Mount Vesuvius ( ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about  east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera, resulting from the collapse of an earlier, much higher structure.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae, and several other settlements. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of , erupting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of  per second. More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption, though the exact toll is unknown. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.

Vesuvius has erupted many times since. It is the only volcano on Europe's mainland to have erupted in the last hundred years. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because 3,000,000 people live near enough to be affected by an eruption, with at least 600,000 in the danger zone. This is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. Eruptions tend to be violent and explosive; these are known as Plinian eruptions.

Mythology
Vesuvius has a long historic and literary tradition. It was considered a divinity of the Genius type at the time of the eruption of AD 79: it appears under the inscribed name Vesuvius as a serpent in the decorative frescos of many , or household shrines, surviving from Pompeii. An inscription from Capua to  indicates that he was worshipped as a power of Jupiter; that is, Jupiter Vesuvius.

The Romans regarded Mount Vesuvius as being devoted to Hercules. The historian Diodorus Siculus relates a tradition that Hercules, in the performance of his labors, passed through the country of nearby Cumae on his way to Sicily and found there a place called "the Phlegraean Plain" (Φλεγραῖον πεδίον, "plain of fire"), "from a hill which anciently vomited out fire ... now called Vesuvius." It was inhabited by giant bandits, "the sons of the Earth. With the gods' assistance, he pacified the region and continued. The facts behind the tradition, if any, remain unknown, as does whether  was named after it. An epigram by the poet Martial in 88 AD suggests that both Venus, patroness of Pompeii, and Hercules were worshipped in the region devastated by the eruption of 79.

Etymology
 was a name of the volcano in frequent use by the authors of the late Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. Its collateral forms were , ,  and . Writers in ancient Greek used  or . Many scholars since then have offered an etymology. Given that peoples of varying ethnicity and language occupied Campania during the Roman Iron Age, the etymology depends to a large degree on the presumption of what language was spoken there at the time. Naples was settled by Greeks, as the name , "New City", testifies. The Oscans, an Italic people, lived in the countryside. The Latins also competed for the occupation of Campania. Etruscan settlements were in the vicinity. Other peoples of unknown provenance are said to have been there at some time by various ancient authors.

Some theories about its origin are:
 From Greek  = "not" prefixed to a root from or related to the Greek word  = "I quench", in the sense of "unquenchable".
 From Greek  = "I hurl" and  "violence", "hurling violence", *vesbia, taking advantage of the collateral form.
 From an Indo-European root, *eus- < *ewes- < *h₁ews-, "shine", "burn", sense "the one who lightens", through Latin or
 From an Indo-European root *wes = "hearth" (compare e.g. Vesta)

Topography

Vesuvius is a "humpbacked" peak, consisting of a large cone (Gran Cono) partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier (and originally much higher) structure called Mount Somma. The Gran Cono was produced during the A.D. 79 eruption. For this reason, the volcano is also called Somma-Vesuvius or Somma-Vesuvio.

The caldera started forming during an eruption around 17,000–18,000 years ago and was enlarged by later paroxysmal eruptions, ending in the one of AD 79. This structure has given its name to the term "somma volcano", which describes any volcano with a summit caldera surrounding a newer cone.

The cliffs forming the northern ridge of Monte Somma's caldera rim reach a maximum height of  at Punta Nasone. The summit of the main cone of Vesuvius is  above sea level and more than  above the  long valley of Atrio di Cavallo (the northern floor of Monte Somma's caldera).

The volcano's slopes are scarred by lava flows, while the rest are heavily vegetated, with scrub and forests at higher altitudes and vineyards lower down.

Formation

Vesuvius is a stratovolcano and was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted at a convergent boundary beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the African oceanic plate were pushed to hotter depths inside the planet, the water boiled off and lowered the melting point of the upper mantle enough to partially melt the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak spot at the Earth's surface, it broke through, thus forming the volcano.

The volcano is one of several forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Others include Campi Flegrei, a large caldera a few kilometers to the north-west, Ischia, a volcanic island  to the west, and several undersea volcanoes to the south. The arc forms the southern end of a larger chain of volcanoes produced by the subduction process described above, which extends northwest along the length of Italy as far as Monte Amiata in Southern Tuscany. Vesuvius is the only one to have erupted in recent history, although some of the others have erupted within the last few hundred years. Many are either extinct or have not erupted for tens of thousands of years.

Eruptions

Mount Vesuvius has erupted many times. Numerous others preceded the eruption in AD 79 in prehistory, including at least three significantly larger; an example is the Avellino eruption around 1800 BC, which engulfed several Bronze Age settlements. Since AD 79, the volcano has also erupted repeatedly, in 172, 203, 222, possibly in 303, 379, 472, 512, 536, 685, 787, around 860, around 900, 968, 991, 999, 1006, 1037, 1049, around 1073, 1139, 1150, and there may have been eruptions in 1270, 1347, and 1500.
The volcano erupted again in 1631, six times in the 18th century (including 1779 and 1794), eight times in the 19th century (notably in 1872), and in 1906, 1929 and 1944. There have been no eruptions since 1944, and none of the eruptions after AD 79 were as large or destructive as the Pompeian one.

The eruptions vary greatly in severity but are characterized by explosive outbursts of the kind dubbed Plinian after Pliny the Younger, a Roman writer who published a detailed description of the AD 79 eruption, including his uncle's death. On occasion, eruptions from Vesuvius have been so large that the whole of southern Europe has been blanketed by ash; in 472 and 1631, Vesuvian ash fell on Constantinople (Istanbul), over  away. A few times since 1944, landslides in the crater have raised clouds of ash dust, raising false alarms of an eruption.

Since 1750, seven of the eruptions of Vesuvius have had durations of more than five years; only Mount Etna has had as many long-duration eruptions in the last 270 years. The two most recent eruptions of Vesuvius (1875–1906 and 1913–1944) each lasted more than 30 years.

Vesuvius is still regarded as an active volcano, although its current activity produces little more than sulfur-rich steam from vents at the bottom and walls of the crater.

Layers of lava, ash, scoria and pumice make up the volcanic peak. Their mineralogy is variable, but generally silica-undersaturated and rich in potassium, with phonolite produced in the more explosive eruptions (e.g. the eruption in 1631 displaying a complete stratigraphic and petrographic description: phonolite was firstly erupted, followed by a tephritic phonolite and finally a phonolitic tephrite).

Volcanic explosivity index
According to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, Vesuvius has had 54 confirmed eruptions during the Holocene Epoch (the last 11,700 years). A volcanic explosivity index (VEI) has been assigned to all but one of these eruptions.

