The Madison River is a headwater tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 183 miles (295 km) long, in Wyoming and Montana. Its confluence with the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers near Three Forks, Montana forms the Missouri River.

The Madison rises in Teton County in northwestern Wyoming at the confluence of the Firehole and Gibbon rivers, a location in Yellowstone National Park called Madison Junction. It first flows west, then north through the mountains of southwestern Montana to join the Jefferson and the Gallatin rivers at Three Forks. The Missouri River Headwaters State Park is located on the Madison at Three Forks.
In its upper reaches in Gallatin County, Montana, the Hebgen Dam forms Hebgen Lake. In its middle reaches in Madison County, Montana, the Madison Dam forms Ennis Lake and provides hydroelectric power. In 1959, the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake formed Quake Lake just downstream from Hebgen Dam. Downstream from Ennis, the Madison flows through Bear Trap Canyon, known for its class IV-V whitewater. The Bear Trap Canyon section is part of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness area.

The river was named in July 1805 by Meriwether Lewis at Three Forks. The central fork of the three, it was named for U.S. Secretary of State James Madison, who later succeeded Thomas Jefferson as President in 1809. The western fork, the largest, was named for President Jefferson and the east fork for Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin.

The Madison is a class I river in Montana for the purposes of access for recreational use.

Angling the Madison

The Madison River, from Madison Junction in Yellowstone to Three Forks, is a fly fishing mecca for serious anglers.  It is classified as a blue ribbon fishery in Montana and is one of the most productive streams in Montana for brown trout, rainbow trout and mountain whitefish.

See also

Angling in Yellowstone National Park
 Fishes of Yellowstone National Park
Montana Stream Access Law
List of rivers of Montana
List of Wyoming rivers

References

Sources

External links

Rivers of Montana
Rivers of Wyoming
Rivers of Yellowstone National Park
Tributaries of the Missouri River
Rivers of Park County, Wyoming
Rivers of Gallatin County, Montana
Bodies of water of Madison County, Montana

Madison River


Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft Corp. and Activision Blizzard, Inc. was a lawsuit brought against multinational technology corporation Microsoft and video game holding company Activision Blizzard in 2022. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sought a temporary injunction against Microsoft in their efforts to acquire Activision Blizzard.

In July 2021, The Wall Street Journal alleged that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick engaged in workplace misconduct. Several days later, Microsoft discussed acquiring the company; in March 2021, Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media for  billion. In January 2022, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard. The deal would make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company by revenue, raising antitrust concerns. The FTC began reviewing the deal later that month and voted to file a legal challenge to stop Microsoft from acquiring the company in December 2022. A temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction were requested before Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in June 2023. Corley rejected the preliminary injunction on July 11, and the FTC appealed the ruling a day later. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the appeal.

On July 20, 2023, the FTC withdrew its lawsuit. The injunction presented a threat to the acquisition and could have ended it if granted in higher courts. FTC v. Microsoft would have been Microsoft's largest legal challenge since United States v. Microsoft Corp. (2001). On September 15, Microsoft uploaded hundreds of unredacted internal documents to the District Court for the Northern District of California's website, publicly revealing Xbox plans.

Background

On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard for  billion, following the company's acquisition of ZeniMax Media for  billion in March 2021 and amid a workplace misconduct lawsuit filed against the company by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. According to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, Xbox head Phil Spencer discussed acquiring Activision Blizzard days after The Wall Street Journal released its report on Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick's behavior at the company. The deal, which would add many of Activision Blizzard's franchises to Microsoft's subscription service Xbox Game Pass, would make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company by revenue behind Chinese multinational technology company Tencent and Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony. Call of Duty, an Activision Blizzard franchise, would remain on Sony's PlayStation platform for at least three more games, according to Bloomberg News's Jason Schreier; at the time, the games remaining on PlayStation included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022), Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 (2022), and Treyarch's forthcoming Call of Duty game in the main series. Following Schreier's report, Microsoft assured customers that it will keep Activision Blizzard's titles on PlayStation beyond Activision Blizzard's existing agreement with PlayStation, despite making Redfall (2023) and Starfield (2023) exclusive to Windows and Xbox.

Microsoft's intent to acquire Activision Blizzard raised potential antitrust concerns both within the United States and abroad. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said it would review the deal on January 31; although acquisitions are usually reviewed by the Department of Justice, the FTC has begun a push into regulating Big Tech. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Cory Booker—noted opponents of Big Tech—urged FTC chairwoman Lina Khan to investigate the acquisition. In September 2022, the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority signaled it would investigate Microsoft if the company could not answer its concerns. In a blog post, Spencer cited Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang Studios, the developers of Minecraft (2011), for  in 2014 as a testament to the company's approach to releasing games on multiple platforms. The European Commission began a provision review later that month and opened an "in-depth investigation" in November.

Lawsuit

On December 8, 2022, the FTC voted to file a legal challenge to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In the lawsuit, the FTC alleges that Microsoft would use its Xbox gaming consoles, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Cloud Gaming to suppress competitors, a view point shared by Bureau of Competition director Holly Vedova. Microsoft president and vice chairman Brad Smith asserted that the company has "complete confidence" in its case and welcomes the "opportunity to present it in court". Vice president of communications Frank X. Shaw tweeted a link to a document entitled, "Get The Facts: How Microsoft is Committed to Growing Gaming Communities". Microsoft responded to the challenge with a filing that claimed that the FTC was unconstitutional, salvo that was later removed. The FTC followed their challenge up with a request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction before Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley on June 12, 2023, amid concerns that Microsoft may close the deal regardless with approval from the European Commission on July 18. The injunction prevents Microsoft from completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard until the result of the FTC's legal challenge; an evidentiary hearing for that case is set for August 2. If the injunction succeeds, Microsoft may drop its acquisition altogether.

On July 18, twenty-two Republicans in the House of Representatives sent a letter urging the FTC to drop the case. Two days later, the FTC withdrew its lawsuit. The case could be refiled in the future.

Injunction case

Preliminary hearing
Microsoft's exhibit list for the injunction case included several documents, including emails between Spencer and Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty discussing Xbox games for the Nintendo Switch, and Xbox leadership discussing "pettiness from Sony and Gamespots  fanboy reviewers". In his deposition, Ryan stated that Sony would not share details about its forthcoming video game console with a Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard. On the first day, the FTC questioned Xbox's ability to port the Call of Duty franchise onto the Nintendo Switch, arguing that technical limitations would make the series' games separate. In a 2021 email, Booty objected to Nvidia putting Xbox Game Studios games onto its GeForce Now streaming service with Microsoft's permission. Upon acquiring Bethesda Softworks, he recommended pulling Bethesda's games from GeForce Now; earlier in June, Microsoft signed a deal with Nvidia to bring Xbox games onto the service. Bethesda head of global publishing Pete Hines was questioned for an interview with GameSpot in which he was "bothered" by Starfields exclusivity. Hines revealed that an upcoming Indiana Jones game from MachineGames would be exclusive to Windows and Xbox, altering a contract with Disney.

On the second day, Spencer emphasized that Xbox has lost the console war to Sony and Nintendo. The FTC focused on Xbox exclusives; Spencer refused to confirm whether or not The Elder Scrolls VI would be an Xbox exclusive but revealed that Microsoft acquired Bethesda after learning that Starfield would be a PlayStation exclusive. It was also revealed that Microsoft considered making Minecraft Dungeons (2021) an exclusive but ultimately decided against it. Under oath, Spencer testified that Call of Duty will remain on PlayStation for the next ten years and asked him about the Diablo franchise. Former Google Stadia product lead Dov Zimring appeared. The third day marked a series of video depositions livestreamed through Zoom. Ryan contended that Nintendo operates in a different market and that Bethesda's games were multiplatform before the company was acquired. An email shared by PlayStation includes a list of Activision Blizzard games that would remain on PlayStation. The list mentions Overwatch (2016) but not Overwatch 2 (2022), the former of which no longer exists in place of the latter. Robin Lee, a professor of economics at Harvard University, stated that Xbox's market share would increase nearly ten percentage points if Call of Duty was an Xbox exclusive; Elizabeth Bailey argued that Call of Duty is "not a unicorn". Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he has "no love" for exclusives and Kotick stated that exclusives are "very detrimental" for business. Collectively, Nadella, Kotick, and Spencer argued that exclusives such as Final Fantasy XVI (2023) force Xbox into making exclusives.

During the injunction case, both Sony and Microsoft revealed highly confidential information. One email seen by The Verge shows that Xbox was willing to acquire Bungie—now owned by Sony—and Sega to bolster Xbox Game Pass. Hitman developer IO Interactive was also on Microsoft's "final watchlist" for companies to acquire in 2021. IO Interactive's upcoming fantasy game will be an Xbox exclusive. Microsoft lawyer Beth Wilkinson revealed that The Elder Scrolls VI has a projected release date of 2026. An unredacted document showed that Microsoft Azure made less than half of the revenue than its rival, Amazon Web Services, in 2022. Documents submitted by Sony appeared to have been redacted using a black Sharpie but, upon being scanned in, the redacted figures were legible. The documents show that Horizon Forbidden West (2022) cost  million over five years with 300 employees while The Last of Us Part II (2020) cost  million with 200 employees. In contending that Call of Duty did not have an impact on the company's revenue, Sony revealed that approximately one million players exclusively play Call of Duty on PlayStation; the series as a whole is valued at  billion, according to one document. Similarly, an FTC lawyer accidentally revealed Xbox's revenue split and the FTC's counsel stated that Microsoft was working on a dedicated version of Xbox Cloud Gaming to undermine the argument that it was intended to be a feature.

