch", Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog.) His students think that he is overprotective. When he comes to believe that he alone is responsible for altering the "real" historical facts, he succumbs to despair. Polly finds him in St Paul's Cathedral in All Clear; in every story in which Dunworthy occurs, it is emphasized that he cares chiefly for the Cathedral, for his students, and for the importance of history.
 Lady Caroline Denewell - lives at Denewell Manor in Warwickshire where Eileen first serves and where the Hodbin children are evacuated; later she becomes the Major, Polly/Mary Kent's commanding officer at the FANY station in Dulwich.
 Sir Godfrey Kingsman is an elderly Shakespearean actor encountered by Polly in London in September 1940. A mutual attraction between them develops (despite the large difference between their ages), beyond their shared love of Shakespeare. Sir Godfrey intuits more about Polly than what she tells him. In 1941, he is in the Phoenix Theatre when it is bombed, and Polly saves his life.
 Commander Harold, an elderly and very determined patriot, and his nephew Jonathan live in Saltram-on-Sea and, with Michael, take their motor launch, the Lady Jane, to Dunkirk to help in the evacuation, even though Harold was never commissioned into the Royal Navy and was forbidden to go. Late in All Clear, Michael learns that they did not die at Dunkirk, as he had been told, but have been working for British Intelligence. To his pride, Harold was finally commissioned as a Sea captain.
 Colin Templer is a 17-year-old Eton College student (in 2060) who wants to become a time-traveling historian even before he's eligible to attend Oxford, and who has a crush on Polly. (An unauthorized previous trip into the past by Colin, occurring in Doomsday Book, is mentioned at the beginning of Blackout.) Because she is several years older than he, he begs her, at the beginning of Blackout, to allow him to travel long enough in time that he will become her age and date her properly. Against his plans and her wishes, this happens, and it is implied that they end up in a romantic relationship.
 Vicar Goode is, as his name suggests, a good man. Serving as vicar to the town of Denewell in Warwickshire, his duties are chiefly to his parish, but he spends much of his time obeying the orders of Lady Caroline Denewell, such as teaching her servants to drive automobiles in case they are needed to drive ambulances. He also befriends Merope (whom he knows as Eileen) and is fonder of her than she realizes; he helps with the orphaned children at Denewell Manor, and is one of the few adults whom the orphans Alf and Binnie respect and obey. When he meets Eileen again at the end of the War, it is strongly implied that they will marry and raise the two orphans together.
 Hugh Tensing is a civilian whom Mike Davies encounters in the hospital in Orpington, and who tells Mike he broke five ribs and injured his back after "a typewriter fell on me." In 1944, Mike is told by Commander Harold's nephew Jonathan that Tensing had actually "been shot in the spine." Hugh is vague about where he works, but is very good at solving crossword puzzles quickly. (The ability to solve crossword puzzles quickly was, at that time, one of the recruitment tests used by the British government for cryptographers.) Tensing later recruits Mike to work at Operation Fortitude.
 Mrs. Rickett is a civilian landlady whom Polly meets in a shelter and rents a tiny room from. (Polly is paying for breakfast and dinner at the boarding house, along with boarders Miss Laburnum, Miss Wyvern, Mr. Dorming, and eventually Eileen). Mrs. Rickett is, unfortunately, one of the non-heroes of the British war survivors, being a price-gouger; she is notorious for her expensive rental rates and her foul cooking, which often consists of boiled tripe, thin soup, or worse. The boarders are outraged when they have saved up their ration points to have a roasted goose for Christmas in 1940, and Mrs. Rickett takes the goose away to visit a relative in her country and leaves them with only turnip soup instead. Mrs. Rickett and three of her boarders die in a Luftwaffe attack in spring of 1941.
 Alan Turing was a historical figure, the chief of Hut 8 at Bletchley Park. Willis portrays him as an absent-minded professor and reckless driver, who while riding a bicycle runs over Michael moments after Michael arrives at Bletchley Park.
 Gerald Phipps is a 2060 Oxford historian with a background in maths. When Mike and Polly realize the need to contact him, they find that Merope is the one who last spoke with him, and she admits that she did not listen closely; she finds him boring and unbearable; she is certain he is there at the same time as they are, going to a place with a name (she says) consisting of two words which begin "with a D, I think. Or a P. Or possibly a T." It turns out that he was supposed to be at Bletchley Park in the Government Code and Cypher School, working on the Ultra program, but because of Dunworthy's changes to the time travel program, he was never able to go.
 Badri Chaudhuri runs "the Net" (Oxford's time-travel installation) in 2060. (This was also Badri's role in Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog.)

Development
Connie Willis worked on the story for almost eight years, during which, she said during the Hugo Awards ceremony, she pushed "everyone's patience to the limit".

In August, 2006, at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention, in a give-and-take with her audience, Willis described her novel-in-progress: "It's about World War 2, and I have four historians... One of them is with the evacuating children in the North of England; one of them is doing the Blitz; one of them is doing the civilian evacuation from Dunkirk, of soldiers but by civilians; and one of them is doing the Intelligence War involved in the lead-up to D-Day, where they fooled Hitler into thinking we were attacking at Calais, instead of at Normandy. And their lives are hopelessly intertwined; but then they all get in trouble—you know my books—they all get in terrible trouble and can't get out of it. And are stuck in World War II, for God's sake! So: Not a safe place to be." (An audience member called, "Better than the Plague!") Willis laughed but replied, "Not necessarily better than the Plague! In slightly better survival chance because they have the advantage of some knowledge that the locals don't have, but then again, historical events are notoriously inaccurate, and just because you think you know where all the bombs fell, doesn't mean you do. So that will figure heavily in the book... I have a lot of stuff to tell you about the war... The Brits were absolutely wonderful... They were great and plucky and funny under pressure."