Before AD 79

Scientific knowledge of the geologic history of Vesuvius comes from core samples taken from a  plus borehole on the flanks of the volcano, extending into Mesozoic rock. Cores were dated by potassium–argon and argon–argon dating. The area has been subject to volcanic activity for at least 400,000 years; the lowest layer of eruption material from the Somma caldera lies on top of the 40,000-year‑old Campanian ignimbrite produced by the Campi Flegrei complex. The volcanic complex stands on a large, sedimentary plain.
25,000 years ago: Vesuvius started forming in the Codola Plinian eruption.
Vesuvius was then built up by a series of lava flows, with some smaller explosive eruptions interspersed between them. By this time, the volcano was 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) tall, with the summit being 500 meters (1,640 feet) east of the current summit.
About 19,000 years ago: the style of eruption changed to a sequence of large explosive and caldera-forming Plinian eruptions, of which the AD 79 one was the most recent. The calderas are aligned in a roughly east-west direction, and all contributed to forming present-day's Somma caldera. The eruptions are named after the tephra deposits produced by them, which in turn are named after the place where the deposits were first identified:
 18,300 years ago: the Basal Pumice (Pomici di Base) eruption, VEI 6, the original formation of the Somma caldera. The caldera's formation was asymmetric towards the west. The eruption was followed by a period of much less violent, lava-producing eruptions.
 16,000 years ago: the Green Pumice (Pomici Verdoline) eruption, VEI 5.
 Around 11,000 years ago: the Lagno Amendolare eruption, smaller than the Mercato eruption.
 8,000 years ago: the Mercato eruption (Pomici di Mercato) – also known as Pomici Gemelle or Pomici Ottaviano, VEI 6.
 Around 5,000 years ago: two explosive eruptions smaller than the Avellino eruption.
 3,800 years ago (19th century BC): the Avellino eruption (Pomici di Avellino), VEI 6; its vent was apparently  west of the current crater and the eruption destroyed several Bronze Age settlements of the Apennine culture, including ancient Afragola. Several carbon dates on wood and bones offer a range of possible dates of about 500 years in the mid-2nd millennium BC. In May 2001, near Nola, Italian archaeologists using the technique of filling every cavity with plaster or substitute compound, recovered some remarkably well-preserved forms of perishable objects, such as fence rails, a bucket and especially in the vicinity, thousands of human footprints pointing into the Apennines to the north. The settlement had huts, pots and goats. The residents had hastily abandoned the village, leaving it to be buried under pumice and ash in much the same way that Pompeii and Herculaneum were later preserved. Pyroclastic surge deposits were distributed to the northwest of the vent, travelling as far as  from it, and lie up to  deep in the area now occupied by Naples.
 The volcano then entered a stage of more frequent, but less violent eruptions, until the most recent Plinian eruption, which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Evidence of these eruptions comes from badly preserved ashfall deposits that have been dubitatively assigned to Either the Somma-Vesuvius complex, or the Phlegrean fields.
 The last of these may have been in 217 BC. There were earthquakes in Italy during that year and the sun was reported as being dimmed by gray haze or dry fog. Plutarch wrote of the sky being on fire near Naples, and Silius Italicus mentioned in his epic poem Punica that Vesuvius had thundered and produced flames worthy of Mount Etna in that year. However, both authors were writing around 250 years later. Greenland ice core samples of around that period show relatively high acidity, which is assumed to have been caused by atmospheric hydrogen sulfide.

 The volcano was then quiet (for 295 years, if the 217 BC date for the last previous eruption is true) and was described by Roman writers as having been covered with gardens and vineyards, except at the top, which was craggy. The volcano may have had only one summit at that time, judging by a wall painting, "Bacchus and Vesuvius", found in a Pompeian house, the House of the Centenary (Casa del Centenario).
Several surviving works written over the 200 years preceding the AD 79 eruption describe the mountain as having had a volcanic nature, although Pliny the Elder did not depict the mountain in this way in his Natural History:
 The Greek historian Strabo () described the mountain in Book V, Chapter 4 of his Geographica as having a predominantly flat, barren summit covered with sooty, ash-coloured rocks, and suggested that it might once have had "craters of fire". He also perceptively suggested that the fertility of the surrounding slopes may be due to volcanic activity, as at Mount Etna.
 In Book II of , the architect Vitruvius ( –?) reported that fires had once existed abundantly below the peak and that it had spouted fire onto the surrounding fields. He described Pompeiian pumice as having been burnt from another species of stone.
 Diodorus Siculus (), another Greek writer, wrote in Book IV of his Bibliotheca Historica that the Campanian plain was called fiery (Phlegrean) because of the peak, Vesuvius, which had spouted flames like Etna and showed signs of the fire that had burnt in ancient history.

Eruption of AD 79

In AD 79, Vesuvius erupted in one of the most catastrophic eruptions of all time. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet. Several dates are given in the surviving copies of the letters. The latest evidence supports earlier findings and indicates that the eruption occurred after 17 October.

The volcano ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of , spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of  per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by pyroclastic surges and the ruins buried under tens of metres of tephra.

Precursors and foreshocks
The AD 79 eruption was preceded by a powerful earthquake in 62, which caused widespread destruction around the Bay of Naples, and particularly to Pompeii. Some of the damage had still not been repaired when the volcano erupted. The deaths of 600 sheep from "tainted air" in the vicinity of Pompeii indicates that the earthquake of AD 62 may have been related to new activity by Vesuvius.

The Romans grew accustomed to minor earth tremors in the region; the writer Pliny the Younger even wrote that they "were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania". Small earthquakes started taking place four days before the eruption becoming more frequent over the next four days, but the warnings were not recognized.

Scientific analysis

Reconstructions of the eruption and its effects vary considerably in the details but have the same overall features. The eruption lasted two days. The morning of the first day was perceived as normal by the only eyewitness to leave a surviving document, Pliny the Younger. In the middle of the day, an explosion threw up a high-altitude column from which ash and pumice began to fall, blanketing the area. Rescues and escapes occurred during this time. At some time in the night or early the next day, pyroclastic surges in the close vicinity of the volcano began. Lights were seen on the peak, interpreted as fires. People as far away as Misenum fled for their lives. The flows were rapid-moving, dense and very hot, knocking down, wholly or partly, all structures in their path, incinerating or suffocating all population remaining there and altering the landscape, including the coastline. Additional light tremors accompanied these and a mild tsunami in the Bay of Naples. By late afternoon of the second day, the eruption was over, leaving only haze in the atmosphere through which the sun shone weakly.

The latest scientific studies of the ash produced by Vesuvius reveal a multi-phase eruption. The initial major explosion produced a column of ash and pumice ranging between  high, which rained on Pompeii to the southeast but not on Herculaneum upwind. The chief energy supporting the column came from the escape of steam superheated by the magma, created from seawater seeping over time into the deep faults of the region, which interacted with magma.

Subsequently, the cloud collapsed as the gases expanded and lost their capability to support their solid contents, releasing it as a pyroclastic surge, which first reached Herculaneum but not Pompeii. Additional blasts reinstituted the column. The eruption alternated between Plinian and Peléan six times. Surges 3 and 4 are believed by the authors to have buried Pompeii. Surges are identified in the deposits by dune and cross-bedding formations, which are not produced by fallout.

Another study used the magnetic characteristics of over 200 samples of roof-tile and plaster fragments collected around Pompeii to estimate the equilibrium temperature of the pyroclastic flow. The magnetic study revealed that on the first day of the eruption a fall of white pumice containing clastic fragments of up to  fell for several hours. It heated the roof tiles up to . This period would have been the last opportunity to escape.

The collapse of the Plinian columns on the second day caused pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) that devastated Herculaneum and Pompeii. The depositional temperature of these pyroclastic surges reached up to . Any population remaining in structural refuges could not have escaped, as gases of incinerating temperatures surrounded the city. The lowest temperatures were in rooms under collapsed roofs, a t approx .

The two Plinys
The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus. Pliny the Younger describes, amongst other things, the last days in the life of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Observing the first volcanic activity from Misenum across the Bay of Naples from the volcano, approximately , the elder Pliny launched a rescue fleet and went himself to the rescue of a personal friend. His nephew declined to join the party. One of the nephew's letters relates what he could discover from witnesses of his uncle's experiences. In a second letter, the younger Pliny details his own observations after the departure of his uncle.

The two men saw an extraordinarily dense cloud rising rapidly above the peak. This cloud and a request by a messenger for an evacuation by sea prompted the elder Pliny to order rescue operations in which he sailed away to participate. His nephew attempted to resume a normal life, but that night a tremor awoke him and his mother, prompting them to abandon the house for the courtyard. Further tremors near dawn caused the population to abandon the village and caused disastrous wave action in the Bay of Naples.

A massive black cloud glistering with lighting obscured the early-morning light, a scene Pliny describes as sheet lightning. The cloud obscured Point Misenum near at hand and the island of Capraia (Capri) across the bay. Fearing for their lives, the population began to flee the shore along the road. An ash rain fell, causing Pliny to shake it off periodically to avoid being buried. Later that same day, the pumice and ash stopped falling, and the sun shone weakly through the cloud, encouraging Pliny and his mother to return to their home and wait for news of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum and had meanwhile decided to investigate the phenomenon at close hand in a light vessel. As the ship was preparing to leave the area, a messenger came from his friend Rectina (wife of Tascius) living on the coast near the foot of the volcano, explaining that her party could only get away by sea and asking for rescue. Pliny ordered the immediate launching of the fleet galleys to the evacuation of the coast. He continued in his light ship to the rescue of Rectina's party.

He set off across the bay but, in the shallows on the other side, encountered thick showers of hot cinders, lumps of pumice and pieces of rock. Advised by the helmsman to turn back, he stated, "Fortune favors the brave" and ordered him to continue to Stabiae (about 4.5 km from Pompeii).

