Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. It is important for an individual's competitiveness and employability, but also enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development.

Development
In some contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved from the term "life-long learners", created by Leslie Watkins and used by Clint Taylor, professor at CSULA and Superintendent for the Temple City Unified School District, in the district's mission statement in 1993, the term recognizes that learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations.

In other contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved organically.  The first lifelong learning institute began at The New School for Social Research (now New School University) in 1962 as an experiment in "learning in retirement".  Later, after similar groups formed across the United States, many chose the name "lifelong learning institute" to be inclusive of nonretired persons in the same age range.  See Lifelong learning institutes, or outside the US, University of the Third Age.

During the last fifty years, constant scientific and technological innovation and change has had profound effects on how learning is understood. Learning can no longer be divided into a place and time to acquire knowledge (school) and a place and time to apply the knowledge acquired (the workplace). Instead, learning can be seen as something that takes place on an ongoing basis from our daily interactions with others and with the world around us. It can create and shapeshift into the form of formal learning or informal learning, or self-directed learning. Allen Tough (1979), Canadian educator and researcher, asserts that almost 70% of learning projects are self-planned.

Concept
Lifelong learning has been described as a process that includes people learning in different contexts. These environments do not only include schools but also homes, workplaces, and even locations where people pursue leisure activities. However, while the learning process can be applied to learners of all ages, there is a focus on adults who are returning to organized learning. There are programs based on its framework that address the different needs of learners, such as United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, which caters to the needs of the disadvantaged and marginalized learners.

Lifelong learning focuses on holistic education and it has two dimensions, namely, lifelong and broad options for learning. These indicate learning that integrates traditional education proposals and modern learning opportunities. It also entails an emphasis on encouraging people to learn how to learn and to select content, process, and methodologies that pursues self-design and self-perfection. Some authors highlight that lifelong learning is founded on a different conceptualization of knowledge and its acquisition. It is explained not only as the possession of discrete pieces of information or factual knowledge but also as a generalized scheme of making sense of new events, including the use of tactics in order to effectively deal with them.

Lifelong learning is distinguished from the concept of continuing education in the sense that it has a broader scope. Unlike the latter, which is oriented towards adult education developed for the needs of schools and industries, this type of learning is concerned with the development of human potential, recognizing each individual's capacity for it.

Links to theory
Two theories of particular relevance when considering lifelong learning are cognitivism and constructivism.  Cognitivism, most notably Gestalt theory, speaks of learning as making sense of the relationship between what is old and what is new.  Similarly, Constructivist theory states that "knowledge is not passively received from the world or from authoritative sources but constructed by individuals or groups making sense of their experiential worlds".  Constructivism lends itself well to Lifelong learning as it brings together learning from many different sources including life experiences.

Learning economy

Traditional colleges and universities are beginning to recognize the value of lifelong learning outside of the credit and degree attainment model. Some learning is accomplished in segments or interest categories and can still be valuable to the individual and community. The economic impact of educational institutions at all levels will remain significant as individuals continue formal studies and pursue interest-based subjects. Institutions produce educated citizens who buy goods and services in the community and the education facilities and personnel generate economic activity during the operations and institutional activities.  Similar to health facilities, educational institutions are among the top employers in many cities and towns of the world. Whether brick-and-mortar or distance education institutions, there is a great economic impact worldwide from learning, including lifelong learning, for all age groups. The lifelong learners, including persons with academic or professional credentials, tend to find higher-paying occupations, leaving monetary, cultural, and entrepreneurial impressions on communities, according to educator Cassandra B. Whyte.

Contexts

Although the term is widely used in a variety of contexts, its meaning is often unclear. A learning approach that can be used to define lifelong learning is heutagogy.

There are several established contexts for lifelong learning beyond traditional "brick and mortar" schooling:
Home schooling involves learning to learn or the development of informal learning patterns
Adult education or the acquisition of formal qualifications or work and leisure skills later in life
Continuing education which often describes extension or not-for-credit courses offered by higher education institutions
Lifelong learning institutes, which are groups over 50 years of age which meet for noncredit college-level study for intellectual challenge and social enjoyment
Knowledge work, which includes professional development and on-the-job training
Personal learning environments or self-directed learning using a range of sources and tools including online applications
E-learning is available at most colleges and universities or to individuals learning independently. Online courses are offered for free by many institutions.

One new (2008 and beyond) expression of lifelong learning is the massive open online course (a MOOC), in which a teacher or team offers a syllabus and some direction for the participation of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of learners. Most MOOCs do not offer typical "credit" for courses taken, which is why they are interesting and useful examples of lifelong learning.

Emerging technologies

Lifelong learning is defined as "all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective". It is often considered learning that occurs after the formal education years of childhood (where learning is instructor-driven—pedagogical) and into adulthood (where the learning is individually-driven—andragogical). It is sought out naturally through life experiences as the learner seeks to gain knowledge for professional or personal reasons. These natural experiences can come about on purpose or throughout life's unpredictable course. 'Knowledge results from the combination of grasping experience and transforming it' (Kolb 1984: 41).
The concept of lifelong learning has become of vital importance with the emergence of new technologies that change how we receive and gather information, collaborate with others, and communicate.

Assistive technology

As technology rapidly changes, individuals must adapt and learn to meet everyday demands.  However, throughout life, an individual's functional capacities may also change.  Assistive technologies are also important considerations under the umbrella of emerging technology and lifelong learning.  Access to informal and formal learning opportunities for individuals with disabilities may be dependent upon low and high tech assistive technology.

Internet

The emergence of internet technologies has great potential to support lifelong learning endeavors, allowing for informal, just-in-time, day-to-day learning.

Workplace learning

Professions typically recognize the importance of developing practitioners becoming lifelong learners.  Nowadays, formal training is only a beginning. Knowledge accumulates at such a fast rate that one must continue to learn to be effective (Williams, 2001). Many licensed professions mandate that their members continue learning to maintain a license.  (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007). Having said this, what are the characteristics or skills that a lifelong learner must develop.  Reflective learning and critical thinking can help a learner to become more self-reliant through learning how to learn, thus making them better able to direct, manage, and control their own learning process (Candy, 1990). Sipe (1995) studied experimentally "open" teachers and found that they valued self-directed learning, collaboration, reflection, and challenge; risk taking in their learning was seen as an opportunity, not a threat.  Dunlap and Grabinger (2003) say that for higher education students to be lifelong learners, they must develop a capacity for self-direction, metacognition awareness, and a disposition toward learning (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).

Metacognition
While the study of metacognition originally gave educational psychologists insights into what differentiated successful students from their less successful peers, it is increasingly being used to inform teaching that aims to make students more aware of their learning processes, and show them how to regulate those processes for more effective learning throughout their lives.

Educators can employ Cognitive Strategy Instruction (CSI) as a means to help learners develop their metacognition. Again, learners who are better equipped to create learning strategies for themselves will have more success in achieving their cognitive goals.

As lifelong learning is "lifelong, lifewide, voluntary, and self-motivated" learning to learn, that is, learning how to recognize learning strategies, and monitor and evaluate learning, is a pre-condition for lifelong learning. Metacognition is an essential first step in developing lifelong learning.

Delors Report and the four pillars of learning

The Delors Report proposed an integrated vision of education based on two key paradigms: lifelong learning and the four pillars of learning. The report proposed a holistic conceptual framework of learning, that of the 'four pillars of learning'. It argued that formal education tends to emphasize the acquisition of knowledge to the detriment of other types of learning essential to sustaining human development. It stressed the need to think of learning over the life course, and to address how everyone can develop relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes for work, citizenship and personal fulfillment. The four pillars of learning are:
 Learning to know
 Learning to do
 Learning to be
 Learning to live together
It is important to note that the four pillars of learning were envisaged against the backdrop of the notion of 'lifelong learning', itself an adaptation of the concept of 'lifelong education' as initially conceptualized in the 1972 Faure publication Learning to Be.

In practice

In India and elsewhere, the "University of the Third Age" (U3A) provides an example of the almost spontaneous emergence of autonomous learning groups accessing the expertise of their own members in the pursuit of knowledge and shared experience. No prior qualifications and no subsequent certificates feature in this approach to learning for its own sake and, as participants testify, engagement in this type of learning in later life can indeed 'prolong active life'.

In Sweden the successful concept of study circles, an idea launched almost a century ago, still represents a large portion of the adult education provision. The concept has since spread, and for instance, is a common practice in Finland as well. A study circle is one of the most democratic forms of a learning environment that has been created. There are no teachers and the group decides on what content will be covered, scope will be used, as well as a delivery method.

Sometimes lifelong learning aims to provide educational opportunities outside standard educational systems—which can be cost-prohibitive, if available at all. On the other hand, formal administrative units devoted to this discipline exist in a number of universities. For example, the 'Academy of Lifelong Learning' is an administrative unit within the University-wide 'Professional and Continuing Studies' unit at the University of Delaware. Another example is the Jagiellonian University Extension (Wszechnica Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego), which is one of the most comprehensive Polish centers for lifelong learning (open learning, organizational learning, community learning).

In recent years, 'lifelong learning' has been adopted in the UK as an umbrella term for post-compulsory education that falls outside of the UK higher education system—further education, community education, work-based learning and similar voluntary, public sector and commercial settings.

Most colleges and universities in the United States encourage lifelong learning to non-traditional students.  Professional licensure and certification courses are also offered at many universities, for instance for teachers, social services providers, and other professionals. Some colleges even enable adults to earn credit for the college-level learning gained through work, volunteer and other experiences.