In a February 12, 2010 interview Connie Willis said:
What are Blackout and All Clear about? They're about Dunkirk and ration books and D-Day and V-1 rockets, about tube shelters and Bletchley Park and gas masks and stirrup pumps and Christmas pantomimes and cows and crossword puzzles and the deception campaign. And mostly the book's about all the people who "did their bit" to save the world from Hitler—Shakespearean actors and ambulance drivers and vicars and landladies and nurses and WRENs and RAF pilots and Winston Churchill and General Patton and Agatha Christie—heroes all.

Critical reception
Michael Dirda of The Washington Post praised the diptych as "as vivid an evocation of England during World War II as anyone has ever written" and wrote that "Blackout is, by turns, witty, suspenseful, harrowing and occasionally comic to the point of slapstick." Adrienne Martini of Locus Online called the 1940s Britain that Willis created "richly textured". A. M. Dellamonica described the story as "an intricate puzzle" and "a celebration, too, of courage and heroism, of perseverance, of ordinary people doing small things to aid in great causes, of devotion, friendship, keeping one's word. It has funny characters and laugh out loud moments aplenty, but it is no wacky romp, this book, no To Say Nothing of the Dog. At the same time, I found it funnier and, strangely, cheerier than previous Willis novels with a comparable body count."

Julie Phillips of The Village Voice wrote, "Blackout/All Clear is neither tragedy nor comedy, but a mystery story with touches of grief and slapstick... None of the three historians manages to stand by and observe... The cast of characters is long, but Willis convinces you to care about almost all their fates — and to surprise you about their connection to each other. Willis's evocation of wartime London sometimes feels romanticized, and it has few moral or demographic complications... Nor is Willis's theme, the heroism of ordinary people, especially original. But by the time the three historians and Mr. Dunworthy have unraveled the mystery and arrived at the full-on, three-hanky finale, you'll no longer be a disinterested observer."

Some reviewers complained of the length of the books and their narrative modes. Christopher DeFilippis, writing for the SF Site, said he thought the books "can best be described by words like 'belabored' and 'exasperating.' That's because the single story told in Blackout and All Clear didn't have to encompass two novels. Had it not been marred by endlessly repetitive prose and character actions, the narrative could have fit neatly into a single volume... Unfortunately, the bulk of Blackout is taken up by Polly, Mike and Eileen's individual realizations that they're trapped in the past, with each caught in a state of seemingly perpetual denial about their circumstances. Instead of acknowledging the blatant truth of their predicament, they concoct endless mental scenarios as to why their gates won't open... Willis goes on for pages with her protagonists repeatedly ruminating about the same "what ifs" over and over (and over) again. It may be understandable in the beginning of the story as the characters adjust to the magnitude of their situation. But it soon becomes apparent that this is what constitutes drama in Willis' universe and it never stops... It's a shame that these negatives so overwhelm Blackout and All Clear, because despite them the books feature many terrific characters moving in extremely interesting historical situations."

Similarly, Adam Roberts of The Guardian wrote, "The result is a mildly interesting 200-page novel about the ordinary heroism of British civilians during the war, bloated to 800 pages via an egregiously handled time-travel conceit, eked out with great jellied quantities of historical research, endless meandering conversations, long passages disposed into that tiresome typographical convention by which characters' inmost thoughts are spelled out in italics, and a string of inconsequential chapter-end cliffhangers/immediate resolutions that got increasingly on my nerves as the book went on. There's little overall tension, and the time-travelling historians come over as both panicky and amateurish – an undesirable combination, one might think, where timelines are lying about ready to be mucked up." He added, though, "The aim is a commendable one. Despite walk-on parts by General Patton, Agatha Christie and Alan Turing, the bulk of the characters in All Clear are ordinary people getting on with their ordinary lives... And it can't be denied that the subject here, the heroism of ordinary people in testing times, is worthy and honourable."

References

External links

Novels about time travel
American science fiction novels
2010 American novels
2010 science fiction novels
Hugo Award for Best Novel-winning works
Nebula Award for Best Novel-winning works
Novels by Connie Willis
Novels set during World War II
Bantam Spectra books
2060

Blackout/All Clear


The Iuliu Maniu Street in Cluj-Napoca, named after the Romanian politician Iuliu Maniu, is a central street in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, connecting the Avram Iancu and Unirii squares. It is parallel to the Eroilor and "21 Decembrie 1989" avenues. The western part of the street— between the Unirii Square and Bolyai Street—was built during the 19th century in a symmetrical manner, featuring the eclectic architectural style, accordingly the Haussmann urbanistic trend. It is commonly called strada oglindă (mirror street).

References

Streets in Cluj-Napoca

Iuliu Maniu Street, Cluj-Napoca


Rocket Mania is a computer puzzle video game made by Nuclide Games and PopCap Games.

Gameplay

The player rotates fuses to launch rockets. Multiple rockets can be launched because the fuses have junctions. Players can get coins for launching rockets. Five coins will upgrade a rocket. The player goes through different ranks by earning points. Combos can also happen if a fuse launches and then falls.

Modes

Classic

The game starts at night, with a time limit. Depending on the level, the player will launch a certain number of rockets before they level up. The dragon automatically upgrades the rockets with coins, which in turn gives the player more points. Other types of items can also be awarded. Item values are based on rockets.

Arcade

The game starts empty, with tiles filling up the board. The player must lead fuses to rockets before the board fills.

Strategy

The player starts with a number of matches. Launching multiple rockets will bring bonus matches to the board, but they will burn out if left there. If the match is carried by the fuse light, the player gets the match. The game ends if the player runs out of matches.

Puzzle video games

Rocket Mania!