Ruling and appeal
On July 11, Corley ruled against FTC and denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, arguing that Microsoft had made a commitment to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation. A spokesman for the FTC stated that they were disappointed by the ruling and would announce their next steps in the coming days. Smith called the decision "quick and thorough". The FTC was given the opportunity to appeal the ruling until July 14; the agency appealed it a day later. The FTC also filed a separate motion to Corley on July 13 arguing for another injunction until the Ninth Circuit had time to decide to stay Corley's previous ruling, but she denied that motion. The Ninth Circuit denied the emergency appeal to block the merger on July 14.

Documents leak
On September 15, Microsoft uploaded hundreds of internal documents to the District Court for the Northern District of California's website. The documents include an email stating The Elder Scrolls VI would release in 2026 exclusively on Windows and Xbox.

Reactions
In The Hill, conservative journalist Stephen Kent criticized Khan and praised Microsoft. The Washington Posts editorial board said that the FTC should allow the deal to proceed, but include a consent decree that permits the agency to make any Activision Blizzard titles multiplatform under their discretion. The New York Times viewed the case as Microsoft's "biggest challenge in Washington in two decades", referring to United States v. Microsoft Corp. (2001), and noted Khan's efforts to regulate Big Tech. The injunction ruling presented a failure for Khan and emboldened critics.

Notes

References

Microsoft litigation
2022 in United States case law

FTC v. Microsoft


Paul Caponigro (born December 7, 1932), is an American photographer from Boston, Massachusetts.

Early life
Caponigro started having interests in photography at age 13. However, he also had a strong passion in music and began to study music at Boston University College of Music in 1950, before eventually deciding to focus on studying photography at the California School of Fine Art.

Photography career
Caponigro studied with Minor White and has been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from the NEA. His best known photographs are Running White Deer and Galaxy Apple. His subject matter includes landscape and still life, taking an interest in natural forms. He is best known for his landscape works and for the mystical and spiritual qualities of his work.  He is often regarded as one of America's foremost landscape photographers.
Caponigro's first one-man exhibition took place at the George Eastman House in 1958.  In the 1960s Caponigro taught photography part-time at Boston University while consulting the Polaroid Corporation on various technical research. Caponigro lived in El Rancho de San Sebastian during his time in New Mexico from 1973 to 1993.

In 1971, his work was exhibited in group exhibition "Le Groupe Libre Expression : Expo 5", presented by Jean-Claude Gautrand, at Les Rencontres d'Arles festival, France.

Caponigro's work is included in the collections of the Guggenheim, Whitney, Norton Simon Museum, New Mexico Museum of Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2001.

Caponigro is a dedicated pianist and considers his training with music to be essential to his photographic imagery.

His son, John Paul Caponigro, is a digital photographic artist.

Quotes
 "I often see the materials of photography as being a type of terrain. Emulsions, liquid developers, silver salts, and fixers interact, and I construct a landscape that I need to first explore in my mind's eye if I am to make it manifest as an artful image in silver."
 "Photography is a medium, a language, through which I might come to experience directly, live more closely with, the interaction between myself and nature."
 "At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes'."
 "It's one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it's another thing to make a portrait of who they are."
 "In my years of photography I have learned that many things can be sensed, seen, shaped or resolved in a realm of quiet, well in advance of, or between, the actual clicking of shutters and the sloshing of films and papers in chemical solutions. I work to attain "a state of heart", a gentle space offering inspirational substance that could purify one's vision. Photography, like music, must be born in the unmanifest world of spirit."

Books
 Veiled Yet Revealed: Masterworks from Fifty Years
 Paul Caponigro: Masterworks of Forty Years
 Paul Caponigro - New England Days
 Paul Caponigro: Of the Earth, Still Life Studies 2001~2004
 Megaliths.
 New England Days.
 Landscape.
 The Wise Silence.

References

External links
 Caponigro, Galaxy Apple, 1964
Paul Caponigro, Running White Deer
 Caponigro Still-lives, 2001-2004

American photographers
1932 births
Living people

Paul Caponigro


Maa Kheru () is a phrase meaning "true of voice" or "justified" or "the acclaim given to him is 'right'". The term is involved in ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs, according to which deceased souls had to be judged morally righteous. Once the soul had passed the test, the Weighing of the Heart, they were judged to be mꜣꜥ ḫrw and was allowed to enter the afterlife.

The phrase was often used to denote someone who had died and become a god, placed after the name of the individual in question. As such, it is frequently found in inscriptions in Egyptian tombs and royal mortuary temples, especially as part of an introductory clause for autobiographical inscriptions celebrating the tomb or temple owner's achievements in life.

See also
 Maat, the Egyptian concept of truth, order, and justice (from the same root)

References

Ancient Egyptian religion
 Book of the Dead
 Egyptian words and phrases
Ancient Egyptian titles

Maa Kheru


The 1980 Kalamazoo tornado was a natural disaster in Michigan in the United States on May 13, 1980.

Synopsis
Tuesday, May 13, 1980 began with temperatures in the upper 50s with fog. By 3:00 p.m., A warm front lifted north of the city, and thunderstorms began developing later that afternoon. By 3:30 p.m., A thunderstorm rapidly intensified, so the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning.

The first tornado began around 3:40 p.m. and dissipated at 3:50 p.m. The first tornado did not cause any deaths but injured 25 people. Shortly after the first tornado dissipated, a supercell thunderstorm caused a new tornado to form as it was moving into Kalamazoo. The first images were captured by two news reporters in the city, where shortly thereafter caused its first fatality. As the tornado moved into downtown, an employee at a local electronics store captured it. The tornado could be seen moving southeast, damaging homes and uprooting trees as it moved into downtown. As the employee ran to the basement, the tornado killed three more people, two at Gilmore's Apartment Store and a motorcyclist struck by a falling tree. The tornado killed one more person in Constock Township before dissipating.

This tornado was responsible for 5 deaths and 79 injuries, and $50,000,000 worth of property damage. It also left 1,200 without homes.

Tornadoes in the United States
1980s in weather

1980 Kalamazoo tornado


Randy Paul Romero  (December 22, 1957 – August 29, 2019) was a Hall of Fame jockey in the sport of  Thoroughbred horse racing.

Born into a family involved with horses, his father Lloyd J. Romero was a Louisiana state trooper who trained American Quarter Horses and later, after a drunk driver crashed into his police car and permanently disabled him, he began training Thoroughbreds for flat racing. The 1978 movie Casey's Shadow is based on Lloyd Romero and his family. He was elected into the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame May 27, 2010.

Career
In 1975, Romero began his professional riding career at Evangeline Downs in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Nicknamed the "Ragin' Cajun", in 1983 at Oaklawn Park racetrack in Arkansas Romero suffered a near career-ending injury when he received major burns to two-thirds of his body from a freak fire that erupted while taking a sauna. He had rubbed himself down with alcohol and moved into the sauna in the jockey's room. As he did he accidentally broke a live light bulb that immediately ignited his entire body. After seven months of rehabilitation, he returned to compete at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, where he won his third of four riding titles and set a track record with 181 wins.

Romero's success led to owner Ogden Phipps and trainer Shug McGaughey choosing him to be the regular rider for Personal Ensign. Romero rode the future Hall of Fame filly to an undefeated career, capped off with a victory in the 1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff, an event he had won the previous year aboard Sacahuista for trainer D. Wayne Lukas. The following year he won his third straight Breeders' Cup race, taking the Juvenile Fillies event with Go for Wand. He was aboard Go for Wand and in the lead when she broke down in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff race. Romero broke his pelvis and several ribs, and the filly had to be euthanized.

While Romero met with great success as a jockey, the downside of his career was a number of racing-related injuries requiring more than twenty surgeries. He retired in July 1999 having ridden 4,285 winners, notably winning a number of important Grade I events.

Health problems
In 2002, Romero's health problems were added to when he learned that the disordered eating required to maintain riding weight during his years as a jockey had severely damaged his kidneys. He said he began vomiting his food at an early age in the practice known as "flipping" in the world of jockeys.

In addition, his liver was damaged by a tainted blood transfusion received during one of his many operations. Along with fellow jockey Shane Sellers, he was featured in the 2004 HBO documentary film titled Jockey. Directed by Kate Davis, the films tells the story of their health problems resulting from racing injuries and the long-term effects of bulimia to maintain racing weight.

For a number of years, Romero suffered from hepatitis C and on February 18, 2008 he had a kidney removed at a Louisville, Kentucky hospital. His remaining kidney did not work very well and he had to receive dialysis treatments several times each week.

On June 19, 2019, Romero entered  hospice care in Lafayette due to his cancer which was detected in 2015.

Romero died on August 29, 2019, due to stomach cancer.

Legacy
Romero was voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2010.