Bangladesh Open University (BOU) has six schools and is offering 23 formal and 19 nonformal programs. The number of enrolled students in formal programs for 2016 was 433,413. Most of the courses of BOU are for professional development and most of the students are professional people who are getting scope to study in flexible hours. BOU is the only public institution in the country that imparts education in distance mode. In place of campus based teaching, this university uses technology including electronic devices to reach people in different corners of the country.

In Canada, the federal government's Lifelong Learning Plan allows Canadian residents to withdraw funds from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan to help pay for lifelong learning, but the funds can only be used for formal learning programs at designated educational institutions.

Priorities for lifelong and lifewide learning have different priorities in different countries, some placing more emphasis on economic development (towards a learning economy) and some on social development (towards a learning society). For example, the policies of China, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Malaysia promote lifelong learning in a human resource development (HRD) perspective. The governments of these countries have done much to foster HRD whilst encouraging entrepreneurship.

Impact on long-term economic growth
Mainstream economic analysis has highlighted increased levels of primary and secondary education as a key driver of long-term economic growth. Data show that initial levels of educational attainment explain about half the difference in growth rates between East Asia and sub- Saharan Africa between 1965 and 2010. At the individual level, the knowledge and skills workers acquire through education and training make them more productive. Provision of good quality education can improve the knowledge and skills of a whole population beyond what traditional or informal systems can achieve. For business, educated and highly skilled workers foster productivity gains and technological change, through either innovation or imitation of processes developed elsewhere. At the societal level, education expansion helps build social and institutional capital, which has a strong impact on the investment climate and growth; it also helps in building social trust, developing participatory societies, strengthening the rule of law and supporting good governance.

Lifelong Learning in an Aging Society

With today's advances in communication, travel, and medicine, many areas of the world are experiencing an increase in average life expectancy, leading to higher numbers of elderly people in the population. With these individuals living longer, it means that more people will suffer the ravages of the age-related diseases of cognitive decline. According to the Alzheimer's Society, it is estimated that worldwide cases of Alzheimer's diseases will jump from 47.5 million as of 2014 to 75.6 million by 2030.

With this many people living longer, it's important from a socioeconomic perspective that adult healthcare and cognitive decline be addressed in order to head off a worldwide dementia crisis. The cost of caring for an elderly dementia patient is considerably higher than their healthy counterparts. With populations living longer than ever before, the implications of dementia in a growing number of older adults threatens to become an overwhelming expense.

In 2007, the US Department of Health and Human Services published a study suggesting that older people who suffer from cognitive impairment require significantly more care than healthier individuals. Those with mild impairment require about 8.5 more hours of care each week, while those with severe impairment receive about 41.5 additional hours of care. Estimates project over 150 million cases of dementia worldwide by the year 2050 and "and at least one new case… reported every 3.2 seconds" (as cited by researcher Israel Oluwasegun Ayenigbara in the 2022 paper "Preventive Measures against the Development of Dementia in Old Age").

In a 2012 New York Times article, Arthur Toga, PhD, a professor of neurology and director of the laboratory of neuroimaging at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated that "Exercising the brain may preserve it, forestalling mental decline." It has been shown that people with higher cognitive reserves (CR), attained through lifelong learning, were better able to endure the inevitable ravages of aging, and thereby avoid the cognitive decline that often accompanies age-related neurodegenerative diseases.

CR is an idea in the medical field postulating that people who have more education and/or have spent more time in mentally challenging situations (sports, hobbies, careers, etc.) develop additional material connections within their brains that allow them to be better equipped to deal with the loss of some of those connections due to brain damage that occurs with age-related neurodegenerative diseases. As tissue damage appears to be an inevitable function of the aging process, working to build reserves throughout one's life may help to prevent cognitive decline.

Studies showed that even when medical testing proved biological deterioration suggestive of structural changes were occurring in subjects' brains, individuals with higher CR proved capable of preserving cognitive function longer than those with lower CR. Put another way, even when subjects' brains were actively being attacked by the diseases of dementia, they were able to persist in a normal mental state for a longer period than subjects who weren't involved in some type of lifelong learning.

Much of the population is destined to suffer from some type of age-related neurodegenerative disease, and science has been working on possible solutions ever since German psychiatrist Alios Alzheimer published his first study of a diseased brain in 1906. While there is currently no effective treatment for slowing the progression of dementia, and with 15-20% of adults aged 65 or older affected by cognitive decline, it's important to identify any processes that may slow the development of this disease state.

It has been shown that an increased CR was associated with a reduction in mild cognitive impairment and may prove to be a relatively inexpensive, non-pharmacological intervention in the fight against age-related dementia that is accessible to all populations, regardless of socio-economic status. In the 2021 paper "Cognitive Reserve, Alzheimer's Neuropathology, and Risk of Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis", authors Monica Nelson, Dylan Jester, Andrew Petkus, and Ross Andel state that "in the absence of an effective treatment strategy, factors that can slow the progression to dementia are of great importance to identify, especially since delaying onset of dementia results in notable public health savings and maintaining quality of life"

While much research has been done supporting the idea that lifelong learning and CR are beneficial tools in the fight against dementia, this field of study is not immune to the problems that often plague scientific inquiry. One of the problems in this space is the lack of large, randomized controlled trials. Even though much of the evidence thus far seems to indicate a demonstrable effect of the studied preventive measures on brain health and the incidence of cognitive decline, it's clear that more studies need to be done to validate the findings of the published research.

While much of the published work has been positive, the ideas of cognitive reserve and lifelong are not without detractors. In "Education and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review of Recent International Epidemiological Studies" published in 1997 in the journal Aging and Mental Health, author Dr. C.J. Gilleard, Honorary Associate Professor, Division of Psychiatry, University College London and Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences, purports to find fault with other studies linking education to cognitive decline. Several arguments are proposed, alleging fault with the methodology of the various reviewed studies. Inconsistencies in diagnostic procedures across the years and between countries, giving rise to skewed results, are also implicated in this review. An argument is made that variations in statistical analysis and their methods of correction may be responsible for some erroneous study results. It's also suggested that variations in lifestyles could be responsible for an increase in vascular dementia, as blue-collar type workers may be less inclined to work in industries that provide mentally challenging situations. Gilleard also argues that variations in the initial education levels of study subjects could skew the resultant test data. The author argues that the lack of formal education in the test subjects made them less familiar with the way the tests were presented during the studies, leading them to feel intimidated by the process which resulted in them putting forth less effort during testing and thereby artificially distorting the resultant data. Ignorance of standard testing procedures, and the stress created by this unfamiliarity, can negatively impact resulting scores, thereby skewing test results simply through a lack of experience with the testing protocols.

While initial test data about the benefits of lifelong learning programs point toward benefits in reducing the risk of dementia, full compliance would seem to be an unrealistic goal, with individuals with lower levels of education likely to be less motivated to participate. While studies have shown that many factors influence the likelihood of adults entering lifelong learning programs, such as gender, race, and initial educational levels, it has also been established that lifelong learning programs provide the opportunity for health benefits regardless of a person's level of formal education. These programs have been shown to increase cognitive reserves and thereby lessen the possibility of succumbing to cognitive decline-related diseases.

There is also a presumption that education is something that occurs only during one's formative years, and that older adults are limited in their capacities for learning. These assumptions appear to have been debunked by numerous studies, as it's been shown that cognitive gains can be made by older adults, and that various methods of lifelong learning can help restore unused skills and slow mental decline.

While some normal cognitive decline is to be expected with aging, the effects of cognitive decline-related diseases like Alzheimer's begin to take hold decades before a patient is diagnosed. While there is currently no cure for dementia and only limited pharmacological interventions available, it's been proposed that gains can be made in the preservation of cognition through lifestyle modification, utilizing methods like education, mentally demanding careers, and a cognitively active lifestyle to help increase individuals' cognitive reserves.

Studies indicate that lifelong learning plays an important part in age-related neurodegenerative disease prevention. Some recent studies have shown a reduction in the rates of dementia in more recently born residents of Western countries, suggesting that a healthier, more active lifestyle may play a role in reduction of disease and increased public health. In an attempt to spread these benefits worldwide, increasing free and low-cost access to online and in-person education could provide cognitive health benefits to vulnerable populations across the world, lessening the economic and social impacts of cognitive decline related diseases in communities across the globe.

See also

Autodidacticism
Brain fitness
Community college
Experiential education
Folk high school
Folkbildning, an approach to community education in Scandinavia
Knud Illeris, professor of lifelong learning and author of How We Learn and Contemporary Theories of Learning
Learning
Learning community
Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes
Part-time learner in higher education
Right to education
Self-paced instruction
TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training)
Vocational education
Widening participation
Workers' Educational Association

References

Sources
 Grady, D., (2012, March 7).  Exercising an aging brain.  New York Times.  Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/business/retirementspecial/retirees-are-using-education-to-exercise-an-aging-brain.html .
 US Department of Health and Human Services. (2007) Growing older in America:  the health and retirement study.  Retrieved from http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu/sitedocs/databook-2006/inc/pdf/HRS-Growing-Older-in-America.pdf
 Yilmaz, K. (2008). Constructivism: Its theoretical underpinnings, variations, and implications for classroom instruction. Educational HORIZONS, Spring.