Pliny the Elder and his party saw what they believed to be flames coming from several parts of the crater. After staying overnight, the party was driven from the building by an accumulation of material, presumably tephra, which threatened to block all egress. They woke Pliny, who had been napping and emitting loud snoring. They elected to take to the fields with pillows tied to their heads to protect them from the raining debris. They approached the beach again, but the wind prevented the ships from leaving. Pliny sat down on a sail that had been spread for him and could not rise even with assistance when his friends departed. Though Pliny the Elder died, his friends ultimately escaped by land.

In the first letter to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger suggested that his uncle's death was due to the reaction of his weak lungs to a cloud of poisonous, sulphurous gas that wafted over the group. However, Stabiae was 16 km from the vent (roughly where the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia is situated), and his companions were unaffected by the volcanic gases. It is more likely that the corpulent Pliny died from another cause, such as a stroke or heart attack. His body was found with no apparent injuries on the next day, after dispersal of the plume.

Casualties

Along with Pliny, the Elder, the only other noble casualties of the eruption to be known by name were Agrippa (a son of the Herodian Jewish princess Drusilla and the procurator Antonius Felix) and his wife.

By 2003, around 1,044 casts made from impressions of bodies in the ash deposits had been recovered in and around Pompeii, with the scattered bones of another 100. The remains of about 332 bodies have been found at Herculaneum (300 in arched vaults discovered in 1980). What percentage these numbers are of the total dead or the percentage of the dead to the total number at risk remain unknown.

Thirty-eight percent of the 1,044 were found in the ash fall deposits, the majority inside buildings. These are thought to have been killed mainly by roof collapses, with the smaller number of victims found outside of buildings probably being killed by falling roof slates or by larger rocks thrown out by the volcano. The remaining 62% of remains found at Pompeii were in the pyroclastic surge deposits, and thus were probably killed by them – probably from a combination of suffocation from inhaling ashes and blast and debris thrown around. Examination of cloth, frescoes and skeletons shows that, in contrast to the victims found at Herculaneum, it is unlikely that high temperatures were a significant cause of the destruction at Pompeii. Herculaneum, much closer to the crater, was saved from tephra falls by the wind direction but was buried under  of material deposited by pyroclastic surges. Likely, most of the known victims in this town were killed by the surges.

People caught on the former seashore by the first surge died of thermal shock. The rest were concentrated in arched chambers at a density of as high as three persons per square metre. As only  of the coast have been excavated, further casualties may be discovered.

Later eruptions from the 3rd to the 19th centuries

Since the eruption of AD 79, Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times.
 It erupted again in 203, during the lifetime of the historian Cassius Dio.
 In 472, it ejected such a volume of ash that ashfalls were reported as far away as Constantinople (760 mi.; 1,220 km).
 The eruptions of 512 were so severe that those inhabiting the slopes of Vesuvius were granted exemption from taxes by Theodoric the Great, the Gothic king of Italy.
 Further eruptions were recorded in 787, 968, 991, 999, 1007 and 1036 with the first recorded lava flows.

The volcano became quiescent at the end of the 13th century, and in the following years, it again became covered with gardens and vineyards as old. Even the inside of the crater was moderately filled with shrubbery.

 Vesuvius entered a new phase in December 1631, when a major eruption buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. Torrents of lahar were also created, adding to the devastation. Activity thereafter became almost continuous, with relatively severe eruptions occurring in 1660, 1682, 1694, 1698, 1707, 1737, 1760, 1767, 1779, 1794, 1822, 1834, 1839, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1868, 1872, 1906, 1926, 1929, and 1944.

Eruptions in the 20th century

 The eruption of 5 April 1906 killed more than 100 people and ejected the most lava ever recorded from a Vesuvian eruption. Italian authorities were preparing to hold the 1908 Summer Olympics when Mount Vesuvius violently erupted, devastating the city of Naples and surrounding comunes. Funds were diverted to reconstructing Naples, and a new site for the Olympics had to be found.
 Vesuvius was active from 1913 through 1944, with lava filling the crater and occasional outflows of small amounts of lava.
 That eruptive period ended in the major eruption of March 1944, which destroyed the villages of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma, and Ottaviano, and part of San Giorgio a Cremano. From 13 to 18 March 1944, activity was confined within the rim. Finally, on 18 March 1944, lava overflowed the rim. Lava flows destroyed nearby villages from 19 March through 22 March. On 24 March, an explosive eruption created an ash plume and a small pyroclastic flow.

In March 1944, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 340th Bombardment Group was based at Pompeii Airfield near Terzigno, Italy, just a few kilometres from the eastern base of the volcano. The tephra and hot ash from multiple days of the eruption damaged the fabric control surfaces, the engines, the Plexiglas windscreens and the gun turrets of the 340th's B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. Estimates ranged from 78 to 88 aircraft destroyed.

The eruption could be seen from Naples. Different perspectives and the damage caused to the local villages were recorded by USAAF photographers and other personnel based nearer to the volcano.

Future

Large Vesuvian eruptions which emit volcanic material in quantities of about , the most recent of which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, have happened after periods of inactivity of a few thousand years. Sub-Plinian eruptions producing about , such as those of 472 and 1631, have been more frequent with a few hundred years between them. From the 1631 eruption until 1944, there was a comparatively small eruption every few years, emitting 0.001–0.01 km³ of magma. For Vesuvius, the amount of magma expelled in an eruption increases roughly linearly with the interval since the previous one, and at a rate of around  for each year. This gives an approximate figure of  for an eruption after 75 years of inactivity.

Magma sitting in an underground chamber for many years will start to see higher melting point constituents such as olivine crystallizing out. The effect is to increase the concentration of dissolved gases (mostly sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide) in the remaining liquid magma, making the subsequent eruption more violent. As gas-rich magma approaches the surface during an eruption, the huge drop in internal pressure caused by the reduction in weight of the overlying rock (which drops to zero at the surface) causes the gases to come out of solution, the volume of gas increasing explosively from nothing to perhaps many times that of the accompanying magma. Additionally, the removal of the higher melting point material will raise the concentration of felsic components such as silicates, potentially making the magma more viscous, adding to the explosive nature of the eruption.

The government emergency plan for an eruption therefore assumes that the worst case will be an eruption of similar size and type to the 1631 VEI 4 eruption. In this scenario, the volcano's slopes, extending out to about  from the vent, may be exposed to pyroclastic surges sweeping down them, whilst much of the surrounding area could suffer from tephra falls. Because of prevailing winds, towns and cities south and east of the volcano are most at risk from this. It is assumed that tephra accumulation exceeding —at which point people are at risk from collapsing roofs—may extend out as far as Avellino to the east or Salerno to the south-east. Near Naples, this tephra fall hazard is assumed to extend barely past the volcano's slopes to the northwest. The specific areas affected by the ash cloud depend upon the circumstances surrounding the eruption.

The plan assumes between two weeks and 20 days notice of an eruption and foresees the emergency evacuation of 600,000 people, almost entirely comprising all those living in the zona rossa ("red zone"), i.e. at greatest risk from pyroclastic flows. The evacuation, by train, ferry, car, and bus, is planned to take about seven days, and the evacuees would mostly be sent to other parts of the country, rather than to safe areas in the local Campania region, and may have to stay away for several months. However, the dilemma that would face those implementing the plan is when to start this massive evacuation: If it starts too late, thousands could be killed, whereas if it is started too early, the indicators of an eruption may turn out to be a false alarm. In 1984, 40,000 people were evacuated from the Campi Flegrei area, another volcanic complex near Naples, but no eruption occurred.

Ongoing efforts are being made by the government at various levels (especially of Campania) to reduce the population living in the red zone, by demolishing illegally constructed buildings, establishing a national park around the whole volcano to prevent the future construction of buildings and by offering sufficient financial incentives to people for moving away. One of the underlying goals is to reduce the time needed to evacuate the area, over the next twenty to thirty years, to two or three days.

The volcano is closely monitored by the Osservatorio Vesuvio in Naples with extensive networks of seismic and gravimetric stations, a combination of a GPS-based geodetic array and satellite-based synthetic aperture radar to measure ground movement and by local surveys and chemical analyses of gases emitted from fumaroles. All of this is intended to track magma rising underneath the volcano. , no magma has been detected within 10 km of the surface, so the volcano is classified by the Observatory as at a Basic or Green Level of hazard.