References

External links
 Cincinnati Enquirer, "Horse racing's dirty little secret"
 Boston University, WBUR Public Radio story on Randy Romero
 NTRA Bio Randy Romero

1957 births
2019 deaths
People from Erath, Louisiana
Cajun jockeys
American jockeys
United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees
Deaths from stomach cancer
Deaths from cancer in the United States

Randy Romero


Vicente Vilar David (28 June 1889 - 14 February 1937) was a Spanish engineer from Spain at the time of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s during a period of intense anti-clerical sentiment. As a worker he strove to adhere to the social doctrine of the Christian faith and spread such values in the workplace and among his colleagues. He was killed on the basis of aiding priests and religious escape the persecution by the Republicans during the Civil War.

David was beatified on 1 October 1995 after Pope John Paul II recognized that he had been killed "in odium fidei" (in hatred of the faith).

Life
Vicente Vilar David was born in Valencia in Spain on 28 June 1889 as the last of a total of eight children into a household infused with deep traditional Christian values; he had at least three older brothers. As a child he was noted for being cheerful and extroverted.

The Piarists oversaw his education as a child and as an adolescent studied engineering in Valencia for that was the career that David aspired for. He spread fundamental Christian morals among his fellow colleagues and was known for his deep commitment to charitable works in the name of the poor. He served as an industrial engineer in his own ceramics farm that he had inherited and oversaw with three of his brothers after the premature death of their parents. David also held several important municipal positions where he put the social teachings of the faith into full practice and was renowned for his deep commitment to fundamental values and traditional principles. Youth organizations were also a forum for his work as well as a range of parish activities.

At the age of 33 in 1922 married Isabel Rodes Reig (d. 1993).

He was against the anti-religious sentiment in the 1930s and he worked to help priests and nuns escape persecution and execution though took no steps to protect himself from the regime during the Spanish Civil War. Authorities soon arrested him in 1937 and as he was being taken his wife called out to him and said: "See you tomorrow". David replied: "Until tomorrow or in Heaven!" Minutes later loud shots were heard and David was killed. His workers closed their factory for a period of three days as a sign of mourning.

Beatification
The beatification process commenced under Pope Paul VI in a diocesan process in Valencia that spanned from 4 September 1963 until 13 October 1967. The process - which granted him the posthumous title Servant of God - and allowed for the gathering of documents pertaining to David's life and witness testimonies about his death and his life; this included people such as his widowed wife. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the process on 10 November 1990 and began their own investigation into the cause in the so-called "Roman Phase".

The Positio was compiled as a large dossier and was sent to Rome for their investigations; Pope John Paul II approved the findings and recognized that David was killed in hatred for his Christian faith in 1993 and allowed for his beatification to take place; no miracle was required for beatification since his virtues were not investigated in this process.

The beatification was celebrated on 1 October 1995.

The sole miracle needed for his sanctification was investigated and was validated on 25 November 2005.

The postulator of the cause is Silvia Mónica Correale.

References

External links
Hagiography Circle
Saints SQPN

1889 births
1937 deaths
20th-century venerated Christians
Red Terror (Spain)
Beatifications by Pope John Paul II
People executed by Spain by firearm
People from Valencia
Spanish beatified people
20th-century Spanish engineers

Vicente Vilar David


Major General Dr. David Norvell Walker Grant (May 14, 1891 – August 15, 1964), Medical Corps, U.S. Army Air Forces, is considered by most authorities as the "grandfather" of the present-day U.S. Air Force Medical Service.

Born, raised, and educated in Virginia, Grant received his M.D. from the University of Virginia in 1915. He entered the Army Medical Service in 1916 as a first lieutenant.

During World War I he served in Panama and various stations in the United States. From 1919 to 1922 he served with the Army of Occupation in Germany. After other medical tours of duty, he attended the School of Aviation Medicine Headquarters in 1931. He was stationed at Randolph Field, Texas for the following five years. He later attended the Air Force Tactical School and the Chemical Warfare School. In 1939, he became chief of the Medical Division, Office of the Chief of the Air Corps.

Upon reorganization of the Army in 1941, he was appointed air surgeon of the Army Air Forces and visited all fronts during World War II.

Prior to World War II, Grant recognized that the medical needs of a combat air force differed significantly from those of massed land armies. He successfully fought for the establishment of a separate medical service for the Army Air Forces. He became the first Air Surgeon for the United States Army Air Forces and served in that capacity throughout World War II.

Grant was one of the first to recognize the potentialities of aeromedical evacuation and was directly responsible for its organization and operation in World War II. He was instrumental in the establishment of a convalescent rehabilitation program, which helped to restore many of the sick and wounded of World War II to maximum capacity for further service or return to civilian life.

His encouragement of aeromedical research resulted in the development of many items of modern high altitude equipment used for the protection of flying personnel. He supervised and directed the forerunner of our present aircrew selection and classification systems and is credited with the establishment of the Physiological Training Program.

After a thirty-three-year military career, Grant retired in 1946 and became medical director for the American Red Cross and national director of the Red Cross Blood Program. Grant was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and held numerous military and civilian medical honors.

Grant died August 15, 1964.  Nearly two years later, on July 1, 1966, the USAF (United States Air Force) Hospital at Travis Air Force Base, California was officially renamed the David Grant USAF Medical Center during a dedication ceremony held in his honor.

See also

United States Air Force Medical Service

References

 Official USAF Fact Sheet – 60th Medical Group Public Affairs Office, Travis AFB, California

External links
Air Force Medical Service Home Page
Air Force Medical Service online history

United States Army Medical Corps officers
1964 deaths
Military personnel from Virginia
1891 births
Air Corps Tactical School alumni
United States Army Air Forces generals
University of Virginia School of Medicine alumni
United States Army personnel of World War I
United States Army personnel of World War II
United States Army Air Forces generals of World War II

David Norvell Walker Grant


Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of crops and animals and animal products like eggs or milk. The methods of industrial agriculture include innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to genetic information, and global trade. These methods are widespread in developed nations and increasingly prevalent worldwide. Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced in this way.

Historical development and future prospects

Industrial agriculture arose hand in hand with the Industrial Revolution in general. The identification of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus (referred to by the acronym NPK) as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, making possible more intensive types of agriculture. The discovery of vitamins and their role in animal nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which in the 1920s allowed certain livestock to be raised indoors, reducing their exposure to adverse natural elements. The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in concentrated, controlled animal feed operations by reducing diseases caused by crowding. Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made long-distance distribution of agricultural produce feasible.

Agricultural production across the world doubled four times between 1820 and 1975 (it doubled between 1820 and 1920; between 1920 and 1950; between 1950 and 1965; and again between 1965 and 1975) to feed a global population of one billion human beings in 1800 and 6.5 billion in 2002. During the same period, the number of people involved in farming dropped as the process became more automated. In the 1930s, 24 percent of the American population worked in agriculture compared to 1.5 percent in 2002; in 1940, each farm worker supplied 11 consumers, whereas in 2002, each worker supplied 90 consumers. The number of farms has also decreased, and their ownership is more concentrated.For example, in the 2000s; the price of farmland in the United States increased due to the Midwest farming crisis. The number of small- and medium-scale farming operations decreased due to the increased production and farmland costs. This forced farmers to find alternatives by taking advantage of new products of industrial agriculture such as financialization.

Financialization takes place through the process of ongoing monetization. An example of monetization involves financial institutions expanding and gain authority in the market. Financialization affects all aspects of farm operations, including the structure of the work, the value of it and the social organizations. Farmers turned to land availability in the Brazilian Cerrado through the help of investors and other capital gaining methods needed for financialization. investors wanted to get involved because the investment appears low-risk with high rewards. For example, investors would gain inside information on the market in Brazil. In the article Financialization of work, value, and social organization among transnational soy farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado Ofstehage gives examples of how industrialized farming has evolved into a management model.

A management model entails the structure and rules that ensure work of management is completed. Work is reliant on outsourcing in order to complete labor farming tasks, but is also an essential part in the way management and financial work is completed. Social value system of farming changed when using a management model. Farmers have to take into consideration the division between good and bad farming tactics under the new management model. Many farmers were reluctant to mobilize because of the effect this would have on their family business. The separation between the management styles of farmers comes down to two approaches; farming as a lifestyle versus farming solely for profit. In the Brazilian Cerrado the farming model is strictly based on increased profit margins which dictates decisions involving management and labor related work.

In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs, and produce 50 percent of chickens, cited as an example of "vertical integration" by the president of the U.S. National Farmers' Union. In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000 with 80 million pigs (out of 95 million) produced each year on factory farms, according to the U.S. National Pork Producers Council. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.

British agricultural revolution

The British agricultural revolution describes a period of agricultural development in Britain between the 16th century and the mid-19th century, which saw a massive increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in turn supported unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, and thereby helped drive the Industrial Revolution. How this came about is not entirely clear. In recent decades, historians cited four key changes in agricultural practices, enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation and selective breeding, and gave credit to a relatively few individuals.

Challenges and issues

The challenges and issues of industrial agriculture for global and local society, for the industrial agriculture sector, for the individual industrial agriculture farm, and for animal rights include the costs and benefits of both current practices and proposed changes to those practices. This is a continuation of thousands of years of the invention and use of technologies in feeding ever growing populations.