Further reading

John Field, Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order (Trentham Books, 2006)
Charles D. Hayes, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning (2004)
Charles D. Hayes, Beyond the American Dream: Lifelong Learning and the Search for Meaning in a Postmodern World (1998)
Pastore G., Un'altra chance. Il futuro progettato tra formazione e flessibilità, in Mario Aldo Toscano, Homo instabilis. Sociologia della precarietà, Grandevetro/Jaca Book, Milano 2007
William A. Draves and Julie Coates ''Nine Shift: Work, life, and education in the 21st Century (2004)

Alternative education
Philosophy of education
Educational psychology
Personal development
Educational stages
Education reform

Lifelong learning


Solomon Frederick "Solly" Seeman (February 26, 1902 – March 11, 1989) was the 1920 AAU National Featherweight Amateur Champion. He was a legitimate contender for the Lightweight Champion of the World during March and April 1925, when he won the first two rounds of the NYSAC World Lightweight Elimination tournament. Ring Magazine rated him fifth among World Lightweight Contenders in 1925.

Seeman took the Pacific Coast Lightweight Championship in 1922, and the Pacific Coast Jr. Lightweight Championship in 1923.

Early life, and amateur boxing career
Solly Seeman was born on February 26, 1902, in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine). In 1908, his father Solomon, after serving in the Austrian army, moved his wife and six year old Solly to New York's Lower East Side. Seeman grew up one of six children. When his family moved to Yorktown, he began regular supervised boxing training at the YMCA on 92nd Street. From his earliest years he showed a rare balance of speed, cleverness, and a solid punch. As the Milwaukee Sentinel later noted, Seeman "displayed a shifty style, a world of speed, and a punishing right hand."

At only seventeen, the gifted redhead won both the Metropolitan and State Flyweight Amateur Championships, than defeated William Parker in Boston for the Amateur Featherweight National Title. Though qualifying for the Olympic Trials in 1920, he chose instead to begin his professional career in order to earn money for his sister and father who were suffering from TB, a common ailment in the New York ghetto.

Boxing career
Fighting as a featherweight in his professional debut on February 25, 1919, he aggressively won over veteran boxer Bobby Dobbs in the Manhattan Casino on November 29, 1921. In his first year of boxing he beat featherweight title contender Willie Davis in November 1921 in the Bronx, as well as Sammy Vogel. He beat Mickey Brown twice in March and April 1921, with the March fight actually being given to Seeman a week later in a reversal by New York Boxing Commission, according to the New York Times.

According to boxing writer Ken Blady, Seeman won the Pacific Coast Jr. Lightweight Title by beating Eddie Duggins in San Francisco in 1922 and the Pacific Coast Lightweight title by beating Benny Vierra in San Francisco, in 1923.

He lost to the previous Jr. Lightweight Champion Jack Bernstein on July 8, 1922.

Attempt at lightweight championship
In the only chance he was given in a sanctioned Lightweight World Title Competition, Seeman first defeated Frankie LaFay on February 27, 1925, in the first round of an elimination tournament. He then defeated Charlie O'Connell in a fifteen-round bout in Madison Square Garden on March 9, before seven thousand fans, who cheered his victory at the end of the close bout.

On April 24, in the semi-final bout of the tournament, he knocked out Larry Regan in the third round in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Winning by a knockout in a critical bout showed Seeman's ability to deliver a strong punch even against a quality competitor with defensive skills. He may have overtrained for his final tournament bout with French boxer Benny Valgar, and lost in a close ten-round decision in Queensboro Stadium on May 18, 1925.

Career after lightweight championship tournament

On July 17, 1925, Seeman fought 1926-30 lightweight champion Sammy Mandell in a classic bout in East Chicago, Indiana. Seeman knocked down Mandell in the first round, and according to many at ringside, Seeman had the better of the match. But for some reason, Seeman was unable to close the match for a newspaper decision. In a return bout with Mandell at Coney Island on August 25, Seeman lost on points in ten rounds.

Seeman rightfully continued to be viewed as a top contender. According to boxing author Ken Blady, shortly after Rocky Kansas defeated Jimmy Goodrich for the Lightweight Championship, Seeman offered his entire purse to charity if Kansas would meet him in a title bout. Unable to arrange the title shot with Kansas, Seeman took on ex-Lightweight Champion, Jimmy Goodrich on January 26, 1926, in Milwaukee and decisively won the ten-round newspaper decision. The Milwaukee Journal praised Goodrich's superior defensive skills and summarized the fight when they wrote, "Seeman's cleverness helped him to hold command throughout." They also observed that "Goodrich shot at a bounding target that moved inside the punches or stepped outside of their path entirely." Seeman had beaten another lightweight champion, but was unable to time his victory to take the title. After Mandell took the title from Kansas, Seeman again attempted to obtain a title shot, but was denied.

From 1926-29, Seeman continued to box, but was discouraged by his inability to obtain a title shot considering his rating and previous successes. He won a bout with Young Leonard by second-round TKO in the Garden on March 26, 1926, but his dominance in the Lightweight division began to fade afterward. He defeated Pete Petrolle in Newark decisively on March 14, 1927, but lost to his previous opponent from the Lightweight Championship Tournament, Charlie O'Connell on March 22, 1927.

Life after boxing
Seeman retired around 1929, only a few years after his peak performances.

He married Rose Gerwitz around 1930. With his ring winnings, he opened a laundromat in New York and later a successful printing and letterhead company in Long Island, New York. He provided training to a few gifted boxers, and in 1939 served as athletic director of the New York World's Fair.

Seeman received the Luke Bauer Humanitarian Award on June 19, 1976. In 1978, he was named outstanding Veteran Boxer of the Year. He lived in Miami Beach in his retirement, and died there on March 11, 1989. He left two sons.

References

External links

Jewish boxers
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Solly Seeman


Spyridon "Spyros" Markezinis (or Markesinis; ; 22 April 1909 – 4 January 2000) was a Greek politician, longtime member of the Hellenic Parliament, and briefly the Prime Minister of Greece during the aborted attempt at metapolitefsi (democratization) of the Greek military regime in 1973.

Early political life

Spyros Markezinis was born in Athens, a scion of an old wealthy family of Santorini, who were at some time given the title marchesini (i.e., "little Marquesses") during Venetian rule. He earned degrees in Law and Political Science at the University of Athens, and entered private law practice. In 1936, he was appointed counsel to King George II, a capacity in which he served until 1946. The outbreak of World War II and Greece's occupation by Nazi Germany forced the King to flee the country, while Markezinis remained to fight as part of the resistance militias.

Markezinis was elected in the Parliament (the ) during the 1946 elections as a member of the United Nationalist Party from the Cyclades. Shortly thereafter, he left the party and founded the New Party, the second of many parties under which he would serve. The New Party won 2.5% of the vote in the 1950 parliamentary elections, enough for a single seat (held by Andreas Stratos) in the new parliament.

Economic reform

In 1949, Markezinis was appointed Minister Without Portfolio, but was effectively assigned control over the government's economic policy, coordinating the activities of the various economic ministries. Upon the election of long-time ally Marshal Alexandros Papagos as Prime Minister in 1952, Markezinis's effective position as minister of finance was further strengthened.

In April 1953, Markezinis orchestrated a 50% devaluation of the Greek drachma vis-à-vis the US dollar, concurrently curbing import restrictions. Markezinis's effective monetary policies are credited for boosting exports and consumer demand, as well as for curtailing inflation and the balance of trade deficit. Markezinis was considered at the time as a possible successor in the party leadership and premiership in the event of Marshal Papagos's retirement.

Later parliamentary positions

Papagos died in 1955. He was succeeded by neither Markezinis (whose relations with the Marshal had become tense) nor by other heirs apparent (such as Panagiotis Kanellopoulos nor Stephanos Stephanopoulos), but by Konstantinos Karamanlis, a junior minister who was appointed by King Paul to form a new government. Karamanlis managed to gather the support of nearly all the MPs of Marshal Papagos's party, and eventually formed the conservative National Radical Union (ERE). In the same year, Markezinis founded the Progressive Party, but failed to win seats in the 1956 elections. Markezinis's Party eventually won a seat in parliament in the 1958 elections. In 1961, he was re-elected in coalition with the Center Union, as well as in 1964, in coalition with the National Radical Union. Years of political turmoil ensued, and culminated in a military coup on 21 April 1967, orchestrated by Georgios Papadopoulos, which resulted in a 7-year military regime.

Premiership under the dictatorship

In 1973, the predominantly royalist Hellenic Navy staged an abortive attempt to overthrow the military regime. Junta strongman Papadopoulos retaliated by deposing the already self-exiled King Constantine II, and appointing himself President of the Republic further to a controversial referendum.

In face of growing difficulties with the economy, popular dissent and increasing diplomatic isolation, the Greek junta was seeking ways for a transition to some form of parliamentary rule. Papadopoulos sought support from the old political establishment, and Markezinis accepted to undertake the mission to help lead the country back to parliamentary rule in a process that was called metapolitefsi.

In September 1973, he was appointed by Papadopoulos as Prime Minister of Greece, with the task to lead Greece to parliamentary rule. He accepted the task, subject to a commitment by Papadopoulos to curtail any military interference. Papadopoulos proceeded to abolish martial law, and eased censorship of the press. Free elections were promised, in which political formations including part of the traditional left-of-centre were expected to participate.

However, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), banned since the civil war, and United Democratic Left (EDA), the party which mostly fronted for KKE during the years of democratic rule, were not expected to be re-legitimised or allowed to participate. In any case, most leading politicians of the old guard refused to participate in any contacts with the ruling junta, insisting on an unconditional and immediate reinstatement of democratic rule.