National park

The area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on 5 June 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors, and there is a small network of paths around the volcano that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends. There is access by road to within  of the summit (measured vertically), but after that, access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the volcano from the road to the crater.

Funicular

Mount Vesuvius' first funicular — a type of vertical transport that uses two opposing, interconnected, rail-guided passenger cars always moving in concert — opened in 1880, subsequently destroyed by the March 1944 eruption.

"Funiculì, Funiculà", a Neapolitan language song, was written to commemorate the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius.

See also

 Battle of Mount Vesuvius
 List of volcanic eruptions by death toll
 List of volcanoes in Italy
 List of stratovolcanoes

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Active volcanoes
Campanian volcanic arc
Complex volcanoes
Decade Volcanoes
Geography of Naples
Sacred mountains
Stratovolcanoes of Italy
Subduction volcanoes
VEI-6 volcanoes
Parks in Campania
20th-century volcanic events
19th-century volcanic events
18th-century volcanic events
17th-century volcanic events
16th-century volcanic events
Medieval volcanic events
Pompeii (ancient city)
Geological type localities
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Mount Vesuvius


The Fann Mountains () are part of the western Pamir-Alay mountain system in Tajikistan's Sughd Province, between the Zarafshan Range to the north and the Gissar Range to the south. In an east-west direction, they extend from the Fan Darya to the Archimaydan River.

Peaks, lakes and access
The Fanns boast about a hundred peaks, with several rising to altitudes of more than 5,000 meters and relative elevations of up to 1,500 meters. The highest point in Fann Mountains is Chimtarga peak (5,489 m). Other 5,000-meter peaks are Bodkhona (5,138 m), Chapdara (5,050 m), Big Hansa, Little Hansa (5,031 m), Zamok  ('5,070 m), Mirali (5,132 m), and Energia (5,120 m).

There are many lakes in the Fanns.The best known are Alaudin lakes in the Chapdara River valley, Kulikalon Lakes on the northern slope of Chimtarga peak, Big Allo Lake and Iskanderkul Lake.

There is a stunning mountain range in Western Tajikistan, near the city of Punjikent, which surprises tourists with its vivid, ever-changing colours. This are known as the Seven Lakes, Haftkul, or even Marguzor Lakes. In Tadjiki it means seven lakes (named after the largest lake in the group).

The best time for visiting is late June–mid-September for trekking and July–August for mountaineering, when the weather is usually at its best. Access is generally from Panjakent, which can be reached either from Dushanbe or Samarkand.

See also
Alay Mountains
Pamir Mountains

References

External links

1:100,000 topographical tourist map of the Fann Mountains

Mountain ranges of Tajikistan
Mountain ranges of Uzbekistan

Fann Mountains


Cross burning is a practice associated with racism. In the United States, the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses close to the homes of people they wanted to intimidate. It is unrelated to a custom called fiery cross, which was common in Northern Europe. In that custom, a burning piece of wood was used in processions, or to call people together for a rebellion.

At first, Klans during the Reconstruction period did not burn crosses. The idea was introduced by Thomas Dixon Jr. in his novel, The Clansmen. He took it from an old Scottish custom known as the Crann Tara, used to declare war. It also called all clan members to defend a certain area. Most of the KKK's rituals were Scottish in origin; the group saw Medieval Europe as morally pure and white. Ten years after Dixon's book, D.W. Griffith directed The Birth of a Nation, the movie version of Dixon's novel.

Cross burning in the KKK did not really start until the early 1900s. Its purpose was to intimidate, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 2003. The case was called Virginia v. Black. The state of Virginia passed a law saying that any cross burning would be taken as an attempt to intimidate a person/group of people. The Supreme Court decided that cross burning was not meant to intimidate, and was an act of free speech, ruling the law unconstiutional.

References

Christian terrorism
Racism

Cross burning


On May 29, 1929, a series of explosions in the sewers of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, killed one person.

The first blast occurred just after noon in the Golden Triangle area, west of the canal; over the next 25 minutes, a series of explosions travelled the length of the main line of the sewer system. The explosions first moved east under the canal and then moved through Sandy Hill under Somerset Street. After passing under the Rideau River, they followed the line as it turned north through what is today Vanier, before going through New Edinburgh to the point where the sewer system emptied into the Ottawa River.

The blasts were fairly small, except when manhole covers were involved. At these points, the access to oxygen fuelled towering flames that erupted through the manhole covers onto city streets. The covers themselves were blown high into the air.

Most of the damage from the sewer explosions occurred where sewage lines were attached to less sturdy pipes inside houses; blasts destroyed the plumbing in many residential basements.  Besides property damage, the explosions caused one death and many injuries.

The cause of the explosions was never definitively determined. Methane naturally occurs in sewers, but it never accumulates in a concentration powerful enough to cause explosions of the magnitude seen in Ottawa. The Ottawa Gas Company vehemently insisted that the disaster could not have been caused by its lines.

It is now thought that the fuel stations and mechanic shops in the city—new since the introduction of the automobile—contributed to the calamity. While these shops were required by law to dispose of all waste oils in a safe manner, there were no inspections; dumping waste into the sewage system was commonplace. In combination with problems in the sewer system's design, this pollution likely caused the 1929 blasts.

See also
 Louisville sewer explosions, 1981
 1992 Guadalajara explosions
 2014 Kaohsiung gas explosions

References

Bibliography

Explosions in 1929
May 1929 events
1929 sewer explosion
Explosions in Canada
Sewerage
1929 disasters in Canada
1920s in Ottawa
1929 in Ontario

1929 Ottawa sewer explosion


Charles Watson Mitchell (24 November 1861-3 April 1918) was an English world heavyweight boxing title contender and lightweight champion.

Professional career
Mitchell was born on 24 November, 1861 in the city of Birmingham, England. Mitchell had exceptional ability at using London Prize Ring Rules to his advantage. During his career, he engaged in over 100 fights with both gloves and bare-knuckles, using the London Prize Ring Rules as well as the Queensberry Rules. He often fought men who outweighed him by 30 to 40 pounds. Mitchell took on all comers in London, often fighting as many as four bouts in one night.

In 1880 he became the boxing instructor for the International Athletic Club at the "White Rose" in London, and opened a boxing school at the "Palais Rubens" in Antwerp, Belgium.

In 1882 Billy Madden, the former tutor and backer of John L Sullivan, put on an openweight boxing tournament in England, in order to find a challenger for John L Sullivan. This was a professional tournament, held under amateur rules, consisting of 3 3 minute rounds, with an extra 2 minute round being fought in the case of draws,  A number of prominent boxers including Jem Goode and Jack Knifton entered. Despite being both the youngest and lightest of the 21 competitors, Mitchell won the tournament.

Mitchell toured the United States and Canada with Jake Kilrain, and later Frank "Paddy" Slavin, putting on exhibitions, sometimes daily and sometimes on the same day as one of his fights. Mitchell was in Kilrain's corner on 8 July 1889 when he fought John L. Sullivan for the world heavyweight boxing championship.

Mitchell came from Birmingham, England and fought John L. Sullivan in 1883, knocking him down in the first round. Their second meeting took place in 1888 on the grounds of a chateau at Chantilly, France in driving rain. It went on for more than two hours, at the end of which both men were unrecognisable and had suffered much loss of blood; neither could lift his arms to punch and the contest was considered a draw.

The local gendarmerie arrived at this point and managed to arrest Mitchell, who spent the next few days in a cell and was later fined by the local magistrate, boxing being illegal in France at that time. Sullivan managed to evade the law, swathed in bandages, and was taken back across the English Channel to spend the next few weeks convalescing in Liverpool. Mitchell acted as Sullivan's corner man for many years after.

In 1894 Mitchell fought in his most noteworthy bout, against James J Corbett for the world heavyweight championship. Corbett won by KO in the 3rd round, winning $20,000.

Death
Mitchell died on 3 April 1918 in Hove at age 56.

Honors
Mitchell was inducted into the Ring Magazine's Boxing Hall of Fame in 1957, and inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (2002).