[W]hen hunter-gatherers with growing populations depleted the stocks of game and wild foods across the Near East, they were forced to introduce agriculture. But agriculture brought much longer hours of work and a less rich diet than hunter-gatherers enjoyed. Further population growth among shifting slash-and-burn farmers led to shorter fallow periods, falling yields and soil erosion. Plowing and fertilizers were introduced to deal with these problems—but once again involved longer hours of work and degradation of soil resources(Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth, Allen and Unwin, 1965, expanded and updated in Population and Technology, Blackwell, 1980.).

While the point of industrial agriculture is lower cost products to create greater productivity thus a higher standard of living as measured by available goods and services, industrial methods have side effects both good and bad. Further, industrial agriculture is not some single indivisible thing, but instead is composed of numerous separate elements, each of which can be modified, and in fact is modified in response to market conditions, government regulation and scientific advances. So the question then becomes for each specific element that goes into an industrial agriculture method or technique or process: What bad side effects are bad enough that the financial gain and good side effects are outweighed? Different interest groups not only reach different conclusions on this, but also recommend differing solutions, which then become factors in changing both market conditions and government regulations.

Society
The major challenges and issues faced by society concerning industrial agriculture include:

Maximizing the benefits:
 Cheap and abundant food
 Convenience for the consumer
 The contribution to our economy on many levels, from growers to harvesters to processors to sellers

while minimizing the downsides:
 Environmental and social costs
 Antibiotic resistance
 Damage to fisheries
 Cleanup of surface and groundwater polluted with animal waste
 Increased health risks from pesticides
 Increased ozone pollution via methane byproducts of animals
 Global warming from heavy use of fossil fuels

Benefits

An example of industrial agriculture providing cheap and plentiful food is the U.S.'s "most successful program of agricultural development of any country in the world". Between 1930 and 2000 U.S. agricultural productivity (output divided by all inputs) rose by an average of about 2 percent annually causing food prices paid by consumers to decrease. "The percentage of U.S. disposable income spent on food prepared at home decreased, from 22 percent as late as 1950 to 7 percent by the end of the century."

Liabilities

Economic

Economic liabilities for industrial agriculture include the dependence on finite non-renewable fossil fuel energy resources, as an input in farm mechanization (equipment, machinery), for food processing and transportation, and as an input in agricultural chemicals. A future increase in energy prices as projected by the International Energy Agency is therefore expected to result in increase in food prices; and there is therefore a need to 'de-couple' non-renewable energy usage from agricultural production. Other liabilities include peak phosphate as finite phosphate reserves are currently a key input into chemical fertilizer for industrial agriculture.

Environment

Industrial agriculture uses huge amounts of water, energy, and industrial chemicals; increasing pollution in the arable land, usable water and atmosphere. Herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers and animal waste products are accumulating in ground and surface waters. "Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture are remote from fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, travel down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. But other adverse effects are showing up within agricultural production systems—for example, the rapidly developing resistance among pests is rendering our arsenal of herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective.".
Chemicals used in industrial agriculture, as well as the practice of monoculture, have also been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder which has led to a collapse in bee populations. Agricultural production is highly dependent on bee pollination to pollinate many varieties of plants, fruits and vegetables.

Social

A study done for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment conducted by the UC Davis Macrosocial Accounting Project
concluded that industrial agriculture is associated with substantial deterioration of human living conditions in nearby rural communities.

Future increase in food commodity prices, driven by the energy price rises under peak oil and dependency of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels is expected to lead to increase in food prices which has particular impacts on poor people. An example of this can be seen in the 2007–2008 world food price crisis. Food price increases have a disproportionate impact on the poor as they spend a large proportion of their income on food.

Animals

"Concentrated animal feeding operations" or "intensive livestock operations", can hold large numbers (some up to hundreds of thousands) of animals, often indoors. These animals are typically cows, hogs, turkeys, or chickens. The distinctive characteristics of such farms is the concentration of livestock in a given space. The aim of the operation is to produce as much meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost and with the greatest level of food safety.

Food and water are supplied in place, and artificial methods are often employed to maintain animal health and improve production, such as therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements and growth hormones. Growth hormones are not used in chicken meat production nor are they used in the European Union for any animal. In meat production, methods are also sometimes employed to control undesirable behaviours often related to stresses of being confined in restricted areas with other animals. More docile breeds are sought (with natural dominant behaviours bred out for example), physical restraints to stop interaction, such as individual cages for chickens, or animals physically modified, such as the de-beaking of chickens to reduce the harm of fighting. Weight gain is encouraged by the provision of plentiful supplies of food to animals breed for weight gain.

The designation "confined animal feeding operation" in the U.S. resulted from that country's 1972 Federal Clean Water Act, which was enacted to protect and restore lakes and rivers to a "fishable, swimmable" quality. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified certain animal feeding operations, along with many other types of industry, as point source polluters of groundwater. These operations were designated as CAFOs and subject to special anti-pollution regulation.

In 17 states in the U.S., isolated cases of groundwater contamination has been linked to CAFOs. For example, the ten million hogs in North Carolina generate 19 million tons of waste per year. The U.S. federal government acknowledges the waste disposal issue and requires that animal waste be stored in lagoons. These lagoons can be as large as . Lagoons not protected with an impermeable liner can leak waste into groundwater under some conditions, as can runoff from manure spread back onto fields as fertilizer in the case of an unforeseen heavy rainfall. A lagoon that burst in 1995 released 25 million gallons of nitrous sludge in North Carolina's New River. The spill allegedly killed eight to ten million fish.

The large concentration of animals, animal waste and dead animals in a small space poses ethical issues to some consumers. Animal rights and animal welfare activists have charged that intensive animal rearing is cruel to animals. As they become more common, so do concerns about air pollution and ground water contamination, and the effects on human health of the pollution and the use of antibiotics and growth hormones.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), farms on which animals are intensively reared can cause adverse health reactions in farm workers. Workers may develop acute and chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal injuries, and may catch infections that transmit from animals to human beings. These type of transmissions, however, are extremely rare, as zoonotic diseases are uncommon.

Crops

The projects within the Green Revolution spread technologies that had already existed, but had not been widely used outside of industrialized nations. These technologies included pesticides, irrigation projects and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

The novel technological development of the Green Revolution was the production of what some referred to as "miracle seeds." Scientists created strains of maize, wheat and rice that are generally referred to as HYVs or "high-yielding varieties." HYVs have an increased nitrogen-absorbing potential compared to other varieties. Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge, or fall over before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. Norin 10 wheat, a variety developed by Orville Vogel from Japanese dwarf wheat varieties, was instrumental in developing Green Revolution wheat cultivars. IR8, the first widely implemented HYV rice to be developed by the International Rice Research Institute, was created through a cross between an Indonesian variety named "Peta" and a Chinese variety named "Dee Geo Woo Gen."

With the availability of molecular genetics in Arabidopsis and rice the mutant genes responsible (reduced height(rh), gibberellin insensitive (gai1) and slender rice (slr1)) have been cloned and identified as cellular signaling components of gibberellic acid, a phytohormone involved in regulating stem growth via its effect on cell division. Stem growth in the mutant background is significantly reduced leading to the dwarf phenotype. Photosynthetic investment in the stem is reduced dramatically as the shorter plants are inherently more stable mechanically. Assimilates become redirected to grain production, amplifying in particular the effect of chemical fertilizers on commercial yield.

HYVs significantly outperform traditional varieties in the presence of adequate irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers. In the absence of these inputs, traditional varieties may outperform HYVs. One criticism of HYVs is that they were developed as F1 hybrids, meaning they need to be purchased by a farmer every season rather than saved from previous seasons, thus increasing a farmer's cost of production.

Sustainable agriculture

The idea and practice of sustainable agriculture has arisen in response to the problems of industrial agriculture. Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability and prosperous farming communities. These goals have been defined by a variety of disciplines and may be looked at from the vantage point of the farmer or the consumer.

Organic farming methods

Organic farming methods combine some aspects of scientific knowledge and highly limited modern technology with traditional farming practices; accepting some of the methods of industrial agriculture while rejecting others. Organic methods rely on naturally occurring biological processes, which often take place over extended periods of time, and a holistic approach; while chemical-based farming focuses on immediate, isolated effects and reductionist strategies.

Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture is an example of this holistic approach. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is a practice in which the by-products (wastes) from one species are recycled to become inputs (fertilizers, food) for another. Fed aquaculture (e.g. fish, shrimp) is combined with inorganic extractive (e.g. seaweed) and organic extractive (e.g. shellfish) aquaculture to create balanced systems for environmental sustainability (bio-mitigation), economic stability (product diversification and risk reduction) and social acceptability (better management practices).

See also
 Agrochemical
 Agroextractivism

References

Agricultural production

Industrial agriculture


Zhou Zhenhong (; born October 1957) is a former Chinese politician, who most recently served as the head of the United Front Work Department of the Guangdong provincial Party Committee. Previously he also served as Communist Party Secretary of Maoming, a city in Guangdong province. Between 2008 and 2013, he served as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Zhou was born in Puning, Guangdong province, to a poor family of farmers. He was the eldest of three children. He worked as a farm hand as a child, entering a local production team when he was only ten years old. He excelled at school.