In November 1973, the Athens Polytechnic uprising broke out. The student protests in front of the Polytechnic evolved into a clearly political, quite vocal and rather widespread, albeit peaceful, rebellion against the dictatorship. After approximately three days and nights of continuous mass gatherings in front of the Polytechnic, the protests were put down by force, through the use of tanks and army units which stormed the building during the night of 17 November. On 25 November, Taxiarkhos Dimitrios Ioannides used the events as a pretext to stage a countercoup that overthrew Papadopoulos. Ioannidis arrested Markezinis, cancelled the elections, and fully reinstated martial law. His regime crumbled in July 1974, after the coup against Makarios III by the Greek junta of Ioannidis which led to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

The restoration of democracy

Markezinis was involved in the negotiations in July 1974 that led to the return of democratic government under Karamanlis's national unity government. Markezinis's Progressive Party remained an active political party, albeit a small one, whose main success consisted of electing a delegate to the European parliament in 1981. Markezinis spent his latter years writing his memoirs and on the political history of contemporary Greece.

See also

 Basil Markesinis

References

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2000 deaths
20th-century prime ministers of Greece
20th-century Greek lawyers
Politicians from Athens
United Alignment of Nationalists politicians
New Party (Greece, 1947) politicians
Greek Rally politicians
Progressive Party (Greece) politicians
Prime Ministers of Greece
Government ministers of Greece
Greek MPs 1946–1950
Greek MPs 1951–1952
Greek MPs 1952–1956
Leaders of the Greek junta
Greek Resistance members
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni
Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Spyros Markezinis


The Crown Point Light on Lake Champlain is a former lighthouse at Crown Point, New York, that now exists as a memorial to the exploration of the lake by Samuel de Champlain.

History
Requests for a light to mark the point date as far back as 1838, but the original light on this site was erected in 1858 by Ellis and O'Neil, along the same lines as the Windmill Point and Isle La Motte lights, which they constructed in the same period. The light sat on a small point due east of the ruins of Fort St. Frederic, a 1730s - 1750s fort at the tip of the peninsula.  The octagonal stone tower and attached keeper's dwelling remained in use, essentially unchanged, into the early 20th century.

The tercentenary of Champlain's explorations of the lake provided the occasion for celebrations marking the event, and commissions from New York and Vermont, put in charge of the festivities, decided to erect a monument. A suggestion in a newspaper prompted the notion to convert an existing lighthouse, and after some consideration of other sites, the Crown Point Light was chosen. The stone sheath of the tower was stripped away, leaving the brick spiral staircase sitting on the foundation. A new tower was constructed on and around this, consisting of a short tapered base, a ring of eight Doric columns, an elaborately carved cornice and parapet, and a new lantern atop the whole. On the side facing the lake, a projection from the base supported a monumental bronze designed by Carl Augustus Heber and cast at the Roman Bronze Works consisting of Champlain accompanied by one fellow Frenchman and one Huron native. The French government sent a plaque by Auguste Rodin which was later placed below the other sculpture. A broad staircase led down to a pier projecting into the lake. A fifth order Fresnel lens continued to shine in the lantern giving a fixed white light, and the old keeper's house remained in place, attached to the new tower by a short passageway. The memorial was dedicated on July 5, 1912 at a ceremony presided over by Governors John Abner Mead of Vermont and John Adams Dix of New York.

The memorial served as an active lighthouse for only fourteen years. In 1926 its light was extinguished, and a small skeleton tower was erected immediately adjacent to the water. In 1931 construction of the Crown Point Bridge obscured the site, and the steel tower was moved to the grounds of the Windmill Point Light as part of the customs service effort to control liquor smuggling on the lake. The property was transferred to the State of New York, which continues to maintain it as part of the state reservation which forms the tip of the peninsula; the keeper's house was demolished, leaving the monument standing alone at the top of the bluff. The tower is marked on navigational charts, but does not currently serve as an aid to navigation.

Notes

References

Further reading
 Oleszewski, Wes. Great Lakes Lighthouses, American and Canadian: A Comprehensive Directory/Guide to Great Lakes Lighthouses, (Gwinn, Michigan: Avery Color Studios, Inc., 1998) .

 U.S. Coast Guard. Historically Famous Lighthouses (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1957).
 Wright, Larry and Wright, Patricia. Great Lakes Lighthouses Encyclopedia Hardback (Erin: Boston Mills Press, 2006)

Lighthouses completed in 1858
Lighthouses completed in 1912
Lighthouses in New York (state)
Monuments and memorials in New York (state)
1858 establishments in New York (state)
Transportation buildings and structures in Essex County, New York

Crown Point Light


The Western Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company operated at Port Arthur, Ontario, now part of Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior from its organization in October 1909 until its reorganization in November 1916 as the Port Arthur Shipbuilding Company. It was probably a subsidiary of the Cleveland-based American Ship Building Company until entrepreneur James Whalen took control in 1916. Whalen was president from 1909–1916.

Its dry dock and shops were located at Bare Point at the extreme eastern end of the Thunder Bay harbour. They were constructed in 1910. The first launching of a vessel was June 27, 1911, a scow or barge for the Great Lakes Dredging Company.

During the First World War, the company also produced shells and munitions for the Imperial Munitions Board. It also built Big Bull tractors in 1915.

Ships built by the company

 Hamiltonian (steel package freighter, 1912)
 Calgarian (package freighter, 1913)
 Noronic (passenger steamer, 1913)
 Nasookin (passenger steamer, 1913)
 Sicamous (passenger steamer, 1914)
 W. Grant Morden (lake bulk carrier, 1914)
 Blaamyra (ocean freighter, 1916)
 Thorjerd (ocean freighter, 1916)

References

Companies based in Ontario
Thunder Bay


Henry Robinson Locke (1856 - 1927)
was an American photographer in the 19th and 20th century who photographed the Wild West. He ran a studio in Deadwood, South Dakota. He photographed the Black Hills area, Deadwood, Crow Indians, farmers, miners, railroads, but also Calamity Jane (1885) and the Little Big Horn battlefield (1894).

American photographers
19th-century American people
1856 births
1927 deaths

H. R. Locke


Magnoliidae is a botanical subclass name; it may refer to:

Magnoliids, a major group of basal angiosperms.
Magnoliidae sensu Chase & Reveal, a botanical subclass consisting of all angiosperms.
 In the Dahlgren and Thorne systems, a group consisting of the Dicotyledons (Class Magnoliopsida in the Cronquist system)

Magnoliidae


The horologion or horologium (pl. horologia), also known by other names, is the book of hours for the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. It provides the acolouthia (, akolouthíai), the fixed portions of the Divine Service used every day at certain canonical hours. Additional parts of the service are changed daily, mostly according to the Menologium.

Names
 is the latinized version of the Greek hōrológion (), from hṓra (, "time period, hour"), lógos (, "writing, recording") + -ion (), together originally meaning a sundial, clepsydra, or other timekeeping device. (The same roots are used in horology, the scientific study of time.) In Byzantine Greek, the word was repurposed to also denote the Eastern books of hours, records of the hymns and prayers to be offered at the proper times of each day. The plural form of both the Latin and Greek forms of the word is horologia.

In English, the horologion is also sometimes known as the Book of Hours or the Orthodox book of hours, from the nearest Roman Catholic equivalent. The book is known as the Chasoslov () in Church Slavonic and as the  in Romanian.

Description

The horologion is primarily a book for the use of the reader and chanters. The Euchologion is used by the priest and deacon instead. Several varieties of horologia exist, the most complete of which is the Great Horologion or Horologium (, Hōrológion tò méga; , Velikij Chasoslov; ). It contains the fixed portions of the Daily Office (Vespers, Greater and Lesser Compline, the Midnight Office, Matins, the Little Hours, the Inter-Hours, Typica, and the prayers before meals). The parts for the reader and chanters are given in full, while the priest and deacon's parts are abbreviated. Great Horologia also contain a list of the saints commemorated throughout the year with their troparia and kontakia; selected propers for Sundays; moveable feasts from the Menaion, Triodion, and Pentecostarion; and the various canons and other devotional services. The Great Horologion is most commonly used in Greek-speaking churches.

Other editions of the horologion are usually shorter. They still give the fixed portions of the Daily Office in full, but other texts are much more abbreviated since they are found in full in other liturgical books. In addition, such texts also often contain morning and evening prayers, the Order of Preparation for Holy Communion, and prayers to be said after receiving Holy Communion.

See also
 Agpeya
 Canonical hours
 Menologion

External links
 Liturgy.io Horologion
 Horologion for use at reader's services when a priest is not present
 Horologion texts
 Guide to building a liturgical library
 Photo of monks reading the Divine Office at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
 Byzantine Catholic Horologion

Eastern Orthodox liturgical books

Horologion


Ingrid Antonijevic Hahn (born 22 July 1952) is a Chilean economist, entrepreneur, academic and former Minister of Economy, Development and Reconstruction (2006) for only two months, in the first cabinet of socialist president Michelle Bachelet. In her youth, she was a militant in the MAPU organisation, and after the end of the Pinochet regime she was one of the founders of the Party for Democracy (Partido Por la Democracia a.k.a. PPD) that has led the transition towards democracy in Chile. She is a progressive entrepreneur who promotes corporate social responsibility and the involvement of the private sector in projects initiated by the government that aim to benefit the whole country. She has acquired notoriety in her country for holding positions in organisations that have traditionally been held by men.