Professional boxing record

References

External links

CBZ page

World lightweight boxing champions
1861 births
1918 deaths
English male boxers
International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees
Boxers from Birmingham, West Midlands
Neurological disease deaths in England

Charley Mitchell (boxer)


Zenthoefer Furs were an amateur U.S. soccer club which played in St. Louis, Missouri during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

They had played as a junior squad named Schumachers in the 1947-48 season where they fell short of national honors when they lost in the final round of the National Junior Cup to Lighthouse Boys of Philadelphia. The Zenthoefers turned senior the next season. Under the guidance of manager George E. McGann they made their way to the 1949 National Amateur Cup final losing to SC Elizabeth by a 6-1 score.  They also lost to the Chicago Polish-Americans 5-1 in the 1949 National Challenge Cup quarterfinals.  In 1951, they won the St. Louis Major League by ten points over St. Louis Simpkins-Ford.  In 1952, they entered the American Soccer League of St. Louis.

Defunct soccer clubs in Missouri
Soccer clubs in St. Louis

Zenthoefer Furs


Statute in Restraint of Appeals (24 Henry VIII. c. 12) var en lov som ble vedtatt av Det engelske parlamentet 7. april 1533, i den dobbelte hensikt å tillate erkebiskopen av Canterbury Thomas Cranmer å oppløse kong Henrik VIIIs ekteskap med dronning Katarina uten at dette kunne påankes til paven, og å ydmyke paven generelt.

Loven
Utkastet til loven ble forfattet av Thomas Cromwell på vegne av kong Henrik, og innledet den politiske prosessen som effektivt overførte den katolske kirkes makt til kongen, hans rådgivere og regjering. Året før hadde kong Henrik forbudt visse utbetalinger fra England til paven i Roma.

Loven forbød alle anker til paven som vedrørte saker om ekteskapelige forhold og testamenter. Den gjorde kongen til høyeste rettslige instans i England, Wales og engelske besittelser. Dette ble oppnådd ved å hevde at England var et keiserdømme (empire), og vise til tidligere konger i området med navns nevnelse av Edvard I, Edvard III, Rikard II og  Henrik IV.

Loven gjorde det forbudt å akseptere pavelig autoritet eller å følge pavelige befalinger. Den ble fulgt året etter av den første Act of Supremacy.

Ordlyd
Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience; he being also institute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God with plenary, whole and entire power, pre-eminence, authority, prerogative and jurisdiction to render and yield justice and final determination to all manner of folk resiants or subjects within this realm, in all causes, manners, debates and contentions happening to occur, insurge or begin within the limits thereof, without restraint or provocation to any foreign princes or potentates of the world; the body spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the law divine happened to come in question or of spiritual learning, then it was declared, interpreted and shewed by that part of the said body politic called spirituality, now being usually called the English Church, which hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge, integrity and sufficiency of number, it hath been always thought and is also at this hour sufficient and meet of itself, without the intermeddling of any exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such offices and duties as to their rooms spiritual doth appertain. For the due administration whereof and to keep them from corruption and sinister affection the King's most noble progenitors, and the antecessors of the nobles of this realm, have sufficiently endowed the said Church both with honour and possession. And the laws temporal for trial and propriety of lands and goods, and for the conservation of the people of this realm in unity and peace without ravin or spoil, was and yet is administered, and executed by sundry judges and administers of the other part of the said body politic called the temporalty, and both their authorities and jurisdictions do conjoin together in the due administration of justice the one to help the other. And whereas the King his most noble progenitors, and the nobility and commons of this said realm, at divers and sundry Parliaments as well in the time of King Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, and the other noble kings of the realm, made sundry ordinances, laws, statutes and provisions for the entire and sure conservation of the prerogatives, liberties and pre-eminences of the said imperial crown of this realm, and of the jurisdictions spiritual and temporal of the same, to keep it from the annoyance as well as the see of Rome as from the authority of other foreign potentates attempting the diminution or violation thereof as often and from time to time as any such annoyance or attempt might be known or espied. And not withstanding the said good estatutes and ordinances made in the time of the King's most noble progenitors in preservation of the authority and prerogative of the said imperial crown as is aforesaid, yet nevertheless since the making of the said good statutes and ordinances divers and sundry inconveniences and dangers not provided for plainly by the said former acts, statutes and ordinances have risen and sprung by reason of appeals sued out of this realm to the see of Rome, in causes testamentary, causes of matrimony and divorces, rights of tithes, oblations and obventions, not only to the great inquietation, vexation, trouble, costs and charges of the King's Highness and many of his subjects and resiants in this his realm, but also to the great delay and let to the true and speedy determination of the said causes, for so much as he parties appealing to the said court of Rome most commonly do the same for the delay of justice; and forasmuch as the great distance of way is so far out of this realm, so that the necessary proofs nor the true knowledge of the cause can neither there be so well known nor the witnesses there so well examined as within this realm, so that the parties grieved by means of the said appeals be most times without remedy.

Referanser

Britiske lover
Reformasjonen i England

Statute in Restraint of Appeals


Victor Lanoux (18 June 1936 – 4 May 2017) was a French actor best known to English speaking audiences for his role as Ludovic in Cousin, Cousine.

Biography
Victor Lanoux, born Victor Robert Nataf was the son of a Tunisian Jew from Sfax and a Catholic mother from Normandy. He was evacuated from Paris during the Second World War. Lanoux refers to the name used during his stay in La Chapelle-Taillefert during the French occupation where he lived until the age of 11, when he returned to Paris.

He left school at age 14 to become an apprentice varnisher. He worked a variety of jobs, including the Simca automotive assembly line, until he served in the French Army during the Algerian War and was wounded, being awarded the Medal for War Wounded (Médaille des blessés de guerre).

His father got him a job at the Studio de Billancourt. He learned acting by correspondence course, then a real course.

Career
In 1961 he met Pierre Richard who was looking for someone to partner his cabaret act. They worked together for a number of years, including a season at the Bobino and a tour of Le Gorille.

The act was seen by René Allio who cast Lanoux in La Vielle Dame Indigne (1965). This led to a starring role in La Vie Normale (1967).

Georges Wilson of the TNP cast Lanoux as Laertes in 'Hamlet'; he followed this with 'La Folle de Chaillot' at the TNP, then a three-year run as star of Illusion Comique.

He made one of his earliest film appearances in The Shameless Old Lady. He received two nominations at the 1st César Awards in 1976, for his roles in Cousin Cousine and Adieu poulet. His best known role outside of Europe is perhaps that of The Thief in the 1985 comedy classic National Lampoon's European Vacation.

Filmography

Theater

References

External links

1936 births
2017 deaths
Male actors from Paris
French male film actors
French people of Tunisian-Jewish descent
20th-century French male actors
Deaths from cerebrovascular disease

Victor Lanoux


The Basque Country (;  ;  ; ), also called Basque Autonomous Community (, EAE; , CAV), is an autonomous community in northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay, and Gipuzkoa.

The Basque Country or Basque Autonomous Community was granted the status of nationality within Spain, attributed by the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The autonomous community is based on the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country, a foundational legal document providing the framework for the development of the Basque people on Spanish soil. Navarre, which had narrowly rejected a joint statute of autonomy with Gipuzkoa, Álava and Biscay in 1932, was granted a separate statute in 1982.

Currently there is no official capital in the autonomous community, but the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the province of Álava, is the de facto capital as the location of the Basque Parliament, the headquarters of the Basque Government, and the residence of the President of the Basque Autonomous Community (the Palace of Ajuria Enea). The High Court of Justice of the Basque Country has its headquarters in the city of Bilbao. Whilst Vitoria-Gasteiz is the largest municipality in area, with 277 km2 (107 sq mi), Bilbao is the largest in population, with 353,187 people, located in the province of Biscay within a conurbation of 875,552 people.

The term Basque Country may also refer to the larger cultural region (Basque: Euskal Herria), the home of the Basque people, which includes the autonomous community.