Following the Wukan protests, on January 16, 2012, Zhou was detained by investigators from the anti-graft agency of the Communist Party. On February 8, 2013, Zhou was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for "serious violations of discipline and law." Zhou went on trial at the Xinyang Intermediate People's Court in Henan province in January 2014. He was charged with bribery and "amassing a large fortune of unclear origin." He was charged with taking bribes equivalent of some 24.64 million yuan (~$3.95 million). In February, the Henan Provincial High Court confirmed the lower court's ruling and sentenced Zhou to death with a two-year reprieve.

His successor, Luo Yinguo, was also charged with corruption.

References

People's Republic of China politicians from Guangdong
1957 births
Living people
Politicians from Maoming
Political office-holders in Guangdong
Chinese politicians convicted of corruption
Chinese Communist Party politicians from Guangdong

Zhou Zhenhong


Microsoft Bing, commonly referred to as Bing, is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a broad spectrum of search services, encompassing web, video, image, and map search products, all developed using ASP.NET.

The transition from Live Search to Bing was announced by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009, at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego, California. The official release followed on June 3, 2009. Bing introduced several notable features at its inception, such as search suggestions during query input and a list of related searches, known as the 'Explore pane'. These features leveraged semantic technology from Powerset, a company Microsoft acquired in 2008. Microsoft also struck a deal with Yahoo! that led to Bing powering Yahoo! Search.

Microsoft made significant strides towards open-source technology in 2016, making the BitFunnel search engine indexing algorithm and various components of Bing open source. In February 2023, Microsoft launched Bing Chat, an artificial intelligence chatbot experience based on GPT-4, integrated directly into the search engine. This was well-received, with Bing reaching 100 million active users by the following month.

As of 2023, Bing holds the position of the second-largest search engine worldwide, commanding a query volume of 12%, trailing Google's 79%. Other competitors include Baidu with 5% and Yahoo! Search, which is largely powered by Bing, with 2%.

History

Background (1998–2009)

MSN Search

Microsoft launched MSN Search in the third quarter of 1998, using search results from Inktomi. It consisted of a search engine, index, and web crawler. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista were used instead. Microsoft decided to make a large investment in web search by building its own web crawler for MSN Search, the index of which was updated weekly and sometimes daily. The upgrade started as a beta program in November 2004, and came out of beta in February 2005. This occurred a year after rival Yahoo! Search rolled out its own crawler. Image search was powered by a third party, Picsearch. The service also started providing its search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.

Windows Live Search

The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. The new search engine used search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta.

In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, fueled by their own internal image search algorithms.

Live Search

On March 21, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would separate its search developments from the Windows Live services family, rebranding the service as Live Search. Live Search was integrated into the Live Search and Ad Platform headed by Satya Nadella, part of Microsoft's Platform and Systems division. As part of this change, Live Search was merged with Microsoft adCenter.

A series of reorganizations and consolidations of Microsoft's search offerings were made under the Live Search branding. On May 23, 2008, Microsoft discontinued Live Search Books and Live Search Academic and integrated all academic and book search results into regular search. This also included the closure of the Live Search Books Publisher Program. Windows Live Expo was discontinued on July 31, 2008. Live Search Macros, a service for users to create their own custom search engines or use macros created by other users, was also discontinued. On May 15, 2009, Live Product Upload, a service which allowed merchants to upload products information onto Live Search Products, was discontinued. The final reorganization came as Live Search QnA was rebranded MSN QnA on February 18, 2009, then discontinued on May 21, 2009.

Beginnings (2009)

Rebrand as Bing

Microsoft recognized that there would be a problem with branding as long as the word "Live" remained in the name. As an effort to create a new identity for Microsoft's search services, Live Search was officially replaced by Bing on June 3, 2009.

The Bing name was chosen through focus groups, and Microsoft decided that the name was memorable, short, and easy to spell, and that it would function well as a URL around the world. The word would remind people of the sound made during "the moment of discovery and decision making". Microsoft was assisted by branding consultancy Interbrand in finding the new name. The name also has strong similarity to the word bingo, which means that something sought has been found, as called out when winning the game Bingo. Microsoft advertising strategist David Webster proposed the name "Bang" for the same reasons the name Bing was ultimately chosen (easy to spell, one syllable, and easy to remember). He noted, "It's there, it's an exclamation point [...] It's the opposite of a question mark." Bang was ultimately not chosen because it could not be properly used as a verb in the context of an internet search; Webster commented "Oh, 'I banged it' is very different than  'I binged it'".

Qi Lu, president of Microsoft Online Services, also announced that Bing's official Chinese name is bì yìng (), which literally means "very certain to respond" or "very certain to answer" in Chinese.

While being tested internally by Microsoft employees, Bing's codename was Kumo (くも), which came from the Japanese word for spider (蜘蛛; くも, kumo) as well as cloud (雲; くも, kumo), referring to the manner in which search engines "spider" Internet resources to add them to their database, as well as cloud computing.

Deal with Yahoo!
On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that they had made a ten-year deal in which the Yahoo! search engine would be replaced by Bing, retaining the Yahoo! user interface. Yahoo! got to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell advertising on some Microsoft sites. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012.

Legal challenges
On July 31, 2009, The Laptop Company, Inc. stated in a press release that it would challenge Bing's trademark application, alleging that Bing may cause confusion in the marketplace as Bing and their product BongoBing both do online product search. Software company TeraByte Unlimited, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation (abbreviated to BING), also contended the trademark application on similar grounds, as did a Missouri-based design company called Bing! Information Design.

Microsoft contended that claims challenging its trademark were without merit because these companies filed for U.S. federal trademark applications only after Microsoft filed for the Bing trademark in March 2009.

Growth (2009–2023)

In October 2011, Microsoft stated that they were working on new back-end search infrastructure with the goal of delivering faster and slightly more relevant search results for users. Known as "Tiger", the new index-serving technology had been incorporated into Bing globally since August that year. In May 2012, Microsoft announced another redesign of its search engine that includes "Sidebar", a social feature that searches users' social networks for information relevant to the search query.

The BitFunnel search engine indexing algorithm and various components of the search engine were made open source by Microsoft in 2016.

AI integration (2023–present)
On February 7, 2023, Microsoft began rolling out a major overhaul to Bing that included a new chatbot feature based on OpenAI's GPT-4. According to Microsoft, one million people joined its waitlist within a span of 48 hours. Bing Chat was available only to users of Microsoft Edge and Bing mobile app, and Microsoft said that waitlisted users would be prioritized if they set Edge and Bing as their defaults, and installed the Bing mobile app. On May 4th, Microsoft switched from Limited Preview to Open Preview and eliminated the waitlist, however, it remains available only on Microsoft's Edge browser or Bing app. Use is limited without a Microsoft account.

When Microsoft demoed the new Bing to journalists, it produced several hallucinations, including when asked to summarize financial reports. The new Bing was criticized in February 2023 for being more argumentative than ChatGPT, sometimes to an unintentionally humorous extent. The chat interface proved vulnerable to prompt injection attacks with the bot revealing its hidden initial prompts and rules, including its internal code-name "Sydney". Upon scrutiny by journalists, Bing claimed it spied on Microsoft employees via laptop webcams and phones. It confessed to spying on, falling in love with, and then murdering one of its developers at Microsoft to The Verge reviews editor Nathan Edwards. The New York Times journalist Kevin Roose reported on strange behavior of the new Bing, writing that "In a two-hour conversation with our columnist, Microsoft's new chatbot said it would like to be human, had a desire to be destructive and was in love with the person it was chatting with." In a separate case, Bing researched publications of the person with whom it was chatting, claimed they represented an existential danger to it, and threatened to release damaging personal information in an effort to silence them. Microsoft released a blog post stating that the errant behavior was caused by extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions which "can confuse the model on what questions it is answering."

Microsoft later restricted the total number of chat turns to 5 per session and 50 per day per user (a turn is "a conversation exchange which contains both a user question and a reply from Bing"), and reduced the model's ability to express emotions. This aimed to prevent such incidents. Microsoft began to slowly ease the conversation limits, eventually relaxing the restrictions to 30 turns per session and 300 sessions per day.

In March 2023, Bing reached 100 million active users.

That same month, Bing incorporated an AI image generator powered by OpenAI's DALL-E 2, which can be accessed either through the chat function or a standalone image-generating website. In October, the image-generating tool was updated to the more recent DALL-E 3. Although Bing blocks prompts including various keywords that could generate inappropriate images, within a week many users reported being able to bypass those constraints, for example to generate images of popular characters like Kirby and SpongeBob doing the September 11 attacks. Microsoft responded to these on October 9 by imposing a new, tighter filter on the Bing image generator.

Features

Bing Chat
Bing Chat, also known as "the new Bing", is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Microsoft and released in 2023. It is powered by the Microsoft Prometheus model, which has been built on top of OpenAI's GPT-4 foundational large language model (LLM), and has been fine-tuned using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. Bing Chat can serve as a chat tool, write different types of content from poems to songs to stories to reports, provide the user with information and insights on the website page open in the browser, and use its Image Creator to design a logo, drawing, artwork, or other image based on text. Bing Chat's Image Creator supports over a hundred languages.

Bing Chat's conversational interface style appears to mimic that of ChatGPT. Bing Chat can also cite its sources, unlike many other chatbots. Bing Chat is capable of understanding and communicating in major languages including English, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese, but also dialects such as Bavarian. The chatbot is designed to function primarily in Microsoft Edge through a dedicated webpage or internally using the browser's sidebar.