Biography
Antonijevic was born in the northern Chilean port city of Iquique in the Tarapacá Region to a politically right-wing upper middle class family. She is the youngest daughter of Croatian immigrant and entrepreneur, Leandro Antonijevic Bezmalinović, and Ingeborg Hahn Von Neumann from Germany.

At the age of 7 her family transferred to Santiago, Chile where she continued her education and excelled academically, graduating in economics from the University of Chile. As a young student radical she became a militant in the MAPU organisation that formed part of the Popular Unity coalition headed by Salvador Allende that was overthrown in a military coup on September 11, 1973.

In 2006 she was awarded the Circle of Honour by the University of Chile in recognition of her services to the public sector and for being among the most prominent graduates of this university.

Antonijevic was interested in meditation for many years before she became a devotee of zen meditation after a holiday in Japan, where she became a student of zen Buddhist priest Gudo Wafu Nishijima. She lives and works in Santiago, Chile and promotes zen meditation among her employees in the workplace. She has two elder sisters, Nadja and Ilona, two children, Felipe and Carolina Saint Jean, and two grandchildren.

Positions held
Professor of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering (University of Chile)
Executive of Republic National Bank of New York (1982–1984)
Board of Directors of the Chilean State Bank
President of Sal Lobos
Minister of Economy, Development and Reconstruction
Government Appointed Nuclear Energy Commission
President of ADIN & Blue Company

References

External links
 Official website of the Ministry of Economy, Development and Reconstruction (Ministerio de Economía, Fomento y Reconstrucción de Chile)
 Chilean government economy website

1952 births
Academic staff of the University of Chile
Chilean businesspeople
20th-century Chilean economists
Chilean Ministers of Economy
Chilean people of Croatian descent
Chilean people of German descent
Living people
People from Iquique
University of Chile alumni
Popular Unitary Action Movement politicians
Party for Democracy (Chile) politicians
Chilean women in business
Women government ministers of Chile
21st-century Chilean women politicians
21st-century Chilean politicians
Government ministers of Chile

Ingrid Antonijevic


In mathematics, a split-biquaternion is a hypercomplex number of the form

where w, x, y, and z are split-complex numbers and i, j, and k multiply as in the quaternion group.  Since each coefficient w, x, y, z spans two real dimensions, the split-biquaternion is an element of an eight-dimensional vector space. Considering that it carries a multiplication, this vector space is an algebra over the real field, or an algebra over a ring where the split-complex numbers form the ring. This algebra was introduced by William Kingdon Clifford in an 1873 article for the London Mathematical Society. It has been repeatedly noted in mathematical literature since then, variously as a deviation in terminology, an illustration of the tensor product of algebras, and as an illustration of the direct sum of algebras.
The split-biquaternions have been identified in various ways by algebraists; see  below.

Modern definition
A split-biquaternion is ring isomorphic to the Clifford algebra Cl0,3(R).  This is the geometric algebra generated by three orthogonal imaginary unit basis directions,  under the combination rule

giving an algebra spanned by the 8 basis elements , with (e1e2)2 = (e2e3)2 = (e3e1)2 = −1 and ω2 = (e1e2e3)2 = +1.
The sub-algebra spanned by the 4 elements  is the division ring of Hamilton's quaternions, .
One can therefore see that

where  is the algebra spanned by , the algebra of the split-complex numbers.
Equivalently,

Split-biquaternion group
The split-biquaternions form an associative ring as is clear from considering multiplications in its basis . When ω is adjoined to the quaternion group one obtains a 16 element group
 ( {1, i, j, k, −1, −i, −j, −k, ω, ωi, ωj, ωk, −ω, −ωi, −ωj, −ωk}, × ).

Module
Since elements  of the quaternion group can be taken as a basis of the space of split-biquaternions, it may be compared to a vector space. But split-complex numbers form a ring, not a field, so vector space is not appropriate. Rather the space of split-biquaternions forms a free module. This standard term of ring theory expresses a similarity to a vector space, and this structure by Clifford in 1873 is an instance.  Split-biquaternions form an algebra over a ring, but not a group ring.

Direct sum of two quaternion rings
The direct sum of the division ring of quaternions with itself is denoted . The product of two elements  and  is  in this direct sum algebra.

Proposition: The algebra of split-biquaternions is isomorphic to

proof: Every split-biquaternion has an expression q = w + z ω  where w and z  are quaternions and ω2 = +1. Now if p = u + v ω is another split-biquaternion, their product is

The isomorphism mapping from split-biquaternions to  is given by

In , the product of these images, according to the algebra-product of  indicated above, is

This element is also the image of pq under the mapping into
Thus the products agree, the mapping is a homomorphism; and since it is bijective, it is an isomorphism.

Though split-biquaternions form an eight-dimensional space like Hamilton's biquaternions, on the basis of the Proposition it is apparent that this algebra splits into the direct sum of two copies of the real quaternions.

Hamilton biquaternion
The split-biquaternions should not be confused with the (ordinary) biquaternions previously introduced by William Rowan Hamilton.  Hamilton's biquaternions are elements of the algebra

Synonyms
The following terms and compounds refer to the split-biquaternion algebra:
 elliptic biquaternions – ,
 Clifford biquaternion – ,
 dyquaternions –
  where D = split-complex numbers – ,
 , the direct sum of two quaternion algebras –

See also
 Split-octonions

References

 Clifford, W.K. (1873) Preliminary Sketch of Biquaternions, pages 195–7 in Mathematical Papers via Internet Archive
 Clifford, W.K. (1882) The Classification of Geometric Algebras, page 401 in Mathematical Papers, R. Tucker editor

Clifford algebras
Historical treatment of quaternions

de:Biquaternion#Clifford Biquaternion

Split-biquaternion


The Adina Mosque is a former mosque in Malda District, West Bengal, India. It was the largest structure of its kind in the Indian subcontinent and was built during the Bengal Sultanate as a royal mosque by Sikandar Shah, who is also buried inside.  The mosque is situated in Pandua, a former royal capital.

The vast architecture is associated with the hypostyle of the Umayyad Mosque, which was used during the introduction of Islam in new areas. The early Bengal Sultanate harbored imperial ambitions after having defeated the Delhi Sultanate twice in 1353 and 1359. The Adina Mosque was commissioned in 1373. Its construction reused extra materials from pre-Islamic Hindu and Buddhist structures.

According to the List of Monuments of National Importance in West Bengal (serial no. N-WB-81) Adina Mosque is an ASI listed monument.

Design

The design of the mosque incorporated Bengali, Arab, Persian and Byzantine architecture. Although the mosque is eye-catching from far because of its size, but because of its finely precise executed designed decoration, it makes it hard to see the characteristics it holds without standing on a good distance from it. It was built with rubble masonry that was covered with brick, stone, coatings of stucco, plaster, concrete, glazing or lime smoothing. Stone flowers were integrated into the arches of the interior and exterior all around the building. Its plan is similar to the Great Mosque of Damascus. It had a rectangular hypostyle structure with an open courtyard. There were several hundred domes. The structure measured 172 by 97 m. The entire western wall evokes the imperial style of pre-Islamic Sasanian Persia. The mosque's most prominent feature is its monumental ribbed barrel vault over the central nave, the first such huge vault built in the subcontinent, and another feature shared in common with the Sassanian style. The mosque consciously imitated Persianate imperial grandeur. The prayer hall is five aisles deep, while the north, south and east cloisters around the courtyard consist of triple aisles. In total, these aisles had 260 pillars and 387 domed bays. The interior of the courtyard is a continuous façade of 92 arches surmounted by a parapet, beyond which the domes of the bays can be seen. The ornament on the building is simple, but if you look closer you can see the intensity and disciple in the engravings that have been created on the walls and arches. The interior elevated platform, which was the gallery of the Sultan and his officials, still exists. The Sultan's tomb chamber is attached with the western wall.

History

Accounts of Pandua
The mosque was built during the reign of Sikandar Shah, the second Sultan of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty of the Bengal Sultanate. The mosque was designed to display the kingdom's imperial ambitions after its two victories against the Delhi Sultanate in the 14th century. Cut off from both north India and the Middle East in the late 8th/14th and early 9th/15th centuries, Muslim Bengali monarchs enthusiastically looked far to the west for cultural inspiration. Thus, for example, the inscription on the Ādīna Mosque describes Sultan Sekandar as "the exalted Sultan, the wisest, the most just, the most liberal and most perfect of the Sultans of Arabia and Persia (ʿArab o ʿAjam)" (S. Ahmed, p. 38). A few parts of the mosque's exterior wall have carvings like elephants and dancing figures. Inscriptions on the mosque proclaimed Sikandar Shah as "the exalted Sultan" and the "Caliph of the faithful". The Sultan was buried in a tomb chamber attached to the wall facing the direction of Mecca.

The mosque was located in the historic city of Pandua, a former capital of the Bengal Sultanate. Pandua was a thriving and cosmopolitan trading center during the period of the sultanate.

Modern era
The mosque was damaged by earthquakes in the 19th century. It fell into disuse. Much of Pandua also became part of the wilderness.