Geography

The following provinces make up the autonomous community:

 Álava (Basque Araba), capital Vitoria-Gasteiz
 Biscay (Spanish Vizcaya, Basque Bizkaia), capital Bilbao-Bilbo
 Gipuzkoa (Spanish Guipúzcoa), capital Donostia-San Sebastián

Features

The Basque Country borders Cantabria and the Burgos province to the west, the Bay of Biscay to the north, France (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) and Navarre to the east and La Rioja (the Ebro River) to the south. The territory has three distinct areas, which are defined by the two parallel ranges of the Basque Mountains. The main range of mountains forms the watershed between the Atlantic and Mediterranean basins. The highest point of the range is in the Aizkorri massif (1551 m). The three areas are:

Atlantic Basin
Formed by many valleys with short rivers that flow from the mountains to the Bay of Biscay, like the Nervión, Urola or Oria.
The coast is rough, with high cliffs and small inlets. The main features of the coast are the Bilbao Abra Bay and the Estuary of Bilbao, the Urdaibai estuary and the Bidasoa-Txingudi Bay that forms the border with France.

Middle section
Between the two mountain ranges, the area is occupied mainly by a high plateau called Llanada Alavesa (the Álava Plains), where the capital Vitoria-Gasteiz is located. The rivers flow south from the mountains to the Ebro River. The main rivers are the Zadorra River and Bayas River.

Ebro Valley
From the southern mountains to the Ebro is the so-called Rioja Alavesa, which shares the Mediterranean characteristics of other Ebro Valley zones. Some of Spain's production of Rioja wine takes place here.

Plaiaundi Ecology Park
The Plaiaundi Ecology Park is a 24-hectare coastal wetland lying where the Bidasoa River meets the sea in the Bay of Biscay.The nature of Plaiaundi consists of a wide variety of flora (visitors view them mainly in the spring) and fauna (visitors with binoculars arrive all during the year, because of the birds migratory habits).

Climate
The Basque mountains form the watershed and also mark the distinct climatic areas of the Basque Country:
The northern valleys, in Biscay and Gipuzkoa and also the valley of Ayala in Álava, are part of Green Spain, where the oceanic climate is predominant, with its wet weather all year round and moderate temperatures. Precipitation average is about 1200 mm.

The middle section is influenced more by the continental climate, but with a varying degree of the northern oceanic climate. This gives warm, dry summers and cold, snowy winters.

The Ebro valley has a pure continental climate: winters are cold and dry and summers very warm and dry, with precipitation peaking in spring and autumn. Due to the proximity to the ocean however, the Ebro part of the Basque Country is moderate compared to areas further inland.

Demographics

Almost half of the 2,155,546 inhabitants of the Basque Autonomous Community live in the Bilbao metropolitan area, almost the entirety of the province of Biscay. Six of the ten most populous cities in the region form part of Bilbao's conurbation (Bilbao, Barakaldo, Getxo, Portugalete, Santurtzi and Basauri), which is widely known as Greater Bilbao.

With 28.2% of the Basque population born outside this region, immigration is crucial to Basque demographics. Over the 20th century most of this immigration came from other parts of Spain, typically from Galicia or Castile and León. Over recent years, sizeable numbers of this population have returned to their birthplaces and most immigration to the Basque country now comes from abroad, chiefly from South America.

As of 2018, there were 151,519 foreigners in the Basque country, 7% of the population.

Roman Catholicism is, by far, the largest religion in Basque Country. In 2019, the proportion of Basques that identify themselves as Roman Catholic was 60%, while it is one of the most secularised communities of Spain: 24.6% were non-religious and 12.3% of Basques were atheist.

Major cities

Languages

Spanish and Basque are co-official in all territories of the autonomous community. The Basque-speaking areas in the modern-day autonomous community are set against the wider context of the Basque language, spoken to the east in Navarre and the French Basque Country. The whole Basque-speaking territory has experienced both decline and expansion in its history. The Basque language experienced a gradual territorial contraction throughout the last nine centuries, and very severe deterioration of its sociolinguistic status for much of the 20th century due to heavy immigration from other parts of Spain, the virtual nonexistence of Basque-language schooling, and national policies implemented by the different Spanish régimes (see Language policies of Francoist Spain). After the advent of the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country in 1982 following Franco's death, this reductive trend was gradually reversed thanks to the Basque-language schools and the new education system. Basque has always had a strong presence in most of Gipuzkoa, central and eastern Biscay and the northern edge of Álava, while most Basque speakers in western Biscay and the rest of Álava are second-language speakers.

The 2006 sociolinguistic survey of all Basque provinces showed that in 2006 of all people aged 16 and above in the Basque Autonomous Community, 30.1% were fluent Basque speakers, 18.3% passive speakers and 51.5% did not speak Basque. The percentage of Basque speakers was highest in Gipuzkoa (49.1% speakers) and lowest in Álava (14.2%). These results represent an increase on previous years (29.5% in 2001, 27.7% in 1996 and 24.1% in 1991). The highest percentage of speakers was now found in the 16-24 age range (57.5%), while only 25.0% of those 65 and older reported speaking Basque.

Ten years later, the sociolinguistic survey showed that in 2016 of all people aged 16 and above in the Basque Autonomous Community, 33.9% were fluent Basque speakers, 19.1% passive speakers and 47% did not speak Basque. The proportion of Basque speakers was again highest in Gipuzkoa (50.6%) and lowest in Álava (19.2%).

History

The forerunner of the Gernika Statute was the short-lived Statute of Autonomy for Álava, Gipuzkoa and Biscay, which came to be enforced in October 1936 just in Biscay, with the Spanish Civil War already raging, and which was automatically abolished when the Spanish Nationalist troops occupied the territory.

Before the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and its system of autonomous communities, these three provinces were known in Spanish as the Provincias Vascongadas since 1833. The political structure of the new autonomous community is defined in the Gernika Statute, which was approved by a majority in a referendum held on 25 October 1979. Nowadays it is one of the most decentralised regions in the world; in this regard it has been described as having "more autonomy than just about any other in Europe" by The Economist.

As regards the bounds to the Spanish Constitution, Basque nationalists cite the fact that in the 1978 Spanish Constitution referendum, which was passed with a majority of votes and a poor turnout in this area, the Basque Country had the highest abstention (the Basque Nationalist Party had endorsed abstention on the grounds that the Constitution was being forced upon them without any Basque input). To this, the "NO" vote in this referendum was also higher in the Basque Country than in the rest of the state. All in all, many Basques believe that they are not bound to a constitution that they never endorsed.

The Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country is an organic law but powers have been devolved gradually during decades according to re-negotiations between the Spanish and the consecutive Basque regional governments to reach an effective implementation, while the transfer of many powers are still due and has always been a matter of heated political discussion. Basque nationalists often put down this limitation in the devolution of powers to concessions made to appease the military involved in the 23-F coup d'état attempt (1981).

In 2003, the governing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) proposed to alter this statute through the Ibarretxe Plan. The Ibarretxe bill was approved by absolute majority in the Basque Parliament after much discussion, as it was subject to lengthy legal objections—on the grounds that it contradicts the Spanish Constitution—that were ultimately overcome. Despite its mandate of the majority of the autonomous Parliament, the main two parties in Spain (PSOE, PP) imposed a blockade on a discussion of the Plan in the Spanish Parliament (Madrid Cortes Generales), resulting in its rejection for debate by a large majority of that Parliament in January 2005.

Since the first autonomic cabinet, the Basque Nationalist Party has held office in the Basque Autonomous Community except for a 2009–2012 term, led by Patxi López (PSE-PSOE). The current Basque prime minister is Iñigo Urkullu, also a member of the Basque Nationalist Party. Despite ETA's ceasefire in 2011, this autonomous community shows the highest rate of police per 100 inhabitants in Western Europe by 2018. As agreed with the Spanish premier Zapatero in 2004, Urkullu intends to increase the figure of ertzainas, while the Spanish PP's Ministry of Interior rejects a pullback of Spanish police bodies, as demanded by the large majority of the political forces in the autonomous parliament, even pointing to an increase of the Guardia Civil in the future.

Politics

Governmental institutions

The current laws configure the autonomous community as a federation of its present-day three constituent provinces. These western Basque districts kept governing themselves by their own laws and institutions even after the Castilian invasion in 1199–1200. The new king upheld their institutional system issued from the consuetudinary law prevalent in Basque and Pyrenean territories. This limited self-government, similar to the one for Navarre, was partially suppressed in 1839 and totally in 1876 in exchange for an agreement on tax-collection and a number of administrative prerogatives. These in turn were suspended by Franco for Gipuzkoa and Biscay, but restored by the Spanish Constitution of 1978.