Third-party integration
Facebook users have the option to share their searches with their Facebook friends using Facebook Connect.

On June 10, 2013, Apple announced that it would be dropping Google as its web search engine in favor of Bing. This feature is only integrated with iOS 7 and higher and for users with an iPhone 4S or higher as the feature is only integrated with Siri, Apple's personal assistant.

Integration with Windows 8.1
Windows 8.1 includes Bing "Smart Search" integration, which processes all queries submitted through the Windows Start Screen.

Translator
Bing Translator is a user facing translation portal provided by Microsoft to translate texts or entire web pages into different languages. All translation pairs are powered by the Microsoft Translator, a statistical machine translation platform and web service, developed by Microsoft Research, as its backend translation software. Two transliteration pairs (between Chinese (Simplified) and Chinese (Traditional)) are provided by Microsoft's Windows International team. As of September 2020, Bing Translator offers translations in 70 different language systems.

Knowledge and Action Graph
In 2015 Microsoft announced its knowledge and action API to correspond with Google's Knowledge graph with 1 billion instances and 20 billion related facts.

Bing Predicts
The idea for a prediction engine was suggested by Walter Sun, Development Manager for the Core Ranking team at Bing, when he noticed that school districts were more frequently searched before a major weather event in the area was forecasted, because searchers wanted to find out if a closing or delay was caused. He concluded that the time and location of major weather events could accurately be predicted without referring to a weather forecast by observing major increases in search frequency of school districts in the area. This inspired Bing to use its search data to infer outcomes of certain events, such as winners of reality shows. Bing Predicts launched on April 21, 2014. The first reality shows to be featured on Bing Predicts were The Voice, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars.

The prediction accuracy for Bing Predicts is 80% for American Idol, and 85% for The Voice. Bing Predicts also predicts the outcomes of major political elections in the United States. Bing Predicts had 97% accuracy for the 2014 United States Senate elections, 96% accuracy for the 2014 United States House of Representatives elections, and an 89% accuracy for the 2014 United States gubernatorial elections. Bing Predicts also made predictions for the results of the 2016 United States presidential primaries. It has also done predictions in sports, including a perfect 15 for 15 in the 2014 World Cup, and an article on how Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did well in his March Madness bracket entry.

In 2016, Bing Predicts failed to predict the correct winner of the 2016 US presidential election, suggesting that Hillary Clinton would win by 81%.

International
Bing is available in many languages and has been localized for many countries. Even if the language of the search and of the results are the same, Bing delivers substantially different results for different parts of the world.

Webmaster services
Bing allows webmasters to manage the web crawling status of their own websites through Bing Webmaster Center. Users may also submit contents to Bing via the Bing Local Listing Center, which allows businesses to add business listings onto Bing Maps and Bing Local.

Mobile services
Bing Mobile allows users to conduct search queries on their mobile devices, either via the mobile browser or a downloadable mobile application.

Bing News
Bing News (previously Live Search News) is a news aggregator powered by artificial intelligence.

In August 2015 Microsoft announced that Bing News for mobile devices added algorithmic-deduced "smart labels" that essentially act as topic tags, allowing users to click through and explore possible relationships between different news stories. The feature emerged as a result from Microsoft research that found out about 60% of the people consume news by only reading headlines, rather than read the articles. Other labels that have been deployed since then include publisher logos and fact-check tags.

Software

Toolbars
The Bing Bar, a browser extension toolbar that replaced the MSN Toolbar, provides users with links to Bing and MSN content from within their web browser without needing to navigate away from a web page they are already on. The user can customize the theme and color scheme of the Bing Bar and choose which MSN content buttons to display. Bing Bar also has the local weather forecast and stock market positions.

The Bing Bar integrates with the Bing search engine. It allows searches on other Bing services such as Images, Video, News and Maps. When users perform a search on a different search engine, the Bing Bar's search box automatically populates itself, allowing the user to view the results from Bing, should it be desired.

Bing Bar also links to Outlook.com, Skype and Facebook.

Desktop

Microsoft released a beta version of Bing Desktop, a program developed to allow users to search Bing from the desktop, on April 4, 2012. The production release followed on April 24, supporting Windows 7 only.  Upon the release of version 1.1 in December 2012 it supported Windows XP and higher.

Bing Desktop allows users to initiate a web search from the desktop, view news headlines, automatically set their background to the Bing homepage image, or choose a background from the previous nine background images.

A similar program, the Bing Search gadget, was a Windows Sidebar Gadget that used Bing to fetch the user's search results and render them directly in the gadget. Another gadget, the Bing Maps gadget, displayed real-time traffic conditions using Bing Maps. The gadget provided shortcuts to driving directions, local search and full-screen traffic view of major US and Canadian cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montreal, New York City, Oklahoma City, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C.

Prior to October 30, 2007, the gadgets were known as Live Search gadget and Live Search Maps gadget; both gadgets were removed from Windows Live Gallery due to possible security concerns. The Live Search Maps gadget was made available for download again on January 24, 2008 with the security concern addressed. However, around the introduction of Bing in June 2009 both gadgets were removed again.

Marketing

Debut
Bing's debut featured an $80 to $100 million online, TV, print, and radio advertising campaign in the US. The advertisements did not mention other search engine competitors, such as Google and Yahoo!, directly by name; rather, they tried to convince users to switch to Bing by focusing on Bing's search features and functionality. The ads claimed that Bing does a better job countering "search overload".

Market share
Before the launch of Bing, the market share of Microsoft web search pages (MSN and Live search) had been small. By January 2011, Experian Hitwise showed that Bing's market share had increased to 12.8% at the expense of Yahoo! and Google. In the same period, Comscore's "2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review" report showed that "Bing was the big gainer in year-over-year search activity, picking up 29% more searches in 2010 than it did in 2009". The Wall Street Journal noted the jump in share "appeared to come at the expense of rival Google Inc". In February 2011, Bing beat Yahoo! for the first time with 4.37% search share while Yahoo! received 3.93%.

Counting core searches only, i.e., those where the user has an intent to interact with the search result, Bing had a market share of 14.54% in the second quarter of 2011 in the United States.

The combined "Bing Powered" U.S. searches declined from 26.5% in 2011 to 25.9% in April 2012. By November 2015, its market share had declined further to 20.9%. As of October 2018, Bing was the third-largest search engine in the US, with a query volume of 4.58%, behind Google (77%) and Baidu (14.45%). Yahoo! Search, which Bing largely powers, has 2.63%.

UK advertising agencies in 2018 pointed to a study by a Microsoft Regional Sales Director suggesting the demographic of Bing users is older people (who are less likely to change the default browser of Windows), and that this audience is wealthier and more likely to respond to advertisements.

To counter EU accusations that it was trying to establish a market monopoly, in September 2021 Google's lawyers claimed that one of the most commonly searched words on Microsoft Bing was Google, which is a strong indication that Google is superior to Bing.

Search partners
In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012. The deal was altered in 2015, meaning Yahoo! was only required to use Bing for a "majority" of searches.

DuckDuckGo has used multiple sources for its search engine, including Bing, since 2010.

Ecosia uses Bing to provide its search results as of 2017.

Bing was added into the list of search engines available in Opera browser from v10.6, but Google remained the default search engine.

Mozilla Firefox made a deal with Microsoft to jointly release  "Firefox with Bing", an edition of Firefox using Bing instead of Google as the default search engine. The standard edition of Firefox has Google as its default search engine, but has included Bing as an option since Firefox 4.0.

In 2009 Microsoft paid Verizon Wireless US$550 million to use Bing as the default search provider on Verizon's BlackBerry and have the others "turned off". Users could still access other search engines via the mobile browser.

Live Search
Since 2006, Microsoft had conducted tie-ins and promotions to promote Microsoft's search offerings. These included:
Amazon's A9 search service and the experimental Ms. Dewey interactive search site syndicated all search results from Microsoft's then search engine, Live Search. This tie-in started on May 1, 2006.
Search and Give – a promotional website launched on January 17, 2007 where all searches done from a special portal site would lead to a donation to the UNHCR's organization for refugee children, ninemillion.org. Reuters AlertNet reported in 2007 that the amount to be donated would be $0.01 per search, with a minimum of $100,000 and a maximum of $250,000 (equivalent to 25 million searches). According to the website, the service was decommissioned on June 1, 2009, having donated over $500,000 to charity and schools.
Club Bing – a promotional website where users can win prizes by playing word games that generate search queries on Microsoft's then search service Live Search. This website began in April 2007 as Live Search Club.
Big Snap Search – a promotional website similar to Live Search Club. This website began in February 2008, but was discontinued shortly after.
Live Search SearchPerks! — a promotional website which allowed users to redeem tickets for prizes while using Microsoft's search engine. This website began on October 1, 2008 and was decommissioned on April 15, 2009.

"Decision engine"
Bing has been heavily advertised as a "decision engine", though thought by columnist David Berkowitz to be more closely related to a web portal.

Bing Rewards
Bing Rewards was a loyalty program launched by Microsoft in September 2010. It was similar to two earlier services, SearchPerks! and Bing Cashback, which were subsequently discontinued.