Gallery

See also
Bengali architecture
Islamic architecture
Baro Shona Masjid

References

Mosques in West Bengal
Monuments of National Importance in West Bengal
Archaeological sites in West Bengal
Maldah
Former mosques in India
Bengal Sultanate mosques
Mosques completed in 1375
Adina
Tourist attractions in Malda district
Mosques converted from Hindu temples

Adina Mosque


A lightning strike is a lightning event in which the electric discharge takes place between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning. A less common type of strike, ground-to-cloud (GC) lightning, is upward-propagating lightning initiated from a tall grounded object and reaching into the clouds. About 25% of all lightning events worldwide are strikes between the atmosphere and earth-bound objects. Most are intracloud (IC) lightning and cloud-to-cloud (CC), where discharges only occur high in the atmosphere. Lightning strikes the average commercial aircraft at least once a year, but modern engineering and design means this is rarely a problem. The movement of aircraft through clouds can even cause lightning strikes.

A single lightning event is a "flash", which is a complex, multistage process, some parts of which are not fully understood. Most CG flashes only "strike" one physical location, referred to as a "termination". The primary conducting channel, the bright, coursing light that may be seen and is called a "strike", is only about one inch (ca. 2.5 cm) in diameter, but because of its extreme brilliance, it often looks much larger to the human eye and in photographs. Lightning discharges are typically miles long, but certain types of horizontal discharges can be tens of miles in length. The entire flash lasts only a fraction of a second.

Epidemiology

Lightning strikes can injure humans in several different ways:
 Direct
 Direct strike – the person is part of a flash channel. Enormous quantities of energy pass through the body very quickly, resulting in internal burns, organ damage, explosions of flesh and bone, and nervous system damage. Depending on the flash strength and access to medical services, it may be instantaneously fatal or cause permanent injury and impairment.
 Contact injury – an object (generally a conductor) that a person is touching is electrified by a strike.
 Side splash – branches of currents "jumping" from the primary flash channel, electrify the person.
 Blast injuries – being thrown and suffering blunt-force trauma from the shock wave (if very close) and possible hearing damage from the thunder.
 Indirect
 Ground current or "step potential" – Earth surface charges race towards the flash channel during discharge. Because the ground has high impedance, the current "chooses" a better conductor, often a person's legs, passing through the body. The near-instantaneous rate of discharge causes a potential (difference) over distance, which may amount to several thousand volts per linear foot. This phenomenon (also responsible for reports of mass reindeer deaths due to lightning storms) leads to more injuries and deaths than the above three combined.
 EMPs – the discharge process produces an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which may damage an artificial pacemaker, or otherwise affect normal biological processes.
 Visual artefacts may be induced in the retinas of people located within 200 m (650 ft) of a severe lightning storm.
 Secondary or resultant: Explosions, Fires, Accidents.

Warning signs of an impending strike nearby can include a crackling sound, sensations of static electricity in the hair or skin, the pungent smell of ozone, or the appearance of a blue haze around persons or objects (St. Elmo's fire). People caught in such extreme situations – without having been able to flee to a safer, fully enclosed space – are advised to assume the "lightning position", which involves "sitting or crouching with knees and feet close together to create only one point of contact with the ground" (with the feet off the ground if sitting; if a standing position is needed, the feet must be touching).

Lightning strikes can produce severe injuries in humans, and are lethal in between 10 and 30% of cases, with up to 80% of survivors sustaining long-term injuries. These severe injuries are not usually caused by thermal burns, since the current is too brief to greatly heat up tissues; instead, nerves and muscles may be directly damaged by the high voltage producing holes in their cell membranes, a process called electroporation.

In a direct strike, the electrical currents in the flash channel pass directly through the victim. The relatively high voltage drop around poorer electrical conductors (such as a human being), causes the surrounding air to ionize and break down, and the external flashover diverts most of the main discharge current so that it passes "around" the body, reducing injury.

Metallic objects in contact with the skin may "concentrate" the lightning's energy, given it is a better natural conductor and the preferred pathway, resulting in more serious injuries, such as burns from molten or evaporating metal. At least two cases have been reported where a strike victim wearing an iPod suffered more serious injuries as a result.

During a flash, though, the current flowing through the channel and around the body can generate large electromagnetic fields and EMPs, which may induce electrical transients (surges) within the nervous system or pacemaker of the heart, upsetting normal operations. This effect might explain cases where cardiac arrest or seizures followed a lightning strike that produced no external injuries. It may also point to the victim not being directly struck at all, but just being very close to the strike termination.

Another effect of lightning on bystanders is to their hearing. The resulting shock wave of thunder can damage the ears. Also, electrical interference to telephones or headphones may result in damaging acoustic noise.

According to the CDC there are about 6,000 lightning strikes per minute, or more than 8 million strikes every day.
As of 2008 there were about 240,000 "lightning strikes incidents" around the world each year.

According to National Geographic in 2009, about 2,000 people were killed annually worldwide by lightning. If all eight billion humans have an equal chance of being killed over a 70-year lifespan, this gives a lifetime probability of about 1 in 60,000. However, due to increased awareness and improved lightning conductors and protection, the number of annual lightning deaths has been decreasing steadily year by year.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2012, over the twenty years to 2012 the United States averaged 51 annual lightning strike fatalities, making it the second-most frequent cause of weather-related death after floods. In the US, as of 1999, between 9 and 10% of those struck died, with an annual average of 25 deaths in the 2010s decade (16 in 2017).

In the United States in the period 2009 to 2018 an average of 27 lightning fatalities occurred per year. In the United States an average of 23 people died from lightning per year from 2012 to 2021. Some people suffer from lifelong brain injuries.

As of 2005, in Kisii, Kenya, some 30 people die each year from lightning strikes. Kisii's high rate of lightning fatalities occurs because of the frequency of thunderstorms and because many of the area's structures have metal roofs.

These statistics do not reflect the difference between direct strikes, where the victim was part of the lightning pathway, indirect effects of being close to the termination point, such as ground currents, and resultant, where the casualty arose from subsequent events, such as fires or explosions. Even the most knowledgeable first responders may not recognize a lightning-related injury, let alone particulars, which a medical examiner, police investigator, or on the rare occasion a trained lightning expert may have difficulty identifying to record accurately.

As of 2013, direct-strike casualties could be much higher than reported numbers.
In 2015 it was reported that between five and ten deaths from lightning occur in Australia every year with over 100 injuries occurring.

In 2018, it was reported that "a direct strike accounts for only 3 to 5 per cent of all injuries and death, while ground currents, which spread out over the ground after lightning strikes, account for up to 50 per cent... ...Where the lightning strikes the ground, the ground becomes highly electrified and if you're within that area of ground electrification..." you can receive an electrical shock from the lightning.
As of 2021, it has been reported that "30-60 people are struck by lightning each year in Britain, and on average, 3 (5-10%) of these strikes are fatal."
In 2021, it was estimated that "...one in four people struck by lightning were sheltering under trees."

Effect on nature

Impact on vegetation

Trees are frequent conductors of lightning to the ground. Since sap is a relatively poor conductor, its electrical resistance causes it to be heated explosively into steam, which blows off the bark outside the lightning's path. In following seasons, trees overgrow the damaged area and may cover it completely, leaving only a vertical scar. If the damage is severe, the tree may not be able to recover, and decay sets in, eventually killing the tree.

In sparsely populated areas such as the Russian Far East and Siberia, lightning strikes are one of the major causes of forest fires. The smoke and mist expelled by a very large forest fire can cause secondary lightning strikes, starting additional fires many kilometers downwind.

Shattering of rocks

When water in fractured rock is rapidly heated by a lightning strike, the resulting steam explosion can cause rock disintegration and shift boulders. It may be a significant factor in erosion of tropical and subtropical mountains that have never been glaciated. Evidence of lightning strikes includes erratic magnetic fields.

Electrical and structural damage

Telephones, modems, computers, and other electronic devices can be damaged by lightning, as harmful overcurrent can reach them through the phone jack, Ethernet cable, or electricity outlet. Close strikes can also generate EMPs, especially during "positive" lightning discharges.

Lightning currents have a very fast rise time, on the order of 40 kA per microsecond. Hence, although lightning is a form of direct current, conductors of such currents exhibit marked skin effect as with an alternating current, causing most of the currents to flow through the outer surface of the conductor.

In addition to electrical wiring damage, the other types of possible damage to consider include structural, fire, and property damage.

Prevention and mitigations
The field of lightning-protection systems is an enormous industry worldwide due to the impacts lightning can have on the constructs and activities of humankind. Lightning, as varied in properties measured across orders of magnitude as it is, can cause direct effects or have secondary impacts; lead to the complete destruction of a facility or process or simply cause the failure of a remote electronic sensor; it can result in outdoor activities being halted for safety concerns to employees as a thunderstorm nears an area and until it has sufficiently passed; it can ignite volatile commodities stored in large quantities or interfere with the normal operation of a piece of equipment at critical periods of time.

Most lightning-protection devices and systems protect physical structures on the earth, aircraft in flight being the notable exception. While some attention has been paid to attempting to control lightning in the atmosphere, all attempts proved extremely limited in success. Chaff and silver iodide crystal concepts were devised to deal directly with the cloud cells, and were dispensed directly into the clouds from an overflying aircraft. The chaff was devised to deal with the electrical manifestations of the storm from within, while the silver iodide salting technique was devised to deal with the mechanical forces of the storm.

Protection systems

Hundreds of devices, including lightning rods and charge transfer systems, are used to mitigate lightning damage and influence the path of a lightning flash.