The post-Franco Spanish Constitution of 1978 acknowledges historical rights and attempts a compromise in the old conflict between centralism and the different national identities (Basque, Catalan and Galician). A negotiation between UCD's Suárez in office and PNV led to the establishment of the Basque statute, with its first article stating that the Basque people (Euskal Herria) takes on an institutional personality in the form of the Basque Autonomous Community; the 2nd article goes on to establish that it may be constituted by Álava, Biscay, Gipuzkoa, as well as Navarre. Provincial councils provided with actual relevant attributions (taxation, etc.) were restored to these provinces (called therefore diputación foral), but Navarre detached from the Basque political process. A specific approach to the national realities in Spain was eventually diffused by a legal provision allowing for the establishment of autonomous administrations and parliaments to any region in Spain (e.g. Castile and León, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, etc.), while the Basques, Catalans, and Galicians were acknowledged historic specificity.

The provinces in the Basque Country still perform tax collection in their respective territories, but with limited margin in decision making under the Spanish and European governments. Under this intricate system, the Diputaciones Forales (Basque: Foru Aldundiak) administer most of each of the provinces but are coordinated by the autonomous Basque Government (Spanish Gobierno Vasco, Basque: Eusko Jaurlaritza). The autonomous community has its own police force (the Ertzaintza), controls Education and Health Systems, and has a Basque radio/TV station. These and only some of the powers acknowledge in the Gernika Statute have since 1980 been transferred to the Autonomous Community by the Cortes Generales under the Gernika Statute. The seats of the Basque Parliament and Government are in Vitoria-Gasteiz, so this is the capital city de facto, but the Basque Autonomous Community has no capital de iure.

The Parliament is composed of 25 representatives from each of the three provinces. The Basque Parliament elects the Lehendakari (President of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country) who forms a government following regular parliamentary procedures. Until 2020, except for the 2009-2012 period, all Lehendakaris (even those in 1937 and during the exile) have been members of the Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea) (moderate and Christian-Democrat) since 1978. Despite their continued leadership role, they have not always enjoyed majorities for their party and have needed to form coalitions with either Spain wide parties or left-leaning Basque nationalist parties, often governing in a difficult minority position. Since 1982 until the late 1990s, Basque nationalists ideologically closer to ETA refused to turn out in the Basque parliament, a significant wedge of the parliament. Currently, the Basque Government is headed by Iñigo Urkullu (PNV).

Present-day political dynamics

ETA's permanent ceasefire (2010–2011) opened the possibility of new governmental alliances and has enabled EH Bildu's electoral success and rise to governmental institutions (Gipuzkoa, and capital city Donostia, 2011–2015). In the 2012 Basque parliamentary election, the PNV obtained a plurality of the votes, followed by the left-wing nationalist coalition EH Bildu (Eusko Alkartasuna, Sortu, Alternatiba).

In 2016 the Basque regional election was held on 25 September to elect the 11th Parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community, which left a hung parliament, with the combination of Basque nationalist parties (PNV and EH Bildu) representing the largest wedge in the parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community, the main Spanish parties PP and PSOE's branches occupying a 24% of the seats, and Podemos – Ahal Dugu accounting for 11 seats (14.66% of the total). However, the leading party PNV renewed its traditional alliance with the PSE to form government.

During the 2017 Catalan referendum crisis, the parliament showed its sympathy and support to the Catalan independence referendum and lashed out at the Spanish government's stance on the issue, denouncing any measures it may take against the vote or 'democracy' altogether. Besides supporting the vote, Basques of this community showed a preference for further self-government (43.5%), with independence and present-day status quo ranking as second and third options (22.6% and 18.9%). In 2016, the parliament of the autonomous community passed a Police Abuses Act spanning the period between 1978 and 1999; it was shortly repealed after challenged by the public prosecutor and appealed also by virtually all police and Civil Guard unions. Incoming Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez agreed to lift the public prosecutor's block on the law in exchange for altering its content. Right-wing parties in Spain, Vox, PP, and Ciudadanos, sent one MP out of 18 to the Spanish Congress from this autonomous community in the 2019 November general election in contrast with their rise and important presence in the overall Spanish results.

Territorial issues
The statute, insofar as it is addressed and provides an administrative framework for the Basque people, provides the mechanisms for neighbouring Navarre to join the three western provinces if it wishes to do so, since at least part of it is ethnically Basque. The Basque Government used the "Laurak Bat", which included the arms of Navarre, as its symbol for many years. The Navarrese Government protested, and tribunals ruled in their favour. The Basque Government replaced it with an empty red field.

Navarre is one of the historical Basque territories and even claimed by the Basque nationalists as the core of the Basque nation. There are also two enclaves surrounded by Basque territory—Treviño (Basque: Trebiñu) and Valle de Villaverde (Basque: Villaverde-Turtzioz)—which belong to the fellow neighbouring communities of Castile and León and Cantabria respectively, for which a legal connection to the Basque Country has become an on-off matter of political discussion.

Economy

The Basque Autonomous Community ranks first in Spain in terms of per capita product, it's the most economically productive region of the country with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (adjusted to purchasing power parity, PPP) being 22% higher than that of the European Union and 30% higher than Spain's average in 2016 at €34,400. In 2019, the community showed a surplus in public finances, at 0.3% of the GDP.

Industrial activities were traditionally centred on steel and shipbuilding, mainly due to the rich iron ore resources found during the 19th century around Bilbao. The Estuary of Bilbao was the centre of Euskadi's industrial revolution during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. These activities decayed during the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, giving ground for the development of the services sector and new technologies.

Today, the strongest industrial sectors of the Basque Country's economy are the manufacturing sector, present in the valleys of Biscay and Gipuzkoa; aeronautics and logistics in Vitoria-Gasteiz; and finance and energy, in Bilbao.

The biggest companies in the Basque Country are: BBVA, one of the largest financial institutions in the world and Spain's second largest bank; the multinational energy company Iberdrola (both of them have their headquarters in Bilbao); Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, the largest cooperative in the world; railway vehicle manufacturer CAF and Gamesa, the world's second largest wind turbine manufacturer.

Eight out of ten Spanish municipalities with the lowest unemployment rates were found across this autonomous community in 2015, highlighting such towns as Arrasate, Portugalete and Barakaldo with a strong manufacturing industrial make-up. The Basque Autonomous Community ranked above other communities in Spain in terms of resilience in the face of the economic crisis, going on to become a beacon and a subject of study in Europe.

In 2013 the Basque Country outperformed Spain in several parameters, but economic overall figures were highly variable. Spanish figures are subject to conspicuous seasonal fluctuation, relying on its tourist and services sectors, while Basque performance is rather based on mid- and long-term results, according with its more industrial focus. In the last quarter of 2017, unemployment in this autonomous community rose to 11.1% (8.43% in Gipuzkoa), second lowest in Spain after Navarre, at a percentage slightly higher than the EU average (10.8%), but still ahead of the Spanish overall unemployment rate of around 16.55%, the second highest in the EU.

Unemployment rate (December data) (%)

In regards to GDP performance, 2017 was a remarkably positive year for the Basque Autonomous Community. It underwent an increase in GDP of 3.0%, close to the Spanish increase, 3.1%. In the last term of 2013, the public debt of the Basque Autonomous Community stood at 13.00% of its GDP, totalling 3,753 € per capita, as compared to Spain's overall 93.90%, totalling 20,383 € per capita.

The Basque Government's high-ranking officials, as well as Basque-based party leaders and personalities, have protested and voiced their concern over the detrimental effects of austerity measures passed by the Spanish Government as of 2011, overruling Basque taxation powers, may be having on industry and trade, especially export. Basque officials have strongly advocated for participation, along with Navarre, in the Ecofin, with a full membership, in order to defend Basque interests in line with Basque reality and fiscal status, and not as a Spanish subsidiary.

Transport

The strategic geographical location of the Basque Country as a link between the northwest and centre of Spain and the rest of Europe makes this territory heavily transited.

Road
The main backbones of road transport are the AP-8 motorway which links Bilbao, San Sebastián and the French border and the A-1 motorway which links San Sebastián and Vitoria-Gasteiz with central Spain. Other important routes include the AP-68 motorway which links Bilbao with the Mediterranean.