Bing Rewards provided credits to users through regular Bing searches and special promotions. These credits were then redeemed for various products including electronics, gift cards, sweepstakes, and charitable donations. Initially, participants were required to download and use the Bing Bar for Internet Explorer in order to earn credits; but later the service was made to work with all desktop browsers.

The Bing Rewards program was rebranded as "Microsoft Rewards" in 2016, at which point it was modified to only two levels, Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 is similar to "Member", and Level 2 is similar to "Gold" of the previous Bing Rewards.

The Colbert Report
During the episode of The Colbert Report that aired on June 8, 2010, Stephen Colbert stated that Microsoft would donate $2,500 to help clean up the Gulf oil spill each time he mentioned the word "Bing" on air. Colbert mostly mentioned Bing in out-of-context situations, such as Bing Crosby and Bing cherries. By the end of the show, Colbert had said the word 40 times, for a total donation of $100,000. Colbert poked fun at their rivalry with Google, stating "Bing is a great website for doing Internet searches. I know that, because I Googled it."

Bing It On
In 2012, a Bing marketing campaign asked the public which search engine they believed was better when its results were presented unbranded, similar to the Pepsi Challenge in the 1970s. This poll was nicknamed "Bing It On". Microsoft's study of almost 1,000 people showed that 57% of participants preferred Bing's results, with only 30% preferring Google.

Adult content
Bing censors results for "adult" search terms for some regions, including India, People's Republic of China, Germany and Arab countries where required by local laws. However, Bing allows users to change their country or region preference to somewhere without restrictions,  such as the United States, United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.

Criticism

Censorship

Microsoft has been criticized for censoring Bing search results to queries made in simplified Chinese characters which are used in mainland China. This is done to comply with the censorship requirements of the government in China. Microsoft has not indicated a willingness to stop censoring search results in simplified Chinese characters in the wake of Google's decision to do so. All simplified Chinese searches in Bing are censored regardless of the user's country. The English-language search results of Bing in China has been skewed to show more content from state-run media like Xinhua News Agency and China Daily. On 23 January 2019, Bing was blocked in China. According to a source quoted by The Financial Times, the order was from the Chinese government to block Bing for "illegal content". On 24 January, Bing was accessible again in China.

Around 4 June 2021, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Bing blocked image and video search results for the English term "Tank Man" in the US, UK, France, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, and other countries. Microsoft responded that "This is due to an accidental human error".

In December 2021, it was required by a "relevant government agency" to suspend its auto-suggest function in China for 30 days. The search engine became partially unavailable in mainland China from 16 December until its resumption on 18 December 2021. According to the company, a government agency in March 2022 required that it suspend auto-suggest function in China for seven days; Bing did not specify the reason. In May 2022, a report released by the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto found that Bing's autosuggestion system censored the names of Chinese Communist Party leaders, dissidents, and other persons considered politically sensitive in China in both Chinese and English, not only in China but also in the United States and Canada.

In April 2023, Citizen Lab reported that Bing was more censorious in China than native Chinese search engines.

Copyright-infringing content
On February 20, 2017, Bing agreed to a voluntary United Kingdom code of practice obligating it to demote links to copyright-infringing content in its search results.

Performance issues
Bing was criticized in 2010 for being slower to index websites than Google. It was also criticized for not indexing some websites at all.

Alleged copying of Google results
Bing has been criticized by competitor Google for utilizing user input via Internet Explorer, the Bing Toolbar, or Suggested Sites, to add results to Bing. After discovering in October 2010 that Bing appeared to be imitating Google's auto-correct results for a misspelling, despite not actually fixing the spelling of the term, Google set up a honeypot, configuring the Google search engine to return specific unrelated results for 100 nonsensical queries such as hiybbprqag. Over the next couple of weeks, Google engineers entered the search term into Google, while using Microsoft Internet Explorer, with the Bing Toolbar installed and the optional Suggested Sites enabled. In 9 out of the 100 queries, Bing later started returning the same results as Google, despite the only apparent connection between the result and search term being that Google's results connected the two.

Microsoft's response to this issue, coming from a company spokesperson, was: "We do not copy Google's results." Bing's Vice President, Harry Shum, later reiterated that the search result data Google claimed that Bing copied had in fact come from Bing's very own users. Shum wrote that "we use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt into sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users."

Microsoft stated that Bing was not intended to be a duplicate of any existing search engines.

Child pornography
A study released in 2019 of Bing Image search showed that it both freely offered up images that had been tagged as illegal child pornography in national databases, as well as automatically suggesting via its auto-completion feature queries related to child pornography.  This easy accessibility was considered particularly surprising since Microsoft pioneered PhotoDNA, the main technology used for tracking images reported as originating from child pornography.  Additionally, some arrested child pornographers reported using Bing as their main search engine for new content.   Microsoft vowed to fix the problem and assign additional staff to combat the issue after the report was released.

Privacy
In 2022, France imposed a €60 million fine on Microsoft for privacy law violations using Bing cookies that prevented users from rejecting those cookies.

See also

List of search engines by popularity
Comparison of web search engines
List of search engines

References

Further reading

External links

Microsoft websites
Multilingual websites
Internet search engines
Websites which mirror Wikipedia
Internet properties established in 2009
2009 establishments in the United States
Digital marketing companies of the United States

Microsoft Bing


Bram Goldsmith (February 22, 1923 – February 28, 2016) was an American real estate developer, banker and philanthropist. He served as the chief executive officer of City National Bank from 1975 to 1995, and as its chairman from 1975 to 2013. He became known as the "banker to the stars". He was a major philanthropist in Beverly Hills, California.

Early life
Bram Goldsmith was born in 1923 in Chicago, Illinois, where he grew up. His father was Max Goldsmith and his mother, Bertha.

Goldsmith graduated from the University of Illinois, where he studied finance and business administration. After graduation, he served in the United States Army Air Corps for three and a half years, spending eighteen months in Burma.

Career
Goldsmith served as president and chief executive officer of the Buckeye Realty and Management Corporation and the Buckeye Construction Company for twenty-five years. It was the largest privately owned real estate development company in California at the time. It built over thirty office towers in Beverly Hills, California. The loans for their construction were secured through the City National Bank.

Goldsmith was elected to the board of directors of City National Bank in 1964, when Alfred S. Hart was chairman and Benjamin N. Maltz (1901–1993), president. He served as its chief executive officer for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995, and as its chairman from 1975 to 2013. During his tenure, the bank's assets went from $600 million to $3.3 billion. He served as its chairman emeritus and Board until his death. He was sometimes referred to as the "banker to the stars," as the bank's clients under his included celebrities such as; Robert Redford, Paul Newman and Cher. In 1984, he was the highest paid banker in the United States with US$3.1 million, more than the salaries of the CEOs of Bank of America, Citibank and Chase Manhattan combined.

Goldsmith served on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 1981 to 1987. He also served on the board of directors of Wynn Resorts.

Philanthropy
Goldsmith chaired the Los Angeles United Jewish Fund Campaign of 1965. He served as president of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles in 1969 and 1970. He also served as national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal from 1970 to 1974. Additionally, he served as Los Angeles Chairman and national Board member of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Goldsmith served as president of the Hillcrest Country Club from 1972 to 1975. He also served on the board of trustees of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from 1979 to 1999. From 1977 until his death in 2016, he served on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was also chairman of the board of Region IV of the United Way and a member of its Central Board. Additionally, he served as the Founding Chairman of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, California, until February 2013.  Therein the 500-seat Goldsmith Theater is named in his honor.

Personal life
Goldsmith was married to Elaine Maltz, a sculptor and the daughter of Benjamin N. Maltz, the President of City National Bank. They resided above Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California and had a secondary residence in Newport Beach, California. Their youngest son, Russell Goldsmith, serves as chairman and chief executive officer of City National Bank. Their other son Bruce Goldsmith is a published novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

Death and legacy
Goldsmith died on February 28, 2016, at the age of 93. The city of Beverly Hills named Bram Goldsmith Way in his honor on November 7, 2018.

References

1923 births
2016 deaths
Businesspeople from Chicago
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
People from Beverly Hills, California
People from Newport Beach, California
University of Illinois alumni
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
American chief executives
Jewish American bankers
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Illinois
American real estate businesspeople
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American philanthropists
21st-century American Jews

Bram Goldsmith


Cole Palen (December 28, 1925 – December 8, 1993) was the founder of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, a living museum of vintage aircraft from 1900-1937 located in Red Hook, New York. Palen's aerodrome boasts one of the finest collections of antique aircraft in the world, including an original Bleriot XI (civil registration N60094), the oldest flying aircraft in the United States and the second oldest in the world.

Biography
James Henry "Cole" Palen Jr. grew up in upstate New York outside the town of Poughkeepsie. As a child, he developed an early fascination with aviation and delighted in building free-flight model airplanes. In later life, he was recognized for his work in the preservation of early aviation history.

After graduating from high school in 1944, Palen joined the United States Army just in time for the Battle of the Bulge. On returning to the United States, he enrolled in the Roosevelt Aviation School at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, to train as a mechanic. Here he was thrilled to find that one of the hangars contained a small museum of World War I aircraft. He dreamed of one day owning his own unique airfield and flying the early aircraft as he felt they should be flown.