A lightning rod (or lightning protector) is a metal strip or rod connected to earth through conductors and a grounding system, used to provide a preferred pathway to ground if lightning terminates on a structure. The class of these products is often called a "finial" or "air terminal". A lightning rod or "Franklin rod" in honor of its famous inventor, Benjamin Franklin, is simply a metal rod, and without being connected to the lightning protection system, as was sometimes the case in the past, will provide no added protection to a structure. Other names include "lightning conductor", "arrester", and "discharger"; however, over the years these names have been incorporated into other products or industries with a stake in lightning protection. Lightning arrester, for example, often refers to fused links that explode when a strike occurs to a high-voltage overhead power line to protect the more expensive transformers down the line by opening the circuit. In reality, it was an early form of a heavy duty surge-protection device. Modern arresters, constructed with metal oxides, are capable of safely shunting abnormally high voltage surges to ground while preventing normal system voltages from being shorted to ground.

In 1962, the USAF placed protective lightning strike-diversion tower arrays at all of the Italian and Turkish Jupiter MRBM nuclear armed missiles sites after two strikes partially arming the missiles.

Monitoring and warning systems

The exact location of a lightning strike and when it will occur are still impossible to predict. However, products and systems have been designed of varying complexities to alert people as the probability of a strike increases above a set level determined by a risk assessment for the location's conditions and circumstances. One significant improvement has been in the area of detection of flashes through both ground- and satellite-based observation devices. The strikes and atmospheric flashes are not predicted, but the level of detail recorded by these technologies has vastly improved in the past 20 years.

Although commonly associated with thunderstorms at close range, lightning strikes can occur on a day that seems devoid of clouds. This occurrence is known as "a bolt from the blue [sky]"; lightning can strike up to 10 miles from a cloud.

Lightning interferes with amplitude modulation (AM) radio signals much more than frequency modulation (FM) signals, providing an easy way to gauge local lightning strike intensity. To do so, one should tune a standard AM medium wave receiver to a frequency with no transmitting stations, and listen for crackles among the static. Stronger or nearby lightning strikes will also cause cracking if the receiver is tuned to a station. As lower frequencies propagate further along the ground than higher ones, the lower medium wave (MW) band frequencies (in the 500–600 kHz range) can detect lightning strikes at longer distances; if the longwave band (153–279 kHz) is available, using it can increase this range even further.

Lightning-detection systems have been developed and may be deployed in locations where lightning strikes present special risks, such as public parks. Such systems are designed to detect the conditions which are believed to favor lightning strikes and provide a warning to those in the vicinity to allow them to take appropriate cover.

Personal safety

The U.S. National Lightning Safety Institute advises American citizens to have a plan for their safety when a thunderstorm occurs and to commence it as soon as the first lightning is seen or thunder heard. This is important, as lightning can strike without rain actually falling. If thunder can be heard at all, then a risk of lightning exists.

The National Lightning Safety Institute also recommends using the F-B (flash to boom) method to gauge distance to a lightning strike. The flash of a lightning strike and resulting thunder occur at roughly the same time. But light travels 300,000 km/sec, almost a million times the speed of sound. Sound travels at the slower speed of about 340 m/sec (depending on the temperature), so the flash of lightning is seen before thunder is heard. A method to determine the distance between lightning strike and viewer involves counting the seconds between the lightning flash and thunder. Then, dividing by three to determine the distance in kilometers, or by five for miles. Immediate precautions against lightning should be taken if the F-B time is 25 seconds or less, that is, if the lightning is closer than 8 km or 5 miles.

A 2014 report suggested that whether a person was standing up, squatting, or lying down when outside during a thunderstorm does not matter, because lightning can travel along the ground; this report suggested  being inside a solid structure or vehicle was safest.

The riskiest activities include fishing, boating, camping, and golf. A person injured by lightning does not carry an electrical charge, and can be safely handled to apply first aid before emergency services arrive. Lightning can affect the brainstem, which controls breathing.

Several studies conducted in South Asia and Africa suggest that the dangers of lightning are not taken sufficiently seriously there. A research team from the University of Colombo found that even in neighborhoods that had experienced deaths from lightning, no precautions were taken against future storms. An expert forum convened in 2007 to address how to raise awareness of lightning and improve lightning-protection standards, and expressed concern that many countries had no official standards for the installation of lightning rods.

Safety measures

 Do not be next to a high object such as a tree or near metal objects like poles and fences.
 Do not take shelter in car ports, open garages, covered patios, picnic shelters, beach pavilions, tents, sheds, greenhouses, golf shelters and baseball dugouts.
 Take shelter in a building or a vehicle. It was reported that "The steel frame of a hard topped vehicle can protect you from lightning..." and to "avoid using electronic equipment inside the car and avoid touching anything metal."
 If inside a building, avoid electrical equipment and plumbing including taking a shower.
 Risk remains for up to 30 minutes after the last observed lightning or thunder.
 It has been reported that "If you are on water, get to the shore and off wide, open beaches as quickly as possible as water will transmit strikes from further away. Studies have shown that proximity to water is a common factor in lightning strikes."
 It has been reported that "If you do not have anywhere to go, then you should make for the lowest possible ground like a valley or ravine."
 Do not huddle up "...with other people in a group — spread out from your friends as much as you can."
 If your hair stands on end, lightning is about to strike you or in your vicinity. Get indoors as fast as possible. If not, drop to your knees and bend forward but don't lie flat on the ground. You may also feel a tingling sensation of static electricity on your skin.

Notable incidents

All events associated or suspected of causing damage are called "lightning incidents" due to four important factors.
 Forensic evidence of a lightning termination, in the best investigated examples, are minuscule (a pit in metal smaller than a pen point) or inconclusive (dark coloration).
 The object struck may explode or subsequent fires destroy all of the little evidence that may have been available immediately after the strike itself.
 The flash channel and discharge itself are not the only causes of injury, ignition, or damages, i.e., ground currents or explosions of flammables.
 Human sensory acuity is not as fine as that of the milliseconds in duration of a lightning flash, and people's ability to observe this event is subject to the brain's inability to comprehend it. Lightning-detection systems are coming online, both satellite and land-based, but their accuracy is still measured in the hundreds to thousands of feet, rarely allowing them to pinpoint the exact location of the termination.
As such it is often inconclusive, albeit highly probable a lightning flash was involved, hence categorizing it as a "lightning incident" covers all bases.

Earth-bound

 1660s: In 1660, lightning ignited the gunpowder magazine at Osaka Castle, Japan; the resultant explosion set the castle on fire. In 1665, lightning again terminated on the main tower of the castle, igniting a fire, which subsequently burned it to its foundation.
 1769: A particularly deadly lightning incident occurred in Brescia, Italy. Lightning struck the Church of St. Nazaire, igniting the 90 tonnes of gunpowder in its vaults; the resulting explosion killed 3,000 people and destroyed a sixth of the city.
 1901: 11 killed and one was paralyzed below the hips by a strike in Chicago.
 1902: A lightning strike damaged the upper section of the Eiffel Tower, requiring the reconstruction of its top.
 1970 July 12: The central mast of the Orlunda radio transmitter in central Sweden collapsed after a lightning strike destroyed its foundation insulator.
 1980 June 30: A lightning incident killed 11 pupils in Biego primary school in Kenya in present-day Nyamira County. Another 50 pupils were injured, while others were left traumatized.
 1994 November 2: A lightning incident led to the explosion of fuel tanks in Durunka, Egypt, causing 469 fatalities.
 2005 October 31: Sixty-eight dairy cows died on a farm at Fernbrook on the Waterfall Way near Dorrigo, New South Wales, after being involved in a lightning incident. Three others were temporarily paralyzed for several hours, later making a full recovery. The cows were sheltering near a tree when it was struck by lightning. Soil resistivity is generally higher than that of animal tissue. When immense amounts of energy are released into the soil, just the few meters up an animal's leg, through its body and down other legs can present a markedly reduced resistance to electrical current and a proportionally higher amount will flow through the animal than the soil on which it is standing. This phenomenon, called ground-potential rise, can cause significant and damaging electrical shock, enough to kill large animals.
 2007 July: A lightning incident killed up to 30 people when it struck Ushari Dara, a remote mountain village in northwestern Pakistan.
 2011 June 8: A lightning strike sent 77 Air Force cadets to the hospital when it struck in the middle of a training camp at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
 2013 February: Nine South African children were hospitalized after a lightning incident occurred on a cricket field at their school, injuring five children on the pitch and four girls who were walking home.
 2016 May–June: Rock am Ring festival near Frankfurt was cancelled after at least 80 people were injured due to lightning in the area. Additionally, 11 children in France and three adults in Germany were injured and one man killed in southern Poland around the same dates.
 2016 August 26: A herd of wild reindeer was struck on the Hardangervidda in central Norway, killing 323. Norwegian Environment Agency spokesman Kjartan Knutsen said it had never heard of such a death toll before. He said he did not know if multiple strikes occurred, but that they all died in "one moment".
 2017: The first live recording of a lightning strike on a cardiac rhythm strip occurred in a teenaged male who had an implanted loop recorder as a cardiac monitor for neurocardiogenic syncope.
2018: A lightning strike killed at least 16 people and injured dozens more at a Seventh-Day Adventist church in Rwanda.
2021: A lightning strike killed a 9-year-old boy in a field in Blackpool, England.
2021: In April, at least 76 people across India were killed by lightning strike on a single weekend; 23 people died on the watchtower of Amer Fort, a popular tourist spot in Rajasthan, and 42 were killed in  Uttar Pradesh with the highest toll of 14 happening in the city of Allahabad. Lastly, 11 were killed in Madhya Pradesh with two of them killed while sheltering under trees when they were tending sheep.
2021: On August 4, 17 people were killed by a single lightning strike in Shibganj Upazila of Chapainawabganj district in Bangladesh; 16 people died on the spot and the other one died by heart attack while seeing the others.
2022: On August 4, 3 people were killed and another person was injured after lightning struck a tree in Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C.
2022: On August 5, lightning struck a fuel tank at an oil storage facility in Matanzas, causing a fire and a series of explosions that resulted in at least one death and up to 125 injuries. In addition, 17 firefighters were reported missing.
2022: On August 18, a woman was killed and two people hospitalized after lightning struck a tree in Winter Springs, Florida.
 2023: On September 18, a Mexican tourist and a local hamac salesman were struck and killed by a lightning bolt on a beach in Michoacán, Mexico. https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/09/19/65098666268e3ebe768b4582.html