Rail
Eusko Trenbide Sarea (Basque Railway Network) is the Basque Government-owned company that maintains and creates the railway infrastructure in the autonomous region. Euskotren is the Basque Government-owned narrow gauge rail company that operates commuter services in Bilbao and San Sebastián, intercity Bilbao-San Sebastián service, and Euskotren Tranbia tram services in Bilbao and Vitoria-Gasteiz.

Metro Bilbao operates two metro lines that serve the Greater Bilbao area while Euskotren operates a third which opened in 2017. Euskotren operates a metro-like service in the San Sebastián area.

The Spanish government owns two main RENFE broad gauge lines that link Vitoria-Gasteiz with San Sebastián and Bilbao with central Spain. It also operates Cercanías commuter lines in both Bilbao and San Sebastián.

The FEVE narrow gauge rail company operates a commuter line between Bilbao and Balmaseda and links Bilbao with the rest of northern Spain.

A new high-speed network (called Basque Y) currently under construction will link the three capitals in 'Y' formation. Because of the rough geography of the territory, most of the network will run through tunnels, with a total estimated cost of up to €10 billion.

The estimated ecological impact of the project has encouraged the formation of a group campaigning against it called AHTrik Ez Elkarlana. The group uses social disobedience to oppose the project and promotes referendums against it in the towns it most affects. In spite of the vocal opposition to the project by this and other community groups (as well as EH Bildu), work continues, not without uncertainty. In early 2015, an estimate suggested that the average Basque intercity fare would rise to a non-competitive 25 €, while the Spanish central government's funding has been subject to continuous delays, spurring the irritation of the Basque government in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

Airports

The three capitals have airports:
Bilbao Airport (BIO) International
Vitoria Airport (VIT)
San Sebastián Airport (EAS)
Of the three, the most important hub and entry point to the Basque Country is Bilbao Airport, offering many international connections. Nearly 4,600,000 passengers passed through it in 2016.

Seaports

The two most important ports are the Port of Bilbao and the Port of Pasaia. There are also minor fishing ports, such as Bermeo and Ondarroa.

The Port of Bilbao is by far the most important in the Basque Country and the north of Spain, being the fourth most important in Spain with over 38 million tons of traffic.

All cruising routes arrive in Bilbao and there is a ferry service linking Bilbao with Portsmouth (United Kingdom).

Cuisine

Basque cuisine is an important part of Basque culture. According to the chef Ferran Adrià, San Sebastián "in terms of the average quality of the food, in terms of what you can get at any place you happen to walk into, maybe it is—probably it is, yes—the best in the world." The most popular dishes are seafood, fish (for example Marmitako) and "Pintxos", bar finger food.

During the 1970s, several chefs from the Basque Country, particularly Juan Mari Arzak and Pedro Subijana, led a gastronomic revolution, translating to Spain the principles of French nouvelle cuisine. The first Spanish restaurant to be awarded 3 stars in the Michelin Guide was, in fact, Zalacaín, a Basque restaurant, although located in Madrid. Today, the Basque Country, alongside Catalonia, is the Spanish region with a higher density of stars in the Michelin Guide, and it has become a preferred destination of many gastronomic tourists, both domestic and international. Four restaurants boast 3 stars, the highest possible award: Juan María Arzak (Arzak restaurant), Martín Berasategui (Berasategui restaurant), Pedro Subijana (chef of Akelarre) and Eneko Atxa (Azurmendi restaurant). In the new generation of chefs, Andoni Luis Aduriz, Mugaritz restaurant, is outstanding.

The coastal city of San Sebastián is home to the Basque Culinary Center, an academic research institution focused on higher education and research in the areas of gastronomy and nutrition.

Basque food is one of the reasons for tourism to the Basque Country, especially the pintxos. A popular way to socialise is "ir de pintxos" or txikiteo, a Basque version of a pub crawl, albeit generally more civilised.

Sports

Basque rural sports, known as Herri Kirolak in Basque, are a number of sports competitions rooted in the traditional lifestyles of the Basque people, for example Basque pelota, the Basque version of the European game family that includes real tennis and squash. Basque players, playing for either the Spanish or the French teams, dominate international competitions.

The Basque country is also home to former national football champions Athletic Club from Bilbao. It has a strict Cantera policy of employing only players born or trained in the Basque Country (greater region). Athletic's policy does not apply to head coaches, with famous names as Howard Kendall and Jupp Heynckes coaching the team at various points. In spite of this, the club shares with worldwide heavyweights Real Madrid and FC Barcelona the distinction of never being relegated from the top flight.

Another major Basque Country club is Real Sociedad from San Sebastián, who contest the Basque derby with Athletic. Real Sociedad used to practise the same policy, until they signed Irish striker John Aldridge in the late 1980s. Since then, Real Sociedad have had many foreign players. Xabi Alonso became the only Basque player to win both the World Cup and the club European Cup and he played in the Real Sociedad.  The region is also home to other La Liga clubs SD Eibar and Deportivo Alavés.

The most renowned Basque footballer of all time is possibly Andoni Zubizarreta who holds the record for appearances in La Liga with 622 games and has won six league titles and the European Cup. Nowadays, the best known Basque football player is Xabi Alonso, winner of two UEFA European Championships and one World Cup, who played for Real Sociedad, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, but retired in 2017. Other notable Basque players include Mikel Arteta, Asier Illarramendi, Andoni Iraola, Aritz Aduriz, Xabi Prieto and Ander Herrera. Both Athletic and Real Sociedad have won the Spanish league, including dominating the competition in the early 1980s, with the last title won by a Basque club being Athletic's 1984 title.

At international level, Basque players were especially prominent in Spanish selections prior to the Civil War, with all of those at the 1928 Olympics, and the majority of the 1920 Olympics and 1934 World Cup squads, born in the region. There is an unofficial 'national' team which plays occasional friendlies, however its squads pick players from the wider territory including Navarre and the French Basque Country.

Cycling as a sport is popular in the Basque Country. Abraham Olano has won the Vuelta a España and the World Championship. The UCI World Tour  hails from the Basque Country. Also previously known as Caisse d'Épargne, the Movistar team traces its history back to the Banesto team that included Miguel Induráin. The region is home to the Tour of the Basque Country stage race and the Clasica de San Sebastian one day race. The  team was also part of the World Tour until its disbandment in 2014. It was an unofficial Basque national team and was partly funded by the Basque Government. Its riders were either Basque, or at least grown up in the Basque cycling culture, and former members of the team have been strong contenders in the Tour de France held annually in July and Vuelta a España held in September. Team leaders have included riders such as Iban Mayo, Haimar Zubeldia, Samuel Sánchez, David Etxebarria, Igor Antón, Mikel Landa and Mikel Nieve. The team was revived in 2020 at UCI ProTeam level when Euskaltel reinstated its sponsorship.

Notable people
Some notable Basque people from this administrative jurisdiction include Francisco de Vitoria, philosopher who set the theories of just war, international law and freedom of commerce; Juan Sebastián Elcano, completed first circumnavigation of the Earth; Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; Don Juan de Oñate, explorer of the great plains and Colorado river; Blas de Lezo, naval strategist, best remembered for his defensive tactics at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias; Jorge Oteiza, Eduardo Chillida, sculptors; Paco Rabanne, fashion designer; Cristóbal Balenciaga, fashion designer; Xabi Alonso, Mikel Arteta and Unai Emery, footballers; Edurne Pasaban, first woman to climb all of the fourteen eight-thousander peaks in the World; Elena Arzak, best female chef in the world (2012); Jon Kortajarena male model; Jose-Maria Cundin, artist; Fernando Savater philosopher; Miguel de Unamuno, essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher.

See also

 Basque Country (greater region)
 Basque mythology
 Basque breeds and cultivars
 Livestock in the Basque Country

References

 Pierson, Peter (1999). The History of Spain. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. .
 Trask, Robert Lawrence (1997). The History of Basque. London: Routledge.

External links

Basque Government
 José Aranda Aznar, "La mezcla del pueblo vasco", en Empiria: Revista de metodología de ciencias sociales, ISSN 1139-5737, Nº 1, 1998, págs. 121–180.

Basque
Green Spain
NUTS 2 statistical regions of the European Union
Regions of Europe with multiple official languages
States and territories established in 1979
Autonomous communities of Spain

Basque Country (autonomous community)