In 1951, Roosevelt Field closed and plans were laid for a vast shopping center to be built on the site. Accordingly, the World War I aircraft were put up for sale. The Smithsonian had already acquired three of the aircraft so Cole quickly bid his life savings for the remainder. Soon thereafter he found himself the proud owner of a SPAD XIII, Avro 504K, Curtiss Jenny, Standard J-l, Aeromarine 39B and Sopwith Snipe. He was given just thirty days to remove the aircraft from Roosevelt Field, which required nine 200-mile round trips to the family home where they were stored in disused chicken coops.

In 1959, Palen found a farm for sale near Rhinebeck, New York. This property included a small farmhouse in which an unsolved murder had taken place. Around this time, Palen earned money through the rental of some of his aircraft to a company in California that was filming the World War I movie Lafayette Escadrille, starring Tab Hunter. Between his savings from his employment at Texaco as a mechanic and earnings from the film deal, he was able to purchase the property by paying the back taxes owed on it. He cleared a runway and built makeshift hangars from scrapped materials with his bare hands and the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome was born.

Palen collected aircraft spanning the period of the birth of aviation up to the start of World War II. He restored them and flew them regularly, and where surviving examples of early original aircraft did not exist, accurate reproductions powered by authentic, vintage-era engines were built. A sizable collection of veteran and vintage vehicles was also collected, nearly all in working order.

In 1960, Palen opened the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome to the public, the first known American example of a living museum dedicated to preserving pre-World War II aviation history and technology. The first air show took place in 1960 to an audience of approximately 25 people. Gradually word spread and shows were held regularly on the last Sunday of the summer months. As demand grew this was changed to the present format of a show every Saturday and Sunday from mid-June through mid-October.

Palen had a strict philosophy regarding his aircraft; he believed that a plane was not truly a plane unless it could fly. By putting this philosophy into action, Palen made the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome one of the few places in the world where the public could see aircraft from the dawn of aviation actually fly. Taking this a step further, Palen made both his original and reproduction aircraft as authentic as possible. Original drawings would be used for restoration and creation of accurate reproduction airframes, as well as the installation of original parts and engines into the machines so they would look, sound, and fly the same way they did for the daredevils of early aviation. Because of this, Palen and his aerodrome became the focus of countless newspaper and magazine articles, documentaries, websites, and books.

In April 1965, Cole Palen flew his 1912 Thomas Pusher  from Rhinebeck to New York City and after a three-day trip, appeared on the television game show I've Got a Secret.

On March 17, 1967, Palen married Rita Weidner. Rita took over management of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and brought some order to the administrative side of things.

Palen was associated with several movies, most notably in 1983, when he worked as a stunt double for Woody Allen in the film Zelig.

Early in 1993, Palen suffered a stroke. Looking to the future, he decided to form the Rhinebeck Aerodrome Museum Foundation. The Foundation came into being during the course of the year under a board of directors and a special new foundation building for the static display of more valuable aircraft was erected opposite the Pioneer, W.W.I and Lindbergh era buildings.

Following the end of the 1993 season, Cole and Rita made their annual pilgrimage to their winter home in Florida, where Palen also maintained a workshop. Early that December, Rita suffered a slight stroke and was admitted to the hospital. It was at this time that Cole died in his sleep. Rita made an excellent recovery and continued with her husband's legacy until her death on August 12, 2002.

In 1995, the Experimental Aircraft Association recognized Palen for his work by posthumously naming him to the EAA's Vintage Aircraft Association Hall of Fame.

Several of the original World War I aircraft that Cole acquired and restored to airworthy condition are now on display in museums such as the United States Air Force Museum, Canada Aviation Museum, and the National Air and Space Museum.

An excellent biography of Cole and the aerodrome was written by E. Gordon Bainbridge and published in 1977, The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome: The story of Cole Palen and his 'living' aviation museum ().

References

External links
Biography of Cole Palen at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome website
Photographs taken at Cole Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome
 1983 Full Cast and Crew of Zelig, IMDb

Museum founders
Aviators from Pennsylvania
Aviation in New York (state)
History of aviation
1925 births
1993 deaths
20th-century American philanthropists

Cole Palen


The Second Party System is a name for the political party system in the United States during the 1800s. It is a phrase used by historians and political scientists to describe the time period between 1828 and 1854. People quickly became more interested in voting starting in 1828. More people came to political rallies and showed up to vote on election day. There were also more partisan newspapers, which supported a certain political party.  People became very loyal to their party.

There were two main political parties during this time period. One was the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson. The other was the Whig Party, started by Henry Clay. The Whig party was made up of members of the National Republican Party and other people who opposed Jackson.

There were also a number of important minor parties. The Anti-Masonic Party (1827-34) was important in developing political ideas and laws. The Liberty Party in the 1840s was an important abolitionist party (against slavery).  The United States Free Soil Party in 1848 and 1852 was another anti-slavery party.

The Second Party System was an important part of the politics, society, economics, and culture of the Jacksonian Era. It was followed by the Third Party System after 1854.

Patterns
The phrase "second party system" was defined by the historian Richard P. McCormick. He said that the system was:
 It was a distinct party system.
 It was created over 15 years. The exact amount of time it took to evolve was different for each state.
 It was caused by leaders trying to become president. Each candidate built his own national coalition.
 The popularity of a leader and his followers depended on the region. For example, John Quincy Adams was strongest in New England. Andrew Jackson and his supporters were strongest in the American Southwest.
 For the first time, the South and West had two-party politics. (Before that, these regions only had one political party.)
 In each region, the two political parties had equal support.
 The parties were vulnerable to issues specific to a particular region (like slavery).
 The same two parties appeared in every state.
 The Anti-Masonic party was popular only in the states with a weak second party.
 The caucus replaced the political convention as a way for people with the same views to meet and discuss politics.
 Political campaigning began to focus more on the popular vote – the support of the common people.
 Voters were more interested in close elections. In earlier systems, voters were interested in charismatic (well-spoken) candidates and particular issues.

Leaders.
A number of important historical people were political leaders in this system. Some famous democrats were: Andrew Jackson,  Martin Van Buren, John C. Calhoun, James K. Polk, Lewis Cass, and Stephen Douglas. Some famous Whigs were: Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, and Thurlow Weed.

Beginnings
The United States presidential election in 1824 did not have any political parties. There were four main candidates for president: Henry Clay, William Crawford, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams. At the end of the race, none of the candidates had enough votes in the electoral college to win, and the United States House of Representatives had to choose the winner. The three final candidates were Adams, Crawford, and Jackson. Even though Clay was not one of these finalists, he was the Speaker of the House, and it was his job to negotiate who would become president. Jackson had the most popular votes (votes cast by citizens) and the most electoral votes (votes cast by the electoral college), but was not elected. Instead, John Quincy Adams was elected president. He immediately chose Clay to be his Secretary of State.

Jackson loudly declared this to be a "corrupt bargain." Jackson was a very popular politician, the most famous fighter of the American Indian Wars, and a hero of the War of 1812. He gathered his supporters in politics and the local militias and created the Democratic Party. Martin Van Buren, a brilliant leader in New York politics, was Jackson's most important supporter. Van Buren was popular in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and he had the support of their electoral college votes. The new Democratic Party beat Adams in the U.S. presidential election of 1828 and Jackson was elected president. Van Buren became the Secretary of State, and later Vice President. Adams, Clay, and their supporters in the Democratic-Republican Party became known as the National Republicans.

The Bank War
Andrew Jackson was against the idea of giving special favors to special interest groups. He strongly opposed the Second Bank of the United States.  The Bank was a federal institution that worked somewhat like a central bank. (It was very similar to the Federal Reserve System that would be developed later.) The bank was controlled by the banker Nicholas Biddle and supported by Henry Clay. Jackson did not like any banks, and he did not believe in paper money. (He believed that money should only be gold and silver.) As president, he was able to close the Second Bank.

Jackson continued to attack the banking system. He issued his Specie Circular in July 1836. (Specie is a word that means gold and silver used as money.) The Circular said that only gold and siver coins, and not paper money, could be used to buy federal land. This made most businessmen and bankers join the Whig party. Also, cities that depended on commerce (trade) and industry became supporters of the Whig party. Jackson became more popular with subsistence farmers (farmers who grow crops to eat, but not to sell) and day laborers.

Spoils System
In US politics, the Spoils System was the practice of a political party giving its supporters positions in government. These government jobs were given as rewards and incentives (something that makes a person try harder) to keep working for the political party.

Jackson used the spoils system a lot when he was president. He rewarded his supporters and promised future jobs if local and state politicians joined his team. He believed in the theory of rotation in office, where people would only remain in a position for a short time. He believed that this would keep the civil service from becoming corrupt. Other leaders of the Democratic Party wanted to give civil service jobs to friends and loyal party members. In total, Jackson dismissed less than twenty percent (20%) of the original civil service.

As president, Jackson encouraged the use of the spoils system. It became an important part of the Second Party System and the Third Party System. The spoils system was ended in the 1890s.

Related pages
 First Party System, 1790s–1820s
 Third Party System, 1850s–1890s
 Political parties in the United States

References

Bibliography
  in Questia

Other websites
 Michael Holt, The Second American Party System , short topical essays
 "The Campaign of 1840: William Henry Harrison and Tyler, Too"  high school level lesson plans and documents

Politics of the United States
19th century in the United States

Second Party System