In-flight
Airplanes are commonly struck by lightning without damage, with the typical commercial aircraft hit at least once a year. Sometimes, though, the effects of a strike are serious.
 1963 December 8: Pan Am Flight 214 crashed outside Elkton, Maryland, during a severe electrical storm, with a loss of all 81 passengers and crew. The Boeing 707-121, registered as N709PA, was on the final leg of a San Juan–Baltimore–Philadelphia flight.
 1969 November 14: The Apollo 12 mission's Saturn V rocket and its ionized exhaust plume became part of a lightning flash channel 36.5 seconds after lift-off. Although the discharge occurred "through" the metal skin and framework of the vehicle, it did not ignite the rocket's highly combustible fuel.
 1971 December 24: LANSA Flight 508, a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop, registered OB-R-941, operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA), crashed after a lightning strike ignited a fuel tank while it was en route from Lima, Peru, to Pucallpa, Peru, killing 91 people – all of its 6 crew-members and 85 of its 86 passengers. The sole survivor was Juliane Koepcke, who fell  down into the Amazon rainforest strapped to her seat and remarkably survived the fall, and was then able to walk through the jungle for 10 days until she was rescued by local fishermen.
 2012 November 4: a plane was reported as exploding off the coast of Herne Bay, Kent, while in flight. This did not turn out to be the case; rather, the plane became part of the flash channel, causing observers to report the plane and surrounding sky appeared bright pink.
 2019 May 5: Aeroflot Flight 1492, a Sukhoi Superjet 100, was, according to the flight captain, struck by lightning on take-off, damaging electrical systems and forcing the pilots to attempt an emergency landing. The plane hit the ground hard and caught on fire, which engulfed the plane on the runway. Of the 78 people on board, 41 were killed.

Most-stricken human

 Roy Sullivan national park ranger, died  1983, holds a Guinness World Record after surviving seven different lightning strikes. He had multiple injuries across his body.

Longest lightning bolt
A 2020 lightning bolt across the southern United States set the record for the longest lightning bolt ever detected. The bolt stretched for 477 miles (768 kilometers) over Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, although it was between clouds and did not strike the ground. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed its record-breaking status in January 2022.

See also
 Fulgurites are a CG lightning discharge event that can produce "petrified lightning", demonstrating the enormous amount of energy transferred by lightning column.
 Geomagnetically induced currents  are phenomena related to space radiation, causing transients and electrical irregularities that impact electrical and data-transmission systems on a broad scale.
 Keraunopathy is the medical study of lightning casualties and associated treatment.

References

External links
 When lightning strikes people -NASA 1999
 Lightning Safety Page – National Weather Service Pueblo Colorado - 2018
 Video footage - A Beech tree (Fagus sylvatica) that has been hit by lightning.

Lightning

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Lightning strike


Jonathan Blair Hensleigh (born February 13, 1959) is an American screenwriter and film director, working primarily in the action-adventure genre, best known for writing films such as Jumanji, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Armageddon, as well as making his own directorial debut with the 2004 comic book action film The Punisher.

Early life
Hensleigh graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1981 with a degree in history. He attended the University of Virginia School of Law, received his J.D. from Tulane University Law School, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1985. Before moving into writing, he worked as an attorney for seven years.

At the age of 31, Hensleigh began writing scripts and screenplays. He had previously written a novel and a three-act stage play but did not go to film school.

Movie career
Hensleigh's start in the entertainment industry came writing episodes of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He received his first film credit in 1993's A Far Off Place, for which he wrote an early version of the script. His next two projects were Die Hard with a Vengeance and Jumanji, both of which were released in 1995. The Die Hard sequel was based on a spec script Hensleigh had originally conceived as a Brandon Lee action film before the actor's death, with the working title Simon Says. The script was considered for the fourth installment of the Lethal Weapon series before being picked up for Die Hard.

Hensleigh participated in writing for The Rock, which became the subject of a dispute with the Writers Guild of America. In this case, the spec script (by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook) was reworked by several writers, but other than the original team, Mark Rosner was the only one granted official credit by guild arbitration. Despite their work on the script, neither Hensleigh nor Aaron Sorkin were credited in the film. The director Michael Bay wrote an open letter of protest, in which he criticized the arbitration procedure as a "sham" and a "travesty". He said Hensleigh had worked closely with him on the movie and should have received screen credit.

Hensleigh worked with Bay again on the 1998 disaster film Armageddon, and officially received credit for the screenplay. He helped rewrite scripts for the Jerry Bruckheimer projects, Con Air (1997) and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), receiving executive producer credit for those.

Hensleigh made his debut as a director with The Punisher in 2004, with the assistance of his wife, veteran Hollywood producer Gale Anne Hurd. He co-wrote the script with Michael France, based on the Marvel Comics character The Punisher. The film was shot on a tight schedule and with a relatively small budget.

At one point, he was set to write and direct Hulk, working on pre-production of that film for a year before pulling out. Some unrealized projects Hensleigh has worked on include a Gemini Man film and sequels to Jumanji and The Punisher. As of October 3, 2008, Hensleigh was developing the series Red Mars, which is based on the novel of the same name for AMC.

In 2011, Hensleigh wrote and directed Kill the Irishman, based on the book To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia, about the Cleveland mobster Danny Greene who was active in the 1960s and 1970s.

Filmography

Executive producer
 Con Air (1997)
 Armageddon (1998)
 Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Uncredited writing works
 The Rock (1996)
 Con Air (1997)
 Virus (1999)
 Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
 Gemini Man (2019)

References

External links

Newsarama interview with Jonathan Hensleigh
New York Times Filmography
Hensleigh's Massachusetts Bar record

1959 births
American people of Irish descent
American male screenwriters
American television writers
Film producers from Massachusetts
Living people
People from Middlesex County, Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni
Tulane University Law School alumni
Massachusetts lawyers
American male television writers
University of Virginia School of Law alumni
Film directors from Massachusetts
Screenwriters from Massachusetts

Jonathan Hensleigh


Novelists, screenwriters and filmmakers have set their works in Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic which is the northernmost part of Norway. Fictional works about Svalbard often make reference to its Arctic climate, the isolation of the archipelago and the natural beauty of its vast glaciers, mountains and fjords.

Novels

North of Danger, by Dale Hollerbach Fife, is a World War II story about a 12-year-old boy living in Svalbard who has to hide in a coal mine to avoid being captured by the Nazi invaders. The Commonwealth Club of California called North of Danger the best juvenile book of 1978. Bear Island is a 1971 thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. It is about a movie crew who travels to Svalbard. When the group arrives in Svalbard, members of the crew start to get killed.

The Norwegian crime writer and glacier expert Monica Kristensen has written a novel set in Svalbard entitled Operation Fritham. The novel tells the story of a group of World War II veterans who meet in Svalbard to remember Operation Fritham. This was a 1942 Norwegian military operation which aimed to capture the coal mines so that Nazi Germany could not use the coal. The elderly soldiers do not realize that one member of the group is an not really an old soldier. One person is a murderer who is pretending to be a veteran. The head of the Svalbard police force has to solve the mystery.

Dark Matter, by Michelle Paver, is a ghost story set in 1937 in a lonely bay in Svalbard. A group of scientists go to Svalbard and prepare to spend the winter in an old mining camp. However, they discover that there is some scary person or creature hiding in the ice.

Svalbard is the home of the armored polar bears in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy of books. This  trilogy of fantasy novels form an epic that includes Northern Lights (1995, published as The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). It follows the story of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry. The three novels have won awards, including the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year prize, won by The Amber Spyglass.  Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995.  The won third place in the BBC's Big Read poll in 2003. The story involves fantasy story parts such as witches and armoured polar bears.

Neige Noir ("Black Snow") is a 1974 novel by Canadian author Hubert Aquin about a newly married Montreal couple who travel to Svalbard. The Svalbard Passage by Thomas Kirkwood is a thriller set in the US, Norway and Svalbard during the Cold War.

The Solitude Of Thomas Cave, by Georgina Harding, is a novel about a sailor who spends a whole winter in Svalbard. A review states that the "descriptions of scenery are outstanding".

Films
Filmmaker Knut Erik Jensen made three short films about Svalbard: Svalbard in the World (1983), Cold World (1986) and My World (1987). This Svalbard trilogy has been called "an artistic peak" for him. The Norwegian film Orion's Belt (1985) (Orions belte was the original title) is set in Svalbard. The film, which was directed by Ola Solum, shows the white icebergs and mountain ranges. It was one of the two 1980s Norwegian films which "...found large audiences...internationally". The 1998 Belgian-Dutch-German movie When the Light Comes is set in Svalbard.

References

Norwegian culture
Fiction

Svalbard in fiction